SIX

"You look like hell," Kate said by way of greeting when she saw Nick. She was bent over a decimated engine, her hands and face smeared with oil. She had pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and looked younger than she was. Nick felt a pang of jealousy that the years had been kinder to his ex fiancée. Her startling green eyes met his for an instant and he could tell the look of pity that flashed there. Kate whipped a dirty towel from her back pocket and began wiping her hands.

"Thanks." Nick replied. He shoved his hands in his pockets and motioned to Tim, who stood behind him. "I'd like to introduce you to someone..."

Kate's smile broadened as she stepped forward and offered Tim her hand. "Kate Delaney. I've read about you in the papers."

Tim shook her hand and looked around the warehouse. Outside it was old and rusty, sitting squat in the middle of a decrepit ship building yard, but inside it was a bustling and modern workshop. Men and women ran this way and that, shouts went up from every angle and sparks flew from angle grinders from above. "I'm so glad you have decided to help," Tim said as they followed Kate through the workshop.

"I didn't know what to make of your offer at first," Kate said over her shoulder as she started up a flight of iron stairs that led to her office on the second floor. "I mean, the specs that Nick sent me make it look like you are entering a war zone, not some deserted island in the middle of nowhere." She unlocked her office and gestured for them to enter and take a seat. She sighed as she sat behind her desk. "But then they were asking me for this kinda shit when I was in Greenpeace and all we were supposed to be doing was protecting the planet." She allowed a self deprecating smile and leaned back in her cracked leather chair.

"We're trying to do the same thing," Nick said.

Kate's smile faded as she regarded Nick. "Just like old times then."

"Yeah. something like that."

She turned her attention back to Tim. "You've certainly got some big-time backers to be mounting an expedition like this. The moment I faxed my projected budget through, I got someone from your company calling to say it was already approved."

"We're eager to get this thing started as soon as possible," Nick conceded.

"I'll say. I've never heard someone so desperate to throw money at me. But they didn't like answering any of my questions. I was hoping you could help me clear a few things up."

"We need to keep this operation as quiet as possible, you understand," Tim said.

"Corporate piracy and theft of intellectual property. I get it." Kate snapped. "You're keeping this under wraps not because what you are doing is very possibly illegal, or immoral but because you fear that another company will hone in on your dealings, steal whatever your idea is. I get it. But I get suspicious with this kinda money being thrown at me with no answers coming my way, so either tell me what the hell is going on here or I can gladly give your check back."

Nick and Tim exchanged a look, both men asking themselves if they could afford to let another person in on the plan. Every person who knew what they were doing was another potential leak. Tim sighed and looked at Nick. "Do you want to tell the story this time?"

Bauer was as good as his word. After their meeting, Bauer had made funds available to assemble a team to hit the ground running on Isla Nublar, while the senators in Bauer's pockets began the hard lobbying to open the island up to scientific study. A UN special committee was due to hand down their decision in a matter of days, and the word was that the decision would be in favor of limited access to both islands for research purposes. The big question was which country would be allowed to put their scientists on the ground first?

Hammond was determined to have his team enter the islands first and hand back their findings to ensure the long term survival of the creatures. He wanted there to be no doubt that the animals deserved to co exist with man. Bauer was making sure that his company would profit from the inevitable flood of interest in all things prehistoric, and Hammond's reputation would be restored.

That is, if everything went smoothly. Nick's defiance had been the first worrying development, but his own grandson was involved, that much was certain.

Hammond had not spoken to his grandson since his eighteenth birthday. They had spoken about Tim's career aspirations and Hammond was dismayed at what he heard. Tim wanted to make a name for himself and he wanted the life that went with it, that much was clear. Tim's zeal was no doubt fueled by his father's constant prodding and poking at the boy, always pushing him to be someone he wasn't. Hammond had disagreed with the way his ex son in law had raised Lex and Tim, and his vocal opposition to it was still a sticking point between the two men and it had also affected Hammond's relationship with his own daughter.

A headache was curling its clawed fingers inside his brain and he rummaged in his desk drawer for some Advil. He was rewarded with half a bottle and popped three pills in his mouth with one hand and lifted his glass of whiskey to his lips with the other. He sat back in his chair and listened to the sounds of his huge home. Somewhere in this rabbit warren of rooms and corridors, people were going about the work of making his life more comfortable: his bed was being readied, his dinner was being cooked by a top European chef, his clothes were being pressed. He tried to remember his upbringing in England, tried to recall the hardships his parents endured for their large Catholic family. To his dismay he couldn't. As a boy he would lie awake in the bed he shared with two of his brothers, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the family home creaking and sighing as if it were trying to forget the torments of a long day. Now, he was never alone and there was never silence.

Swiping his glasses from the bridge of his nose, Hammond reached for the remote control to the huge plasma television that dominated one wall of his office. They had had to remove a whole wall of bookshelves to fit it in, and it was a monumental task to have the thing sit flush with the wall, as if it were a window or a painting. He wondered absently if he had instructed them to do it just so, and realized that maybe he had.

The too – bright, too – clean images on the screen distracted him enough from his chaotic thoughts and his headache began to recede to just a throbbing of his temples. with the Advil and whiskey working their magic he settled in and watched a sitcom with the sound off.

Twenty minutes later he was dozing, his whiskey still in hand, balancing on his belly, and he was snoring lightly.

He dreamed of a place that existed now only in his fantasies; the place that saw the pinnacle of his career and the biggest loss of his life. He saw the completed Jurassic Park. Bigger than it had been originally envisioned, but then things always are in dreams. There were rides and attractions and there were people milling everywhere. It had a sort of carnival atmosphere.

He walked through the crowds, listened to the children laughing and to the thrum of activity as guides took contingents of tourists from all lands to the waiting cars that would whisk them through an adventure that they would forever remember.

In his dream, there was a petting zoo where children could come into close contact with some of the smaller herbivores. There were daily shows with trained dinosaurs interacting comically with their trainers. People were being entertained as they learned.

Of course he had dreamed of this world before; in fact so much so that it had taken on new details, and each time he revisited it, it became larger, more real, and when he woke he always felt cheated.

Roland Tembo listened to the cicadas singing in the gum trees and sipped his beer. He sat on a folding chair on the porch of his squat old farmhouse, smack in the middle of a huge fenced in area equal parts cracked red earth and lush green paddocks. It was his home, a place to live out what was left of his retirement years. Out of all the places he had visited in the world, he could think of none better to return to than Queensland, Australia. He loved its temperamental climate, its lush tropics and harsh, barren stretches of land, loved the savage and beautiful creatures that survived off it.

Here he was able to be anonymous, to keep his own company. He never much cared for the company of others, much less the people who paid him to hunt for game what seemed like a lifetime ago. He had made his money off it, a fortune by anyone's standards, and he had used it to purchase the huge property in Queensland, a farm he called Avalon.

The sun was setting now, turning the sky a fiery red as it sank. The cicadas were still singing their hymns and Roland was almost at the point where sleep was claiming him when he heard the shrill sound of his phone ringing.

It was a rare enough sound that Roland's calm soon evaporated. He scrambled out of his chair and into the house, snatching up the cordless phone sitting on a kitchen bench.

"Roland Tembo."

Static rolled in Roland's ear and he held the phone away for a few moments. Then the static cleared and a familiar voice greeted him. "Roland! How are you?"

Roland leaned against the kitchen bench and drank from his can of beer. "How did you get this number?"

"I have my ways and means, you know that."

"You sound like you're calling from the bottom of a mine shaft."

"Bad line, Must be the satellites or solar flares or something. Roland, I was wondering if I could pick you brains for a few moments."

A smile reached Roland's lips. "Why, Julio Vincente, I never thought I would see the day when you came to me for help."

Vincente laughed. "This is serious. I've been approached for a job and I thought I might--"

"I left that life behind me long ago."

"Yeah I know, retiring on top and all that. But you have to listen to me. This job is unique, and I think it would interest you..."

"Alright Julio. Its your money you're pissing down the sink with this phone call, so talk."