Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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"Let's rest." Ryan said without looking back.

Sid didn't respond. But he immediately stopped and let Ryan help him out of his pack. With a sleeping bag, food, water, and stove, each pack weighed a ton. Sid leaned his pack against a rock then sat down and leaned back against it. He massaged his knee, but couldn't quite get his fingers deep enough to do any good.

"How much farther do you think it is?" he asked. Ryan always knew how far things were.

"Close. Maybe an hour." He looked at his watch. "We can have lunch at the trail head, filter some water, then head up Tanner. The farther we make it tonight, the better."

Sid closed his eyes and tried to wish himself a day into the future, up at the rim looking down, and the hike would be behind him. He opened his eyes to see if it worked, but saw he was still at river level. Maybe he was too greedy. He decided to try again, this time wishing only for a mule to carry him up the hill. Hanging from the mule, the knee would still hurt, but it would definitely felt better than hiking.

"Look at that helicopter!" Ryan said suddenly.

The mule disappeared. Sid opened his eyes. "Where?"

Ryan pointed upstream. "I didn't think they were allowed to fly that low."

The helicopter flew at an altitude of only a couple hundred feet above the water as it followed the river. Since the Escalante trail ran above the river, they were at almost the same level as the helicopter.

For a moment it looked like the chopper would fly right past the hikers, but it veered straight toward the two hikers. Ryan stood up defensively, something that Sid would have done too, if it weren't for the knee. Sid peered around the legs of his friend at the helicopter, which had stopped in the air and hovered less than a hundred feet away. They were close enough for Sid to see that both the Pilot and the other guy wore dark glasses and had dead serious looks on their faces. For a moment Sid wondered if the chopper had guns, because if it did, he and Ryan would be sitting ducks.

Not the pilot, but the other guy, spoke into a microphone. "The Glen Canyon Dam has collapsed upstream." The sound was so loud it made Sid want to cover his ears. "Hike immediately to higher ground. Try to get at least five hundred feet above the river, maybe more."

No one moved for a moment. The helicopter hovered. Ryan stood staring at it with his mouth open, and Sid sat peering around Ryan's leg. Was this a joke? He looked at the serious expressionless faces of the two men in the helicopter and decided it wasn't.

"Go now!" said the man. "The river is already rising and the water level will increase rapidly from here on out."

With that said, the helicopter veered off and dropped back into the canyon. They watched it go until it disappeared around the bend downstream. Sid had never seen the Glen Canyon Dam. He looked upstream and tried to imagine a wall of water. How tall was the dam? He couldn't remember, but something told him it was taller than two hundred, which meant he would be underwater if he didn't move. He noticed Ryan had turned and was pulling at the straps on his backpack. He untied the sleeping bag and tossed it aside.

"You just gonna leave that here?" Sid asked.

"Yeah. Screw it." Ryan responded. He tossed a frying pan and stove out as well. He stopped digging through his pack for a second and looked down at Sid. "Come On! Get up."

Sid argued. "Won't we need the bags tonight?"

Ryan pointed upstream. "Our first priority is to make Tanner without getting rimmed by the river. Sleeping in a warm bag is second priority."

Sid rolled over and stood, trying to ignore the knee, which didn't seem to understand the emergency. He reached for his pack, but Ryan grabbed it first and started tossing out anything that looked heavy, including his flashlight, pans, a coffee cup, sleeping bag, and ground cloth. The only thing safe was the water. Sid only watched. However, things had gone too far when Ryan readied to toss Sid's camping tool, the one that looked like needle-nose pliers except for all the accessories including straight blades, serrated blades, screw drivers, corkscrews, not to mention the black leather pouch. The tool had been a Christmas gift from his estranged father. Sid reached out and plucked it from Ryan's hands.

"No. I'll carry that." Sid clutched it close to his body with both hands.

Ryan looked at him for a second, then rolled his eyes. "All right, let's go."

Ryan grabbed Sid's pack and held it up for him, then pulled his own on. Ryan led and Sid followed. They were still buckling belts and straps as they walked. The knee hurt, but it felt much stronger carrying the lighter pack. Compared to before, the backpack seemed empty. Sid looked down at his knee and it thanked him. They walked quickly for almost five minutes before either spoke. Ryan actually jogged for a short stretch, but when he turned and looked back, Sid shook his head.

Ryan stopped and pointed ahead. "Look how high the river's getting."

Sid nodded, wondering if it had been that way for a while, and he hadn't noticed, or if it had increased in the last few minutes.

Ryan cocked his head and looked straight up the canyon walls, then back at the river, obviously agitated.

"What's a matter?" Sid asked.

"Before we get back to Tanner, Escalante goes right down by the river. It'll be underwater."

Sid remembered that. It would be impassable. He pointed at a ridge a few hundred feet ahead and above them. "What about that over there?"

Ryan hesitated and gritted his teeth. "Man I hate to go off trail. We could get rimmed, then what?"

Sid nodded. In the Grand Canyon, like any other steep rock canyon, it might look like you could just find your way back up, but in reality you would eventually get stopped by some vertical cliff that you just couldn't find a way around. There was a reason why the popular trails are so well used, and why there were so relatively few of them.

Sid shrugged. "We don't have any choice though, do we?"

Ryan grimaced. "Guess not." He started again, this time veering off trail and climbing upwards toward the ridge.

After a few moments of hiking over rocks, Sid's knee started to cry out again, making him wish he were back on the trail. Without slowing down, he reached down and rubbed it. Probably due to the combination of walking over rocks off trail, and rubbing his knee at the same time, Sid tripped. It wasn't a big fall. In fact he didn't actually go down. He caught himself with his hands. Unfortunately, he still held the pliers when his hand hit the rock. Which meant a nasty gash on two of the knuckles of his right hand.

"You okay?" Ryan asked.

Sid looked at his bloody hand, then at the pliers from his father, the ones that a few minutes before had been so important. He admired the way the leather pouch wrapped perfectly around it, and how the stitching gave it such a professional touch. He unclasped the top, and slid the pliers out, just a little, enough to feel the polished stainless steel handle. He glanced down at the river, then back at the ridge. "Yeah. Let's go."

Ryan turned and started walking.

Sid followed, tossing the pliers over his shoulder into the sagebrush.

11:25 a.m. - Las Vegas, Nevada

The man turned his motorcycle onto a street in the small neighborhood in East Las Vegas. Unlike the many newer developments around the outskirts of the city, this street felt neither clean nor organized. A dog, chained to the water spigot on the front of a neighbor's house, ran out and barked at the motorcycle. A worn semicircle area showed the reach of the dog's chain. A car up on blocks on the left side of the street, and a front yard enclosed in chain link fence on the right, told visitors that there was no homeowner's association in this neighborhood. No one was out in the street to wave at, not that he would have waved anyway.

The motorcyclist continued to the corner lot at the end of the street. He stopped in the driveway, found neutral, and put the bike on its stand. He let it run while he dismounted. His legs were stiff from the two-hour ride from Utah. After he stretched, he walked over and pulled up the garage door. Inside was another almost new white pickup. It looked almost identical to the one he left in Page. He returned to the motorcycle, mounted it, then drove it in the garage. After shutting off the engine and dismounting, he immediately pulled down the door to keep his neighbors from inspecting the contents of the garage.

He unbuckled his helmet and pulled it off. His hair was soaked in sweat from the long ride in the heat of the day. He ran his hands through the wet hair, and then scratched his scalp. He tossed the helmet on the seat and headed into the house, leaving the job of unpacking for later, or potentially never. He stripped off his shirt as he walked into the stifling house, and scratched his stomach and chest, which where also soaked in sweat. He walked through the kitchen, not noticing the clutter of unwashed dishes on the counters. He headed directly to a dusty television propped on what looked like a nightstand that belonged next to a bed. He grabbed a remote control and hit the power button while he backed away a few steps for a better view. He remained standing. The channel showed a news reporter in studio with a picture of the Glen Canyon Dam behind, before it was blown up. He knew if he waited, the channel would eventually show what he wanted, but he flipped the channel anyway. The next channel showed a reporter interviewing what looked to be a park ranger. He flipped again. All the channels were running the story, but the third channel showed the view he wanted, an aerial view of where the dam used to be.