Matthew Reilly: The Great Zoo of China

‘Bill Lynch gave this to me,’ she said. ‘This is from him to you!’

Gripping the tooth like a knife, CJ brought it down on Bao’s fists, stabbing them repeatedly.

Bao roared in pain and he released his grip on CJ’s heat suit and the Chinese colonel dropped—

—only to snatch hold of CJ’s sleeve on the way down and she went flailing over the edge with him!

As she went over the rim, CJ threw her hands out and caught the very edge of the stage with her fingertips.

Bao lost his grip on her sleeve as they fell, but he caught her heat suit’s right leg and so now he hung from CJ while CJ hung from the edge.

CJ’s fingers strained at the extra weight, her arms fully extended. She wouldn’t be able to hold on for more than a few seconds.

‘Like I said, we die together!’ Bao called.

CJ’s left hand lost its grip.

She hung one-handed above the deadly drop, with Bao dangling from her right leg.

And then she started wriggling, squirming strangely, releasing her free left arm from the suit and then using that hand to unzip the front of the suit. Then she reached up with that hand and regripped the edge with it.

Now she wriggled her right arm out of the suit and it suddenly came free—

—and the suit slipped off CJ entirely—

—leaving her hanging there while Bao fell away from her with the heat suit still gripped in his hand, the look on his face one of thunderstruck surprise.

And so while CJ dangled from the edge of the stage, now without her heat suit, Bao fell four hundred feet down the face of the main entrance building. About eight seconds later, he hit the ground with a sickening thud. He screamed all the way down.

Gasping for breath, drawing on her very last reserves of strength, CJ hauled her elbows over the edge, her feet still swaying above the dizzying drop.

The body of one of the Chinese soldiers lay right in front of her.

Beep-beep… beep-beep.

A dragon’s head rose up from behind the dead body, staring right into CJ’s eyes: the red earless face of her old nemesis, Red Face.

Lucky was still too far away to help: she was over by the front of the stage.

Half-hanging off the edge of the stage, CJ was defenceless.

And then she saw the weapons belt on the dead Chinese soldier between her and Red Face.

Hanging from it were a couple of—

‘You want to eat something?’ she said. ‘Eat this.’

With those words, CJ reached out with her right hand, grabbed one of the hand grenades on the soldier’s weapons belt, popped the pin and threw it directly into Red Face’s open jaws.

The dragon gulped once, confused and shocked, as CJ called, ‘ Lucky! ’ and released her grip on the edge of the stage, dropping away from Red Face an instant before the cruel dragon’s head exploded.

CJ fell down the face of the main entrance building as, above her, the grenade blast blew apart the edge of the stage, sending a cloud of smoke and rubble billowing outwards.

She didn’t see Red Face’s head burst apart, didn’t see his decapitated body convulse for a few seconds, blood pouring from its headless neck.

She hoped Lucky had heard her.

She fell fast, frighteningly fast. The windows of the building flashed by in front of her.

Then suddenly Lucky was there, flying vertically beside her, with her body elongated and her wings pinned back!

Lucky caught up with CJ and when they were flying/falling at the same speed, CJ reached out and grabbed Lucky’s saddle and hauled herself into it just as Lucky swooped away from the ground with maybe thirty feet to spare.

CJ swallowed. ‘Now that was character building.’

CJ and Lucky returned to the amphitheatre to get Minnie.

They landed on the stage. Covered in smoke, bodies and blood, it looked ghastly.

CJ dismounted and ran to collect Minnie, cowering in the front row of seats. She scooped her up and was turning to hurry back to Lucky when someone stepped into their path.

It was Ben Patrick, standing on the stage. He was holding a pistol in his hand, aimed directly at her.

‘Ben—’ CJ said a split second before Patrick was bent almost in half, struck violently from behind. An awful crack echoed out: the sound of Patrick’s back breaking, so powerful was the blow.

It had been a kick from Lucky, with one of her hind legs.

Ben Patrick dropped to his knees before he fell to the ground in front of CJ, landing with a perfect faceplant. He moaned, but did not move. The kick had snapped several vertebrae. However long he had to live, Ben Patrick would never walk again.

CJ shook her head. ‘You chose your side, Ben. Sorry, but we’ve got to go.’

She threw Minnie up onto Lucky’s saddle and climbed up after her.

‘Hang on, kid,’ she said. ‘We gotta fly fast. Lucky, go !’

Lucky zoomed away from the main entrance building, her wings spread wide, diving toward the Halfway Hut.

She came to a halt at the platform just below the Hut’s cable car station, her claws clinging to the lattice of metal struts.

Greg Johnson sat there, bloody, wounded and pale. He sat with his back pressed up against the thermobaric bomb and he smiled grimly when CJ arrived.

‘Well, look at you,’ he said. ‘Riding a goddamn dragon.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ CJ said. ‘I went back to the restaurant but the dumb waiter was empty.’

Johnson said, ‘I couldn’t stay there. I had to keep moving. I went down to the cable car station and found a diesel-powered maintenance cable car. It brought me here.’ He nodded at the thermobaric bomb. ‘Then, about an hour ago I saw this baby rise up out of the ground. I finally found one of the bombs I’ve been tracking.’

CJ looked at the bomb.

Its digital timer read: 5:02… 5:01… 5:00…

‘ Were you bluffing? Can you stop it?’

‘No,’ Johnson said. ‘I disabled the disarm sequence, in case they sent someone to kill me. This thing is going off whether we like it or not. It can’t be stopped.’

‘Then we have five minutes to get away.’ CJ looped Johnson’s good arm over her shoulder and brought him over to Lucky.

‘Hamish?’ she said into her radio.

‘ Yeah ,’ came the reply.

‘You got anything over at that airfield with wings and a working engine?’

‘ Not a thing, sister ,’ Hamish said. ‘ This place is cactus. ’

She thought a little more. ‘Wait, what about a car or a jeep?’

‘ Yeah… ’

‘Get into it and get it out onto the runway. We’re on our way and we’ll be coming in fast.’

Lucky soared over the megavalley, weighed down by the three humans on her back. As she did so, she squawked a shrill call and a minute later, she was joined by her pack of four yellowjackets: the emperor, the two kings and the prince.