"It's almost noon and it still hasn't arrived!" Juan fumed after looking at his watch.
Standing at the edge of the village of caravans and prefabs, he watched the road by which a convoy was supposed to arrive. Beside him were several other keepers, one of the temp veterinarians, two guards, and Zia and Franklin.
"What is happening?" Mills asked as he had just arrived in the village.
"The small animals' convoy," the head keeper replied. "It left San Diego yesterday at four o'clock and was due to arrive this morning between nine and ten."
A week had passed since Guillaume's stay at Orick. Instead of sending them directly to Orick like the other animals, InGen had indeed first sent its smallest animals to the academy in San Diego, the former unfinished Jurassic Park, where it had adequate facilities to house them while waiting for them to be sent to the Lockwood estate a week before the sale.
Nearby, George Lambert put away the phone he had been holding up to his ear for the past few minutes and came to join the group.
"I just had Torres on the phone," he told them. "The convoy was hijacked during the night. The animals have been stolen."
"Stolen?! Franklin repeated.
"A hijacking?" Allison realized.
"And the escort?!" Marisol asked.
"It couldn't do anything," George replied. "According to Torres, the thieves were well organized. Somehow, they even managed to disable the animals' tracking implants. Your colleagues, Messrs. Alex Grunberg and Pedro Olla, have been sent to hospital. They're safe now."
"Where did it happen?" Juan inquired.
"In the San Antonio Valley. East of San Jose."
"You have a San Jose in California too?" Pasqual asked him.
"Yeah, it's south of San Francisco Bay."
"San Jose? But it's right next to Cupertino!" One of the guards exclaimed. "Those bastards from Biosyn must be behind that!"
"Cupertino is also a twenty-minute drive from the HQ in Palo Alto, so that doesn't mean anything," his colleague pointed out. "I'm not saying we should strike Biosyn off the list of suspects, but I don't think we have a tangible lead on the thieves' identity."
"It's still one of the most likely scenarios, though," George said.
"What do Torres and the board plan to do?" Juan asked.
"Torres sent men after the thieves. But we fear that the animals are already far away, that they're already on a plane or a boat to overseas..."
"In other words, we'll never see them again! Damn!" The head keeper exclaimed.
"If we don't find them, we'll lose almost a hundred and fifteen million dollars," the InGen Security executive added.
"All you care about is the money you lose. You don't care about the animals themselves," Zia retorted sternly before leaving.
Morale undermined by this bad news, the operation's participants returned to their posts or headed for the dining tent for lunch while Mills returned to the mansion to inform Lockwood.
In the beginning of the afternoon, they received a list of the stolen animals:
Species Number
Archaeopteryx 2
Beelzebufo 2
Compsognathus 30
Didelphodon 1
Diictodon 4
Dimorphodon 2
Euparkeria 1
Germanodactylus 5
Longisquama 1
Microceratus 9
Moschorhinus 2
Pegomastax 1
Proterosuchus 5
Pterodactylus 10
Purgatorius 2
Scutellosaurus 2
Seymouria 1
Simosuchus 1
Yi qi 1
Yinlong 6
At the end of the day, while the sun was descending towards the ocean, Valentine Taylor was patrolling the footbridge which overlooked the Baurusuchus' pit when he saw one of these crocodile-like predators begin to dig the ground with a certain energy. In the eyes of the InGen guard, it evoked a big dog which had just found something, like a bone or a prey. He watched as it pushed the dirt aside and began to uncover what was buried under the pit. Changing his angle of observation, Valentine thought he discerned a sort of rounded surface under the predator's snout, that of an item which would have been doomed to oblivion if InGen and Lockwood had not decided to establish their quarantine camp for animals in that basin. Hearing keepers coming down the aisle behind him, he called them over his shoulder:
"Guys! I think you should come and see this."
"What's happening?" One of them asked.
"I think they found something while digging," the guard replied.
The keepers took a staircase and joined Valentine on the catwalk. He pointed to what the Baurusuchus was digging up. At least they thought at first it was an item but the surface turned out to be neither ceramic nor plastic but bone. The parietal bone of a highly developed cranial box.
A few minutes later, Juan and Brice arrived, followed by other operation's participants who, out of curiosity, had converged to the Baurusuchus' pit. The head keeper and the veterinarian widened their eyes in astonishment when they saw the skull that the animal had continued to clear out. Everyone recognized right away the type of skull due to its flattened face and omnivorous dentition.
"A human skull…" the veterinarian observed. "I hope that they didn't built above an Indian cemetery... I don't want to suffer some ancient curse."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Juan told him before making a discreet sign of the cross.
He then turned to Valentine, who had informed his comrades and George Lambert, who had in his turn called Mills.
"Lambert and Mills have been briefed. They're coming," he announced.
The guard approached the edge of the catwalk and looked at the three predators gathered around the skeleton.
"What are you planning to do about it?" He asked Juan and Brice.
"Baurus have strong stomachs, but they might start chewing on the bones...," the vet replied, concerned.
"For security reasons, it's better if we remove it," the head keeper pointed out. "And as soon as possible. »
"And what if it wasn't a cemetery?" Valentine raised. "What if the guy or the chick we have here was murdered some time ago? This pit could be a crime scene. Remove the bones and you might have some trouble with the police."
"Yeah, that's not false," Brice said.
"I don't know if Mills called the cops," the guard added.
"Anyway, we'll have to put them in the cages before anyone gets in there," Juan said, watching the Baurusuchus.
Soon after, the manager of the Lockwood Foundation arrived, accompanied by the camp's head of security.
"What's going on here?" The first asked as he walked up the stairs.
"Oh, you've got a dead person on your hands," Brice replied casually. "One of the Baurus found it."
Mills froze and paled, which surprised the InGen employees. Then, without saying a word, he walked slowly towards the railing and his eyes rested on the bones.
"Move away, all of you" he ordered. "George, tell your men to close off the pit."
George nodded.
"Come on guys, get moving!" he shouted at the keepers and vets gathered around the pit.
"But we have to put the Baurus in the cages," Brice pointed out. "If one of them perforates his stomach after swallowing a bone, some people will get angry!"
"Don't worry, we'll take care of that," the head of security assured him.
Still concerned about this situation, Juan and Brice headed for the stairs, following their colleagues.
During dinner, they, and a few others, couldn't help but stare at George and his closest subordinates, like if they had doubts about their intentions regarding the bones. They also remembered Mills' attitude when he was told the nature of the problem. It was like if he had seen a ghost.
In the middle of the night, Franklin was awakened by an urge to go to the bathroom. Discreetly, he left the prefab where he slept with his DPG colleagues and some of the keepers. He went to one of the toilets cabins and came out a few minutes later. But as he walked back to his prefab, he started to hear noise, that of a group of people walking, approaching the camp.
As he was on the village's northern periphery, Franklin could see the camp's large perimeter fence, some of the watchtowers, and the large entrance gate. The noise came from the path which ran along the west side of the basin, the same that led to the prefab which acted as the camp's control station, occupied day and night by InGen Security employees. The DPG IT technician looked at the sentries in the watchtowers. They seemed impassive.
They should have seen or heard the band by now. It's nothing, probably a few of their colleagues patrolling. Nothing to worry about.
Turning off his phone's light, Franklin stood still in the darkness and watched a cluster of flashlight beams follow the path towards him. The dozen or so men handing those flashlight appeared soon after and as they got closer he noticed that unlike the InGen guards dressed in navy blue uniforms, these men were not only dressed in black but also equipped with cattle prods and shields similar to those of anti-riot forces in addition to a panoply of body protection gear. They reminded Franklin of the company soldiers he had seen in Costa Rica.
Soldiers? Wherever those guys go, trouble isn't far away.
He then decided to not stand there in the open and he slipped behind a vehicle parked nearby just before one of the flashlight beams could illuminate him. Hiding behind the hood, Franklin continued to spy on the soldiers and he saw them heading towards the camp's gate instead of continuing straight towards the village. Franklin looked up at the watchtowers and noted that the sentries had indeed seen the group of soldiers but were still doing nothing about them. The next moment, the big gate opened with a loud noise and the sound of the marching soldiers faded away as they went deeper into the camp.
What are they going to do by the paddocks?
Franklin considered heading back to his prefab and going back to bed, but an intuition prompted him to crouch for minutes in the darkness behind the vehicle and wait for the soldiers to come out of the camp. About twenty minutes after they entered, he heard growls and roars in the distance, those of carnivores. The IT technician initially thought that the predators, awakened from their sleep by the soldiers, were only showing their displeasure, but a few minutes later, the roars redoubled in intensity. The predators sounded excited. In response, one of the herbivores even bellowed in irritation.
What the hell is going on?
Worried, he thought of warning Zia, Alexander and the keepers, but he stayed, waiting for more information before waking up the village for nothing.
At one point, a car came from the north and parked near the entrance gate. A man, dressed in a suit, got out and came to open the rear door facing the gate before waiting near the vehicle. Franklin saw it was as one of the estate's guards. He looked at his attitude. The man kept fidgeting in place. Something was making him nervous and he heard him talking softly with one of the camp's guards.
Finally, the soldiers came back to the gate and Franklin saw two of them helping one of their comrades forward. In the fleeting moment he caught sight of him, Franklin saw that his face was flushed, like if he was angry…or crying. The young man also noticed that a gag had been put around his mouth, as if to prevent him from shouting. Was he injured?
While the guard helped the soldiers put their comrade in the back seat, another walked around the car, opened the trunk and put inside the big black trash bag he had been carrying on his shoulder until then. The backseat door was closed, the guard got back behind the wheel, and the car drove off, back where it had come from. The soldiers headed in the same direction, walking hastily away from the village while the great gate was closed. Franklin's eyes widened in surprise when he saw that some were carrying spades.
As soon as the sentries in the watchtowers had their backs turned, Franklin left his hiding place and returned to his prefab. As he crawled into his bed, Zia, lying in the bed next to his, started to move and turned her head towards him.
"It's been an hour since you left, did you catch something or what? She asked him in a whisper.
"Nope. It's just that something weird just happened," he replied in the same tone.
"What?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow."
"Okay."
He told her everything about this episode the next morning at breakfast.
"If what you're saying is true, I think you should talk to Juan about it," she suggested.
One of the guards then burst into the mess hall.
"Guys! Jack has disappeared!" he told them.
"Jack? Which Jack?" Alfredo asked.
"The skeleton," the guard replied.
"There is some Indian sorcery in the air…" Judd said.
"Madre de Dios, we don't joke about that kind of things!" The head keeper scolded him before getting up to leave the dining tent.
Juan and several of his colleagues, along with Zia and Franklin, went to the Baurusuchus' pit.
"It's like the skeleton never existed," he said shortly after reaching the latter.
Like the guard had said, there was not a single bone left in the hole dug the day before by one of the predators. However, they knew that the latter were not the culprits because they would have seen bone fragments scattered throughout the pit if that was the case.
"Franklin claims to have seen soldiers enter the camp, and the guards let them," Marisol informed him. "I knew something had caused the commotion I heard."
"Do you think those soldiers were behind the skeleton's disappearance?"
She nodded.
"He said they had cattle prods and shields. If I had to go into this pit, I would take those two items. He added that one of them put a trash bag in the trunk of the estate guard's car."
"So some high-ranking person currently living inside this estate knows something about the skeleton's identity," the head keeper deduced. "Who was on duty at the gate and at the watchtowers?"
"No idea. But if we ask them who these soldiers were, I think they're going to say Piss off."
While observing the predators, the keeper noted the presence of an item stuck between the teeth of one of them. Looking closely, she realized it was a piece of black cloth.
"Hey. You're seeing that?" she asked Juan.
"Yes."
He took his radio and called the vet.
"Brice. Could you come to the Baurus' Pit? One of them has something stuck between its teeth and it would be a good idea to remove it."
"Okay, I'm on my way."
During the day, the rumor of the coming of a group of soldiers in the previous night spread like wildfire and during dinner, George Lambert was unable to evade questions about it.
"George. What happened last night?" Juan asked him.
The InGen Security executive, then on his phone, looked up.
"Are you referring to the racket some of the carnivores made? The police came to take the skeleton," he answered.
"The very night following the discovery? My word, the US police are diligent," Pasqual commented as he was standing next to Juan.
"Yeah, they were fast," Allison said sceptically. "Really fast..."
"And if so, why weren't we woken up to cage the Baurus while they did that? It would have helped them a lot," Juan pointed out. "You see George, I'm not sure it's cops. According to the descriptions I got, they were dressed in black and were equipped with shields and prods, the same as those from our armory. And the only vehicle that parked near the gate was the car of one of the estate's guards."
"Okay, okay... It wasn't cops but some of our guys," George admitted calmly. "They were sent out to patrol the camp to deter any spies lurking in the woods after dark."
"And why did they come out of the camp with spades and a big garbage bag which they put in the trunk of the car? They were doing some night gardening?" Juan questioned him, starting to lose patience.
George, who just realized that he had made a mistake, froze for a moment and tilted his head to look at his screen, as if to hide from the keepers the lie in his eyes.
"My ass, George!" Marisol added. "You're really thinking we're idiots."
He didn't answer. Then Juan struck the table with the palms of his hands to make him react, which did not fail to surprise the guards sitting with their superior. In the rest of the dining tent, everyone fell silent to look at them.
"Stop playing at Pokémon and look at us when we talk to you!"
"Oh, relax!" One of the guards told him.
"Mind your own business!" Juan retorted sharply.
"Are you talking to me, Alatriste? Are you talking to me?" The guard replied.
Juan didn't recognized the latter and thought he had to be from one of InGen's US facilities.
George finally looked up and with a hand gesture, he urged his subordinate to calm down.
"The one who saw them was Mr. Webb, the IT tech from the Dinosaur Protection Group?" he asked.
"Yes. And?"
"Edward may have reintegrated him in the operation after that… misunderstanding in Costa Rica, but that doesn't mean I trust him completely."
"Even if he was lying, there's evidence you can't make up."
From his pocket, the head keeper then took out the piece of black cloth they had removed from Baurusuchus' mouth in the morning.
"Like this piece of fabric. Where does it come from? We found it stuck on one of the Baurus' teeth!"
"Come one, any moron can tear off a piece of black cloth and make a hole in it to make it look like it was found in a dinosaur's mouth," said the same guard who had been aggressive towards Juan a few moments earlier.
"Nobody asked you something, you moron," Marisol told him curtly.
"But shut the fuck up, you big cow," he retorted in a low voice.
"Hold me or I'm going to punch him…" the keeper said to her colleagues in an angry tone.
George turned to his obnoxious subordinate.
"Tony, shut up! You better apologize later," he admonished. "The last thing we need is another uprising!"
Juan then took out his phone and showed the screen to George. The latter saw a picture showing the Baurusuchus' snout, scarred by a fresh gash.
"And that gash on the Bauru's face, we made it perhaps?!" The head keeper exclaimed. "It wasn't here yesterday! We found it when we intervened on him this morning."
Surprised, George did not answer and did not even dare to retort that the cut could have been inflicted by one of the other Baurusuchus. Brice, who had come forward in order to stand next to Juan, intervened:
"Given its size, the gash was inflicted by the edge of a tool, such as a spade. Someone struck him on the snout, probably the same guy who left a part of his clothes in his mouth. The one who was put in the back of the car, to be probably sent to the hospital."
George nodded weakly.
"Can you give us the piece of fabric?" he asked, holding out his hand.
But Juan put the piece of fabric back in his pocket.
"So you can throw it away? Like they probably dumped the skeleton somewhere out there, never to be found again."
Backed into a corner, George Lambert stood up and addressed everyone inside the dining tent.
"Listen to me all! No skeleton was seen inside the Lockwood estate, got it? Nobody saw anything, okay?""
"We all had a collective hallucination?" Brice said sarcastically. "That's it, think we're morons, George! If it's to say bullshit, shut your mouth and just play Pokémon or jerk off while watching cockfights!"
"Take that!" Someone cried.
"I won't let you, Brice!" The InGen Security executive hissed at the vet. "Listen to me all, the first one who'll tell stories to the press will be in big trouble, I guarantee that!"
This threat raised a wave of protests among the keepers, vets and a few guards. The majority of the guards remained silent either because they were loyal to George and InGen no matter what, or because they feared receiving sanctions if they protested.
"No, but we're under a dictatorship or what?!" Mark exclaimed.
"It's scandalous!" Another keeper shouted.
"Well, once the animals are gone, I'm out!" One of the guards declared to his colleague. "I know they guaranteed my job but I'd rather be unemployed than work for a company of bastards! I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror again!"
Sitting at the same table as them, Valentine Taylor was sitting motionless, immersed in a pensive silence, starting to question his loyalty to InGen.
"It's like that story with Owen and Claire!" Pasqual said. "Spies and eco-terrorists!? My ass! My! Ass!"
"Stop, or Torres will send assassins after you," Alfredo half-joked.
"Don't talk about that guys, or we're going to learn one morning that you committed suicide with two bullets in the back," one of the few protesting guards pointed out.
As the dining tent hummed, George stood up without even taking his tray while some booed him and guards loyal to him tried to placate the disgruntled employees. Juan caught up with him near the exit and grabbed his arm firmly.
"How much is Mills paying you for all that masquerade about the skeleton?" he asked him. "Don't act like if you were innocent. Like me, you must be thinking that he knows who this dead person was and that it was he and not you who sent those guys. He looked like he was about to soil himself when he saw it..."
"Listen to me Juan, I don't know who the dead person was and I don't care. I just know I was going to be in big trouble if I let the cops come and investigate the skeleton. Is that explanation enough for you? This situation is just as uncomfortable for me as it is for you, for all of you."
He freed himself from the head keeper's grip and added:
"If you need anything, ask one of the officers. I'm going back to my room to play Pokémon as you like to say."
Juan watched the head of security head for the manor and he returned to his colleagues.
Once they finished eating, the DPG trio put their trays down by the dishwashing station and left the tent.
"… Because if you think about it, I'm a true democrat. George is a goddamn fascist. A goddamn fascist!" Someone nearby ranted.
"Nevertheless, we should talk about it in one way or another in the report. Franklin, you should film the Bauru and her scar tomorrow," Zia suggested.
"I remind you that Lockwood has control over this," he replied. "If he doesn't have the time or the energy to check the footage, Mills will and according to Juan, the latter seems shady in that whole affair. Forget it, he's going to tell us to delete that part."
The vet turned to their NGO's founder.
"What do you think Alex?"
Until then silent, the latter seemed to have a slight start.
"Eh? What do I think of it?... I don't know," he answered hesitantly. "I think it is better to wait until the end of the operation before deciding anything."
"No, but we have to talk about it at least on our accounts, Alexander! Our organization was created for that! We can't turn a blind eye!"
"I know, Zia! But we were not accepted into this operation without compensation. And one of those asks us to show discretion until the animals are shipped to their new homes. Let's try to settle this amicably with InGen instead."
Zia stopped and crossed her arms.
"So what are we?" she asked. "Its pawns and those of the Lockwood Foundation? Somekind of greenwashing tool? I joined the DPG to help these animals, not to cover up those harming them!"
"An accident has occurred and the Bauru has been cut. This is not the end of the world. And they tend to be brutal with each other."
"I'm not just talking about the scarred Bauru and the skeleton! I'm talking about all… this! Not only are the camp's paddocks mediocre, but some animals were transported in more than questionable conditions. Pierce had to lie in a truck container for an entire week, just because InGen refused to charter an additional plane! Franklin and I couldn't board the Arcadia because of the incident, but you were there. Sure, you didn't have access to Franklin's gear, but you did have your cell phone. You could have taken pictures or filmed with it. And what have you done? Eh? What have you done? You've been posting positive messages on our accounts since you went to the reception at the manor."
"I understand your frustration, Zia," Alexander said calmly. "Really, believe me. But we are all very tired. Let's talk about it with a clear head tomorrow. I promise to find a solution," he proposed with a forced smile. "Okay?"
"Okay…" she sighed.
"I'm going for a walk. I'll see you at the village."
They watched their boss walk away in the direction of the manor, heading for one of the paths.
"And I thought that InGen and I had a new start... Now Lambert is implying that I'm a liar. I think I'm going to be in for another ride," Franklin said sullenly.
"If there's one thing I know, it's that you're not a liar," Zia told him.
He couldn't help but let out a bitter little chuckle.
"I mean it's true. When you screw up, you screw up in an honest way," she added.
The IT technician bowed his head and sighed.
"Hey. What's the matter?" she asked, worried.
Taking his courage in both hands, Franklin decided to finally confess his secret.
"I have to tell you something…something I should have told you weeks ago. Months ago… No, right after I joined the DPG. Do you mind if we go over there to talk about it," he said, gesturing to a nearby lookout.
Located about forty meters from the tents, it overlooked the lagoons and the Pacific, which shimmered in the light of the setting sun.
"Okay…" she said with perplexity.
They went to sit on the lookout's low wall and Franklin revealed to his friend the real reasons that had pushed him to join the Dinosaur Protection Group. Passers-by saw the veterinarian bow her head with a pained look and the IT technician having a shifty and ashamed look. After that, it was quickly noticed that they started to avoid each other.
Two days after the skeleton's disappearance, a white helicopter with blue stripes landed on the manor's large lawn and disembarked Edward Torres, Alistair Iger as well as a woman, a lawyer, the same who came the day of Franklin's return. This trio went directly to the sale's marquee, where George Lambert and Elijah Mills had summoned all the operation's participants for a crisis meeting. InGen's camp security manager had indeed spoken to his superior and InGen management about the strong reactions to the skeleton affair and in order to nip in the bud what they feared to be the start of a strike or even a seditious movement, Susan Lynton had sent Torres and Iger to Orick in order to fix the situation. A week before the sale, there was no question that the employees start to show disloyalty, especially since traitors almost brought ruin to the operation in Burgo Nuevo. InGen had enough enemies outside of its walls, it didn't need to have some within them.
Whatever were the promises… or the threats made during the meeting, the employees did not speak any more about the skeleton thereafter. At least for a while...