Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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"Hey, I need to go." The security guard sounded anxious to get off the phone.

"Okay, Brian. I'll be there as soon as I can." Grant replaced the phone in the compartment.

Wendy was staring at him with wide eyes. "Is it bad?" she asked.

Grant sighed. "Oh yeah."

"The dam?"

Grant nodded. "Yeah. Looks like somebody blew it up. It's breaking apart."

Her eyes grew even bigger. "Will people die?"

Grant considered the question. How could people not die if the dam failed completely? "Luckily, the area downstream of the dam was the Grand Canyon, for three hundred miles. Not a lot of people. If someone could just warn them." He hesitated, then looked down. "I'm sure some people will get hurt."

Wendy just stared, then her demeanor changed as she remembered something. She offered Grant about twenty pages of paper. "This just came in on the fax machine. It's from Julia."

Grant took the pages and flipped them around. The title page read, "DAM FAILURE INUNDATION REPORT, Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona." He scanned the table of contents, then looked up.

"Wendy, how soon will we be there?"

"We should land in Page in about fifteen or twenty minutes."

Not enough time to read the entire document. He started reading. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wendy walk toward the back of the plane. After the second sentence, Grant skipped ahead, looking for paragraphs with numbers. Farther into the document he found tables that included flood depths and times downstream at various places in the Grand Canyon. At some point he realized he had been muttering. His stomach began to boil. He had to consciously stop himself from rubbing his forehead. Near the back of the document, he found an analysis of what would happen after all the floodwater from Lake Powell joined with Lake Mead. It described theoretical water levels and their impact on Hoover Dam. Grant swore under his breath.

7:15 a.m. - Lee's Ferry, Arizona (16 miles downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam)

Fifty-two-year-old Ted Johnson leaned upstream in the current and took a step to his left. He felt with his toes to find a rock large enough to act as a perch, but the rubber waders weren't the greatest for feeling around. He wiped sweat off his forehead for the third time in what seemed like the last minute. He was in serious trouble.

The morning had started out easy. He woke before the sun, and threw all his gear in the back of the pickup. Then it was just a short drive to Lee's Ferry. He always arrived early, before the rafters and other fishermen so he could be first down the windy road and grab the best parking spot, the one next to the river. Although he couldn't see the sun yet because of the steep canyon walls, Ted could always see the light from the sunrise on the rocks high above. That put Ted in the river right when those rainbow trout were just waking up and looking for their breakfast. And this morning, just like every other morning, he waded right out into the shallow river, staying close to the gravel strips. As usual, Ted had been overly careful to stay out of deep places. Any fool knew that you couldn't swim with waders on.

And for the first hour everything had happened just like any other day. By then he already had three big ones in his basket. But then, when he cast his bait over a nice green hole that was sure to be a virtual trout condominium, he felt the cold squeeze of the waders a little too high, up above his privates. It was a sure signal that he was too deep.

The funny thing was, he didn't remember walking deeper. And when he tried to climb back up the strip of gravel, he could have sworn the water had risen in the last few minutes. It was at that moment that he looked around and knew there was more water. He confirmed his suspicion by looking back at his pickup. There was definitely more water between him and it, than when he arrived. After climbing up to a higher point in the river, he looked back toward where he needed to go. It was time for a big decision. He could either try to wade back, or strip off the waders, shuck his clothes, and swim for it. He had taken a moment on the decision, inspecting upstream and down, debating one route verses another, and calculating the value of the gear he would be abandoning. It would be risky, but he had decided to wade.

Ted Johnson now knew he had made the wrong decision. His feet were barely holding against the strong current, and worse, even with water up to his waist, he was fairly sure he was on a high point, meaning that any direction would take him deeper. And nobody had to tell him he could not fight the current if the water levels got any higher, which Ted now knew was happening.

He scanned the bank to see if anyone was around to help, but saw no one. If only he could get out of the boots now. Unfortunately, the only way possible would be to first flood them, relieving the squeeze, and then try to swim out of them. It was a skill that he had heard of others practicing in a pool, in a controlled environment. At the time, he hadn't even considered practicing the skill. Now, however, he would pay anything for that knowledge. He would forfeit his favorite rod and reel for a quick lesson.

In fact, at that moment, the idea of his rod and reel meaning anything to him seemed absurd, even though an hour before, he would have chosen his graphite pole over his pickup. He looked down at the rod in his right hand, a few minutes ago his most prized possession, now a lead weight. He tossed it away and watched it disappear under the current. The basket over his arm was next, and then the hat with his best flies attached to it.

The motion of pulling off the basket upset his balance. He felt himself tipping. He reached with his left foot for the next toehold downstream. However, even a few feet downstream the water felt deeper. His foot slid in the gravel, finding no holds. To retain his balance, he let his other foot go. Now he was a passenger to the current. If he didn't find a hold in a second, it would be too late, although a part of Ted Johnson thought it already might be.

Suddenly, Ted felt himself drop into a hole. The feeling of water inside the waders was instantaneous. In spite of the feeling of panic, Ted knew what he had to do if he wanted to live. He could not survive with the waders on, and getting them off in deep water would be the most challenging feat of his life.

He tore the suspenders off his shoulders, and started peeling at the rubber material. During the motion his head went under. He let go of the waders and kicked upwards for air. Nothing. He frantically reached for the waist of the waders. His foot felt bottom. The waders were forgotten as he pushed hard off the bottom, flailing his arms for the surface of the water. Again nothing. He realized reaching the surface was impossible with the waders on. He bent and started pulling on them. His surroundings got darker, and Ted wondered if he was deeper, or if he was blacking out.

An intense pain in his chest told him that he needed air soon. A new pain in his ears meant something, but he didn't know what. His attempts to peel off the waders were not working. He gave up and decided to try to slither out of them. Moving quickly now, he straightened his body and a blurry feeling came over him, not in his vision, more in his mind. In spite of the blurry feeling, his heart was pumping furiously, and he lunged upward trying to shed the heavy rubber death boots. His movement did nothing to shed the waders, so he lunged harder, using energy he did not know he had.

The pain in his chest now spread through his body. He felt his motivation to struggle dissipate slightly, but not enough to make him quit. He resisted the impulse to gulp water. He lunged upward again, although he knew the motions were doing nothing to remove the waders. His last thoughts were of darkness, and pain in his chest, and a blurry drugged feeling that made it all bearable. He passed out without giving in to the urge to breath water, and became the first fatality on the Colorado River that morning.

7:25 a.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

The popping in Grant's ears told him the plane was descending. He looked out the window and noticed the landscape had changed dramatically; the mountain range was gone, replaced by endless red rock formations, canyons, and vertical walls. Down below he saw the blue of Lake Powell with its endless side canyons. It surprised him that Powell was so long and skinny. Although he had seen pictures before, his instinct kept painting the lake as much broader.

Wendy walked toward him and asked if he needed anything. "Are you done with that?" She reached for the empty cup and napkins.

He handed her the rest of the unfinished bagel. "Can you ask the pilot to fly low over the dam before he lands?"

"Sure." She turned and headed for the cockpit.

As the plane continued to descend, Grant looked down into some of the side canyons of Lake Powell. Many of the canyons stretched for miles away from the main channel. Occasionally a houseboat sat up on the shore, with what must have been either water ski boats or jet skis tied next to them; too small to know for sure. Here and there Grant spotted two or more houseboats in the same place. He tried to imagine the party that must have occurred the night before. "Get out of there," he whispered. "Turn on your radios." How on earth would they be able to warn everyone? They wouldn't. It would be impossible, he knew.

The right wing dropped as the plane began a gradual turn to the right. Grant could see the main channel of Lake Powell, a narrow expanse of water with rock islands rearing their heads out of the water. The Gulfstream had descended much lower and Grant could make out four people in a water-ski boat below them. The boat skimmed across the water below, headed for the other side of the channel, streaming a white elongated triangle behind, the wake stretching forever behind the boat.