The China Dogs (25 page)

A deeper male voice booms out, one that's known decades of late night drinking and smoky rooms. “Lieutenant Walton?”

“That's me. How can I help?”

“Thanks for calling. The President has asked Vice President Cornwell to establish a task force to investigate the recent spate of dog attacks and see if remedies need to be applied. They want you to attend a video briefing—” He pauses while he glances up at his office clock. “—in just over an hour's time. My office will fix it with yours.”

“What do they want from me?”

“Your views, Lieutenant. I understand you've not been shy in sharing them with the media and the nation at large, so I trust fitting in the President of the United States isn't a difficulty.”

“Of course not.”

“Eleven o'clock it is, then.”

Ghost is left with a dead phone. He types a note in his electronic diary and a heads-up to Force Admin, copied to Cummings's secretary in case the captain wants to join.

When he looks up, Swanson is at the edge of his desk. “Yes, Annie.”

“Dispatch has called in another dog attack. It's a really bad one.”

He shakes his head in dismay. “Christ alive, this is relentless.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He realizes he has to delegate. Something he's not that great at. “Okay. Get John Tarney and Bella Lansing out of their hammocks. See if Bella can drive comms from here. I'll raise SWAT, and if push comes to shove, then the President is just going to have to wait for his face time.”

88

Weaponization Bunkers, North Korea

T
he once motionless dog in the third section finally moves.

Hao becomes nervous.

The animal breaks from its studious trance and darts like it is possessed by an insane and powerful demon. It crashes from wall to wall in the glass cell, banging so hard it leaves smears of blood at every point of impact.

The scientist feels all his hopes fading.

The dog runs and lunges harder, faster, and more powerfully than anything he has ever seen.

It leaps into the glass partition that separates it from the middle dog and hits it with such a tremendous force that it tears it from its floor mount. The screen comes down with a clatter and instantly all three dogs are jumping and snarling.

“Father!” Jihai shouts in concern.

“Wait. We have to wait and learn.”

Dogs Two and Three are inches apart. Bred to fight, they give in to the genetically enhanced urges building inside them.

Dog Three circles and then jumps.

Two tries to fend it off with its paws and teeth but is knocked over. It manages to flip back onto its feet but Three bites a flapping curtain of bloody skin from its face.

The squealing and snarling booms from the speaker system in the lab.

“Okay, administer more serum!” shouts Hao. “Do it now!”

Jihai triggers the hypotrajectors.

The pit bulls rage on regardless. Their brute aggression is sickening to watch.

“Their adrenaline levels are off the scale,” warns Jihai.

Hao knows there is nothing more he can do.

Even the dog in the first partitioned cubicle is now bounding hard at the glass.

It's as though the chemical pacifier has actually aggravated the problem rather than solved it.

Reluctantly, he readies himself to use the ultimate control, a volley of lethal darts loaded with a cocktail of quick acting barbiturates, including pentobarbital sodium and phenytoin sodium. “Load with the terminal darts.”

Dog Two breaks from a potentially lethal neck bite and finds its feet. The cell floor is already spattered with blood as the third animal lunges and bites again. This time it lands a tight grip on Two's face and shakes viciously as it tries to throw the animal off balance again.

Jihai has witnessed innumerable animal experiments but never anything as sickening as this. He turns again to his father. “Can we fire? Put them out of their misery?”

Hao must see the full effect of the serum. “Not yet. We must wait.”

The dogs lock jaws.

For a moment it looks like Two is strong enough to defend itself. Then there's a stomach-turning crunch of breaking teeth. Dog Three powers its head down and rolls its bleeding sibling onto its back.

Two kicks frenziedly but can't get free.

Three sinks its teeth into its neck and shakes its powerful jaws.

The dying terrier gives off a whine like a broken steam kettle.

The cell is smeared floor to ceiling in blood. Severed ears, tongue, skin, and fur lie everywhere.

Three lifts its scarred and wounded head. It stares defiantly at the watching scientists, eyes glistening with evil defiance.

89

Coconut Grove, Miami

Z
oe moves quickly from room to room, feeling more like a burglar than someone on a heartfelt mission to create a lasting memory of those who died. The rooms upstairs tell an entirely different story to the ones beneath them. A pretty bedroom of peach pink above the raw and bloody kitchen hosts a double bed that's yet to be made. She can see that only one side has been slept in. Only one nightstand has a book and glass on it. Only one pair of slippers is kicked off near the bed legs.

Numerous photographs by the windows, on the dresser top, and over the makeup table summarize the life of a blond middle-aged woman who is no longer with a handsome dark-haired man with whom she apparently spent most of her adult life. Across some of the shots a spindly blond girl with gawky looks grows from ugly duckling to ravishing young woman.

Zoe flips several pictures onto the bed and shoots them without a flash to avoid glare off the glass. At the back of her mind burn the images of the mutilated bodies she photographed in the dead of night.

She puts them back and moves quickly to the next largest room. From first glance it's clear this was where the younger woman slept. Fashionable shoes, purses, and worn clothes lie untidily on the floor or are draped over the back of a chair or full-length mirror. There is a smell of too much perfume. The dressing table is littered with blingy jewelry and enough cosmetics to open a store.

Zoe feels most uncomfortable here. From the pictures she's seen and the clothes around her, the dead woman is roughly the same age, height, and weight as herself. A shiver sends her out to the stairs and down to the study. She knows she has to work quickly now. She pulls a drape, so the cop can't see if he walks down the side of the house, and fires up the big Mac on the desk. While its drive is spinning into life she opens a cupboard and goes through the alphabetically listed hang files.

Under P she finds the passports of Astrid and Heidi Gerber, B gives her their birth certificates. She was right, the girl was twenty-four and listed herself as a model. File M holds Heidi's marriage certificate to a man named Jan, and D discloses he died just a year ago.

D throws up something else too.

A whole file marked
DOG.

“Hey, you finished in there yet?”

The cop's voice spooks her and she spills the file. “Yeah, I'm on my way.” She turns her back to the door in case he comes in, empties the papers from the hanger and photographs as many of them as she can, including a set of photographs of a puppy and accompanying certificates that declare a wirehaired pointer called Schotzie once won numerous awards for being Best in Breed and “Demonstrating Outstanding Obedience.”

90

South Beach, Miami

S
creams spray from Lummus Park. People scatter and the bleached white sand that borders the long evergreen strips and blue water bay is already stained red.

A growling Alsatian stands rigid-legged and scans the pounded dunes.

It's already bitten its female owner to death. Two boys and their mother lie dead on the nearby grass. Ten yards behind the dog, a man with a bite wound to his leg hobbles into traffic and is hit by a motorbike.

Two police marksmen send a volley of shots through the sunlight.

The dog drops on the sand.

Open-mouthed, it twitches and jerks as more bullets riddle its long, soft fur and more white becomes red.

Barely a block away two black Labradors cut loose.

The remains of their owner, a forty-year-old male teacher, are spread over the blistered sidewalk near the Bentley Hotel.

Parents grab children and run. It's a free-for-all. The old and young collide and jostle as the air sparks with hysteria.

The two dogs snarl and snap as they charge the back of the fleeing crowd.

The Lab on the left brings down an old woman with a fuzz of white hair. The one on the right takes a child of eight out of the hand of his young mother.

Traffic backs up like it's a national holiday. Blaring horns join the orchestra of chaos. Ghost ditches the Dodge and runs against the flow of fleeing people.

He sees solid blue uniforms up ahead, cutting into the multicolored kaleidoscope of panicking citizens. Officers with guns drawn and hands outstretched.

There's a crack of gunfire and a crescendo of screams. The crowd parts and a veteran cop fires again and again, two bullets finding the head and shoulders of one of the dogs.

The other is nowhere to be seen.

New screams and a fresh outbreak of chaos point to where it is.

There's a piercing shriek from the panicking mob in front of Ghost, a cry so intense it is clearly linked to pain and not just fear.

He jumps onto the hood of a parked BMW then clambers on the roof.

The screaming crowd clears.

A teenage boy is on his back, swinging punches at the other dog's snarling jaws.

Ghost hasn't got a clear shot. And even if he had, from this angle the bullet could go straight through the Lab's head and kill the kid.

He jumps down.

The teenager's hands claw helplessly at the savage dog's head, trying to knock it away. In desperation, he jams a fist in the savage vise of teeth to protect his face.

The animal crunches down on the smooth bone and salty skin.

Time is running out.

Ghost drops flat into the dirt and puts his trust in his own skill and nerve.

The first shot pings through a vertebrae in the dog's spine, and it loses its hold on the boy.

The second goes straight over its teeth and down into its gut.

It's dead before it even topples off the teenager.

Away to his right, a wail of sirens breaks above the noise of shouting people and blaring car horns.

Across the street, Ghost sees paramedics loading a gurney in an ambulance. He shouts to them as he runs, “Hey, hey!”

One of the medics, a guy in his thirties, turns toward the running cop.

Ghost pulls up in front of him almost breathless. “I have a young guy down and hurt over there.” He points to Ocean Drive as he tries to recover from the sprint. “Just the other side of the grass. He's been bit real bad. Huge wound to the abdomen, looks like a damned shark bite, and I think he's been caught on the upper thigh as well.”

The paramedic looks up into the van where his colleague is. “I've got this new one,” he says, then pushes the gurney and the injured man on it the last few inches into the van. “You go back with this guy and get me assistance from the crew up on Eighth.”

His buddy gives him the thumbs-up and the medic grabs a bag and joins Ghost.

As they head across the road, an emergency services radio crackles.

“All units, we have two more dog attacks in the South Beach area. One at Flamingo Park and Pool and one at West Avenue opposite the Jason Schaffer. We've requested police and dog handler backup. You are urged to proceed with extreme care.”

91

Coconut Grove, Miami

Z
oe effortlessly brushes off the rookie. Before he can even say anything, she pulls on her worried face and hits him with a story about being called back to the office by her boss. To take away the pain, she gives him a slip of paper that only later he'll find out is not her number but that of Judy's local pizza store.

She drives a little over a mile before she takes a left off the main drag and pulls to the side of the road. With the engine off she pushes back the seat of the Nissan and settles down to do some work.

From her purse she pulls out a small red notebook and yellow felt tip pen. She powers up the Hasselblad and flicks through thumbprints of the shots. Last night Ghost had told her to take photos in the house, let the world see the full horror of what happened. Well, she intends to do that. But not gratuitously. Not just for the sake of having pictures published and maybe earning a buck or two from a news agency. She wants to do something with more meaning—more resonance. The camera in her hands holds prints that amount to twenty years of Astrid and Heidi's lives. There are shots of the young model as a teenager. Of her mom and dad getting married. There are even shots of the dog that killed them as a puppy. And that, in Zoe's mind, is the real story. How two lovely and loving women can end up killed by the family pet.

The snaps she's taken of Schotzie's documentation aren't artistically brilliant but they are revealing. There's a breeder's certificate. Vaccination confirmations. Proof he's been microchipped and his owners registered in case he got lost. On top of that are awards from the numerous discipline courses he'd completed and breed shows he'd been entered in.

Zoe thumbs through her digital images and examines the shots she'd taken of the dead dog. It was very obviously the same animal as the one pictured winning things, but it also seemed completely different—more so than just the bullet wounds the police marksman had put in its head and body.

She made notes in her book and spent time ordering her thoughts and working a plan of action. She'd have no trouble finding a magazine, newspaper, or TV channel to take her finished work—of that she was sure. So she could afford the luxury of starting at the beginning. Going back to Schotzie's breeders and the kennel where he was born.