"I spoke with her and she's pulling her charts together," Chief Deputy Valentine informed Gearhart. "I've sent a deputy to the house. She should be here by the time the second chopper arrives."
"Good. What about the rest of the team?"
"Felice is calling everyone in now. Frank Lyon has begun organizing squads and putting together gear."
"Has he got extra night-vision equipment?"
"The police department and Sheriff Shooter are sending over their hardware," Valentine said. "Shooter is ready to offer his people if we need them."
Gearhart didn't want help from the Ventura County Sheriff's Office. It was bad enough the situation had spread as far as it had in his own county. "Will the teams be ready to move out when Dr. Thorpe gets there?"
"They'll be ready," Valentine said.
"I'm counting on it," Gearhart said. "I want these killers, Mike. I want them out of commission, tonight."
The sheriff switched off the radio and slid it back into the belt loop. He stopped a few feet from the Wall and glared at the photographer. "Where did they go?"
The Wall pointed down the hole.
"Does your boss have her phone?"
The Wall shrugged.
"Call her."
"I can't."
Gearhart advanced on the photographer. "Mister, you call her. I want those two back here."
"Sheriff, I physically cannot do that."
"Why?"
"Grand turned the phone off," the Wall said. "A ring at the wrong time-the cats might hear."
Gearhart swore again. "That's the reason I keep you people out of places like this."
The Wall said nothing.
Gearhart calmed slightly. "Tell me about the cats. Did you get a good look at them?"
"Not really."
"Is that a no?"
"I didn't get a good look at the cats, no, sir," the Wall said. "I saw a big thing for about a half a second when I jumped up and pulled Hannah behind the rocks. After that all I saw was Hannah's butt."
Gearhart shook his head. That was a big help. The guy was supposed to be a goddamn journalist. The sheriff shined his light down the sinkhole. He didn't believe what the pilot said he saw-lions with fangs. And if that was what he saw, then this was someone's idea of a sick gag. He didn't believe there was a pair of saber-toothed tigers in the hills.
"Walter, I'm closing off the entire area," Gearhart said. "I asked you to drop the film off at my office. Would you do that now?"
"If I leave the mountain, Sheriff, it may block the phone call when Hannah gets out."
"Then give me the phone," Gearhart said.
The photographer stood there. "You want my film and my cell phone. Anything else?"
"Yes, I want your fucking cooperation! I'm not running a summer camp."
The Wall hesitated, then handed him the phone. "I'll need Hannah's okay on the film," he said.
The sheriff slid the cell phone into the back pocket of his pants.
"You know, Hannah is trying to do good," the Wall said.
"Save it-"
"And she's got guts," the photographer added. "It wouldn't hurt you to cooperate a little."
"Cooperation is trust and trust is earned," Gearhart said. "Now please get yourself back down the mountain."
The helicopter had resumed hovering over the campsite. The north side of the peak was once again spotlit and the Wall walked toward it. He climbed the boulders and started down the mountainside.
As soon as the Wall was gone, Gearhart turned and ran the powerful flashlight over the flat field and the woods beyond. He had told Chief Deputy Valentine to organize the deputies and volunteers into teams of three and four, all of them armed. It was clear now that the killers were moving southeast through the mountain caves. Whether they were people or animals or some twisted combination of both, they had to sleep sometime and emerge somewhere else in the range. The plan was for Dr. Thorpe to define an outside perimeter with the beach and this sinkhole as southern and eastern boundaries. Once the map was drawn his teams would take up positions at the base of the foothills and close in. If the squads found cave openings, they would make their way inside. With helicopters spotting from above, there was no way the killers could get away.
Again.
The sheriff walked toward the foggy woods. He was impatient for the operation to begin. If he didn't hear from Hannah and Grand before his teams were in place, Gearhart would warn his personnel that two people might be inside the caves and to watch out for them. But he wouldn't hold up the operation. It wasn't personal; his job was to protect citizens whether he liked them or not. He wouldn't delay this for anyone.
Chief Deputy Valentine called to say that Dr. Thorpe had arrived and the second chopper was ferrying her up. She was accompanied by Shooter and Deputy Skitch Kline of Search-and-Rescue, Mountain Tracking Division. Gearhart turned toward the ocean. He could see the Bell's bright flying light from where he stood. Valentine said that the rest of the teams, over fifty men in all, had arrived and would await Gearhart's instructions before heading into the mountain range.
Gearhart thanked him and signed off.
As he did, the cell phone in his back pocket beeped.
Chapter Forty-Six
Grand and Hannah took a moment to stare across the gully. On the opposite side was the mouth of a large-diameter pipe made of concrete and approximately six feet in diameter. The bottom of the pipe was about two feet off the ground; the thick steel mesh that was designed to keep children out had been torn back and was hanging from the lower left corner. Water and detritus was flowing from the opening like spillage from a log flume. The runoff was pouring into a narrow, jagged channel that had been eaten from the pipe to the large gully.
This was bad news, Hannah knew.
Two years before, the municipal water districts of Santa Barbara, Ventura, and other counties down to Los Angeles had pooled their resources to create more efficient, interconnected drainage in the coastal ranges, a system that not only prevented flooding and channeled overflow from dams, but helped to fill the reservoirs of those communities. Given the lack of staining inside the pipe, Hannah assumed this pipe was part of that project. If that were true, then the cats had a new route through the mountains. One that had dozens of egresses, many of which would take them right to where the food was: the towns along the drainage route.
"Are we going in?" she asked.
"We have to," Grand said as he hurried down the steep, stony wall of the larger gully. "There are dozens of openings like this. If the cats leave we probably won't find them until they kill again." The gully was only four feet deep and Grand quickly crawled up the other side.
Hannah punched the speed-dialing code, then climbed down the side of the gully. She was connected after two beeps.
"Hello," said the voice on the other end-Hannah reached the top of the gully. "Hello, Wall?" she said.
"No. It's Gearhart."
Hannah scowled. "What happened to the Wall?"
"He's gone. Where are you?"
"I'm not sure," Hannah said. She felt ambushed and violated. "We came to the end of the mountain tunnel and found a pipeline. We think the saber-tooths went in there. We're moving towards it."
"You're sure they're prehistoric cats?"
"We're as sure as we can be without getting up close and personal," Hannah said.
"Are you looking at the pipeline?" Gearhart asked.
"Yes."
"What's the gauge of the pipe?"