While the windshield wipers swept the ashes that fell on the windshield, Grady was looking straight towards him, to the road that led to the achillobator paddock and he frequently glanced at the thick vegetation on both sides.
Because of the ongoing ash fall, the foliage had started to have a greyish colour and on the road itself, one could clearly notice the tracks left by the wheels of InGen's vehicles on the thin layer of ash.
After crossing the southeastern part of the Reserve, they came out of it not far from the Pteratops Lodge and the Cartago's aviary. When he had to go out of the vehicle to open and close the gate, Grady hadn't been comfortable at all since not only the volcanic plume had plunged this part of the island into complete darkness but the ash fall was stronger there than in the south, reducing their visibility, and above all, several of the sector five's animals, including large predators who could have easily destroyed their vehicle, were out of containment due to the earthquake damage and now freely lurked in the jungle.
When the lights of the achillobator enclosure and the nearby structures appeared behind the foliage just before a road turn, the feeling of danger that had followed Grady and Dearing along their way gave way to stupor and, in the case of the first, anger when they were about to drive out of the jungle.
The place was teeming with InGen's troops. There were between thirty and forty soldiers in the kind of outpost that Hoskins had established.
Most of them wore tactical vests and fatigue pants, even though that given the fact they were mercenaries and not a real army, clothing and equipment tended to vary between the men. Some of them, mostly Costa Ricans that had hastily joined InGen Security's base in the mainland, still whore civilians clothes while contrasting with them, a dozen of mercenaries wore an equipment worthy of a professional army, including a helmet and an array of protective gear that were partly made of metal pieces at the level of vital areas.
In addition to all these mercenaries, they also saw the Slayers in a corner of the camp, the thirteen of them, standing right next to their helicopter.
In the opposite end of the camp, two BAE Caiman and a hummer were parked, along with two J-SEC buggies that had been requisitioned by the mercenaries.
Grady parked his vehicle between the start of the road and the paddock, and he and Dearing stepped out. Scanning the camp, he saw his co-workers, including Sembène and Leon the intern, in the paddock's large and wide lock, forced to collaborate with Hoskins' forces.
While Sembène tried to reassure the achillobators, whispering to them in French as they had the jaws locked in metal muzzles mounted on a hydraulic system and fixed to the wall of the stalls that were used during sessions of medical-training, mercenaries were strapping cameras on the right side of the raptors' heads.
Seeing Grady arrive, a small expression of relief appeared on the keepers' face but Hoskins, warned by one of his men, came out of the tent erected at the end of the camp and looked at the raptor whisperer and the ex-park director.
"Here's Cleopatra and Mark Antony," he muttered.
"What are you trying to do?!" Grady protested so loudly that he was heard throughout the camp that he reduced to silence. "Get the hell out of here and stay away from my animals!"
Sembène came out of the lock at that moment and went to support Grady.
As he finished covering the distance between him and Grady, Hoskins sighed.
"Dammit. How many more deaths do you need before this missions starts to make sense to you?!" He asked the two keepers. "When you're gonna watch the news tomorrow, you will see how you saved lives. No. Better, how your animals saved lives!"
"They have never been out of containment!" Sembène desperately tried to remind him. "This is madness!"
To hear him, anyone could have realized that the French keeper had not stopped trying to reason the director of the security division since the latter's arrival but that it had been only in vain.
Hoskins didn't cared about Sembène's opinion, neither Grady's. He had the board greenlight and a plan to stop the Indominus rex. He intended to bring it to fruition, even if it meant to put out of his way anyone who would try to stop him.
He turned to his men, who had stopped to watch the argument.
"Keep going!" He ordered.
The mercenaries resumed preparations.
"This is happening, with or without you," Hoskins told Grady and Sembène while four mercenaries arrived behind his back, ready to take the two keepers and Dearing back to Burroughs.
Out of options, Grady had no choice but to admit defeat.
"Fuck…" He growled.
He inhaled deeply.
"If we do this, we'll do this my way," the keeper declared severely. "And if ever one of them is killed, I swear I will throw you to the survivors. I wouldn't have to feed them for a week at least," he added after casting a disdainful look at Hoskins' belly.
Knowing that without Grady, the achillobators were likely to not be willing to cooperate, Hoskins couldn't have him being sent back to Burroughs, even if he just insulted and openly threatened him.
He didn't leave this behaviour unanswered, however.
"Watch your words, man!" He retorted coldly. "Without me, the board would have dismissed you for your secretive little affair with Dearing so relax or I knock you out!"
Wanting to be done with Grady as quickly as possible, Hoskins calmed down and gave his instructions:
"Go to the tent. We're having a briefing in two minutes."
Grady gritted his teeth and exhaled through his nostrils, then he passed by Hoskins and walked towards the tent, followed by Sembène and Dearing.
Two tables had been erected under the tent.
On the largest, in the centre, a map of the island had been unfolded, and by the other, two mercenaries were leaned over laptops. One was tasked with the proper functioning of the achillobators' cameras and the other with the communication with control room.
A third mercenary handed Grady a small package wrapped in a cloth and as he weighed it in his hand, the leader of the Slayers came under the tent, followed by his men. He courteously introduced himself to the two keepers, then it was the turn of his men:
There was Olivia Decker, the tall redhead with tattooed arms who acted as Sherman's right-hand woman; Damian Parker, the youngest member of the troop, a mixed-race young man in his early twenties; Léopold Butu, a native of Congo, a podgy man whose facial features evoked those of an ogre and who wore a necklace with teeth that came from the creatures he had slain, including some freshly collected on harpactognathuses and a large number that had belonged to proceratosaurs (which had earned him the nickname of Ghouls' bane); Nolan Olsen, an imposing bald man, the tallest of the Slayers, a real giant, more than two meters tall, and probably the most intimidating moreover since the lower half of his face was permanently hidden behind a muffler, hiding a wound that had severely disfigured him; Reynald Faraci, a broadly-shouldered swarthy man; two Tun-Si: Paco Cortès and Esmeralda Pizarro, a woman in her early thirties and an old friend of Cortès.
In addition to them, there were also two Costa Ricans of Hispanic origin, Arana and Méndez, a head-shaven Sino-American named Kevin and two former marines, Ford and McNamara, Americans just like a large part of the troop.
Decker, Parker, Kevin, McNamara and the two Tun-Si stepped forward to shake hands with them, briefly but politely, but the others stayed behind, doing nothing than nodding coldly at them, even ignoring them, barely hiding their disdain for the two keepers.
Once the presentations were made, Hoskins came to join them and they gathered around the table.
Grady and Sembène took place at one of its end and started the briefing. Dearing stood at the edge of the tent, next to the two mercenaries that were in charge of logistics and the high-tech equipment.
Grady first heard a report about how the attack on the quarantine paddocks happened, and then naturally came the question of escaped animals.
"According to the latest data received by the control room, the loose neoraptors and proceratosaurs scattered in this area," Grady said, pointing to the southwestern slope of the northern summit of the Misty Mounts. "We know that the I. rex is somewhere around this mountain. Injured following the confrontation at the quetzal aviary and fleeing the eruption, she must had sought refuge there. "
When he had pointed the mountain, several of the Slayers exchanged glances and Grady heard Cortes whisper a few words in Tun-Si.
"Something is wrong?" The keeper asked.
He was aware that, given his age, Cortes was a teen when his tribe had been evicted from Isla Nublar and so that he had learned to know the island during his childhood.
If he knew things, he had to tell him.
"We searched the tunnels and the caves under that mountain range years ago," Cortès replied. "It's a real labyrinth. She could be anywhere."
"This is where the achillobators step in."
He placed on the table the package he had been given earlier and undid the cloth wrapped around it, revealing the piece of flesh that Hamada had picked up in the ruins of San Fernandez.
"Thanks to this, they will be able to track her. We've done that kind of drill with them many times," Grady reassured them, "but only in their paddock," he specified.
"Their sense of smell is very developed however because we assume that just like their cousins the neoraptors, they are able to smell the scent of a wounded prey from several kilometers," Sembène added.
"When they will be on target, wait before attacking," Grady said. "The achillobators are unlikely to consider the Indominus as a normal prey, we don't know what will happen so wait for my green light. You only have one target, ladies and gentlemen. Do not shoot my raptors, please."
Hoskins and Sherman then discussed about the troops' deployment in the area and agreed to separate the thirty-six mercenaries in the camp into six equally sized teams.
While five of them would also go to the mountain, two aboard the Slayer's helicopter and the others in the vehicles that would follow the achillobators, the sixth would stay to guard the camp from where the director of the security division would oversee the whole operation.
Once the plan was approved, they concluded the briefing and while the troops were preparing their weapons and vehicles, Grady asked to one of the keepers to pick his motorbike up at his bungalow.
He then went inside the lock in order to reassure his animals and seeing that Blue was agitated, he came to her and gently stroke her neck, running his fingers through her feathers.
"Easy, Blue," he said gently. "Easy gorgeous, you don't scare me."
Idle, Dearing wandered in the camp, lost in her reflections and waiting for the launch of the mission. As she was walking around, the former director passed by the Slayers, who were then checking their equipment and especially their weaponry.
Her eyes were drawn for a moment by the sword that belonged to the leader of the troop and that he was sharpening.
Despite its sinister look, Dearing was forced to recognize that it was a beautiful piece of work and she looked at it out of the corner of her eye with great interest, as if she would have liked to touch it or even handle it.
"Do you want to hold it?" Sherman asked her suddenly in his hoarse voice, having guessed her intentions and without looking up from his weapon.
Thinking that her glance had gone unnoticed, Dearing swallowed:
"I beg your pardon?"
"My sword. I saw you laid your eyes upon it."
With the sword still in his hand, Sherman approached Dearing and handed her his weapon, placed across the open palms of his hands.
"Please. Take it," he allowed her.
Surprised, Dearing hesitated for a moment and then put a hand on the handle and grabbed it gently while being careful to keep the point of the blade oriented to the ground.
She stepped back and weighed the sword in her hand.
She had expected the weapon to be so heavy that she would have struggled to hold it but it hadn't been the case and she could easily raise the blade and makes small moves without being dragged forward by the weapon.
"It is lighter than I expected," she admitted.
"I asked a blacksmith friend to design it like so. Light while being able to inflict powerful blows," the leader of the Slayers explained.
Dearing bit her lip and turned to him.
"The question I'm going to ask you may seem silly but does it have a name?"
Sherman let out a small laugh.
"It is not in the least, ma'am. Its name is Fendiserpentes."
"The Serpent Cleaver…" Dearing murmured as she looked at the blade, her eyes sparkling with admiration. "Groovy…"
She raised the blade vertically in front of her and held the sword like it for a moment before trying to reproduce some moves she had seen in films, with varying degrees of success, which made Sherman and a part of his men laugh.
"Be careful," he warned her.
He put his hand on the handle and gently took the weapon from Dearing's hands.
"If you wish I can show you how to handle it."
"Why not?" She replied with pleasure.
He then taught her how to cut and thrust with the sword, and each time that he finished a move, he gave the sword back to her so she can reproduce it and when she made mistakes, he corrected her and gave advices.
Even if some of his men seemed to be real boors, it was obviously not his case. He didn't even asked her about the loss of her status of park director or the contempt the board gave her, like if he considered that it was none of his business.
He was patient, courteous, and his calm voice was very soothing.
Once this improvised fencing course was over, Dearing handed the weapon back to his owner and thanked him.
"My pleasure," he said to her.
She wished him good luck for the mission and then went to see Grady, still in the paddock's lock and looking after the achillobators.
She stopped in front of the grating.
"Can I enter?" She asked him.
He nodded and she opened the door.
"Making friends with the knight Templar?" The keeper asked her with a hint of jealousy in his voice.
"It was nothing more than a small fencing course," she retorted in order to chase away his fears. "Like if we needed some unnecessary love triangle in this story."
"I'm pulling your leg. I was told that the guy was a chaplain before, so I knew that there was no risk. But one must recognize that his big sword is particularly impressive."
She noticed that despite the kindness and good he demonstrated towards her, he only half-believed in what he was saying, like if he lacked self-confidence in the moment.
She came closer to him.
"Surely but that's not a reason to put yourself down. You are the Raptor Whisperer. As far as I know, only you can claim that title."
Dearing looked at the achillobators and then to the mercenaries outside.
"Do you really want to participate in this mission?"
"I have to. I must be there to keep an eye on them. Make sure that nothing happens to them..." He added in a low voice while he stared at the ground.
Noting his anxiety, she tenderly took his hand and he looked up to her eyes.
"Be careful," she said. "Come back in one piece, okay?"
He put his other hand on hers and said:
"I'll try..."
Blue suddenly growled and hissed, making Dearing startle. When she turned to the Achillobator, she noticed that she had drawn back one of her lips, showing her teeth.
"What's happening to her?" She worried.
"Oh, don't pay attention. She's just jealous," Grady reassured her. "You never knew cats unable to stomach their master's boyfriend or girlfriend?"
"None that would eviscerate me with a single swipe of claws…"
"I'm going to ask Billy McFapping to wait in the jeep with you," he told her a few moments later, talking about Leon. "It is not for him to keep an eye on you but rather the opposite," he added once he saw Dearing frown, as if she believed that he thought she was unable to handle herself even though she had proved her worth. "Park the jeep near the holding building. If ever a dangerous animal comes nearby, lock yourself in the holding cage, understood?"
She nodded.
About an hour after Grady's arrival at the camp, as the mission was about to start, Dearing returned to their jeep and sat in the driver's seat.
Seconds later, Grady arrived with the intern and asked him to get in the vehicle.
While Leon was sitting in the back, the keeper and the ex-director exchanged a few words and she wished him good luck before he went to finish the last preparations.
Dearing and Leon remained silent for a moment until the young man spoke:
"Madam Director?"
"It's just Claire now," she told him.
"Uh Claire..." Leon hesitated. "Do you think it's relevant if I relate all this in my internship report?"
Dearing chuckled.
"Well, it depends on the instructions that your teachers gave you. If your report's number of pages is not limited, I think you can. On the other hand, if things go south, avoid describing all that concerns deaths and injuries. I doubt that you'll get a good grade if one of the examinations board's members puke in a trash can after reading how Jack the mercenary died after being disembowelled by an achillobator."
Leon then truly realized the very hazardous nature of the mission and the fact that they were far from safe at this moment.
"I should have listened to my mother and do my internship at the Cincinnati Zoo with the gorillas…"
She then saw the Slayers and the mercenaries gather in the middle of the camp.
"Oh, I think it's starting."
A/N:
Hypothetical Casting:
Guillaume Delaunay as Nolan Olsen
