Notes
Soundtrack suggestions:
The argument:
- Forgive me — Ramin Djawadi, Game of Thrones: Season 4 (Up to 00:58).
-o-
"You're ready?" Owen asked his two companions.
As they just put on their helmets, Claire and Franklin nodded.
"So Franklin, which route?" he asked.
The young man unfolded the map, put it on the back of the sidecar and pointed to several locations on the map.
"If you don't want to go near Puntarenas, you have to drive down through San Ramón before heading to Orotina, crossing the Tarcoles river…"
"... and then pass through Jaco and finally reach Quepos…" Owen finished, pointing to these two towns with his index finger. "It's almost a four hour drive. If we leave now, we'll arrive in the evening."
He looked at Claire and she nodded in approval.
"All right, let's take that road."
Franklin got into the sidecar with the bag of provisions, Owen behind the handlebars and Claire behind him. Starting off, they followed the path and came out on a road. They followed it to the village of Corrales, which they had seen the day before from the train just after escaping Toro's jaws, and they easily found the railroad. They crossed it and drove east, reaching Zapotal and following the same road that passed near the wood where Blue had attacked Laureano Herrera. Arriving in San Antonio, they turned right instead of going left and going up to the road which connected Burgo Nuevo to San Ramón. The latter being relatively frequented, the couple thought that they would have less chance of being spotted by taking the small country roads of the Ismaloya's southern slopes instead and this is what they did during the hour that followed their departure from the wood by Corrales.
As they gently descended towards San Ramón, Claire informed Owen of an urgent need and they stopped at the edge of a plantation a few miles from the town's gates.
"Okay, bathroom break," he announced. "Use it, I don't know when the next one will be. Make sure your surroundings are safe before doing whatever you have to do. We're going to be in deep shit if someone gets their ass bitten by a snake or something like that."
Claire got off the bike and disappeared behind a clump of bushes a stone's throw away. Owen looked at Franklin. He saw that he seemed hesitant.
"You know, you can go too," he told him. "I can keep watch over the motorcycle alone. The first who'll return will replace me."
"Okay."
Without saying another word, Franklin got out of the sidecar and went to find a group of bushes or a thicket behind which to relieve himself. Keeping watch, ready to turn his face away from the road in case a vehicle approached, Owen stared thoughtfully at the road for a moment.
Claire came back and her boyfriend went in his turn behind the bushes. When he was done, she was sitting on the sidecar drinking and snacking. With her helmet, her sunglasses similar to those of the hero of Top Gun, her jacket, her thick shoes and the pistol by her belt, she looked like a policewoman who had stopped to take a break and from a distance, her prosthetic hand could even be mistaken for a glove. He noted that Franklin hadn't returned yet, but that wasn't what troubled him on the moment.
"What's the matter?" Claire inquired, seeing him looking hesitantly at the road.
He sighed and said:
"I wonder if it wouldn't be perhaps better to head for San Ramon's police station and surrender to the cops before our case aggravates."
Claire shook her head and crossed her arms.
"No, we're sticking to the plan," she replied. "We're going to Quepos."
"It's not even guaranteed that Marcos Puig will help us..."
"It's up to us to make sure he does, willingly or not!" She insisted, drawing her pistol to check her magazine with an ease that disconcerted Owen at the time.
"We can't act like if we were in Thelma and Louise! Do I need to remind you how that movie ends?"
Hearing a rustling thicket, Claire aimed the gun towards the noise but raised the barrel when she saw it was none other than Franklin.
"You scared me…," she said before looking back at Owen.
The IT technician approached slowly.
"Guys. I have to tell you something," he said.
But they ignored him and Claire exclaimed:
"I didn't come all this way... I didn't suffer so much just to rot in a Costa Rican prison! We got screwed all the way, Owen! Are you aware of that? It's our word against InGen's and it will be those with the best layers, the wealthiest ones, who will win! Our situation is hopeless. Who will believe the Queen of the Ashes, even if she is telling the truth?! If I'm judged guilty of the crimes I've been accused of, both those of the last days and those of the Fall, I risk life! I would lose what little sanity I have left, it would be worse than death! If I have to die, it will be as a free woman and weapon in hand! My life on Earth will have been short and tragic, but perhaps a place among the brave will await me in the afterlife!"
"Don't be selfish, Claire!" Owen begged her. "You're no longer an isolated fallen executive without ties! What about our son? The animals? Or your honor? You will help no one and no cause by perishing under the cops' bullets in some vain bravado! You still have battles to fight!"
"People…" Franklin repeated.
"What?!" The couple asked him, irritated.
Franklin recoiled slightly and seemed to remain quiet.
"Say whatever you have to say…" Claire told him.
"I was Torres' spy…" he said weakly.
The fallen park director stared at him, believing and hoping that she had misheard.
"What did you say?"
"I… spied for… Torres.
"What's this?" Owen asked the IT technician. "You better clarify because if it's a joke, now is not the time to make one."
"I did not resign from InGen voluntarily. Torres tasked me with infiltrating the DPG, fearing that the latter would put a spoke in InGen's wheels," he told them.
"And when he heard you were going to be with us during the operation, he asked you to keep an eye on us," Claire guessed. "I assume you're the one who took the photos, the ones we found on the assassins' cell phone?"
He nodded sheepishly.
"What's the promised reward? Money?! A good job within an InGen saved from annihilation thanks to the operation?!" Owen questioned him.
"That explains your incompetence with dinosaurs!" Claire added. "You really can't trust anyone these days. I thought you were better than Alexander... He's an asshole and a nitwit but he's at least an honest asshole, more or less... and not some back-stabbing little rat!"
"Torres wants me dead too," he reminded them. "After what happened, you can be sure that I don't want to deal with us! I don't want to harm the GPD. I…"
"That's it, Jake Sully (*)! Make a fine speech about the power of friendship," she cut him off mockingly. "If you're with us, it's just because of unluckiness. If I hadn't found you in Benito's car, you would be in the Arcadia right now and your arrangement with him would still hold!"
"If I hadn't ended up with you, that assassin would have killed you! I saved your life!"
"We wouldn't have had assassins after us if you hadn't taken those pictures!"
"Torres would have tasked someone else with taking them! I thought it was just surveillance, a trifle for InGen Security."
"A trifle? You're calling this whole mess a trifle?!" She exclaimed while looking around.
With her prosthetic hand, she grabbed the collar of his shirt and glared at him.
"What are you going to do? Are you going to strangle me like you strangled Wu's right-hand man?" he asked her. "Throw me off a cliff?"
"Hey!" Owen shouted, wishing to calm the tensions before they escalated.
Claire pulled Franklin towards her, so suddenly he nearly tripped, and brought her mouth to his ear. She was so close he could feel her breath on his skin.
"Choose your next words carefully, young man! She warned him.
"Hey!" The keeper repeated. "Calm down!"
"Shut up, Owen," Claire snapped. "I'm not one of your raptors!"
"Then stop behaving like one!" He retorted sternly.
Stepping between her and Franklin, he put a hand on his girlfriend's chest and while looking into her eyes, he began to gently push her away.
"Hey. Hey. Take a deep breath, you'll feel better," he told her as kindly as possible.
Without saying a word, she turned around, took a few steps away and as if to try to evacuate her anger, she decided to kick a rock violently, sending it rolling further.
Owen then turned to the DPG IT technician.
"How do we know you're no longer his spy? I suggest we drop you off at San Ramón. It will be better, for us and for you… You will go back to California by your own means. Shall you see Zia again, I'll advise you to not act like a coward and to repeat those confessions to her. You owe her that…," he told him calmly but not without severity.
"No. It's better if we keep him with us," Claire said. "If we are arrested without him but that his lifeless body has been found in some dark alley, bearing the blow marks of some thugs, his murder will be added to our batch of charges. He'll stay with us until we get to the Five Deaths. They think he's our hostage? Let them believe that if we can get any benefit from it."
Owen nodded and sighed.
"You're right. He'll be safer with us. And I promised Zia that we would watch over him."
He then got back into the saddle.
"Come on. Let's go," he told them.
"Yeah, we've wasted enough time!" His girlfriend added.
She watched Franklin sit back into the sidecar and then she sat back behind Owen.
"I'm watching you!" She warned the young man. "If you commit the slightest trick, I'll make you regret it. Do you understand?"
"Understood," he replied, glancing at the pistol out of the corner of his eye.
Owen started the motorcycle and they resumed their journey. They arrived at San Ramón, where they turned right at a boulevard, crossing part of the town before passing under the highway. Then the road climbed and soon enough they reached a region of green hills, where they drove on ridge and cliff roads for about an hour, passing several picturesque villages on the way, before driving down into the coastal plain which bordered the Pacific. They passed through Orotina and shortly after the latter, they returned inside the Puntarenas province (which they had left after crossing the railroad). Since the break, the only conversations held by the trio were related to the journey and again, only Owen and Franklin exchanged succinctly, as Claire had remained silent throughout, pressed against her boyfriend's back and looking at the landscape with melancholy.
However, when they passed in front of a refreshment stall five hundred meters after the border, they were spotted by a policeman who, then peacefully having a snack, had frozen when he saw a motorbike with a sidecar driven by a tall bearded man with long hair. Having also noted that there was a helmeted woman clinging behind him and a young bespectacled man, also helmeted, in the sidecar, he realized that there was a chance that they were the fugitive American couple from Burgo Nuevo and their companion in misfortune. The policeman then hastened to return to his vehicle and warn his colleagues.
Half a dozen minutes later, while the Sun was setting, the trio arrived at a cluster of buildings built at the entrance of a bridge and which included shops, restaurants, and even a small hotel. In front of one of them was a crocodile sculpture, indicating the nature of the local attraction. The bridge spanned the Tarcoles River, famous for its crocodiles, and Owen would have gladly stopped to watch them if they weren't wanted by the authorities and pressed by time, especially as the sound of sirens began to sound. As they reached the middle of the bridge, a police car coming from the opposite direction appeared and stopped, pulling over to block their way.
"Shit…" Owen hissed.
Having already started to slow down, he started a U-turn but quickly noticed that behind them, another car, driven by the same policeman who had spotted them, had done the same and cut off their retreat. Owen turned off the ignition and sighed in defeat.
"Do we surrender?" Franklin asked in a quavering voice.
"You want to act like a GTA character? Or jump in the river and try our luck with the crocodiles?"
Sitting in the sidecar, Franklin could not see the crocodiles lying on the nearby banks, but neither this perspective nor the other pleased him.
"That would be suicide," he said.
From the car on their right, a policeman came out with a megaphone.
"Mr. Grady, Mrs. Dearing!" he called out to them, speaking in English with a heavy accent. "You are under arrest! Please get out of your vehicle and put your hands up!"
The trio got off the motorcycle and put their hands up.
"Move away from the vehicle! If you are armed, put your weapons on the ground!" The policeman added.
Owen looked down at Claire's belt.
"Claire. The pistol...," he hissed.
She sighed deeply and then, keeping one hand raised upwards, she gently lowered the other to the holster, pulled out the weapon, making sure to show it with the barrel pointing skyward, while on either side, the police officers had drawn their weapons, as a precaution. They stared at Claire as she put the gun down on the asphalt.
"Now move forward!" The megaphone policeman ordered.
They obeyed and as they joined him, his colleague ran to take the gun before catching up with them.
"Hands on the railing!" The latter said, keeping his gun pointed at the couple.
The trio put their hands flat on the bridge's railing and they waited for a policeman to come from the other car to handcuff them, starting with Owen. When the policeman grabbed Franklin's hands to handcuff him, the DPG IT technician's eyes widened in surprise.
"Wait, are you arresting me too?"
"You are also a suspect in the death of Mrs. Jocelyn Hodgson, young man," the policeman replied in English.
"What? But that's crazy?!" Franklin protested as they were led to one of the cars.
"These are the orders."
-o-
Notes
(*) Main character from the Avatar film series. Claire alludes here to the fact that the character's initial goal was to infiltrate the Na'vi for the benefit of colonel Quaritch from the Resources Development Administration (RDA).