The Great Zoo of China Read online

  Wolfe said, ‘November 1979. That was when the Iranian hostage crisis was going on.’

  ‘Correct,’ Hu said. ‘While it was a most unpleasant event for America, it was quite fortuitous for us, for it occupied the world’s attention for well over the next year, allowing our experts to examine the cavern in absolute secrecy. Deputy Director Zhang can provide the technical history of what happened next.’

  Hu stepped aside and Zhang took over smoothly: ‘We brought in reptile experts to examine the eggs. They determined that they were not fossils but rather living ova containing animals in deep hibernation. X-rays and ultrasound scans revealed that the eggs contained lizard-like foetuses curled into tight balls.

  ‘We closed the nickel mine and dispatched all the workers. We then lined the walls of the cavern with cameras and sensors of every kind—temperature, humidity, sound, ultrasound—so that we might learn all we could about this astonishing discovery.

  ‘But we did not seal the cavern. Instead we sealed the land above it. We built a massive steel dome—it still stands over the Nesting Centre to the west of this valley, the oldest structure here at the Great Zoo. And then we waited. Waited and waited.

  ‘And then in July 1981 one of the eggs hatched.

  ‘A dragon emerged, covered in birth matter. It was a baby prince, a red-bellied black, and the size of a dog. The whole event was filmed. It is amazing footage. The prince ate two of its brethren, consuming the albumen and vitellus of those eggs, giving it strength, and then it went to the tunnel leading to the surface. It emerged inside our steel dome, sniffed the air, tested the water . . . and then it went back down to its cavern and began awakening the other eggs.

  ‘When the other eggs began to hatch, we had already prepared our facility up on the surface. When they emerged, we caught them one by one.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell anyone?’ Wolfe said.

  ‘This was the greatest zoological discovery in history,’ Zhang said. ‘We wanted to make sure of what we had. We wanted to make sure the dragons would survive. If we showed the world a single specimen and it died, we would become an international laughing stock.’

  Hu stepped forward and interjected: ‘It was also felt by some senior Party officials that this discovery could be the making of modern China, so it was decided that it should be kept secret until we could show it off to the world. It was thus determined that a zoo would be built on top of our discovery. And so it was. This zoo has been a project nearly forty years in the making.’

  Hamish gave a low whistle. ‘Now that’s what I call patience.’

  ‘In any event,’ Zhang went on, ‘as the world warmed, more dragons hatched and our Nesting Centre began to overflow, so we built a second “Birthing Centre” beside it. And we fashioned this valley to suit our needs—it required twenty thousand workers, working over twenty years, and through sheer force of Chinese resolve, we bent the landscape to our will.’

  ‘You bent the landscape to your will?’ Aaron Perry asked. ‘What do you mean by that? Are you saying this valley isn’t natural?’

  Hu decided to answer that one. He gestured toward the towering mountain ahead of them. ‘Oh, no, this valley is not natural at all. Our glorious central peak—Dragon Mountain—is natural, as are a few sections of the wall encircling this valley. But otherwise, this land only became a valley when our army of workers connected some rocky mounts by building the wall out of introduced limestone and concrete, turning it into a crater.’

  Hu saw his guests turn and reappraise the colossal wall of the valley, now aware that it was not a naturally occurring landform. ‘The wall containing our main entrance building, for instance, is entirely artificial. All the lakes, waterfalls and other waterways in this zoo are entirely our creation. The smaller peaks are artificial, as are most of the cliffs—they were designed from the outset to accommodate the dragons.’

  Hamish whistled again. ‘You have got to be kidding me . . .’

  Zhang said, ‘Throughout the whole time the crater was being constructed, not one of the ordinary workers saw a single dragon. They thought they were building the world’s greatest zoo, which in a sense they were. They just didn’t know what the animals would be.

  ‘And all the while, we studied these creatures, watched them grow, watched them feed, observed their habits, even trained some of them, as you have seen.’

  The cable car continued its slow glide over the megavalley, moving toward the central mountain. Dragons soared around it.

  Hu said, ‘Thank you, Deputy Director.’ He turned to the group of visitors. ‘Now. Do you have any questions?’

  The questions came rushing at him:

  ‘How did you build this place for twenty years without anyone in the world finding out?’ Perry asked.

  ‘How many dragons do you have here?’ Seymour Wolfe asked.

  Hamish asked, ‘What do they eat? How do they interact? Do they fight each other?’

  Ambassador Syme asked, ‘Apart from salt water, do they fear anything else?’

  Hu held up his hands, laughing. ‘Okay! Okay! These are all very good questions and I will take them in turn.’

  Still smiling, he noticed that CJ was standing silently off to the side, staring out at a king dragon gliding in a slow circle. She had not asked a question, let alone an excited one. In fact, at his call for questions, she had actually turned away to look out at the view.

  Hu frowned. ‘Dr Cameron? What about you? Do you have any questions about our dragons?’

  CJ didn’t turn when she spoke. She kept staring at the flying leviathan outside.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have one. But I’m not going to ask it now.’

  Hu frowned, confused—and even a little offended—but he regathered himself and turned to the others.

  ‘Ah, look, we’re arriving at Dragon Mountain,’ he said.

  The cable car had indeed arrived at the tunnel that bored into the mighty central mountain. The great peak loomed above them.

  ‘Let us go inside and I shall answer all of your questions over lunch.’

  The cable car disappeared inside the mountain.

  Inside the mountain, the cable car stopped at a station cut into the very heart of the peak.

  The station’s walls were natural rock, gunmetal grey in colour, and they had been sculpted into enormous dragon shapes—it looked as if the dragons were emerging from the walls in frightening attack poses, jaws open, claws bared.

  Since the cable cars were double-deckers, the platform of the station had two levels, too. A modern grated catwalk led from the upper deck of the cable car to the upper doors of a huge double-levelled elevator.

  A group of Chinese workers was there, standing near the elevator. Seeing the arrival of the cable car with its VIP guests, they stopped their labours and stood to attention in a line, waiting for the visitors to pass.

  CJ figured they were electricians, judging by their work belts, coveralls and the clusters of naked wires protruding from the walls.

  The youngest of the workmen had clearly gathered his tools together in a hurry, for he held them awkwardly against his chest, and as CJ’s group passed him by, the poor fellow dropped his bundle with a loud clatter. A screwdriver, some pliers and about thirty metal clips scattered all over the floor.

  The group walked on, but as they did, CJ turned and she saw the foreman strike the young electrician across the face, hissing in Mandarin, ‘Idiot! Not in front of the guests!’

  CJ flinched. Such a thing would never happen back home, but in China it was still common for low-level workers to be beaten. She went back and, crouching beside the young electrician, began helping him pick up the many metal clips.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered in English, bowing his head repeatedly. ‘So sorry. So sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ CJ said, picking up clips. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is Li, ma’am.’

  ‘Take it easy, Li. It’s all right. It was an accident. You haven’t offend
ed anyone or made the zoo look bad.’

  Sweating, Li nodded in thanks, but a fearful glance at the foreman suggested that things wouldn’t be good for him after CJ and the others left. CJ picked up the last clip and the floor was clean.

  She headed off, but as she walked past the foreman, she whispered casually in Mandarin: ‘You touch that man again and I’ll have you fired. You understand?’

  The foreman blanched in shock.

  CJ rejoined the group at the elevator just as Hu was saying, ‘To answer Mr Wolfe’s question: we have 232 dragons here at the zoo: 31 emperors, 81 kings and 120 princes. They range in age from thirty-five years to infants that are only a few months old, but don’t let that fool you. Dragons grow fast. A month-old prince is the size of a lion. At six months, it is as tall as a man. It is full-sized at a year, but immature, so it will defer to its seniors.’

  They entered the elevator and CJ felt it zoom smoothly upward. The manufacturer’s plate by the doors showed it was German made. It hardly made a sound.

  Zhang said, ‘To answer Mr Cameron’s question from before regarding their eating habits: our dragons are omnivorous; they eat both meat and vegetable matter. The emperors are mostly herbivorous, like their large dinosaur forebears, while the kings and princes are predominantly carnivorous.’

  ‘What do you feed them?’ Wolfe asked.

  ‘Sheep and cows mainly,’ Zhang said simply. ‘We have a farming facility adjoining this valley, where we breed the dietary requirements for our dragons. As you can imagine, they require substantial amounts of meat, so our farming system works around the clock.’

  Hu said, ‘Mr Cameron also asked if they fight each other. They most certainly do, but in a very unusual and rather ritualistic way that we have termed “jousting”. Two dragons will face off and fly directly at each other. As they pass, claws are extended and one dragon usually comes away the better. We have found that such battles usually occur over—’

  ‘Territory,’ CJ said.

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s right,’ Hu said. ‘Territorial disputes. We considered attempting to segregate the dragons in order to stop the practice, but they eventually established their own territories and the jousting largely stopped.’

  Perry asked, ‘And how did you manage to build this place without anyone knowing?’

  Hu said, ‘Simple. We told the truth. You saw the sign at the maglev station reading: “Welcome to the Great Zoo of China”. There have been many others like it. In addition to telling every worker who worked on this project that they were building an enormous zoo, we created a whole set of logos and letterheads which featured on every sign, every truck, and on every invoice with every contractor who worked on this place. We gave them T-shirts and caps emblazoned with the fake logo of the Great Zoo of China. While they toiled, the dragons were sequestered underground in the Birthing and Nesting centres, so no worker ever saw a dragon.

  ‘Only the most trusted contractors were shown the dragons: those who were working on security features like the electromagnetic domes and the sonic shields, and of course the experts who helped us analyse the dragons’ behaviour.’

  ‘What about satellites?’ Wolfe asked, turning to the American ambassador, Syme. ‘What did America think was going on here?’

  Syme turned to Hu and a look passed between them, the look of two men who knew the realities of international politics.

  Syme said evenly, ‘In November 1979, all this land and the air above it was designated restricted military airspace. This whole valley is technically a military site subject to military laws.’

  Syme gave Hu another look and the Chinese Politburo member nodded in return. Their two nations, vying to be the world’s dominant power, knew all of each other’s secrets, or at least most of them.

  Syme said, ‘Until today, the United States government didn’t know the significance of that date. We knew of the sonic shields—but we use them ourselves at air force bases for cellular jamming, so we figured the Chinese were just doing the same thing. And since no major aircraft or missile technology was tested here, it wasn’t seen as a particularly special base. We processed the visas of the animal experts they brought in but then we saw the Great Zoo of China paraphernalia and I guess, well, we fell for it, too.’

  The elevator pinged and the doors opened onto an elegant room high above the valley. The room was perfectly circular, with curved and slanted floor-to-ceiling windows that offered unobstructed views of the megavalley.

  It was, CJ realised, the interior of the disc-shaped structure at the summit of the central mountain, or Dragon Mountain, as Hu had called it.

  And it was indeed a revolving restaurant. Well-appointed tables and chairs had been arranged on four broad descending tiers so that every table had a view over the valley. Only the central section of the structure stood still; the tiers all revolved at a slow pace around it.

  ‘There is a second identical restaurant on the level below us,’ Hu said. ‘Guests who ride up in the lower half of this elevator get out there.’

  Outside, dragons swooped and banked. It was like dining at the top of the Eiffel Tower, high in the sky, with only the clouds and the dragons for company.

  It was stunning.

  Lunch was served.

  Hu said, ‘The menu is by Gordon Ramsay. He is very popular in China. The Chinese people consider him to be a—what is the phrase—a lovable rogue.’

  While the more important guests—Ambassador Syme, Seymour Wolfe and Aaron Perry—sat with Hu Tang and Zhang at one end of the table, CJ found herself eating alongside the ambassador’s aide, Greg Johnson. She’d almost forgotten Johnson was even there, he’d been so silent on the cable car ride. It was like he had professionally blended into the background.

  ‘What do you think so far?’ Johnson asked as they ate.

  CJ said, ‘I think this place is going to make China the tourist destination of the world. In one hit, it blows Disneyland, Disney World and the Grand Canyon out of the water. What about you?’

  Johnson shrugged. ‘It’s pretty awesome. Although, having said that, I must admit I’m curious.’

  ‘About what?’ CJ said, popping some buttered broccoli into her mouth.

  ‘About what your single question is,’ Johnson said.

  CJ stopped chewing and eyed the ambassador’s aide closely. Johnson stared straight back at her, his dark eyes narrowed, focused, evaluating, and she wondered what kind of aide he really was.

  Johnson let the moment pass and smiled. ‘How about this view, huh?’

  With a final glance at Johnson, CJ looked out at the view. It was incredible. What the Chinese had done was remarkable—not only had they bred ancient animals, they had sculpted the very landscape to accommodate them.

  As she turned away from the view, she saw two people get up from another table. It was the only other table in the restaurant that was occupied—by a Chinese man and a younger Chinese woman—and now they were in the process of leaving.

  The woman, in her early twenties, wore a skirt-suit and looked very nervous. The man was short and a little on the plump side. He wore a red Great Dragon Zoo of China polo shirt and, unusually for a Chinese man, he had a long ponytail.

  ‘No way,’ CJ breathed. ‘It couldn’t be. Go-Go?’ she called.

  The man turned at the name. He saw CJ and his face broke out in a delighted grin.

  ‘Why, if it isn’t the lovely and talented Cassandra Jane Cameron!’ he exclaimed in a twee voice as he rushed over.

  CJ stood and they embraced warmly. He didn’t so much as glance at the scarring on her face.

  ‘So? What do you think of this place?’ he said. ‘Is it not . . . is it not . . . the biggest mind-fuck in history?’

  CJ laughed. Go Guan had always been like this: short, loud and supergay. A huge fan of Shanghai nightclubs, his nickname, Go-Go, had come naturally.

  ‘It’s certainly blowing my mind,’ CJ said.

  Go-Go stepped back from her. ‘God, look at you, girl! You a
re smoking hot! How do you get your butt so perfect? I do these squat classes at the gym, but look at my ass—look at it—it’s still the sad, sagging derriere of a fat little Chinaman. Urgh! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Doing a piece for Nat Geo. What about you? I haven’t seen you since you were working for me, stealing eggs from alligator nests on the Yangtze River and running from their angry mothers.’

  ‘I’ve moved up in the world, honey babe,’ Go-Go said. ‘Working for Ben Patrick in the Birthing Centre. This place needs every expert and grad student it can get.’ He indicated the young woman standing discreetly nearby. ‘I’m doing lunches all week with the successful candidates. Goodness me, no-one’s called me Go-Go in years. It’s so great to see you. Listen, I have to run. Maybe we can grab a sneaky chardonnay after your tour’s done.’

  ‘Sure,’ CJ said.

  Go-Go and the young woman left and CJ returned to the table as Seymour Wolfe said, ‘It must have taken a small army of labourers to build this place. How did you feed them and house them while they built it?’

  Hu gestured to the northeast: ‘If you look out that way, you will just make out the rooftops of some buildings.’

  CJ and the others looked in that direction and, sure enough, over the top of the northeastern corner of the valley, they could just see the roofs of what looked like a dozen tall apartment buildings.

  ‘That was our worker city,’ Hu Tang said. ‘It was a complete small-scale city, with residential buildings, gymnasiums, food markets, parks, even sporting grounds. Our workers lived there while they fashioned this valley out of the natural landscape.’

  ‘Was?’ Perry asked.

  ‘Now the city is largely empty—our animal keepers live there in just one building—but we maintain all the empty neighbourhoods because the city’s usefulness is not exhausted. When our wonderful zoo opens to the world, it is going to need another small army to operate it: tour guides, hotel staff, cleaning and custodial staff, and they will need somewhere to live.’