The Great Zoo of China

PROLOGUE

^{GUANGDONG PROVINCE, CHINA}

^{16 FEBRUARY}

Breathless, bleeding and covered in sweat, Bill Lynch dropped into the mouth of the cave and crab-crawled further into it as quickly as he could.

He snatched his cell phone from his trouser pocket.

NO SIGNAL. SOS ONLY.

‘Fuck,’ he said to no-one. The bastards had jammed the entire valley.

Voices from outside made him spin. They spoke in Mandarin.

‘—went this way—’

‘—into that cave on the cliff-face—’

Lynch heard the safeties on their assault rifles click off.

Beyond the mouth of the cave, Bill Lynch saw a jaw-dropping view: a broad valley featuring lakes, rivers and waterfalls. In the middle of it all, shrouded by the hazy air common to southern China, was a huge central mountain that stabbed the sky.

Dramatic landscapes like these had rightfully made the nearby region of Guilin famous. Soon, Lynch thought, this copy of the Guilin landscape—and it was a copy; it was nearly all man-made—would be more famous than any other place on Earth.

And by the look of things, Dr Bill Lynch—senior herpetologist from the University of Florida’s Division of Herpetology—was not going to live to see it.

Right then, the smell of the cave struck him. Lynch screwed up his nose at the stench, the rank odour of rotting flesh.

The smell of the lair of a carnivore.

Alarmed, he spun to search his newfound hiding place for its owner.

But the cave was empty… except for the flesh-stripped skeletons of three large animals. They looked like the skeletons of horses—yes, horses, up in this cave three hundred feet above the valley floor. Their elongated skulls were tilted backwards in frozen shrieks of terror. Their bloody ribs pointed skyward.

Holy shit, Lynch thought.

He knew the creature that lived here.

The cave delved into the cliff, and although it looked like a naturally formed cavern, it was not natural. It had been constructed to look that way. Indeed, carved into the otherwise natural-looking floor was a brass plate with an ID code etched into it: E-39.

‘Dr Lynch!’ a voice called from outside in English.

Lynch recognised the voice and its Chinese accent.

It belonged to Colonel Bao, the head of security at the zoo and a bona-fide asshole.

‘Dr Lynch, we can make this quick and easy for you, or we can make it very painful. Please come out of there so we may do this the easy way.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘Dr Lynch. This facility cannot be allowed to fail just because of an unfortunate incident.’

Lynch stepped deeper into the cave as he spoke: ‘Unfortunate incident?! Nineteen people are dead, Colonel!’

‘Over twenty men died during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Dr Lynch. Does anyone regret that? No, all anyone sees is a marvel of its time, a great achievement in human ingenuity. So it will be here. This place will be beyond great. It will be the envy of the entire world.’

Lynch strode further into the cave. After a dozen steps, he stopped abruptly.

It was a dead end.

There came a sudden beep! from his wrist and he looked down to see the green pilot light on his watch wink out.

Lynch’s blood went cold. They’d deactivated his sonic shield. Now he had no protection from the animals. Lynch suddenly realised what Bao had meant when he’d said this could be done the easy way or the hard way.

‘You can’t kill every witness, Bao!’ Lynch yelled.

‘Yes, we can,’ replied the voice. ‘And yes, we will. Fear not, Dr Lynch. Your death will be a noble one. We will announce it to the world as an awful accident, the result of a light plane crash. It will be such a shame to lose so many brilliant people in the one accident. Of course, our facility will need to find another reptile expert to do what you have failed to do. I was thinking of your protégée, the young Dr Cameron.’

Bill Lynch yelled, ‘You bastard! Let me give you some free advice. Don’t mess with CJ Cameron. She’s tougher than I ever was.’

‘I’ll be sure to remember that.’

‘And another thing, Bao. You’re a fucking psychopath.’

There was no reply.

The Chinese soldiers were probably getting ready to storm the cave.

Lynch turned away, searching for something he could use as a weapon. As he did so, behind his back, a large reptilian head at the end of a long serpentine neck curved in through the entrance to the cave and stared directly at him.

It made no sound.

Lynch snapped a rib off one of the horse skeletons and turned—

The animal now stood in the mouth of the cave.

Its fearsome silhouette completely filled the cave’s entrance, blocking out the light. It was a prince, Lynch saw, nine feet tall, wingspan twenty feet. A red-bellied black.

The great beast peered at him as if surprised to find an intruder in its lair.

Its stance was powerful. In the dim light, Lynch could make out its sinewy shoulders and razor-sharp claws. Its wings were folded behind its body. Its long barbed tail slunk back and forth with cool calculation.

But the head didn’t move. It was eerily still. In silhouette, the creature’s high pointed ears looked like demonic horns.

The giant reptile took a step forward. It bent its head low, sniffing the ground.

Then, very slowly, it opened its mouth, revealing two rows of long jagged teeth.

It growled. A deep angry sound.

Lynch felt his heart beat faster and in a deep analytical part of his brain, he realised that the animal could sense this.

He also now realised why Bao had stopped talking from outside. The Chinese colonel and his men had seen this thing coming and had wisely got out of the way.

Bill Lynch had no time for another thought for just then the massive thing roared and rushed at him, and within seconds Lynch was lying on the floor of the cavern, screaming desperately and spitting blood as he was foully eaten alive.