Chapter 6

Robert Muldoon pulled the safari jeep to a halt in the shade under the baobab tree and pointed across the savannah to a herd of grazing wildebeests.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you will look to your right, you will see a group of wildebeests grazing. Oh, Look! There are elephants on the horizon."

Muldoon listened as the tourists gaped in awe of the exotic animals and waited for everyone to take pictures before starting the jeep and driving toward the elephants.

"We're in luck today. The elephants aren't usually in this part of the park at this time of year," Muldoon called over his shoulder. He adjusted the rear view mirror to look at the tourists. All of them but one were excitedly peering out the sides of the jeep looking for animals. One man slouched in the back seat of the jeep, casting disinterested glances at the animals Muldoon pointed out and appeared to be fighting off sleep.

Muldoon scrutinized him in the mirror; his hunting prowess picking up on subtle hints the man was projecting. He was a muscular man with curly, sandy blonde hair. He had a deep tan, which Muldoon guessed came from being outside for long periods of time. Muldoon caught the glimpse of what appeared to be a military tattoo on the man's left shoulder, but the sleeve of the shirt the man was wearing obscured a good part of it.

As Muldoon was staring at the man in the mirror, the man suddenly looked in the mirror and locked gazes with Muldoon. His brown eyes returned Muldoon's scrutinizing gaze and for a long moment, their eyes were locked on each other.

"Look, everyone! On the path in front of us is a wild hare. If you want to see a really rare animal, look at that hare," Muldoon said as he broke his gaze with the man and pointed to the scrawny rabbit in the middle of the jeep path in the savannah grass. Suddenly a wild dog dashed from the bushes, grabbed the hare by its neck, and ran out of sight. The tourists gasped as they heard the death shriek of the hare that was swiftly silenced; they rode back to the tourist lodge in silence.

Muldoon lay in a hammock and swayed gently in the breeze. He closed his eyes and moved his arms behind his head as a pillow. It had been a hard day and Muldoon was read y to relax. He heard the pebbles on the ground crunch as someone approached him.

"Mullie, my love, are you comfortable," said the stunningly beautiful woman as she caressed Muldoon's face and sat down lightly in the hammock, "Isn't this everything you've ever wanted?"

"It's wonderful, my darling. I don't think I have ever been so relaxed."

"Do not play with me my love. I can't bear it anymore-kiss me," cried the woman as she planted a large kiss on Muldoon's unsuspecting mouth. Muldoon wrapped his arms around the scantily clad woman and kissed her back. Suddenly, the peace of the day was shattered by the familiar death scream of the wild hare.

"What is that," Muldoon said as he pulled away from the woman and gently caressed the small of her back.

"It was nothing my darling-nothing," the woman said with a malevolent smile. Muldoon stared at her cautiously and continued to stroke her back. As his hand brushed her back, the soft skin suddenly felt scaly and rough. Muldoon pulled his hand away and glanced at it before turning a horrified face to the woman he was with.

"What is going on," Muldoon cried as he tried to scramble away from the woman. The woman's hair began to fall out as she turned her now reptilian-like amber eyes to Muldoon. She grinned, revealing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. She stood up and began to laugh at Muldoon as he frantically searched for a weapon. With a shake of her head, the last remnants of hair fell off the woman revealing the familiar form of a raptor. The raptor laughed at Muldoon and with a shriek almost identical to the hare's death call, lunged at him.

Muldoon sat up in bed gasping. A cold sweat had broken out over his body and he shakily reached for the alarm clock on the night stand. 2:30 a.m. Muldoon sighed and wiped his moist brow with the back of his hand.

"Three months and not a single dream. Three months of sleep and I'm undone by a damn rabbit," Muldoon cursed as he angrily opened the drawer on the night stand. He plunged his hand inside and riffled through the pill bottles in the drawer.

Over the past six years, Muldoon had been to see more sleep specialists than he cared to remember. Each one had a different diagnosis for his insomnia and nightmares. Each one prescribed a different sleep aide to allow his to sleep, but with little success. He had even gone to a dream therapist, who upon hearing the subject of Muldoon's dreams told him he was suppressing memories as of a past life as a dinosaur. That doctor prescribed a diet of undercooked meat and a more "natural" life style to ease the dreams. Finally, Muldoon went to a psychologist. Muldoon knew he couldn't tell the doctor about what was really causing the dreams-due to work was his excuse. However, the doctor was able to work well enough with what information Muldoon had given him to prescribe a drug that worked-Valium.

Muldoon still saw the doctor and was required to keep a dream journal. The doctor had prescribed a low enough dosage of Valium that Muldoon could take it about every six hours- long enough to get some sleep, but weak enough to not detrimentally affect his work.

He hadn't taken one in three weeks. He finally thought he was getting over the raptors. Now, at 2:30 in the morning he was digging through a drawer trying to find the one thing that drove away the nightmares. Muldoon shook his head in disgust as he shook out one pill from the bottle and popped it into his mouth.

"Tomorrow is my day off. I'll go to town and try to forget what happened," Muldoon mumbled as he lay back down on the bed and waited for the drug to take effect.

Muldoon sat in the café drinking coffee and watching the locals trade in the street market in front of him. He had a pounding headache and was still shaken from his dream. On the patio table next to the notebook he had been writing in sat the bottle of Valium. It was one of those days and he knew he was going to need it. He put his coffee cup back on the table and picked up the notebook again. He tried to recall the dream as he wrote down the date he had the dream. He quickly wrote down the details-hoping that as he committed them to paper, he would forget them.

When he was finished, Muldoon flipped through the pages of the journal. People turning into raptors, being back at the visitors' center at Jurassic Park, being lost in the jungle and hearing the dinosaurs around him, all were dreams that he had recorded in the book. Six years worth of night terrors and bad dreams and still no sign of relief.

"Mr. Muldoon, may I sit with you," a voice said as a shadow fell across Muldoon and the table.

"Oh, um, sure take a seat," Muldoon said as he closed the notebook and gestured to the seat across from him.

"Thank you," replied the stranger as he sat down. Muldoon recognized him as the bored passenger on the safari yesterday.

"Don't care for the wild life of Africa," Muldoon queried.

"What? You must be referring to yesterday on the safari. I've seen more exotic creatures," the man said as he gestured for the waiter to bring him a cup of coffee, "Honestly, I didn't know if you would remember me. You look like hell. Didn't you sleep last night?"

"I had a rough night. Nothing a few of these can't handle though," Muldoon smiled as he held up the pill bottle and shook it back and forth.

"Valium. Yeah, that will relax you, but considering all you've seen I thought you would have been on something much stronger by now," the man said as he took the cup of coffee from the waiter and nodded appreciatively.

"What are you talking about? The animal kill yesterday? I'm used to that. I used to be a hunter, but nothing I saw while hunting ever phased me."

"Oh, I'm not talking about those experiences. I'm talking about InGen and their little park."

" I-I don't know what your talking about," Muldoon replied hoarsely.

"Don't play stupid. I know that John Hammond employed you for a series of years on his little island resort. I also know that you were in charge of security and animal control."

"If you know so much, you know that I can't talk about that-even if it did happen."

The man sneered and slid two papers across to Muldoon. "The first one is signed by the Costa Rican government stating that you can talk to me without consequence. The second is from the United States granting you permission to work with the Costa Rican government in whatever way they deem necessary. They deem it necessary for you to talk to me. So, tell me what went wrong on the island."

Muldoon's face hardened as he read through the papers. After six years they were finally going to allow him to talk-to tell his version of what went wrong. Why? He could tell that they needed him for something, but he had no desire to tangle himself in that mess again.

"I'll tell you my story if you tell me why the Costa Ricans are so willing to let me talk after six years."

"That's a fair trade. Tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I know."

"Agreed," Muldoon closed his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts before beginning his story, "To begin with, I didn't really have that much control over the security system. It was all automated-maintained by computer engineers. I just offered my opinion as to what measures would be needed to properly supervise the animals. My main responsibility with Jurassic Park was animal control. Hammond liked the fact that I had expertise with predators. He didn't like the fact that I was a hunter and saw the creatures as dispensable."

"Hammond wanted you to control them, but not kill them?"

"Exactly. Hammond knew that he was creating some potentially dangerous animals- velociraptor, diloposaurus, T-rex, and the compys, but he didn't care. They added excitement to the park. From the beginning, I was fighting Hammond to supply the staff with proper firearms to protect themselves from the animals. Most of the carnivores had demonstrated before they were even released into the park that they were vicious killers. One of the nursery workers was maimed by a baby raptor when it leapt at her and attacked her face. Two other workers were blinded by juvenile diloposauruses when they spit in the workers' faces. The compys couldn't be handled at all. They bit anyone who touched them. The worst was when they hatched the younger rex. About a week before they released her into the park, she bit off her caretaker's arm."

"Hammond didn't see this as a warning sign?"

"Hammond saw the potential for upping the popularity of the park. When he heard about the rex biting off the worker's arm, he had a "food elevator" installed in the rex pen so people could watch the T-rex feed. Hammond wanted his sideshow up and running fast. The fact that we were undermanned and inadequately armed didn't even bother him. Hammond only allowed staff to use non-lethal weapons in the park."

"Like stun guns or tranquilizer darts."

"You've got the idea. Something to stop the dinosaur only long enough for the person to get away. It took two raptor attacks on staff before Hammond conceded to give me a small locker of effective firearms. The sad part was that I was the only one with a key and the majority of the park workers didn't know about the guns. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone outside of my department about them either. When things went bad at the park that first time we had guests, Hammond blamed me for the animals killing each other. He was more concerned about ensuring the survival of those animals than protecting the people stuck in the park. He wasn't in imminent danger and didn't want his animals harmed. He actually tried to take the key to the gun locker from me."

"Did he get it?"

Muldoon smiled and pulled a chain out from under his shirt. On the end hanging below his clenched fist dangled a small key, "Not on your life." He tucked the key back inside his shirt, "Hammond damned us all to death and he kept blaming me for it. When Grant killed some of the raptors to survive- Hammond blamed me for their deaths. It was like poetic justice when we were rescued and informed that Hammond hadn't made it- killed by the dinosaurs he loved. That's everything. Now, tell me why you wanted to know all this."

"My employer is trying to exterminate all the dinosaurs off of the two islands that Hammond used. All of his efforts have failed as the dinosaur-related attacks on Costa Rica are increasing. He is getting pressure from the U.S. and Costa Rica to quietly and quickly finish this project. He is having problems with the raptors. They are reproducing to quickly and have changed their attack patterns. It's getting difficult to contain them. He wants you to come to Costa Rica, train his men on how to track and hunt raptors, and lead a team specifically assigned to raptor eradication. What do you say?"

Muldoon paled with anger, "No. I told you I didn't want anything more to do with the dinosaurs. That was the worst job I ever had and I'm lucky to be alive. Do you honestly think I want to risk my life again to clean up John Hammond's mess!"

"No, but I thought you would like the opportunity to hunt the animal that has ruined your life. You would be erasing John Hammond's dream; doing what he denied you to do while you where employed by him. You would have full control over your team. You pick the supplies, team, and plan of attack. You will also be handsomely reimbursed for your trouble. Think of it as closure. I'll give you a day to think it over. Here's my card," the man stood up and flicked a business card onto the table in front of Muldoon before walking away. Muldoon sat for several minutes at the table, his coffee growing cold, before he finally looked at the card. It read: "Tracy Smith, BioLife Inc. Public Relations."