His thinning blond hair was blow-dried, sprayed, moussed, swept back and piled high to cover a sizable bald spot on the crown of his head. His blue eyes gleamed brightly with a challenge. He wore a short-sleeved yellow sport shirt, khaki pants and leather sandals. Sewn on the breast pocket of the shirt was Flitcroft’s monogram—a blue circle with the overlapping letters of HFP.
“Why are you here, Howie?” Crowe asked.
Flitcroft’s eyes narrowed momentarily. Augustus Crowe and Jack Kavanaugh were the only men he permitted to address him as “Howie” and he still didn’t care for it.
“I’m straightening up, airing this place out.”
“Not that it doesn’t need it,” said Kavanaugh, “but why?”
“I own this place, remember?”
“And you owned it two years ago when you flew out of here, claiming you’d never be back,” replied Crowe. “What’s changed?”
“What’s changed is that I have a paying job for you, for both of you.”
He stared at the two men expectantly. In unison, Crowe and Kavanaugh folded their arms over their chests. Their faces, still masked by sunglasses, remained impassive.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about the job?” Flitcroft demanded.
“I have a boat,” said Crowe.
“And I have a chopper,” Kavanaugh stated. “If the job doesn’t involve hiring us to sail or fly, there’s no reason why we would be interested enough to ask you about it.”
Flitcroft shook his head. “You guys are still so quick to cop the ‘tudes.”
“That’s because we’ve done business with you before,” said Kavanaugh. “Howie.”
“It couldn’t have been all that terrible…you’re still here.”
Kavanaugh uttered a scoffing sound. “It’s not like I had much choice, not with all the process servers out there looking for me.”
“Have I charged either one of you a dime of rent in two years?”
“You haven’t collected a dime,” Crowe reminded him. “That’s different from charging us. I always figured you’d get around to billing us one day.”
“Charge, collect, whatever…if you two go back to work for me, we’ll wipe the debit column clean and start all over.”
“You still haven’t said what the work is about,” said Kavanaugh coldly.
Flitcroft smiled for the first time, showing his capped, bleached teeth. “By coincidence, the work is about you flying and sailing a film crew around.”
“A film crew?” echoed Crowe.
Flitcroft’s smile widened and he clapped his hands together. “Boys, I’m going into the reality TV business.”
Behind the dark lenses of his glasses, Kavanaugh’s eyes slitted suspiciously. “What kind of reality?”
“Real people, real things and real places.” His smile widening into a grin, Flitcroft gestured expansively with both arms “A TV series about Cryptozoica.”
“Whose stupid, suicidal idea was that?” Crowe demanded skeptically. “Not even the most desperate insurance company in Hollywood would issue a policy to cover a project that goddamn risky.”
“I’m financing it,” Flitcroft answered, tapping his chest. “I’ve got my own insurance company, remember? I’ll cover the cost of everything.”
Kavanaugh slowly took off his sunglasses, started to speak, then shook his head wearily.
“What?” Flitcroft stared at him. “Go ahead.”
“I thought the whole strategy was to bury that fucking place and hope the world and most of the courts forgot about it.”
“That was the strategy,” Flitcroft agreed. “But I didn’t get to where I am today by closing my mind to new opportunities.”
“Such as?” asked Crowe.
“After I dissolved the Cryptozoica corporations, my attorneys settled the wrongful death suits and managed to get all but one of the negligent homicide charges dismissed.”
“Which one?” Kavanaugh inquired, even though he knew the answer.
“The one the Jessup estate filed against you.” Flitcroft lifted his hands palm upward in an attitude of helpless resignation. “Sorry, Jack. You knew I had to give them somebody and you did fly Cranston, Jessup and Shah Nikwan in-country, against company rules.”
A flush of shame and anger warmed the back of Kavanaugh’s neck and unconsciously his body tensed, his fists clenching.
In a voice pitched low to disguise the tremor of building rage, he said, “I flew them there because they were my employers and they told me they’d fire me, Mouzi, and Augustus if I didn’t do it.”
“They wanted to shoot the animals,” Pendlebury interjected shrilly. “The product!”
Kavanaugh didn’t glance in his direction. He kept his eyes trained on Flitcroft’s face. “They told me they were going to shoot the animals with cameras. It wasn’t until they unloaded the chopper that I saw the rifles. I tried to talk them out of it, I told them we were in a restricted habitat. But no—it all boiled down to the fact that three of Cryptozoica’s five main investors wanted their own private safari so they could bag some Hadrosaurs and mount their heads over the mantle, to have trophies no other sportsman in the world could ever have.
“You knew damn well that’s what they had in mind all along—that’s why you conveniently went off to attend to pressing business in Java on that very day…Howie.”
Spots of red inflamed Flitcroft’s cheeks. “Even if I did know what they had planned, you knew the security protocols. You and Gus drafted them, with the input of that homegrown Dragon Lady of yours. Yeah, okay, Jack—maybe I had an idea what those three spoiled assholes intended and maybe that’s why I made myself scarce, so I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for telling them no. But you accepted the money to fly them there…I found the thirty grand in the chopper, that’s ten thousand apiece, right?”
Kavanaugh didn’t respond, but his jaw muscles bunched into tight knots.
“So, the end result of you taking a bribe is that two weeks before the Cryptozoica Island Spa officially opens for business, the main money-men are slaughtered, you’re gutted like a fish and the goddamn White Snake triad starts demanding their money back. Then it gets out that I’m doing business with the fucking Asian mafia and the SEC gets suspicious of me, and they drop a dime to the Financial Action Task Force. At about the same time I fly in a surgeon to sew up your intestines, the people we enticed to move here, to put up the storefronts and open businesses, see Cryptozoica Enterprises go belly-up before they make single sale to a single tourist.”
Flitcroft paused long enough to take a breath before he plunged on: “Oh, but wait—there’s more. The families of the three chewed-up dinosaur hunters file wrongful death lawsuits and enough civil charges to keep me in international court twenty-four seven for the next ten years. But let’s get back to you, Jack, because it’s all about you and your suffering, right?
“You’re responsible for raising tombstones over three men and a seven hundred-million dollar business deal, but you have your all medical bills paid and you get to hide out here, away from the reporters, the goddamn triads, the lawyers and the FATF. You get to keep the thirty grand in untaxable cash, a million buck helicopter and you live rent-free on a South Sea island and hang out at a whorehouse, drowning your sorrows in booze and hookers. Boo-hoo, Jack. You really got screwed with the shit-end of the stick, didn’t you? Boo-hoo.”
As Flitcroft spoke, Kavanaugh’s expression first went remote, as if he weren’t listening, then his face twisted into something dark and ugly. Tendons and veins swelled on his neck. The atmosphere in the office grew electric with tension. He took a step toward Flitcroft’s desk.
Alarmed, Pendlebury held out a restraining hand. “Jack, let’s not do anything foolish! You’re already skating on such thin ice—”
Kavanaugh’s blow landed like a steam-driven piston. Mewling, Pendlebury folded over, clutching at his stomach. Sheets of paper fluttered to the floor. He stumbled, knees sagging, and he would have fallen if Crowe hadn’t caught him and eased him into a chair.
Quietly, he said, “Kicking the asses of Bertram and Howie won’t do you any good, Jack.”
Between clenched teeth, Kavanaugh said, “It’s not supposed to do me any good. It’s supposed to help them, and that’s why I’m so tempted.”
By degrees the furious glint in his eyes faded and he unknotted his fists, flexing his fingers. “Howie, if you’re financing a TV show, then you must have reason to believe that you’ll triple your investment. You still go by the triple-minimum profit rule, right?”
Flitcroft nodded, relief that Kavanaugh wouldn’t surrender to temptation evident in his face. “You’re absolutely right. But I still need you guys.”
“To act as your transportation department?” inquired Crowe, straightening up from the gasping Pendlebury.
“Yeah, but also to keep any triad goons off my neck long enough for me to get everything done.”
“What’s
everything
entail?” Kavanaugh asked.
Flitcroft’s eyes glittered with sudden enthusiasm instead of anger or apprehension.
“The film project—a TV miniseries in the US and the UK and syndicated in the rest of the world. It’s going to bring out the whole truth about Cryptozoica, but from a scientific, National Geographic kind of approach. I should’ve gone that way in the first place, instead of going in the direction of a private resort so the rich could exploit the place.”
Crowe rolled his eyes ceilingward. “Give us a break. Cryptozoica all of a sudden has a new profit smell and you’re seeing a way to recoup your losses.”
“Even if that’s the case,” Flitcroft countered “so the hell what?”
“So,” said Kavanaugh, “neither you nor Cryptozoica has any credibility. It’s on your permanent record now and I don’t think it can ever be scratched off. You promoted the place as being a retreat where the secrets of life extension used by the Bible boys could be found. Your price tag was so high that only the elite of the world could afford the treatments, but still the story got out to the general public. Then you pulled it back, claiming it was all a practical joke, a harmless hoax.
The sad fact is, you’re known as Howard Flitflake, millionaire eccentric, a certified nut-job or just an ordinary scam artist. Take your pick, but whichever label you choose won’t make any difference once the press gets hold of this story. They’re not going to allow a do-over.”
Flitcroft’s lips tightened. “I’m going to keep a very low profile during the actual production. I’ll be at the bottom of five levels of intermediaries.”
“Whose profile will get the publicity?” Crowe asked. “Who’d you find who’s gullible enough to let themselves be ridiculed on a global scale?”
Flitcroft’s lips relaxed, curving into a smug smile. “None other than Honoré Roxton.”
“Who?” demanded Crowe and Kavanaugh, more or less simultaneously.
Still bent over in the chair, clutching at his middle, Pendlebury said haughtily, “Dr. Roxton is one of the world’s foremost paleontologists and experts on dinosaur behavior. She’s authored four books on the subject and she lectures all over the world. She’s on the Discovery and the Science Channels a lot.”
“Our TV reception is kind of hit or miss out here,” Crowe said dryly.
“Take my word for it,” Flitcroft said. “Honoré Roxton is extremely well-known and well-respected in scientific circles the world over. She’s even been allowed to oversee digs in the heart of Muslim countries.”
Kavanaugh smiled bleakly. “Which makes me wonder why she wants to get hooked up with you.”
Defensively, Flitcroft retorted, “Over the last eight months I’ve been corresponding with an English zoologist, a curator of the National History museum in London, no less. He persuaded me that Cryptozoica was far too important a scientific discovery to be relegated to the pages of tabloid newspapers or Internet legend.”
Flitcroft spoke so precisely, both Crowe and Kavanaugh knew he was repeating by rote something he had heard numerous times.
“Does the Roxton woman know she’s going to be your shill?” Kavanaugh asked.
Pendlebury levered himself out of the chair and glared at Kavanaugh. “She won’t be a shill. This is a sincere scientific endeavor that needs to be shared with the world.”
Both Kavanaugh and Crowe laughed.
Flitcroft did not seem to be offended. “I’ve learned a lot in the last two years. One of the things is that you weren’t the first white man to set foot on Cryptozoica, Jack.”
“I don’t recall claiming that I was. I knew the Tamtungs were on the old eighteenth century charts, but like the Perhentians, they weren’t explored until the twentieth century. Somebody had noticed the Tamtungs and taken notes.”
Pendlebury drew himself up, massaging his midriff. “One of those somebodys was no less a personage than Charles Darwin. The
Beagle
made a stopover here in 1836.”
Crowe favored the smaller man with a scowl. “Bullshit. There’s no record of Darwin visiting the Tamtungs in any of the volumes or editions of
Voyage of The Beagle
or
The Origin of Species
.”
The three men glanced at him in silent surprise.
“I’ve read a few books, okay?” Crowe said self-consciously. “I studied to be a marine biologist after I got out of the Navy.”
Flitcroft chuckled. “Well, Gus, you’re right…there’s no record of Darwin’s visit here, because he was persuaded not to publish his account.”
“If he didn’t write about it,” demanded Kavanaugh, “how do you know he was here?”
“I didn’t say Darwin didn’t write about it, only that he didn’t publish his account. According to what I was told, he made extensive notes of his explorations on Cryptozoica, complete with drawings by the
Beagle’s
draftsman, Conrad Martens.”
“Drawings of what?” Crowe asked.
“Of the flora and fauna,” answered Pendlebury. “And that’s one reason a small group of naturalists have kept Darwin’s secret ever since.”
“Kept it a secret
why?
” Crowe arched his eyebrows. “Because an island populated with survivors from the Cretaceous doesn’t fit with Darwinian evolutionary theory?”
“Darwin and his colleagues were more afraid that the island would be exploited for material gain and not studied so as to advance the science of zoology and paleontology.” Flitcroft again sounded as if he were reciting from memory.
“Oh.” Kavanaugh nodded sagely, gesturing to the resin models and stuffed toys. “That’s so completely different from your own plans.”
Flitcroft blew out a sigh. “I forgot how badly you get on my nerves, Jack. I was even feeling a little bit sorry for you. The historical truth behind Cryptozoica is a lot more complicated that you know. This is going to be a painstaking project to bring it forward.
“You can be a part of it and at the end of it go back to the States without being arrested…or you can just go on sitting on your ass here, getting drunk, pitying yourself and smelling bad.”
“Nobody is going to believe your story,” Kavanaugh said.
“You’ve got a story of your own about Cryptozoica that needs to be told,” Flitcroft replied in a gentler tone. “Could be it’s finally time to tell it.”
Unconsciously, Kavanaugh’s his free hand went to his face and traced the line of scar tissue curving away from the corner of his eye.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “could be.”