Fatalis (34 page)

Hannah made her fingers into little claws and growled.

Grand threw the crumpled piece of paper to the right, toward the sliding glass door. Hannah looked at it. When she did, Grand reached to the other side and pulled a letter opener from a stack of mail. He flipped the blade in his hand and held it to her throat.

She recoiled, then frowned. "That's cheating."

"Why?"

"Because there wouldn't have been a letter opener on a mountaintop."

"It could have been a chunk of rock."

"To do what with, bop me on the nose?"

"That, or stab you," Grand said. "Cut your throat. Many of the shales up there can be split with a good whack on another rock. The edge you'd have would be scalpel-sharp."

Hannah sat back down. "I still say it wasn't fair. You didn't use the piece of paper as a weapon. You used it as a distraction."

"The best weapons
are
nonlethal, psychological ones," Grand insisted. He replaced the letter opener on the pile. "According to leather pouches I've found in ancient graves, prehistoric hunters carried what we call 'startlements,' which may have been used to distract predators. Crushed leaves or feathers to catch their eye, ground bone to make them sneeze. Anything to gain time so they could run or grab a weapon or cry for help. Maybe next time I won't need the letter opener, just the crumpled paper to remind you that I can
get
a letter opener. Many evolutionary scientists believe that something simple like that-a crumpled piece of white paper-can change the course of genetics. If you preyed on butterflies, they might notice your reaction to the paper. Through genetic mutation they might slowly turn white to intimidate you."

"Are you saying that living things can actually
will
mutation?"

"We don't understand the mechanism, but it happens," Grand said. "The perception of threat, the ability to respond, and the desire to survive-they're all directed from in here," he tapped his temple.

"I guess if you can make yourself sick or get ulcers, anything's possible," Hannah said. "So with any luck I'll grow myself a sixth finger on each hand to help myself type faster."

"And then your brain will start to think faster and then you'll need a seventh finger," Grand said. "That's how it happens."

"I'll take that faster brain now," Hannah said. "What about those Chumash paintings you were talking about? Not the ones of the volcanoes but the eyes. What do you think the Chumash were telling us?"

"I don't know," Grand said. "The paintings in the upper cave told how the cats became trapped. By volcano and glacier. I suspect the eyes in the passageway below were a Chumash 'keep out' sign. Another shaman would have understood them. The caves are full of warnings like that."

"Fascinating," she said. "The things we don't know that are all around us. It's awe-inspiring."

"It's also scary," Grand said.

"In what way?"

"I was just thinking that I'd better get in touch with Environmental Protection Agency and pest-control people."

"Why?"

"Because there were gnats in the lower cave," he said. "They were bigger and buzzier than any I'd ever encountered. I wonder if they might have been frozen with the tigers."

"Shit," Hannah said. "Prehistoric bugs."

"If they are, they can cause a serious imbalance in the insect ecology of the region."

"And what about any bacteria or viruses the tigers may be carrying?" Hannah asked.

"There's that too," Grand agreed.

There was a lot to consider, which was all the more reason to take the animals alive, to study them without obliterating whatever they might be host to. Grand had to make that his immediate priority.

Hannah read what she'd written, then E-mailed the story to the copy editor. "This is all completely amazing," she said. "What are you going to do?"

"I was just thinking that," Grand said. "Gearhart probably won't do anything else until the National Guard arrives."

"That'd be my guess," Hannah said. "Otherwise, why call them out?"

"I want to make some calls, see if Joseph Tumamait had any luck, and also find someone to cover my classes. Then I want to get to Gearhart, try and talk to him, explain why we need to capture the cats alive."

"You haven't got a prayer," Hannah said. "Besides, if those animals did kill Officer Lyon then this is now a personal matter."

"But won't the operation be out of Gearhart's jurisdiction if it crosses the county line?"

"Technically, yes," Hannah said. "That's probably why he called in the Army National Guard. He has friends there. They'll cut him slack if this spills into other counties."

"It can still be his trophy," Grand said.

"You've got it. And trust me, if he can stop the cats he'll make the most of it. We'll see Gearhart standing beside dead saber-tooths on all the evening shows. The national ones."

Grand finished his coffee. "I've got to go."

"You know, if I were you I'd appeal to people's pocket-books," Hannah said. "Tell the county leaders how much they can make from a Live Prehistoric Animals attraction at the zoo."

"I'll have to think about it," Grand said.

The thought of caging these beasts also sat like a stone in Grand's gut. He knew he'd do it if it were the only way to keep them alive, but he suspected that captivity, even in a wildlife preserve, would kill them over time. There was something about these animals that seemed to require the open environment, the hunt, a connection with the earth itself. It was as if they became part of the land they ranged, drew strength from it.

Just like the gods in Chumash mythology
, he thought,
which was why they fought over it
.

Grand put the coffee cup back in the kitchen. As he turned to go he suddenly realized that he had to say goodbye to Hannah. But just good-bye wouldn't quite cut it.

"I'll be done with everything around noon," Hannah said. "Can we link up then?"

"Sure," Grand said.

Hannah wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to Grand.

"What's this?" he asked.

"My other cell phone number," she told him. "Let me know if anything interesting happens."

"Sure. How many cell phones do you have?" he asked.

"Three," she admitted. "Well, two now. I'm a reporter. Can't afford a dead battery or busy signal." She looked at him. "Do me one other favor?"

"Of course."

"Stay out of trouble."

"With?"

She grinned. "If you want to knock Gearhart's block off, that's fine. I mean with the tigers."

"I'll try to avoid them both," he said. "And by the way- there's something I should have told you before."

"What?"

"These animals-they're saber-toothed cats. People call them tigers because they look like tigers. But they aren't related to tigers. Or lions. They were their own species."

"Damn." She wrote a quick E-mail to the copy editor asking her to make the change.

"Sorry. I should have told you before."

"It's okay. You're a guy. The truth takes a while."

Hannah sent the E-mail, then looked at him. He looked at her.

"Well," he said after a long pause. "I better get going."

Hannah smiled-a little sadly, he thought. "Thanks again for everything," she said.

He smiled back, then turned and left. And kicked himself for that.

Rebecca is gone
, he told himself.
You can't let yourself die with her
.

Grand continued kicking himself on both sides of his conscience all the way out to his car and as he drove home and as he walked along the path to his front door and took Fluffy, who was much more animated than he had been- and certainly more cheerful than Grand was at the moment, damn his own cowardly skin-out for a short walk.

Gearhart got Grand's message about there being a pride of cats in the mountains. The sheriff wasn't entirely surprised. He didn't think the deaths at the campsite had been caused by two animals. He still didn't believe that the cats were what Grand claimed them to be: resurrected prehistoric animals. He might as well say they were ghosts.

No. Whatever these animals were they had a reasonable, credible explanation. If they weren't tigers gussied up and set loose by some homicidal nutcase, maybe-
maybe-
they were mutations. And that was a reach. In any case, Gearhart would know for certain before long.

After placing his call to the 40th, the sheriff worked out a deployment plan at his desk. Then he went to the small cafeteria in the back of the building and took a nap on the couch. He was awakened at 8:00 A.M. by Deputy Valentine, who said that the sheriff had a call from Brigadier General J. D. Dori, commander of the 40th Division. The fifty-eight-year-old Dori and Gearhart went back over thirty years, to when Dori was a Marine drill instructor. Dori left the Marines in 1969 and joined the California Army National Guard two years later. He had been Gearhart's DI and they reconnected years later, when Gearhart moved to Los Angeles.

Don's 40th Infantry Division, mechanized, is headquartered at the Southern California Disaster Support Area at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center. Nicknamed the Sunburst Division-after its distinctive sun-patch-it has an authorized strength of just over fourteen thousand. Because of its involvement with the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, as well as flooding and earthquakes that struck with regularity, two of the division's busiest components have been the 40th Division Support Command, or DISCOM, based in Los Angeles; and the Engineer Brigade, which is based in Santa Barbara.

Don's subordinate had called the brigadier general at home and informed him of Gearhart's request for support troops. Don was calling back to say that forty division soldiers had been assigned to Gearhart under Lieutenant Anthony Mindar. An additional five troops would be sent in CH-47D Chinook helicopter to provide air reconnaissance only. Though the young lieutenant would be there to assist Gearhart in whatever way was required, the officer would be commanding his own personnel in any engagement.

Gearhart said he understood. What that meant, of course, was that other sheriffs would be prevented from taking command of the operation if it spilled into neighboring counties.

The troops would be trucked in. Because Gearhart didn't want to create panic in downtown Santa Barbara he asked that the armed troops drive directly to the junction of Ballinger Canyon and the Cuyama River. That was right before the border of Ventura County to the east and San Luis Obisbo County and Kern County to the north. Gearhart would personally inform the sheriffs of those counties about the operation and invite them to provide personnel.

Don told Sheriff Gearhart that the troops would be bringing night-vision gear, as requested, and would leave Los Angeles later in the morning. The sheriff thanked him.

After making the calls to his colleagues, Gearhart buzzed Chief Deputy Valentine and asked if there were any updates. When he'd returned from the field, Gearhart had left spotters on the ground and in the air around the site of the chopper crash. The ground personnel, heavily armed groups of four, were in constant radio contact with one another and with the highway-patrol chopper. The helicopter stayed in touch with them even when it returned to base to refuel. The spotters were all situated on high ground, which would have been impossible to access without the animals being seen.

Valentine said there had been no sightings.

At least Grand was right about that. The killers were night creatures. That would give Gearhart time to find possible places of egress and time set up a wall of armed National Guard personnel. He would leave his own teams behind the lines, covering the sinkholes and caves the animals had already been through, just in case they tried to double back.

Gearhart looked at his watch. It was nearly nine o'clock. He went to get a cup of coffee. Before turning to his map, there were two other tasks he had to do. One was to brief Santa Barbara officials about what was going on. The second was to brief Sergeant Marsha Levy, his public information officer, about everything that had happened so that she could hold a press conference. Gearhart would not be present for this one. There was too much to do and nothing to gain by answering questions about how the animals had managed to avoid capture. Levy was far better at apologizing and fudging.

Gearhart had no intention of standing before the press until he had something to show them.

The carcass of one of the killers.

The California Army National Guard troops arrived at the mountain site ready for a siege. They came armed with flares, flashlights, M16 rifles, handguns, and motion detectors. Though the soldiers wore camouflage fatigues, some were also dressed in clothing designed to protect them from animal bites. These included protective vests made of high-density polyethylene with floating rib plates on the side and spandex pants with heavy foam pads for the thighs, hips, and tailbone. The team also brought shin guards, hard hats, and elk-hide gloves that reached nearly to the elbow. Only the dozen soldiers of the "armored" unit-or the "padded" unit, some of Gearhart's deputies joked-those men who were going to place the motion detectors inside caves, sinkholes, and pipes, put on that gear. The rest of the soldiers wore their standard drab green uniforms. Six of those soldiers would be stationed in the air in case they needed to enter one of the caves in pursuit of the prey.

Gearhart quickly became impatient with their preparations and with Lieutenant Mindar's quiet command style. It wasn't that the soldiers really needed to be ready faster. Gearhart didn't imagine anything would happen until sunset. It was just that these men didn't move like Marines. They didn't act like they were the best at anything, or wanted to be. They were just two-year men doing a job with diligent professionalism, nothing more. The young, blond, clean-cut Mindar watched from his tent command post without saying much; he had his well-oiled machine and either didn't see the need to increase its efficiency or else knew that it was working at its peak. The Chinook sat on a hilltop waiting for the motion detectors to be put in place so it could oversee the monitoring efforts from the command center in the main cabin. Gearhart had flown in 47B's in Vietnam. If there was any one image of what Gearhart hated up here it was that: the Chinook, a powerful two-rotor bird, sitting idle in the hills. The only reason the sheriff didn't climb on Mindar's back was because they still had a cushion, time-wise. If and when it became necessary to get more from the men, Gearhart would push.