Chapter Four

Dawn after the Incident

THE WARM, TROPICAL SUNSHINE was no stranger to Dawson Kelly. He loved the heat of the equator but found that it harbored rather unpleasant memories. He much preferred the harsher, colder climates – in fact, Kelly had just returned from a vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was a busy vacation – he had been looking for a new home. Something cozy – a warm cabin, perhaps.

Instead, he found himself on a rusty fishing boat leaving Costa Rica. He was one of four men taking the trip, bobbing in the waves of the ocean. None of them were fishermen, however.

Kelly had left the United States Army around eight months before, taking his three friends with him. They had been Special Forces operators, carrying out secret missions in Panama and Iraq. When their time came, all four men had decided together to not re-enlist and instead pursue the private sector.

Now, they were private contractors. At first the career choice had seemed plush – most of the jobs revolved around security detail for business CEOs and such, until Kelly had gotten a call from someone named Dodgson.

He didn't reveal many details, but Kelly put it together that Dodgson was some sort of higher-up at a genetics company called BioSyn. The job seemed riskier and more legally grey than others, but Kelly and his team were highly trained and were itching for a good reminder of the "old days" in the field, without the bloodshed.

Dodgson had paid them all a handsome sum of cash, and if they completed the mission, they would all receive a bonus. He explained that Kelly and his team were a sort of back-up: Dodgson had a contact – someone named Nedry – on the island of Isla Nublar. The island was owned by the founder of a rival genetics company named InGen, and Nedry was to deliver sensitive materials to a man on the cargo ship The Anne B.

Dodgson had worried that his contact might get cold feet, and so he hired the paramilitary group as a secondary option to secure the materials. These materials were only 'viable,' as Dodgson put it, for thirty-six hours. Kelly had wondered what that meant. The only thing that he could think of at the time was maybe some sort of DNA strain or other interesting genetic material. However, his expertise in the world of espionage told him that it was probably just time-sensitive information. Perhaps the company was going bankrupt, or going to go public with shareholders, or some other mundane corporate thing.

Still though, Kelly thought it would be interesting to transport something biological. He'd never done that before.

His excitement increased when Dodgson told Kelly of a modified shaving-cream can that the materials were supposed to be transported in – it was to be in Nedry's possession. In the event of Nedry's capture or backing out of the deal, the team was supplied their own Barbasol can to transfer the materials – effectively 'resetting' the thirty-six-hour time limit.

As it turned out, a massive tropical storm hit the island the night of the drop, and Dodgson's man on the boat never received the package. The next morning, Kelly received the call from Dodgson to go ahead with his plan.

Kelly had tried to suggest waiting, perhaps for a week, before operating. He felt that if Nedry got captured, it would have been better to lay low for a small period before trying to extract the materials. Dodgson refused – claiming he had already spent seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars on the package, and he wasn't going to wait any longer.

Kelly and his team had formulated the plan themselves. It seemed like classic espionage: the tropical storm gave them a great backdoor in – they would pose as fishermen that got lost in the storm, wash up ashore, and explore the island themselves. Assuming they would eventually get detained by InGen staff, the four men could explore the infrastructure and either muscle Nedry into upholding his end of the deal or take the package themselves.

It was curious though, Dodgson urged them to take weaponry. Kelly thought that if the InGen staff caught them with firearms, it could make for a very nasty encounter. Dodgson insisted. All he would tell Kelly was that the island was some sort of mixture between an animal preserve and laboratory, and it was top secret. Restricted airspace resulted in no surveillance images and there was no way to procure blueprints for the buildings except through Nedry, who Dodgson called "slimy," and who would probably refuse to do so anyway. Nedry wanted easy money, not to be responsible for an operation. All Kelly's men had was a rough shape of the island from geological surveys.

It was less than ideal working conditions, but certainly not the worst. Kelly and his men, just a year prior – while in the Army's Special Forces, had been tasked with finding Iraqi missile launchers in huge swathes of desert behind enemy lines. Comparatively, Isla Nublar was a cakewalk at only twenty-two square miles.

Nevertheless, Dodgson insisted that the animals might be a problem and that the storm may have damaged the infrastructure or caused Nedry's delay.

Kelly had made his men pack a small cache of firearms and gear – closely replicating what they had used in the field previously. Each man had his own load-bearing vest and tactical belt outfitted with extra gear such as canteens and utility pouches. Two of the men, Kelly included, had Colt rifles – similar to the CAR-15 they used in Iraq. The other two had variants of the MP-5 submachine gun – and all the weapons were outfitted with flashlights, scopes, and suppressors. The weapons and gear were packed in two different duffle bags that would be dropped in the jungles of the island. If the team came across any trouble, they could fall back to the drop and load up.

Kelly did not expect any trouble. The four men were mostly silent for the nearly five-hour ride in. After gear and equipment checks, the group tried not to rush to the island. If the InGen facility had any sort of surveillance, they would be wary of the 'lost fishermen story' after seeing them beeline toward the island at full throttle.

Instead, Cayden Mathews – the balding, lanky member of Kelly's group that happened to be driving the boat – swayed back and forth, zig-zagging and varying speeds as to look lost and confused and wasting fuel. The plan was to run ashore with a nearly empty tank, to make the cover story believable.

"Alright boys, let's do this thing," Kelly grunted as he ran his hand through his graying hair, deciding it was time to head in. He turned his voice into a bad pirate impersonation. "Run 'er aground, Mister Mathews."

Mathews shook his head at Kelly's bad joke but played along. "Aye, sir." The other two men – Briggs and Davies, walked around the deck of the boat and took as many mental notes about the island as possible. They were coming up on the southern coast and to anyone other than the trained military personnel, it might have seemed ominous.

From a distance, there was no sign of life – it was a still portrait and it looked untouched by the mechanical nature of man. It was a snapshot of an earlier time, cloaked in mystery and a grey-white fog – the emerald jungle-covered mountains poking through and rising toward the pure blue sky.

They quickly beached themselves, pulled the rusty boat high into the shoreline, slung the duffels over their shoulders, and trekked into the dense, green jungle – heading toward the center of the island.

Now that they were on the ground, the island was full of life. There was the constant noise of bird and monkey calls, the incessant skittering of small rodents in the underbrush. The men were dressed in casual clothes – jeans, khakis, button-up shirts – and they quickly became soaked with sweat in the humid jungle.

Kelly was keeping an eye out for a good place to dump the duffel bags. He decided to take a small break. The rest of the group arranged themselves in a circle, facing outward. Mathews kneeled on the ground and tried to look through the jungle. "Thick as shit."

Kelly sighed as he fished in his pocket for a piece of gum. "Yep." He popped the gum in his mouth and chewed loudly. "Wanna drop 'em here or keep goin'?"

Mathews took another look around. "I'm not sure. I don't see any landmarks; it might be hard to…"

"There ain't gonna be any damn road signs." Kelly interrupted. Briggs chuckled, his massive frame quivering with laughter. Kelly's sarcasm had landed him in some trouble in the Service, but his superiors had always decided that the moral boost it gave to fellow soldiers was worth the occasional annoyance.

"You're the boss." Mathews sighed.

Kelly put his hands on his hips and smacked his gum some more. "Yep." He surveyed the surrounding jungle again. "Guess we'll drop 'em later."

The men agreed and grabbed their gear, stomping through the thick leaves and ferns some more. They hadn't taken more than a few steps before they stopped in their tracks.

There was a loud sound that echoed through the mountains and trees. Something organic. Kelly felt a cold shiver as he and his men listened to the sound. Was that a roar?

It sounded like it belonged to something huge and unlike any animal he had ever heard before – it lasted several seconds. Whatever that is, Kelly thought, it sounds pissed off.

He turned to his men – who were already assembling their rifles and fastening their military vests. Mathews tossed Kelly his CAR-15 rifle, and Kelly racked the bolt to load the first bullet in the chamber.

Still chewing his gum, he worked the rifle's sling over his head and shoulder so that the gun floated freely against his chest. "Animal preserve, huh?"