Matthew Reilly - The Great Zoo of China

The red-bellied black dragon rose up before her.

Nine feet tall, with its long swooping neck, spike-like crests and fangs protruding from its snout, it towered over her, blocking the way to a rung-ladder on the wall of the pit.

There was nowhere for CJ to go.

The dragon was crouching to lunge when a greenish-brown blur slammed into it from the side and the dragon went flying into the water.

There was a great thrashing and splashing and at first CJ didn’t know what was going on. Then amid all the spraying water, she saw that there were not one but two dragons in it: the red-bellied black prince and another prince, a greenish-brown one.

The greenish-brown dragon was quite possibly the ugliest thing she had ever seen in her life. Where the black prince had a majesty to it, this animal was something else entirely. It was mud-coloured and looked like a cross between a crocodile and a giant salamander.

But it was equal in size to the black prince and a match for it, and the two dragons fought with terrible violence, exchanging blows and slashing at each other with their teeth as they rolled around in the water.

‘Come on!’ Hamish hauled CJ toward the rung-ladder and within seconds they were out of the pit and running for the door in the right-hand corner.

Johnson and Syme were already there. Johnson, ever cool under pressure, was punching in the code and the door unlocked, popping open with a gaseous hiss. They both slid inside it.

Zhang, slower than Johnson and Syme, was still running around the edge of the pit, with the second red-bellied black prince closing in on him. It flew fast and low across the broad hall.

CJ and Hamish hurried for the same door.

They bolted side by side, stride for stride. The dragon saw them, switching its gaze back and forth between them and Zhang, as if trying to choose which prey to go for.

And suddenly Zhang slipped on a puddle of blood and he went sliding clumsily onto his butt across the tiled floor.

It sealed his fate.

The dragon made its choice and descended on him. It all but enveloped Deputy Director Zhang as it came down on him with its claws raised. Zhang screamed as the dragon mauled him, raising his arms in defence, but the dragon just tore his chest apart before biting his throat out.

CJ and Hamish squeezed through the open doorway and Johnson slammed the door shut behind them. The lock clicked. They were safe.

Fifteen feet away from them, through a small window in the heavy door, they saw the dragon feast on Zhang’s body, his still-warm blood dripping from its jaws.

CJ turned away from the grisly sight.

Still breathing hard, she took in the dark tunnel in which she now found herself.

The door they’d all just slid through was actually a seriously secure door: it was big and solid—even the glass in its little window was thick—and it had a rubber lining at its edges that created an airtight seal.

As the dragon feasted on the other side of it, cracking Zhang’s bones, CJ could barely hear it. The door was almost soundproof.

‘Everybody all right?’ she asked.

‘Only just,’ Hamish said.

CJ looked down the tunnel on her side of the door.

All the lights were out. The grim passageway ran for about a hundred metres or so, ending at a doorway that stood rather ominously open.

The glare of daylight came through that distant doorway.

CJ started walking down the tunnel toward it.

‘Where are you going?’ Syme asked.

‘Down there.’

‘Why not just stay here where it’s safe?’

‘Because we don’t know it’s safe.’ CJ peered down the tunnel. ‘And we won’t know that till we know what’s on the other side of that door down there.’

She kept striding down the long, dark tunnel. The others took off after her.

The door at the other end of the tunnel was just like the one at the Birthing Centre—thick and rimmed with air-sealing rubber—only it lay wide open.

CJ peered through it cautiously and found herself looking at a compact room with black-painted floors and black-painted walls. A lone door on the opposite wall stood open, allowing daylight to come in.

The black floor and walls left CJ with an odd sensation: she felt like she was backstage at a theatre. Two black-painted side-tunnels branched away to the left and the right, disappearing into darkness.

‘I don’t like this,’ Johnson said, looking around the empty space.

‘What is this place?’ Hamish asked. ‘I’m guessing it isn’t on the regular tour.’

CJ wanted to know the same thing.

She stepped out from the tunnel, heading for the open outer door.

‘Dr Cameron…’ Johnson said. ‘I think you should come back inside the tunnel and get behind this door.’

CJ arrived at the outer door and looked out through it.

She saw a small yet very beautiful valley enclosed by high rocky walls. It had lush savannah grass, a river and a forest. In the exact centre of the little valley was a grass-covered hill on the summit of which was an opulent-looking wooden building. It oozed wealth and privilege. It looked like a golf clubhouse or a hunting lodge.

CJ ’s eyes narrowed.

Stepping out through the door, she looked back—and saw that the entrance to the small room was superbly camouflaged. Its doorway was sunken into a rocky cliff and the door—still open—had rock-camouflage material on its outer side, camouflage that made it blend in perfectly with the cliff.

Hamish came alongside CJ and he saw the camouflage, too.

‘I repeat,’ he said. ‘What is this place?’

CJ was thinking quickly. ‘It’s like a—’

With a squeal, a grey prince-sized dragon came charging out of some nearby bushes, bounding directly for CJ and Hamish.

It spread its wings and swooped at them, doubling its speed in an instant, and CJ glimpsed that it had no ears.

She and Hamish ducked back inside the doorway and slammed the camouflaged door shut and, through a little window in it, saw the dragon pull up short, foiled. It screeched at them, furious.

CJ and Hamish caught their breath, looking out at the raging dragon.

Then the grey dragon’s head exploded, spraying blood all over the little window, and CJ and Hamish yanked their heads back in shock.

‘Dr Cameron,’ Johnson whispered from the doorway to the tunnel, ‘come back here right now .’

CJ turned at his tone and as she did so she saw a shadow emerge from the left-hand side-tunnel: another grey prince, head bent low.

It shrieked as it broke into a run and suddenly CJ and Hamish were sprinting, racing back to the tunnel door. They dived, sliding across the last few feet of floor as Johnson slammed the airtight tunnel door shut behind them and the dragon skidded to a halt outside it, bellowing—

Blam!

The dragon’s head burst apart and dropped from view and suddenly CJ saw soldiers in Chinese Army uniforms fanning out into the black-painted room, guns up and shouting.

‘Clear! Clear!’ they yelled in Mandarin before one of the soldiers came up to the door and peered in at CJ and the others.

‘ Ni hao ?’ He saw CJ and switched to English. ‘Hello? Please. Open the door. The area is secure. The zoo is secure. You are safe now.’

CJ slumped to the floor, relieved.