Matthew Reilly - The Great Zoo of China

Things happened very quickly after that.

CJ, Hamish and the two American diplomats were ushered out of the black-painted room and into the beautiful little valley, where they quickly found themselves surrounded by anxious zoo staff, much movement and lots of noise. About a dozen Chinese Army jeeps and a few troop trucks were parked nearby while overhead, three Z-10 helicopters hovered. Concerned paramedics attended to their scratches and scrapes.

Radios squawked. Junior officers barked into telephones. In the middle of it all, coordinating everything, was the grey-haired uniformed colonel CJ had met briefly when she had arrived at the zoo: Colonel Bao.

CJ picked up the odd phrase amid the cacophony of voices speaking in Mandarin:

‘—we counted twenty-six dragons with their ears severed—’

‘—forty-seven people dead in the administration building. Twenty-six in the Birthing Centre—’

‘—by ripping out their own ears, they made the sonic shields useless—’

‘—back-up generators are offline—’

‘—what about the domes?—’

‘—both electromagnetic domes are fine. They are still in place and working perfectly—’

A short distance away, CJ saw two of the four visiting Communist Party officials she had seen earlier. Their new hiking outfits were now torn and covered in dirt and grime. They looked furious. Director Chow bowed and scraped before them, trying to placate them, but they appeared to be having none of it.

With the two Party men was a woman—whose Gucci dress was smeared with blood and mud—and the little girl named Minnie, whose clothes were also dirty.

They were all quickly ushered into a silver Range Rover which zoomed away, kicking up gravel.

CJ wondered what had happened to the other Communist Party VIPs and their lady friends. She feared the worst.

A captain came up to Colonel Bao.

‘Sir, we have located and killed eighteen of the dragons that had severed their ears. Fourteen were red-bellied blacks, four were eastern greys.’

He held up a small tablet computer. It looked like an iPad mini, only one that was encased in a shockproof and waterproof rubber casing.

CJ caught a fleeting glimpse of its screen. It depicted a digitised map of the zoo similar to the one she had seen in the master control room earlier, complete with moving coloured icons:

Even though her view of the digital map was brief, CJ could see that the clusters of the dragons around the zoo had moved: the red crosses, for instance, now swarmed all over the administration building. She also saw a very odd arrangement of dragons inside the Nesting Centre: ten dragons, two of each colour, all in a strangely neat row, totally separated from all the other dragons in the zoo. She wondered what that was.

The captain continued: ‘Eight earless dragons remain unaccounted for. Six are red-bellied black princes, two are red-bellied black kings. We are searching the valley for them now—’

‘There are some in the generators and the others are probably underground somewhere, digging,’ a man’s voice said in English and everyone, including CJ, turned to see the bespectacled, lab coat–wearing man from the Birthing Centre.

‘What makes you say that, Dr Patrick?’ Colonel Bao said.

‘Because digging is what they do, Colonel,’ the bespectacled man, Ben Patrick, replied. ‘Digging into the Earth is how they managed to survive the meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs. They can see in pitch darkness, so they are perfectly comfortable underground. And they’ve been digging all over this zoo for months.’

‘If you are so knowledgeable about their behaviour, Dr Patrick,’ Bao snorted, ‘why didn’t you predict this attack?’

‘We are dealing with a species of creature never before seen in this age of the world,’ Patrick replied calmly. ‘They are intelligent in a way we have never known. Indeed, theirs is an intelligence that is far more ancient than ours.’

‘They are animals ,’ the colonel said.

‘Their intelligence is just different,’ Patrick said. ‘We underestimate it at our peril.’

‘I repeat, they are animals.’

‘They may well be, Colonel. But which species is mopping up the blood now?’

‘How do you know they’re in the generators?’ the colonel asked.

‘Because I saw them break in there. The access door to the generators is halfway down the entry tunnel to the Birthing Centre. I didn’t follow them because at that point, two more attacked the Birthing Centre. I also didn’t follow them in there because, quite frankly, I do not wish to die. Those dragons are probably the reason why your back-up generators are offline: I imagine they thought it was an exit and inadvertently dug through some key cables trying to get out.’

Colonel Bao snorted again as another captain rushed up to him and said, ‘Sir. The two American journalists have been found in the waste management facility. They are alive. They are being brought here right now.’

Bao waved his hand. ‘There is no need to bring them here. I doubt our guests want to stay any longer. Their little publicity tour is finished. Have Wolfe and Perry taken to the emergency departure area.’

While this was being said, the man named Patrick came over to CJ and her group.

‘CJ Cameron,’ he said.

‘Ben Patrick,’ she replied neutrally. ‘They told me you were here.’

Dr Benjamin Patrick smiled. He was still amazingly handsome, with matinee-idol good looks: blue eyes, high cheekbones, square jaw. His glasses made him look even sexier.

His eyes scanned her scars. He hadn’t seen CJ since the incident. ‘I heard about your face,’ he said. ‘Shame.’

That was classic Ben: CJ couldn’t tell if he meant it was a shame that she’d been hurt or a shame that her prettiness had been lost.

‘How’s the vocalisation research going?’ she asked, changing the topic.

‘It’s amazing stuff,’ he said. ‘The opportunity of a lifetime. I’ve been here for six years now and the research is off the charts. I have a database of over 300 separate and identifiable vocalisations. These animals are like nothing I have ever seen. They communicate. Every squawk and screech you hear has meaning. They live in strictly hierarchical packs, they have rivalries with other dragons. It is absolutely amazing.’

‘Until today,’ CJ said.

Patrick grimaced. ‘Yes. Until today. But our Chinese friends are a determined lot. To them this will just be seen as a setback, a necessary loss in their march toward their dream of a Great Dragon Zoo.’

CJ shook her head. ‘You don’t just get over something like this. Sixty-plus people are dead and The New York Times was here to see it. When Wolfe and Perry get back to Hong Kong, this’ll be the biggest news story in the world.’

‘Hell, yeah,’ Hamish said.

Just then, a second silver Range Rover pulled up nearby.

Out of it stepped Hu Tang. Colonel Bao went directly over to him with Patrick and a pair of captains. A quick discussion was had.

CJ watched them. As she did so, Greg Johnson sidled up beside her. ‘Wonder what they’re talking about?’ he said quietly.