Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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13

Once outside, the water cascaded off both sides of the walkway to the plant, and Jim and Peter found their footing and stood up. Jim grasped the handrail.

Peter yelled to him. "You okay?"

Jim nodded. "I guess so, how 'bout you?"

"Yeah."

Jim motioned back in the plant. "Anybody else up there with you?"

"Yeah, two others."

Jim looked nervous. "We gotta tell them to get out of here."

"You want me to go back up?"

Jim felt for his radio, but it was gone. "Yeah. Why don't ya. I'll go back and clear the rest of the plant."

Both men took a second to look at the water coming out of the dam and running off the walkway. Because their view up was blocked by the canopy over their heads, neither could see the water spraying out of the face of the dam four hundred feet above them.

As they ran into the plant, Jim pointed east. "Take 'em down the east stairs."

6:15 a.m. - Page, Arizona

Overlooking the top of the dam in the security office, which was part of the Haden Visitor Center complex, Brian Thacker, graveyard supervisor, waited for a response from his radio alert. "Hello, is anybody there? Jim? Jessie? Mark?"

The radio squawked. "Jessie here." "Mark here." Jessie and Mark were stationed at the two access road gates, but Jim was down in the dam someplace.

Brian waited several seconds then pressed the button. "Jim? Do you read me?"

Nothing.

He tried again. "Office calling Jim Nance, please respond."

His radio squawked again. The voice was much higher than Mark's usual tone. "I haven't heard him yet, Brian. You want me to go down and check on him?"

Brian knew something was wrong. Jim should have responded by now. He looked out the window again. The water was blasting out the hole. Every time he looked, there was more water. He felt sure that hole was close to twenty feet in diameter now. There was no way he could send anyone down there. It was too dangerous.

Mark's voice came from the radio again. "Brian, you want me to go down the east elevator?"

Brian looked at the water one more time. Jim was in trouble, but the dam was breaking apart. "Negative, Mark. Stay put. I'll try the control room and see if they know where he is."

He tried the radio one more time. "Jim, do you copy?"

He waited a moment, then dropped the radio and grabbed the phone. He dialed the control room first, letting it ring at least ten times. Next he tried the break room, then two different guard stations. Nothing from any of them. They were either dead or on the move. He prayed they were on the move. Walking to the windows, Brian tried to see down to the asphalt strip bordering the generation plant, but there was too much smoke to see down to river level.

He heard the radio again. "Brian, this is Jessie. You called anybody yet? Reported it?"

Brian picked up the radio. "When would I? I'm trying to figure out if everybody's okay."

Jessie's voice came back calm. "I know, Brian, but you need to call. Now. You can't help Jim from where you are. They can use the tunnel. Make the call."

Jessie was right. An access tunnel led down to the base of the dam from several miles away on the Page side. He needed to get the cops down there.

First he called 911. The phone rang three times. To Brian, it seemed like fifteen minutes. Finally, a calm voice answered, "What is your name, please?"

"There has been an explosion at the Glen Canyon Dam. The dam is leaking and might break up. I need you to―"

"Whoa," the woman interrupted. "One thing at a time. You say that you are at the Glen Canyon Dam? What is your name?"

Brian could hardly stand it. "Brian Thacker. The dam―"

"Okay, Brian, what is the problem?"

"The dam is failing. There is going to be a flood. A big one! Send a couple of police cars down the tunnel. I can't reach any of the crew on the radio. They might be hurt. Can you do that? I need to make some other calls."

"Hang on, Brian, I need you to stay on the line."

"I can't. Just tell the police to get over here." He knew he shouldn't, but he hung up the phone.

He walked over to a red clipboard hanging on the wall. The next calls would not be dialed from memory. The first call was to the Bureau of Reclamation in Denver. They built the dam and were responsible for it. He thought they would want to know it was falling apart. As it turned out, they were, in fact, very interested. The lady on the line took Brian's number and promised to have someone return the call in a few minutes.

The second call went to Hoover Dam, 300 miles downstream. He placed the third call to the National Parks Service, who would relay a message to the Grand Canyon. Both conversations were similar — short and to the point. Brian told them he was calling because there had been an explosion at Glen Canyon Dam. They asked if the dam had failed. He told them not yet. They asked how much water was flooding. He responded honestly and reported that the hole was about twenty feet in diameter. They both asked him to keep them updated. Brian left both calls with the same impression that they weren't going to do much unless he called back and said the dam failed completely. In fact, Brian wondered if they would even know what to do then.

CHAPTER 8

6:25 a.m. - Denver, Colorado

Grant Stevens burst out of the bathroom into his dark bedroom. The loud piercing beeps from his pager seemed to emanate from all four walls of the bedroom, making it impossible to zero in on it. He headed straight for the dresser, where he always left it. He held a towel around his waist with his left hand, while he swept back and forth with his right. His fingers found the small box and pressed a button to stop the noise. He looked at the luminescent readout and noted the seven-digit number had a '911' after it. He heard a clicking sound from behind, and the bedside lamp came on, illuminating the room.

"Who is it?" his wife mumbled from the bed. She shielded her eyes from the light.

"Somebody from work. I don't recognize the number."

"I thought they were all out of town," she said.

"Me too."

He walked over to the nightstand next to the bed and grabbed the cordless phone. His wife got up and went into the bathroom. Who could it be at this hour? Maybe someone headed to Kenya had forgotten something, some document or report. The fact that they would page him this early in the morning, with a 911, bugged him to no end, as if he didn't have anything more important to do. He walked back over by the dresser and considered for a while whether to delay calling back. However, a morbid curiosity of who was nervy enough to do it made him decide to make the call.

The number on the pager had timed out, so he pressed the button again to re-illuminate it. He keyed in the number and waited. In the process of holding the phone in one hand and the pager in the other, his towel fell to the floor. He had just bent over to pick it up when the person on the other end of the line answered on the first ring.

He propped the phone between his shoulder and ear while trying to position the towel. "Hello."

"Grant? This is Julia, you know, Roland's admin."

He knew who Julia was. She was the commissioner's new executive secretary. The consensus at the Bureau was that Roland had selected her because she looked like a model. Grant himself had never talked to her in his life. What could she possibly want? He wrapped the towel around his waist and tucked it in before he answered. For some reason he didn't feel right about talking to Julia when he was naked, even on the phone.

"Hi," he said.

"I'm so glad you're there. As you know, Roland and the other executives are on their way to Kenya. I can't get a hold of them."

Grant could tell she was nervous; she sounded like she might cry. "That's okay. What do you need?"

"I just got a call from the Glen Canyon Dam. There's been an explosion."

Grant sat down on the bed. "What?" The image returned from the day before of the concrete dam he had seen on TV.

She continued. "The guy who called's name is Brian. He's a night security guard."

The shock of the information waned enough to make Grant ask another question. "Julia, what is the Bureau doing?"

There was silence on the other end before she finally spoke again. "That's just it, Grant. Everybody's gone. That's why I called you."

He knew she wanted a response, but he couldn't speak.

"Grant, Roland told me he was leaving you in charge. You need to handle this." She continued, "I just called the pilots for the Gulfstream. They'll meet you at the airport."

Although the Bureau of Reclamation had an expensive corporate jet, only the commissioner and other executives used it. Grant had never flown in it.

"The Gulfstream?" Grant repeated.

"They'll get you down to the dam within the hour. I have Brian's number at Glen Canyon. Do you have a pencil?"

Grant realized his mouth was hanging open. They were sending him on the Gulfstream? He stood and moved back toward the dresser, subconsciously realizing the towel had dropped again. This time he made no effort to retrieve it. "Hang on a second." He grabbed a pen and one of his business cards, then flipped over the card to write on the back. "What's the guy's name again?"

"Brian," she repeated.

"Okay. Give me the number."

She read it to him and made him repeat it back to her.

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