The China Dogs (44 page)

Ghost takes a swallow of his freshly brewed coffee and hears his stomach growl with hunger. There is plenty of food in his refrigerator, and the thought of Eggs Benedict and perhaps a side of smoked salmon is enticing, but he's too wound-up and too busy to indulge in any culinary activity.

A look at his watch says it's still way too early to ring the media. Most of the hacks that he knows are either sobering up from last night's drinking and socializing or else still at it. Later in the day he'll call one of them. Maybe the guy from CBS. He'll hand over Zoe's pictures, one of the microchips that contains the drug reservoir, details of Li Chen and his wife, and he'll sit back and watch the whole damned bonfire of deception go up in flames.

A bleep bleeds from his computer. The software has loaded. He looks at the screen and doesn't see what he'd expected. Not at all. He takes a final hit of his coffee and grabs his smartphone from where he'd been charging it.

On the way out he takes a jacket from the closet by the door, and from behind a metal panel built into the wall collects two Glock 22 pistols, spare magazines, and several boxes of extra ammunition.

163

Beijing

A
rmy nurse Tan Fei secures the suture thread, gently drifts an antiseptic wipe across the sown-up wound, and then softly pats a padded dressing over the injured man's rock solid mass of abdominal muscles.

Her dark eyes register more than just job satisfaction as she looks into the soldier's face. “You will need to take care not to split it open or get the wound dirty. Come back and see me in one week.”

Luo Kai snakes a big hand around her tiny waist. “I need to come back earlier than that.”

Tan fights back a smile. “A week will be sufficient.” She wriggles free of his grip and puts scissors, suture thread, and needles in a steel tray.

He sits up on the medical center's rough bed and fastens the buttons on his white uniform shirt. “Do you have something for the pain—like a kiss?”

The nurse feels her pulse race. “A big man like you shouldn't need anything.”

“Well, I do.” He stands and pushes his shirt inside his trousers. “I need a dose of you. Once a day and three times a night.”

“Come back in a week. Let us see if you still have any pain then.” Her eyes touch his as she drifts away from the privacy of the cubicle and joins the mass of other medics.

Kai smiles as he puts on his tie and dark green jacket. He can wait a week for a woman like that. No problem.

He walks out of the treatment center and into the corridors. Ahead, beneath a ceiling-mounted old brown clock, he sees Minister Chunlin waiting for him. His mentor. His shortcut up the ladder of success and away from the snakes of common soldiering.

Chunlin smiles and pats his shoulder. “Well done today. He will call you later. You will get but a few minutes alone with him. Make every second count.”

“I understand.” Kai feels the minister touch his jacket and then he's gone.

He knows what has been slipped into his pocket.

Understands, fully, what he has to do with it.

164

Washington DC

C
lint Molton knows history is in the making as he and Don Jackson board Air Force One.

He's acutely aware of the importance of what's about to happen, how his actions in the next twenty-four hours will shape the future of the world's two biggest superpowers.

Before the plane even powers up, he holds a lengthy conference call with the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of staff, during which they agreed to reset the country's defense readiness condition to its highest level since October 22, 1962.

DEFCON 2.

Not since the Cuban missile crisis has the country been one step away from nuclear war. Even back on September 11, 2001, the USA only reached DEFCON 3. Throughout the entire Cold War, U.S. ICBM sites were never at a state of alert higher than DEFCON 4.

Molton thinks of the hundreds of people moving into action at the national Military Command Center inside the Pentagon. The secret meetings that will be held over the next hours in the war rooms, the coded messages going out to the battleships, nuclear submarines, and fighter planes. Over at Raven Rock in Pennsylvania there'll be similar activity at what White House insiders call the “Underground Pentagon.” The top secret facility, sometimes just known as Site R, houses emergency operations centers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and runs almost forty specific communications systems for the defense bodies.

The big Boeing thunders down the runway and lifts effortlessly into the clear Washington sky. A screen in front of Molton tells him he's nine hours away from landing in Hawaii.

Twelve hours—720 minutes—away from his meeting with Xian.

165

China

T
wo hours into the twelve-hour flight to Hawaii, sixty-year-old Xian Sheng, President of the People's Republic of China, breaks from the mass of paperwork spread before him in the office area of the customized Air China 747 and takes the call he's been waiting for.

Minister Chunlin's voice is calm and measured. “Zhang has just called for him. The meeting will happen at the end of the day.”

“Keep me informed.”

“Please ring when you land. I hope to have the best of news for you by then.”

166

Miami

G
host follows a very special GPS system on his phone as he drives out of Miami. He guns the old Dodge so hard he's sure he's in for a steep repair bill and a whole pack of speeding tickets by the time he's done.

He winds down the window in the hope that the morning air will keep him awake and turns on the radio for the latest news. Most stations are full of through-the-night phone-ins and breaking reports about the latest dog attacks. It saddens him to learn that there have been more deaths in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and across Florida.

More deaths.

It's the ubiquitous phrase that all news readers have adopted.

In total, thirty-one towns and cities have now been hit by what the media is calling the Dog Bite Epidemic. Deaths have risen to more than five hundred, and there are over a thousand injuries.

Ghost tunes in 100.3 FM and finds WIOD News radio is running an interview with the Canadian prime minister about the border closure. They follow that with a sound bite from the president of Mexico saying his country will make a decision on border closure in the next twenty-four hours. There's a report as well on the orders that U.S. businesses have lost at APEC, and interviews with families of soldiers killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan.

Ghost turns it off.

Today is going to be a bad day. In a few hours they'll be expecting him at his desk. Looking for him. Readying themselves to control and silence him. Make him compliant.

It isn't going to happen.

He isn't going to be there.

Ghost heads west, out of the city. More than thirty miles down Highway 41 at speeds close to 140. Only as he clears the main turn to the Monument Lake campground does he take his foot off the gas and start looking for the road that will take him into Big Cypress, almost three-quarter-million square acres of open parkland.

A glance at the GPS says he's almost at his destination. He slows down as he hits a track and snatches the smartphone from its dashboard mount. Sometime back, out of good practice, he'd diligently entered all the contact details of Agent Gwen Harries. Now he dials her cell.

Four rings play out. He knows she's looking at her caller display and wondering why on earth he's contacting her at seven in the morning.

Finally, she picks up. “Harries.”

“You know where he is, don't you, Gwen?”

Her shock shows in a long silence before she answers. “I'll call you back. Now's not a good time.”

“No need,” says Ghost. “I'll be with you shortly.”

167

Washington DC

A
fter a sleepless night worrying about the events of the coming morning, Sheryl Molton is almost relieved that the time has come to face her fears.

The two children, Jack and Jane, are similarly anxious and both have been crying. Though everyone understands what has to be done, no one wants to do it.

Sheryl's driver pulls the armor-plated SUV over to the curb and two protection officers slide out and scan the streets.

Four other armed men slip from government vehicles in front and behind the First Lady's car and complete a 360-degree security ring before giving a signal that it's safe for her to get out.

Sheryl's dressed down for the day. Black pumps and slacks, a white hoodie, and her hair up in a chignon. If not for the G-men, she'd look almost like any other mom in her forties going to the shops or making the school run. Only she isn't. She's the First Lady, setting an example to the nation by taking the family's pet dog to a secure depository where it will stay behind bars until all the horror of the dog attacks and uncertainty is over.

So many cameras flash as she pops the trunk and gets Emperor down that it's like being caught in a sudden electrical storm.

The red Tibetan mastiff jerks his head from right to left and tugs hard against the silver choker lead. The lights, loud noises, and strange surroundings all seem to make him nervous.

A TV cameraman sees the chance of a great low-angle shot and hangs his lens over a roped-off line. He swings it an inch off the floor and toward the million-dollar dog, his eye focused on the monitor frame as it fills with the animal's majestic head and vibrant coat.

Emperor sees the camera late, coming at him like a strange, predatory animal.

He pounces.

The newsman drops the equipment and the dog lunges for his arm.

Sheryl Molton tugs on the lead but the pup is too powerful.

Teeth find wrist bone.

A security man steps forward and tries to get between the dog and the cameraman.

Emperor bites at the new limb that's thrust into his face.

The crowd is screaming now. Other photographers are breaking the press line to get better angles. Police struggle to push them back.

Emperor jumps and barks. A big noise from a big dog.

He snaps and growls.

“Shoot it!” someone shouts to a cop. “Shoot it before it hurts someone!”

A G-Man takes the lead out of Sheryl's hands and pulls hard.

The dog goes to ground. Head to floor so it doesn't get strangled.

Sheryl falls to her knees next to it. “Emperor. Hey boy, it's all right.” She puts a hand to his head.

The dog sees her out of the corner of his black eyes and starts to snap.

Then holds back.

She strokes him and he yields.

“It's okay boy. It's all okay.” Sheryl covers him with her body and rubs at his face and ears until she feels him relax.

She puts her hand back and retrieves the lead. Getting to her feet, she turns to the security men. “Thank you. We're fine now.”

Her heart is bursting through her ribs as she crosses the road to her shelter. Somehow she holds it together.

168

Pacific Ocean

A
ir Force One skims over the world's biggest ocean, the vast and empty stretch that amounts for almost half of the planet's seawater and a third of its total surface.

The worried face of the President of the United States is pressed to a window and stares out at the geographic enormity beneath him.

Clint Molton wants to daydream on the adventures of Spanish, Dutch, and English explorers. Of Charles Darwin's epic voyage here in HMS
Beagle
and of the U.S. struggles to take Guam and the Philippines from Spain. He wants to contemplate Japan's domination of the region in the early 1940s and the immense battles of the Second World War that saw them comprehensively defeated by the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

He wants to think of anything other than the news he's just been given.

Philadelphia, the fifth most populated city in the country, is in chaos. It has been overrun by packs of murderous dogs that in the last hour have claimed sixty lives and injured a hundred more.

Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. So called because its name came from the Greek words
adelphos
—brother
and
philos—
loving.

Now it is the City of Fear.

The security missive laid on his lap says shoppers are under attack from hoards of mongrel hounds at Rittenhouse Row, the high-class blocks of major brands off Walnut Street. It details the bedlam that's broken out at Reading Terminal Market, where wild pit bulls rampaged into restaurants and savaged unsuspecting diners. And it chronicles how tourists have been killed by dozens of strays at Independence Hall in the National Historic Park, where the nation's iconic Liberty Bell hangs.

The watch team report also mentions the start of attacks in Houston and Dallas, down the banks of the Trinity River. Hurt and angry as those assaults make him, they don't for a second raise the same level of pain as Philadelphia.

Philly is a psychologically debilitating blow.

It's where three centuries ago the Declaration of Independence was signed. Where the America of today was born and baptized. Where the Founding Fathers met during the American Revolution, and where the nation's capital was, while Washington DC was under construction.

The attacks here feel like an attempt to wipe out history, to add monumental insult to the monstrous injury that has already been inflicted.

A presidential aide crosses the plane. “There's a call being routed to you from the Oval Office, sir.”

“Thank you.” Molton picks up a receiver in the armrest. “Hello.”

The voice is that of his executive secretary, Jordan Taylor. “Mr. President, I don't know how to say this. I just call from the Dog Protection Depository in Washington, where your wife was—”