Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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He thought about it. "I don't know. A half hour, forty five minutes." He started to roll up his window, then lowered it again. "Hey, just so you guys know, to take my measurements, I'm gonna be drilling a couple of holes in the top of the dam. I need to make sure they're not seeping."

The guard smiled. "You the boss."

He put the truck back in gear and headed up the road. That had been too easy. He couldn't believe it. They had actually been hungry for news and interaction. That had worked to his advantage. He had not even needed the fake ID.

As the road wound its way to the top of the dam, he looked across and saw how well the dam was lit up. Too well, he thought. He was going to be out in the open. If somebody watched too closely, they'd figure out what he was doing. The road reached the crest of the dam and he drove across it.

Lights along the dam spilled out over the water and gave him a view of the water level. It had risen much higher than he remembered from his scouting missions. For the level to rise this fast, Hoover must be dumping an incredible amount of water. It didn't matter, though. It all worked into his plan. He needed Hoover to dump enough water to rupture the gravel dam he was standing on. Not that he could count on the water itself to do the trick. No, he was going to give it a little head start.

He drove to the middle of the dam and stopped in an area between two of the floodlights. The area wasn't dark, but it was the best he could do. He had already shut off the engine before he looked around, and had another idea. He fired the truck up again, and turned it around so it faced the other direction; the truck bed was now hidden from the security guards below. He opened the door and let the wave of hot desert air envelop him. He hopped out of the cab and stood for a moment staring out over the water of Lake Mojave. The black water stretched beyond the reach of the dam's floodlights until it disappeared somewhere in the distance. He couldn't help but think about upstream at Hoover Dam, and the imminent flood. To him, the thought of the water coming was good. It was a satisfying feeling. In fact, he wanted the flood to hurry.

In preparation, just like when he scouted Glen Canyon, he'd listened for hours on a scanner to determine who was who and how they expected legitimate visitors to check in. And, like Glen Canyon, if you knew the right words, submitted the right paperwork, and dropped the right names, they let you in. That would change in the near future after they analyzed the events of the next couple of days. In fact, the policy would no doubt change after this particular visit. This would be his last freebie and he needed to make the best of it.

He walked to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate. He grabbed a long tool shaped much like a jackhammer, which he dragged from the truck. The tool had an auger where the bit on a jackhammer would be. Holding the tool by both handles, at about eye level, the auger could drill a six-inch hole five feet deep. He'd told the guard that he'd need to drill several holes in the dike to do the moisture absorption tests, so he didn't expect to raise any suspicion with the tool.

He pulled the crank on a small compressor in the back of the pickup and it came to life. He plugged the huge drill into the compressor and lugged it over to the waterside of the dam. He had to lift the tool over a waist-high cinder block wall that bordered the upstream side of the dam. He chose a spot as far from the boulders as possible, braced and pulled the trigger. The auger spun against the hard ground before finally biting in and began its slow drop into the roadbed. Gravel piled up around where the auger spun in. A couple of times the tool jarred his arms, almost tearing the handles out of his hands, but he was braced for it, and it caused him no problems. He had already practiced with the tool and knew what to expect when the drill hit rocks.

The oversized drill chugged deeper until the auger buried itself and the handles almost rested on the ground. He released the trigger, flipped a switch to reverse the auger, depressed the trigger again, and the drill climbed back out of the hole. Shutting it off, he lifted it carefully away, so as to not knock gravel back in the opening. He admired his work for a moment, but didn't tarry, knowing full well the first one was the easiest. He hefted the drill back over the wall onto the asphalt road. He lined it up with the previous hole, so he would have a line of holes from the wet side of the dam to the dry side. He pulled the trigger again, hoping there wasn't a concrete pad under the asphalt. The drill spun harmlessly for several seconds on the hard road before it finally grabbed and started sinking.

When he rented the tool, they had told him that highway construction teams used the same tool to bore through pavement all the time, and that he could dig through asphalt all day long as long as he didn't hit any concrete. He watched closely as the black debris came up out of the opening around the bit. Suddenly the debris changed to gray dust and gravel and he knew he was past the asphalt. No concrete pad. He had just relaxed his hold on the drill when it jammed, jerking his arms savagely before an override shut it off. Maybe there was concrete down there. He pushed the reset button and pulled the trigger again, but it jammed again. He reversed it, then tried once more. Same result. A feeling of failure washed over him and he wondered if this whole exercise had been in vain. What had ever made him believe he could succeed?

He gave up on that spot and reversed the drill, letting it climb out of the hole. He picked a different spot only two feet away. He let it rip again, and waited while the drill did its thing. He wondered if he would have the same result, but this time the auger kept spinning. It jerked hard a couple of times, but kept going until the hole was done. He wiped sweat off his brow. Working in the intense heat was suffocating. He looked out at the water of Lake Mojave and briefly considered taking a dip to cool off, but instead he moved the drill to the next target. He repeated the process three more times, until a line of five holes stretched across the dike.

With his arms now shaking, he lifted the tool back into the truck and used his shirt to wipe more sweat off his face and neck. But the motion was a waste of time since his shirt was soaked too. He rummaged in the truck and grabbed another gadget, one he'd designed himself. It included a two-foot-long plastic tube, with a bucket on the top. At the top of the tube, right under the bucket, he'd mounted a ball valve. He opened another bucket and poured white pellets into his tool, filling the bucket on top. The substance, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, was the same as he had used at Glen Canyon. He carried the gadget over to the first hole, put the bottom of the tube in the hole, opened the ball valve, and felt the fertilizer drop into the hole. He shook it to get it all out. It took four more trips before all five holes were filled. Next he used the same tool to put diesel fuel into all five holes. He was almost finished.

He looked past the pickup toward the police roadblock, but the police were busy with a line of almost ten cars. Opening the truck's passenger door and reaching behind the seat, he retrieved five small cylinder-shaped devices with wires hanging out of them. He had designed these detonators himself, just like the ones he used at Glen Canyon. With a converted broom handle, he tucked a detonator in each hole with the wires hanging out. Holding the wires, he kicked the loose gravel back in the hole, stopping occasionally to use the broom handle to tamp the gravel. With all five holes done, he took a roll of wire out of the truck and connected all five sets of wires together. A small motorcycle battery and a timer completed the project.

He loaded the truck and shut the tailgate. He checked the guard shack one more time, and seeing nothing, bent down to set the timer. He'd planned on ten minutes, scripting the whole scenario, but his subconscious kept nagging him to do fifteen. He compromised at twelve. He pressed the button and a small red light illuminated while the digital timer started counting down from twelve. He immediately stood and walked around the truck. As he came around the back, he tripped on something. He looked down and saw the wires. Damn! With the timer still running, he quickly checked the connections between the five holes, making sure all five sets of wires were still connected. They looked fine.

He jumped in the truck, hoping it would start. Thankfully, it did, and he drove back along the dike. It took all his self-control to resist the urge to floor it and speed down the hill. When he finally pulled up to the roadblock, he could feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck. The Bureau guard stepped over to talk. The man had hoped to get waved through.

"What'd ya find out?" the guard said, looking in the back of the truck.

"Dry as a bone, just as I expected."

This seemed to relieve the guard. "I guess that's good news. This dam's likely to get a good work out for the next couple days with all the water headed our way."

The skinny man had a hard time not rushing his words. "Yeah. You know it."

"So ya think it'll hold?" asked the guard.

For some reason, the question caught him off guard. No, it wasn't going to hold. It would explode in eight and a half minutes and counting. For a moment his brain told him to warn the guy, tell him to get away as fast as he could, to not look back. He felt like screaming, "There's a bomb, you idiot! It's going to blow! Get out of here!" But he didn't. Instead, he responded in a calm, clear voice that surprised even him. "Yeah, it'll hold. No problem. But there's going to be a ton of water barreling out of those spillways."