The Great Zoo of China Read online

And there, standing on the amphitheatre’s wide central stage, was a figure.

  Ben Patrick, and he was waving.

  Lucky landed on the stage a short distance from Patrick. CJ and Minnie dismounted.

  A light breeze blew. The vast valley stretched northward behind CJ. It would have been a postcard shot, gorgeous in the early morning light, had it not been for all the fires and wreckage.

  CJ began to walk toward Patrick—when suddenly Lucky nudged her and grunted.

  ‘Lucky . . . no like . . . Big Eyes. Big Eyes mean human . . .’

  CJ paused, glancing from the dragon to her old colleague, and for a brief instant she wondered if she had made a huge mist—

  ‘CJ,’ Patrick said. ‘Thanks for coming. I’m so sorry.’

  CJ frowned. ‘You’re sorry? Why—?’

  The answer stepped out from a door beside the stage: Colonel Bao, Hu Tang and three Chinese soldiers brandishing assault rifles.

  Before CJ could react, Ben Patrick whipped out a Taser unit—like the ones she had seen in the observation booth in the Nesting Centre—and jammed it against Lucky’s flank. Sparks flew and Lucky dropped to her knees, squealing in agony.

  CJ slid to the dragon’s side, staring daggers up at Patrick.

  She suddenly recalled the code he had given her to open the safe in the Nesting Centre . . . and how it hadn’t worked.

  ‘You gave me the wrong code for the safe in Bao’s office, didn’t you?’ she said. Beside her, Lucky moaned. Minnie huddled behind her.

  Patrick shrugged. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think you’d get that far. But I couldn’t have you getting your hands on a detonator unit. There’s too much riding on this place. For China and for me. This zoo will make me the most famous scientist in the world, CJ. I couldn’t have you succeed in killing the dragons. No matter what damage is sustained here, we cannot lose the dragons. Too much time and effort has gone into raising them. Buildings can be rebuilt, but those dragons are priceless. And they can always be retrained, no matter how harshly. The Chinese will rebuild this zoo, we will reintroduce the surviving dragons with new and better safety measures, and it will be like nothing ever happened.’

  Colonel Bao and Hu Tang stepped up beside Patrick.

  Hu Tang said, ‘And we will bring new journalists here to marvel at it.’

  Bao nodded at CJ. ‘Dr Cameron. You are a survivor, I will grant you that. But now it is time for us to restore control. A battalion of troops is on its way here from Chongqing in helicopter gunships. That force will arrive in a few hours and it will bring the remaining dragons into line.’

  With those words, Bao calmly drew his pistol. ‘You, however, will go no further.’

  CJ threw a horrified look at Minnie. ‘You’re gonna kill this little girl, too?’

  Hu Tang strolled toward the edge of the stage, gazed out at the magnificent sight. A few dragons could be seen flying across the valley, specks against the sky. CJ got the distinct impression he was looking away so he would not have to see the executions that were about to take place.

  ‘She will tell someone eventually,’ Hu said, ‘and we cannot have that. This zoo is bigger than a few individuals, even a child. It will rise again and it will be the glory of the world.’

  He nodded at Bao. ‘Kill them both and take the dragon away for re-education.’

  ‘You callous motherfuc—’ CJ breathed.

  She cut herself off when she heard it.

  Beep-beep . . . beep-beep.

  She didn’t even have time to react.

  The next moment something red and black leapt up from below the roofline and took a slashing bite at Hu Tang’s face, and the front of the Communist Party man’s head spewed blood and suddenly Hu Tang turned and CJ saw that he no longer had a face.

  The dragon had bitten off his fucking face!

  From forehead to jaw, Hu Tang’s face was now a mess of pulp and exposed bone. It was perhaps the most hideous thing CJ had ever seen.

  Hu’s body collapsed to the stage, convulsing, not dead but not quite alive either, and standing there in his place was the one dragon who had pursued CJ since all this had begun: the prince-sized red-bellied black dragon she had christened Red Face.

  Bao and his troops didn’t know or care for CJ’s history with Red Face and they immediately opened fire on the dragon. In the face of their fire, Red Face took flight, disappearing as quickly as he had arrived.

  Colonel Bao looked impassively down at the still-shuddering body of his old boss, Hu Tang. ‘How unfortunate.’ He fired a bullet into the faceless head and the body went still.

  Then he turned his pistol on CJ and Minnie.

  ‘You know something, Dr Cameron? Just before your mentor, Dr Lynch, died, he said something to me about you.’

  ‘You were there when Bill Lynch died?’ CJ said.

  ‘I was the one who let a dragon tear him apart,’ Bao said. ‘He said you were tougher than he ever was. This may indeed be so, but in the end, you will die just as he did. It is time for you to make peace with your god, Dr Cameron, because you have nothing else to call on.’

  ‘She might have this, Colonel,’ a voice said abruptly over their radio earpieces.

  A man’s voice.

  Greg Johnson’s voice.

  Bao spun, searching for the source of the voice. CJ did, too, but she couldn’t see Johnson anywhere. She’d been kneeling beside Lucky. Now she stood, searching for the CIA agent.

  ‘Down here,’ Johnson’s voice said. ‘In the Halfway Hut.’

  CJ and Bao both looked out at the watchtower positioned midway between the main entrance building and Dragon Mountain.

  A tiny figure could be seen inside its struts, standing on a platform just below the Hut’s cable car station, beside a large device the size of a small car.

  ‘Dr Cameron may not have anything to call on, Bao, but I do. I have your thermobaric bomb.’

  Bao’s eyes went as wide as saucers.

  ‘I’ve reset the detonation sequence,’ Johnson said. ‘It’s mine now. I have to destroy this place and everything in it.’

  ‘You would kill yourself to destroy this zoo?’ Bao said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re bluffing.’

  ‘I’m wounded, I’m pissed off, and I have absolutely nothing to lose,’ Johnson said. ‘You can’t control these animals, Bao. I’ll blow us all to kingdom come to protect the world from these monsters. And if you think I’m bluffing . . .’

  Down at the Halfway Hut, Johnson held his radio close to the thermobaric bomb and flicked a switch on its detonation panel. A timer came alive, beeping with each tick:

  10:00 . . . 9:59 . . . 9:58.

  ‘. . . think again. You have ten minutes to make peace with your god, asshole.’

  As this exchange took place, CJ edged over to the lectern on the stage. Unseen by her captors, she flicked on its control panel.

  Bao raged. ‘This is insanity!’

  CJ saw the button on the lectern that she was looking for, one she had seen hit during the trick show. With the power back on in the zoo, she hoped it still worked. She slammed her finger down on it.

  Immediately, the pyrotechnic flame-dischargers arrayed around the stage launched tongues of fire into the air. White smoke enveloped the stage.

  And then everything happened at once.

  CJ took two bounding steps and hurled herself into Ben Patrick, knocking him off the stage into the front row of seats and sending the Taser unit flying from his hands.

  The two closest Chinese soldiers raised their guns at her only to be swept off their feet by a whip-cracking yellow dragon’s tail. Lucky, groaning and weakened, had risen to her elbows and lashed out with her powerful tail, sending the pair of Chinese soldiers flying off their feet.

  The third and last Chinese soldier opened fire at Lucky, but Lucky sprang at him and, with a fearsome swipe of her foreclaw, slashed his throat. Blood spurted and the man hit the ground, killed instantly.

  Minnie scream
ed.

  In the haze of smoke, CJ now dived at Bao, crash-tackling the colonel, punching his gun hand, sending his pistol skittering away.

  They went sprawling toward the vertiginous northern edge of the stage.

  Bao’s legs dangled off the rim, four hundred feet above the world, while his chest still lay on the stage, his hands desperately gripping onto the lapels of CJ’s heat suit, the only thing he could cling to.

  But Bao was much heavier than CJ. His weight was slowly pulling her closer to the edge as well.

  ‘At least we die together!’ the Chinese colonel spat as their combined death-slide continued.

  CJ struggled desperately but she could do nothing to release Bao’s grip on her.

  The edge came closer.

  Then with a lurch, Bao’s body dropped completely off the rim, and CJ—still held by him—found herself perched precariously on the edge, her head and shoulders overhanging it, staring down at the four-hundred-foot drop!

  She searched for a weapon of some sort, something she could use to undo Bao’s grip, but she found nothing. Not even Lucky could help; she was on the other side of the stage.

  ‘Let’s fly to our doom . . .’ Bao said.

  ‘Not . . . today . . .’ CJ said grimly as she grabbed the one thing she could think to use: the saltwater crocodile’s tooth attached to the leather cord around her neck. She reached inside her protective suit, yanked on the tooth, snapping its cord, and held the big sharp tooth tightly in one fist.

  ‘Bill Lynch gave this to me,’ she said. ‘This is from him to you!’

  Gripping the tooth like a knife, CJ brought it down on Bao’s fists, stabbing them repeatedly.

  Bao roared in pain and he released his grip on CJ’s heat suit and the Chinese colonel dropped—

  —only to snatch hold of CJ’s sleeve on the way down and she went flailing over the edge with him!

  As she went over the rim, CJ threw her hands out and caught the very edge of the stage with her fingertips.

  Bao lost his grip on her sleeve as they fell, but he caught her heat suit’s right leg and so now he hung from CJ while CJ hung from the edge.

  CJ’s fingers strained at the extra weight, her arms fully extended. She wouldn’t be able to hold on for more than a few seconds.

  ‘Like I said, we die together!’ Bao called.

  CJ’s left hand lost its grip.

  She hung one-handed above the deadly drop, with Bao dangling from her right leg.

  And then she started wriggling, squirming strangely, releasing her free left arm from the suit and then using that hand to unzip the front of the suit. Then she reached up with that hand and regripped the edge with it.

  Now she wriggled her right arm out of the suit and it suddenly came free—

  —and the suit slipped off CJ entirely—

  —leaving her hanging there while Bao fell away from her with the heat suit still gripped in his hand, the look on his face one of thunderstruck surprise.

  And so while CJ dangled from the edge of the stage, now without her heat suit, Bao fell four hundred feet down the face of the main entrance building. About eight seconds later, he hit the ground with a sickening thud. He screamed all the way down.

  Gasping for breath, drawing on her very last reserves of strength, CJ hauled her elbows over the edge, her feet still swaying above the dizzying drop.

  The body of one of the Chinese soldiers lay right in front of her.

  Beep-beep . . . beep-beep.

  A dragon’s head rose up from behind the dead body, staring right into CJ’s eyes: the red earless face of her old nemesis, Red Face.

  Lucky was still too far away to help: she was over by the front of the stage.

  Half-hanging off the edge of the stage, CJ was defenceless.

  And then she saw the weapons belt on the dead Chinese soldier between her and Red Face.

  Hanging from it were a couple of—

  ‘You want to eat something?’ she said. ‘Eat this.’

  With those words, CJ reached out with her right hand, grabbed one of the hand grenades on the soldier’s weapons belt, popped the pin and threw it directly into Red Face’s open jaws.

  The dragon gulped once, confused and shocked, as CJ called, ‘Lucky!’ and released her grip on the edge of the stage, dropping away from Red Face an instant before the cruel dragon’s head exploded.

  CJ fell down the face of the main entrance building as, above her, the grenade blast blew apart the edge of the stage, sending a cloud of smoke and rubble billowing outwards.

  She didn’t see Red Face’s head burst apart, didn’t see his decapitated body convulse for a few seconds, blood pouring from its headless neck.

  She hoped Lucky had heard her.

  She fell fast, frighteningly fast. The windows of the building flashed by in front of her.

  Then suddenly Lucky was there, flying vertically beside her, with her body elongated and her wings pinned back!

  Lucky caught up with CJ and when they were flying/falling at the same speed, CJ reached out and grabbed Lucky’s saddle and hauled herself into it just as Lucky swooped away from the ground with maybe thirty feet to spare.

  CJ swallowed. ‘Now that was character building.’

  CJ and Lucky returned to the amphitheatre to get Minnie.

  They landed on the stage. Covered in smoke, bodies and blood, it looked ghastly.

  CJ dismounted and ran to collect Minnie, cowering in the front row of seats. She scooped her up and was turning to hurry back to Lucky when someone stepped into their path.

  It was Ben Patrick, standing on the stage. He was holding a pistol in his hand, aimed directly at her.

  ‘Ben—’ CJ said a split second before Patrick was bent almost in half, struck violently from behind. An awful crack echoed out: the sound of Patrick’s back breaking, so powerful was the blow.

  It had been a kick from Lucky, with one of her hind legs.

  Ben Patrick dropped to his knees before he fell to the ground in front of CJ, landing with a perfect faceplant. He moaned, but did not move. The kick had snapped several vertebrae. However long he had to live, Ben Patrick would never walk again.

  CJ shook her head. ‘You chose your side, Ben. Sorry, but we’ve got to go.’

  She threw Minnie up onto Lucky’s saddle and climbed up after her.

  ‘Hang on, kid,’ she said. ‘We gotta fly fast. Lucky, go!’

  Lucky zoomed away from the main entrance building, her wings spread wide, diving toward the Halfway Hut.

  She came to a halt at the platform just below the Hut’s cable car station, her claws clinging to the lattice of metal struts.

  Greg Johnson sat there, bloody, wounded and pale. He sat with his back pressed up against the thermobaric bomb and he smiled grimly when CJ arrived.

  ‘Well, look at you,’ he said. ‘Riding a goddamn dragon.’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ CJ said. ‘I went back to the restaurant but the dumb waiter was empty.’

  Johnson said, ‘I couldn’t stay there. I had to keep moving. I went down to the cable car station and found a diesel-powered maintenance cable car. It brought me here.’ He nodded at the thermobaric bomb. ‘Then, about an hour ago I saw this baby rise up out of the ground. I finally found one of the bombs I’ve been tracking.’

  CJ looked at the bomb.

  Its digital timer read: 5:02 . . . 5:01 . . . 5:00 . . .

  ‘Were you bluffing? Can you stop it?’

  ‘No,’ Johnson said. ‘I disabled the disarm sequence, in case they sent someone to kill me. This thing is going off whether we like it or not. It can’t be stopped.’

  ‘Then we have five minutes to get away.’ CJ looped Johnson’s good arm over her shoulder and brought him over to Lucky.

  ‘Hamish?’ she said into her radio.

  ‘Yeah,’ came the reply.

  ‘You got anything over at that airfield with wings and a working engine?’

  ‘Not a thing, sister,’ Hamish said. ‘This
place is cactus.’

  She thought a little more. ‘Wait, what about a car or a jeep?’

  ‘Yeah . . . ’

  ‘Get into it and get it out onto the runway. We’re on our way and we’ll be coming in fast.’

  Lucky soared over the megavalley, weighed down by the three humans on her back. As she did so, she squawked a shrill call and a minute later, she was joined by her pack of four yellowjackets: the emperor, the two kings and the prince.

  They descended on the airfield’s runway, where Hamish and Kirk Syme were waving from a captured open-top jeep.

  The timer on the bomb hit: 1:00 . . . 0:59 . . . 0:58 . . .

  Lucky landed first, depositing Johnson and Minnie into the jeep a bare second before—whoosh!—the yellowjacket emperor picked up the entire jeep in its mighty talons and swept it up into the air.

  Led by Lucky, with CJ on her back, the pack of yellow dragons then sped south as fast as they could, trying to put as much distance between them and the Great Dragon Zoo as possible.

  0:30 . . . 0:29 . . . 0:28 . . .

  The dragons flapped their wings powerfully, flying hard.

  Buffeted by the wind, Hamish and Syme looked down from their jeep at the landscape far below. The huge body of the emperor carrying their jeep blotted out the sky above.

  0:20 . . . 0:19 . . . 0:18 . . .

  As she flew, CJ peered back at the rectangular crater that housed the zoo, the huge landform now a distant speck on the horizon.

  0:10 . . . 0:09 . . . 0:08 . . .

  CJ patted Lucky on the neck.

  ‘Fly, Lucky. Fly,’ she whispered.

  The timer ticked downward.

  0:02 . . . 0:01 . . . 0:00 . . .

  Detonation.

  A flare of blinding white light flashed out from the Halfway Hut.

  The lateral outrush of white-hot fire that followed immediately after it incinerated everything in the vicinity of the hut.

  Then came the shock wave.

  Terrible destruction radiated outward: trees toppled, cable car towers were thrown to the ground, the beautiful white castle blew apart, the roller coaster in the amusement park splintered into a thousand flying struts. The main entrance building’s entire facade just fell away, ripped clean off it.