Matthew Reilly - The Great Zoo of China

He had gone thirty metres when he saw her—unseen by the dragons—slip through the open door of the upright jeep.

The hardtop jeep was facing away from the tunnel, having flipped that way when it had crashed, and through its rear window, Hamish saw CJ search for the remote until she found it up near the rear-view mirror. She turned and gave Hamish a thumbs-up.

Huddled in the jeep, CJ didn’t hit the remote straight away. She was waiting for the others to get to the gate. She slouched below the dashboard, staying low, trying to remain unseen by the dragons only ten yards away.

The king dragon ate the third workman while his two lieutenants looked on.

She saw Hamish and the others reach some bushes next to the tunnel just as the king stepped back and allowed the two princes to have the last sobbing workman. They tore him apart, one taking his upper body, the other his lower half.

At which point, CJ hit OPEN on the remote.

With a dull mechanical clunking, the gate sealing the mouth of the tunnel slid upward, opening.

Hamish and the others didn’t need any prompting. They hurdled the guardrail and dashed inside the tunnel.

The three dragons spun at the movement.

Hamish found a panel on the wall, hit CLOSE and the gate slid back down, closing with a soft whump .

Inside the jeep, CJ exhaled with relief. They were safe.

Now she had to get herself to the tunnel. She figured if she lay low in the jeep, the dragons would eventually take off and then she could just sneak down to the tunn—

Beep-beep… beep-beep.

A soft electronic beeping sound made CJ turn to see the huge head of one of the princes on the other side of the driver’s window, staring right at her!

CJ sprang back. ‘Ah!’

She turned the other way—to see the second prince peering at her through the passenger side window!

‘Ooh, shit…’

The first dragon roared, loudly and furiously, and CJ saw it more clearly: it was the one with the red face and the box-shaped implant grafted onto the side of its head. Now, however, it had a Bluetooth earpiece wedged between two of its bloody teeth. To her horror, CJ recognised it as Na’s earpiece.

The Bluetooth earpiece was making the beeping sound as it searched for a device to pair with.

This was the same red-faced dragon CJ had kicked in the mouth inside the cable car and which had last been seen falling to the bottom of the waterfall inside the car.

It must have got out.

Red Face bellowed again and, glaring malevolently at CJ, punched the driver’s door with its foreclaw. The door dented inward. The car rocked.

The second prince roared as well and with nothing else to call on, CJ turned the key in the ignition and miraculously the battered jeep started.

The two dragons withdrew at the revving of the engine.

CJ jammed the jeep into reverse and floored it.

With a squeal of tyres, the jeep took off, shooting back toward the gated tunnel.

The king dragon turned idly at this sudden movement, seemingly more intrigued than disturbed. It didn’t move.

But its two earless princes did.

They bounded after the jeep and as CJ sped backwards in reverse, Red Face launched itself onto the bonnet of the car and roared fiercely at CJ through the windshield.

The second dragon landed on the roof of the backward-speeding jeep and the roof bent inwards under the animal’s weight, almost crushing CJ.

Leaning low, CJ kept her foot on the gas and the jeep raced down the ring road in reverse.

Riding on the bonnet, Red Face punched through the windshield and CJ ducked as glass exploded all around her and suddenly a massive black forearm with razor-sharp claws was right there in the jeep’s cabin with her, trying to get at her.

One claw slashed across CJ’s left shoulder, slicing through her leather jacket, drawing blood.

CJ screamed in pain.

Then she yanked left on the steering wheel and the car swerved crazily, forcing Red Face to withdraw his claw to keep himself from falling off the speeding jeep.

Her shoulder burning with pain, CJ turned to look through the rear window of the jeep: the tunnel was now only thirty yards away.

Then the entire rear door of the jeep was wrenched clean off and the second dragon swung in through the opening and snarled at CJ from point-blank range.

At the same time, on the bonnet, instead of reaching in with his claw, Red Face jammed his head through the shattered windshield and suddenly CJ found herself staring into the open jaws of that dragon, too.

CJ gritted her teeth in determination.

‘You guys wanna go for a drive? All right, then…’

She jammed the gas pedal all the way down, yanked the steering wheel hard right, causing the reversing jeep to swing that way and then she dived out the driver’s side door just as the speeding jeep crashed through the guardrail separating the ring road from the hillside.

The jeep shot off the road, with the two black princes on it, and it bounced and jounced for fifteen metres before it slammed into a tree, sending the two dragons flying off it. Red Face slammed into a thick tree trunk, wrapping around it. The second dragon tumbled further down the hill, end over end over end.

Up on the road, CJ rolled to a halt, grazed but alive, only ten metres from the gate.

‘CJ!’ She saw Hamish on the other side of the barred gate. ‘Move your butt!’

He hit an unseen button and the thick-grilled gate slid up a couple of feet. CJ scrambled forward on her hands and knees, rolled under it, and the gate came down and she exhaled with relief, safe.

Smack!

Red Face slammed against the bars of the gate, inches away from her, and she fell back onto her butt. The enraged dragon reached through the bars—frenzied and furious—desperate to grab her, but CJ scuttled backwards, away from its grasping claws.

The dragon hissed.

But it couldn’t get past the gate, and as she sat on the floor of the tunnel, her chest heaving, tears welling in her eyes, CJ looked up at Hamish.

‘Now that’s character building,’ she said.

Safely behind the grilled gate, CJ wiped her eyes clean and stood. ‘All right, folks. Let’s go find someone who can get us out of here.’

‘Aye-aye to that.’ Hamish handed her back her Great Dragon Zoo watch. ‘Here, you better put this back on.’

The group headed down the tunnel. It was modern and well lit, with a high curving ceiling that spanned a two-lane bitumen road. Two full-sized semitrailer rigs could pass through it side by side. It stretched ahead for about five hundred metres where it met another barred gate through which daylight shone.

Seymour Wolfe’s lower lip was quivering. He was, CJ could tell, visibly coming to terms with what they had just endured. ‘This is just… just unbelievable .’