The Great Zoo of China Read online

  Hu said, ‘I am sure you all have many questions. My team and I will be more than happy to answer them. Please, come this way.’

  They were guided to a wide semicircular pit sunk into the floor of the great balcony, a large amphitheatre. It was about the same size as a tennis stadium, with raked seats angled down toward a central podium-like stage.

  Looking down on it, CJ noticed that its northward side had been removed entirely, giving spectators seated in the amphitheatre an unobstructed view of the glorious megavalley.

  As she and her party waited at the top of the amphitheatre, they were each handed a small gift pack branded with the Great Dragon Zoo of China logo.

  ‘Cool! Free stuff!’ Hamish exclaimed.

  ‘In boys’ and girls’ colours,’ CJ said drily. Her pack was pink while Hamish’s was black. And they were—

  ‘Oh my God, fanny packs,’ Aaron Perry said. ‘Hello, 1982.’

  CJ smiled. They were indeed fanny packs; the kind you wore clipped around your waist and which screamed ‘tourist’.

  And, CJ had to admit, Perry was right. They were a bit naff. That was the funny thing about China: it desperately tried to mimic the West but it often seemed to get it wrong in small, clumsy ways.

  Hamish—the hotel shampoo thief—burrowed into his fanny pack enthusiastically. ‘Okay . . . Audemars Piguet watch with Great Dragon Zoo logo: nice. Weird sunglasses with Great Dragon Zoo logo: okay. Thirty-two-megapixel Samsung digital camera with Great Dragon Zoo logo: very nice for the eager amateur. Oh, hey!’

  He extracted a Zippo lighter from his pouch, plus two Cuban cigars, all branded with the circular golden logo.

  ‘Now that’s sweet!’ He grinned at CJ. ‘Check yours out.’

  CJ looked in her pink pouch. It contained a dainty white Chanel watch with a Great Dragon Zoo logo, plus some odd-looking sunglasses and a digital camera.

  ‘No cigars in the ladies’ pack, it seems. But wait . . .’ She pulled out a hairbrush, some cosmetics including moisturiser, cleanser and even a small travel-sized can of hairspray, all bearing the Great Dragon Zoo of China logo.

  ‘Nice to know what China expects of a woman,’ she said flatly. ‘They forgot to include a Great Dragon Zoo apron.’

  Na came over. ‘Please, put on your watches. Audemars Piguet for the gentlemen. Chanel for the ladies. They are very expensive.’

  CJ could see that. She could also see that despite the packs’ oddities—who gave out cigars anymore?—Na was clearly very proud of them. Despite herself, CJ put on the watch and the fanny pack.

  She felt a tug at her jacket and looked down.

  A Chinese girl of perhaps eight was looking up at her and smiling.

  ‘Hello, miss! Are you American? May I practise my English with you?’

  CJ smiled. The kid was cute as a button. She held a teddy bear close to her chest and wore an adorable Minnie Mouse cap, complete with mouse ears.

  ‘Certainly,’ CJ said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is Min, but Mama calls me Minnie. What is your name?’

  ‘I’m Cassandra, but my mom calls me CJ.’

  Minnie, it appeared, had been at the head of another group of visitors leaving the amphitheatre. They emerged from it now behind her.

  This group comprised four Chinese men, all in their fifties and all dressed in outdoorsmen gear: cargo pants, khaki vests, hiking boots, slouch hats. They emerged from the amphitheatre chatting excitedly, oohing and aahing. All four wore their black fanny packs clipped to their waists.

  One of the men said to CJ in English: ‘I hope my granddaughter is not bothering you, miss.’

  ‘Not at all,’ CJ said, smiling. ‘She wanted to try out her English and it’s excellent.’

  Behind the men came three Chinese women in their mid- to late forties. All three wore expensive designer clothing—Dior, Gucci, Louis Vuitton—with matching handbags and sparkling jewellery. Their hair was perfect, their shoes high.

  The group was escorted by a female tour guide—a clone of Na—and by a very pleased-looking grey-haired, grey-moustached Chinese fellow wearing a red Great Dragon Zoo of China blazer just like Zhang’s.

  Once again, CJ zeroed in on the details: all of the men’s outdoorsy clothes were brand new, right down to their hiking boots.

  More than that, these guys looked like men not accustomed to ever wearing rugged clothing. They were all pot-bellied, well fed, which in China meant they were probably Party officials. And judging by their age, CJ thought, senior ones.

  She also noted that there were four men and four female companions: the three women and the girl. She guessed that each Party man had brought one guest along: a wife or, in the case of Minnie, a granddaughter.

  Her group, CJ realised suddenly, were not the only VIPs being shown around the zoo today. And perhaps hers was not the most important one either.

  The grey-moustached man in the Great Dragon Zoo blazer stopped at the sight of Hu Tang and smiled broadly. He spoke in Mandarin so CJ silently translated in her head.

  ‘Comrade Hu! How delightful to see you!’ he said. ‘What a glorious day to show off our wonderful zoo!’

  Hu nodded. ‘Director Chow. How is your tour going?’

  ‘Marvellously,’ the man named Chow said. ‘Just marvellously.’

  Hu Tang turned to his American guests and switched to English. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the director of our zoo, Mr Chow Wei. Director Chow, these are some very influential members of the Western media so please do not say anything impolitic! Messrs Wolfe and Perry from The New York Times, and CJ and Hamish Cameron representing National Geographic.’

  Director Chow bowed. ‘Welcome to our zoo,’ he said in English. ‘As I am sure you will have realised by now, there is nothing in the world like it. Enjoy. I believe I will be seeing you all later this evening for a banquet. Please excuse me, I must attend to my guests.’

  He guided his party away.

  ‘Goodbye, CJ,’ Minnie said as she was led away. ‘It was very nice to meet you.’

  ‘It was very nice to meet you, too, Minnie,’ CJ said.

  Standing beside CJ, Wolfe watched the other group go. ‘Do you know who those men were?’ he said softly.

  ‘Communist Party bigwigs?’ CJ said.

  ‘Communist Party super bigwigs. Two Politburo members, one state governor and one casino billionaire from Macau. Plus their companions.’

  ‘Why were the men wearing brand-new hiking outfits?’ CJ asked.

  Wolfe shrugged. ‘Must be doing a different tour from us.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ Hu Tang ushered them down into the amphitheatre. ‘This way, please.’

  CJ and the others settled into the front row of the amphitheatre while Hu Tang and Deputy Director Zhang ascended the stage and stood behind a lectern.

  It was a curious sensation, CJ thought, to be sitting in a stadium that was built so high up. They were four hundred feet above the ground, up near the rim of the crater.

  Xin Xili and her CCTV cameraman continued filming them from the side.

  Hu Tang stood on the stage, framed by the glorious megavalley. With its high central mountain, moss-covered buttes, castles and dragons, it looked fantastical, otherworldly.

  Hu pressed a button on the lectern and a large plasma screen rose up out of the stage beside him. On it was the question:

  WHAT IS A DRAGON?

  Oh, great, CJ thought, a PowerPoint lecture.

  ‘I imagine you have many questions,’ Hu began, ‘which Deputy Director Zhang and I shall endeavour to answer now. For instance, what exactly is a dragon and how did China manage to find and raise them when no other nation on Earth has ever done so before? To help me answer these questions for you, I might call on a friend to help me.’

  Hu pressed a button on his lectern theatrically.

  Bang! Flames rushed into the air from vents arrayed around the stage—a pyrotechnic effect often used at rock concerts—and a cloud of smoke engulfed the stage.r />
  With a sudden whoosh, something large rushed low over CJ’s head, making her hair flutter, before landing on the stage right beside Hu.

  The smoke cleared . . .

  . . . and there, beside Hu, stood a dragon.

  CJ stared at it in awe.

  She had actually wondered if the dragons she had seen from afar might have been somehow fake—perhaps sophisticated animatronic robots—but now that she saw this one up close, she was under no illusions. This was a living breathing beast.

  It was the size of a large horse, like a Clydesdale, about nine feet tall, but it was skinnier than a horse, more skeletal. That said, it probably still weighed close to a ton.

  The animal’s head—at the end of a long slender neck—stood a few feet above Hu Tang’s right shoulder. It was brightly coloured. Vivid yellow-and-black stripes ran down its body, from the shoulders to the tip of its tail.

  As it had landed beside Hu, the creature’s wings had folded quickly and efficiently to its sides, all but disappearing from view. The wings were bat-like, huge spans of translucent hide stretched taut between elongated vestigial fingerbones. Where they met the dragon’s body, the joints and fascia were thick and strong, as one would expect of musculature that had to lift such a substantial weight.

  The skin on its back and legs was armoured with what appeared to be thick plating. That plating was shot through with striated patterns and osteoderms like those found on a crocodile’s back and tail. Its underbelly appeared softer and CJ could see its ribcage pressing against its dark leathery skin as it breathed powerfully in and out.

  It had four legs on which it walked. They were thin and bony yet well muscled, and the forelimbs had long finger-like claws that looked capable of gripping things.

  The whole animal seemed built for light and fast movement. It had not an ounce of excess weight on it. It stood like a jungle cat, low and coiled, with perfect balance.

  CJ noticed a small and obviously unnatural marking on the dragon’s left hind leg: a black stencilled letter plus some numbers. The marking on this dragon read: Y-18. An identifier of some sort, like a brand on a cow.

  And then there was its head.

  It was bright yellow on top, jet black on the bottom, and rather than the long donkey-like skull shape that people were accustomed to seeing in movies, it was snub-nosed and reptilian, more like a lizard or a dinosaur. It had high sharply-pointed ears and running along the top of its head and down its long neck was a crest of spiky bristles.

  It had a menacing cluster of exposed teeth in its snout: the fourth tooth of the lower jaw protruded above the lip, fitting perfectly into a matching fold in the upper lip.

  Its eyes held CJ absolutely captivated. Narrow and slit-like with a nictitating membrane that occasionally flitted down over them, they gleamed with intelligence.

  The animal peered closely at the group, as interested in them as they were in it, passing over every member of the party. When its eyes fell on CJ, she could have sworn it paused for an extra moment.

  It felt like it wasn’t just looking at her, it was looking through her, into her. And then the creature’s gaze moved on and the spell was broken.

  CJ blinked back to her senses, and as the animal turned its attention to Wolfe beside her, she glimpsed something on the side of its head that was not natural.

  It looked like a small metallic box, with wiring that disappeared into the animal’s skull. The box was attached to the side of the dragon’s head but painted to match the skin colour, to camouflage it. But then the animal turned again and CJ lost sight of the box.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Hamish gasped beside her.

  ‘You can say that again,’ CJ said.

  ‘Fuck me.’ He began firing away with his camera.

  CJ couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  It had a dangerous beauty to it. Its proportions were simply perfect. Even the way it stood had a dignity and majesty to it. It was proud. It was magnificent.

  It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing CJ had ever seen in her life.

  Hu Tang smiled.

  He had seen this response before and would no doubt see it many times again.

  Newcomers were always struck dumb at their first sight of a dragon. It had been the same with him.

  He felt a rush of profound satisfaction. He had staked his reputation on this zoo; more than that, his entire career. In high-level meetings of the Politburo, he had countered the arguments of the older Party men by saying that China needed a place like this—a place of wonder, joy and happiness—if it was to overtake the United States as the pre-eminent nation on Earth.

  And he had delivered. The Great Dragon Zoo of China would be the making of Hu Tang. Specifically, it would make him the next President of China.

  Now, news of this place was about to spread. Today, it was The New York Times and National Geographic. They had been chosen very specifically to see the zoo first because of their reputations for reliability and integrity. Next week, it would be the American and British tabloid press, plus of course, TMZ, along with some influential movie and music stars—Brad and Angelina, or maybe Beyoncé and Jay-Z. The zoo’s ‘image consultants’ from New York had been very clear about this: establish your believability first, then go tabloid.

  Judging by the looks on the faces of these guests, Hu Tang thought, it was all going exactly according to plan.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘meet your first dragon. Meet Lucky.’

  A Chinese woman joined Hu on the stage.

  She wore a futuristic-looking outfit: a figure-hugging black bodysuit and a fitted black-and-yellow leather jacket that matched the dragon’s colours. She had also streaked her otherwise black hair with electric yellow highlights, so that it too matched the dragon. CJ noticed that the woman’s jacket was more than just decorative. It bore the functional features of a motorcycle jacket: pads on the elbows and Kevlar armour on the spine.

  The woman also wore an earpiece in her left ear with a tiny microphone in it. When she spoke, her voice was amplified by speakers around the amphitheatre.

  ‘Hello, everyone,’ she said. ‘My name is Yim and I am the head dragon handler here at the zoo. Even though she is female, Lucky here is what we call a yellowjacket prince.’

  Yim blew an odd-shaped whistle.

  Instantly, four more dragons flew out of the sky and landed on the stage around her. Each landed with a heavy whump.

  They were the same size as Lucky, but different in colour. These four animals all had jet-black backs and bright red bellies. Their crests were a fierce scarlet, but each had a unique mottling of red on their otherwise black heads. They snorted as they breathed, braying like horses, and they shifted on their feet. Their tails slunk back and forth behind their thin muscular bodies and they also had armour plating with striated patterns. CJ saw that they too had brands on their left hind legs: R-22, R-23, R-24 and R-25.

  As the visitors gasped at these new arrivals, Yim threw each dragon a treat of some sort: they looked like dead rats to CJ. The dragons caught the morsels in their mouths and gulped them down like—CJ winced—like performing seals.

  Oh, God, she thought. They’ve trained them . . .

  CJ turned to check how her fellow visitors were taking this.

  Wolfe and Perry were staring in open-mouthed awe. Hamish was digging it. The American ambassador seemed delighted by the show he was seeing. His aide, Greg Johnson—whose presence CJ had almost forgotten; he seemed very good at melting into the background—was gazing at the dragons with narrowed eyes, assessing them very closely.

  Yim keyed her headset mike again, just like a seal trainer at a regular zoo.

  ‘And these four strapping young males are red-bellied black princes. You will see dragons of three sizes here at the Great Zoo. The largest we call emperors. They are approximately the size of an airliner. Next are the kings: they are about the size of a public bus. And then there are these ones, the princes. As you can see, they are roughly the s
ize of a horse.

  ‘The prince class of dragons weigh approximately one ton.’

  At those words, Lucky hopped lightly on the spot, landing with a resounding boom.

  The audience laughed.

  ‘They have a top flying speed of 160 kilometres an hour—’

  Lucky took to the air, her wings spreading wide with surprising speed. She beat them powerfully and did a quick, tight loop.

  ‘—that’s 100 miles an hour for those not used to the metric system,’ Yim said with a smile. ‘But given the considerable exertion it takes to stay aloft, dragons can only maintain flight for short distances, a few kilometres at best. They are mainly gliders. As such, they cannot cross oceans; indeed, we have found that one of the few things they cannot stand is salt water. They hate it.’

  Lucky landed again beside Yim, who flung her a fresh treat. The yellow dragon caught and swallowed it happily.

  Yim said, ‘Sceptics who have doubted the existence of dragons have always questioned how something so large could possibly fly. Now we know.

  ‘Firstly, as you can see, dragons are not lumbering, fat-bellied beasts—they are lean and light. Secondly, like pterodactyls, they possess a peculiar kind of bone structure: their bones are hollow but with a criss-crossing matrix of high-density, low-weight keratin. This makes their bones extremely strong yet remarkably light. And lastly, their shoulder muscles and fascia—the ligaments and tendons connecting their wings to their bodies—are incredibly powerful. All of this creates an animal that can—’

  ‘Wait. I’m sorry. What about sight?’ CJ asked. She couldn’t help herself. ‘What sort of visual acuity do they have?’

  Yim seemed momentarily vexed by the interruption, but she shifted gears smoothly. ‘Dragons nest in deep underground caves, so their eyes are well adapted to night vision. They have slit irises, like those found in cats, and a tapetum lucidum, also found in cats and other nocturnal animals. That is a reflective layer behind the retina that re-uses light.

  ‘Now, light is measured in lux. One lux is roughly the amount of light you get at twilight. Pure moonlight is 0.3 lux. 10-9 lux is what we would call absolute pitch darkness. Our dragons can see perfectly in 10-9 lux. Does that answer your question?’