Something Wild

by Anna Martin

  “Johansson’s the biggest fool on the whole fuckin’ island. Your fuckin’ pet dinosaur is smarter than him.”

  “I know it.” Logan shrugged. “It’s all I’ve got right now.”

  “Will you get a second opinion?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have one of the lab rats look at it.” Tony sneered. “You know they listen to anyone with a white coat before they listen to us.”

  “I could. Yeah.”

  “Do that,” Tony said decisively. “The more people we have on our side the better.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going to send someone back to retrieve the body?”

  “I don’t think there’s any point. Even if we could find him again, chances are the scavengers will have finished him off.”

  Tony nodded. Logan wasn’t sure if he was pleased by this or just satisfied that the man wouldn’t get the benefit of a decent burial.

  “Call the team for me?” Logan said, making a decision on the spot. “I want to brief everyone as soon as we get back.”

  “We were the only ones out there today.”

  “Good,” Logan said. “Then they don’t have any excuse not to be there.”

  IT WAS early evening by the time Logan got done briefing his team and writing his report. Dizzy was definitely unimpressed at being cooped up all day, and even though Logan wanted nothing more than to take her for a long walk, it wasn’t a good idea. Instead he herded her back into his truck and drove to Kit’s place.

  He arrived just as Leilani was leaving.

  “Hey, Logan,” she said. “Kit’s not home yet.”

  Leilani crouched down, and Logan called Dizzy over. She was already responding to her name and simple commands. Maybe unsurprisingly, she was about as easy to train as a bird.

  Dizzy bumped her head against Leilani’s outstretched hand, making soft chirruping noises and gently nipping at her fingers.

  “She’s hungry,” Logan explained.

  “What does she eat?”

  “A whole range of stuff at the moment.”

  He had his phone out and quickly fired off a message to Kit. There was no way Logan could leave without updating Kit on what had happened this afternoon.

  “You can go on inside,” Leilani said, straightening up. “I’m sure Kit won’t be long.”

  “You’re going out?” Logan asked.

  “Yeah. I joined the knitting circle.”

  Logan just grinned at her.

  “Don’t say anything!” she said, holding her hands up. “I need a hobby; otherwise I’m going to drive myself crazy.”

  “Have fun,” Logan said and laughed when she flipped him off as she walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  LOGAN GOT into the office after his breakfast of Cheerios and knew he had to do something. He wasn’t good at waiting around for other people to make decisions. He was a get-out-there-and-get-shit-done type of person.

  So he’d taken his truck and headed out onto the islands.

  It was easy to forget how big the Archipelago was. Logan often overheard people talking about the South Island like their small community had taken over the whole place, but that just wasn’t the case. The island was a few thousand square kilometers of land, and most of it was untouched jungle. Less than three hundred people were huddled into one corner to live and work and socialize.

  Logan had always been okay with his own company. Even as a kid he’d been more interested in exploring on his own than being part of a crowd. So being alone, miles from civilization, wasn’t something that fazed him.

  It was a weekend, no one would be monitoring the emergency response unit, and no one knew exactly where he was.

  After he’d spent a day trying to reintroduce Dizzy to the dissimosaur herd, Logan had taken a meandering route back through the island, checking in on a few species. The protoceratops that had been injured and hiding was now back on her feet and moving around, which was good. The ornithomimus herd were starting to show signs of recovery after a difficult breeding season. For a while Logan was worried they would die out, but it seemed like there were several new hatches among their group.

  Logan knew it was a bad idea to linger in predator territory, but he hadn’t been able to get the image of the dead poacher from his mind. They would probably never know exactly how he died, but that didn’t stop Logan from wanting to investigate.

  With Dizzy sleeping on the passenger seat, Logan made slow circles throughout the east side of quadrant five. He found the clearing with little trouble, then tried to retrace the route he’d taken with Tony to find the body.

  The river was fast-flowing, with slippery mud banks. Logan guessed that the area was used as a water source for whatever animals used this territory.

  When he got to the area where they’d last parked, Logan killed the engine and sat for a while with the windows down, listening to the sounds of the forest.

  He was hoping to see something that might answer his list of questions—a dinosaur, preferably, so he could document the territory, or some kind of conclusive evidence. If the poachers were in this area he needed to know what they were looking for… and preferably what they were finding.

  But there was nothing but the rustling of wind through the trees, the still quiet of solitude.

  Then, after about twenty minutes, he heard the soft, familiar chug of a boat engine.

  THE FOREST felt a lot less silent when Logan was crawling through it on his hands and knees, determined not to be seen or heard by whoever was in that fucking boat. He had a handgun on his hip and a shotgun strapped to his chest—not that either would do him much good if a predator found him.

  He was distinctly aware that this was the single most stupid thing he’d ever done, not just in his career but in his whole life. Logan had never taken these kinds of risks in lion territory, or hyena, or crocodile.

  But nothing and no one was going to hurt his dinosaurs.

  The boat was moving toward the ocean, clearly on the return leg of its journey. Logan guessed it had to be small to be able to maneuver through the dense foliage and narrow, twisting banks of the river.

  Logan flattened himself on the ground, hoping that the thick grasses and shrubbery would hide him from view. Slowly, carefully, he removed the handgun from its holster and flipped off the safety. As the boat rounded the bend in the river, Logan had to bite back a curse.

  Simon Johansson was piloting the speedboat, with two men Logan didn’t recognize behind him.

  “Motherfucker,” Logan muttered.

  He waited for them to move farther downriver, then crawled backward until he was sure he was out of sight.

  Logan made himself count to one hundred before moving, wanting to be absolutely sure he wasn’t going to be seen by the men on the boat. As he slowly got to his feet, he became aware that he was being watched.

  The animal was hanging back between the trees, as wary of Logan as Logan was of it.

  This wasn’t the first time Logan had come across a dinosaur when he wasn’t expecting to, and he had a very firm protocol that he drilled into his team: no sudden movements or noises, stay calm, take time to make a decision. Very few of the animals on the islands would attack unprovoked, especially if they were unsure of the strength and size of the animal they were attacking.

  Logan was pretty sure the dinosaur was an ornithomimus, based on its size and the flashes of color he could see through the bushes. That didn’t mean he was safe, though. The ornithomimus that lived here were generally docile herbivores, but would attack if they thought they were under threat.

  He very carefully maneuvered the shotgun from across his chest to a position where he could shoot if he needed to. The animal didn’t move, and if this was an old-fashioned Mexican standoff, Logan wasn’t going to wait. He carefully telegraphed his moves and took a step toward the tree line and his truck. Then another. When he was close enough to make a run for it, he took that chance, even when he heard the ornitho
mimus start to follow him through the undergrowth.

  He broke free of the forest in time to see the ornithomimus come to a skidding halt, clearly unhappy with being exposed in the clearing. Logan didn’t wait for it to get any closer. He jumped into the truck, threw it into Drive, and got the hell out of there.

  He was getting tired of running away from dinosaurs.

  Logan knew where the river twisted and guessed it would cause problems for the boat, so he headed downstream to watch and try to get some pictures this time, especially since he knew who was on board—not that the pictures would prove much. Knowing what a slimy bastard Johansson was, he’d likely figure out an excuse for his behavior.

  Still….

  This spot was far more exposed than the forest where he’d watched the boat earlier, and closer to the ocean. With a good burst of speed, the boat would be out of the river, and it seemed the tide and wind would be on their side. Logan desperately wanted to follow the speedboat, to find out where it made berth, but sadly his vehicle didn’t magically turn into a boat.

  He left the truck farther back and gave Dizzy one of her tubs of food to pick at while he was gone. With his handgun still holstered and his phone in his hand, Logan crept up the rise on his hands and knees, feeling a twinge in his wrist that still wasn’t all the way healed.

  The speedboat hadn’t passed by yet; there was no way it could have covered the same distance Logan had in the truck. So Logan lay back down on his belly and shuffled between a small copse of trees and some bushes that he hoped provided decent cover.

  It took another fifteen minutes, and then the boat came into view again. Like Logan had expected, it was moving faster now, the conditions favorable. The two men on the boat with Johansson seemed agitated. One of them was yelling, and Logan was suddenly aware that he was only a few hundred yards away from them.

  Very carefully, he turned his phone to camera mode and set it to video. It was awkward, lying on his belly in the dirt, trying to get a good angle through the bushes to show that it really was Simon Johansson on that boat. The footage was shaky—Logan had zoomed in too far—so he ended the video and switched over to take a photo instead.

  But he forgot to turn the flash off, and he’d pointed the camera right in the direction of the people on the boat.

  Logan’s heart leapt into his throat.

  They’d seen the flash—of course they’d seen it. How could they not? The man closest to Logan—a thickset, olive-skinned man with silver hair—yelled for his partner to kill the engine.

  If they decided to get off the boat and come his way, Logan was fucked.

  Johansson was yelling, clearly livid, and the big guy was hunkered down with a shotgun aimed at the shore. At Logan.

  This was not part of the plan.

  If he moved, he’d almost certainly give away his position, but he wasn’t well disguised enough to be completely hidden here, especially if they had good binoculars.

  He licked his lips and forced himself to breathe slowly. He’d been caught in these rock-and-a-hard-place scenarios before, and… well, he was still around to tell the tale. Usually his bar stories were about lions or hippos, though, or maybe a gator, rather than staring down the barrel of a poacher’s shotgun.

  Very slowly, very carefully, he picked up a rock and flung it upward, toward the branches of a nearby tree.

  A second later, a bird scattered and the poacher’s shotgun fired.

  “It’s a fucking bird, Cortez,” Johansson said, his voice carrying through the clearing. “Get a grip.”

  Cortez didn’t seem convinced, but his partner had already turned the engine over again, and they were heading out to sea. This time, Logan stayed where he was until he was completely sure they were gone.

  WHEN HE got back to the truck, Logan covered a few miles before pulling over in a familiar spot to safely store the handgun and shotgun and give Dizzy some attention. She was pissed with him for ignoring her while he was making their dramatic escape, and he was happy to have her on his lap while he fussed with her feathers.

  Simon Johansson is behind the poaching.

  Dizzy nipped at his fingers while he contemplated that thought.

  It made so much sense.

  Johansson was all about profits, the bottom line; he was a businessman, which was why the trustees had hired him in the first place. They could operate their little scientific community without any problems, but after a few years, there was a desperate need for someone to come in and sort out the finances, watch the budgets, make sure everything was aboveboard.

  Logan had no idea how Johansson had been selected. He had already been in the post when Logan was hired. But Logan did know Johansson had run a string of successful businesses before coming out of retirement to take the job.

  For someone with dubious morals, there was plenty to take advantage of on the islands. Poaching, obviously, but the safari tours that Johansson had been pushing for too. How had he put it? “Very, very rich people.”

  Logan knew from his experience that safaris in Africa could easily cost tens of thousands for those exclusive, private tours. He’d led a few in the past, considering them a necessary evil. Conservation work cost money, and if people who had it wanted to hand it over in exchange for a few photo opportunities with African wildlife, well, Logan was okay with that.

  The Archipelago was different, though.

  They still knew so little about the animals here, and it would be decades more before they built up a picture of the habits and behaviors of the dinosaurs. But if rich idiots were willing to pay tens of thousands for a safari in Africa, what would they be prepared to pay for a dinosaur safari? Hundreds of thousands?

  What would they be prepared to pay to hunt a dinosaur? Because that would surely follow. Safaris were only part of the deal when it came to rich tourists in Africa. Hunting was the other. And if people were willing to pay to hunt a giraffe or lion, what would they pay to hunt a carnotaur?

  Logan sighed.

  There were definitely people who would pay millions. And whose pockets would that money line? Certainly not the scientists, or the ranger team. Never mind that the whole idea was nauseating.

  Simon Johansson had plenty to win and little to lose. If he got the safaris up and running—with a nice little black-market dinosaur leather business on the side—and if Kit was right and they started selling domesticated dissimosaurs as pets, then they would be making a serious amount of money.

  Logan put the truck in Drive and figured out a way to navigate with Dizzy on his lap.

  Why did it always come down to money?

  He managed to get them both home safely, though his mind was definitely elsewhere, and let Dizzy out to do her usual circuit of the apartment while he showered and changed. He set food out for Dizzy, who promptly ignored it in favor of coming to sit on the couch with Logan while he drank his beer.

  When his phone buzzed, he seriously considered not answering it, even though he knew it was likely Kit. With a sigh of his own, he reached into his pocket and hit the Answer button.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi.” Kit’s voice was soft, like he was hiding.

  “Are you still at work?”

  A silence. “No.”

  Logan chuckled. “Okay.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Drinking a beer, petting my dissimosaur. You?”

  “Considering getting takeout from Bruno’s. Want dinner?”

  Logan’s stomach rumbled. Dinner that he didn’t have to cook? “Hell yeah.”

  “Great. I can be there in twenty minutes or so. Do you trust me to pick for you?”

  “Sure. I’ll eat anything.”

  He’d stopped stroking over Dizzy’s head, and she nuzzled back up into his palm, letting him know how deeply unimpressed she was with this. Logan smiled and worked his fingers under her chin, pretty sure that if she could purr, she would be. He settled back against the couch, fluffing all Dizzy’s feathers up the wrong way, then smoothin
g them back down into place. She was already shedding some of her baby feathers, with new sleeker plumage starting to come through in its place. His baby was growing up.

  Kit let himself in, bypassing Logan in the living room to go into the kitchen and plate up the food.

  “It’s burgers and fries,” he said as he brought two plates through and took the chair after handing Logan food. “I was in the mood for junk.”

  “This is great,” Logan said enthusiastically. “I have news,” he said, then grabbed a fry and stuffed it into his mouth.

  “Go ahead.”

  Kit listened with a growing expression of horror as Logan caught him up on the events of the afternoon.

  “You have to be kidding me,” he said when Logan was done.

  “I wish I was.”

  “What do we do now?”

  Logan shook his head. “I still can’t prove anything. It’s Johansson’s word against mine and we both know how that would go.”

  “Logan. You saw the man out on a speedboat in the same area you just found a dead poacher.”

  “I’ve got a photo too,” Logan admitted. He’d left out that part of the story and wasn’t in a rush to give Kit any more details about how he’d got it.

  “That’s it, then,” Kit said. “That’s proof.”

  “Proof of what? If he wanted to, I’m sure Johansson could come up with a dozen legitimate reasons why he was out there today. There’s nothing to technically stop him from going onto the islands. He’s just an idiot for wanting to. Same goes for anyone else who works here.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t, not without telling you, or one of your team at the very least. There’s checks in place to keep us safe. We don’t just ignore that. I know you don’t have proof of Johansson actually shooting an animal but he’s still got hell of a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Who do we go to with this, though?” Logan countered. He felt sick. “Who do we trust? Johansson’s in charge around here and the only people who could remove him from his post are the trustees. But what if they’re involved with whatever he’s doing? What if it’s sanctioned by them? Then we’ve just exposed ourselves and we’re more likely to get fired than he is.”