Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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With a twist of the key, he started the truck and backed out. As he drove to the end of the line of parked cars, he was afforded one more glimpse of the canyon. He slowed. The view was awe-inspiring. He never tired of it. He wondered how different it would look in the morning. He had a long drive ahead, so he resisted the temptation to stay for an extended look. Instead, he turned and headed north toward the exit.

Tonight would be a marathon. There was much to accomplish. Many things could go wrong. If everything proceeded as planned, the Grand Canyon would never be the same. He would do something that environmentalists would talk about for decades. The Colorado River would run wild in the canyon once more. His spine tingled at the thought. Exiting the parking lot, he accelerated up to speed.

5:30 p.m. - Denver, Colorado

Grant walked in from the garage, slammed the door, and threw his briefcase on the couch. He was unbuttoning his shirt as he walked down the hallway toward his bedroom.

His wife Melanie poked her head out of their son's room. She looked concerned. Doors were almost never slammed at the Stevens' home. "What's wrong?"

Grant gritted his teeth. "Guess."

She looked confused.

"What've I been preparing for for weeks?" he added.

Her face showed shock. She held both her hands up to her face. "Kenya?"

He didn't say anything. He walked past her into the bedroom where he removed his shirt and threw it at the hamper.

She followed him into the bedroom and put her hands on her hips. "What happened? They can't just take that away from you. What about your vacation?" She reached out and put a hand on his arm.

He grabbed a worn t-shirt from a drawer and pulled it over his head. "Oh, the Bureau'll reimburse my personal expenses for the vacation."

She shrugged. "Well, at least…" Her voice tapered off.

At 38, his wife Melanie was still a beautiful woman. He could see the compassion in her eyes. Her face, always her greatest asset, had stayed young over the eighteen years of marriage. Her eyes twinkled, she had perfect teeth, and you had to look close to see the grays mixed in with her blond hair.

She grabbed his shoulder. "Who decided this? Is this Howard's doing?"

"It's hard to tell." He kicked off his shoes. "He's the one who told me." He talked while removing his slacks and replacing them with a pair of worn Levis. "He told me Roland decided that Howard couldn't be in charge with everyone else gone. Howard said they made him take vacation."

She smiled and reached up to hug him. "So they're leaving you in charge? That's good. Isn't it?"

Grant glared at her. "In charge of what? That's the whole point of Kenya. There's nothing to do here." He pointed east as if Kenya were only a couple miles away. "There are going to be engineers there, real engineers with real projects. I was going to work with the Chinese from Three Gorges." He pressed his fingers into his forehead, rubbing up and down.

She reached around his waist and pulled him close. "Look, I know how disappointed you are." She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "But this could end up being a good thing for you."

He rolled his eyes at his wife―the eternal optimist.

She jerked him closer and raised one eyebrow, mimicking John Belushi. "They sent Howard away so he wouldn't bother you. Maybe they're on to him."

Grant shook his head. "Maybe it was Howard's idea and he's blaming it on Roland." He pulled away from her and headed back toward the family room.

She followed, still talking. "Why don't you call Roland and find out?"

He stopped and turned around. "Yeah, right."

"Why not?" she asked.

His wife thought he could fix anything just by talking to the right person. She had been out of the workforce too long. In business, some things were intentionally not communicated. "I'm not calling Roland."

He walked into the family room and grabbed the remote, then headed for the lazy-boy. After pushing back, he closed his eyes. Melanie wanted him to get rid of the chair, but over the years it had worn into the exact shape of his body. The feeling was one of comfort and security. In that chair, he could deal with anything life threw at him.

"Well, one advantage," Melanie said carefully, "is that now we can use the week of vacation for the family."

The last thing he wanted to talk about was where to vacation instead of Africa. "Whatever," he responded without opening his eyes.

"Isn't there someplace else you want to go?"

Why was she doing this to him? He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Hmm. How about we go to Australia, spend some time in the outback checking out crocodiles? We could hit the Great Barrier Reef while we're there. Hey I know, how about Mount Everest? We could fly into Nepal, then―"

She recoiled. "I'm trying to be serious."

"So am I," he retorted, a little too aggressively.

"Well, if you're going to act like…" She turned and walked into the kitchen.

Grant felt guilty for snapping at her. It wasn't her fault. She was just trying to put a positive spin on it. He knew he should chase after her and apologize, but he didn't have the energy. Not now. Besides, getting up out of the chair at the moment was unthinkable. He vowed to make up with her later. But at that moment he needed to be left alone.

He reclined and glanced around the room. He guessed it looked like any other middle-class TV room in Denver. A thirty-two inch TV sat in the cabinet, not a big-screen. The couch reclined, but the kids had broken the left side, so it slouched slightly. The veneer coffee table was nice enough, but didn't match the oak entertainment center, something that bothered his wife, but Grant couldn't care less about. Everything about the room was unremarkable.

When he thought about it, he realized he didn't know a single person who'd been on an African safari. That would have been something different, something special. Now what? Would they spend a couple days camping and roasting wieners instead? In Africa, he had a chance to see an elephant in the wild, or a cheetah. Now, if he was lucky he might see a jackrabbit. Then there was work. Talking to the Chinese engineers could have made up for a year of paperwork. Now what? For all the excitement he expected in the next couple of weeks, he could manage the Bureau from his recliner.

He leaned back in the chair and aimed the remote at the TV. The channel came up on some court TV show. He flipped through various channels, seeing nothing that interested him. He passed a channel showing an expanse of water he recognized. He went back to it. It was Lake Powell. The camera panned across the horizon of the lake, showing the red rock cliffs surrounding a large bay. It zoomed slightly and focused on a large rock formation that Grant recognized as Castle Rock, which separated Wahweap Bay from Warm Springs Bay. Two houseboats meandered through a shallow cut between the two bays. He turned up the volume so he could hear the woman reporter.

"The below-normal spring runoff in the west has contributed to what was already a multi-year drought."

The camera, again panning the horizon, zoomed quickly to a narrow rock channel snaking back and forth. A water-ski boat motored next to the vertical rock cliffs.

"As you can see, water levels at Lake Powell are well below normal."

The reporter referred to a bleached white band surrounding the lake. The contrast between the red rock and the white band left no doubt as to where the water levels had previously been. Grant didn't remember ever seeing the lake that low.

"Water allocation, already a problem on the Colorado River, has become more complicated."

The camera angle, obviously shot from a helicopter, showed the upstream side of the Glen Canyon Dam. In one fluid motion the helicopter flew over the crest, allowing viewers to look straight down the face of the six-hundred-foot dam. The next camera angle showed the dam with Lake Powell stretching for miles behind it. The Glen Canyon Bridge, a modern, silver-arched structure just downstream from the dam, stretched across the top of the screen, and framed the view perfectly.

While working at the Bureau for the last eighteen years, Grant had traveled to the Glen Canyon Dam many times. Like every civil engineer, he loved to look at it. However, in spite of his many visits, he had never actually been on the lake. His wife wanted to know where to vacation; maybe Lake Powell was the answer. They could rent a houseboat and get lost on the lake for a week. Of course he didn't have a ski boat or any equipment, but he supposed you could rent all that stuff.

The reporter continued. "Although the Glen Canyon Dam is equipped with eight huge turbines, capable of generating enough power for over a million homes, low water has limited releases from the dam, forcing the Bureau of Reclamation to shut off four of the turbines. This has added to the power shortage in the west, just when households need it the most, during the air conditioning season."

Grant tried to remember the name of the new guy in charge of operations at Glen Canyon. Wasn't he scheduled to be at the symposium in Kenya? Maybe he could take Grant's spot at the Three Gorges discussion. Gee, maybe he could even take Grant's place on the safari.

The TV showed an aerial shot of another huge concrete dam, which Grant immediately recognized. "Similar circumstances exist downstream at Lake Mead and Hoover Dam — water levels and power output are both below normal."