Выбери любимый жанр

Оценить:

Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

Оглавление

They rounded a bend and Greg swerved suddenly hard left. Julie wasn't ready and was thrown out of her seat onto the floor, hitting her head on Greg's hip. Julie rubbed her head and started to get up and she noticed Erika had also been knocked on the floor. The boat slowed quickly.

"Sorry." Greg reached down and grabbed her arm to help her up. "That was close."

"What was close?" said Erika from her hands and knees on the floor behind them.

Greg pointed directly behind the boat, where they had just been. "Look."

A large boulder was visible just under the surface of the water directly behind them in the exact area where they had swerved. Julie could only imagine what would have happened if Greg had not avoided it.

Greg grimaced. "I'm going to need to slow down a little."

There were no arguments from the passengers as they climbed back into their seats. As they rounded the next bend, much slower, Greg pulled the throttle all the way back and the boat coasted, settling back into the water. Julie saw many of the protruding boulders scattered around the channel.

Greg looked over at Paul. "Hey, can you climb up on the bow and keep an eye out. I don't want to tear up the prop and I can't see how deep it is in front of the boat.

Paul climbed up on the bow. Julie and Erika stood and watched over the side of the boat. Rocks were everywhere, especially ahead.

"Hang on," Paul said, pointing off to the right. "It gets too shallow up there. Go over that way." He pointed to the left.

Greg reversed the transmission, backing up a few feet, and then headed where Paul pointed. That worked for a while, as Paul guided him through a shallow channel. Greg had to back up a few more times, but they kept going. When they rounded the next bend however, Julie wanted to puke. There were rocks all over the place, but worst of all, the water ended completely about two hundred feet ahead of them on a rocky beach newly exposed by the dropping lake.

Greg cursed, which was something he never did. "We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot."

"How far are we?" Erika asked from behind, her voice cracking in mid sentence.

Greg looked around. "We've got to be close. It can't be more than a couple more bends up the canyon." He bit his lip when he finished talking, something Greg only did when he was nervous. "Why aren't Max and Darlene here, waiting for us?"

Paul shrugged. "They should be here, unless they got a ride with someone else."

"Or unless something's wrong," Julie added. "We better park the boat and get going." She had an overwhelming feeling that they needed to hurry.

Her husband turned and looked at her. "We can't leave the boat Julie. Somebody's going to need to stay with it."

"Why?" Erika asked.

"The water's dropping too fast," Greg answered. "We'd get back here and find the boat high and dry. Then we'd never get out of here."

Julie looked back and forth between the other three. "Then who's staying? You want me or Erika to stay?"

Erika pointed back toward where they came. "I can't drive the boat back through that."

Julie realized immediately that she couldn't either. She was great with the boat out in the open, but in close proximity to anything, Greg always had to maneuver it. "It'll get trickier as the water drops." She looked at her husband. "You better stay with the boat."

Greg looked unhappy, but he nodded, having come to the same conclusion. She could tell he was worried, and that was enough for now.

"Besides Max and Darlene, what do we need to bring back?" Julie asked.

Greg counted on his fingers. "Truck keys, my wallet, your purse — "

"What about clothes?" Julie asked her husband.

He shrugged. "Don't try to carry too much."

She looked around the boat for a second, wishing she had a list.

He pointed back the way they had come. "I need to move the boat back out of here before the water gets any lower. You're going to need your shoes." He pointed at the rocks.

The comment made perfect sense. Julie reached down and grabbed her sandals. Not great for hiking, but they would have to do. She looked at Erika and Paul who both wore flip-flops.

"You guys be careful," Greg said. "And hurry."

She kissed him on the cheek then slid over the side into the water, holding her sandals up so they'd stay dry. Erika and Paul followed. As soon as they were away from the boat, Greg backed it away from them. Julie swam a few strokes toward a rocky strip poking out of the water, then climbed up on it and started walking toward the shoreline in front of them. When she looked back, the boat was already pointed the other direction, Greg was standing on the seat looking at the water in front, steering the boat with his left hand. She waved but he wasn't looking.

3:10 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David decided he liked Ralph. They'd been talking about ten minutes since the rafters returned to where the Germans were sunbathing. He was extremely friendly. Not like the stereotype of stiffness and arrogance he'd expected. Then again David didn't know why he'd expected Germans to act any different anyway. After all, how many had he actually met? He liked Anna too, even after she put her shirt on. She was much quieter than Ralph though, speaking only when spoken to. At first David guessed she didn't speak very much English, but after hearing her speak, she proved she was as fluent as Ralph.

Ralph had been asking questions about the rafting expedition. "So what will be the total duration of your river trip?"

"Thirteen days," said Afram.

"And where do you sleep?"

"There are campgrounds all along the river. We stop, setup camp, and sleep on the sand in our sleeping bags."

"Do you recommend the river trip?" Ralph wanted to know.

Afram looked around at the other rafters. "Yeah, it's great. Real relaxing. But if you want to go, you have to get reservations early, like a year in advance."

"How did you determine — "

"The internet." Afram interrupted. "We searched around until we found the deal we wanted."

David started to get up. "Why don't you and Anna come down to the rafts and we'll introduce you to Keller. Maybe he has a business card he can give you."

Ralph and Anna both agreed enthusiastically and the group, including their new friends, started back down toward the river.

3:15 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

The sound of jackhammers echoed off the canyon walls upstream from Hoover Dam. Todd's crews, one on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side, wasted no time before cranking up the air compressors in the industrial trucks, tossing air hoses down into the spillways, and starting work. They used jackhammers and impact drills to drill the deep holes into the concrete walls. Todd was down in the spillway pointing to where each hole should be drilled. If there was a science to where Todd had them drilling, Grant didn't recognize it. The holes seemed fairly random. They were focused around the bottom and sides of the wall, with a few vertical lines of holes in the middle, which Grant assumed, were to break up the big wall segments. Each hole was drilled at a slightly downward angle.

After forty-five minutes of the noise, the sounds stopped. The workers climbed a ladder out of the spillway. They unloaded boxes marked with a yellow triangle on the side of each box and the words "Danger — Explosives." Grant noticed the workers jockeyed the boxes around as if they were just normal building materials.

He pointed the boxes out to Todd. "Aren't you afraid that stuff will blow up when you throw it around like that?"

"Nah, this stuff is completely stable, even after we add the propellant, it doesn't get dangerous until you detonate it."

"So why the big warning labels?"

"Government mandates it. Some desk pilot that didn't know anything about explosives decided we better handle them like eggshells." Todd smiled at Grant. "The markings do tend to keep people away and make the psychos trying to steal it a little more visible."

The men handed the boxes down into the spillway. Then one by one they opened the corner of each box and poured what looked like a coarse white powder in each of the holes on the wall. Grant now understood the drilling had been aimed downward so the powder would go into the hole; it would have been harder to fill horizontal holes. It took over ten minutes to fill all the holes with explosives.

When the holes were full, they passed the remaining boxes up the ladder. The hard hats immediately passed down a few five-gallon gas cans and began pouring the liquid in the holes.

Grant again approached Todd. "Is that just gasoline?"

He shook his head. "Kerosene. It burns hotter than normal gas."

"What else do you put in there?"

"That's it. Just the detonators and we're done."

The workers passed the cans up and Todd passed one box, again marked as explosives, down into the spillway. The workers took the detonators and stuffed them in the holes. One guy worked behind them, linking the wires coming out of the detonators together. A longer wire was used to extend from the last detonator up the ladder to where Todd was standing. The box was passed up the ladder, the workers followed, and the ladder was pulled out of the spillway. The workers loaded the remaining materials in the truck and drove the truck out of the parking lot. Todd stood holding what looked like a transistor radio in one hand and the wires in the other.