Notes

Soundtrack suggestions:

The ambush and its aftermath:
- The Carnotaur Attack — James Newton Howard, Dinosaur (Up to 01:19).
- Lurking in the shadows/Mortal wounds – Chance Thomas, King Kong: Official Game of the Movie.

-o-

At the same time, five kilometres northeast of Elena Baró's home, across the Aranjuez Valley, the ACU was still chasing Toro on the slopes of Monte Nebuso. The skirmish in the jungle had been brief and chaotic, but fortunately the predator had ran away after charging and hadn't stayed to slaughter them. All he had wanted was to be left alone and Jaffa, wounded in the leg, had been the only victim of his attack. With his subordinate no longer fit to fight, Austin tasked Miller and Steve with leading him back to the vehicles and their InGen Security colleagues waiting at the nearest road. While the wounded man and his escort scrambled through the jungle, the other seven ACU troopers and the assistant veterinarian had another skirmish with the dinosaur. A tranquilizer dart had been fired, but although it was seen heading straight for the dinosaur's neck, it was unclear whether it hit the target or not, as Toro retreated into the vegetation before they could be sure. But the ACU and Maribel had not wavered and had chased the dinosaur, hoping to corner it somewhere.

Just after sunrise, while a thick veil of fog covered the mountain's slopes, they looked at their smartwatch and saw that he had stopped less than five hundred meters from their position.

"He hasn't moved for a few minutes," Maribel pointed out.

"Maybe we hit the bull's eye. Let's get to him before he runs away again," Austin said.

Following the signal, they found the carnotaur a few minutes later. Half hidden by the fog, he was standing near a pond. Having caught their scent before they saw him, he growled at them but stood his ground. While he watched them, Austin and his men took aim at him and waited, as they just saw that Toro did indeed have a dart stuck in his neck. Austin congratulated the shooter and the carnotaur let out a small, defiant but still plaintive roar. Then he staggered and collapsed on his side at a respectable distance from the pond.

"We've got him!" Austin exclaimed, relieved that this track was over.

As a precaution, he and his men advanced slowly towards the carnotaur, ready to act if he was still conscious but the hard part was done. They just had to secure the place and call the transport helicopter. The feeling of relief which had taken over them was however cut short when they heard a rustle in the surrounding vegetation, created by the movement of a relatively big animal or even a human being. Since many of the ACU troopers were former members of the armed forces or the SWAT, they recognized a human stride.

"We're not alone…" Austin whispered.

As discreetly as possible, he signalled his men to keep an eye out and asked Cooper to stay back near Maribel. Then, the ACU commander and his five other troopers continued their advance towards the Carnotaurus. There was another rustle and suddenly a gunshot was heard. In the next second, Austin fell backwards, shot in the head.

Before his men could react and shout Ambush!, four previously hidden figures rose up and began firing at the ACU troopers.

They immediately tried to take cover before firing back, but the shots came from all directions. One after another, the troopers fell, their bodies riddled with bullets from their mysterious enemies. Tee, the last one standing, wanted to dive into the pond to protect himself but just before he dived, bullets pierced his back and he fell into the water as steep as a stake. As soon as no one was standing near the pond, the attackers moved forward in the open before being joined by their companions.

"My God," Erik Scherrer said softly when he saw the dead soldiers.

Adrian Bentley, who was standing next to the scientist, asked in a low voice:

"Was it necessary?"

"You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," Rankin told him as he stood pistol in hand over Austin's lifeless body. "Sometimes, you've got to take some unpleasant decisions when in war."

"Spying doesn't bother me, nor sabotage… But wanton slaughters, I'm drawing a line here," Scherrer added.

A few meters away, Meyers was still moving. Hearing her hoarse breathing, Rankin approached her, rolled her on her back with his foot, and finished her without blinking under the shocked gaze of Scherrer and Adrian.

"That wasn't the plan we agreed on," the ex-InGen employee pointed out, shaking his head with alacrity while guilt was eating him up. "You said you would only open fire if necessary."

"Indeed. I have to tell the boss about this… incident," the scientist added.

"He has already considered that outcome, Doctor. And plans change," he told them. "If you have any regrets, Bentley, it's too late. You are with us until the end of the mission. So, where's the veterinary assistant?"

"Here!" Faraday hailed them as he was crouched near the edge of the pond.

While Grewal and Aubrey were on the lookout, they went to join their companion. Maribel was laying in front of him, holding her bloody stomach while she breathed heavily.

"Who's the half-wit shot her?!" Rankin exclaimed.

"McSweeney," Aubrey coughed.

"A stray bullet from that buffoon hit her badly," Faraday added.

"Hey! It happens!" McSweeney protested.

Rankin immediately leaned over Maribel, who was staring at him in confusion, still struggling to realize that they had just been attacked and that she was dying.

"The tranquilizer's antagonist?" How much?" The ex-Secret Service operative asked the veterinary assistant.

She looked at him without saying anything.

"How much?! Rankin insisted, shaking her.

But she let out her last breath before she could answer them.

"Jeremy, no need to insist. She's dead…," Faraday said.

The two mercenaries stood up and Rankin glared angrily at McSweeney.

"We needed her alive. What did I say? We pelt the ACU but we don't touch the vet! If we slip-up in the dosage, he'll die!"

He then turned to Scherrer.

"Can you fix this situation?" he asked him.

"I know the quantity of antagonist for an adult tyrannosaur. But I don't know which one to give to a carnotaur. And I'm not a veterinarian."

"I don't know, are you able to estimate the weight of this animal? Couldn't you just make a cross-multiplication?"

"I could, but it's pretty risky. I do not guarantee reliable results…"

Rankin grew impatient.

"Do it, doctor. We don't have all day. I just want him to be alive when we leave."

Scherrer nodded. He took Maribel's bag and went to sit next to Toro, which was perfectly still.

Perfectly still?!

The scientist brought his ear closer to Toro's mouth and realized that he could no longer hear his breathing.

"He stopped breathing!" he shouted.

"It's the tranquilizer!" Rankin guessed. "Those idiots must have overdosed it. Give him the antagonist!"

"But…"

"Now before we lose him!"

Scherrer unpacked Maribel's bag, found the box of syringes and antagonists after a frantic search, and then quickly calculated the dose of antagonist to administer. When it was done, he took the dose and injected it into the carnotaur's neck.

They backed off, ignoring what to expect and for a while nothing happened. Then, the dust in front of the animal's nostrils was blown away as it resumed normal breathing. Scherrer and Rankin sighed in relief.

Scherrer then passed some sort of scanner over the animal. It began to beep faster and louder as the scientist approached the base of the neck.

"I found the implant," he said.

He set the scanner aside, took his own bag and pulled out the tools that would allow him to remove the implant, the same one that had brought them and the ACU There. Once it would be removed from the animal's body, InGen would no longer be able to track him.

"I'm going to start the extraction..."

As he began to incise the scaly skin, the mercenaries made comments.

"And then, he trips over a rock and breaks his leg while coming down the mountain...," McSweeney joked.

"Or he is hit head-on by a truck," Aubrey said after sitting on top of a rock to smoke.

"We would have done all this for nothing," Faraday added. "Maybe he'll just hide in the jungle instead of multiplying the attacks against civilians like we would like."

"Unfortunately, we only had one carnotaur within easy reach," Rankin reminded them. "A pack of raptors would have indeed had more potential... But the essential is being a pain in InGen's arse."

A few minutes later, Aubrey finished his cigarette.

"Memories of Bournemouth are coming back to me," he said, looking at the bodies.

"That stunt with the scorpion?" Faraday asked him. "I still pity the family of the old man who was killed that day..."

"Personally, all this reminds me of Bruges," McSweeney said.

"Yeah, true…" Faraday said, nodding.

"What happened in Bruges?" Adrian asked them after taking a sip from his flask.

Grewal took a deep breath.

"What happened in Bruges… stays in Bruges," she replied cryptically.

Aubrey threw his cigarette butt on the ground, right next to one of the ACU troopers, and Rankin turned to Scherrer and the carnotaur and saw that the former was still playing the surgeon.

"Take blood and skin samples while you're at it," he ordered.

"For the boss?" the scientist asked.

"For anyone who wants to pay the full price," Rankin replied after a silence." We will share the sum of course."

"Hmm...that's fine with me."

Soon after, Scherrer finally removed the implant and put it aside.

"Do you want me to destroy it, doc?" Faraday inquired.

"No, not now. They might suspect that something is wrong."

"I don't want to worry you, but seeing their vital signs flattening out must have given them a hint," Adrian pointed out.

"All the more reason to hurry," Rankin said, looking at Scherrer. "We can thank this fog. Hadn't it been there, a helicopter would have already passed over us. Prepare to leave."

"I have to stitch him up! Our plan will be for nothing if he dies of an infection before the end of the week," the scientist reminded him.

"Well, hurry up. McSweeney, Aubrey, Adrian… Stay with him. You'll catch up with us. Meet at the jeeps."

The two mercenaries and the former InGen guard nodded, and followed by Grewal and Faraday, Rankin skirted the pond and headed south, disappearing into the mist and jungle.

Scherrer hailed McSweeney.

"William. Be a good chap and stitch him up while I put my equipment away. The sooner I finish, the sooner we leave."

The bespectacled mercenary sighed.

"Alright."

He came to join the scientist and helped him stitch up Toro.

"There it's done!" Scherrer exclaimed when the incision he had made earlier was closed.

He stuffed the last remaining tools into his bag and escorted by the two mercenaries and Adrian, he moved away from the carnotaur, stepping over the bodies of InGen's tracking party. Meanwhile, Aubrey had lit a new cigarette and decided to bring up the rear. But his three companions being much more in a hurry to leave that jungle than him, the distance widened between them as they skirted the pond and passed under the foliage, so much so that it was soon a dozen meters.

"Hurry up, Aubrey! You're lagging behind! We'll leave you here if you keep up that turtle pace," McSweeney told him.

While the ground sloped gently, Aubrey felt something viscous fall onto his shoulder and begin to drip down his chest. Looking down, he saw that it was a whitish-grey frothy material and had the impression that a Saint Bernard had just drooled on him.

Slime. Which animal in this damn jungle can drool profusely and from a height?

Very circumspect, Aubrey looked over his shoulder and saw that a horned head with burnt skin and a mouth full of sharp teeth towered over him and the sight shocked him so much that his cigarette fell from his gaping mouth.

I didn't hear him coming. That bastard is a bloody ninja! Why doesn't it have loud footsteps like those in the films?

Another trickle of drool dripped from the carnotaur's jaws, falling to the ground just where the still-smouldering cigarette had fallen. The opening of the jaws widened slowly.

"Oh, bugger…" the mercenary complained as he looked at Toro in the eye.

"Eric!" McSweeney and Adrian yelled, as they had just seen the carnotaur in their turn.

But before their horrified eyes, Aubrey's head and torso disappeared into Toro's mouth. For a few seconds, the mercenary's arms and legs gesticulated while the carnotaur shook him sideways. Aubrey's three companions then began to hear tearing and in the next moment, Aubrey's upper body was ripped off.

Adrian then took his rifle, took aim at the animal and pulled the trigger.

"Take that, you son of a bitch!"

The carnotaur immediately turned around and dodging the bullets, he disappeared into the vegetation, taking his meal with him. Hearing his growls fade away, the trio knew he wouldn't come back for them and that their paths parted there. Now the predator was the Costa Ricans' problem.

While they searched for Aubrey's upper body, Rankin came running, alerted by the gunfire.

"What happened?!" He asked them sternly, before seeing Aubrey's waist and legs. "Who fired?"

"Me," Adrian replied frankly.

"I hope you didn't shoot him, you twat!"

"I didn't have the chance."

Rankin grabbed his head and groaned in irritation.

"Dammit! Aubrey was a very good operative! We were in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya together and we always made it out alive! And he dies in Central America's Switzerland because of a fucking carnivorous cow on two legs!? Bollocks!"

"Let's get his body back at least. He deserves some decent funeral," Scherrer said.

Rankin let out a pained sigh.

"We can't do anything more for him. Come. We have to clear off pronto from this country of yokels! California is waiting for us..."

With heavy hearts, Scherrer, Adrian and McSweeney left Aubrey's remains behind and followed Rankin.