The Great Zoo of China

5

As the train rushed toward the crater, Deputy Director Zhang quickly put on a new blazer.

It was bright red in colour, just like his old one, but it bore a different logo on the breast pocket: a gold dragon inside a gold circle, with the Chinese flag filling the background. Ringing the circumference were the words: THE MIGHTIEST AND MOST MAGNIFICENT PLACE ON EARTH.

Red information folders emblazoned with the same logo were handed out.

CJ felt both intrigued and misled. A carefully prepared switch had just been executed by her hosts right in front of her eyes.

She also felt a twinge of anger when she saw the smug CCTV reporter, Xin Xili, and her crew filming CJ’s surprised reaction. Xin’s snide remark about CJ not being one of the world’s leading experts on large reptiles for much longer echoed in her mind.

Hu Tang affixed a Great Dragon Zoo of China lapel pin to his jacket and said, ‘I must apologise for all the fake branding at our train station and on our people’s uniforms, but it has been necessary to keep our zoo a secret for so long. As you will see, it is worth it.’

About five minutes later, the bullet train pulled into a station in front of the main entrance to the Great Dragon Zoo of China.

The entrance building was magnificent.

Jutting out from the front face of the immense crater, it was a glorious white building that looked like a cross between a castle and a spaceship. It must have been forty storeys tall. Two high-spired towers shot skyward from its roof, framing the central edifice.

The structure’s marble walls were glittering white and perfectly smooth. They shone in the sunlight. And there wasn’t a sharp corner to be seen on the thing: it was all sweeping curves of marble, glass and steel. It was a post-modern masterpiece.

A long silver drawbridge spanning a moat led to an eighty-foot-high silver door that gave access to the incredible structure. Right now, the drawbridge lay open.

The entire building rose all the way up the southern face of the mighty crater, reaching right up to its rim.

A vast piazza lay before the glistening white building. Standing proudly in the middle of it was a gigantic crystal statue of a dragon rearing up on its hind legs, wings outstretched, jaws bared. It must have been seventy feet tall.

‘Our main entrance building was designed by Goethe + Loche, the prestigious German architectural firm,’ Zhang said as he guided the group out of the train station and across the piazza to the drawbridge. ‘And our crystal dragon was designed by the French sculptor Christial. It is rather striking, is it not?’

‘Magnificent…’ Wolfe said.

‘Superb…’ Perry said.

CJ said nothing as she walked underneath the statue.

Everything about the scene—the marble square, the crystal dragon statue, the moat and drawbridge, the post-modern castle—it all just sparkled.

It was, she had to admit, impressive. More than that, it was distinctive, as distinctive as Disneyland.

But as she considered this, CJ also realised that Seymour Wolfe had been correct: the Chinese hadn’t designed any of what she’d seen so far; it had been the work of European architects and artists.

Countless bollards and rope fences had been erected around the square, creating aisles that switched back and forth in anticipation of the enormous crowds the Chinese expected to come here.

There were no queues today, but CJ could imagine them. If the Chinese had really created a zoo with dragons in it, the crowds would be monstrous.

With those thoughts in her mind, she followed her hosts across the drawbridge and through the superhigh silver doorway into the Great Dragon Zoo of China.

6

Entering the main building, CJ stepped into the loftiest atrium she had ever seen in her life. The ceiling of the vast space hovered an astounding thirty-five storeys above her, as if it had been designed to house a space shuttle.

CJ saw a tangle of white-painted girders up there, suspended from which was a collection of enormous—and very lifelike—dragon sculptures that appeared to be made of fibreglass.

Some had their wings outstretched while others dived toward the ground, hawk-like, talons pointed forward. Others still stood on massive pedestals in coiled, crouched stances, as if ready to pounce. All had their fearsome jaws open, fangs bared.

The dragons, CJ noted, came in several sizes. Their colours also varied: some were brilliant and vibrant, with splashes of red-on-black or yellow-on-black, while others were more earthy: rocky greys and olive greens.

Eight glass elevators ran up the side wall of the giant atrium and CJ and her party rode up in one of them, rising past the suspended dragons, all the while filmed by the CCTV crew.

‘This,’ Wolfe said, gazing at one of the more aggressive dragon statues outside the elevator’s glass walls, ‘is simply amazing. This is what it would be like to fly with dragons.’

Hu Tang smiled. ‘My dear Mr Wolfe. You have not seen anything yet.’

The elevator opened onto an entertaining suite. Food and drinks had been laid out.

A fifty-metre-wide bank of floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors faced north and CJ found herself drawn to them. The glass was tinted to keep out the glare, so she could only just make out the vista beyond the windows.

It looked like a primordial valley, with forests and rock formations, lakes and waterfalls, all of it veiled in the ever-present mist of southern China.

With Hamish behind her, CJ pushed open one of the tinted doors and stepped outside. Sunlight struck her face and she squinted.

When her eyes recovered, CJ saw that she was standing on an enormous, enormous balcony. It stretched away from her until it stopped at a vertiginous edge more than four hundred feet off the ground.

CJ stopped dead in her tracks at the view that met her.

‘Goddamn…’ Hamish breathed.

What lay before them was more than just a primordial landscape.

It was a colossal valley, roughly rectangular in shape, encased by high raised rims like those of a meteor crater or volcano. But it was far larger than any meteor crater or volcano that CJ knew of. By her reckoning, this megavalley was at least ten kilometres wide and twenty kilometres long.

And it was breathtaking.

The central mountain dominated it, and now CJ noticed a man-made circular structure near its summit. Ringing the central mountain were several lakes and some smaller limestone peaks. The grey soupy mist that overlaid the scene gave it a mythical quality.

CJ could make out some modern multi-storeyed buildings dotting the valley, a couple of medieval-style castles, and an elevated freeway-like ring road that swept around the inner circumference of the crater, disappearing at times into tunnels bored into its rocky walls.

Even more impressive, however, was the network of superlong and superhigh cables from which hung slow-moving cable cars that worked their way around the megavalley.

And soaring above all of this were the most astonishing things of all: the massive dragons, wings flapping languidly as they banked and soared.

‘We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Chipmunk,’ Hamish said. ‘This is even better than when Stephen Colbert took over from David Letterman.’

‘How do you build something like this?’ CJ asked.

Wolfe appeared beside her, also staring slack-jawed at the view. ‘And without anyone knowing about it?’

Hamish lifted his camera and took a bunch of shots. When he was done, he nodded skyward. ‘This crater’s completely open to the sky. Why don’t the dragons—or whatever they are—just fly out of here?’

CJ turned to find their two hosts, Deputy Director Zhang and the politician, Hu Tang, watching them with knowing smiles on their faces. They had expected this reaction.

Hu said, ‘I am sure you all have many questions. My team and I will be more than happy to answer them. Please, come this way.’

7

They were guided to a wide semicircular pit sunk into the floor of the great balcony, a large amphitheatre. It was about the same size as a tennis stadium, with raked seats angled down toward a central podium-like stage.

Looking down on it, CJ noticed that its northward side had been removed entirely, giving spectators seated in the amphitheatre an unobstructed view of the glorious megavalley.

As she and her party waited at the top of the amphitheatre, they were each handed a small gift pack branded with the Great Dragon Zoo of China logo.

‘Cool! Free stuff!’ Hamish exclaimed.

‘In boys’ and girls’ colours,’ CJ said drily. Her pack was pink while Hamish’s was black. And they were—

‘Oh my God, fanny packs,’ Aaron Perry said. ‘Hello, 1982.’

CJ smiled. They were indeed fanny packs; the kind you wore clipped around your waist and which screamed ‘tourist’.

And, CJ had to admit, Perry was right. They were a bit naff. That was the funny thing about China: it desperately tried to mimic the West but it often seemed to get it wrong in small, clumsy ways.

Hamish—the hotel shampoo thief—burrowed into his fanny pack enthusiastically. ‘Okay… Audemars Piguet watch with Great Dragon Zoo logo: nice. Weird sunglasses with Great Dragon Zoo logo: okay. Thirty-two-megapixel Samsung digital camera with Great Dragon Zoo logo: very nice for the eager amateur. Oh, hey!’

He extracted a Zippo lighter from his pouch, plus two Cuban cigars, all branded with the circular golden logo.

‘Now that’s sweet!’ He grinned at CJ. ‘Check yours out.’

CJ looked in her pink pouch. It contained a dainty white Chanel watch with a Great Dragon Zoo logo, plus some odd-looking sunglasses and a digital camera.

‘No cigars in the ladies’ pack, it seems. But wait…’ She pulled out a hairbrush, some cosmetics including moisturiser, cleanser and even a small travel-sized can of hairspray, all bearing the Great Dragon Zoo of China logo.

‘Nice to know what China expects of a woman,’ she said flatly. ‘They forgot to include a Great Dragon Zoo apron.’

Na came over. ‘Please, put on your watches. Audemars Piguet for the gentlemen. Chanel for the ladies. They are very expensive.’

CJ could see that. She could also see that despite the packs’ oddities—who gave out cigars anymore?—Na was clearly very proud of them. Despite herself, CJ put on the watch and the fanny pack.

She felt a tug at her jacket and looked down.

A Chinese girl of perhaps eight was looking up at her and smiling.

‘Hello, miss! Are you American? May I practise my English with you?’

CJ smiled. The kid was cute as a button. She held a teddy bear close to her chest and wore an adorable Minnie Mouse cap, complete with mouse ears.

‘Certainly,’ CJ said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My name is Min, but Mama calls me Minnie. What is your name?’

‘I’m Cassandra, but my mom calls me CJ.’

Minnie, it appeared, had been at the head of another group of visitors leaving the amphitheatre. They emerged from it now behind her.

This group comprised four Chinese men, all in their fifties and all dressed in outdoorsmen gear: cargo pants, khaki vests, hiking boots, slouch hats. They emerged from the amphitheatre chatting excitedly, oohing and aahing. All four wore their black fanny packs clipped to their waists.

One of the men said to CJ in English: ‘I hope my granddaughter is not bothering you, miss.’

‘Not at all,’ CJ said, smiling. ‘She wanted to try out her English and it’s excellent.’

Behind the men came three Chinese women in their mid- to late forties. All three wore expensive designer clothing—Dior, Gucci, Louis Vuitton—with matching handbags and sparkling jewellery. Their hair was perfect, their shoes high.

The group was escorted by a female tour guide—a clone of Na—and by a very pleased-looking grey-haired, grey-moustached Chinese fellow wearing a red Great Dragon Zoo of China blazer just like Zhang’s.

Once again, CJ zeroed in on the details: all of the men’s outdoorsy clothes were brand new, right down to their hiking boots.

More than that, these guys looked like men not accustomed to ever wearing rugged clothing. They were all pot-bellied, well fed, which in China meant they were probably Party officials. And judging by their age, CJ thought, senior ones.

She also noted that there were four men and four female companions: the three women and the girl. She guessed that each Party man had brought one guest along: a wife or, in the case of Minnie, a granddaughter.

Her group, CJ realised suddenly, were not the only VIPs being shown around the zoo today. And perhaps hers was not the most important one either.

The grey-moustached man in the Great Dragon Zoo blazer stopped at the sight of Hu Tang and smiled broadly. He spoke in Mandarin so CJ silently translated in her head.

‘Comrade Hu! How delightful to see you!’ he said. ‘What a glorious day to show off our wonderful zoo!’

Hu nodded. ‘Director Chow. How is your tour going?’

‘Marvellously,’ the man named Chow said. ‘Just marvellously.’

Hu Tang turned to his American guests and switched to English. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the director of our zoo, Mr Chow Wei. Director Chow, these are some very influential members of the Western media so please do not say anything impolitic! Messrs Wolfe and Perry from The New York Times, and CJ and Hamish Cameron representing National Geographic.’

Director Chow bowed. ‘Welcome to our zoo,’ he said in English. ‘As I am sure you will have realised by now, there is nothing in the world like it. Enjoy. I believe I will be seeing you all later this evening for a banquet. Please excuse me, I must attend to my guests.’

He guided his party away.

‘Goodbye, CJ,’ Minnie said as she was led away. ‘It was very nice to meet you.’

‘It was very nice to meet you, too, Minnie,’ CJ said.

Standing beside CJ, Wolfe watched the other group go. ‘Do you know who those men were?’ he said softly.

‘Communist Party bigwigs?’ CJ said.

‘Communist Party super bigwigs. Two Politburo members, one state governor and one casino billionaire from Macau. Plus their companions.’

‘Why were the men wearing brand-new hiking outfits?’ CJ asked.

Wolfe shrugged. ‘Must be doing a different tour from us.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ Hu Tang ushered them down into the amphitheatre. ‘This way, please.’

CJ and the others settled into the front row of the amphitheatre while Hu Tang and Deputy Director Zhang ascended the stage and stood behind a lectern.

It was a curious sensation, CJ thought, to be sitting in a stadium that was built so high up. They were four hundred feet above the ground, up near the rim of the crater.

Xin Xili and her CCTV cameraman continued filming them from the side.

Hu Tang stood on the stage, framed by the glorious megavalley. With its high central mountain, moss-covered buttes, castles and dragons, it looked fantastical, otherworldly.

Hu pressed a button on the lectern and a large plasma screen rose up out of the stage beside him. On it was the question:

WHAT IS A DRAGON?

Oh, great, CJ thought, a PowerPoint lecture.

‘I imagine you have many questions,’ Hu began, ‘which Deputy Director Zhang and I shall endeavour to answer now. For instance, what exactly is a dragon and how did China manage to find and raise them when no other nation on Earth has ever done so before? To help me answer these questions for you, I might call on a friend to help me.’

Hu pressed a button on his lectern theatrically.

Bang! Flames rushed into the air from vents arrayed around the stage—a pyrotechnic effect often used at rock concerts—and a cloud of smoke engulfed the stage.

With a sudden whoosh, something large rushed low over CJ’s head, making her hair flutter, before landing on the stage right beside Hu.

The smoke cleared…

…and there, beside Hu, stood a dragon.

CJ stared at it in awe.

She had actually wondered if the dragons she had seen from afar might have been somehow fake—perhaps sophisticated animatronic robots—but now that she saw this one up close, she was under no illusions. This was a living breathing beast.

It was the size of a large horse, like a Clydesdale, about nine feet tall, but it was skinnier than a horse, more skeletal. That said, it probably still weighed close to a ton.

The animal’s head—at the end of a long slender neck—stood a few feet above Hu Tang’s right shoulder. It was brightly coloured. Vivid yellow-and-black stripes ran down its body, from the shoulders to the tip of its tail.

As it had landed beside Hu, the creature’s wings had folded quickly and efficiently to its sides, all but disappearing from view. The wings were bat-like, huge spans of translucent hide stretched taut between elongated vestigial fingerbones. Where they met the dragon’s body, the joints and fascia were thick and strong, as one would expect of musculature that had to lift such a substantial weight.

The skin on its back and legs was armoured with what appeared to be thick plating. That plating was shot through with striated patterns and osteoderms like those found on a crocodile’s back and tail. Its underbelly appeared softer and CJ could see its ribcage pressing against its dark leathery skin as it breathed powerfully in and out.

It had four legs on which it walked. They were thin and bony yet well muscled, and the forelimbs had long finger-like claws that looked capable of gripping things.

The whole animal seemed built for light and fast movement. It had not an ounce of excess weight on it. It stood like a jungle cat, low and coiled, with perfect balance.

CJ noticed a small and obviously unnatural marking on the dragon’s left hind leg: a black stencilled letter plus some numbers. The marking on this dragon read: Y-18. An identifier of some sort, like a brand on a cow.

And then there was its head.

It was bright yellow on top, jet black on the bottom, and rather than the long donkey-like skull shape that people were accustomed to seeing in movies, it was snub-nosed and reptilian, more like a lizard or a dinosaur. It had high sharply-pointed ears and running along the top of its head and down its long neck was a crest of spiky bristles.

It had a menacing cluster of exposed teeth in its snout: the fourth tooth of the lower jaw protruded above the lip, fitting perfectly into a matching fold in the upper lip.

Its eyes held CJ absolutely captivated. Narrow and slit-like with a nictitating membrane that occasionally flitted down over them, they gleamed with intelligence.

The animal peered closely at the group, as interested in them as they were in it, passing over every member of the party. When its eyes fell on CJ, she could have sworn it paused for an extra moment.

It felt like it wasn’t just looking at her, it was looking through her, into her. And then the creature’s gaze moved on and the spell was broken.

CJ blinked back to her senses, and as the animal turned its attention to Wolfe beside her, she glimpsed something on the side of its head that was not natural.

It looked like a small metallic box, with wiring that disappeared into the animal’s skull. The box was attached to the side of the dragon’s head but painted to match the skin colour, to camouflage it. But then the animal turned again and CJ lost sight of the box.

‘Fuck me,’ Hamish gasped beside her.

‘You can say that again,’ CJ said.

‘Fuck me.’ He began firing away with his camera.

CJ couldn’t take her eyes off it.

It had a dangerous beauty to it. Its proportions were simply perfect. Even the way it stood had a dignity and majesty to it. It was proud. It was magnificent.

It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing CJ had ever seen in her life.

Hu Tang smiled.

He had seen this response before and would no doubt see it many times again.

Newcomers were always struck dumb at their first sight of a dragon. It had been the same with him.

He felt a rush of profound satisfaction. He had staked his reputation on this zoo; more than that, his entire career. In high-level meetings of the Politburo, he had countered the arguments of the older Party men by saying that China needed a place like this—a place of wonder, joy and happiness—if it was to overtake the United States as the pre-eminent nation on Earth.

And he had delivered. The Great Dragon Zoo of China would be the making of Hu Tang. Specifically, it would make him the next President of China.

Now, news of this place was about to spread. Today, it was The New York Times and National Geographic. They had been chosen very specifically to see the zoo first because of their reputations for reliability and integrity. Next week, it would be the American and British tabloid press, plus of course, TMZ, along with some influential movie and music stars—Brad and Angelina, or maybe Beyoncé and Jay-Z. The zoo’s ‘image consultants’ from New York had been very clear about this: establish your believability first, then go tabloid.

Judging by the looks on the faces of these guests, Hu Tang thought, it was all going exactly according to plan.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘meet your first dragon. Meet Lucky.’

8

A Chinese woman joined Hu on the stage.

She wore a futuristic-looking outfit: a figure-hugging black bodysuit and a fitted black-and-yellow leather jacket that matched the dragon’s colours. She had also streaked her otherwise black hair with electric yellow highlights, so that it too matched the dragon. CJ noticed that the woman’s jacket was more than just decorative. It bore the functional features of a motorcycle jacket: pads on the elbows and Kevlar armour on the spine.

The woman also wore an earpiece in her left ear with a tiny microphone in it. When she spoke, her voice was amplified by speakers around the amphitheatre.

‘Hello, everyone,’ she said. ‘My name is Yim and I am the head dragon handler here at the zoo. Even though she is female, Lucky here is what we call a yellowjacket prince.’

Yim blew an odd-shaped whistle.

Instantly, four more dragons flew out of the sky and landed on the stage around her. Each landed with a heavy whump.

They were the same size as Lucky, but different in colour. These four animals all had jet-black backs and bright red bellies. Their crests were a fierce scarlet, but each had a unique mottling of red on their otherwise black heads. They snorted as they breathed, braying like horses, and they shifted on their feet. Their tails slunk back and forth behind their thin muscular bodies and they also had armour plating with striated patterns. CJ saw that they too had brands on their left hind legs: R-22, R-23, R-24 and R-25.

As the visitors gasped at these new arrivals, Yim threw each dragon a treat of some sort: they looked like dead rats to CJ. The dragons caught the morsels in their mouths and gulped them down like—CJ winced—like performing seals.

Oh, God, she thought. They’ve trained them…

CJ turned to check how her fellow visitors were taking this.

Wolfe and Perry were staring in open-mouthed awe. Hamish was digging it. The American ambassador seemed delighted by the show he was seeing. His aide, Greg Johnson—whose presence CJ had almost forgotten; he seemed very good at melting into the background—was gazing at the dragons with narrowed eyes, assessing them very closely.

Yim keyed her headset mike again, just like a seal trainer at a regular zoo.

‘And these four strapping young males are red-bellied black princes. You will see dragons of three sizes here at the Great Zoo. The largest we call emperors. They are approximately the size of an airliner. Next are the kings: they are about the size of a public bus. And then there are these ones, the princes. As you can see, they are roughly the size of a horse.

‘The prince class of dragons weigh approximately one ton.’

At those words, Lucky hopped lightly on the spot, landing with a resounding boom.

The audience laughed.

‘They have a top flying speed of 160 kilometres an hour—’

Lucky took to the air, her wings spreading wide with surprising speed. She beat them powerfully and did a quick, tight loop.

‘—that’s 100 miles an hour for those not used to the metric system,’ Yim said with a smile. ‘But given the considerable exertion it takes to stay aloft, dragons can only maintain flight for short distances, a few kilometres at best. They are mainly gliders. As such, they cannot cross oceans; indeed, we have found that one of the few things they cannot stand is salt water. They hate it.’

Lucky landed again beside Yim, who flung her a fresh treat. The yellow dragon caught and swallowed it happily.

Yim said, ‘Sceptics who have doubted the existence of dragons have always questioned how something so large could possibly fly. Now we know.

‘Firstly, as you can see, dragons are not lumbering, fat-bellied beasts—they are lean and light. Secondly, like pterodactyls, they possess a peculiar kind of bone structure: their bones are hollow but with a criss-crossing matrix of high-density, low-weight keratin. This makes their bones extremely strong yet remarkably light. And lastly, their shoulder muscles and fascia—the ligaments and tendons connecting their wings to their bodies—are incredibly powerful. All of this creates an animal that can—’

‘Wait. I’m sorry. What about sight?’ CJ asked. She couldn’t help herself. ‘What sort of visual acuity do they have?’

Yim seemed momentarily vexed by the interruption, but she shifted gears smoothly. ‘Dragons nest in deep underground caves, so their eyes are well adapted to night vision. They have slit irises, like those found in cats, and a tapetum lucidum, also found in cats and other nocturnal animals. That is a reflective layer behind the retina that re-uses light.

‘Now, light is measured in lux. One lux is roughly the amount of light you get at twilight. Pure moonlight is 0.3 lux. 10^-9 lux is what we would call absolute pitch darkness. Our dragons can see perfectly in 10^-9 lux. Does that answer your question?’

CJ nodded.

Yim went on, clearly glad to be resuming her script. ‘Now—’

‘Can they also detect electricity?’ CJ asked quickly. This question drew odd glances from her American companions.

Yim frowned. She threw a look at Hu, who nodded.

‘Yes. Yes, they can detect electrical impulses,’ Yim said. ‘How did you know this?’

CJ nodded at the dragon. ‘See those dimples on its snout? They’re called ampullae: ampullae of Lorenzini. Sharks have them. They are a very handy evolutionary trait for a predator, a kind of sixth sense. All animals, including us, emit small electrical fields by virtue of the beating of our hearts. A wounded animal’s heart beats faster, distorting that field. A predator with ampullae, like a shark—or one of your dragons—can detect that distortion and home in on the wounded animal. It’s like being able to smell electrical energy.’

‘They are remarkable in many ways,’ Yim said diplomatically. ‘In fact,’ she added, sliding smoothly back into her patter, ‘one of the most remarkable things about them is their bite.’

Yim stepped aside, revealing a cloth-covered object on the stage behind her. She removed the cloth to reveal a brand-new bicycle.

‘No way…’ Hamish whispered. ‘Not the bike. This is so cool…’

Yim said, ‘A large dog has a bite pressure of about 330 pounds per square inch. A saltwater crocodile has a bite pressure of a whopping 5,000 pounds per square inch. A prince dragon has a bite pressure of 15,000 pounds per square inch. Allow me to demonstrate.’

One of the red-bellied blacks strode lazily forward. This dragon had large dollops of red on its head and snout. Indeed, it looked like its otherwise black head had been dipped in a bucket of red paint.

It stared at Yim with what could only be described as insolence… and didn’t do anything.

It just stood there.

And then something happened that only CJ saw: by virtue of the angle of her seat, she saw Yim produce a small yellow remote control from her belt and subtly hold it out for the dragon to see.

Seeing the yellow remote, the dragon promptly turned and, with a loud crunch, casually bit down on the bicycle. Like a soda can being crushed, the bike crumpled within its massive jaws.

The audience gasped.

‘Whoa, mama,’ Aaron Perry said aloud.

The red-faced dragon spat out the bicycle and stomped back to its place, its forked tail slinking behind it.

But all CJ could think about was the yellow remote that had prompted the creature into action. Trained animals reacted to stimuli: rewards and treats or, in the less enlightened places of the world, pain. She wondered what kind of stimulus that remote triggered and suspected that the answer was pain.

Yim bowed. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I will hand you back to the deputy director now.’

Zhang stepped forward. ‘Let me ask you this: what precisely is a dragon? Myths of gigantic winged serpents have existed for thousands of years. As with many other things, they originally appeared in China. The first Chinese dragon myth dates back to the year 4700 BC, to a statue of a dragon attributed to the Yangshao culture of that time.’

On the plasma screen behind him, a timeline appeared. The words 4700 BC CHINA popped up at the left-hand end of it.

‘The Babylonian king, Gilgamesh, fought a fierce dragon named Humbaba in the epic tale that bears his name. He lived around 2700 BC.’

2700 BC BABYLON/PERSIA appeared on the timeline.

‘The ancient Greeks spoke of Hercules fighting a dragon in order to steal the apples of the Hesperides, the eleventh of his twelve labours. Hercules is generally thought to have lived around the year 1250 BC.’

1250 BC GREECE popped up on the timeline.

‘From about 100 BC and for the next 1500 years, several Meso-American cultures including the Aztecs and the Mayans venerated a flying serpent named Quetzalcoatl.

‘And, of course, the United Kingdom has long lauded the bravery of St George who slayed a dragon not in England but in Libya around the year 300 AD.

‘In the eighth century, the Scandinavians wrote of Beowulf fighting a fire-breathing dragon and in the thirteenth century, the Vikings sang of Fafnir.’

At each mention of a historical period, the appropriate date sprang up on the timeline on the plasma screen, until it looked like this:

Hu took over. ‘There is something very curious, however, about all of these mythologies. In every single one of these myths found across the ancient world, the dragons are the same. Their features are consistent around the globe.

‘Mythical dragons are almost universally large hexapods with four walking limbs and two wings.’

At that moment, all five of the dragons on the stage opened their wings while remaining standing on their four legs.

Yim rewarded them with more treats.

At which point, CJ glimpsed another detail that caused her some concern.

While the yellowjacket accepted her treat happily, one of the four red-bellied black dragons took its treat with what could only be described as a long, lingering glare at its handler. Its tail began to twitch, a bit like an alligator did when it—

Entirely ignorant of this, Hu went on: ‘Dragons of lore were serpentine creatures with scaly reptilian skin.’

The yellowjacket turned on the spot, showing off its leathery hide like a model doing a turn at a fashion show.

The others laughed. CJ didn’t. The dragon, she saw, got another treat.

Hu added, ‘And, of course, most famously, some dragons…’ he paused dramatically, ‘… breathed fire…’

The five dragons suddenly opened their jaws wide, crouched low and aimed their open mouths at the audience.

Seymour Wolfe sat bolt upright. Aaron Perry gripped his seat. Hamish tensed. Ambassador Syme made to shield his eyes with his forearm. His aide, Johnson, half sprang to his feet.

CJ was already out of her chair by the time the dragons had opened their mouths. She had seen their body language change—seen them crouch and lower their heads—and had immediately dived clear, her reflexes honed from years of working with crocs. She was on the stairs and out of the line of fire and about to sprint away when the laughing started.

She looked up.

Hu and Zhang were chuckling.

‘I’m very sorry,’ Hu said. ‘Alas, the ability of a dragon to breathe fire is the stuff of legend. None of the animals at the Great Dragon Zoo of China is able to breathe fire.’

The audience visibly relaxed, smiled nervously at each other. CJ resumed her seat, nonplussed. The dragons got more treats.

Zhang continued. ‘But the question remains: how could this happen? How could the fundamental characteristics of this mythical creature be so consistent across an ancient world without mass communication or intercontinental travel? The answer is obvious: there were dragons everywhere around the world. And they became the stuff of myth and legend because they only appeared irregularly.’

Wolfe threw up his hand. ‘What do you mean by that? Irregularly?’

‘I am glad you asked,’ Zhang said, ‘because this brings us back to our original question: what precisely is a dragon? The answer is actually quite simple. The animal we know as a dragon is a dinosaur, a most unique kind of dinosaur that survived the meteor impact that condemned the rest of its species to extinction.’

9

CJ leaned forward, intrigued.

Zhang explained. ‘After much study by palaeontologists from the Universities of Shanghai and Beijing, it has been determined that our “dragons” are part of a hitherto unknown line of dinosaurs belonging to the family or “clade” of creatures known as archosauria.

‘The archosaurs ruled the Earth after the Permian-Triassic extinction event, a mass extinction event that occurred 250 million years ago, not unlike the famous Alvarez Meteor that struck the Earth 65 million years ago causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Archosaurs were the dominant land animals during the Triassic Age and they are the ancient ancestors of crocodilians and, importantly, the branch of flying reptiles known as pterosaurs.’

‘Ah, pterosaurs,’ Wolfe said, getting it. Beside him, Ambassador Syme nodded, too.

CJ cocked her head. It probably wasn’t quite as simple as that, but she could see what the Chinese were doing. Convincing someone to believe something that was inherently unbelievable often meant getting that person to make a quick and easy comparison to something they already knew. By linking dragons to a dinosaur with similar features—the pterodactyl—the Chinese could get the paying public to accept their logic quickly and readily. They had just done exactly that with Wolfe and the US Ambassador.

But as a herpetologist, CJ knew that the pterodactyl’s lineage was famously uncertain: it was neither a dinosaur nor a bird. It didn’t fit at all into the so-called ‘Great Tree of Life’. It was the same with the archosaurs—they were a catch-all category for any ancient creature whose origins couldn’t be easily explained.

Zhang said, ‘Scientists here at the Great Dragon Zoo believe that our dragons—our archosaurs—survived the Alvarez Meteor 65 million years ago by hibernating deep beneath the surface of the Earth underneath dense nickel and zinc deposits. Their hibernation techniques are very advanced and really rather fascinating; they also explain the consistent worldwide myth of the dragon.’

‘How so?’ CJ asked.

‘Many animals hibernate,’ Zhang said, ‘although usually the term hibernate is limited to warm-blooded creatures. For reptiles, the technical term is brumate, and fish experience what is called dormancy, but for now, for simplicity’s sake, let us just use the term hibernate for all animals. Rodents and bears do it, so do alligators and snakes. As a general rule, hibernation involves a creature slowing down its metabolism to an incredibly low level, sometimes only a single heartbeat per minute. The animal gorges itself before entering hibernation and slowly, over a long period of time, its body consumes that fuel.

‘Mammalian hibernation usually occurs over the winter—rodents will hibernate for up to six months until the next feeding season. Classic rodent hibernation also involves a decrease in body temperature. Bears, on the other hand, employ a special variety of hibernation called torpor that involves the remarkable recycling of both urine and proteins.

‘Reptiles exhibit other qualities in their hibernatory states: when it gets very cold, an alligator can float to the surface of a pond, allowing its nostrils to sit above the waterline; as the water freezes, the alligator will be frozen into the very surface of the pond yet it is still able to breathe. Alligators can slow their heart rates down to unbelievably low levels, far lower than any mammal. When the ice melts, the gator simply swims away.’

This was true, CJ thought. The remarkable abilities of members of the animal kingdom never failed to impress her. Indeed, it was one of the reasons she enjoyed being a vet.

Zhang continued: ‘And then there are the “group hibernators”, like dormice. These animals hibernate in packs and have a rather unusual waking routine: they select one of their number to emerge from the den and see if the season has changed. If it has, the lead animal wakes the others and they emerge. If it has not, the lead animal returns to the den and resumes its slumber.

‘Our archosaurs here at the Great Dragon Zoo of China exhibit many of these hibernation techniques but their genius is they exhibit them on an incredible timescale.

‘First, our archosaurs are warm-blooded, not cold-blooded, so while they may look like reptiles, they are not. They exist somewhere in between mammals and reptiles, so they exhibit the capabilities of both when it comes to hibernation.

‘They also have one other advantage: their hibernation is done in an egg state. Since the animal is not yet fully formed but rather is still in a foetal state in albumenic fluids it is capable of considerably longer hibernatory periods.

‘Our animals went into hibernation a long, long time ago, at a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and when the Earth was much, much warmer. And like the dormouse, they have been periodically sending forth one of their number ever since that epoch: a lone egg will hatch and a young dragon will emerge to check if the climate has warmed enough for the rest of their group to emerge.

‘Let me direct you to our timeline from before.’ Zhang indicated the plasma screen. ‘Now let’s overlay the average ambient land temperature from each era to that timeline.’

A wavy red line appeared below the timeline.

CJ saw the match instantly. ‘I’ll be damned,’ she said.

Zhang said, ‘The appearance of dragons in human mythology perfectly matches every rise in average land temperature on this planet, from the rise in temperature that occurred around the building of the pyramids in 2700 BC to the Medieval Warm Period.

‘Why does the dragon legend persist around the world so consistently? Because all around the world, for thousands of years, lone dragons have been emerging from hibernation to test the atmosphere, checking on behalf of their clans to see if the ambient temperature has risen enough and the time to emerge has arrived.

‘Myths arise from actual events, remarkable events that get talked about precisely because they are remarkable and which then get embellished in the retelling. This does not change the fact that the original event actually happened. We believe that all of those ancient dragon myths, from Gilgamesh to Hercules to Beowulf, have their genesis in real events, real events that occurred at times when the Earth was warmer.

‘And now the world warms again—more than it ever has in recorded history—and about forty years ago, a lone dragon emerged. We here at the Great Dragon Zoo of China were waiting when it did, for by chance we had found its nest. Come, let me show you how it happened.’

He clicked his fingers and right on cue—clearly as rehearsed—the five dragons took flight, leaping into the air with a great beating of wings.

CJ was surprised to see that the woman, Yim, now sat on Lucky’s back in a custom-made saddle. While Hu and Zhang had been speaking, she must have slipped it onto the dragon. Yim was riding the flying yellowjacket and with considerable skill, too. Handler and animal glided away over the view, flanked by the red-bellied black princes.

‘What a fucking show,’ Wolfe whispered to Perry.

CJ had to agree with him.

10

Leaving the amphitheatre, Hu and Zhang led the group back to the glass elevators. They boarded an elevator and it descended briefly.

As the elevator eased downward, CJ whispered to Hamish, ‘What do you think, Bear?’

Hamish shrugged. ‘It’s all pretty cool and impressive… if you never saw fucking Jurassic Park. Did you see the fangs on those things? How do we know they’re not gonna go all medieval on our asses and start munchin’ on the juicy little humans? I like old-fashioned zoos where they keep the animals in cages.’

After travelling only a few floors, the elevator stopped. The group was then led around a catwalk suspended high above the entry atrium, and into a room that looked like mission control at NASA.

Three broad descending levels containing perhaps thirty shirt-and-tie-wearing Chinese computer operators looked out over the megavalley through a perfectly circular three-storey-high window. Plasma screens and monitors were everywhere, displaying all kinds of graphs, charts and digital images. It was a kaleidoscope of blinking lights and data: the nerve centre of the Great Dragon Zoo.

‘This is our Master Control Room,’ Zhang said proudly.

CJ’s gaze was drawn to the biggest and most central monitor. On it was a huge white-on-black map of the zoo.

It was an animated map: scattered all over it were coloured icons—red crosses, yellow triangles, grey circles, and purple diamonds—many of them moving.

‘Every icon is a dragon?’ CJ asked Zhang.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘In their infancy, each dragon was fitted with two microchips: one in the brain, the other grafted onto the animal’s heart. Those chips give us real-time data on the dragons’ heart rates, respiration rates, brain activity and other health information. The microchips are also GPS-capable, so we know where each dragon is at all times.’

Zhang grabbed a mouse and ran the cursor over one of the red crosses. Instantly, a text box appeared beside the cross. It read:

DRAGON ID: R-09

HEART RATE: 67 bpm

RESPIRATION RATE: 13.6 min^-1

O₂ CONSUMPTION: 0.06 ml g^-1 h^-1

The numbers changed constantly, giving data in real time. Impressive.

‘You can see the heart rate of every dragon in the zoo?’ CJ asked.

Zhang smoothed his tie again. ‘We want to maintain a close eye on the health of our animals. If any of them catches an infection, we want to detect it early, both to save the animal in question and prevent an epidemic spreading to the other dragons.’

Below the main map screen was a legend which allocated the coloured icons to names written in both Chinese and English:

RED-BELLIED BLACKS

YELLOWJACKETS

PURPLE ROYALS

EASTERN GREYS

GREEN RIVERS

SWAMP BROWNS

‘Nice names,’ Ambassador Syme said. ‘Catchy.’

‘Thank you,’ Hu said. ‘We hired a brand-consultancy firm in Los Angeles to come up with them. Of course, we have given the dragons formal Latin names—Draconis imperator, Draconis rex and the like—but this facility is built for tourists, not academics.’

CJ scanned the rest of the map.

She immediately noticed how icons of the same colour mostly appeared to cluster together.

The dragons stuck to their clans: red with red, yellow with yellow, and so on. It even looked like they had claimed their own territories: the purple ones dominated the central mountain, the red-bellied blacks the northwestern corner, the grey dragons the eastern slopes, while the yellowjackets appeared to live in two tight clusters on either side of the valley. The green and brown dragons lived almost exclusively in the rivers and the lakes.

CJ looked out through the giant circular window.

Like an enormous eye, it offered a commanding view of the zoo: the forests and lakes, the high central mountain. Once again, off to the left, she saw the two castles. The nearer one was beautiful, white and clean, with many fluttering banners, while the more distant one, erected on the western side of a curving waterfall, was in ruins.

The beautiful white castle seemed to be populated by purple royal dragons. They lounged on its walls and curled lazily on its rooftops.

The second castle was more utilitarian: squat and defensive; all bricks, crenellations and arrow slits.

And it looked like a bomb had hit it.

Its battlements were crumbled. Its watchtowers had literally been torn apart. Lying in the maw of its gate, underneath its grim portcullis, like a cat with its head between its paws, was a huge yellowjacket emperor. Two prince-sized yellow dragons sat atop the castle’s two watchtowers like dutiful sentinels.

CJ nodded at the castles. ‘I like the castles. Nice touch.’

Zhang said, ‘Like any zoo, we try to give our animals places to nest, sleep, hide and hunt in. Some of our structures resemble naturally occurring landscapes—caves, dens, glens—while others, like the castles, well,’ he shrugged bashfully, ‘they are more theatrical and designed with our human guests in mind.’

Off to CJ’s right was a many-storeyed hotel with an adjoining amusement park. A rollercoaster twisted and turned all around it, starting at the top of the hotel and sweeping down into the amusement park. It looked like it had been lifted straight out of Vegas and dropped here.

‘Hours of fun for the whole family,’ Hamish said as he took more shots with his camera.

‘Yes,’ Zhang said enthusiastically, not sensing the sarcasm.

CJ’s eyes ran over some of the other monitors in the master control room. She saw one which looked like an overhead map of the crater and its surrounds, and another that looked like a seismograph:

She was about to ask about them when Hamish said to Hu, ‘Hey, dude, I don’t want to be the jerk who asks the obvious question, but what’s keeping your pet lizards inside this crater? There’s no roof or cage above this valley. Why don’t they just fly out of here?’

Hu smiled kindly. ‘That is a very good question and this is the best place to answer it. Ladies and gentlemen, if I may draw your attention to this console over here…’ He stepped behind a Chinese technician at a computer.

On the computer’s screen was a digital image of the zoo:

‘Mr Cameron’s question,’ Hu said, ‘is a very astute one. When we conceived the Great Dragon Zoo, we didn’t want it to look like a prison. We wanted visitors to see our dragons as they were meant to be seen: soaring against the wide open sky.’

He held up a finger. ‘Having said that, our dragons are still very much our prisoners. As you will see on this display, there are two barriers—invisible to the human eye—keeping our dragons captive here inside the zoo.

‘They are electromagnetic fields. The first and innermost field is in the shape of a dome, the second is in the shape of a pyramid. The first covers only this valley, the second covers a much larger area around the valley. The two domes are essentially invisible walls of ultra-high-voltage electromagnetic energy. They also, I should add, extend underground, just in case our dragons attempt to tunnel their way out of here.

‘Now, as Deputy Director Zhang mentioned earlier, each dragon has a microchip grafted onto its brain.’

He indicated another nearby screen, on which was an x-ray image of a dragon skull seen from the front and from the side. CJ saw the chip situated immediately behind the left eye of the skull:

‘That chip,’ Hu said, ‘is actually fitted to the limbic or pain centre of the dragon’s brain and it is capable of emitting a powerful electric shock in certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is when a dragon comes into contact with either of the electromagnetic domes.’

CJ recalled the yellow remote from the trick show and wondered if that was another such ‘circumstance’.

Hu said, ‘If a dragon touches one of our domes, it will experience a shock sent directly into the pain centre of its brain. This, I can assure you, is an exceedingly painful experience.’

‘How painful?’ Wolfe asked.

‘If a dragon hits that dome,’ Hu said, ‘it will black out instantly and drop from the sky. The dragons learned very quickly not to touch the inner dome.’ He rounded on Hamish. ‘And, as a matter of fact, Mr Cameron, we did see Jurassic Park. From a very early stage in the development of this facility, we were cognisant of the dragons’ dangerous potential.

‘Make no mistake, my dear guests, these are dangerous animals and we know it. But then this is why people go to zoos in the first place: to see the dangerous animals. The tigers, the bears, the alligators. But we must also recognise that these are important animals, the likes of which the modern world has never seen. As such, we have endeavoured to develop systems that contain our dragons without unnecessarily damaging them. Wire fences, steel walls, even visible lasers were all no good. We want to alter our animals’ behaviour without harming them and we want our visitors to see our animals without the crude intervention of bars. The electromagnetic domes have worked perfectly in containing them.’

‘What about protecting your visitors?’ Perry said.

Hu smiled again and CJ had the distinct feeling that Aaron Perry had been the sucker who asked the question Hu had been waiting for.

‘Have a look in your gift pack,’ Hu said, ‘and please take from it the rather unusual pair of sunglasses that came with it.’

CJ and the others all pulled from their fanny packs the strange-looking oversized sunglasses.

‘Put them on,’ Hu invited.

CJ put on her sunglasses and looked out the bank of windows.

‘Whoa…’ she breathed.

Whereas before she had seen the wide valley surmounted by empty sky, now she saw a grid of iridescent green laser-lines forming a perfect geodesic dome above it. The dome stretched from wall to wall, rising up and over the central mountain, completely and perfectly containing the massive space. All the dragons flew and wheeled within it.

Above the green dome, she glimpsed another laser-like lattice: this one was reddish in colour and it looked more flat-sided than dome-shaped.

‘What you are seeing now,’ Hu said, ‘is what a dragon sees. Your odd-looking sunglasses depict the ultraviolet spectrum of light. This is how dragons view the world. Incidentally, modern birds also see this way. Every shield at the zoo is shot through with ultraviolet beams so the dragons can see them.’

CJ was more enthralled than impressed. She found it fascinating to see the world through an animal’s eyes. Being able to see ultraviolet light gave a predator several advantages, including the ability to spot the urine trails of prey. In the ultraviolet spectrum, urine glowed like neon. That was how hawks and falcons spotted their prey on the ground.

As she scanned the megavalley, taking in the environment as a dragon would see it, she saw many tiny ultraviolet spheres of a third colour: light blue.

The glowing blue spheres—invisible to the naked eye, but visible through the glasses—enveloped all the cable cars, every building in the valley, and even all the worker trucks she could see moving along the roads of the zoo.

There were dozens of the shields, but if you weren’t wearing the glasses you’d never know they existed.

‘What are the blue shiel—’ she asked, turning to look back at her fellow travellers.

She cut herself off.

Each of them, including herself, had a small pale blue shield around their body.

‘Ah-ha…’ she said.

Hu noticed. ‘As Dr Cameron has just discovered, if you look through your glasses at each other, you will see why our dragons do not touch any of our guests.

‘The designer wristwatch that each of you was given on your arrival here at the zoo emits a small but very powerful ultrasonic field around your body—it is essentially a sphere of high-wavelength sonic energy beyond the range of human hearing. But a dragon has exceptional hearing. They can hear on wavelengths undetectable to the human ear. This is great for hunting but our clever engineers at the Great Dragon Zoo have used this talent against them. To a dragon, the sound emitted by your watch is absolutely ear-piercing—it would be like someone sounding an air-horn right next to your ear.’

Zhang added, ‘You will notice small antennas on every vehicle and structure in the valley. These emit similar ultrasonic shields. Dragons are not exactly small animals. If one brushed against a cable car, even by accident, it would do significant damage.’

At that moment, CJ saw a cable car emerge from within the main building directly beneath the control room. The cable car did indeed have a small plastic snub antenna on its roof, similar to the ones you saw on expensive cars. Through her glasses, she saw the pale blue sphere around the vehicle.

‘So it’s the same sort of thing as the domes above the valley?’ Wolfe asked.

‘No,’ Zhang said. ‘The domes are electromagnetic. The personal shields are ultrasonic. Since our dragons come into contact with our cars and buildings far more regularly than they do the electromagnetic domes, the smaller sonic shields give them a jolt that is not as devastating as the one they would receive from the domes. The sonic shields will shoo a dragon away; the electromagnetic domes will knock them out.’

The group nodded.

‘Come now,’ Hu said, smiling. ‘Enough of these lectures. It’s time to get on board one of our state-of-the-art cable cars and see the Great Dragon Zoo!’

11

Leaving the master control room, the group took a glass elevator down a few more floors, arriving at a high-ceilinged hall that looked like a train station. Only this was no train station.

First, it opened onto thin air. It had no northern wall. The platform at that end just dropped away, a full three hundred feet to the floor of the megavalley.

And second, the ‘carriage’ parked beside the platform didn’t stand on rails. Instead, the huge double-decker carriage hung suspended from a thick overhead cable. It was a cable car, at least thirty metres long, with wide viewing windows that curved up and over its roof. And it looked very modern, all sleek and silver, with the obligatory Great Dragon Zoo of China logo on its flank.

The sturdy cable from which the cable car hung stretched out from the station, lancing across the valley in a dead-straight line, passing through a watchtower-like way station before disappearing into a tunnel bored into the front face of the central mountain out in the middle of the megavalley, several kilometres away.

The group boarded the cable car and it eased out of the station and suddenly they were moving high above the valley.

The ambience inside the cable car was like that of a drawing room: soft music played and, except for the loudest of sounds, outside noise barely crept in. There was a bar at the rear, manned by a Chinese bartender in a bow tie and vest.

Seen from the cable car, the valley took on a whole new level of splendour.

Lucky—with Yim on her back—swooped and glided theatrically around the moving cable car. Yim waved happily. The four red-bellied black dragons from the show banked and flew in wider circles around the car.

Hamish’s camera now sounded like a machine gun, he was taking so many photos.

The dragons flew like alligators swam, CJ saw. Alligators swam with their four limbs tucked close by their bodies while their tails drove them forward. These animals flew with their four walking limbs held tightly against their sides, making them incredibly streamlined, while their wings—many times larger than their bodies—flapped powerfully.

As they made their way along the cable, CJ saw other dragons: gigantic purple royal emperors gliding around the central mountain; olive-green kings lounging on the banks of a river village. They looked like supersized lizards, basking in the sun.

Some king-sized purple royals sat perched atop high rocky crags that lined the cable car’s route. They sat upright, tall and noble, as they watched the cable car slide by. When the cable car passed close enough to one of the dragons, CJ would spot the branded number on the animal’s hind leg.

As the car approached and passed them, the various dragons barked and shrieked at each other, ear-piercing squeals and screams.

‘Not exactly pleasing to the ear, are they?’ Wolfe snorted.

‘Their vocalisations may not be pleasant,’ Zhang said, ‘but they do have meaning. Our dragons employ several different methods to communicate with each other: complex subsonic grunting, for one thing, and body vibrations not unlike those employed by modern alligators. Dr Cameron will be aware of these forms of communication.’

CJ nodded.

Alligators did indeed communicate in this way. Their barks and grunts were both complex and very specific, a kind of guttural language. One of her old colleagues from the University of Florida, Dr Benjamin Patrick, had pioneered the study of alligator vocalisations, going so far as to compile a database of over sixty distinct sounds made by alligators. He had run those vocalisations through a purpose-built supercomputer in an attempt to find similarities and commonalities among them; in effect, to translate their language.

Similar studies had been done with dolphins and chimpanzees. Dolphins were known to vocalise their names when they jumped out of water and packs of chimps had specific grunts that meant ‘leopard’ or ‘hyena’. Patrick’s work with gators had been an attempt to take this to the next level.

Six years older than CJ, Ben Patrick had also been the most handsome guy in the faculty and every woman there had had a crush on him. When he’d asked CJ—fresh out of graduate school and before her disfigurement—on a date, she’d jumped at it. But there had been no second date, because during that single dinner, CJ discovered quite clearly that Ben Patrick loved only one thing: Ben Patrick. He had only talked about himself. It pained her, even now, to recall that one disastrous date.

Arrogant and self-absorbed as he was, CJ had to admit that Patrick was brilliant. His analysis of alligator vocalisations was simply extraordinary. But then about eight years ago, when his research seemed to be hitting a peak, he had suddenly left the university for a much higher paying job at the University of Shanghai. CJ hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

‘A colleague of mine named Ben Patrick once did some excellent work in the field of alligator vocalisations,’ CJ said.

‘He did indeed,’ Hu said, ‘which is why he is working here, right now, at our zoo. His discoveries here have far outstripped the ones he made with alligators. He works in our Birthing Centre. When we stop by there later, hopefully we will run into Dr Patr—’

Suddenly, with a great whoosh-whoosh, two purple emperor dragons swept past the cable car. They were indeed the size of airliners and their fly-by caused the cable car to rock gently and the trees on a nearby crag to bend and flutter.

Everybody grabbed a handhold.

Hu chuckled. ‘It’s okay. These cable cars are the best in the world. Swiss designed. Our emperors don’t realise the wake they make when they fly past.’

CJ whipped around, following with wide eyes the two purple emperors that had swept by.

Their heads alone were simply monstrous in size, as big as a four-wheel drive. Their long teeth, protruding menacingly from their lips, were almost as big as she was.

‘Good God…’ she breathed. ‘Good God.’

The cable car passed through the watchtower-like way station halfway between the main entrance building and the central mountain.

‘We call this the Halfway Hut,’ Na said. ‘There is a café-restaurant above us that offers excellent views and affordable meals. Also, hikers walking along the valley trails can access a cable car here if they run out of breath.’

As his guests watched the dragons, Hu Tang watched them. They seemed to be enjoying the cable car ride. Hu was particularly pleased to see the two New York Times men nod approvingly when Na mentioned the affordable meals at the Halfway Hut. The consultants had said American visitors would like that: having differently priced restaurants to suit people of different levels of wealth.

The cable car pushed on.

Rising up directly in front of it, dominating the valley, was the central mountain. A silver disc-shaped structure sat atop its summit.

‘What do you think that is?’ CJ asked Hamish. ‘A revolving restaurant?’

Hamish shrugged. ‘Or a captured flying saucer.’

Hu stepped forward, resuming his presentation: ‘We think it was the thick layer of nickel in the earth here that saved these animals from the meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Two kilometres of solid nickel insulated them from the impact and since the dragons were buried so deep and their hibernation skills so advanced, they were able to keep hibernating through the thousand-year winter that followed the meteor impact. Our zoo is built on top of the second-largest nickel deposit in these parts; the largest is over at Crater Lake about fifteen kilometres to the northwest.’

Wolfe said, ‘It’s a pity you couldn’t build your zoo around Crater Lake. Now that would have been a sight.’

‘Indeed,’ Hu said. ‘In any case, in November 1979, miners in a nickel mine near here broke through to a most unusual underground passageway. It was unusual because it was not natural; it had been dug out of the nickel—which is no mean feat given how hard nickel is—and then refilled with soil that had settled into it over the centuries. We dug out that soil to discover that the tunnel led to a cavern two kilometres underground, a cavern that was filled with eggs, eighty-eight of them to be precise, large leathery eggs that were bigger than any egg ever seen on this planet.

‘Now, for over two thousand years, this area has fostered dragon myths and legends, usually involving a lone dragon tormenting the locals for a short period. We believe those legends related to this nest: that every now and then, a lone juvenile dragon would leave the nest to test the atmosphere and see if it was suitable for the rest of the clan to resurface.’

Wolfe said, ‘November 1979. That was when the Iranian hostage crisis was going on.’

‘Correct,’ Hu said. ‘While it was a most unpleasant event for America, it was quite fortuitous for us, for it occupied the world’s attention for well over the next year, allowing our experts to examine the cavern in absolute secrecy. Deputy Director Zhang can provide the technical history of what happened next.’

Hu stepped aside and Zhang took over smoothly: ‘We brought in reptile experts to examine the eggs. They determined that they were not fossils but rather living ova containing animals in deep hibernation. X-rays and ultrasound scans revealed that the eggs contained lizard-like foetuses curled into tight balls.

‘We closed the nickel mine and dispatched all the workers. We then lined the walls of the cavern with cameras and sensors of every kind—temperature, humidity, sound, ultrasound—so that we might learn all we could about this astonishing discovery.

‘But we did not seal the cavern. Instead we sealed the land above it. We built a massive steel dome—it still stands over the Nesting Centre to the west of this valley, the oldest structure here at the Great Zoo. And then we waited. Waited and waited.

‘And then in July 1981 one of the eggs hatched.

‘A dragon emerged, covered in birth matter. It was a baby prince, a red-bellied black, and the size of a dog. The whole event was filmed. It is amazing footage. The prince ate two of its brethren, consuming the albumen and vitellus of those eggs, giving it strength, and then it went to the tunnel leading to the surface. It emerged inside our steel dome, sniffed the air, tested the water… and then it went back down to its cavern and began awakening the other eggs.

‘When the other eggs began to hatch, we had already prepared our facility up on the surface. When they emerged, we caught them one by one.’

‘But you didn’t tell anyone?’ Wolfe said.

‘This was the greatest zoological discovery in history,’ Zhang said. ‘We wanted to make sure of what we had. We wanted to make sure the dragons would survive. If we showed the world a single specimen and it died, we would become an international laughing stock.’

Hu stepped forward and interjected: ‘It was also felt by some senior Party officials that this discovery could be the making of modern China, so it was decided that it should be kept secret until we could show it off to the world. It was thus determined that a zoo would be built on top of our discovery. And so it was. This zoo has been a project nearly forty years in the making.’

Hamish gave a low whistle. ‘Now that’s what I call patience.’

‘In any event,’ Zhang went on, ‘as the world warmed, more dragons hatched and our Nesting Centre began to overflow, so we built a second “Birthing Centre” beside it. And we fashioned this valley to suit our needs—it required twenty thousand workers, working over twenty years, and through sheer force of Chinese resolve, we bent the landscape to our will.’

‘You bent the landscape to your will?’ Aaron Perry asked. ‘What do you mean by that? Are you saying this valley isn’t natural?’

Hu decided to answer that one. He gestured toward the towering mountain ahead of them. ‘Oh, no, this valley is not natural at all. Our glorious central peak—Dragon Mountain—is natural, as are a few sections of the wall encircling this valley. But otherwise, this land only became a valley when our army of workers connected some rocky mounts by building the wall out of introduced limestone and concrete, turning it into a crater.’

Hu saw his guests turn and reappraise the colossal wall of the valley, now aware that it was not a naturally occurring landform. ‘The wall containing our main entrance building, for instance, is entirely artificial. All the lakes, waterfalls and other waterways in this zoo are entirely our creation. The smaller peaks are artificial, as are most of the cliffs—they were designed from the outset to accommodate the dragons.’

Hamish whistled again. ‘You have got to be kidding me…’

Zhang said, ‘Throughout the whole time the crater was being constructed, not one of the ordinary workers saw a single dragon. They thought they were building the world’s greatest zoo, which in a sense they were. They just didn’t know what the animals would be.

‘And all the while, we studied these creatures, watched them grow, watched them feed, observed their habits, even trained some of them, as you have seen.’

The cable car continued its slow glide over the megavalley, moving toward the central mountain. Dragons soared around it.

Hu said, ‘Thank you, Deputy Director.’ He turned to the group of visitors. ‘Now. Do you have any questions?’

The questions came rushing at him:

‘How did you build this place for twenty years without anyone in the world finding out?’ Perry asked.

‘How many dragons do you have here?’ Seymour Wolfe asked.

Hamish asked, ‘What do they eat? How do they interact? Do they fight each other?’

Ambassador Syme asked, ‘Apart from salt water, do they fear anything else?’

Hu held up his hands, laughing. ‘Okay! Okay! These are all very good questions and I will take them in turn.’

Still smiling, he noticed that CJ was standing silently off to the side, staring out at a king dragon gliding in a slow circle. She had not asked a question, let alone an excited one. In fact, at his call for questions, she had actually turned away to look out at the view.

Hu frowned. ‘Dr Cameron? What about you? Do you have any questions about our dragons?’

CJ didn’t turn when she spoke. She kept staring at the flying leviathan outside.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have one. But I’m not going to ask it now.’

Hu frowned, confused—and even a little offended—but he regathered himself and turned to the others.

‘Ah, look, we’re arriving at Dragon Mountain,’ he said.

The cable car had indeed arrived at the tunnel that bored into the mighty central mountain. The great peak loomed above them.

‘Let us go inside and I shall answer all of your questions over lunch.’

The cable car disappeared inside the mountain.

12

Inside the mountain, the cable car stopped at a station cut into the very heart of the peak.

The station’s walls were natural rock, gunmetal grey in colour, and they had been sculpted into enormous dragon shapes—it looked as if the dragons were emerging from the walls in frightening attack poses, jaws open, claws bared.

Since the cable cars were double-deckers, the platform of the station had two levels, too. A modern grated catwalk led from the upper deck of the cable car to the upper doors of a huge double-levelled elevator.

A group of Chinese workers was there, standing near the elevator. Seeing the arrival of the cable car with its VIP guests, they stopped their labours and stood to attention in a line, waiting for the visitors to pass.

CJ figured they were electricians, judging by their work belts, coveralls and the clusters of naked wires protruding from the walls.

The youngest of the workmen had clearly gathered his tools together in a hurry, for he held them awkwardly against his chest, and as CJ’s group passed him by, the poor fellow dropped his bundle with a loud clatter. A screwdriver, some pliers and about thirty metal clips scattered all over the floor.

The group walked on, but as they did, CJ turned and she saw the foreman strike the young electrician across the face, hissing in Mandarin, ‘Idiot! Not in front of the guests!’

CJ flinched. Such a thing would never happen back home, but in China it was still common for low-level workers to be beaten. She went back and, crouching beside the young electrician, began helping him pick up the many metal clips.

‘I am sorry,’ he whispered in English, bowing his head repeatedly. ‘So sorry. So sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ CJ said, picking up clips. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My name is Li, ma’am.’

‘Take it easy, Li. It’s all right. It was an accident. You haven’t offended anyone or made the zoo look bad.’

Sweating, Li nodded in thanks, but a fearful glance at the foreman suggested that things wouldn’t be good for him after CJ and the others left. CJ picked up the last clip and the floor was clean.

She headed off, but as she walked past the foreman, she whispered casually in Mandarin: ‘You touch that man again and I’ll have you fired. You understand?’

The foreman blanched in shock.

CJ rejoined the group at the elevator just as Hu was saying, ‘To answer Mr Wolfe’s question: we have 232 dragons here at the zoo: 31 emperors, 81 kings and 120 princes. They range in age from thirty-five years to infants that are only a few months old, but don’t let that fool you. Dragons grow fast. A month-old prince is the size of a lion. At six months, it is as tall as a man. It is full-sized at a year, but immature, so it will defer to its seniors.’

They entered the elevator and CJ felt it zoom smoothly upward. The manufacturer’s plate by the doors showed it was German made. It hardly made a sound.

Zhang said, ‘To answer Mr Cameron’s question from before regarding their eating habits: our dragons are omnivorous; they eat both meat and vegetable matter. The emperors are mostly herbivorous, like their large dinosaur forebears, while the kings and princes are predominantly carnivorous.’

‘What do you feed them?’ Wolfe asked.

‘Sheep and cows mainly,’ Zhang said simply. ‘We have a farming facility adjoining this valley, where we breed the dietary requirements for our dragons. As you can imagine, they require substantial amounts of meat, so our farming system works around the clock.’

Hu said, ‘Mr Cameron also asked if they fight each other. They most certainly do, but in a very unusual and rather ritualistic way that we have termed “jousting”. Two dragons will face off and fly directly at each other. As they pass, claws are extended and one dragon usually comes away the better. We have found that such battles usually occur over—’

‘Territory,’ CJ said.

‘Yes. Yes, that’s right,’ Hu said. ‘Territorial disputes. We considered attempting to segregate the dragons in order to stop the practice, but they eventually established their own territories and the jousting largely stopped.’

Perry asked, ‘And how did you manage to build this place without anyone knowing?’

Hu said, ‘Simple. We told the truth. You saw the sign at the maglev station reading: “Welcome to the Great Zoo of China”. There have been many others like it. In addition to telling every worker who worked on this project that they were building an enormous zoo, we created a whole set of logos and letterheads which featured on every sign, every truck, and on every invoice with every contractor who worked on this place. We gave them T-shirts and caps emblazoned with the fake logo of the Great Zoo of China. While they toiled, the dragons were sequestered underground in the Birthing and Nesting centres, so no worker ever saw a dragon.

‘Only the most trusted contractors were shown the dragons: those who were working on security features like the electromagnetic domes and the sonic shields, and of course the experts who helped us analyse the dragons’ behaviour.’

‘What about satellites?’ Wolfe asked, turning to the American ambassador, Syme. ‘What did America think was going on here?’

Syme turned to Hu and a look passed between them, the look of two men who knew the realities of international politics.

Syme said evenly, ‘In November 1979, all this land and the air above it was designated restricted military airspace. This whole valley is technically a military site subject to military laws.’

Syme gave Hu another look and the Chinese Politburo member nodded in return. Their two nations, vying to be the world’s dominant power, knew all of each other’s secrets, or at least most of them.

Syme said, ‘Until today, the United States government didn’t know the significance of that date. We knew of the sonic shields—but we use them ourselves at air force bases for cellular jamming, so we figured the Chinese were just doing the same thing. And since no major aircraft or missile technology was tested here, it wasn’t seen as a particularly special base. We processed the visas of the animal experts they brought in but then we saw the Great Zoo of China paraphernalia and I guess, well, we fell for it, too.’

The elevator pinged and the doors opened onto an elegant room high above the valley. The room was perfectly circular, with curved and slanted floor-to-ceiling windows that offered unobstructed views of the megavalley.

It was, CJ realised, the interior of the disc-shaped structure at the summit of the central mountain, or Dragon Mountain, as Hu had called it.

And it was indeed a revolving restaurant. Well-appointed tables and chairs had been arranged on four broad descending tiers so that every table had a view over the valley. Only the central section of the structure stood still; the tiers all revolved at a slow pace around it.

‘There is a second identical restaurant on the level below us,’ Hu said. ‘Guests who ride up in the lower half of this elevator get out there.’

Outside, dragons swooped and banked. It was like dining at the top of the Eiffel Tower, high in the sky, with only the clouds and the dragons for company.

It was stunning.

Lunch was served.

Hu said, ‘The menu is by Gordon Ramsay. He is very popular in China. The Chinese people consider him to be a—what is the phrase—a lovable rogue.’

While the more important guests—Ambassador Syme, Seymour Wolfe and Aaron Perry—sat with Hu Tang and Zhang at one end of the table, CJ found herself eating alongside the ambassador’s aide, Greg Johnson. She’d almost forgotten Johnson was even there, he’d been so silent on the cable car ride. It was like he had professionally blended into the background.

‘What do you think so far?’ Johnson asked as they ate.

CJ said, ‘I think this place is going to make China the tourist destination of the world. In one hit, it blows Disneyland, Disney World and the Grand Canyon out of the water. What about you?’

Johnson shrugged. ‘It’s pretty awesome. Although, having said that, I must admit I’m curious.’

‘About what?’ CJ said, popping some buttered broccoli into her mouth.

‘About what your single question is,’ Johnson said.

CJ stopped chewing and eyed the ambassador’s aide closely. Johnson stared straight back at her, his dark eyes narrowed, focused, evaluating, and she wondered what kind of aide he really was.

Johnson let the moment pass and smiled. ‘How about this view, huh?’

With a final glance at Johnson, CJ looked out at the view. It was incredible. What the Chinese had done was remarkable—not only had they bred ancient animals, they had sculpted the very landscape to accommodate them.

As she turned away from the view, she saw two people get up from another table. It was the only other table in the restaurant that was occupied—by a Chinese man and a younger Chinese woman—and now they were in the process of leaving.

The woman, in her early twenties, wore a skirt-suit and looked very nervous. The man was short and a little on the plump side. He wore a red Great Dragon Zoo of China polo shirt and, unusually for a Chinese man, he had a long ponytail.

‘No way,’ CJ breathed. ‘It couldn’t be. Go-Go?’ she called.

The man turned at the name. He saw CJ and his face broke out in a delighted grin.

‘Why, if it isn’t the lovely and talented Cassandra Jane Cameron!’ he exclaimed in a twee voice as he rushed over.

CJ stood and they embraced warmly. He didn’t so much as glance at the scarring on her face.

‘So? What do you think of this place?’ he said. ‘Is it not… is it not… the biggest mind-fuck in history?’

CJ laughed. Go Guan had always been like this: short, loud and supergay. A huge fan of Shanghai nightclubs, his nickname, Go-Go, had come naturally.

‘It’s certainly blowing my mind,’ CJ said.

Go-Go stepped back from her. ‘God, look at you, girl! You are smoking hot! How do you get your butt so perfect? I do these squat classes at the gym, but look at my ass—look at it—it’s still the sad, sagging derriere of a fat little Chinaman. Urgh! What are you doing here?’

‘Doing a piece for Nat Geo. What about you? I haven’t seen you since you were working for me, stealing eggs from alligator nests on the Yangtze River and running from their angry mothers.’

‘I’ve moved up in the world, honey babe,’ Go-Go said. ‘Working for Ben Patrick in the Birthing Centre. This place needs every expert and grad student it can get.’ He indicated the young woman standing discreetly nearby. ‘I’m doing lunches all week with the successful candidates. Goodness me, no-one’s called me Go-Go in years. It’s so great to see you. Listen, I have to run. Maybe we can grab a sneaky chardonnay after your tour’s done.’

‘Sure,’ CJ said.

Go-Go and the young woman left and CJ returned to the table as Seymour Wolfe said, ‘It must have taken a small army of labourers to build this place. How did you feed them and house them while they built it?’

Hu gestured to the northeast: ‘If you look out that way, you will just make out the rooftops of some buildings.’

CJ and the others looked in that direction and, sure enough, over the top of the northeastern corner of the valley, they could just see the roofs of what looked like a dozen tall apartment buildings.

‘That was our worker city,’ Hu Tang said. ‘It was a complete small-scale city, with residential buildings, gymnasiums, food markets, parks, even sporting grounds. Our workers lived there while they fashioned this valley out of the natural landscape.’

‘Was?’ Perry asked.

‘Now the city is largely empty—our animal keepers live there in just one building—but we maintain all the empty neighbourhoods because the city’s usefulness is not exhausted. When our wonderful zoo opens to the world, it is going to need another small army to operate it: tour guides, hotel staff, cleaning and custodial staff, and they will need somewhere to live.’

While the others marvelled at the ready-made city outside the valley, CJ gazed out at a nearby, smaller pinnacle to the east.

A gigantic grey emperor dragon lounged on a ledge high up on the peak. Flanked by a few grey princes, it turned suddenly and looked right at CJ, right into her eyes.

Hu Tang caught her looking.

‘Dr Cameron,’ he said gently. ‘Are you all right? Is there something worrying you?’ He seemed genuinely concerned. ‘Are you perhaps ready to ask your question?’

CJ turned to find the whole table looking at her expectantly. It seemed as if everyone was interested in hearing her question. She made eye contact with Greg Johnson: he seemed especially attentive.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But you might not like it.’

‘Please,’ Hu encouraged. ‘We are happy to answer any query you might have.’

‘All right,’ CJ said, turning fully in her chair. ‘Mr Hu, exactly how many people have your dragons killed so far?’

13

Hu looked like he had been slapped in the face. ‘How many—what? How many people have they killed? Why would you ask that?’

‘Because from everything you’ve told us so far, this animal is perhaps the greatest predator this world has ever seen,’ CJ said. ‘Everything about it indicates that it is a killing machine with no equal on this planet except for perhaps the Great White Shark.’

She counted off on her fingers: ‘Deep broad nostrils for sniffing out prey. Those ampullae on its snout, they don’t just sniff out electricity, they are designed to detect the bioelectrical distress emitted by the rapid beating of a wounded animal’s heart. Those wings are for chasing prey, those claws are for grabbing prey and those fangs are for eating prey.

‘Evolution is a master craftsman, Mr Hu. Over millions of years, it has designed this creature for one purpose and one purpose only: to be an apex predator. Given their size, these dragons could be more than that: they could be the ultimate apex predator. They are built to do three things: hunt, kill and eat. Like crocodiles and alligators, that is what they do. That is why they exist. And these animals are smart: hell, you’ve managed to train a few of them. Hence my question. How many people have they killed already?’

Hu Tang did not say anything at first. He pursed his lips.

‘None,’ he said stiffly. ‘There has not been a single injury or fatality at this zoo caused by a dragon. And we intend to keep it that way.’

‘Really?’ CJ said, cocking her head. ‘Mr Hu, putting a couple of electromagnetic domes over this valley is a very sensible idea. But putting little sonic shields on all the vehicles, buildings and people makes me think that your dragons have attacked the vehicles, buildings and people before. In fact, if these animals respect those domes and shields then by definition it means they have been stung by them in the past. Animals don’t fear electromagnetic domes and sonic shields because they can see them. They fear them because they’ve been hurt by them. Are you seriously telling me that your dragons have only taken the odd snap at a truck or building and not a human being?’

‘Yes, that is what I am telling you,’ Hu said with a straight face.

CJ stared back at him. ‘Right. So it’s like Chinese GDP figures, then.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Never mind.’

After dessert was served, the group returned to the cable car and resumed their aerial circuit of the zoo.

Departing Dragon Mountain, the cable car ventured eastward, passing through the smaller pinnacle that CJ had seen earlier, before turning north again.

Hamish nudged CJ and pointed off to the right. There, nestled atop a chasm cut into the eastern wall of the crater, was an enormous monastery built in the style of the old Taoist monasteries found in central China.

This one had three levels, all with pointed roofs and wide balconies overlooking the high chasm. A pack of yellowjacket dragons had taken up residence in it: an emperor, two kings and one prince lay on its broad balconies.

Zhang said, ‘Our monastery is obviously a homage to the famous Purple Cloud Temple in the Wudang mountains of Hubei province.’

‘Obviously,’ Hamish said, raising his camera to take a few shots.

Moving away from the side-chasm, the cable car began a gradual descent that brought it low over a long straight waterfall.

Several large rocks protruded from the waterfall’s lip, while some flat-topped rock ledges jutted out from the face of the falling curtain of water. On these rocks and ledges sat a dozen olive-green prince-sized dragons.

‘Green river dragons,’ Zhang said. ‘They love the water. We can’t keep them out of it.’

Voices in the master control room, speaking into radios:

‘North waterfall team, stand by. Guests are en route.’

‘North waterfall team, ready.’

‘Prepare for fish release. In three, two, one…’

The cable car passed across the face of the waterfall, level with its lip, within twenty feet of the olive-green river dragons on the ledges—when suddenly the dragons saw something in the water and they leapt into it with whip cracks of their tails.

‘Look how fast they go!’ Perry exclaimed.

CJ was thinking the same thing. They had moved with astonishing speed, far faster than any crocodilian she had seen.

The cable car moved past the waterfall, now rising higher again, and CJ glimpsed the freeway-like ring road that ran around the circumference of the valley. It was artfully concealed, disappearing every now and then into tunnels cut into the rock wall.

Shortly after passing the waterfall, the cable car arrived at an open-air station that serviced a hotel-like building at the northern end of the valley. Flashing lights blared WELCOME TO THE DRAGON’S TAIL CASINO!

It reminded CJ of the Bellagio in Las Vegas: it had beige walls, immense columns and Italian-style windows.

The cable car, however, did not stop at the casino. It only slowed as it passed through the station before continuing on, gliding around the northern edge of the lake, moving past a second broad waterfall which also had river dragons perched on rock ledges jutting out from its lip and face.

As their cable car moved away from the second waterfall, CJ saw four silver Range Rovers emerge from a garage at the base of the casino building and speed along a gravel road that ran parallel to their cable car.

Hamish saw them, too. ‘Nice wheels. Range Rover Sport.’

They could just make out the occupants of the cars: the four Chinese Party men in their freshly bought outdoorsmen outfits.

‘The big kahunas,’ Hamish observed.

The four silver Range Rovers zoomed alongside the cable car for a short time, kicking up dust clouds behind them, before their road curved northward and they peeled away. Their gravel road, CJ saw, wrapped around some dramatic cliffs—covered with dragons—that formed a kind of natural screen in front of the northwestern corner of the crater.

CJ stopped herself.

It wasn’t a natural screen at all. This entire valley had been sculpted by thousands of Chinese workers for the specific purpose of building a tourist playground. Those cliffs—and the screen they formed—were there for a reason.

‘Looks like the big shots are on a very different tour from us,’ she said.

Hamish turned to Zhang. ‘Yo, Zhangman. Where are those dudes going?’

Zhang smiled. ‘Our esteemed Party officials are about to enjoy a very special section of our zoo, which you will see later. Forgive me if I don’t tell you what it is now. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.’

‘Oh, okay. Cool,’ Hamish said.

Everyone else in the cable car was focused on the dragons on the dramatic cliffs. The cliffs, CJ thought, had been well designed: the dragons lay on high ledges or sat perched on striking peaks. It seized the attention. It was a postcard shot and Hamish duly took many photos of it.

While all this was happening, the cable car travelled over a broad swamp filled with reeds and, it appeared, many large crocodiles.

‘Why the crocodiles?’ CJ asked Zhang.

Zhang said, ‘Crocodiles are the only surviving members of the archosaur line in the modern world. Large crocs lived back in the Triassic Period. We thought having some of them around would be good for the dragons: a reminder of the world they used to live in.’

‘Those are saltwater crocs,’ CJ said, ‘which means that’s a saltwater swamp. I thought you said your dragons don’t like salt water.’

‘They don’t.’

‘But that swamp adjoins the lake and there are dragons in the lake. How does that work?’

‘Well spotted, Dr Cameron,’ Zhang said. ‘We cheated a little. You can’t see it, but just below the waterline is a Perspex barrier that separates the saltwater swamp from the freshwater lake.’

‘Do the crocs ever venture out into the lake?’ Perry asked.

‘The larger ones do, but not the smaller ones,’ Zhang said. ‘The dragons, on the other hand, always avoid the swamp. They hate it. When it comes to salt water, they’re like cats: precious and fussy.’

When it was about halfway across the swamp, the cable car turned southward and soared grandly out over the lake, travelling twenty feet above the surface.

It was now heading back down the western side of the valley. CJ saw the enormous main building way off in the distance ahead of them, dominating the southern end of the valley, perhaps ten kilometres away.

On the nearby western wall of the crater, she saw about twenty dragons of various sizes—but all clustered in small groups of the same colour—alternately sitting on or moving around the crater’s rocky wall.

The voices from the master control room came through a tiny earpiece in Hu Tang’s ear:

‘Western wall team, stand by. Guests are en route.’

‘Western wall team, ready.’

‘Prepare for horse release, in five, four, three…’

Hu Tang knew that his zoo was a wonder beyond compare. But these were influential American journalists and he didn’t want them reporting that his dragons just lazed around, doing nothing.

Sometimes you had to make the animals perform.

Gliding along in the cable car, CJ again saw the ring road, disappearing into and reappearing from tunnels in the mountainside.

Then she saw something that made her start.

It was so well camouflaged, she almost missed it.

On the sheer black cliff above the ring road, CJ saw a lone dragon, a large red-bellied black king, crouched in a very unusual position. The dragon clung to the cliff on its belly, perfectly vertical but upside-down: its head pointed downward while its barbed tail was pointed upward.

The animal was the size of a subway carriage and it did not move. It just lay there, eerily still.

CJ frowned. She was about to ask Zhang about it when sudden movement caught her eye.

Four yellowjacket princes burst out of some trees below the ring road, chasing a group of six wild horses across the hillside. The horses galloped hard, blasting between the trees, fleeing for their lives. The dragons ran swiftly and easily, with the cool agility of big cats. With their tails raised, their heads bent low and their muscular limbs bouncing over the uneven landscape with ease, they looked like oversized leopards.

Then suddenly two of the dragons took flight, flanking the horses, herding them to the right where—

—two more princes sprang from a cave and crash-tackled the first two horses with crunching, side-on hits.

‘Ow!’ Hamish yelled.

The two horses—who themselves must have weighed 800 kilograms each—shrieked as they went down, hoofs flailing, heads turning from side to side, eyes bulging with fear.

The two ambushing dragons were on them in seconds, wrapping their oversized jaws around the horses’ necks, crushing their windpipes. The horses stopped struggling, went still.

At this point, the other four yellowjackets arrived. But they did not engage in a feeding frenzy on the carcasses of the horses. Instead, the four chasers waited a short distance away as the two ambushers took the first bites out of the fallen victims.

CJ watched, entranced.

‘They’re like wolves,’ she said. ‘Wolves observe a strict hierarchy, both in the hunt and in the feeding that follows. The junior pack members drive the prey into the ambush, where the senior members wait. The senior members—an alpha male and an alpha female—carry out the kill. They always eat first. Then the juniors take their turn.’

CJ saw one of the senior dragons bite down on the carcass of one of the horses. It tore off the dead animal’s head with one mighty rip.

Ambassador Syme stepped up beside CJ, staring in awe at the bloody scene.

‘You don’t see that on the National Geographic channel,’ he said in a whisper.

14

The cable car continued on its journey over the western lake.

Up ahead of it was the ruined castle. The castle stood beside a third and final waterfall which curved in a wide U-shape. From where she stood, CJ could only see the lip of the waterfall dropping away like the rim of an infinity pool.

Above and behind the castle, however, was a far more modern structure: a fifteen-storey glass-faced building that sat half-embedded in the sloping wall of the crater.

Just below the point where the building’s lowest floor met the hill, CJ saw a tunnel that allowed the ring road to burrow into the slope. She guessed that there was some kind of internal entry to the building inside the tunnel.

At the top of the glass building was a sleek white tower that looked like an air traffic control tower. It had many large radio antennas sticking up from it.

‘What’s that building?’ CJ asked Zhang.

‘That is our administration building,’ Zhang said. ‘Running a zoo of this size is like running a small city. The administration building houses all of our admin and support staff. Its lower floors contain loading docks that receive all the building materials that come into the zoo as well as coordinating waste management and disposal.’

‘And the tower at the top?’

‘Dragon monitoring and observation,’ Zhang replied, a little too quickly and casually.

CJ noticed.

‘Does it have anything to do with the electromagnetic domes?’ she asked. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t want one of the bigger dragons to accidentally crash into it and knock out your dome.’

‘Oh, no,’ Zhang said. ‘The inner dome emanates from twenty-four concrete emplacements built into the rim of the crater. You can see them up there, beside the tower. Each is heavily reinforced; the concrete is nine feet thick. The dragons couldn’t damage them if they tried.’

CJ put on her oversized sunglasses and looked up at the rim.

Through the glasses, she saw the curving luminescent green rays of the inner dome lancing skyward from a series of emplacements on the crater’s upper rim. They looked like World War II pillboxes: supersolid concrete blockhouses with slit-like apertures from which the dome’s beams sprang upward.

She shrugged and took off the glasses and was turning back to look at the administration building when she spied a group of vehicles speeding out from the ring road tunnel at its base.

It was a convoy of five petrol-tanker trucks: eighteen-wheelers with long silver tanks on their backs. The tankers rumbled north along the ring road before disappearing into another tunnel.

‘Deputy Director, what is that?’ CJ heard Hu whisper harshly to Zhang in Mandarin.

‘It’s the two o’clock fuel run,’ Zhang said. ‘They’re taking diesel to the cable car stations and the generators.’

Hu hissed, ‘The drivers should have been informed that we had visitors today. Remember what the Disney consultants said: visitors should never see the backroom machinery at work. Never. Make sure those drivers and their supervisors are disciplined.’

CJ didn’t outwardly acknowledge their words. They must have forgotten she spoke Mandarin.

A deafening roar made her and everyone else in the cable car spin.

CJ’s eyes went wide.

An emperor dragon was hovering right alongside the cable car!

It kept itself aloft with the occasional flap of its vast wings and it peered curiously into the cable car.

CJ hadn’t even heard it approach. She couldn’t believe the sheer size of it. It defied the senses to see something so big hovering in the air. And it thrilled her to be able to see it so close.

The great beast roared again, an ear-piercing shriek that seemed to shake the whole valley.

It was a red-bellied black dragon. Its underbelly blazed scarlet. Its black plated armour looked strong beyond belief. When it roared, its teeth flashed.

CJ noticed that it was looking closely at her and her companions, as if evaluating them.

CJ found herself admiring it. Curiosity in an animal was a sign of intelligence and it was rare. You found it only in a few members of the animal kingdom: chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins.

Her eyes swept up the curve of the great beast’s neck and she gazed at its fearsome head. Its eyes were a pitiless black. The sinews of its jaws were stretched taut. Its crest was sleek and sinister, while the rest of its massive head was covered in ugly scars and gashes, presumably from fights with other dragons—

CJ frowned.

Wait a second…

Something about this dragon’s head didn’t look right, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Suddenly, with a final hideous screech, the massive creature beat its wings and banked away, flying off to the north, and everyone in the cable car started murmuring with wonder.

Shortly after, the cable car came to the great ruined castle. When she’d seen it before from the main building, CJ thought it hadn’t looked so big, but now she realised that that had been a trick of the distance.

Seen from up close, it was absolutely enormous: dark, grim and imposing.

‘We got the production designer from the Lord of the Rings movies to design this castle,’ Hu said to Wolfe. Hu seemed a little standoffish toward CJ now.

‘It’s awesome,’ Hamish said.

CJ had to admit that it did look pretty impressive. Indeed, it looked as if the fictitious inhabitants of the castle had done battle with invading dragons and lost badly. The brick battlements had crumbled. Whole towers lay askew on the ground. Some staircases ran nowhere, ending abruptly at ragged ends.

The whole thing was covered in black char-marks, causing CJ to remark, ‘I thought you said there were no fire-breathing dragons here.’

Zhang offered a bashful smile. ‘We took some liberties with the design of this castle, for the sake of theatricality.’

‘I like it,’ Hamish said.

About a dozen dragons moved in and around the ruins, all yellowjackets.

At the base of the castle, at the point where it sat at the same height as the waterfall, an elongated wooden platform stretched out from the front gate.

It resembled a drawbridge, only it led nowhere. It just extended out over the curving waterfall directly in front of the castle, looking like a bridge that had been stopped halfway through its construction. It took CJ a moment to realise what it was.

‘It’s a landing platform for the dragons,’ she said.

‘And a cable car stop for us,’ Zhang said, smiling. It was only a hundred metres ahead of them.

‘I have another question,’ CJ said suddenly.

‘Yes?’ Deputy Director Zhang cast a worried glance at Hu, no doubt fearful of another awkward question from the National Geographic woman.

‘You said you found 88 eggs in that cavern,’ CJ said. ‘But then you said that you have 232 dragons in this zoo. How does that work? I would have thought one egg means one dragon, so 88 eggs means 88 dragons, unless they’ve laid more eggs.’

Zhang visibly relaxed. This was apparently a question he could answer easily.

He smiled. ‘You are correct, Dr Cameron. One egg equals one dragon. And no, they have not laid any more eggs since they emerged from their nest. But we have been working and studying these animals at this facility for nearly forty years now. In that time, we have introduced some augmented breeding methods to bolster our stock of—what is that?’

He was looking out over CJ’s shoulder, peering northward, his smile fading.

CJ turned, following his gaze.

What she saw made the blood in her veins freeze.

She saw a gang of five red-bellied black dragons of various sizes coming right for the cable car, led by the emperor that had checked them out only a few minutes earlier.

And as she beheld the gang of dragons coming toward her, CJ realised what had been wrong with the emperor’s head.

It had no ears.

The scars and gashes on this dragon’s head weren’t injuries from battles with other dragons.

This emperor dragon had scratched off its own ears—deeply, too, tearing out the entire auditory canal, leaving two foul bloody sockets—which meant that the sonic dome protecting the cable car would not have any effect on it at all.

‘Deputy Director, what is going on?’ Hu asked ominously.

‘Sir, I’ve never seen them do anything like this before,’ Zhang said.

‘Hang on to something,’ CJ said to Hamish. ‘Right now.’

The dragons rushed at the cable car and when they reached it, they did not stop.

The lead earless emperor smashed into the cable car with all its might, leading with its upraised claws. Glass exploded everywhere and the cable car rocked violently and in the space of a few terrible seconds CJ Cameron’s tour of the Great Dragon Zoo of China went to hell.