Grand arrived at the bottom level. Halfway across the garage a chain-link fence had been torn from the concrete wall and crumpled.
"What the hell was there?" Mindar asked.
"A blowpit," Grand said. "I should have thought of that."
"I don't understand-"
"The tar ebbs and flows through underground channels," Grand said. "When the pressure builds, the tar has to vent in a controlled place or it'll come through the street or basements."
"And this is one of those places," Mindar said.
Grand moved closer. The iron lid had been pushed off and the heavy bolts that held the fence to the wall had been ripped out He was angry at himself not only because he hadn't thought of the blowpits but because the cats always moved in divided, flanking patterns.
As Grand and Mindar reached the northwestern side of the garage they saw a police officer tending to two fallen comrades by the ticket booth, which was forty yards to the west. To the north, in the garage, two other officers were stalking a golden cat that was behind a vintage Wildcat convertible. Grand could just see the animal's forequarters. The cat was larger than the ones they'd seen, with high, powerful shoulders and a low-slung head. The nearest of its fangs was broken off toward the point.
The two officers were moving forward slowly. They were apparently looking to approach the cat from either side of the car.
They never got the chance.
The cat withdrew behind the car. The men continued forward. They were about three yards from the car and three feet apart. A moment later the cat jumped onto the roof and then launched itself onto the officer to the left. Man and cat hit the asphalt and then the saber-tooth twisted and bounded toward the other officer. As the officer turned to fire, the cat tilted its head sideways, the top toward Grand. It bit the officer through the back and his gun fired wild, the bullet ricocheting off the floor and striking one of the cone-shaped support columns. Dragging the howling man forward, the cat swept back toward the first officer. The saber-tooth reared up and landed on the grounded man, crushing his chest. Then it dropped the other man on top of him. The officer writhed for a moment and then was still. The action lasted less than five seconds.
Mindar was still holding his MPS. He raised it to fire but the saber-tooth did not remain where he was. Grand wasn't surprised. If lone predators killed something, they usually left quickly. Scavengers and other predators tended to respond quickly to the scent of blood.
The cat turned to its left and raced toward the low wall that stood between the garage and Ogden. Grand ran with it. The creature leaped the wall easily. With another bound it cleared the chain-link fence outside the garage by vaulting into an overhanging branch of an adjoining tree and then jumping to the street. As the cat landed. Grand looked up. Two other cats were jumping off the second level of the garage, which was fifteen feet from the ground. They landed cleanly on the other side of the fence. For the moment that they were under a streetlight, Grand saw that one of the saber-tooths was the same size as the cat from the ground level. The third was behind the other two and not all of it was visible. But what Grand could see was surprising. The cat towered over the others.
A moment later all three cats ran toward the ten-foot-high fence outside the art museum. The fence was made of thick, green metal bars with nothing to link them on top. If the saber-tooths didn't clear the bars they'd be impaled. Without breaking stride they gracefully leaped the fence and landed on the other side, in the Cantor Sculpture Garden West.
Mindar came up behind Grand. "It's like they've got goddamn wings!" he shouted as he raised his weapon. The metal slats were too close together to allow him to fire. Grand was already running back down Wilshire, alongside the fence, and Mindar ran after him.
The scientist looked to his left as he ran. The saber-tooths had become one with the darkness, maneuvering carefully through the life-size bronzes. They reached the Director's Roundtable Garden, slipped under and around the abstract by Calder, then pressed on to the outer rim of the tar pits. The surrounding fence was six feet high with metal mesh between dark iron bars.
Police were moving in on the east side of the fence. Suddenly, two of the cats leaped the fence in the rear. They raced across the dark lawn toward the museum itself. The third cat seemed to have disappeared. Mindar was looking ahead; Grand didn't think he noticed.
Grand suddenly stopped.
"What are you doing?" Mindar asked.
"There's something I want to check," Grand said. "You go ahead."
Mindar ran to join the police. Grand turned to the fence. He put both hands on top of one of the iron supports and swung his legs over the mesh. He landed on the other side, crouched, and looked around. He heard crashing glass in the distance.
That was probably the atrium, he thought. The saber-tooths may have been heading for the other pits and perhaps saw the familiar foliage. They'd have no idea what glass is. Or maybe the cats are being decoys again.
There were roars, gunfire, and shouts. They were followed by screams and more crashing glass. The police moved in en masse. Realizing that the wind was moving toward the east, he moved in that direction so his spoor would blow away from the pit There were life-size recreations of a family of mastodons on that side of the pit. One of them was "stuck" in the pit and moving slowly from side to side. Its huge tusks were upturned and its trunk was upraised and curled as though it was trumpeting in despair. Two other mastodons were standing on the shore, an adult and a baby.
Two years before-the last time Grand had been to the museum-this pit had been surrounded by small, thick palms. Now it was mostly sun-dried grass and open space, probably someone's idea of making the pit viewer-friendly. There were only two palms near the elephants, roughly twenty and forty feet tall. They had rough bark, like a pineapple.
Grand was still crouching. He got up slowly and walked behind the elephants. There was a rowboat on the shore tied to one of the trees. When the water levels were high enough at the pit, workers used it to fish soda cans and plastic water bottles from the tar. Grand stopped and untied the rope. It was a half-inch thick and about fifteen feet long. There were two oars in the rowboat. He tied the rope to the ends of the oars and draped it over his shoulder. Then he peeled off a large section of bark. All the while he peered into the darkness on the other side of the tar, watching for any sign of the saber-tooth that had stayed behind.
The smell of tar was strong as Grand moved around the edge of the pit. Puddles of water had collected in the center and around the edges of the tar, reflecting the streetlights. Small bubbles of tar popped just offshore while a larger bubble held its dome before bursting in what seemed like slow motion. As Grand rounded the mastodon, spotlights along the perimeter of the park itself began winking out briefly as something passed in front of them. It was large and moving toward him. He stopped beside the taller of the two trees and bent his knees so he'd be ready to move if it attacked. He began breaking the bark into smaller pieces and also used the action to focus his moat.
"They're in the atrium!" an officer yelled in the distance. "One of them's in the rafters. We need reinforcements now!"
The rafters were a design element, a network of metal struts that crisscrossed the top of the atrium. Police ran up the walk. Grand had known he wouldn't be able to save the other two saber-tooths. But if there was a chance to save this last one, he would.
As the saber-tooth neared Grand, it also came closer to the street. It began picking up hints of streetlight. This was indeed the leader of the pride, at least ten feet in length and just over five feet at the shoulder. Its fur appeared to be silver and there was a long, high ridge of hair running along its back. Like the other cats it held its head low. The saber-tooth also had thick, white whiskers that drooped beside its striated fangs.