Rather than give the others an education, Grand looked around the surrounding hills.

There was a stilt-house under construction on a lot overlooking the estate, about two hundred yards up. It was in the right place and there was a high pile of dirt near the foundation. Grand made his way to the site and approached the mound. There appeared to be remnants of claw marks in the loosely packed earth. He walked around to the other side.

Sewer pipes lay beside the foundation. The ground had been dug to connect them to the main pipelines. The hole was about five feet high and went under Coldwater Canyon. He could hear the distant sound of water, possibly sewage in the main pipe or water draining from the hills.

Grand ducked down and looked in. The opening was five feet across. He didn't feel the presence of the saber-tooths the way he had before. He listened and heard nothing. He turned the flashlight from the opening, let it play over the house and through the surrounding hills. He didn't see any eyes, a flanking cat watching him. That wasn't a good sign. If he didn't find one inside, then maybe the pride had already moved on.

Holding the flashlight in one hand, Grand crawled in.

The tunnel was snug and when Grand hit basalt, the walls became extremely tight and jagged. He was in an earthquake fissure where the rock had simply split. The saber-tooths obviously had the capacity of a modern-day cat to twist and slink through tight places. The adaptability of the animals was astonishing. They had to have been hunted out of existence. No wonder humans were an irresistible target. Food plus one less enemy to deal with.

After a few minutes Grand found a diamond bracelet on the ground, then large pieces of bone and clothing. Then he saw human hands and feet. His fears were confirmed: The cats had eaten and moved on. That was uncharacteristic of large migrating predators and it seemed to be uncharacteristic of what he'd seen these cats do. He wondered if the saber-tooths could possibly have smelled the tar from here or whether they were moving along a path they had moved eons ago-perhaps only days before, to them.

Or was it something else?

Grand tried to raise Lieutenant Mindar but the signal wasn't getting out of the cave. He edged around the body parts and continued on. After a few minutes he found the sewer conduit. It was a thick white pipe set in the soil overhead and held there with bands bolted into the surrounding rock, flat steel sheets that gave the pipe play whenever the earth shook. The pipes were intact and the water sounds weren't coming from there. They were coming from somewhere ahead. An underground stream, probably, flush with rain water from La Nina.

One that could lead to drain pipes, caverns, or God knows where else, he thought His plan might not work. Not if they'd already dispersed into two or even three separate groups. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing.

It was a long way from Monte Arido to the Hollywood Hills, but maybe the cats hadn't bothered to rest tonight The creatures were at home in water. They might have heard the stream and decided to move on. It would certainly make the journey quicker and easier.

But why go now? What was so urgent? Were they afraid of losing a particular tar pit to another pride? Were there actually two prides continuing a struggle, a race, that had begun millennia ago? Or had something else pushed them on? Fear? Did they sense an earthquake coming or maybe a larger predator of some kind? Had something happened within the pride? The pride probably had a leader. Was he young or old, fit or dying? Maybe he was hurt in the long-ago holocaust. The saber-tooth Grand fought had been scarred. Perhaps the leader was being threatened by another male and felt compelled to bring his pride home.

Grand backed out. He felt more anxious than he did when he knew the cats were near. For whatever reason, the saber-tooths were making the final part of their journey tonight. There wasn't time to research, check, double-check, and confer. There might not even be time to coat a tunnel with tar. The saber-tooths could be there in a matter of minutes. The area had to be completely evacuated and police had to be set up around the pits now.

The scientist got on the radio as he returned to the mansion.

"Lieutenant," he said.

"Here, Professor."

"I found body parts in one of the tunnels I checked, but no cats."

"What does that mean?"

"They moved on," Grand said. "They probably saw or heard all the activity and wanted to get to familiar territory as soon as possible. You've got to inform whoever's in charge there may not be time to set a trap for the saber-tooths. Tell them to cordon off the entire area around the tar pits and fall back as far as they can."

"Why?"

"Because those cats may get there in just a few minutes, coming at them in ways they can't begin to imagine!"

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.