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Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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"I appreciate it, Grant."

Grant gave Phil the number of a woman in the Denver office. Since it wasn't even 7:00 a.m. in Denver, he told Phil where she lived, so he could call information if necessary. He added her supervisor's info just in case.

When Grant hung up the phone, Fred stood nearby waiting. "Did he take your advice?"

"Yeah, kind of. I recommended some big stuff like the National Guard. But that's over his head. He'll need to bring in his superiors."

Fred smiled. "You want to go for a walk again?"

Grant stood, stretched, and tried to stop a yawn that wouldn't quit. "Sure, what's up?"

"The spillways are now full." Fred looked like a kid with his first bicycle. "You wanna go look at 'em again?"

Disaster or no disaster, Grant wanted to see them as much as Fred did.

"Let's go."

6:15 a.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

With the sun having just risen above the horizon, a large group followed Grant and Fred out to the Nevada Spillway, including Governor Jenkins and Commissioner Blackwell and their entourages. A man and a woman with cameras and a separate guy with a video camera had materialized from nowhere and joined the caravan. Grant noticed that there were two helicopters hovering over the dam shooting pictures of the sandbag dike. Both of them, a white one and a blue one, had logos of news organizations stenciled on the sides.

When they reached the dike, Grant saw that a makeshift stairway had been built with sandbags, up one side and down the other, to facilitate the crossing. He wondered whose idea it had been. The large group meandered over the wall and through the parking lot toward the Nevada spillway. Grant noticed that the water had risen to within a few feet of the top of Hoover Dam, burying the fifty foot white band of rock normally seen around the perimeter of Lake Mead. A few more feet and it would flood the parking lot where they stood.

As they walked closer, the rumbling noise increased until it vibrated the ground. When they reached the chain link fence surrounding the spillway, Grant saw the water now higher than the fifty-foot-diameter spillway tunnel. The water level was slightly lower near the tunnel itself, dropping a few feet, as the spillway was taking the water faster than it flowed down the channel toward it.

The volume of water movement was intimidating. Commissioner Blackwell was holding the fence so tight that his knuckles were white, one foot next to the fence and one noticeably behind, in case a quick exit became warranted. He looked shaken, as if he had just seen a ghost.

Governor Jenkins smiled and talked to someone near him, but his high eyebrows showed that he too wasn't completely comfortable.

"You're finally looking at 200,000 cubic feet per second," yelled Fred from a cupped hand. "More than Niagara Falls."

Grant only nodded, gripping the fence tightly himself.

"These spillways have waited almost seventy years to show their stuff." Fred's voice faltered with emotion, and his eyes looked misty.

An incredibly loud screeching noise made the whole group jump and then cover their ears. A large whirlpool had formed above the spillway tunnel and the noise continued for several seconds before it and the whirlpool both disappeared.

After the group regained its composure, the photographers moved everyone away from the governor, then took some pictures of the governor with the spillway behind. The guy with the video camera unfolded a tripod and another person held up a poster-sized card. The governor buttoned his coat and checked his tie. A small microphone was clipped on the governor's lapel. Grant figured that the governor was going to make a statement.

Sighting the large group, and sensing something was up, the two news helicopters moved from the crest of the dam over near the spillway. Both had tethered cameramen hanging out open doors. They jockeyed for position in the small space.

With wind blowing his hair and the loud rumbling, the governor began. "It's just after 6:00 a.m. at Hoover Dam. As we speak, Lake Mead rises at a staggering rate as it combines with the water from the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. Since the tragedy upstream yesterday, the water has traveled over three hundred miles, having passed through the Grand Canyon." The governor motioned to his side. "Behind me is the Nevada spillway."

The governor hesitated as some wind buffeted him. The noise had also increased, not from the water, but from the helicopters. Grant felt a brief wet spray and looked up. Both helicopters had come in much closer, too close. He couldn't believe they dared fly so close together. Their rotors seemed only a few feet apart.

"Get them out of here," the governor yelled, waving his arms.

Most of the group reacted and waved frantically at the choppers. Both aircraft hesitated, as if waiting for the other to move first, but then gradually moved a short distance away.

The governor brushed at his hair, then quickly regained his composure. "Behind me is the Nevada Spillway. It is mirrored by its counterpart over on the Arizona side. As a tribute to the many thousands of dedicated men who risked their lives in the construction of this dam, these spillways are now running at full capacity for the first time ever. Only in the spring floods of 1983 have these spillways ever been needed, and then at only a small fraction of what you see now. I'm told the current flow is approximately 200,000 cubic feet per second, each." He emphasized the last word with a smile. "Together, they are passing almost forty times the normal flow of the Colorado River."

"Over the next few hours, these two spillways will likely save Hoover Dam, the first great dam in the world. They will allow us to move the floodwater downstream in a controlled manner."

Grant wondered how the governor could consider forty times normal flow a controlled manner.

The governor continued. "I regret that you cannot all come here yourselves and see this amazing spectacle. Unfortunately, the situation precludes that possibility."

"As your governor, I would like to personally thank all of you who heeded last night's call for volunteers to fill sandbags. Without you, our efforts to save Hoover Dam would surely have been in vain."

The governor's face became very serious. "The next few hours at Hoover Dam will be critical. The water will shortly rise above the original structure and will test the integrity of our sandbag extension. As your governor, I commit to make every attempt to keep you informed. May God be with us." He remained still for a moment, then drew his finger across his throat.

Many in the crowd clapped, Grant among them. Another whirlpool formed and repeated the loud screeching noise, but this time the group knew what to expect, and as quickly as it formed, it disappeared.

Roland worked his way over to Grant. "Pretty amazing, isn't it?"

Grant nodded. "Incredible."

"What'd you think of the governor's speech?"

"Pretty good, in spite of the helicopters."

The commissioner looked back out over the spillway. "About this morning." He looked back at Grant. "I was caught off guard."

Grant knew Roland was struggling, but still didn't want to let him off the hook. He let it drag out for a while, and then smiled at him. "You should be sorry."

Roland smiled back. "Don't get cocky, Stevens. Only time will tell if your little sandbag dam will hold."

But Grant knew that if the dam extension held, as he expected it would, he would have saved all of their butts. And he figured Roland knew that too.

6:20 a.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David felt Judy stretch. Although he was not asleep and in fact had not slept all night, he kept his eyelids closed and chose not to stir.

Judy sat up and then jerked savagely. "Oh my…"

"What's the matter?" Afram asked.

David and Afram sat upright to see what Judy had reacted to. David gasped and pulled himself away from the edge. The sun was just beginning to rise up in the top of the canyon, providing barely enough light to see below. During the night, the floodwater had receded dramatically, dropping hundreds of feet. They were now stranded on a ledge with no way to go either up or down.

David looked below and saw all the places where they had climbed the night before as the water pushed them higher and higher on the canyon wall. He couldn't help but scan downstream to see if his friends had somehow landed before reaching the narrows. He saw no raft or sign of them.

"Now what?" Afram asked.

Judy craned her head upward. "We might be able to — "

"We're not going anywhere," David said. "We're staying right here."

Judy pointed above. "If we could just make it up to that ridge, we might be able to traverse — "

"Judy, if we fall, we'll be dead. We're almost three hundred feet in the air."

She looked ready to argue. "Then how are we going to get out of here?"

Afram pointed down at the river. "There will be search teams looking for survivors. They'll find us. We'll just have to wait."

David nodded in agreement.

"What if they don't?" she asked.

"They have to," David answered. "Because we can't get down."

CHAPTER 30

7:00 a.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

At 7:00 on the dot, Phillip Sutherland and a dozen other FBI agents arrived in the Hoover Dam visitor center. The agents quickly claimed a small room as their own, setting up a folding table and chairs. It seemed like every time Grant saw Phil, different agents accompanied him. He wondered briefly where they had sent Special Agent Williams, who had inspected the bomb the night before at Davis. She was probably out looking for evidence on the California Aqueduct bombing.