Fatalis

Chapter Seventy

Millennia ago, as plants and animals died, their remnants became buried beneath wind-blown sand and water-borne rock. Over time, pressure caused the incompletely decomposed material to mix with sediments to form petroleum. Over the eons, this thick liquid-its composition varying from location to location-was covered over by streams and seas, by volcanism and earthquakes, by storms and other upheavals. The pools of petroleum ended up hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet beneath the surface of the earth.

The planet's crust continued to shift over the eons, causing cracks and folds in the overlying rock. Occasionally, superheated gases from inside the earth would force the petroleum to the surface through these slender cracks. Often, the gases would mix with this petroleum creating a brownish-black mixture called asphalt, commonly referred to as tar.

The same forces that made Southern California and the adjoining seabed rich with oil made many of the low-lying areas rich with tar. A gradual wanning of the climate caused many of the beds to harden and dry up. However, several remained active, the largest of which was the sprawling Rancho La Brea-Spanish for "the Tar Ranch." Late in the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth, many of the pits on the ranch were pumped dry of tar, which was sold for use in paving, sealing, and other commercial enterprises. But in one twenty-three -acre section the earth still forced tar to the surface, a process that continues to this day. Like their ancient forebears, animals still occasionally tumble into the pit, squirrels and dogs, insects and birds. Sucked into the tar, along with plastic water bottles and litter, the animals will lose their soft body parts to bacteria and time, though their bones and teeth-enveloped in tar-will one day return as the earth cycles through the percolation process.

Some of the smaller active tar pits are surrounded by concrete fences and occasionally blow large bubbles over the walls. Others are redirected through concrete and metal viaducts into the larger pits. Roads and construction have risen on top of many of these. The larger, open tar pools sit where they always have, impervious to the encroachment of civilization, ready to swallow human enterprise as they have hundreds of thousands of animals over the centuries.

The main thoroughfare of the area, Wilshire Boulevard, runs directly beside the largest of the many open pits, the Lake Pit. The Lake Pit is situated in the heart of the rich Miracle Mile, renowned for its upscale shopping, dining, and fashionable office towers. Behind the pit is the recently renovated George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, home to fossil displays, reconstructions of Pleistocene animals, paleontological research, and a spectacular atrium. The museum is named for the businessman-philanthropist who endowed the facility. Ongoing excavations take place in a series of smaller active pits that sit to the west, at the intersection of Ogden and Sixth Streets. To the west of the tar pits is the renowned Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

As an access to the vital San Diego Freeway, Wilshire Boulevard was a busy thoroughfare around the clock, and when Hannah and the Wall arrived, the reporter was surprised to find nothing different as she approached the museum. It wasn't until she arrived and saw reporters that anything looked different. The museum is set back from Wilshire, behind the Lake Pit and several acres of rolling green grounds. The wide, low, one-story white-brick museum is accessible by a flight of stairs guarded by saber-toothed statues. To the west the white sculptures stand alert on their pedestal looking to the east They appear to be watching the other statue, a pair of saber-tooths locked in feral combat.

According to Hannah's LA stringer, reporters had gotten wind of an increased police presence at the museum and had collected on the spotlit walk between the two sculptures. Hannah told him to stay with the Coldwater situation, that she was headed for the tar pits. She and the Wall parked in the lot behind the museum, on Sixth Street. Telling the Wall to leave the an portfolio in which she'd stuck the charts and diagrams in the car, she hurried ahead to join the others. She looked for Grand at the front of the museum but she didn't see him. There were a few police officers present, but they were in street uniforms, not riot gear or body armor. She didn't sense any urgency. A few reporters were sitting at the picnic tables in front of the museum, drinking coffee.

Hannah called Grand. He picked up at once.

"Jim, where are you? I tried you before but couldn't get you!"

"That must have been when I was in the sewer tunnel up at Coldwater," Grand said. "I'm on my way down the hill with Lieutenant Mindar and some of his National Guard personnel. We're just crossing Santa Monica Boulevard. Where are you?"

"At the museum. What did you find up there?"

"The saber-tooths are on the move," Grand said. "They'll probably reach the tar pits in a matter of minutes."

Hannah looked around. "Does anyone know that? I mean, no one's acting like we have an emergency here."

"The lieutenant is talking to the police chief now. You've got to get out of there."

Just then Hannah saw a flatbed truck stop on Curson. The shield on the door marked it as belonging to the LAPD Anti-Terrorist Division. She saw Sheriff Gearhart standing on the back with a group of seven police officers. They were standing amidst a half-dozen waist-high black barrels. Unlike the other reporters, Hannah knew what was probably in there.

"Gearhart just got here," she said. "Probably with some of his old buddies. Looks like they're bringing barrels somewhere."

"That's probably tar," Grand said. "Hannah, don't worry about him. Just get out-"

"I'll be okay, Jim. I'll call back as soon as I know something."

Hannah clicked off and ran over with the Wall.

Gearhart's back was to Hannah. He was studying a map spread on one of the drums. There were equipment chests along the back of the cab. Gearhart didn't turn until one of the police officers looked past him. The sheriff frowned as he looked down on the young woman.

"Go back with the rest of the press," Gearhart said.

"Jim just told me the cats are on the way."

"We know. We got a report from Lieutenant Mindar. Now get out-" Gearhart suddenly looked across the street. "Shit."

Other reporters had noticed the truck and were starting to wander over.

Gearhart rapped hard on the back of the cab. "Let's get moving!" he shouted. "We'll take this to W-17."

Hannah grasped the wooden slats on the side of the truck. She pulled herself up as the truck rolled out.

"Whoa, stop!" Gearhart yelled to the driver.

Hannah pulled herself higher onto the truck. Two officers grabbed her arms and tried to lift her off and move her backwards. Hannah held on tighter, slipping one of her feet between the slats and hooking it around. The Wall ran over to catch her in case she fell.

"Get off!" Gearhart yelled at her.

"W-17!" Hannah shouted at Gearhart. "They're antiterrorism coordinates, right?"

"I said get off-"

She jerked a thumb behind her. "I'm sure one of those reporters will be able to find out where that is. Take me with you or I'll tell them."

Gearhart looked past Hannah. The reporters were now hustling across the museum lawn. "Pull her up and let's go!" the sheriff said.

The officers who were holding Hannah's arms pulled her onto the truck. The Wall remained behind, shouting for Hannah to be careful as the police team roared off.

Gearhart bent back over the map as the truck crossed Wilshire and headed south. He was pointing to a small square on the grid. "W-17 intersects the underground stream that starts up in the Hills. It looks like the only secure spot we can tap into."

His companion, a captain, pointed to the map. "We've got these other tributaries-"

"I know," Grand said. "If we don't stop all the cats at W-17, they'll probably continue along the main stream and come out here," he pointed to a square seven blocks away, "at a construction site at the corner of Western and Olympic."

"They can do a lot of damage doubling back from there to the tar pits," the captain pointed out.

"Exactly. So we lure the cats into the garage and pin them down. It should be a skeet shoot."

Captain Mclver nodded. "I'm with you."

"Good," Gearhart said. He turned and glared at Hannah. "You want this story?"

"You know I do." She pulled her microcassette recorder from a back pocket.

"No moneybags to hide behind, no safe and comfortable press conferences where you can push people around."

"That's not me and you damn well know it," Hannah, said.

"I don't know it."

"I'd rather be in the field covering a story," she told him.

"Fine." Gearhart came closer to her.

"I didn't come to Los Angeles for glory or to win allies. I came here to finish what I started. To protect people. I don't want any bleeding-heart bullshit from you. I didn't come here to carry out Jim Grand's agenda. There's no time to get tranquilizer darts. The cats are to me what I am to them: prey. Got that?"

"In quotes," she replied.

Gearhart backed away and Hannah looked into his eyes. They were more intense than she'd ever seen them. As they swung into the entrance to the Wilshire Courtyard office complex, she didn't doubt what he'd said. He was back to save Los Angeles, to do it in a way his old bosses could not. There was nothing wrong with that, but to call it civil service wasn't exactly right. It was also payback.

Still, for now, she'd let him have this his way.

The truck turned down the long, gently sloping ramp into the yellow-lit darkness. The driver stopped to give the night watchman the emergency order that would allow them to do what had to be done. The guard was instructed to let no one else down without first checking with Captain Mclver, and not to bother checking if they were reporters.

Only as they continued down, toward level P3, and one of the officers opened the first of the four equipment chests did Hannah begin to realize that she was in this not with Jim Grand, a man who understood his quarry, but with Malcolm Gearhart, a man who understood firepower.

She wondered if that would be enough.