He could see Osborne smiling as he looked through the scope of his rifle.
There was no way they could make the jump now. Rex could barely stand. Mr. Redfield leaned over the edge of the boat and tried to push the debris out of the way to get closer, but there was simply too much of it.
One of the Apache helicopters moved into position, giving it a straight shot at the shack.
Rex struggled to his feet. TJ grabbed his stumpy little arm. “C’mon, pal,” he said, looking into the water. “We gotta swim for it.” His feet suddenly lifted off the ground. He reached around to find Rex’s jaws clamped down on the back of his shirt. Then his stomach lurched as Rex hurled him through the air with a mighty fling of his head.
Mr. Redfield tried to catch him but only managed to break his fall. TJ lunged for the edge of the boat, and Mr. Redfield grabbed his arm.
“We can’t leave him!” TJ reached across the stretch of water littered with the shredded metal debris and gasoline that used be their airboat.
Rex sat. He snorted the way he did just before TJ put him to bed. TJ always imagined him saying, “Goodnight” or maybe even “I love you.” Then he turned and hobbled into the shack.
“No!” TJ struggled to break free from Mr. Redfield’s grip.
“Sorry, TJ.” Mr. Redfield squeezed tighter and, with the other hand, pushed on the throttle. The boat sped away, leaving Rex behind.
Smoke streaked across the sky with a high-pitched whistle as the helicopter fired two missiles. The shack erupted in a burst of heat and splinters and fire.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The sounds faded away. His body went numb. But the smell of smoke was thick in the air. It choked the breath out of TJ’s lungs. His head felt light, like it wasn’t attached to his body anymore.
The boat skipped over the water and tufts of swamp grass, jostling so hard that his knees repeatedly slammed into the deck. But he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything.
A voice cut through the silence. “Hang on!” Mr. Redfield slammed on the throttle.
Sounds came pouring back in. Sam’s crying. The cry of the engine. The whine of the machine guns warming up behind them.
It was as though Mr. Redfield had channeled every 70s action movie car chase scene he could remember. He made hairpin turns. He raced through narrow corridors of trees, sparks shooting off the sides of the boat. He jumped over fallen trees.
It wasn’t enough. The machine guns spun and popped as they opened fire. The boat’s propeller shredded and sputtered and died. Within moments the boat was drifting lifelessly.
The two Apache helicopters maneuvered to the front of the boat. One of them dropped down so it was only a few feet above the water. The other hovered about a hundred feet above it.
Mr. Redfield stepped in front of Sam and TJ.
“Dad?” Sam tugged on the back of his shirt.
Mr. Redfield kept his voice as steady as he could, more than a little difficult under the circumstances. “Close your eyes, kids.” All he could do in those last moments was try to keep them from being afraid. No one should have to spend their last seconds being afraid. He took one last deep breath and closed his eyes.
He jumped at the piercing whine but dared to hope when he wasn’t riddled with bullets or blown to smithereens. The whine wasn’t coming from the helicopter. It was another airboat.
Horne and Ferguson raced toward them, their eyes squinted and cheeks puffed against the onslaught of wind. The lower helicopter began to turn toward them but not quickly enough. The airboat hit a submerged stump and launched into the air like a surface-to-air missile.
Ferguson and Horne dove overboard just before their boat clipped the lower helicopter’s rotor. The chopper wobbled out of control and crashed down into the water, exploding in a sudden burst of heat. The rotor rocketed upward into the tail of the second helicopter. It swayed to the side before splashing down too. The swamp swallowed it whole.
The third helicopter—the one with Osborne on it—banked away and disappeared past the edge of the swamp.
Without the threat of imminent death to keep his muscles rigid, Mr. Redfield collapsed to his knees. His brain tried to reconcile the two minutes of craziness that just occurred. Then it gave up and started singing Kansas songs. He wrapped Sam in the tightest hug of all time and refused to let go even when she claimed she couldn’t breathe.
The sound of splashing interrupted the meatiest riff of, “The Boys Are Back In Town.” Mutated alligators with Gene Simmons face paint swam through Mr. Redfield’s imagination. Then a swamp creature reached up and grabbed the edge of the boat.
Only, it wasn’t a swamp creature, it was a man with a small scar on his chin. His voice was full of swamp water and helicopter exhaust. “A little help?”
Mr. Redfield pulled Horne into the boat then the two of them hauled another man—a gruff looking soldier that appeared to have been on the losing side of a cage match not long ago—out of the muck too. Everyone sat very still. They stared at their hands, at each other, at nothing, looking for something to say.
Mr. Redfield finally broke the silence. “That was the craziest hour of my life.”
Horne chuckled then coughed some swamp grass out of his lungs. When he could speak again, he looked to TJ. “How’d we do?” Only then did he notice the emptiness in TJ’s eyes. He had seen that look countless times on countless faces. “I’m sorry.”
TJ’s empty eyes filled with tears. “They didn’t have to kill him. I would have taken care of him. I wouldn’t have told anybody about him. We were going to hide him out here.”
Mr. Redfield pulled TJ close to him. “I saw what Rex did. He saved your life. He was a truly brave… dinosaur.”
TJ didn’t want to be comforted, but he didn’t shrug away from Mr. Redfield. He looked out over the wreckage and smoke. The ash swirled atop the swamp.
Suddenly the specks shot in different directions as something broke the water’s surface. Something big. A green tail poked up then disappeared below just as quickly. TJ gripped the side of the boat, the memory of the alligator that had attacked him and Sam flashing in his head. This was all a little too Peter Pan for his tastes.
Horne noticed the worry on TJ’s face and followed his eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I thought I saw something.” The tail popped up again, but TJ got a better look at it this time. That was no alligator. “Look! There!”
Everyone looked. They all seemed to have the same initial reaction that TJ had. But their worries vanished when Rex’s head popped out of the water.
TJ leapt overboard. He swam out to Rex and waded next to him. “You’re okay.”
Rex chortled and licked him in response, his tongue going right into TJ’s eyeball. He dipped below the water for a second before popping back up. He was weak from his wounds. It took the combined strength of everyone on the boat to lift Rex out of the water. Cuts and gashes littered his body. He exhaled a weak and wispy moan before losing consciousness.
TJ looked frantically from one face to another. “We need to get him to a doctor.”
Horne studied the situation. The rotor on the airboat was totaled. No way to get the boat moving again, and they were several hundred feet from shore. Only one option. He jumped into the water. The swamp was pretty shallow in most parts. He could stand on the bottom; the water only came up to his chest. Ferguson and Mr. Redfield jumped in after him. They dug their heels into the slimy swamp floor and pushed. The boat inched toward shore.
“One dinosaur doctor coming up,” Horne groaned.
***** ***** *****
The neon light of the alarm clock painted the room in a pale green. It made TJ and Horne look like creatures out of a horror movie, which did nothing to settle Doc’s heart.
“What in the name of!” Doc bolted upright after Horne gave him a shake.
“Easy, Doc,” TJ said. “It’s just me.”
“The Beaumont boy? What are you doing? How did you get in here?”
TJ
flicked the light on, which sent shock waves from Doc’s eyes into his brain. “No time to explain, Doc. It’s an emergency. You’ve got a patient waiting.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Doc groaned as he rubbed his eyes. “Not to mention breaking and entering. What’s this all about?”
“Remember when you asked me what kind of dog I had dog, and I said it was kinda hard to say?” TJ pulled Doc into the kitchen. “It’s easier if I just show you.”
Rex was sprawled out on the kitchen table. Doc jumped out of his slippers and splattered a stream of curses against the wall. “Is that…?”
“A dinosaur?” TJ finished his thought. “Yes. And he needs your help.”
***** ***** *****
Doc muttered to himself the entire time he was patching Rex up. He stopped asking questions after a while when the answers only made him ask more questions. No simple explanation was going to provide him the amount of understanding he wanted, so he decided to just accept the fact that he was sewing up lacerations on a Tyrannosaurus rex. It was nearly two hours before he finished.
“The wounds were largely superficial,” Doc said. “He’ll be in pain for a few days, but otherwise, he’ll be fine.”
“One more thing, Doc,” Horne said, pointing at the incision on Rex’s neck.
Horne was about to explain what had been inserted into Rex’s neck, but Doc waved the explanation away. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Doc removed the small electronic tracking device from Rex’s meaty neck, dropped it on the floor, and crushed it beneath his boot.
Horne nodded. “With that out of Rex’s body, we have a fighting chance of getting him somewhere safe.”
“But where’s that?” Sam asked. “And how do we get him there?”
Horne spoke through a yawn, the long day and night finally catching up to him. “I’ll need to call in a few favors. But we’ve got one more thing to take care of before we get to that.”
***** ***** *****
The morning brought a swarm of local police, firefighters, government agents, and men in fancy suits to the banks of the Everglades. They scoured the wreckage and tried to piece together what had taken place. Osborne and Kruger watched the circus from a stretch of nearby shoreline.
Kruger lamented the loss of his life’s work. “Everything I’ve worked toward since graduate school. Every important discovery I’ve ever made led to this. My legacy. Gone. It’s over.”
“It’s not over,” Osborne snapped. “Not until we find the subject’s remains and dispose of them. Not a trace can ever be found.”
Kruger sighed so heavily the reeds in front of him bent. “What a waste.”
“If you would have listened to me, this could all have been avoided. We’d have the subject right now. We’d be cloning hundreds of them. But we still have your research. This isn’t finished. Next time—”
“There won’t be a next time.” Horne marched up behind them, flanked by Sergeant Ferguson, Mr. Redfield, TJ, Sam, and half a dozen heavily armed Military Police. “End of the line for you.”
Osborne pointed at Horne. “Arrest this man. He’s committed more acts of treason in the past twenty-four hours than I can count.”
“Not gonna happen,” Horne said as he gestured to the military police officers. They marched forward and surrounded Osborne and Kruger. “I spoke with your superiors. Turns out you had orders to terminate this project months ago. They weren’t happy to hear you’d disobeyed. And they weren’t too pleased to hear you’d invaded a small town and tried to kill a couple of kids, either.” He turned to the officers, who looked to be in no laughing mood. “Take them into custody.”
Osborne struggled and yelled as the MPs restrained him and hauled him away. Kruger just hung his head and let the authorities take him.
Mr. Redfield intercepted their path and addressed the officers. “Gentlemen, may I?” They looked from one to another before nodding in agreement. Suddenly, Mr. Redfield leveled Osborne with the kind of right cross only a father who had just shielded his child and her best friend from exploding helicopter debris could throw. “Gah!” Mr. Redfield said while shaking and working his fingers. “So worth it though.”
Osborne and Kruger disappeared into the back of an unmarked, windowless van.
Sam turned to TJ. “Sorry your birthday sucked.”
TJ shrugged. “Wasn’t so bad.”
“I broke your birthday present.”
“I’ve got my best friend.” TJ threw his arm around Sam as they walked away from the swamp. “What else do I need?”
Chapter Thirty
The smell of gasoline was thick in the air even before they stepped out of the plane. Ellen stood to stretch her legs, her neck, her back. A normal sixteen-hour flight wreaked havoc on a person’s body. But a sixteen-hour flight on a military cargo plane was a truly hellish experience. She would have to soak in a tub for weeks after this to soothe her aching muscles.
That is, if she wasn’t arrested by officials from any of a handful of countries. As much as Brock had tried to assure her that, though their plan had to be kept quiet it was all perfectly legal, Ellen didn’t buy it. Not totally, anyway.
TJ ran around the plane, trying to peek through every window and touch every button. Brock lowered the tail ramp. TJ darted past the large cargo van parked in the rear of the plane and nearly knocked Horne down in his excitement to get out and see where they had landed. Ellen stood back, her eyes closed. She listened and smelled and felt the current of hot, moist air that was pulled inside the plane. She wanted to savor every second.
Horne startled her from her peaceful reverie. “You coming?”
She took a deep breath and walked down the ramp. The plains of Africa beckoned, spread out like a golden sea. She had finally made it. The one place on earth she had wanted to visit more than any other. A place she thought she’d never see.
Horne sidled up next to her and casually draped his arm over her shoulder. “Everything you hoped for?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Then she looked down at Horne’s hand by her chin. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing there.”
“Do you object?”
“I’ll let you know when I do.”
Horne stared out at the plains, wishing he could see the world through Ellen’s eyes. “So, am I forgiven for lying?”
Ellen scoffed. “A trip to Africa doesn’t buy you forgiveness.” Horne’s face drooped into a frown. He started to slide his arm off her shoulders, but she grabbed his hand. “But doing the right thing and saving my son does.”
Their eyes traveled to the east, only about a hundred yards, where the plains suddenly gave way to lush jungle. Two very different worlds existing side by side.
The cargo van rumbled down the tail ramp behind them. Horne threw open the tailgate, and was almost crushed when Rex leapt out. He ran around in circles and rolled in the dirt, happy to be free of his cramped confines. TJ joined him. The two of them laughed and chortled until they could barely breathe. When they found themselves close to the edge of the jungle, they both stopped as though they were having the same thought at the same time.
Rex hung his head. TJ touched his forehead to Rex’s. Then Rex lifted his nose to the air and cracked the sky with a bloodcurdling roar. Horne and Ellen raced toward TJ, who hadn’t even flinched.
TJ looked up at Rex. “C’mon, pal. Don’t be like that.” Rex hung his head again, looking guilty. TJ threw his arms around him. Tears rolled down his cheek and down Rex’s neck. “You gotta go, pal,” TJ said. “You can be free here. They’ll never find you. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
Rex licked TJ’s face—who knew when would be the next time he’d get to taste eyeball?—then ran toward the jungle, his head still low. He stopped at the tree line, looked back at TJ once more, and then disappeared into his new home.
“Bye, Rex,” TJ muttered.
A loud chortle roared back from within the jungle. Ellen squeezed TJ and told herself she’d ne
ver let him go again.
Never.
Of course, she knew she would have to eventually, but that wouldn’t stop her from telling herself that every time she hugged him, and she couldn’t imagine that’d she’d ever stop that, either.
“I’m really proud of you, honey. You did the right thing.”
“Thanks, Mom.” TJ said a little glumly. He sighed then turned away.
In the far recesses of her mind, Ellen wanted to stay. She’d always dreamed of being in Africa, and finally, finally she was here. But now, looking down at her son, that dream didn’t seem so important. She smiled, knowing she was about to rock some serious socks, which seemed even better than being in Africa. “How about we go home?“ she said, ruffling TJ’s hair in the way moms love but kids hate. She was hardly able to contain her own excitement. “I may be wrong, but I think Doc has a furry little surprise waiting for you.”
TJ instantly brightened. The kind of gargantuan smile usually only seen in toothpaste commercials or when lottery checks are awarded. “Really? Do you mean it?”
Ellen nodded. “You deserve it. But you have to promise me—”
“I know, I know. But after dealing with the poop of a T-rex, the poop of a dog doesn’t seem so scary.”
As they boarded the plane, TJ turned and took in one last look at the vast and lush greenery of the African landscape. He let out a sigh. “I just hope the lions don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind what?” Ellen asked.
“Not being the kings of the jungle anymore,” TJ stated with certainty. “Rex is runnin’ the show now.”
THE END
Acknowledgements
Without our publisher/editor/designer extraordinaire and overall make-it-happen tour de force Ellie Sipila, Rex would undoubtedly be just another big, strange looking egg buried in the muck of a vast swamp. Simply saying "Thank You" doesn’t seem like enough, but in all sincerity, thank you, Ellie. You rock!
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