Simon & Garfunkel told us, "It's all happening at the zoo..." Well, in this story the happenings are a snarling cage full of international intrigue, diabolical deception and multiple murders In September-October 2006 in Norfolk, Virginia (Mermaid City), more is going on at the Virginia Zoo than just the habitually enclosed and pleasingly displayed both docile and dangerous animals for family entertainment and education... Chinese spies that have secretly initiated a global plot to harness and direct catastrophic weather against the U.S. and other defenseless nations throughout the world are also attempting to instituted a local spy recruitment effort determined to surpass Russia's locally historic infiltration of highly guarded US secrets by using the infamous recruitment of the notorious 'Walker Family'. Federal agencies react and rush in to protect the local area; and our unsuspecting nation; against the Chinese threat... But the implemented bureaucratic turmoil and self-serving efforts created by the CIA and FBI only darken the muddy flood of apocalyptic force released against the unsuspecting area. We will all turn page following page to find if the combined effort of a medically retired Norfolk Deputy Sheriff; attempting to clear the name of his murdered and slandered brother-in-law; and a widowed Norfolk Police Detective investigating the brother-in-law's death, stand any chance against the ever expanding power of China. As the mystery deepens, and the murders pile up, the unlikely solution lies in the perseverance of the Detective, the Deputy Sheriff and the innovative responses of the Norfolk Detective's eight-year-old daughter. It takes the final pages to reveal if their last ditch effort can loosen China's tightening grasp and snatch 'Mermaid City', and the Virginia Zoo, from the threatening 'jaws of death' that are crunching down our nation's secrets and our own ultimate survival.