Matthew Reilly: The Great Zoo of China

‘No thanks,’ CJ had said.

‘It’s all expenses paid. Private jet. Swanky hotel.’

‘That sort of thing doesn’t impress me, Don.’

‘The Chinese asked specifically for you.’

That stopped her.

‘Really?’

‘They’ve read your stuff. Done their homework. They mentioned the pieces you did for Nature on the hunting behaviour of saltwater crocodiles and the Nat Geo documentary you did with Bill Lynch on alligator vocalisations. The Chinese asked for Lynch to go over there and write a piece on this zoo, but then he died in that plane crash. Now they want you.’

CJ had been saddened by the news of Bill’s death. He had taught her everything she knew and had begged her not to leave the university after the incident.

‘They also know you speak Mandarin,’ Grover said. ‘Which is a big plus.’

That had been CJ’s father’s idea. When she and Hamish had been little, their father, a humble insurance salesman with an insatiable curiosity and a penchant for dragging his two children away on unbearable camping trips, had insisted on them taking Mandarin lessons: ‘The future of the world is China, kids,’ he’d said, ‘so you should learn their language.’ It had been good advice. Their dad wasn’t rich or famous, but he’d been ahead of his time on that one. As for the camping trips, he would always dismiss their whining complaints with the cheerful phrase, ‘Hey, it’s character building.’

‘Photos, too?’ CJ had asked Grover.

‘It’s a full feature spread, kid. Come on, do it for me. The Chinese government is gonna pay me a king’s ransom for this. It’ll cover my bills for five years, and your fee will pay yours for ten.’

‘I want to bring my own photographer,’ CJ said flatly.

‘Who?’

‘Hamish.’

‘Goddamn it, CJ. So long as I don’t have to bail him out of jail for deflowering some senior minister’s daughter—’

‘Deal breaker, Don.’

‘Okay, okay. You can take your stupid brother. Can I call the Chinese back and say you’re in?’

‘All right. I’m in.’

And so, a week later, CJ and her brother had boarded the private jet bound for China.

At nine o’clock the next morning, CJ and Hamish arrived in the lobby of the hotel to find Na and the Maybach waiting for them in the turnaround. Na was again dressed in her perfect navy skirt-suit and wearing the Bluetooth earpiece in her ear.

CJ wore her standard field clothes: hiking boots, tan cargo pants, black San Francisco Giants T-shirt and a battered brown leather jacket. Around her neck she wore a leather strap, hanging from which was a three-inch-long saltwater crocodile tooth: a gift from Bill Lynch. She wore her hair tied back in a careless ponytail. After all, they were just visiting a zoo.

She and Hamish slid into the back seat of the Maybach, their destination: a military airbase twenty miles inland.

While CJ was immune to the charms of expensive hospitality, Hamish wasn’t. Sitting in the back of the limo, he munched on not one but two packets of potato chips.

‘How cool is this, Chipmunk?’ he grinned. ‘Free mini bar.’

‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch, Hamish.’

‘But there are such things as free plane rides, free penthouse suites in six-star hotels and’—a surreptitious glance at Na up in the front of the limo—‘free bathroom products.’

CJ rolled her eyes. ‘You didn’t steal the hotel shampoo?’

‘And the conditioner.’ Hamish wore his tattered multi-pocketed photojournalist’s vest over a Bob Dylan T-shirt. He lifted the flap on one pocket to reveal four hotel-sized shampoo and conditioner bottles. ‘It’s Molton Brown. That’s top shelf.’

‘Why do you need shampoo? You hardly bathe anyway.’

‘I bathe.’ Hamish sniffed his underarms.

‘You’re an idiot.’

‘No. I’m awesome .’ Hamish settled into the seat beside her and resumed munching his chips.

They couldn’t have been more different, CJ and Hamish, in size and in personality. The Bear and the Chipmunk, that’s what their mother had called them.

It suited.

Four years younger than CJ and a towering six foot three inches tall, Hamish was large in every way: a photographer and videographer who had done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, he lived large, partied hard, drank a bit too much and was always getting into trouble. He even had oversized features: a big face, square jaw, huge blue eyes and a great booming voice. He rarely shaved. He wore a red rubber WristStrong bracelet on his right wrist intertwined with a couple of hemp surfer wristbands.

CJ, on the other hand, had always been the good girl: quiet, mature, unobtrusive and very academic. Having a near-photographic, or eidetic, memory helped with that.

While Hamish went to war zones and parties, she’d worked away at the university, penning papers on her specialty, reptilian behaviour, specifically that of crocodiles and alligators. Among other things, it was CJ who had quantified the intelligence of big crocodilians, proving they were as smart as or even smarter than chimpanzees.

Other intelligent animals—like chimps, wolves and hyenas—might set simple traps. Crocodiles often set traps several days in advance. If a six-metre saltwater crocodile saw you coming down to a riverbank at 7:30 a.m. for four days in a row to check your lobster cages, on the fifth day it would wait at the water’s edge, just below the surface, and pounce when you arrived. Crocodiles had extraordinary patience and amazing memories. Their ability to spot routine was incredible: sometimes they would set up ambushes based on the weekly, even monthly routines of their prey.

CJ’s considerable professional success had not been reflected in her personal life. While Hamish had gone through a swathe of girlfriends over the years, CJ had not had many serious boyfriends, just the one in fact, Troy, and that had ended badly: immediately after the incident that had destroyed her face. Only Hamish had stayed by her side, her ever-loyal brother.

‘Is everything okay back there?’ Na said from the passenger seat up front.

‘We’re fine,’ CJ said, glancing at her brother’s stolen hair care products.

‘Remember, nothing is too much trouble,’ Na said as the limo turned off the main road and zoomed through the gates of the airbase without stopping. Clearly, Na had called ahead. ‘If you need anything, just ask.’

The Maybach drove out onto the runway, where CJ saw the Bombardier from the previous day waiting for them, its airstairs folded open. Only today, CJ noticed, there was something different about the private jet.

All its windows had been blacked out.

CJ stepped warily up the airstairs.

‘Why black out the windows?’ she whispered to Hamish.

‘I have no idea,’ Hamish said, equally concerned. He carried his Canon EOS 5D digital SLR camera slung over his shoulder.

Arriving in the plush main cabin of the jet, CJ stopped, surprised.

Already seated there were two Americans, both men, one of whom was in the process of being interviewed by a Chinese television crew.

CJ paused in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt.

She had always been a good observer, a close watcher of things. It came, she guessed, from observing predators in the wild—you didn’t settle in to watch a croc or a gator without first assessing the surrounding area for other predators. Whether she was in a shopping mall, a meeting or here in a private jet, CJ’s eyes always swept the area for important details—and with her memory, she remembered everything.