Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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But this might be different. The lower Colorado River hadn't flooded for over seventy years.

Leaving Laughlin and the casinos behind, only desert remained. In fact, aside from green vegetation on the sides of the river, the valley seemed almost lifeless. There were places where the river had broken out and flooded some of the dry lowlands. Grant wondered if it would make a difference. Would long-dormant flower seeds germinate and sprout, and transform the extended banks into something beautiful? Not likely. True, in the early 1900's, before Hoover Dam, the river flooded the valley every spring. But Grant didn't recall hearing about any fields of flowers, only the pictures of flooding and devastation.

"How many miles to the next city?" Agent Williams asked.

Shauna responded with no hesitation. "It's just under thirty miles to Needles. You can see it ahead, over there." Grant couldn't see her pointing, but he could see the small town.

"Lake Havasu is just beyond, through that small mountain range," Shauna said.

"Tighten your belts and we'll be there in a quickie." Lloyd smiled and Grant felt the helicopter tilt forward and accelerate.

Looking down, it was easy to see the river was higher than normal. In many sections it had spilled over the sides and made small lakes on either side of the channel. Grant saw many places where riverside homes were surrounded by water. He saw water flowing over the top of a bridge in Needles and water on many of the streets close to the river. There were people all over the place, which meant the evacuation order had been largely ignored. After Needles, the damage was less obvious. Grant noticed that the BNSF railroad had given up, and water had breeched their sandbags and buried the tracks just south of the city. He shuddered at the thought of unburying and repairing the rails when the flood was over.

When the river ducked into Topock Gorge, Lloyd followed it, causing Grant to clutch the seat again. After a few minutes the water spread out into a beautiful canyon of jagged red rock. Lake Havasu, like Lake Mojave before, showed no signs of flooding or disaster. The water looked turquoise and calm. No boats were visible on the north end of the lake, but Grant looked ahead and saw a few farther south defying the warnings.

After a few minutes, Lloyd laughed loudly. "Check out those guys in the red boat at three o'clock."

Grant scanned for a second to see what Lloyd was talking about, while Lloyd and Agent Williams laughed in his earphones. A long red and white boat pulled two water-skiers while being chased by a police boat with blinking lights. From a distance it looked like the tanned bodies, both skiing and in the boat, were naked from the waist up, but as they got closer, he saw that the girls wore swimsuits, just incredibly tiny ones.

"Whatever it takes to get smooth water," said Lloyd.

Ahead, Grant could see a growing city spreading up from the east shore. "Is that Parker?"

Lloyd answered. "No, that's Havasu City, Arizona. The city of Parker is a couple of miles downstream from the dam."

Grant nodded. He had never been to Lake Havasu before and was amazed at how isolated the turquoise lake was, surrounded on all sides by the red rock cliffs.

He heard Shauna's voice in the headphones. "If you look over on the right you can see pipes going up over that hill, and the pumping station on the edge of the lake. That's the California Aqueduct. That's the one that was blown up this morning."

The pipes were larger than Grant imagined. And the hill they went up was tall and steep. He guessed the amount of electricity to pump the water up the hill wasn't trivial. And with that much water, no wonder the bombed aqueduct made a huge mess.

Lloyd looked over at Grant. "When did that happen? I hadn't heard about that."

"It was a few hours ago, just before the sun came up."

"It looks okay to me," Lloyd said.

Shauna explained, "It was out in the desert about twenty or thirty miles from here. The flood made a big lake before they finally shut off the pumps."

"You want to go check it out?" Lloyd asked, hopefully.

Grant thought about it. The aqueduct had supposedly torn up the hillside and flooded acres of desert. He would like to see it too, no doubt about it. But they were far too late to do anything. There were more pressing issues at the dams downstream.

"No, it's out of our way. Besides, we need to get to Parker. We may still be able to accomplish something there."

Lloyd's mouth twitched slightly, which Grant thought might've been an indication of his disappointment. But it happened too fast to be certain. Up ahead, Grant could now see the concrete structure of Parker Dam. He had a feeling that there would be plenty of action there.

CHAPTER 32

11:00 a.m. - Parker Dam, California — Arizona Border

As the helicopter approached Parker Dam, Grant could see the place was crawling with police. Agent Williams had called ahead so the helicopter was expected. However, the entire roadway on top of the dam was covered with police cars and they had to hover for a few minutes while some of the cars were moved to make room for the helicopter to land.

Parker Dam, compared to Hoover and Glen Canyon, seemed unimpressive. The concrete dam rose only 85 feet from the river below, and the superstructure another 60 feet above the roadway. But Grant knew looks were deceiving. When building a concrete arch dam, it was necessary to dig through all the substrate until bedrock was reached, to anchor it. In the 1930's when Parker was built, the Bureau of Reclamation dug 320 feet down before hitting bedrock, making Parker the deepest below-ground dam in the world, with almost seventy five percent of it underground.

As soon as they landed, Lloyd killed the engine, and the rotors started winding down. Grant turned and looked at Shauna. "What time was the water level supposed to peak here?"

"11:45," she said with no hesitation.

"All right, that gives us 45 minutes. See if you can find out who's tracking the water levels, and let's get an update on how soon it'll reach the top of the spillways."

"Where are you going to be?" she asked.

"I'll be over by the spillways themselves to see if there's anything we need to worry about. I'm certain that these spillways haven't been used in years, and never at full capacity."

Agent Williams spoke from behind. "I'm going to go talk to the police for a few minutes, then I need to check in with Phil. I'll find you later."

Lloyd was looking at Grant. He was hurrying to shut down all the electronics. "You mind if I hang with you for a while?"

Grant laughed. It was obvious the pilot was excited to be in the middle of everything. "No. Come on." Grant jumped out of the helicopter.

No sooner had Grant walked out from under the still spinning rotors than a short, fat man appeared to greet him. The man wore a white polo shirt with the words Parker Dam embroidered above the pocket. The pocket itself sported three pens in a plastic pocket protector. He rested his pudgy arms on his extended stomach and his black slacks barely reached down to the tops of a pair of black tennis shoes. The guy wore thick glasses and attempted to hide his nearly bald head by combing his hair across it. In spite of the sunny location, this man had no tan whatsoever. Grant guessed he was in his early fifties.

The man reached out with one of the pudgy arms. "Mr. Stevens? Hi. I'm Charlie Jorgensen. I've been expecting you. Fred Grainger called from Hoover and said you were coming."

"Nice to meet you, Charlie." Grant noticed as soon as he released the handshake that Charlie returned the arm to its resting place on his stomach. An awkward moment of silence ensued as Charlie just stood looking at Grant with a weird smile on his face.

"Well, how about you show me the spillways?" Grant started to walk around him before the man suddenly snapped out of his trance and hustled alongside.

"Sure, Mr. Stevens. Right over this way." He motioned to where Grant was already headed.

Unlike Hoover, Parker's spillways did not rely only on the water levels to operate. There were huge gates that opened upwards to allow the water through. Like Davis Dam, the spillways were built at the top of the concrete structure, channeling the water through the top instead of around the dam. At the moment, four of the five gates were partially open, allowing an impressive amount of water to pass.

"Why isn't the west spillway open?" Grant asked.

Charlie adjusted the thick glasses. "That's number five. It jammed. We're working on it."

"How long since it's been used?"

"The only time we ever used the spillways was 1983, the year of the big spring runoffs. Other'n that, we've been able to keep up with Davis using only the penstocks."

Grant wasn't surprised. It was the same at Hoover and Davis. "I understand they haven't been used for a while, but don't you ever test them?" Grant thought he knew the answer.

Charlie adjusted the glasses again. "Yeah, we test the gates a few times a year, but we don't move 'em very far, usually less than a foot. Number five jammed at about a foot and a half. It hasn't been moved that far since '83."

They reached the spillways, and Grant stopped and looked over the edge of the upstream side toward Lake Havasu. Parker Dam's five spillways, each separated by a wall of concrete, were built right in the center of the arch. Each measured twenty-five feet high and twenty feet wide. Looking at the five huge holes made Grant relax a little. They were bigger than he'd expected. His instincts told him that if they were all open, they would be large enough. But then again, what if they weren't? And they definitely weren't all open.