The China Dogs Read online

  Over the years, he’s learned to objectify victims as much as possible.

  He’s taught himself to see them as the central part of a cryptic puzzle that needs total focus and clarity of mind to crack. But he’s never been completely successful at blocking out the person, and with it, all the human pain. Personal empathy and emotion seep like acid through whatever professional barriers he erects. Right now he’s aching for Derek and Amy Morgan, wishing they’d never had to stand in that cold morgue and had a sheet pulled back to reveal the remains of their beloved child.

  He tries to shut off work as he lets himself into a three-­bedroom penthouse in the city’s Historic District. The prime real estate has been in the family for decades, passed to him when his very successful, elderly parents died a few years back.

  Around him is a stretch of land and key buildings bounded by Miami Court, North Third Street, West Third Avenue, and South Second Street. Most of what catches the eye was built during the Florida land boom of the 1920s, including the building that dominates the view from Ghost’s front window. The Freedom Tower over at the Miami Dade College is a prime piece of Spanish Renaissance architecture, built in ’25 as a print works for the Miami News. In the 1960s the federal government took it over, in order to process documents and provide health support for refugees fleeing from Castro’s Cuba. That’s when it got the iconic name Freedom Tower. These days it’s more famous for the art exhibitions held there. Ghost has spent many an hour mesmerized by the works of Dali, Goya, and Da Vinci.

  The walls of his apartment are filled with an eclectic and ever-changing mix of paintings by upcoming artists. His dealings in this world, like his activities in the stock and bond markets, brings him an annual income more than five times his police salary.

  The first thing he does after kicking off his shoes is put on music.

  Not from an iPod in a docking station, or a computer with endless, digitally streamed tracks, but from a vintage Bang and Olufsen gramophone that copes with anything vinyl from 33 rpm right back to a good old-fashioned 78.

  He gently places one of his favorite discs on the turntable. It’s Mindru Katz’s live performances of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major.

  The master composer’s melancholic opening is momentarily lost in the culinary clatter that Ghost creates in the kitchen. He may live on his own, but that doesn’t stop him eating well. Tonight he’s starting with fried foie gras and chicken livers on French toast, followed by pan-roasted veal chops and spinach.

  He opens a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Domaine de la Janasse, Vieilles Vignes. He swirls it in a large, round-bowled crystal glass, smells and sips. It’s an ’04 vintage, and on reflection he wishes he’d kept it a little while longer. The Grenache is still a summer too young for his palate.

  Ghost slides open a door and takes his food to a table on the muggy balcony. The sound of piano music follows him and flows off the edge of the penthouse down into the distant, humming sea of life forty floors below.

  As he eats, he flips open the file on today’s case.

  Already he has multiple pictures of the poor girl who was bitten to death. Dozens of statements. Maps of the dead zone and surrounding area. And a summary that says no one has a clue who owns the killer dog.

  It’s the kind of murder puzzle he’s pieced together many times before: Who did what and to whom? Where did it happen and when? But the conundrum has never been quite as strange as this.

  Why?

  That’s the most puzzling question of all.

  Why?

  Why did a dog turn on a kid? Why did it get so vicious? Why couldn’t anyone find the owner?

  He changes the record. Picks Tchaikovsky. More fairy-tale than Liszt. More scope to open up the imagination and let the thoughts break free.

  He picks up one of the photographs in the file and closely examines the head of the giant animal. It has teeth like spiked railings. Vicious. Merciless. “Canis lupus familiaris,” he says, reminding himself that the ancestor of man’s best friend is not Lassie the Wonder Dog, but the wolf. A blood-hungry apex predator. Unhunted, except by humans. The king at the very top of the animal food chain.

  16

  Beijing

  Air pollution hits a record high in China’s capital city as another day breaks and the world leaders begin to head home from their summit.

  General Zhang, Vice President of the People’s Republic of China, turns away from the window of the hotel suite and faces his breakfast guest, forty-seven-year-old Brandon Jackson, the youngest black man to become Director of National Intelligence and the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council.

  “I’m told our leaders had something of a disagreement last night,” General Zhang says. “President Xian and I are keen you do not leave our city having misunderstood matters.”

  “Don” Jackson has been briefed, and more than expected a “final word” from Zhang, a man widely regarded as the future president of China. “I don’t think there is any misunderstanding, General. You are concerned about repayments of our debts and you suggested an alternative method of financing them. A method we have politely declined. There is no ill feeling. We can all move on and continue to grow good relations between our great countries.”

  “Aah.” Zhang wags a finger indicatively. “This is what we feared. Mr. Jackson, I invited you here because there are things you may understand better than your President.”

  “There is very little President Molton doesn’t understand, General Zhang.”

  “Allow me to show you something.” He walks across the room and motions to a black leather settee. “Please sit while I close the curtains.”

  Jackson eases himself onto the hard two-seater. The room grows black. A ceiling-mounted projector throws a pool of bright light onto a wall.

  “We have discovered a new form of terrorism, ‘genetic terrorism,’ which we fear may be used against you. Please watch.”

  Video footage flickers onto the wall. Jackson can tell it’s shot from aerial cameras, mounted in planes or helicopters. Men in orange jumpsuits spill from a number of parked buses. They start to run. First all together, then they divide into smaller groups. It looks at first like some army challenge. Maybe a competition like in the Japanese game show Endurance.

  Then it’s apparent this is no game.

  Lionlike beasts are attacking men. It’s a bizarre form of Roman torture updated and played out in a desert rather than the Coliseum.

  The camera zooms in.

  Jackson sees jaws sink into thighs, faces, sides, and stomachs. Blood spills and dries almost instantly on the scorching sand. Now it’s clear that the animals are dogs. Some are huge and incredibly muscular, the likes of which he’s never seen before. Others are small, terrierlike, but maybe even more aggressive than the larger ones.

  There is a cut in the video, a second or two of black frames. The camera pans over dismembered, disemboweled, and decapitated corpses.

  The screen goes blank.

  Zhang flicks on the room’s lights.

  Jackson swivels around to face him. “What the hell was that?”

  Zhang smiles comfortably. Nothing is more pleasing to him than seeing his enemy morally distressed. “It has come from military sources, intelligence we cannot disclose but we know to be reliable. The dogs you saw have been genetically weaponized by a terror group who are enemies of America. They are capable of carnage far worse than you saw.”

  “What terror group?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Cannot or will not?”

  “Let me put it like this.” Zhang paces slowly. “China can stop this third party threat. We have enough influence with the country behind the terrorists to protect America and its allies from it. That is, should China want to.” He stops intrusively close to the American and leans o
n the arm of the sofa. “Should we have a long-term interest in doing so.”

  Jackson stares through him. “Are you somehow connecting your crazy taxation demands to an even crazier story that we need your protection from some tin-pot terror state and a pack of rabid dogs?”

  “No I am not.” He couldn’t look more smug if he tried. “I am telling you that this weapon has already been deployed. These animals are already in your country and killing your people.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Open your eyes, Mr. Jackson. You have a death in Miami. A young girl killed by a dog on a beach. Do you think that was an accident?”

  “What?”

  Zhang can tell the American hasn’t yet heard about it. “Look into it. You will find that this is no normal dog-related death. Then, think of these canines as though they are hidden like genetic bombs. Thousands of them lie gently on your floors, just waiting to explode.”

  “You’re right; I have no knowledge of any such incident. But let me get this right, you’re saying it’s been caused by one of these weaponized dogs and there are more of them?”

  “This is what I am told by our intelligence sources. Of course it might not be true. But if it is, then puppies that American children are petting today—” He sighs resignedly. “—may well turn into their killers overnight.”

  Jackson’s temper boils over. “If you have information that can save American lives—if there is so much as an iota of truth in this craziness—then I demand that you tell me right now who is behind this.”

  Zhang laughs. “You ‘demand’? The days when America ‘demanded’ anything of China are over, Mr. Jackson.” He points dismissively to the door, “I think it’s about time you made your way to your colleagues and reminded President Molton of the generous offer President Xian has made him.”

  The NIA chief stands two feet from the general and stares into his eyes as only a trained interrogator can. He’s looking for bluff, bravado, and bullshit. Some human sign that explains all the nonsense he’s just seen and heard.

  There’s nothing.

  Nothing but an inscrutable coldness.

  Zhang gestures to the door. “My office will fix a follow-up call with you—I know you will need it.”

  17

  Coral Way, Miami

  The sun of a bright new day penetrates the spare room shutters and wakes Zoe from a deep sleep.

  She squints at the window holding back the jagged heat, climbs painfully out of the hard single bed in Jude’s spare room, pulls on her only T-shirt and her damaged jeans, then pads barefoot to the kitchen.

  Jude is sitting in pink and white pajamas nursing a hangover the size of Russia. A small TV churns out news, the volume turned down low. She takes one look at Zoe and grimaces. “You look like the walking dead. Remind me to lend you some clothes.”

  “Thanks. What I really need is water and coffee.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jude climbs out of her seat and heads to the pot bubbling away on a worktop. “Would m’lady like anything else before I make up the beds, clean the floors, and do the laundry?”

  “Silence would be great. My head is collapsing.”

  “That’ll be the vodka shots. You’re becoming a lightweight.” She pours a mug of black coffee and puts it down along with a glass of water. “I’ll get you some pills.”

  Zoe sits at the table and squints at the TV. Dollar crisis. More states following Detroit and going bankrupt. More unemployed. No wonder people drink so much.

  “Here, enjoy.” Jude places a plastic tub of Ibuprofen on the table.

  Zoe shakes out 600 mg of tablets and forces them down with the water. It’s way above the recommended dose but she has a lead-lined gut and frankly anything less won’t do the trick.

  She squints again at the TV.

  Some serial killer has been executed in Texas. Good fucking riddance. And in Miami, a schoolgirl’s been killed in a dog attack. “Hey, I know that guy.” She points at a six-inch Ghost walking the screen. Some good-looking male reporter is trudging beside him on a beach, sticking a microphone across his chest.

  Jude turns the sound up. “That’s the cop who took you for coffee?”

  “Very same.”

  The male reporter is just starting a new question, “Forensic scientists and a pathologist were seen out on the sands yesterday. Are their investigations finished now or will they be coming back?”

  Ghost walks as he answers, “Initial investigation of the scene has been concluded and the beach has been reopened to the public. We haven’t yet identified the owner of the dog that attacked the deceased and we’d be grateful for any help the public can give us.”

  “Do you have any theories about what went wrong here?”

  He hesitates for a second. “An increasing amount of people are irresponsibly abandoning animals that they’ve grown bored with. Pets they can’t afford to feed or have treated at the vet’s—so we may well be looking at the result of such an abandonment.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Walton.” The reporter turns directly to the camera to start a Q&A with the local studio anchor. A caption crawls across the bottom of the screen naming the dead girl as seventeen-year-old Kathy Morgan and gives a police number for people to call with information.

  Jude guns the volume down. “Story’s awful, but he’s kinda cute in a freaky way.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking of calling him and asking him out.”

  “You’re shameless.”

  “That’s my middle name.”

  “I’m out tonight anyway, so best amuse yourself.”

  “Somewhere special?”

  “Jake’s parents’ twentieth anniversary dinner, so couldn’t cancel. Sorry.”

  “What is twenty—silver?”

  “China.”

  “Shit, that’s boring. Silver or gold is good, but china?”

  Jude pulls an apologetic face. “We got them a picnic set—in white china.”

  “Please euthanize me before I get to the age when I think china’s exciting.” She gets to her feet. “I’m gonna find the card the cop gave me and call him—at least I know he won’t be boring.”

  18

  Bill Baggs Park, Miami

  Ghost sits in the pine-smelling, log-walled Ranger Station and carefully studies the pistol used to kill the dog on the beach.

  It’s an old Smith & Wesson Sigma, a double action 9mm with stainless steel slide and polymer grip.

  He looks across the wooden table to the man who fired it, a shaking twig of a young guy who doesn’t look old enough to buy beer. “Five shots—how come you needed so many?”

  Twenty-two-year-old Mark Hadley has come in specially to be interviewed and sits alongside his boss, Senior Park Ranger Dwain Tulocky. Hadley’s red-rimmed eyes and skin, almost as pale as Ghost’s, are signs he’s not yet over the ordeal. “It wouldn’t stop. It jus’ kept comin’ an’ comin’.” He drops his head and stares at the table as though he’s looking around for words he misplaced.

  Dwain gives him a nudge. “Tell him about the Taser, son. Tell him what you done first.”

  The young Ranger puts his hands below the table and sits on them to stop them from shaking. “Like Mr. Tulocky says, I Tasered the thing first. That’s protocol an’ all. But it didn’t do nothin’. Animal just kept chewin’ on the girl—on what was left of her. Have you seen it, officer? D’you know how big it was?”

  “I have.” Ghost looks into Hadley’s eyes and can tell the kid’s back on the beach facing down the dog, sickened by the girl’s death and at the same time frightened for his own life.

  “Go on,” prompts his boss. “Tell what you did next.”

  “The wire from the Taser barb were just dangling there from its side, with enough juice flowing through it to make a grown man flip like a pancake. The dog wasn’t the least b
it bothered, so I had to use my gun.” He nods toward the Sigma in Ghost’s hands. “I reckon I was nervous, coz I aimed at the head but hit it somewhere around the left shoulder. It made a noise, man, a real growl, like nothin’ I never heard before, so I shot it again, more out of reflex than anythin’.” He puts the fingers of his hand to his throat. “Second bullet missed its head but caught it in the neck.” Hadley’s breathing becomes short and he looks anxious and angry as he continues. “I was saying, ‘Fall, you son of a bitch, fall,’ but no way was it goin’ down. It was still standin’, big eyes starin’ at me, so I shot the fucker again.”

  He looks up at Ghost. “Pardon my language, mister. Got it in its head this time, jus’ above the nose—and then it leaped at me. I near shit my pants. Three fuckin’ bullets and the thing still jumped me.” He pulls his hands out and clasps them together on the table. “I shot it twice more when it did that. It fell on the sand right in front of me but I kept far back till I were sure it was dead.”

  “You did well, son.” The big Ranger puts a beefy hand over his young colleague’s shoulder. “You done the right thing and saved a lot of lives. Ain’t that so, Lieutenant?”

  Ghost knew his lines. “It certainly is.”

  “So there’ll be no trouble from the po-lice? He can rest easy on that?”

  “He can.” Ghost’s cell phone rings as he puts the gun down and stands to go. “You guys got any M4s?” He glances at the calling number and doesn’t recognize it.

  Tulocky nods. “Three of them carbines right over in the gun rack. Why you ask?”

  The phone trips to the message service as he walks to the door. “Because I’m betting this isn’t the only wild dog that you’re going to have to shoot.” He looks toward Mark. “And you, my friend—you might not get five shots to stop the next one.”

  Ghost walks out of the Ranger Station and picks up the call he missed on his cell phone.

  “Hi, it’s Zoe—you know, Zoe Speed, the beautiful action hero you so rudely abandoned after yesterday’s robbery.” Her voice is full of bounce and fun and he can’t help but smile. “I just saw you on TV and it made me wonder if you wanted to apologize by taking me out for a drink or even dinner tonight. I’ve not withheld this number, so call me and let me know either way.”