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Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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CHAPTER 10

9:00 a.m. - Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona

Two news helicopters hovered over the Glen Canyon Dam, cameramen hanging out open doors. The first one had arrived from Las Vegas twenty minutes before. The second arrived a few minutes after that from a television station in Phoenix.

The opening in the top of the dam stretched over two hundred feet across, and close to three hundred feet down. Grant knew that the amount of water draining out of Lake Powell was now more than the flow of the Mississippi. As he watched, a house-sized piece of concrete broke away and fell into the canyon, a sight that was becoming normal at Glen Canyon. The resulting splash could only be imagined, since the canyon bottom had long since disappeared in the clouds of mist.

Grant felt helpless. What could he do? The dam would disintegrate with or without him there. Maybe downstream, where all the floodwater was headed, there was still something to be done. He turned away from the windows. "Brian, who did you talk to at Hoover? What were they going to do?"

Brian shook his head. "I can't remember who I talked to. We didn't talk about what they should do. I just told them we had a hole in the dam."

Grant hoped Fred Grainger was at Hoover. He nodded to the phone, "I need to talk to them. Can you get me the number?"

Brian rustled through the papers on his desk and handed Grant a sheet while holding his finger under the number for Hoover Dam. Grant dialed the number and someone on the other end picked up.

"Hello, this is Grant Stevens from the Bureau of Reclamation. I'm calling from Glen Canyon Dam. Is Fred Grainger there?"

The man on the other end asked him to hold. While he waited, he wondered how long it would take to get to Hoover.

"Hello, this is Fred." He sounded tired.

"Fred, Grant Stevens calling from Glen Canyon."

Fred's voice seemed to cheer up slightly "Grant. How are things up there? Who's in charge?"

Grant shook his head, even though he was on the phone. "Like it or not, I'm in charge. I'm all the Bureau could muster for this one."

Fred was silent on the other end for a moment. "What about the commissioner, and the VP's? Where's Archibald?"

"They're all on their way to Kenya for the symposium," Grant explained.

"Holy crap. So they don't even know?"

"I don't know. They may have been reached by now. Commissioner Blackwell's admin sent me here this morning. I'm sure she's been trying to contact them ever since." The phone went silent for a moment, and then Grant spoke again. "What are you guys doing at Hoover?"

Fred spoke tentatively. "Well, we canceled all tours for the day. We're using some of the tour guides to work traffic to turn people back."

Grant couldn't respond. He hoped that they were doing a lot more than just canceling tours. "What about your water? Aren't you dumping any?"

"Not yet," answered Fred. "But we started notifying — "

"Why not?" Grant yelled into the phone.

Fred stumbled with his answer. "We're trying. But I had to notify the dams downstream first, and Laughlin, so they could, you know, prepare. I can't just flood 'em out."

Grant couldn't believe it. They were worried about flooding downstream. In reality, flooding downstream was a legitimate worry. The problem was, it was going to be unavoidable. And the longer they waited, the worse the flooding downstream would be. How could he make them understand? "Fred, we are having a catastrophic failure here! The Glen Canyon Dam is breaking apart. You are about to get Lake Powell in your lap. I suggest you start dumping water as fast as you can."

Fred hesitated on the other end. "I'm not sure I can authorize that. My boss is gone too. Besides, we're limited on how much water we can release downstream. If I let too much out, it'll cause problems."

Grant felt the muscles in his neck tighten. "You have to authorize it, Fred. You're all we've got. If you don't start dumping, you won't be able to handle all the water and Hoover'll get topped."

The phone went silent. Hopefully Fred understood that even Hoover, the king of the big dams in America, could not survive topping. Sustained topping, even of concrete dams, would tear them apart in no time.

After some silence, Fred responded, "I figured the two spillways could handle most of it."

Grant shook his head again. "Think about it, Fred. You think your spillways'll be able to dump two years of river flow in one day?"

Fred didn't respond.

Grant spoke slowly. "Open the gates, Fred. Now. Get rid of as much water as possible."

"I'm going to need some kind of authorization," Fred said.

"It's just us Fred. As crappy as it sounds, I'm in charge." He continued. "I hereby authorize you to dump water. Hell, Fred, if it'll help, I'll order you to. Blame me. Just start opening everything you got."

Finally, he responded. "All right. I'll open the gates."

"Good Fred. I'll be there as soon as I can. Let me give you my cell phone number." Grant read off the number. "You can't be a hero on this one, Fred, but you can definitely be the goat. Do what you have to do."

Fred seemed anxious to get off the phone. "I'd better go."

"Fred, you guys control the dams downstream too, don't you? You need to open the gates at Davis and Parker too."

The next two dams downstream from Hoover were Davis Dam, which created Lake Mojave, and Parker Dam, which held back Lake Havasu. All flow control at Davis and Parker was automated and initiated from the Hoover Dam control center.

"You want me to dump all three dams?" Fred asked, sounding more scared than before. "That'll flood everything downstream."

"You will absolutely cause flooding downstream, Fred. But that's nothing compared to the flood that'll occur if one of the dams fails."

"All right. I gotta go."

Grant felt uncomfortable hanging up, but he knew he had to. "Okay, Fred, keep me posted."

Grant hung up the phone. Brian was waiting.

He pointed to Earl. "Earl's got something to tell you."

Earl spoke in his raspy voice, "I just got a call from the Feds. The L.A. office of the FBI just landed in Page. They want a meeting with me and you as soon as they get here."

The FBI wanted to talk to him? What could he tell them? He had enough things to worry about without having to deal with them. On the other hand, maybe they knew something already. Maybe they knew who did it. He saw no way to avoid the meeting. He nodded to Earl. "Fine, I'll be waiting."

He walked to the windows. It was hard to believe how fast the sight changed when he was away for a few moments. During the phone call to Hoover, Grant estimated that the cut in the dam had grown by twenty or thirty percent. Now, watermarks were visible on the canyon wall just upstream from the dam. The water level next to the dam had dropped almost ten feet. Farther upstream, there were no marks yet, meaning the water was dropping ten feet in just over a hundred yards.

He turned back to the group at the table. "How are the safety warnings going?"

Dan answered, "Downstream, the police have closed all access to Lee's Ferry and other roads down into the canyon. The rangers at the Grand Canyon have called tour helicopters in Vegas and asked for their assistance in flying through the canyon to warn hikers to climb to higher ground. I need to check with them to see how it's going."

Grant pointed upstream into Lake Powell. "What about there?" he asked.

Dan nodded. "Yeah, we called 'em."

Grant continued. "How come I don't see anybody? What if some boater wants to motor down by the dam? If a boat enters this canyon upstream from the dam, he'll get sucked through the hole."

The group looked around at each other.

Earl spoke up, "I guess we could park a boat about a mile upstream to keep people away."

Grant smiled, his first smile in a while. "Better make it a fast one. We don't want to see a police boat get pulled over either."

9:10 a.m. - St. George, Utah

The man shut off the motorcycle and leaned it on its kickstand, then climbed off. Being an infrequent rider, nearly three hours on the road had taken its toll. His inner thighs and buttocks ached and his lower back wasn't much better. His fingers resisted straightening, preferring instead to remain in a gripped position. He fumbled while trying to unfasten his helmet strap; after removing his gloves, he was able to complete the task. He stuffed the gloves into the helmet, and left the helmet on the seat of the bike, unlocked. After all, this was St. George, Utah.

Entering the restaurant, he shucked the sunglasses and stuffed them in his pocket. Not waiting to be seated, he headed straight to the bar where the TV was located. Finding a bar with a TV in St. George had been no easy task, especially one open this early in the morning. On his previous trips, he had stopped at almost every restaurant on St. George Blvd. before finally settling on the small cafe just off the exit from I-15, which had a small bar and a television.

He climbed on a stool and looked up at the TV. He was glad to be alone at the bar. Unfortunately, the TV was tuned to a sports channel showing baseball highlights. A fifty-ish woman with gray hair, who looked like she would rather be anywhere else but waiting tables, walked up with a coffee pot.

"Coffee?" She laid a menu down in front of him.