Notes
Hypothetical casting:
Tony Plana as Enrique Ordóñez.
-o-
Still hot, the coffee exited the pot to pour into a cup that had just been emptied.
"Would you like another cup of coffee, Mr. Mayor?" Jocelyn Hodgson asked the man sitting across from her.
"No, thank you, Jocelyn," replied a lean man in his sixties with cropped white hair and a clean-shaven face.
Jocelyn put the coffee pot back on the table, right next to an ashtray containing a still-smouldering cigarette butt, whose smell was carried by a light wind towards of the mayor of the canton of Burgo Nuevo, Enrique Ordóñez, who wrinkled his nose.
Once their tour of the estate and their subsequent meeting with the manager was over, the local councillors and the press had left and only the mayor remained. He and Jocelyn had sat on the upper level of the hacienda's patio, which overlooked the lower level and its sunshades, deckchairs and a very well-maintained swimming pool. Although it bordered the shantungosaurs paddock and the Cretaceous Plain, the patio mostly overlooked the latter, and the fence and the edge of the pool were so close that if the paddock had contained large sauropods like Giraffatitan or Mamenchisaurus, these could easily have passed their long necks over the fence to drink water from the swimming pool. In addition to this viewpoint on the paddock and its denizens, the patio offered a panorama of Monte Nebuso, the surrounding dells and ridges, as well as some sort of plateau crossed by the railway and the Celeste, upstream from the latter's gorges. Looking in the direction of Monte Nebuso, a careful observer would have noticed the presence of a destroyed railway viaduct which overlooked the track that InGen's train was going to take.
Enrique picked up his half-empty cup and stirred it slightly before bringing it to his mouth. While drinking, he watched the dinosaurs in the paddock, trying to remember their names.
Quenching their thirst at the waterhole, there was a herd of a dozen duck-bill dinosaurs, consisting of two different species. The mayor counted five Corythosaurus, four adults and one young; and seven Parasaurolophus, five adults and two young. In addition to the particular shape of their respective crests, the two species could be easily differentiated by their colours. Whereas the former had a mauve crest and a body with yellow mottles and black spots, the latter showed two varieties: While some individuals were green with black stripes, others were beige with a russet back and crest and dark brown stripes.
While hadrosaurs occupied one side of the waterhole, the other was occupied by two bipedal dinosaurs with particularly pronounced blue mottling and a large, thick bony dome at the top of their skulls, Pachycephalosaurus.
Finally, near the fence, eating the bushes' leaves or scratching the ground, there was a small troop of other bipeds with white speckled backs, much more slender than the Pachycephalosaurus, with muscular legs and a long tail. Where a somewhat larger individual had a rufous body and red wattles, most had a beige body and lacked wattles. Those were Dryosaurus, which were to Jurassic World what impalas and gazelles are to safari reserves.
Enrique still remembered the day when InGen announced that it was returning in force to Costa Rica to prepare a large-scale project with the support of Indian billionaire Simon Masrani and his conglomerate, and that they were going to reinvest in their experimental farm south of the town, a facility which they had neglected in the years following the Jurassic Park incident. That was twenty years ago and he was then part of the former mayor's team. InGen's return had aroused mistrust, but Simon Masrani himself had assured Burgo Nuevo that he had things under control and he showed to be generous towards the canton and its councillors, dispelling many of the fears that some had, and when the animals raised by InGen at the Farm left for Isla Nublar, the situation was totally relaxed, as only plants remained there. Subsequently, the Farm returned to its original role and was only occasionally used as a quarantine centre for animals that InGen shipped to foreign zoos around the world. Thus, an understanding prevailed for years between InGen and Burgo Nuevo, until the fall of Jurassic World. When the corporation's management had announced that the Farm would house those whom the Costa Ricans were quick to nickname The Nublar Refugees, the fears from the beginning of the millennium returned, stronger than ever and once again, certain reluctances were calmed with backhanders. But Enrique knew that the situation was different from when Masrani came, and since the Fall, he felt like a sword of Damocles was hanging over his canton. He also regretted that he had to deal with Jocelyn Hodgson and not the former manager. The latter, Costa Rican unlike her, had even become one of his best friends.
A long, loud, resonant call, let out by a hadrosaur out of sight, snapped him out of his thoughts.
'They make one hell of a noise," he said to the manager.
"Yes they does, I'm well aware of that. Those blasted animals keeps me awake. And when it's not them, it's the cicadas or the frogs," she grumbled.
"You still aren't used to them? A pity, their singing has some charm. In the United States, did you grow up in the city or in the countryside?"
"In the countryside though. My parents have a ranch with horses a few hours north of New York. But we were never bothered by frogs, cicadas or crickets."
The mayor nodded.
"As you can imagine, you're not the only one bothered by dinosaurs," he pointed out. "Residents sometimes come to the town hall in order to complain about the noise disturbances they cause and all I can tell them is to be patient. The announcement of their imminent departure was a relief. It will be good for all: Us, Neoburgenses, and you, Jocelyn. Sure, some locals will lose their jobs, and I hope they will receive the compensation you promised them, but InGen's Site D has always represented only a minor part of the local economy, far behind tourism, agriculture and forestry. Things should go back to how they were before and like rain, InGen will have just passed."
Looking towards the paddock, Jocelyn saw that grey clouds were gathering in the west and slowly approaching. It was going to rain tonight.
"Yes," she replied while lighting another cigarette, "and you can tell neighbouring foresters and farmers to stop spying on us. Commander Austin told me about that months ago. »
Enrique crossed his fingers and sighed.
"If I'm keeping an eye on this place, it's because I'm worried Jocelyn… Masrani Global is abandoning you, the UN considers you with suspicion, and so does the government… In politics, it's never good when you have almost no allies left. Face it. InGen is a crumbling empire whose survival absolutely depends on those animals. If I was one of your enemies, I would strike here, and it doesn't matter if Burgo Nuevo ends up becoming a collateral victim if things don't go exactly as planned."
Jocelyn inhaled the smoke from her cigarette, then heaved a long, nervous sigh.
"Jocelyn. Don't take it personally. I like you. You are not a bad person. If only I could say the same about your superiors… I'm just asking you to be very careful in the next two weeks. Don't make the same mistakes as Claire Dearing on Isla Nublar."
"I won't. Be sure of that."
"You better. My canton's safety depends on it, and I will take to court anyone who put it in jeopardy, be it InGen or one of its rivals. Concerning Mrs. Dearing, do you know how she is doing?"
"I don't know," she lied. "She must still be hidden in some godforsaken hole in the United States, waiting to be flushed out like a hunted fox."
"You will be surprised to learn that she was seen this very morning in town, shopping at the supermarket."
"Maybe it was someone else? After all, you receive a lot of foreign tourists, including thirtyish redhead women sometimes I suppose."
"Not only those are quite rare, but you have to admit that ones with a white mask covering the left half of their face are even rarer."
"Indeed."
He looked into her eyes and nodded.
"At the end of the operation, do yourself a favour," he suggested. "Leave that adrift ship called InGen, return to your husband and children and find another job because this one is destroying you."
Then he gathered his belongings and got ready to get up.
"I'm not going to linger any longer. I'm expected in town."
"No problem. I'll walk you to your car."
Leaving the cups, the coffee pot, and the ashtray on the table, they left the patio, returned briefly indoors, and exited the hacienda by the courtyard. Enrique Ordóñez's car was parked nearby, in the trees' shade.
"May the end of the operation go well," he wished her when he took his leave, "for your sake."
As he was about to open the door, a roar stopped him. It came from the northwest part of the estate, where the biggest predators were contained. He had seen them during his tour and had then thought that they were terrifying monsters, capable of spreading terror in the countryside if they were let loose.
"And especially for ours," he added in Spanish with a hint of worry.
Jocelyn, who still had her cigarette, watched the car take the oaks driveway and disappear in the distance. She returned to the hacienda.