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Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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"I don't know Mr… What'd you say your name was?"

"Stevens. Grant Stevens." Grant could sense the guy's excitement and forgave him for not remembering his name. "Blaine, has anyone gone up there and inspected it yet?"

"They're up there right now, Mr. Stevens."

"Can you connect me with one of them?"

10:30 p.m. - Davis Dam, Nevada

Billy Watkins walked up to the edge of the crater on top of Davis Dam. His nostrils flared at the smell of something he didn't recognize. It reminded him of the air after a thunderstorm, only this air didn't smell as clean. It had the same charged quality, but it was mixed with dust and a chemical smell, some of which still floated in the air. Billy stood tall and lanky in his security uniform. He had ratty, unkempt blond hair that wandered out from under his security hat, and he sported a thin mustache. Billy tried to make up for the thinness by letting it grow longer, but this only resulted in the hairs tending to mat together and highlight rather than cover up the thinness.

He peered down into the hole, bracing himself, not knowing how stable the bank might be. He jumped when his cell phone rang. He saw the others, Dennis the night shift technician and the two day-shift techs, glance over at his ringing phone. He picked it up. "Hello?"

The man introduced himself as a Grant Stevens from the Bureau of Reclamation. He said he was calling from Hoover and that Blaine had given him Billy's cell phone number.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Stevens?"

"Blaine told me that you are inspecting the dam. What can you tell me about the damage?"

Billy looked around, noticing that the crater was concentrated on the dry side of the dam. The notch didn't go all the way through to the wet side, which would have been a disaster. "We just got up here," he said. He described, as best he could, the huge crater and how it didn't reach to the wet side of the dam. While he explained the situation to the guy on the phone, he saw Dennis run over and pick up something. Dennis waved to him, motioning him over to look at what he had just found.

"Hang on, Mr. Stevens. Looks like Dennis found something." Still clutching the phone to his ear, he skirted the perimeter of the crater over to where the notch would have extended to the wet side. Dennis held the ends of two green wires that stuck out of the ground. Billy relayed the find to Grant.

"So one of his bombs didn't detonate?" Billy heard Grant ask into the phone, a conclusion Billy had reached independently.

"Yeah, I'd say that's what happened," he responded.

"Is the dam stable? Does it need to be reinforced?" Grant asked.

Billy looked around. He was just a security guard. How was he supposed to know? He brought the phone down and asked Dennis, "Hey, this guy wants to know if the dam needs shoring up. He's wondering if it might be weak enough to fail as the water rises."

Dennis shrugged, looking down at the water. "Gee, I don't know. Then again, it wouldn't hurt anything to shore it up, would it?"

Billy relayed the message to Grant. "Mr. Stevens, none of us are qualified to make that decision, but why not shore it up?"

Grant responded immediately. "You're right, Billy. Let's do it. I'm coming down there. I'll be in touch." He gave Billy his cell phone number in case anything changed and hung up.

Billy looked back at the crater, and imagined for a moment what might have happened if the bomb had worked as planned. He looked down at the dry riverbed below the gravel dike holding back Lake Mojave. He tried to picture the potential destruction. He glanced downstream toward Laughlin. He knew the water would wipe out all of the buildings within his view. They had been lucky, very lucky.

10:45 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

Grant hung up the phone. Fred sat looking at him, having patiently listened to Grant's side of the phone conversation.

"So you're gonna go down there?" Fred asked.

"Yeah. We need to shore it up. We can't have it breaking when the water rises."

Fred pointed at him. "But what can you do?"

"That's where I need your help. Since Davis Dam is managed from here, where do you guys get the construction equipment, operators, and gravel?"

Fred sat back in his chair and shook his head. "Grant, that dam's old. I don't remember anybody messing with the dike for years. The biggest projects have probably been moving gravel around in the parking lot."

"Fine. Who'd you use to do the parking lot?"

Fred held out his hands. "Like I said, I don't know; probably some private company."

"All right, call the biggest construction company in Laughlin. Track 'em down and get 'em out of bed. Call the cops if you need to. Let's get them to the dam site as fast as possible. If you're not sure if there's any fill material available at the site, then tell 'em to bring some in dump trucks." Grant wondered if he'd missed anything. "Oh, and I need you to find a helicopter to fly me down there."

Fred took a moment and wrote down a few notes. "I know someone with a helicopter who can fly you down. When do you want to leave?"

Grant looked at his watch. "Immediately." Then he had another thought. "Wait, make that ten minutes. I have another phone call I need to make."

Fred hurried away, and Grant dialed the number from a note in his pocket. When the man answered, Grant spoke into the phone. "Hello, I'm trying to find Phil, of the FBI."

The special agent responded immediately. "Yes. This is Phil. Who's speaking, please?"

"Grant Stevens from the Bureau. I met you at the Glen Canyon Dam."

"Grant Stevens. Long time no talk. It has been a long day, hasn't it? How are things at Hoover, anyway? Did you think of something for my investigation?" The lifeless tone in Phil's voice told Grant that he hadn't rested either since it began.

"Let me guess — you guys haven't caught the bad guys yet, have you?"

"No, but we are working on a few leads." The agent didn't sound nearly as confident as his words.

"Well, I have another lead for you. They struck again at Davis Dam. Maybe twenty minutes ago."

The agent came to life, almost shouting in the phone. "How do you know it was him?"

Grant hadn't even considered it might be unrelated. "I don't. I just assumed."

Phil interrupted. "Where is Davis Dam anyway? How bad is this one?"

Grant was surprised Phil didn't know where Davis was. He was from California. "Davis Dam holds back Lake Mojave. It's just downstream of Hoover Dam. You know — Laughlin, Nevada."

"How bad is it?" Phil asked again.

"As far as the damage goes, we got lucky. They found two wires sticking out of the ground, next to the main crater. Looks like at least one of the bombs didn't detonate. If it had, we'd have another dam gone, another big flood."

The phone went silent for a moment. Grant guessed that Phil took a second to process the information. "Grant, where are you going to be? I'd like my men to look over the un-detonated bomb, before it gets disturbed."

"A helicopter's flying me down to Davis Dam in a few minutes. We're trying to arrange for some construction guys with some front loaders and bulldozers. We need to shore it up, before it really does fail. I haven't seen the site yet, so I can't promise that we'll be able to do our stuff without disturbing it."

Phil sounded desperate. "Look, I just need a few minutes with it. How soon are your guys going to be ready?"

Grant knew he couldn't risk it. "Phil, we're just trying to round up the machinery as we speak. It'll probably be an hour before anything happens. But, I can't hold 'em. If you want to see it, then get one of your men out of Vegas and helicopter him down there now. The risk is too great if I wait." Grant was amazed at the way he was bossing around the FBI.

"Okay, that's fair. I'll try to get a special agent out of Vegas, pronto." Phil took a second, then continued. "Oh, and Grant, thanks for the call. I think I'll leave a few agents here and move the investigation your way, where the trail's still warm. Are you going to be at Davis for long?"

"No. I'll only be there for a couple of hours, until I feel the dam's safe. Then I'm coming back here. We've got a lot of water heading our way, and I'm setting up a science experiment to see if we can contain it."

"All right Grant, we'll see you soon."

Grant heard the connection drop.

Fred was waiting. "The helicopter's on it's way here. Are you ready?"

Grant looked around and considered the question. "Ready as I'll ever be."

CHAPTER 26

11:15 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

Grant felt his stomach turn as the helicopter lifted. It wasn't that he was overly susceptible to motion sickness. But he felt strange just the same. It had been a long time since he'd flown in a helicopter, maybe ten years, and never in a work capacity for the Bureau of Reclamation.

As they gained altitude, the left seat offered a great view of Hoover Dam and the frantic construction project underway. He could see that progress on the sandbag dike continued unabated. The top of the dam was a beehive of activity. If nothing went wrong, it should be completed in time. Again, he had to fight the image of Hoover-Two not being high enough, the floodwater spilling over the top, washing away the sandbags. But he did feel it would be high enough. They'd done the math multiple times. Nevertheless, the image kept coming, tormenting his thoughts.