Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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She obeyed. They drifted through the darkness. The sound of the waterfall was getting much louder.

Becky pointed the flashlight downstream toward the noise. "Is that ―"

"FORGET THAT!" he yelled. "Shine the light at the shore. Try to find us someplace."

Keller expected Sam to defend her. He had been protecting her for the whole trip. But Sam said nothing.

"What was that over there?" It was Sam's voice.

Keller had seen it too. "Back to the right."

Becky moved the light and found a rock outcropping, jutting from the shore.

"We can make it!" Sam called out. "Paddle!"

Keller paddled, but he knew it was too far away. When they passed, they were more than three boat lengths from reaching it.

The waterfall noise had become much louder, and Keller knew the struggle was over for them. The currents were moving the raft farther into the middle of the channel. "Tighten your life jackets!"

The right side of the boat lagged slightly and he stroked twice to straighten it. He yelled to be heard over the water. "Okay, Becky, shine the light straight ahead!"

She did as instructed, and Keller saw the V shape of Granite Narrows less than fifty feet ahead. He yelled loudly to be heard. "RIGHT SIDE PADDLE! LEFT SIDE PADDLE!"

Keller felt the water accelerate the raft as they were sucked into the narrows. Shooting through the entrance, he knew it was the fastest speed he had ever achieved in a raft. Becky was screaming again. Keller felt the wind on his face and the water on his feet. His hair blew back. He yelled at the top of his lungs and paddled harder. The raft bucked, but stayed in shape.

Suddenly, there was nothing. They were falling. The raft pitched backwards and Keller fell out. He felt mist in the air. He felt fear. He felt exhilaration. He felt peace when he hit the water. Then he felt nothing.

9:30 p.m. - Las Vegas, Nevada

Like a million other Las Vegas residents, the Van Buren family was glued to the TV. Just like when the war started, or the Los Angeles riots broke out, or even the O.J. verdict, this was a time when all the networks had abandoned their sitcoms and concentrated on the news. To the people of Las Vegas, this was not just any news, either; it was their news. It concerned their river, the Colorado, the one that provided their electricity and their water. It also concerned their dam, Hoover, which could potentially fail under the onslaught of floodwater en route toward it.

The Van Burens were not what you would call an ideal family unit. They consisted of a dad and three boys. No mom — she had run out on them fifteen years before. The two older boys and their father worked security at the casinos. Like his older brothers before him, the youngest boy played linebacker on his high school football team. The Van Burens were big. And they were pissed off that a bunch of terrorists thought they could get away with what they had done to the Colorado River.

When the news showed another camera shot of the floodwater in the Grand Canyon, Jeremy, the oldest son, set down his Budweiser. "If only I could get my hands on those towel-heads." He clenched his hands around an imaginary neck, and pretended to violently strangle the life out of the poor dumb sucker.

Milt, the father, tilted his beer at his son. "And we would do it for free, wouldn't we boys?"

All three boys nodded enthusiastically.

The TV then showed an aerial view of Hoover Dam, zooming in on the sand bag dike being constructed. The Van Burens had already talked at length about this dike, and whether it would work or not.

The TV switched to the mayor of Las Vegas. "Citizens of Las Vegas and neighboring communities, we need your help."

All four Van Burens stopped talking about strangling terrorists and listened closely.

The mayor continued. "Engineers estimate that we will need close to a million sandbags to build up Hoover Dam high enough to retain the floodwater. That is more than construction companies in the area can manage, so I am calling on you, the people of the great city of Las Vegas, to help us. We need all able-bodied men and women to bring your shovels and help us fill sandbags. We have set up a dozen locations around the city."

A list of locations showed up on the screen. The Van Buren boys noticed that the second spot on the list was a huge sandy hillside only a couple of miles down the road.

"So if you can help, please come prepared to work. We ask that all volunteers bring their own drinking―"

Milt shut off the television. "Come on, boys." He finished his Budweiser and tossed the can on the floor. "We got work to do."

CHAPTER 24

9:35 p.m. - Davis Dam, Laughlin, Nevada

The skinny man drove his other white pickup truck up to the police roadblock at Davis Dam and stopped behind a sport utility vehicle. The emblems on this second truck were not from Jensen Industrial Elevator like he used at the Glen Canyon Dam. Instead, the truck had the official blue oval logos of the Bureau of Reclamation, including the images of a mountain range. The large emblems made the truck look very official.

Although the highway normally continued up over the crest of the dam, the police roadblock now stopped traffic a half mile from the dam itself. The combination of police cars blocking the road, wood barriers, and orange cones set in a semicircular pattern left no doubt that they were not allowing traffic over the dam, but instead wanted them to follow the cones around in a small semi-circle and head back the way they had come.

He saw a policeman approach an SUV in front of the truck and motion around the cones. The driver of the SUV rolled down her window and pointed up over the dam. The skinny man cracked his window to see if he could overhear the conversation. Even through the small opening, he felt the stifling hot air outside. He could hear the policeman clearly.

"Sorry ma'am, but the road is closed." The policeman pointed down the hill. "The other bridge is only a few miles down the road."

The lady responded with animated motions from her hands, but the skinny man could not quite hear what she was saying.

"Ma'am, I understand it's an emergency, but all evacuations are being routed over the other bridge. We're not allowing any traffic over the dam." The policeman stepped back to end the conversation and motioned the SUV to continue back down the hill.

The SUV moved forward abruptly, the driver obviously unhappy, but the vehicle followed the cones around and headed back down the hill.

The skinny man's heart pounded as he pulled the truck up to the policeman and stopped.

The policeman tried to wave him around, but he didn't move, instead rolling his window all the way down and leaning out. The policeman reluctantly approached the window. "Sir, you can't stop here. All traffic-"

The skinny man pointed down at the door emblem. "I'm with the Bureau. They sent me down here to run some tests."

The officer hesitated, and then motioned for him to pull the truck forward and off the side of the road. When he stopped, a second man wearing a generic security uniform approached him. He noticed that the security man had a small Bureau of Reclamation patch above the pocket of his uniform. It was show time.

The Bureau's security guard was a short black man who looked like he was trying to grow a beard but failing. He leaned in the window of the truck. "About damn time somebody showed up. We were beginning to think nobody cared."

This surprised the skinny man. They were actually happy to see him. He stumbled slightly with his words. "Well, uh… I've been up at Hoover. They sent me down here to run some moisture tests." He reached for the fake Bureau ID in his pocket.

The guard perked up. "What's going on at Hoover? We ain't heard nothin' down here except on the radio."

He retrieved his identification, but this guy didn't seem like he cared, so he held it closed in his hand. No sense showing it if he didn't need to. The question about Hoover needed answering, although the skinny man hadn't really been there. Fortunately Hoover had been all over the television all day. "Well, you probably know they've been scrambling to get ready for the flood water. They dynamited the spillways this afternoon." He had heard about the spillways on the news. That had been a brilliant idea to save Hoover, one he never would have thought of. The possibility that Hoover might survive could screw up his whole plan. Hoover's collapse was an important domino in the chain.

The guard continued, motioning with his hand at nothing in particular. "They told us about the spillways. Our water level's been rising ever since. What about the floodwater coming down the Grand Canyon? When do they expect it to get to Hoover? And what about that thing they're building on top of the dam? Do they really expect that to hold anything?"

The skinny man had been glued to the TV and had the same questions. When would the floodwater arrive? Would the sandbag dike hold? Building the dam higher with sandbags was another thing he hadn't thought of. He could not imagine it actually working, not with all the water headed toward it from Lake Powell. But what if it did?

He realized he was wasting too much time. "I know you have a ton of questions, but I'm kinda in a hurry. They want me to make some moisture measurements up on the crest." He pointed up. "This dam is gonna get a workout tonight and we don't want it to leak."

The guard stepped back away from the window. "How long you gonna be up there?"