by Sam Masters
Zhang nods his appreciation then lifts the cuff of his uniform to check his watch. “It is time for my telephone conference with the American.”
“The office next door has been prepared, sir. I will personally put the call through to you.”
Zhang leaves feeling pleased. Xue is loyal and trustworthy. Which is more than can be said of Chunlin. One day he will have to remove that man from his position and put someone more reliable there.
He settles at a cheap bare desk in the adjoining communications room and waits for the call to be patched through to him.
A woman’s voice comes on the line. “I have Director Jackson for General Zhang.”
Xue answers. “I have the general on the line and I am putting you through.”
Data capture machines in Beijing and Washington silently record the conversation as it begins at 8:30 A.M. Beijing time on August 8, and 8:30 P.M. Washington time on August 7.
“General, this is Brandon Jackson, what can I do for you?”
Zhang has no time for pleasantries. “My president instructed me to call you as a matter of grave urgency. You will recall my warning when we were together in Beijing?”
“Of course. You played me that unforgettable footage.”
“And since then you have seen it for yourself in Miami. You have seen it yet you still do not believe it.”
Jackson doesn’t answer.
“From midnight tonight—your time—the weaponized dogs we warned you of will extend their terror across Florida. Let me be clear—this is your terror. Bred by your arrogance and unleashed by your ignorance. Do not make the mistake, Mr. Director, of ignoring this final warning. If you do so, then you will find all of America chased by these dogs of war and then not even God, let alone China, may be able to help you.”
41
The White House, Washington DC
Clint Molton leaves his family in the lounge on the second floor to take the hastily scheduled late night call in the study next door. If he’s lucky, he’ll get back in time to see who makes it through to the final of The Voice.
He picks up the secure line and slips behind the desk that he’s certain innumerable Presidents have taken late calls at. “Hi there, Don—what’s got you working so late?”
“I’m very sorry to trouble you, sir. I just spoke to General Zhang in China and he gave me another of his heavily loaded warnings.”
Just the mention of Zhang’s name makes the President grow tense. “Tell me the worst of it.”
“Well, it was uncomfortably similar to last time. A heads-up that these weaponized canines are going to start killing people and—”
“Hang on, Don, didn’t you and I agree that this guy had a screw loose and we were going to ignore him?”
“We did, sir, and I apologize. I trouble you because Zhang has been somewhat specific. He claims there will be more attacks tomorrow. He said, and I quote, ‘You have seen it for yourself in Miami. You have seen it yet you still do not believe it. From midnight, the weaponized dogs we warned you of will now extend their terror across Florida.’ ”
“How did he sound when he said it? Speculative or sure?”
“Relaxed and cocky. Like some punk who has a card in his hand that we really didn’t think he had.”
The President examines the computer screen on the desk in front of him. “I’ve a space in my diary at eleven. I’m due to be with the VP. I think it would be good if you came over and talked to us both.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be there. I’ll also have my people extend their monitoring of police activity and ER rooms from Miami to all of Florida.”
“Let’s hope there’s nothing untoward to report. Good night, Don.”
“Good night, Mr. President.”
42
Lake Jackson, Florida
A hard night of summery thunderstorms yields to a soft dawn sky that’s a psychedelic mix of purples, pinks, and pallid blues. Beneath it a cool silver mist swirls over an eight-mile-long lake.
Thirty-year-old marathon runner Ellen McGonall has ninety minutes for her training run before the weather becomes unbearably hot and she begins her shift at the nearby aquatic reserve.
She starts out on the west side of the flat-bottomed lake that’s brimming with bass, crappie, and bluegill and works her way clockwise. Her husband Tommy caught a large-mouth bass out here two weekends back and took home the Tallahassee Trophy Rod.
A beep from her wristwatch tells her she should already have done her first mile, and she hasn’t. Ellen digs in and quickens her pace. She just got back in training since suffering from shin splints, and her schedule is geared to get her fit for the Bay Marathon in October, then the Pensacola and Space Coast marathons in November, before finishing the year with the Mangrove and Jacksonville Bank events in December.
Six miles out she’s back on time and feeling good. The sky is clear and not yet too hot. She’s thinking of the blue herons and wood storks they’ve spotted recently, and the big old alligator that scared the daylights out of a boat of fishermen at Meginnis Arm. More than anything, though, she’s thinking how lucky she is to be alive. How fortunate to live in this awesome part of the world and have her good health, a handsome and loving husband, and two beautiful young babies.
Life is amazing.
As she bowls along Millers Landing her eyes roam over the vast water and back toward her house on the other side, at the bottom of Treeline Drive. She and Tommy bought the bungalow five years ago when it was little more than clapboard, and he’s fixed it up just fine.
Her head swivels the other way, down the track leading to where her friends the Coopers keep some kennels. She does a double take. Strange that the dogs are still asleep. Usually there’s a bark or two as she goes by. And generally Zack and Zef, their big old Alsatians, run down to meet her.
It’s no trouble for Ellen to jog down the track and out the other end. It’ll add thirty seconds or so to her mile time, but so what? She turns in and immediately sees Zack.
He’s dead.
She doesn’t need a longer or closer look to confirm it.
Something’s ripped his throat out.
Ellen breaks her stride and starts to slow. Ten yards away to her right she sees Zef.
The sight of him stops her.
He’s on his back, legs splayed and white belly fur bloodred.
It’s a gator.
She just knows it is.
Those things grow to be ten feet long and weigh over five hundred pounds. They can chew-down a dog like a kiddie can crunch up a candy bar.
She walks tentatively down the gravel toward the house and the big old barn at the side where the Coopers keep the pups they breed
“Pete!” She wouldn’t normally shout, but hell, what’s gone on here isn’t normal. “Lizzie!”
The barn door is busted open. It’s splintered, like someone’s driven a small truck clean through it.
Ellen’s blood runs cold. Her bare arms come up in goose bumps and she rubs them as she walks toward the black hole in the timber.
“Hello!”
No way is she going inside. Not in a million lifetimes. She stands ten feet back and at first can’t see anything. Then her eyes balance light and shade and she starts to see clearly.
There’s nothing in there. No movement. No noise.
No pups.
They must have got out.
Blood.
A stream of it is running down the center of the concrete floor and into the drain her husband helped Pete put in so he could wash away any mess the dogs made.
Ellen feels spooked.
She spins around.
There’s nothing there.
She breathes a sigh of relief. Those gators can move quick over short distances, twenty miles an hour or even faster, and despite all her training that’s still a w
hole lot quicker than she can run.
A noise comes from over at the house.
Thank God.
Ellen heads toward the side door. She sees two Labradors standing there.
The dogs have their heads down. They’re playing with something. Pulling it between them.
“Pete!” He can’t be far away.
The dogs hear her and look around.
Now Ellen sees what they were playing with—and she knows Pete isn’t going to be returning her shout.
She backs away. Hopes that if she moves slowly and confidently they’re going to let her go.
But deep down she knows things aren’t going to work out that way.
The dogs lose interest in Pete’s head and prowl toward her. The one on the left bares its teeth and starts to growl. The other dips its shoulders.
And begins to run.
Ellen turns and sprints as fast as she can.
Gravel slips under her right foot.
She stumbles but doesn’t go down.
Twelve feet away are the lower branches of an old hickory.
She veers to her right and then snaps left to throw off the dogs.
Three feet to go.
Ellen checks her stride and readies for the jump.
The first Labrador bites her left thigh. Takes out a hand-sized chunk of muscle.
She crashes head first into the old trees.
Mercifully, she’s unconscious by the time the second dog bites into her.
43
Beijing
Two hundred miles above the earth, silently drifting Chinese military satellites slowly buzz into life and alter their angles, tilts, and focus.
Cutting edge technology that’s been copied, stolen, and modified has given the People’s Republic the lead when it comes to snooping.
Gigantic lenses fix like beady eyes on Florida, especially a remote patch of land and buildings off the east side of Lake Jackson.
The optical imaging systems on the reconnaissance satellites are powerful enough to focus on the eye of a rat. But their targets today are bigger than that.
Much bigger.
Coordinates are being programmed by military operators in Beijing. Shiny, unblinking robot eyes in the skies follow the fresh movement of newly activated, weaponized canines.
Lieutenant General Xue Shi stares into the never closing eyes of the satellites orbiting the earth. They shift and jerk imperceptibly as they follow the transmitted coordinators of the weaponized canines.
The man in charge of Project Nian scans the streams of constantly changing data and the stacked banks of monitors recording constant video feeds.
The pictures of the dogs come in black and white, color and 3D. In long shots, close-ups, real-time, recorded, and slow motion.
They come with map and graphic overlays of streets, rivers, towns, and cities, with text boxes highlighting hospitals, police HQs, fire stations, ambulance bases, and army camps.
Xue pulls up an overview of the orbit schedules for the newest generation of recon satellites and the older, more basic fifteen-ton Lacrosse-class radar-imaging satellites. He compares past, current, and predicted positions of the animals and forms a model to demonstrate the shape and speed of the military progress he expects to be made.
The whole project is a marvel to him. The genetic engineering. The cutting-edge system of tracking all the weaponized dogs. The wonderful logistics and covert operations that went into moving the hounds into the right locations. It had been like training and mobilizing an invisible army.
The positions of China’s secret soldiers show on Xue’s matte black screens. All he has to do is pick which ones he wants to deploy, sit back and watch the devastation. More accurate than smart bombs. More insidious than napalm. More emotionally traumatic than suicide bombing.
Xue uncaps a bottle of water and takes a long, cooling swallow as he watches the Labradors finish off the last of the woman jogger.
44
Greenwich Village, New York
The Village is still bathed in the cool of twilight as Danny Speed shuffles down the stone stairs of his old apartment block and approaches his motorbike.
The street smells comfortingly of summer blossom, and he can’t help but feel the excitement of a new day.
Danny’s up early. He’s got lots of things happening. Big things. Serious things. World-changing things. Especially if anyone catches him doing them.
Not that they will.
He’s cautious. More than anyone he knows.
He puts his helmet down on the sidewalk, drops into a press-up position and checks beneath the chained and alarmed superbike before he even touches it.
Caution starts on his own doorstep.
After a visual check, he runs two handheld scanners around the entire frame. One is to detect any tracking device that may have been attached. The other will tell him of the presence of something more serious.
Explosives.
Only when he’s absolutely certain that nobody has interfered with the machine does he disarm the alarm, unchain the wheels, and start it up.
The street is empty but he still checks all around him. Not out of a sense of road safety, but in case there are people slouched low in parked cars, ready to follow him or alert others to their movements.
Danny knows that when you do what he does, you break a lot of laws and make a lot of enemies.
He revs the black Kawasaki and enjoys the throaty growl of its engines before finally pulling away.
He always leaves his building with time to spare. Not because he’s an arrive-early kind of guy, but because most times he goes back. He circles the block and returns to the outside of his apartment, almost as though he’s forgotten something. Then he retraces his steps and goes through all his checks all over again.
It’s like some kind of OCD madness. A compulsion, but one that keeps him out of trouble. The way he figures it, if someone were going to try to steal his computers, or worse still, the data in them, then they’d have to give themselves maximum time to do it. Starting the moment he leaves.
Half an hour later he makes it to Wall Street and begins another laborious set of checks.
Only when he’s absolutely certain that he’s not been followed or watched does he go up to the loft and begin his day of intensive criminal activity.
45
Historic District, Miami
The digital clock beside Ghost’s bed shows 6:59.
He reaches his arm over Zoe and tries not to wake her as he clicks off the alarm before it brings a rude end to their night together.
As quietly as possible, he shaves, showers, and dresses for work in a green linen suit and matching silk shirt.
He watches her as he buttons up.
She looks peaceful now but had been thrashing around in her sleep, mumbling and sweating her way through some kind of nightmare. It had been the kind of thing he was afraid of happening to himself when he called and asked her to be with him. See enough shit in your life and eventually it comes chasing you in your sleep.
Ghost stands at the end of the bed, unsure whether to wake her or leave her to sleep. Somehow, with messed-up hair and zero makeup, she’s even more attractive than when she’s in a pretty dress and all her paint and finery. He leans over, tenderly touches her face and whispers, “Hey, Zoe, I’m going—”
Ghost never finishes.
She grabs his hand, twists it and forces his fingers back so hard she almost breaks his wrist.
The move knocks him off balance.
Ghost tumbles onto the bed and across her legs.
Zoe sits bolt upright, still holding the wristlock. Her eyes are filled with fury. She’s set to drive an elbow smack into the middle of his nose—when she comes to her senses and stops herself.
Ghost sees her chang
e. The aggression dissolves and almost becomes fear. She must have been asleep, in the middle of another bad dream when he’d touched her. She’d mistaken it for violence. Maybe even a delayed aftershock to the incident with the robber in the street. “It’s all right. You’re okay.”
She releases his hand. “What the fuck were you doing?”
He rubs his wrist. “I was saying goodbye. Seeing if you wanted anything before I left. Oh, and maybe I was trying to be affectionate.”
“Then fucking don’t be when I’m asleep.” She slips naked out of the quilt and angrily scans the room. There’s no gown in sight so she grabs a shirt off a laundered pile on his dresser.
“Suits you.”
She starts to fasten the middle buttons.
“I’m sorry if I spooked you. I had no intention of hurting or frightening you.”
“You didn’t.” Zoe finishes buttoning up and starts to feel stupid about getting angry. “I just don’t like being touched—not unless I’m expecting it.” She rolls up the shirtsleeves.
“That’s sad.”
“That’s my rule.”
“Then it’s a sad rule. Why did you invent it?”
“Because men need rules.”
“What’s wrong, Zoe? Were you thinking about the robbery?”
“No.”
“Then what? What’s eating you so badly that it makes you this angry?”
“Memories. When I’m asleep they become all too real. That’s what makes me angry.”
46
Montgomery Correctional Center, Jacksonville, Florida
Folks used to call the place “City Farm Prison,” and many locals still do, especially those who’ve got ancestors who spent time there. Ever since it opened, inmates have worked the soil as part of their stretch, and boosted the local economy in the bargain.
Back in ’58, Jonboy Layton was one of the first admitted to a new, plaster-smelling cell as punishment for trespass, disorderly conduct, and assault, and Justin Cartwright was one of the wet-behind-the-ears “screws” who got to crack a stick around Jonboy’s legs when he misbehaved in the crop fields. And so was born a spark of interfamily hatred that still burns brightly more than half a century later.