Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Soaring Star Rescue
island of Kauai, Hawaii
"Hey Josh, that couple is here looking for you." My admin said, sticking his head into my office. "Do you want me to send them in?"
"Thanks, Hector." I stood as a couple in their mid-forties entered my office. I came around my desk and shook their hands. "Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Joshua Jacob Muldoon, but my friends call me JJ. How can I help you two?"
I ushered them to a pair of chairs in front of my desk before I took a seat on my desk facing them.
"Two weeks ago, our daughter went with her Best friend Sandra Carrington and some others from her school to Costa Rica, but we heard nothing. Until a week later, when the crew of the yacht they were on returned to inform the authorities that Maria, that's our daughter, had gone ashore on an island with the others and didn't come back. The Island's name was Isla Nublar."
I knew that name all too well. I felt my stomach drop. There was only one reason that they came to see me, but. I couldn't lie I wished they wanted me to go to any other island.
"We asked around and everyone says you and your company are the best. Please bring our little girl home." Mrs. Sullivan pleaded, her eye burrowing into mine.
They weren't wrong. My company, Soaring Star Rescue, was a privately funded organization that specialized in humanitarian aid and hostile extraction. The problem was, I knew what was on that Island and I wasn't so sure that I could help them.
My prolonged silence prompted Mr. Sullivan to say. "Money is no object, Mr. Muldoon." He handed me a six-figure check. It was way more than I usually charged. My main objective with Soaring Star was to help people. I rarely charged more than people could reasonably pay. Except for government types. I always fleeced the bastards when they came pounding on my door, demanding my cooperation.
I looked down at the check-in my hand and with a resigned sigh said. "Well, Mr. Sullivan, you have engaged the services of Soaring Star Rescue. Rest assured, we'll find your girl. But let me be clear, the Island she's on is like no other place on earth. Odds are she's already dead. You need to prepare yourselves for that possibility."
"We have." Mrs. Sullivan said. "But we have to know for sure Mr. Muldoon. "
I nodded once and shook their hands. "If she's alive, I'll bring her back. "
"What's the job?" Hector asked as soon as the Sullivans left.
"Remember, I told you how my father was killed on an island in Costa Rica?"
Hector nodded, looking at me expectantly.
"The Sullivans lost their daughter on that island. Isla Nublar"
Hector whistled. "Wait, your old man was part of the Jurassic Park incident?"
I nodded my head. "He was Hammonds Game Warden in Kenya and head of security at the park. "
"Shit man. Are you sure you want to go there? I mean odds are she's dead, right?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Probably. But for six figures, I'll find out for sure. Besides, I made peace with all that a long time ago."
Hector looked at the check the Sullivans made out. "Let's see if this bad boy clears." He went inside to do just that. The man was practically skipping. I met Hector at a dive in LA. He was a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter rescue pilot. A routine mission went south, and they lost the citizen they were trying to rescue. It wasn't his fault. But lowlife vultures formerly known as reporters blamed him for everything. I dug into the incident and drew my conclusions. Then I hired him, and he had never failed me once.
Three hours later, Hector found me in my office. "It cleared."
"Good, get Little Bear and Loni. Have them ready to go within the hour. Prep the challenger we're going to need it."
185 Miles from Isla Nublar
The Challenger was a custom LHD Amphibious Assault Ship with two LCUs and a Jayhawk. A gift from one of my silent partners. We retrofitted the Challenger for humanitarian missions. But we kept most of the armaments for hostile encounters.
The Challenger would anchor a mile from the island, and we'd go in with an LCU. Once making landfall, we'd take an all-terrain vehicle to the Visitor Center. It was the consensus of the crew that Cassy Hargrove, one of the passengers, knew what she was doing when she brought them to the Island. I was hoping she'd done enough research to know that the visitor center was there and would be the safest place to hold up. A phone call to an old friend got me a map of the island and its facilities. It marked an emergency bunker on the map, but I had no way of knowing whether any of the missing kids knew about it.
We hadn't even started, and I already hated this job. I'd be going in with James 'Little Bear; Johnson a Cheyenne tracker I've known since I was in college and Loni a former EMT from New York. I first met Little Bear in college. He was a tracker who invited me on a hunting trip when I helped him fix his truck. He was a first-class tracker. I all but begged him to join Soaring Star when I started. He'd been with me ever since. I was grateful to have him.
Loni applied five years back. She'd been looking to make a fresh start when a mutual friend suggested she apply for Soaring Star. I was always looking for competent people and Loni was that and more.
As for myself, I was in Search and Rescue with the Coast Guard before establishing Soaring Star Rescue. If you were expecting some profound reason for starting S.S.R you'd be disappointed. Not being on a government payroll meant no cutbacks and with the help of some powerful partners, silent or otherwise, I dealt with little to no red tape.
On the deck of the Challenger, I could see Nublar looming beautifully and ominously in the distance. Its outline silhouetted in the mist. A feeling of trepidation filled me. "Welcome to Jurassic park."
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