The China Dogs by Sam Masters

his liking. Academics make soft soldiers. Men with brains are men you can never be certain of. Men of science always have excuses for delays and imperfections.
    He sits on the edge of his desk and leans forward. Big unblinking eyes bore into those of the minister. He doesn’t see commitment or courage. He sees hesitation. Uncertainty. “What is it, Chunlin? What darkness festers inside you?”
    The minister thinks about lying but knows the general would see through him. “My intelligence says the program to deactivate the dogs is still incomplete. It seems they can be turned wild but cannot then be pacified. And—”
    â€œDisinformation.” Zhang spits out the word. “People are briefing against me.”
    â€œWith respect, the feed from the laboratory in Korea showed—”
    Zhang slaps him. Flat-hands him. A blow so hard it knocks both man and chair across the floor.
    Chunlin makes no sound, no complaint. He quickly repositions the seat and himself and resists putting a hand to the burning skin of his face.
    â€œWhat the feed showed was a success , Chunlin.” The general glowers at him. “If you are asked about it, what did it show?”
    â€œSuccess, sir.”
    He waves a hand dismissively. “Now get out of my sight. Report to Xue and get your job done.”
    32
    Village Green Park, Key Biscayne
    P olice marksmen slide out of the weapons van.
    The killer dog is less than ten yards from Dale and Vic Shawcross.
    Cradled in the cops’ hands are Heckler & Koch PSGs—­Präzisionsschützengewehr rifles. Fast, accurate, semiautomatics. They were invented after the Munich massacre at the Olympic games. A time when German police found themselves unable to stop terrorists from killing hostages because they couldn’t get close enough to intervene.
    The boys on the ground are huddled together, the older one protecting the younger.
    The dog advances slowly. Red drool dangles from its lower jaw.
    Marksman Tom Barrett fills his Hensoldt telescopic sight with its muscular form. In the back of his viewfinder, rapidly going out of focus, is the body of another kid, so motionless that he’d be amazed if the boy wasn’t dead.
    Six yards.
    He takes a breath. Stays rock solid still. Focuses.
    Squeezes the trigger.
    The twenty-five-inch barrel coughs out the first of the twenty rounds packed in the rifle’s magazine.
    Four yards.
    The animal takes the bullet in a shoulder and merely flicks a gaze in Barrett’s direction.
    He pumps out two more rounds. The first hits the same shoulder, the second slams into its side and head.
    Two yards.
    The dog wobbles, then tumbles like someone just hand-braked its back legs.
    A second marksman, Craig Barry, walks toward the youngster. His PSG is trained on the dog’s head.
    He drops a defining round into its skull.
    A few feet back from the snipers, Ghost bends over the savaged child. He puts two fingers to what’s left of his neck and isn’t amazed to find there’s no pulse.
    The poor kid’s been ripped to shreds.
    He checks his wrist and puts his face close to the boy’s mouth.
    Nothing.
    Ghost stands up and tries to shrug off the pain, the enormity of what’s just happened. He knows he can’t let it settle on him. Can’t let the agony of seeing a young life destroyed seep into his pores and soak down into his spirit.
    He walks over to the dead dog and stares at it. Three fatal dog attacks in two days. That call from the office of the NIA director is starting to seem less and less ridiculous and more and more interesting.
    33
    The White House, Washington DC
    I t seems the perfect August evening, as Clint Molton leaves the Oval Office to enjoy an al fresco dinner with his family in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden on the south side of the East Colonnade.
    The President walks a brick-paved pathway bordered by bronze-colored chrysanthemums and immaculately trimmed low box hedging. Off in