Fatalis

Chapter Sixty

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.

Hard.

At least Lieutenant Mindar agreed with Gearhart that capturing the animals would be extremely difficult and possibly counterproductive. Men could die in the effort. The lieutenant had experienced sedating animals from dogs to deer to mountain lions during fires and floods. He said that not even seasoned gamekeepers knew how much tranquilizer it took to knock out a large predator without overdosing and killing it. They also didn't know which animals were allergic to tranquilizer ingredients such as nicotine and even how an animal would react after being sedated. Some became calm and then suddenly went manic. Some appeared to pass out only to waken and attack everyone around them. Some took a long time to even feel the effects of the dart.

The wait was punctuated by occasional, frustrated calls from Chief Deputy Valentine. Since no one in town had Gearhart's cell phone number, and the mountain roads had been sealed off on all sides, no one could reach him. Reporters, university professors, environmental groups-not just in the county but on the state level-and even Joseph Tumamait had left word for the sheriff to get in touch. Gearhart did not return any of those calls, nor did he ask Mike Valentine what they were about. Plausible deniability plus a true and unshakable belief that he was working for the public good was a potent rebuttal against any form of opposition. Particularly against special interests.

By early afternoon the motion detectors were all in place and everyone was ready to move out. Some of the men were airlifted by the Chinook and others got underway on foot, all of them following the course that Gearhart had laid out. He had consulted with Dr. Honey Solomon at the Santa Barbara Zoo and had learned that on average a lion rests between twelve and fifteen hours each day, most of that after feeding. The zoologist agreed that it was more likely for migrating animals of any kind to move after resting rather than before. Given the distance between the previous kills-approximately five miles-Gearhart calculated the outside radius of where the predators would appear tonight. This time his people would be there, ready to stop them.

Gearhart slipped on a weapons vest that included a serrated hunting knife, a Beretta, and extra ammunition, and accompanied the teams who moved out on foot. When they were in place, he would link up with the chopper and follow the motion detectors from there. The sweet, fragrant scent of monkeyflower and manzanita complemented the golden, late afternoon glow. In places, those sweet, refreshing scents were overpowered by the pungent odor of the sage and buckwheat that spread across large swaths of hillside.

Gearhart was more aware of the mountain smells than he had ever been before. It was like being back in the war, where enemies could be anywhere and were clever about concealing themselves. The ground was too rocky here to hold footprints, and Gearhart told the National Guard troops to examine the sharp-pointed scrub oak and needlelike chamise looking for traces of fur or blood, just in case the animals had emerged to change passageways. Though Gearhart was not willing to accept that the killers were prehistoric monsters, most of the time they had been moving southeast, as Grand had said. So Gearhart concentrated on caverns in that direction. Dr. Thorpe came along to help determine which tunnels and caves were too narrow to accommodate large predators, helping them to focus on the most likely routes.

Just before 3:00 P.M., everyone was in place across a twelve-mile stretch of mountain. The placements stretched into two of the other counties, Ventura and San Luis Obispo, and deputies from both sheriffs' offices were present to assist, advise, and monitor.

Gearhart and the Chinook were airborne shortly after three. The Boeing chopper had a range of slightly over thirteen hundred miles, which would give the units coverage for a good portion of the early evening. The plan was to refuel, if necessary, at nine. Gearhart had a feeling these creatures would show themselves long before then.

The sheriff was right.

Shortly after 4:00 P.M., the pilot of the chopper informed Gearhart that there was movement in a passageway, at an old cave nearly five thousand feet up in Monte Arido.

Gearhart went into the cockpit and looked at the thirteen-inch monitor between the pilot and copilot. It showed a green sonographic image of the throat of the cave. The monitor showed three distinct pulsing white blips moving northeast.

"Could they be hikers?" Gearhart asked.

"No, sir," reported the copilot. "Not unless they're riding dirt bikes. These blips are moving at twenty-plus miles an hour."

In dark caves, Gearhart thought.

Troops and deputies who had been stationed at sites in the region immediately surrounding the cave were notified and picked up by the Chinook.

As the chopper rushed over, the radio operator at the site confirmed the signals. There were definitely "animals" somewhere in the mouth of the cave.

The copilot asked the unit radio operator, "What kind?"

The operator was silent for a moment. And then he replied, "Big ones."