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John could sense the anger in Richard and knew the chat was over.
“No, Mr. Nesky. That will be quite alright for now. I will leave you with the documentation on the expedition: expenses, equipment, personnel, etc. And also a copy of the current InGen stock. Study them well, Mr. Nesky. The UN is not to be toyed with.”
“Thank you Chancellor. I will be sure to hand these over to the board. I will see you out.”
With that, the two men walked to the door. The door opened and Jenna walked in with a cup of tea.
Richard and John shook hands and John left, taking a sip of the tea and returning it to Jenna. She closed the door.
“Damn!” Richard screamed, banging his hand down on the paperwork.
“Darn special effect,” Cody Livingston stated, taking his feet off the table and leaning toward the tv to turn it off. Cody was a greying haired man of nearly fifty. He worked in the main office of the Costa Rican Coast Guard and had been working there for nearly twenty years. In that time he’d seen everything in the book. Everything from freak waterspouts to shark attacks. Once he even had to deal with a hysterical fisherman screaming over the radio that he’d caught a monster.
“Cody, we’ve got trouble,” interrupted Manuel, Cody’s assistant with his head popped in the door.
“About ten minuets ago we got a hail from a large cargo vessel who’s engines mysteriously cut out,” he said, walking Cody into a room bustling with people. He opened the drawer of his desk and unwrapped a map.
“This is where the hurricane is right now,” he said pointing to an area west Puerto Rico, over the Pacific Ocean.
“This is where they are. With their engines out, all we can do is wait and hope that they don’t run a ground.”
“Get a helicopter ready. I want a team out there as soon as possible. I want some boats in the area incase we need backup and incase they decide to abandon ship. Suit up people.”
Thirty minuets latter, the group was in the helicopter and heading towards the boat’s last known coordinates. The mood was tense. Sea rescues, especially during a hurricane were notoriously dangerous. And if the ship had grounded then finding survivors quickly would be a top priority.
“Sir,” the pilot yelled, “we can’t contact the boat and we’re almost on top of her.”
“We may be too late,” Manuel yelled in Cody’s ear.
Outside the wind was howling in a torrential rain. Everyone had to yell just to be heard over the roar of the rain pounding against the metal shell of the helicopter.
The team looked out the window at the barely visible ocean below. The copter circled around two more times in slightly wider arcs.
“Head toward the shore line and follow it south,” Cody yelled to the pilot.
“Yes sir,” he responded, turning the helicopter to the left.
“There!” the captain yelled, pointing out into the fog.
The ship had grounded.
The waves crashed against the side of the boat, pushing it further into the jagged rocks of the ocean front. The hull had multiple punctures and the rear hung up onto the shore with it’s largo cargo door ripped open.
The helicopter circled the ship, surveying the area. The ground around the stranded cargo vessel lay littered with crates and boxes, metal poles and wires: not entirely uncommon shipping equipment.
The helicopter slowly descended lower towards the deck to check for signs of life, then began to land on the deck. An updraft hit the helicopter lifting it back into the air towards the command tower of the cargo ship. The pilot swung the copter around and back, missing the tower. He tried to land the helicopter again when the air sank, dropping it onto the deck, where it bounced into the air again, only to be pummeled by a wave coming over the side of the s hip.
“We can’t land here,” Cody yelled.
“Bring us out of the storm. We’ll have to wait it out.”
With a sigh, the crew looked back upon the vessel dying in the surf, its hull punctured numerous times and shrouded in a blanket of fog. It looked like a ghost ship and it probably was. The more Cody thought about the crash, the more he realized no one could have survived.
