Chapter VIII

            He held the cell phone in a grip of anger and frustration. His face was a passionate red, his fingertips were a sickly white, and they were both trembling almost uncontrollably. He might have heard the creak of the phone’s plastic giving way but he wouldn’t have cared anyway.

            All Lewis Dodgson cared about was the mess in front of him.

            Years of preparation had come crashing down around him like a cave-in and he was trapped blind and injured where no one would think to look. He had spent nearly all the money he’d accumulated since becoming one of Biosyn’s greatest masterminds on this one operation. He had devoted the last two years of his life to this one, final money-making venture.

And yet all he’d done was fast becoming for nothing. 

Four years ago, Dodgson had been in almost the same position. Fate was yet again intervening.

He didn’t have time for her right now.

Dr. Howard King was standing next to him, looking uncomfortably at the ticking time bomb that was Lewis Dodgson. “Lew?”

Behind his shades, Dodgson’s eyes closed slowly, every fiber of his being struggling to control his fury.

The mournful blow of a cruise liner split the afternoon air, adding to the calls of gulls and the waves slamming playfully against the seawall. The salty breeze pulling off the Pacific was pleasant. Behind him, the San Diego skyline stretched languidly towards the clear blue sky. It was a beautiful day. A perfect day.

Or it might have been.

“Lew? What did he say?”

Dodgson hissed through his clenched teeth. “He told me that we’re on our own.”

King was silent for a moment. “I can’t believe it.”

Dodgson shook his head, marveling at the naivety that was the modern-day scientist. King was unfamiliar with the business world, having spent his entire adult life captivated by the bones of animals long dead. He knew nothing of the pirate-like existence of the corporate kind. It had been in Dodgson’s experience that paleontologists—and men of science in general—were either completely untrusting or ridiculously credulous of others. King fell in the latter category. Easily manipulated.

It’s the very reason Dodgson had chosen him in the first place.

“I can,” Dodgson said at last, bitterly. “He’s a businessman. The sole concern of the businessman is to delve into dirty things without actually getting his hands soiled. He’ll watch from a safe distance while others—people like us, people with some goddamn balls—slip on thin gloves. If something goes wrong, it’s our fault. If something goes wrong, we get the rap.” He ripped off his glasses. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

King wiped his hands on his pant leg. “What are we going to do, then? He was supposed to supply the hired hands. It was his end of the deal. The whole plan revolves around having a veritable army to back us. We go in without one and we’re risking more than our reputations. We’re risking our lives, Lew.”

“His end of the deal,” Dodgson muttered. “His end. If I had bothered to actually run through that contract, I probably would have found that there was a loophole somewhere.”

“What was his excuse?”

“Not that it matters, but the pressure apparently came down harder than he thought. The whole world’s eyes are on his company now. He’s afraid of being found out. The chicken shit. Even if they do find him out, he’s got people like me to take care of those problems.” Dodgson kicked at a coiled rope.

King nodded towards the row of jungle green gas-powered Jeeps that were lined up, ready to board the giant freighter that was silent and waiting, a sheer wall against the dock. “There are fifteen of those things. We’ve already paid for them.”

“Well, we can’t take them all, now can we?”

King was taken aback. “We’re still going?”

“Of course.”

“You can’t be serious!” King cried, his eyes widening. “The plan called for a large group of armed men—”

“Then we’re going to modify the plan,” Dodgson said.

“You’re insane, Lew! We can’t go in there without unprecedented force. It’s a death wish, for God’s sake!”

“God,” Dodgson said, “has nothing to do with this. Look, King, two things: one, InGen went in there with a fucking armada. They failed miserably. Two, the original idea was to head in there covertly, with a small unit.”

“We scrapped that proposal for a reason, Lew,” King seethed. “It wasn’t practical. We go there, just the two of us, and we’ll get slaughtered. You understand? We won’t last a day. You want to go? Fine, you can go yourself, you deft prick!”

Dodgson’s hand shot out and gripped King’s throat. He slammed him against a dock piling. “I’ve sunk a fortune into this, King, and I’m not going to let you or anyone else stand in the way. I need you with me on this. A pre-teen kid with a rudimentary knowledge of the island managed to survive eight weeks on his own.” Here Dodgson came close enough for their red noses to touch. “You know more about that island than any person outside of InGen, King. Even more than me. I think we can handle this. And if I think we can do it, then we can. You can back out, sure. But just be prepared for the consequences. And there will be consequences, God help you, there will be consequences. Are we clear?”

King’s blue face projected his acceptance more than his awkward nod.

“Good,” Dodgson said, letting go.

King crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath.

“Besides,” Dodgson continued, turning towards the skyline, “it won’t be just the two of us. I have a friend coming to help us. He was supposed to be in charge of our little army. He’ll be the only one not disappointed by our bad fortune.”

King managed to get back to his feet, coughing horribly. “I suppose…someone has to be.”

Dodgson did not smile. “Humor is the last thing you want to use around me, King. I’ve spent too much time dreaming of success and succumbing to failure to be amused by trite attempts at comedy.”

Failure. His most fool-proof plan had crumpled at the pudgy hands of a fool. Twelve years ago, it was his plan that had ruined John Hammond and his Jurassic Park. It wasn’t supposed to, of course. The idea was for a disgruntled employee, one Dennis Nedry, to bring back embryos—embryos of the extinct animals that roamed Hammond’s sick Disneyland—for reverse engineering by Dodgson and his men at Biosyn. They were going to make their own versions, better versions, for sale before the park could open in the 1994-1995 season. But somewhere along the way, his inside man had fucked up. He was dead, the park and the embryos were destroyed and Dodgson was out $75,000.

Biosyn was on the verge of firing him for the fiasco when he came across new information: Hammond’s Site B. It took three years for Dodgson to convince his Board of Directors that an operation should be sent to collect eggs from the specimen nests and it was going to take another three for them to physically carry out the plan. They even set a date: July 3, 1999. But InGen’s Peter Ludlow was ahead of them every step of the way. Sensing Biosyn’s poise, Ludlow looked desperately for a way to wrest power away from his uncle Hammond so that he might properly defend the assets the old man had so casually discarded. Ludlow spent four years using every trick he knew to harmlessly bump off the CEO, but he was utterly unsuccessful.

Then there was the Bowman family’s discovery of Site B. Then there was Ludlow’s mutiny. Then there was the incident in San Diego.

All of which led to more postponing. Little over a week after San Diego, the United Nations passed a bill that restricted the island from everyone, including its former owners. Airspace was also closely controlled for a subsequent few months. But by 2002, when Dodgson was scheduled to leave again with Biosyn’s financial backings, security of Isla Sorna had become ridiculously lax. Two months before his journey to victory was supposed to begin, Dodgson caught wind of a rumor that came straight from high-ranking officials in the Navy. Apparently, a group of people, including the infamous Dr. Alan Grant, had been on the island sometime during the summer of 2001. U.N. cover had nearly doubled with the construction of a small peace-keeping base on nearby Isla Muerte, complete with helicopters, patrol boats, and weaponry enough to protect and destroy.

Thwarted yet again, the specter of defeat following him like a bad odor, Lewis Dodgson continued to rally for Biosyn’s support. The Board, however, was tired of the endless impediments. It didn’t help matters that nearly seven million dollars of Biosyn funds had been sunk into Dodgson’s dream and nothing had come from it.

Dodgson was not deterred. He tried a different approach. He tried to recreate the dinosaurs using the same methods that Hammond’s scientists had, but he had neither the equipment nor the technical know-how to be profitable in his endeavors. He was also hindered by the lack of money with which he had to work.

Eventually, Biosyn drew first and final blood. Dodgson was fired early in 2004.

It didn’t take him long, however, to find a new benefactor. One who knew how to get him the funds he needed; one who could put him on the island with little fuss; one who had inside knowledge of InGen’s operations.

The one. Intelligent, ruthless, powerful. Everything Dennis Nedry, Dodgson’s first InGen defector, was not. It seemed to be the perfect alliance.

But today proved to Dodgson that a businessman, no matter what he said or how he said it, was still a businessman and trust was but a meaningless word to them. Dodgson was far from a trustworthy man himself, but the businessman was the worst kind of scum.

It was a businessman, after all, who had made him into what he eventually became.

Dodgson smiled tightly. “‘Failures are mistakes to be learned from. But more, they are proof that you don’t know shit about shit.’”

“Eloquent words,” King muttered, as he rubbed his neck.

“A very wise and ignoble man once said that,” Dodgson replied off-handedly, checking his watch.

1:28. Less than a minute and he’ll be late.

Almost as if on cue, a brand-new Aston Martin appeared on the road parallel to the docks. Its silver gleam looked completely out of place amongst the rusted red and white tanker crates and it looked almost absurd as it slid loudly by the idle green Jeep Wranglers.

Before it had even come to a complete stop, the door swung open and the car shut off. A man wearing a blue bandana, black tank-top and jean pants and shades darker than any Dodgson had ever worn stepped out and walked straight up to the former Biosyn employee.

The grip he gave was at once comfortingly warm and disturbingly strong. But Dodgson liked that in his employees. Basil Ross had long ago demonstrated his talent and his loyalty and he was by far the best choice Dodgson could possibly have conjured for their mission into hell.

“Where’s my platoon?” Ross asked quietly, looking around at the few busy dockhands as they went about their business. He ignored King completely.

Dodgson threw a sidelong glance at King, a half-smile perverting his otherwise serious face. “They won’t be coming. Technical difficulties.”

Ross nodded without changing expression. “Are the things I asked for aboard?”

“They will be,” Dodgson assured. “They’re with the rest of our…luggage.”

            “Okay, then,” Ross said. “I’ve got some extra things to bring just in case. That all right with you?”

            Dodgson was all teeth. “Whatever’s necessary, my friend. Bring what you need, bring what you want. I want to enter, collect and escape without compromise and without problem. If you think that you’ll need goddamn Keebler Elves, then bring them. I’m not going to fail this time. You guys are here to make sure of that.”