Then Gearhart saw his enemy for the first time. He saw long, slinky golden figures moving through the sharp afternoon light. They appeared to be carrying things.

Prey?

No, Gearhart realized. Not just prey.

Bodies. Bodies dressed in drab green. The entire Monte Arido unit.

Gearhart slung the binoculars around his neck.

"Wilson!" he yelled over his shoulder.

The portly, balding first sergeant in charge of the armored unit hurried over. "Sir?"

"Sergeant, pass out weapons and send three men over here now."

"Yes, sir."

The door was wide, though three men was all Gearhart felt the doorway could accommodate without them falling over or shooting each other. As the chopper neared the cliff, three guns lined up behind Gearhart. The sheriff turned so he could be heard over the rush of the wind.

"It looks like the entire unit has been taken out," Gearhart told them. "When I give the order, fire at any animals you see on the cliff. Shoot to kill; use multiples to clean up any vital signs."

Gearhart turned back to the door. The animals were halfway between the cave and the boulders where the soldiers had been. Because they were slowed by the weight of the bodies, the sheriff was able to see them more clearly now. They were definitely tigers of some sort.

The chopper was about one hundred and fifty feet from the mountaintop. Gearhart leaned into the cabin.

"Hold us here, steady as you can!" he shouted at the pilot.

The Chinook slowed and leveled off. Gearhart raised his rifle.

"Fire at will!" he shouted to the men behind him.

The air exploded with short, hot pops from the Ml6s. The cats were peppered with fire and began twitching, hopping, and snapping at the air as sprigs of red exploded from their shoulders, backs, and hindquarters. The gunfire was constant, some of the animals taking four and five hits as the gunmen shifted targets and their fire overlapped.

The two cats nearest the cave went down almost immediately, their backs and hind legs chewed apart, their skin hanging like bloody rags. Shots to the neck and skull finished them both off. Two other cats, wounded in the rear haunches, dropped their prey and tried to drag themselves forward, only to be pinned to the ground by additional fire. The last cat went down when it paused and used its fangs to scratch at a bloody hole in its right shoulder. It was hit by a succession of bullets that caused it to stagger sideways, though it managed to stay on its feet until it tumbled over the side of the mountain.

When the last cat went down, the other men lowered their rifles and high-fived each other. But Gearhart continued to watch the site as the Chinook hovered. After a long moment the last cat climbed back onto the ridge. It was moving with obvious difficulty.

"You should've been less loyal, you sonofabitch!" Gearhart yelled.

He watched and waited until it was back on top. Then he put a bullet between the cat's large, luminous eyes. Its great head flew back and then the cat dropped forward, its front legs splayed.

The site was still.

"Let's go down and see to our people," Gearhart said.

Gearhart looked at the ridge as they descended. The dusty tan surface was mottled with blood. Some of it in pools and some in threadlike streams. The pools were spreading and the streams were crawling forward, mixing the blood of man with the blood of cat. Except for the blood, the dark brown scrub, torn clothing, and fur stirred by the rotors, nothing on the ridge was moving. They would land, gas the cave, and make sure there was nothing moving inside either. Though Gearhart was saddened by the cost in human lives, he was satisfied that the objective had been achieved. He didn't know whether these tigers were throwbacks, mutations, or animals made from spliced genes. He didn't really care. That was for Grand and his kind to figure out. All that mattered to Gearhart was that the animals wouldn't be leaving that ridge under their own power.

There would be complaints about the fact that these animals were killed rather than captured. But there would be far more complaints if the animals had been able to lose themselves in the hills for days or maybe weeks more.

There would be mourning for the men who died here, though much less than if the cats had been allowed to prey on dozens of other people in Santa Barbara and adjoining counties.

There would be criticism, but there would also be praise. The most important thing was how Gearhart felt.

He had done what he'd set out to do.

He had ended a lethal threat.

Chapter Sixty-Three

Grand spent the morning making the calls to local environmentalists and animal rights groups. He also got an entomologist at the university to agree to go out to the creek to check for gnats that might have escaped from the cave. But the area was still closed off and she had to turn back. Hopefully, the insects hadn't escaped from the cave and would still be there when this was all over.

After that-with Hannah's blessing-Grand had spoken to several other newspapers and TV interviewers about what he thought was out there. He wondered if Hannah had not bothered to put up a fuss because she knew how they'd treat him. Like an alumnus of The Weekly World News.

Not that any of Grand's colleagues rallied behind what he had to say. When he spoke with them their reactions ranged from polite doubt-they were clearly humoring a man who had been under a lot of stress-to cautious interest to outright dismissal.

Only Joseph Tumamait put credence in what Grand had to say. Just like the old days.

Grand finished his calls and interviews late in the afternoon. He was about to try and plot possible routes for the cats when Hannah phoned.

"I just heard that the sheriff and the National Guard have literally closed off about two hundred acres in the mountains," she said. "There were reports of gunfire up there."

"Any information?"

"None."

"I've got to get up there," Grand said.

"The mountains are shut up tight-"

"No, Gearhart just thinks they are," Grand replied. "I can get wherever I need to. Do you have any idea where his command post is?"

"A traffic copter friend of mine said he thought he spotted it somewhere up near the intersection of Ballinger Canyon and Route 33."

"Thanks," Grand said.

"Whoa, wait! When are you going?"

"Now," he said.

"Can you swing by?"

Grand didn't want to expose her to further danger. But the idea of doing this without her seemed strange. "Sure," he said.

Hannah and the Wall both joined Grand in his SUV. They kept the windows down and the air conditioning off so they could hear the comings and goings of trucks, choppers, or other vehicles, possibly get a read on the direction they were headed. They heard nothing until they were about two miles up Route 33 when rifle fire began echoing through the mountains. Though sportsmen often took target practice in the open fields this was different: It wasn't sporadic but a continuous roar, like a fireworks finale.

Grand stopped the SUV suddenly, got out, and listened. A moment later he jumped back in the SUV.

"Could you tell where it was coming from?" Hannah asked.

"The northwest," Grand said.

"But I thought-"

"I know," he said, "that they were headed to the southeast. But Jameson Lake is to the west-it's possible they went that way for some reason."

Grand turned west on Barbara Canyon Road, followed the Cuyama River for several miles, then swung north. He stayed off the main and secondary roads, pushing the SUV through the rocky terrain of the Santa Ynez foothills. Grand and his passengers were silent the entire time. The scientist did not want to believe that the sheriff had found the cats already. Perhaps his officers found them in a cave and had been firing to pin them there-