The Great Zoo of China Read online

  All the trees on the lower reaches of Dragon Mountain were flattened by the shock wave but the great mountain withstood it, the ravenous surge of energy racing around it like a river around a rock.

  The blast wave fanned out in every direction. It shot northward, blowing out the windows of the casino hotel. Eastward and westward, it simply ran up and over the slanted crater walls, felling trees and flinging boulders.

  And as the blast wave expanded, it sucked all the oxygen from the air. Any dragons in the air just dropped from the sky, instantly asphyxiated. Any on the ground just collapsed where they stood, the life in them extinguished in a single moment. The blast wave extended all the way to the worker city in the northeast and the airfield to the southwest, where it suffocated all the dragons gathered in those places as well. Any Chinese troops still in or near the valley were also killed.

  It was the same for Ben Patrick.

  His back broken, his body immobile, Patrick got to see the main entrance building’s facade fall away from him. It would have been better to fall with it and die that way.

  For it was then that the vacuum blast hit him . . . and sucked his lungs clean out through his mouth. Patrick’s last sensation was vomiting up the two fleshy sacs that were his own lungs and seeing them right in front of his eyes. Only then did he black out and see no more.

  The thermobaric device had done exactly what it had been designed to do: kill every dragon in and around the valley but retain most of the landforms and the basic infrastructure of the zoo.

  As she flew away from the megavalley, having seen the distant flash of the blast, CJ sighed.

  It was over.

  The Great Dragon Zoo of China was no more.

  FORMER NAVAL STATION MAGELLAN

  MINDINAO PROVINCE, THE PHILIPPINES

  20 MARCH (TWO DAYS LATER)

  When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 it generated a massive ash plume that covered much of the Philippines. The local monsoonal rains had since mixed with that ash, overlaying many of the Philippines’ more remote islands with a foul black sludge that made them all but uninhabitable.

  Among those islands were several old US military bases, most of which had lain abandoned since World War II.

  One of the smallest and most remote of these was Naval Station Magellan. It lay ninety miles west of Basilan Island in the far south of the Philippines.

  Assaulted for six months of the year by torrential rain and by stifling humidity for the other six months, it had little to recommend it. Its old airfield was potholed and overgrown with weeds. The mush from the Pinatubo eruption had caked the hills, making them useless for any kind of farming.

  Which was why not a single human being noticed when five strange yellow beasts landed on the island’s weed-strewn runway.

  It had taken them two whole days of island-hopping to get here from southern China. The dragons had needed a lot of reassuring from CJ—speaking through Lucky—that there would be land on the other side of each stretch of dreaded salt water, but they had trusted her and braved each leg of the journey.

  It had required multiple stops to cross the South China Sea, with the dragons needing to rest after each long glide. At times, the yellowjacket emperor had had to carry Lucky and the other prince on its enormous back, while it carried the jeep, since its colossal wingspan allowed it to glide for far greater distances than the smaller dragons. The emperor and the two kings could also, it appeared, fly quite a bit further than the few kilometres the Chinese had given them credit for. It was a tough, gruelling journey but in the end they made it.

  Six hours before they’d arrived at Magellan, the yellowjacket emperor had deposited the open-top jeep—containing Hamish, Johnson, Syme and Minnie—at the tip of another island containing an active US supply base. They would walk from there, make contact with the personnel at the base and arrange to get home.

  Only one member of the group continued on with the five yellowjackets and remained with them at Naval Station Magellan: CJ.

  FORMER NAVAL STATION MAGELLAN

  MINDANAO PROVINCE, THE PHILIPPINES

  1 MAY (SIX WEEKS LATER)

  A month and a half later, a small Cessna ‘Caravan’ seaplane with no transponder landed at the remote island. Its pilot was Kirk Syme, US Ambassador to China and former naval aviator.

  After it pulled to a halt, three men stepped out of it: Hamish Cameron, Greg Johnson and Syme. All were dressed in casual clothes. Johnson’s left arm was in a sling.

  Standing beside one of the old base’s rusty buildings, waiting for them, were CJ and Lucky.

  Hamish said, ‘So, how’s the new home?’

  CJ smiled. ‘It’s got everything the modern dragon needs: fresh water flowing down from the hills and lots of big fat fish in the lagoons. Lucky and her family are doing just fine.’

  Three of the other four dragons peered out from the surrounding trees, watching cautiously. The emperor lay in the nearby freshwater lagoon, only its massive snout protruding above the waterline.

  ‘They don’t want to be found,’ CJ said.

  ‘And we’re happy to keep it that way,’ Syme said.

  Johnson said, ‘I checked the intelligence logs: this base isn’t even considered US property anymore. And local Filipinos steer clear of the area. It’s off the radar. Might as well be off the map.’

  ‘What happened with the zoo?’ CJ asked.

  Syme said, ‘We listened in on the clean-up. All the animals were killed in the blast, either incinerated or asphyxiated. The Chinese government issued a bullshit story about Wolfe and Perry dying in a car crash on a mountain road, their bodies sadly burned beyond recognition. They planted some DNA on the scene and the media bought it.’

  ‘What did you do about that?’ CJ asked.

  ‘What could I do?’ Syme said. ‘What could I say? That they died after the Chinese government found, nurtured and put on display two hundred dragons and then lost control of them? I made a special report to the President—a verbal report—alone with him in the Oval Office. Your efforts, and those of your brother, were specifically mentioned. It’d be the end of my career if I put anything about this in writing. Either way, the Great Dragon Zoo of China is history.’

  ‘What about Minnie?’

  ‘We returned her to her parents in Nanjing,’ Johnson said. ‘Since all the key players at the zoo are now dead, she should be safe.’

  Johnson changed the subject. ‘This island may have everything a dragon needs, but how is it for the modern woman?’

  CJ smiled. ‘An old infantry tent isn’t exactly the Ritz but it’s okay. And I’m learning to love fish cooked on an open fire. There’s some wild fowl on the island; they’re scared shitless of the dragons. They taste like chicken.’

  She nodded at Lucky. ‘But then I’m not here for the lifestyle. I’m here for the company.’

  Hamish hefted a couple of containers from the back of the plane. ‘We brought you a few home comforts and some tools. Figured we might help you fix up one of these old buildings.’

  Hamish opened the containers to reveal a little diesel generator, jerry cans of fuel, some light bulbs, a toolbox, power drill, screws and nails, a portable stove, some gas canisters and packet after packet of vegetable seeds. He also presented her with a satellite phone, a medical kit and batteries for her earpiece, which had run out of power a couple of weeks earlier.

  ‘Thanks, Hamish,’ CJ said, ‘that’s very thoughtful of you, but much as I’d like to, I can’t stay here permanently. I don’t think dragons and people were designed to live together. I’ve spoken to Lucky and she understands. I told her that she and her family must avoid humans. They’ve dug a deep den under the hill and they’ll go there if any people arrive, however unlikely that may be. They just want to live in peace.’

  She stroked Lucky affectionately on the snout. The dragon purred.

  ‘That said, I’d like to come by here every now and then to visit my friend, and having a solid roof over my head would be nice.�
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  ‘How would you get here?’ Syme asked.

  CJ said, ‘Thought I might take a job in Darwin, down in Australia. Lot of crocodile jobs there and it’s only a few hours’ flight-time to here. Figured I could take up flying lessons and, well, if I could somehow get my hands on a plane . . .’

  ‘You know,’ Syme said, ‘the President told me very specifically that a reward of some kind was in order for your efforts, Dr Cameron. I think I might be able to find some spare funds in my budget to help you purchase a decent plane. After all, there’s got to be some reward for saving the life of the US Ambassador to China and preventing a global outbreak of dragons. In fact, if you ever need any money for anything, you just give me a call, okay?’

  CJ smiled. ‘Thanks. I will.’

  The four of them spent the rest of the day rebuilding one of the base’s shacks, flanked and followed by the family of yellowjacket dragons.

  At one point in the course of the day, Greg Johnson said to CJ, ‘I was wondering if, you know, we ever found ourselves on the same side of the world, you’d like to grab a coffee sometime?’

  CJ looped a stray strand of hair over her ear. ‘Are you asking me out on a date, Agent Johnson? I don’t get asked out on many dates.’

  ‘I might be.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said, smiling.

  When the day was over, they all returned to the seaplane. It was time to go.

  CJ stepped to one side with Lucky and gave the dragon a huge hug. Tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘White Head like Lucky,’ she said.

  Lucky mewed. ‘Lucky . . . like like . . . White Head . . . Lucky sad . . .’

  ‘White Head sad, too.’ CJ gave the yellow dragon a kiss on the snout. ‘But White Head will return.’

  And with those words, she walked off to the seaplane.

  A month later, CJ Cameron resigned from her position at the San Francisco Zoo and took up a senior role at Kakadu National Park in northern Australia, outside Darwin, observing and studying the large saltwater crocodile population there.

  Many of her students commented on how fearlessly she treated the big crocs. CJ would just shrug and say, ‘I’ve seen bigger.’

  And her colleagues gently ribbed her about the handsome American gentleman with the salt-and-pepper hair who would swing by every few months to meet with her.

  She also took up flying lessons.

  Soon she was flying solo in a compact Pilatus PC-12 that she’d bought second-hand from the Australian Flying Doctor Service. A small plane, the PC-12 was known for its considerable range. It became common for her to fly off alone in her plane, ‘Just to spend some time on my own for a few days,’ she would say.

  None of her colleagues noticed that the plane always flew north from Darwin, out over East Timor and Indonesia, toward the remote southern islands of the Philippines.

  They did notice, however, that she always returned from these trips with a faraway but very contented smile on her face.

  THE END

  AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY ABOUT THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA

  SPOILER WARNING!

  THIS INTERVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA

  Well, Matthew. We always think your books can’t get any bigger or faster and then along comes The Great Zoo of China! How do you do it?

  As my regular readers will know, I love big-scale action. As the years have gone by, I like to think that the action in my novels has got bigger and bigger. From the early stuff in Ice Station—hovercraft chases, blowing up submarines—to the wild car chase and the exploding aircraft carrier in Scarecrow, and then to the even bigger action scenes in the Jack West Jr novels, I have always seen it as something of a progression for me. But—and it’s a big but—I always felt that, at some stage, I would reach a point where the action might simply get too big.

  And then I decided to write about dragons . . . and suddenly a whole new ballpark of action opened up for me.

  When I conceived The Great Zoo of China, I was very excited about the potential the story had for absolutely huge action. Once you can realistically bring giant dragons to life, you can then dream up all the things they can throw, hurl and otherwise destroy! I came up with garbage trucks, buildings, revolving restaurants and fighter planes. I felt like a kid in a candy store when I wrote this one.

  How did you come up with the idea of the survival/existence of dragons?

  I actually had the idea for a zoo filled with dragons way back in 2003. I was travelling through Switzerland, of all places, when I stumbled upon a ‘dragon museum’. It was a little place, but it had all these fantastically realistic paintings and drawings of dragons: pictures of their skeletons and their musculature. In other words, all the things that would make them seem real.

  In recent years, I have been a big fan of the Christopher Nolan–directed Batman movies. What I think those movies do very well is make something that is inherently unbelievable—a guy chasing criminals dressed as a bat—into something entirely believable. They do this, I think, by making it absolutely and utterly real. Batman’s armour is a military suit; his cape is an electrostatic membrane; his Batmobile is a prototype military vehicle. If I was going to write about dragons, then I had to make them real in a similar, believable way. I had to come up with a credible reason for their existence and also for the rarity of their appearances throughout history.

  I decided to focus on the idea that myths are often based on reality or real events. So I asked: what if all those myths of giant dragons were based on actual creatures that had shown themselves only rarely.

  This idea percolated in my mind for a long time (to give you an idea, back in 2003, I had only just finished writing Scarecrow). I remember doing a lot of research into dragons and dragon myths while holidaying in Queenstown, New Zealand, in 2010. It rained non-stop for the entire week I was there, so, with nothing else to do, I just curled up beside the fire for the week and researched dragons.

  It was here that I realised that the myth of the dragon is indeed a global one . . . and yet there was no mass communication system in the ancient world. How could the features of dragons be so consistent all around the ancient world, from Australia to Meso-America to Greece and Norway, when there was no way to send information around that ancient world? My (fictional) answer was that every now and then a single dragon would rise from its nest and check to see if the atmosphere was suitable for the rest of its brethren to emerge.

  What made you decide to set the zoo in China?

  When I first had the idea of a zoo filled with dragons in 2003, I asked myself: who would build such a thing? More than that, I asked, who could afford to build such a thing? The zoo I had in mind would be simply enormous, a valley the size of Manhattan Island. Back in 2003 I had no answer to that. The idea was too fanciful, too fantastical. I couldn’t think of a company or a country that could build such a place, let alone have a good reason to do so.

  And so I let the idea rest in the back of my mind.

  However, as the first decade of the 21st century passed by, I noticed something: the rise of China. I watched the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing: the unforgettable Opening Ceremony and the huge stadiums that the Chinese built. I watched documentaries about how China constructed the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam and her ability to build entire cities within months. I read about the many kilometres of maglev tracks China has laid. I read about its multi-trillion-dollar national savings and the massive debt America owes it. (I also, it should be said, read up about China’s suppression of protests and dissent during the 2008 Olympics, and the way it arrests known agitators every year in early June, just before the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.)

  And suddenly, in 2012, I realised that I now had a nation that could realistically build my dragon zoo: modern China. (The fact that China also had a long history of dragon myths helped, too.) My fanciful and fantastical notion of a dragon zoo was no longer fanciful and fantastical. I had just had to wait a decad
e until the world caught up with my idea!

  Having China build my dragon zoo also solved another problem I had: comparisons with Jurassic Park.

  As anyone who has attended one of my talks will tell you, my favourite novel of all time is Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. In fact, it is one of the novels that made me want to be a novelist. I loved the originality of it, the pace of it, and the fact it was a gleeful monster movie on paper.

  I was very aware that my story of a dragon zoo would inevitably draw comparisons with the dinosaur theme park of Jurassic Park. So I endeavoured from the outset to make The Great Zoo of China as different from Jurassic Park as I could. Jurassic Park sees several experts brought in by the park’s investors to assess the dinosaur park when it encounters difficulties. My novel would be about a press tour: any new world-class zoo needs to announce itself to the world, so I figured its owners would bring in some bigshot journalists to have an early look at it. Given the nature of the new zoo, they would have to be journalists with instant credibility, from trusted newspapers and journals like The New York Times and National Geographic.

  But the main difference between my novel and Jurassic Park would be China. The theme park in Jurassic Park was an out-and-out capitalist venture. With their Great Dragon Zoo, China is attempting to do something else entirely: it is trying to usurp the United States as the pre-eminent country on Earth. To do that, it needs to top America’s cultural superiority: basically, it needs to come up with an attraction that trumps Disneyland. To me, this is actually a real issue today and it gave the story a geopolitical reality that I wanted.

  Tell us about making the dragons real.