"No, thanks. Listen-there's been news."
Grand woke up fast.
"My managing editor called a few minutes ago. It may not have anything to do with the tigers, but the helicopter with Officer Lyon went down."
"The Special Ops officer?"
Hannah nodded.
"Is he all right?"
Hannah shook her head. "Both he and the pilot were killed."
"In the crash?" Grand asked.
"I don't know," Hannah said. "The coroner is doing an autopsy, but of course no one is telling the press anything yet."
"So there were bodies this time," Grant said.
"Yes," Hannah said. "Besides, how would the tiger have gotten inside the cockpit of a helicopter that was airborne?"
"We've always suspected that saber-tooths may have been climbers," Grand said. "Are climbers," he corrected himself. That would take some getting used to. "They have the claws and strength for it. They could have jumped off a treetop, off a cliffside. Or maybe the helicopter landed and tried to take off again."
"But why would they attack?"
"To protect their territory. I told Gearhart to have Lyon follow a route southeast, remember? He may have found what he was looking for and tried to take them out. Is there any other information?"
"Not about that," Hannah said. "The only other news is that Gearhart has requested assistance from the Army National Guard to seal off the area. He's going to get it."
Grand turned back toward the sliders. Since the night before, when Gearhart had threatened to kill the creatures, Grand had been wondering how they would fare against automatic weapons. These very saber-tooths had probably faced prehistoric hunters with spears or arrows. They might understand the concept of projectiles. If so, they might also have come up with a strategy for dealing with humans and their weapons.
He needed to collect his thoughts, make a plan. He slipped his hands into the pockets of the robe and breathed deeply. The sea air smelled good. He looked along the beach toward the south. There was a wharf with a pair of workers hanging over the side painting the pilings. There was a faint smell in the air, one he couldn't quite place that was coming from the wharf. His mind was sidetracked as he thought back to when he lived on the beach with Rebecca. There was something different and he realized at once what it was. There were joggers but no dogs. Usually the beach was full of them at this time of day. He wondered if the animals sensed the presence of the saber-tooths and were refusing to come out. Maybe that was the reason that Fluffy had been so quiet the day before.
"Finished," Hannah said as she typed the last period with a flourish. "Last night's adventure as we lived it."
"Did you mention the saber-tooths?"
"I fudged," she admitted. "I said they were big cats that looked like saber-tooths. I usually don't run anything without two sources, and I try not to be one of them. Let me ask you something."
"Sure."
"If the tigers are traveling southeast, their trip to the beach was pretty far off course for them."
"Very."
"Why do you think they went there?"
"I'm not sure," Grand admitted.
"What do you think about this idea then," she asked, "that the cats might have been looking for something familiar. These tigers wake up, things are totally different from what they were. The ocean could have been the only smell they recognized. Maybe they went to check it out."
"It's possible," Grand agreed.
"That could also be why they attacked the fish truck," Hannah said. "It was a familiar smell."
"The saber-tooths could also have mistaken it for a giant herbivore," Grand said. He slid the door open a little further and watched me workers. "The truck growled, it smelled of fish, and it moved quickly. Modern cats like to attack running prey."
"Why?"
"If prey is running they're already scared of something, possibly a fire, army ants, that sort of thing," Grand said. "Which means they probably aren't going to pay close attention to something that's stalking them. Prehistoric herbivores were probably the same."
"I see," Hannah said. "What else do we know about these animals in particular?"
"Not a lot," Grand admitted. "As I said, we suspect that saber-tooths were territorial. We tend to find their fossil remains clustered in areas that were once plains or fertile valleys."
"Why did they become extinct? Changes in the environment because of the Ice Age?"
"Only partly," Grand said. "They may have been forced out of many areas when prehistoric humans crossed from Asia to North America over the Bering land bridge."
"That's when the Bering Strait was frozen so you could literally walk from Asia to here."
"Correct."
"So migrating humans hunted them out of existence?"
"Not directly," Grand said. "We believe they preyed on many of the same herbivores for food. Eventually, humans outnumbered them and overran Southern California."
"Starving them to death."
"Effectively," Grand said.
"Why didn't they hunt us?"
"We suspect they did," Grand said, "which is why we accelerated the invention of weapons to protect ourselves."
"The first arms race," Hannah said. She shook her head. "I still don't see how people fought those things with primitive weapons."
"You and I did it in the pipe."
"We had a flood and a branch to help us," Hannah said.
"If it hadn't been those things it would have been something else," Grand said.
"Such as?"
"A hubcap, a bottle, our own shoes tied together and used as a bolo or garrote. There's always something."
"Really? Suppose all you had was a bunch of leaves," she said. "What would you do then?"
Grand thought for a moment. "Stand up."
"What?"
"Just stand up," Grand said.
Hannah did.
The scientist took a piece of paper from the stack in her printer tray. He crumpled it.
"Pretend you're one of the cats," he said.
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."