The China Dogs (27 page)

His first bullet misses.

The dog is ten yards away and still gathering speed.

A Remington cracks to Tarney's left.

Five yards.

A rifle sounds to his right.

Still the dog closes.

Tarney shoots it clean in the throat as it starts to jump.

Three more shots sound out.

The golden retriever hits the court and tumbles; its legs awkwardly break its speed and bring it to a crumpled halt.

The sergeant leaves his team to deal with the animal and runs to the injured man.

Up close he can see that the dog has bitten chunks out of his face, neck, arms, and legs.

Tarney lifts a limp left arm and pulls back the blood-spattered wristband.

There's no pulse.

He drops it and looks around. The guy must have been playing with someone. Had they gotten away? Were they injured as well?

Now he sees it.

A smear of blood around the bottom of the gate.

He pulls back the latch and walks outside. There are dried drips of red on the pathway leading to the locker rooms. He follows the trail in and out of the shade.

A woman is lying facedown on a patch of grass, her tennis skirt torn and lumps of flesh missing from the top of her thigh. A cloud of flies buzzes around the glistening wound.

Tarney swats them away and turns her over.

She's unconscious but doesn't seem to have sustained any other bites.

He checks her neck for a pulse.

Nothing.

He tries her wrist.

Nothing.

The woman appears to be in her early forties. She's trim and athletic, well tanned and probably exercised regularly. None of which have prevented her from dying of a heart attack after being bitten and chased.

Tarney walks back toward his unit and feels deflated as he calls Ghost. “We got the dog but there are two people dead. One male, one female.”

“Coroner is already on the way. You okay?”

“Yeah. No injuries here. Not physical ones, anyway.”

Ghost knows what he means. There's nothing worse than doing your best, then finding out that people still died. “Clean up there, get someone to do the IDs and inform the relatives, then meet me at the station house. We're not done yet. Dispatch has another two incidents—both on this side of the city.”

97

Weaponization Bunkers, North Korea

J
ihai backs a motorized flatbed trolley up to the front of the glass cell where the three dead dogs are still lying.

Tāo and Péng enter the antechamber, and Jihai wheels the trolley in for them and then steps back.

They close and seal the door behind them and wait for the sound of a computerized bleep before pressing the lock and entering the inner cell.

The two scientists are dressed in white biohazard suits complete with hoods, helmets, boots, and gloves. They've brought shovels, brushes, body bags, buckets, and morgue sprays with them, in order to clean up the mess.

First they shift the two inner partitions to one side and prop them against a far wall so they can move around more freely.

Next, Tāo photographs the dogs, both in wide shots and close-ups. There is already video footage, but Hao wants the stills for the postmortem reports and reference files that he compiles after every test series.

Péng unzips a black plastic body bag and lays it down alongside the first animal they come to. It has the number 3 sprayed in blue paint on its side. “You get the back legs, I'll get the front, and then we lift on three.”

“Okay.” Tāo shuffles around the back and gets a grip. “Ready.”

“One. Two. Three.”

They swing the pit bull into the middle of the bag and let it drop.

Péng twists its legs around to fit inside the bag and then zips it up. “On three again—but this time onto the trolley.”

Tāo gives him the thumbs-up and they repeat the entire process with dog number 2 and a fresh bag.

“Two down, one to go.” Péng lays out the final bag and grabs the front legs while Tāo takes the back.

They give the dog what is now a well-rehearsed swing and drop it on the black plastic.

The dog suddenly lurches upward and snaps. Its strong pointed teeth sink through Péng's boot and then find the bone of his shin.

“Fuck!” He jumps back but the dog still has a grip.

Tāo smashes a shovel down on its head but it still holds onto Péng's leg.

The scientist falls backward and bangs his head on the door to the antechamber.

Tāo keeps on hitting the animal. He swings the shovel with all his might.

Then he gets his brain in gear and instead of wielding yet another wild blow, positions the sharp corner of the shovel into the neck wound and pushes with all his strength.

The dog releases Péng.

But Tāo isn't taking any chances. He drives the dog all the way into the corner of the cell and leans against the shovel until he fatally widens the wound in its neck so it's like an open hinge.

The dog goes totally limp.

He drops the shovel and rushes to Péng, who is still sprawled on the floor and in shock. “Are you all right?”

Péng nods. “The boots protected me. I'm fine. I think I was more terrified than anything.” He leans against the cell wall and gets to his feet. “It didn't hurt me that badly, but it surprised me and knocked me clean off balance.”

They both glance across at the grotesquely beaten and wounded corpse.

A dog that came back from the dead.

They open the airlock and decide to get Péng treated before finishing the clean-up.

98

Miami-Dade Animal Services, Miami

M
ore than three hundred dogs a day press their sad, abandoned faces to the cold cell bars of the animal shelter and hope their cutesy act results in someone adopting them.

They've got five days to pull it off.

After that . . .

The manager, Monique Clabbers, doesn't want to think about it.

She wishes she could bundle them all into her truck and take them home with her. The fifty-year-old already has five dogs, and her husband Bo says that's the limit. Not that he has a say in the matter, and after twenty years of marriage he really should know better than to mutter such foolish nonsense.

Monique already has her eye on a sixth.

He's a cute little boxer who has that glint in his eyes that just breaks your heart and tells you he's already part of your family and all you have to do is pick him up and snuggle him and everything will be fine.

And tonight it will.

Because once the busiest day she's ever known comes to an end, Billy the Boxer is coming home.

She'll tell Bo it was the least she could do. More than two hundred dogs were dumped on them today. Way, way more than they can handle. And no offers of adoptions. As far as she knows, it's the same at every other public shelter, plus all the private ones like Abandoned Dogs of the Everglades and her friend's No Kill sanctuary over in Tampa.

When Monique came in this morning there were twenty different dogs already tied to the building. Left by people too ashamed to look her in the eye. On top of that, her ER room is full of dehydrated dogs that have been abandoned and just left to dry up in the sun.

She really doesn't know how people can be so cruel.

Her office door swings open and front desk receptionist Marjorie Bollas is flushed as she says, “I'm sorry, Mrs. Clabbers, this young woman is looking for Chen and—”

Zoe pushes past and enters the room. “She's going to say I'm being rude—I prefer to call it insistent.”

Monique puts down a stack of documents she was just about to file. “How can I help you?”

“A guy named Chen who works here sold dogs to a breeder over in Cutler Bay.”

“That's impossible.” She looks toward her colleague at the door. “It's okay, Marjorie, you can leave us.” She waits for her to go and then turns her attention back to Zoe. “We don't
sell
dogs. We're a shelter; we take in the abandoned and ill-treated. Of course we accept donations from new owners, but they're modest and we certainly don't deal with breeders.”

“Well, your Mr. Chen dealt with these breeders. I've just come from there and they named him without any prompting—why would they do that if it wasn't true?”

Clabbers looks shocked. “I don't know. I have no idea. Perhaps they got his name wrong.”

“Unlikely. Chen ain't exactly as common as Smith or Jones in this neck of the woods, or even Lopez or Hernandez, for that matter. Anyway, I'd like to speak to him—get to the bottom of things.”

The face of the center manager hardens. “Who are you? Do you have some ID I can see?”

“You got a pen and paper?”

Clabbers reaches for a pad on the desk and grabs a felt-tip from a mug filled with pens and pencils.

Zoe takes them and writes on the pad. “I'm working with this lieutenant,” she says, and passes the information over. “Call him and he'll vouch for me. I'm following up on the deaths of Astrid and Heidi Gerber, who were killed last night in their own home by their dog, a wirehaired pointer.”

Monique studies the name and number. She picks up the phone, dials, and listens.

A voice message plays in her ear.
“This is Lieutenant Walton. I'm busy and can't take your call. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you, or if it's an emergency call the main Miami police number—”
She hangs up rather than go through another sentence of numbers and who to call. “Li Chen is not here today. He's been on holiday and should have come back a few days ago but hasn't.”

Zoe takes out her notebook and writes down his full name. “Could you call him, so I can ask him some questions?”

Monique nods. “I don't think he's around, because I've tried both his landline and cell phone.”

Zoe notes the numbers as the manager punches them into her desk phone.

“Not there.” She hangs up. “I'll try his cell.”

“What exactly does he do for you?” Zoe asks, again noting the number.

“A little of everything.” The manager hangs up. “No luck, I'm afraid. Li is a real help to us. He does everything from helping with collections, to vaccinations, deworming, microchipping, and even the difficult stuff.” Her face turns sour. “Unfortunately; we have to put a lot of animals to sleep. Li would even help with that. What did you say he's done?”

“Sold wirehaired pointer pups to a breeder about a year ago, maybe more. He told the kennel guy they were going to be gassed if he didn't find a good home for them.”

She shakes her head. “I know every animal that's been through here.” She puts a hand on the top of her computer screen. “We have records from the very first day we opened, and I can tell you we've never had a single wirehaired pup in. Never.”

“That's strange.”

“Perhaps someone's been lying to you.”

“Perhaps. I'd still like to talk to Mr. Chen. Could you give me his home address?”

She hesitates. “No. I'm not comfortable doing that. You can call again, or leave me your number and if he's come back I'll ask him to speak to you.”

“That's not good enough. The dog he sold to those breeders killed two women and had to be shot dead. How much time do you think you should give it before your saintly Mr. Chen turns up? Another day? Another death? Can your conscience really live with that?”

“I don't really understand why you want to see him. Those ladies dying had nothing to do with Li, not even if he sold—or more likely gave a puppy or two away. What do you expect him to say to you?”

“That's a good question. To be honest, I really don't know. I'm just chasing down anyone who had any kind of connection with the dead women. Unless I ask a question, I'm not likely to get an answer, am I?”

Monique Clabbers capitulates. She rips off another page from her pad, writes on it and passes it to Zoe. “If you find Li, then please ask him to call me. We're hugely understaffed and really need his help.”

99

Weaponization Bunkers, North Korea

H
ao is troubled.

He's concerned about why the experiment failed. And worried about the injury to Péng while the dog was in some bizarre death throe.

The chief scientist finds him showered and sitting on his metal bunk in just his slate gray boxers. He's examining a small but angry looking puncture wound and a red graze where the pit bull's teeth sank through the rubber lab boots and caught his anklebone.

“Are you okay?” Hao has known Péng most of his life and witnessed many cuts and bruises sustained in play with his own son.

The young man looks up from his surprisingly painful injury. “Yes, sir. I am fine.” He's embarrassed to be caught making such a fuss. “It is nothing. The boot protected me. Just a little cut.”

“Let me see.”

Hao bends and inspects it. “There's some swelling around the bone. Does it hurt when you walk?”

Péng gets to his feet and puts weight on it. “Only a little.”

“Good. Go see Dr. Chi, the unit medic, and have him look at it. When did you last have your booster shots?”

Péng tries to remember. “Five, maybe six months ago, sir. I have the papers in my locker.”

“You should be infection free, but it is still best you go. Never take chances with dogs; they're a cocktail of poisons. And not just rabies.”

“I know, sir.” He's keen to show off a little of his zoonotic knowledge. “
Leptospirosis, Salmonellosis, Toxocariasis, Brucella canis.
I don't want any of them.”

“It's unlikely you'll have any. The test dogs will all have been screened prior to being fitted with the aggressor chips.” Hao leaves him to finish dressing and goes back to the main part of the bunker, where Jihai and Tāo are still cleaning up.

Poisons. Test Dogs. Screened.