The Great Zoo of China Read online

  ‘CJ! I see it!’ Hamish’s voice called. ‘Go under! Now!’

  CJ didn’t bother to discuss her brother’s plan. She grabbed a pipe underneath the running board and swung herself under the speeding garbage truck, the Kevlar backplate of her jacket skimming against the roadway as—

  —the garbage truck swept into another tunnel and—

  —whack! Hamish swung the truck in close to the tunnel’s mouth, so close that the truck’s left flank hit the mouth of the tunnel, taking the dragon clean off it while the garbage truck continued on into the tunnel, with CJ safely underneath it!

  The dragon fell to the roadway, bruised and confused, as the garbage truck sped away.

  Then it shook its head, got back to its feet and took off, heading back into the fray.

  In the garbage truck’s cabin, Hamish peered at his side mirror.

  The creature was gone. But he couldn’t see CJ.

  ‘You still with us, Chipmunk?’

  ‘I’m still here,’ CJ’s voice replied. ‘Thanks, little brother.’

  ‘Can you get to the cab?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Hamish said, ‘You know, this is some seriously crazy shit—’

  The windshield in front of him exploded inwards. The black-fisted foreclaw of a dragon appeared immediately afterward, quickly followed by the upside-down head of a fourth red-bellied black prince.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Hamish yanked his head back, involuntarily pulling on the steering wheel as he did so, causing the speeding garbage truck to slam against the side wall of the tunnel and kick up sparks.

  On the underside of the running board, CJ swung wildly with the unexpected swerve and a blaze of sparks flew up all around her.

  ‘Hamish! What are you doing?!’ she called.

  ‘I got a dragon problem of my own up here!’ Hamish yelled.

  The dragon in front of him was trying—in a furious frenzy—to tear away the windshield and get inside.

  Beside Hamish, Greg Johnson levelled his AK-47 at the dragon and fired a short burst.

  The bullets pinged off the animal’s armoured forehead. The dragon barely noticed.

  It roared and lashed out, knocking the assault rifle from Johnson’s hand.

  As the garbage truck sped on, CJ used all her strength to haul herself out from under it and swing up onto its running board.

  The running board—on which the zoo’s garbage men would stand as they went about their work—ran down the rear half of the truck.

  CJ saw a steel ladder at the rear. If she could get to it, then she could climb up onto the roof and work her way forward to the cab.

  As the garbage truck raced through the tunnel, swerving and weaving, she edged down the running board toward the ladder.

  The fluorescent lights of the tunnel whizzed by beside her as she made her way down the side of the speeding truck.

  CJ arrived at the ladder, grabbed a rung and hauled herself quickly up it.

  She poked her head up over the roof—to find herself staring into the sinister smile of the dragon that had been knocked off the side of the truck earlier!

  It was perched on the roof of the garbage truck, tail slinking behind it, its chin pressed against the roof so that its huge head was perfectly level with CJ’s face. It had been waiting for her. It was again grinning its smug, self-satisfied smile.

  The dragon sprang forward, snapping, but CJ was quicker. She slid back down her ladder, dropping as the dragon’s jaws came together with a chomp, catching nothing but air.

  CJ gasped as she hit the bottom of the ladder.

  But she couldn’t stay here. The dragon on the roof would come over the side at any moment.

  She turned to look forward just as—whack!—another dragon landed on the side of the speeding garbage truck, its claws piercing the steel wall like can-openers, blocking her path that way.

  It was Melted Face.

  This is insane, she thought. There were now three dragons on the speeding garbage truck.

  And she herself literally had nowhere to go.

  Nowhere, except—

  ‘Hamish!’ she yelled into her earpiece. ‘Open the rear loader!’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Just do it or I’m toast!’

  ‘Okay!’

  CJ edged back along the running board, just as the smiling dragon slunk down the same ladder she had used to escape it. Only two feet ahead of it, CJ swung around the rear of the garbage truck, hurling herself into its rear loader.

  The rear tray stank. A hydraulically-operated steel plate—the truck’s compacter—lay before her. Right now it was closed, sealing off the truck’s internal hopper.

  Smiley poked his head around the side of the truck, grinning malevolently.

  ‘Hamish . . . !’

  Up in the cabin, Hamish was leaning as far back as he could in his seat. An inch in front of his nose, his dragon’s claw snatched and clutched, trying to get at him.

  He scanned the controls of the cabin, looking for the switch that operated the rear compacter.

  He saw it—a red button—and ducking under the snatching claw, quickly hit it.

  With a mechanical clanking, the compacter began to open, creating a narrow opening at its base.

  CJ dived for the gap as Smiley leapt around into the rear tray. CJ rolled through the small opening, through the remains of some stinking garbage. The gap was big enough for her but not for the dragon. She was clear.

  ‘Okay, Hamish! Now close it again!’

  The dragon attacking the cabin rammed its head through the smashed windshield and roared loudly at Hamish.

  Zhang recoiled. Syme ducked. Greg Johnson was frantically trying to regather his AK-47 from the floor. And with the dragon now right in his face, Hamish couldn’t reach the button that operated the rear compacter.

  At the back of the garbage truck, to CJ’s horror, the compacter’s steel plate continued to open.

  CJ was sitting inside the dark steel box that was the truck’s hopper, pressed up against some compacted rubbish, powerless to do anything about the door that was opening further every second.

  The dark silhouette of the dragon outside grew larger.

  If Hamish reversed the door now, the dragon wouldn’t be able to get in, but in a few seconds, the gap would be big enough for it to enter and then CJ would be trapped in here with it.

  ‘Hamish! I need you to close the compacter door right now!’

  With CJ’s cries ringing in his ears, Hamish twisted in his seat, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of the dragon hanging off the front of the speeding garbage truck.

  Then suddenly it managed to thrust its snout through the cracked hole in the windshield and it lunged for his face—

  Blam!

  Blood exploded from the back of the dragon’s head and the animal snapped backwards.

  Hamish turned to see Greg Johnson with his assault rifle levelled in one outstretched arm. He’d fired it into the dragon’s left eye from point-blank range.

  The dragon toppled backwards and fell off the speeding truck, dropping to the road beneath it.

  The garbage truck bumped as it ran over the corpse.

  ‘Hamish . . . !’ CJ ’s voice came in over the radio.

  ‘Oh, no, CJ . . .’ Hamish gasped as he hit the red button again, closing the rear compacter.

  But he did it too late.

  At the exact moment that Hamish hit the switch, the compacter’s door had come fully open, and CJ—her back pressed against the wall of compacted garbage—found herself facing the dragon she had christened Smiley, standing in the rear loading tray of the truck. Smiley had her.

  Clenching her teeth, CJ yanked out her Glock pistol, levelled it and—

  Click.

  ‘No!’

  Click.

  Out of ammo.

  Smiley grinned.

  And then—thanks to Hamish—the door began to close again.

  Smiley saw it lowering, so he just stepped in
side the hopper, now only a few feet away from CJ.

  CJ couldn’t believe it. Out of bullets and out of options, she was now stuck in here with the dragon.

  ‘Oh, this is not fair,’ she muttered. ‘Not fucking fair . . .’

  And then she saw it.

  A small plastic bottle lying on the heap of compacted trash, one that had somehow avoided being completely crushed in the compacting process. A bottle of turpentine-based solvent.

  The door was halfway closed, the gap at its base only four feet high and getting smaller by the second.

  CJ grabbed the solvent bottle, unscrewed its cap and threw it at the advancing dragon.

  Turpentine sprayed all over Smiley’s face, splattering the dragon’s eyes.

  Smiley shrieked, clutching at its eyes.

  CJ dashed forward, running low, and scuttled around the reeling dragon before dive-sliding on her belly under the slowly-closing compacter door.

  She slid back out into the artificial light of the tunnel—back out into the rear tray—just as the thick compacter door closed with a resounding boom and the squeals of the dragon became muffled.

  ‘CJ!’ Hamish’s voice came through her earpiece. ‘Are you inside the truck?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘But one of our dragon friends is. Crush it!’

  ‘Sure thing!’

  A moment later, the compacter door shifted slightly, beginning a powerful pushing motion—a compacting motion that was designed to compress its load of trash against the front wall of the hopper.

  The squeals of the dragon inside became high-pitched wails as it realised what was happening.

  Those wails reached a crescendo as the compacter closed in on the hapless beast. And then CJ heard a hideous crunching sound as Smiley was crushed to nothing by the compacter.

  CJ exhaled a deep sigh of relief. ‘Goddamn.’

  It was time to get to the driver’s cabin and rejoin the others. But after her previous experiences on the side of the truck, there was only one way she wanted to go: over the top.

  ‘Hamish, I’m coming to you via the roof!’ she said into her earpiece mike.

  ‘Roger that. We’re about to come out of the tunnel. There’s another one up ahead. Zhang says there’s a side tunnel inside it that leads to the Nesting Centre. He says if we can get to that, we’re golden.’

  CJ didn’t waste any time. She climbed out of the rear tray and hoisted herself up so she could see the roof of the speeding garbage truck.

  The roof was clear of dragons. It lay before her flat and empty. The ceiling of the tunnel whooshed by overhead.

  CJ leapt onto the roof and, lying on her belly, edged forward along it. The steel roof of the truck was slightly corrugated, allowing her to gain fingerholds.

  Then, with a great whoosh, the speeding truck blasted out into brilliant sunshine—and CJ looked up in time to see Red Face swoop in toward her like a dive-bomber and release a hatchback car from its talons!

  The little car shot downward through the air and CJ dived forward an instant before the hatchback slammed down onto the roof of the garbage truck and bounced off it, hitting the rock wall on the outer side of the ring road with terrible force.

  CJ looked forward: the second tunnel that Hamish had mentioned was still about five hundred yards away.

  ‘Hamish! Get us to that tunnel before I get pulverised!’

  CJ was looking at the approaching tunnel when suddenly the disgusting blistered head of Melted Face appeared right beside her. He was still on the garbage truck, clinging to its left-side wall.

  Melted Face rose up from the side of the truck, forelimbs tensed, eyes deadly.

  ‘CJ, hang on!’ Hamish’s voice called through her earpiece.

  The truck swerved wildly, avoiding a smashed hatchback on the road ahead.

  Gripping the roof with her fingertips, CJ’s legs were thrown sideways.

  The dragon beside her never lost his balance.

  ‘Hamish! Hit the brakes!’ CJ called.

  In the cabin, Hamish slammed his feet down on the brakes.

  The garbage truck skidded.

  On the roof, CJ grabbed a nearby strut as the inertia of their sudden stop flung her forward.

  Melted Face wasn’t so fortunate.

  He was flung forward, clear off the side of the truck, and went tumbling end over end onto the roadway.

  Hamish saw a sudden blur of black and red fly off his truck and hit the road in front of him. He jammed down on the accelerator pedal.

  The garbage truck took off again, burning rubber.

  Melted Face—grazed and skinned from the ungainly fall—looked up in time to see the truck’s headlights rushing toward him and he leapt to the side at the last moment as the truck’s front bumper clipped his wing. The dragon was knocked to the ground, flailing but alive.

  Now finally free of dragons, the truck sped into the next tunnel.

  A hundred metres inside this new tunnel, the garbage truck skidded to a halt in front of a barred gate buried in the outer wall.

  This gate’s black iron bars were, if it were possible, thicker than the bars they had seen on any gate so far.

  CJ leapt down from the roof and joined Hamish, Johnson, Syme and Zhang at the gateway.

  Hamish looked CJ up and down. ‘Got all your fingers and toes?’

  ‘Haven’t had time to check,’ CJ said. ‘I think so.’

  Zhang raced to the barred gate and spoke to two soldiers on the other side. They were dressed in Chinese Army attire, carried modern Steyr assault rifles and their faces were entirely blank.

  ‘Let us in!’ Zhang said in Mandarin.

  The two soldiers said nothing—and did nothing—in reply.

  ‘I said, let us in!’ Zhang cried.

  One of the soldiers said in an emotionless tone: ‘You know they can’t come in here, Deputy Director. The Nesting Centre is off-limits to all unauthorised personnel.’

  ‘Unauthorised personnel . . .’ Zhang repeated in astonishment. ‘Are you joking? We’re in the middle of an emergency here—’

  ‘Not even you can come in here, Deputy Director. You are not authorised.’ The soldier jerked his chin at CJ, Hamish, Syme and Johnson. ‘And we certainly will not allow them in. We have orders from Colonel Bao himself on this matter.’

  ‘Have you no decency!’ Zhang shouted. ‘We’re going to die out here—’

  ‘Forget it,’ CJ said, pulling Zhang by the arm and glancing back down the tunnel.

  It stretched away, empty and bare.

  The dragons hadn’t entered it yet.

  She swapped a glance with Johnson before saying to Zhang: ‘If we can’t get in here, where else can we go?’

  Zhang was shaking with fury, but he regathered himself. ‘The Birthing Centre, maybe.’ He threw the guards a withering look. ‘If it is not guarded by lowly dogs!’

  ‘Er, Cassandra . . .’ Hamish said flatly. He only ever called her that when it was serious.

  CJ spun and saw what he was looking at.

  The enormous shadow of a king-sized dragon stood in the tunnel entrance behind them, blocking out the light.

  The dragon roared, the terrible noise echoing down the tunnel.

  ‘Come on!’ CJ called. ‘We try for the Birthing Centre.’

  They all jumped back into the garbage truck and, once again driven by Hamish, it zoomed down the second tunnel. A few seconds later it burst out into daylight.

  The road ahead bent to the right, following the curve of the crater wall. They were now at the northwestern corner of the valley. In fact, CJ realised, they were on the section of the ring road hidden behind the screen of cliffs near the casino. She wondered what was back here, what those artificial cliffs concealed.

  She scanned the road ahead: there were no tunnels here; the freeway-like road was open to the sky. Two reinforced steel gates, however, bored into the outer wall.

  The first of those gates was about three hundred yards ahead of them and it was open.

/>   Zhang pointed at it. ‘That’s the entrance to the Birthing Centre!’

  The garbage truck raced toward it.

  As it did so, CJ leaned out the passenger-side window to look at the valley behind them, or at least the western half of it.

  She saw a red-bellied black emperor perched atop the wreckage of the administration building, bellowing triumphantly. The building was almost completely destroyed: its tower was gone, its front windows were shattered and its domed balcony was in ruins.

  Three kings circled the air in front of it, as if guarding the building.

  They now consider it their territory, CJ thought.

  Right then, however, four Z-10 attack helicopters shoomed over the top of the crater wall, blazing away with tracer fire at the emperor, causing it to take flight.

  The Z-10 is the Chinese equivalent of the AH-64 Apache, a gunship with a stepped cockpit, a nose-mounted 30mm cannon, and stub-wings from which hang a variety of anti-tank and air-to-air missiles.

  The three dragons surrounding the emperor sprang to his defence and zeroed in on the Z-10s. But the attack choppers unleashed their missiles and suddenly the dragons were exploding.

  Two of the choppers hounded the emperor, chasing him across the zoo, their tracers sizzling across the valley like lasers, until one of the choppers loosed an air-to-air missile that banked and swerved after the fleeing emperor, hit it and detonated.

  The airliner-sized dragon blew apart in a monumental spray of blood and pulp. Great chunks of flesh the size of boulders rained down from the sky.

  ‘The empire is striking back,’ Ambassador Syme observed, peering out the window beside CJ.

  CJ nodded. ‘This is now a fight between two territorial animals: dragons and humans.’

  And human technology, she thought, unleashed in brutal fashion by the Chinese, would ultimately win this battle.

  At that moment, the garbage truck skidded to a stop in front of the open gates to the Birthing Centre.