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Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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Lloyd smiled. "You got a point there. Some guy from India answered the phone. He was smart, but I had a hard time understanding him."

"Case in point. If it can be outsourced, they will outsource it."

Don and Shauna led a group of people over to where they were talking. Grant glanced over at the water funneling through the dike and noticed that it had increased considerably during his conversation with Lloyd.

Don pointed. "It's up over five feet."

"Is it still rising?" asked Grant, more to Shauna than Don.

She responded. "Oh yeah. We just wanted to see how it looked down here."

Grant looked again. The wet marks on the far bank told him that the water had been at least ten feet higher when they broke the dam.

"So far, so good."

Shauna turned to go. "I'm going back to watch the levels. I'll tell you when it peaks and starts to fall."

They didn't have to wait long. Less than ten minutes later, she called out that the water had started to drop slowly. By then, the water levels below the dam were almost as high as when they broke it. The brown water heading downstream flowed fast and dirty. Grant heard a couple more trees collapse in the current downstream.

"There it goes again!" Don pointed as another large slab of the dike sloughed into the cut. "It's gonna wash the whole thing away."

Lloyd winked at Grant.

"It will keep doing that for a while," Grant said, "but it'll stabilize, hopefully before it gets to the concrete." Grant knew it wasn't easy watching the water wash the dam away, especially for Don and the other irrigation guys.

While they stood staring at the spectacle, Grant felt a tug on his sleeve. He turned to see Agent Williams. He hadn't seen her for at least a half hour.

"We need to talk," she said.

"Not now." He pointed at the cut. "We're at peak flow right now."

"I know, but — "

He cut her off. "Can't this wait a few minutes?"

"No!" she said. "It's the bomber. He's struck again, at the All American Canal."

CHAPTER 35

2:30 p.m. - Palo Verde Dam, California

Grant, Lloyd, and Agent Williams stood in the shade under the willow tree. Shauna, who wouldn't leave her post, remained at the measuring stick, writing down water levels and times.

Grant scratched his head. "So nothing was actually blown up?"

Agent Williams shook her head. "No. The caller only stated that he inserted 200 gallons of a biological agent in the canal."

Grant wondered what type of biological agent it could be. He knew that the Bureau of Reclamation spent time thinking about terrorists poisoning the water supply, and what could be done in reaction. But it was something he knew nothing about, information he generally let wash over his head. Unfortunately, right now he'd feel better if he knew more about it. He wondered who at the Bureau to call. "I thought the National Guard was guarding it."

"They are," the special agent responded.

Grant shook his head. "Then how did he get close enough to dump four 55 gallon barrels in it?"

"We don't know."

Grant had a thought. Wouldn't the bomber have guessed that the canal would be guarded, especially after he blew the aqueduct? Maybe he planned in advance for it. There would be ways to get the poison into the canal, even if it was guarded, if you planned in advance. "What if he didn't do it today?"

Agent Williams and Lloyd looked confused.

Grant continued. "Maybe he set it up weeks ago, underground, then flipped a switch and pumped it in. The soldiers wouldn't see anything."

Agent Williams nodded. "That would explain why nobody saw it."

An idea occurred to Grant. What if this wasn't what they thought? "Hang on. You say that nobody actually saw him dump it in?"

She shook her head. "No. No one has reported ―"

Grant interrupted, "And nobody knows where he dumped it?"

"No."

It all fit. It all came down to why. The net result of poison in the All American Canal was what? Grant turned to Agent Williams. "Have they shut the head gates yet, the ones feeding water into the canal?"

"Yes," she said. "They shut them as soon as the report came in."

Grant smiled. "He's bluffing."

Agent Williams looked uncomfortable. "What makes you say that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Agent Williams looked over at Lloyd, who shrugged his shoulders.

Grant rubbed his forehead. "Look, what's the net result of poisoning the water?"

Lloyd answered. "Kill a ton of people?"

Grant shook his head. "I could buy that if this were somebody else. But assuming this is the same guy that blew the Glen Canyon Dam, Davis Dam, and the California Aqueduct, it wouldn't add up. What was the first thing that we did after the call came in?" Grant answered his own question. "We shut the head gates, the same as when he blew the California Aqueduct. He knew that's what we would do."

Agent Williams seemed to be catching on. "Okay, I can see why dumping poison in the canal would make us shut it down — that makes sense — but what makes you think it's a hoax?"

Grant smiled. "There's one thing inconsistent with the other bombings."

"Yeah, this wasn't a bombing, it was a poisoning," Lloyd said.

Grant shook his head. "Okay, but even more inconsistent is the fact that he phoned. That's the first time he's done that."

Agent Williams looked confused. "I don't know what difference it makes. Even if we believe he's bluffing, we still need to check it out, just to be safe. It's not like we can open the gates and take the risk the poison really exists."

Grant knew neither the agent nor Lloyd was following his line of reasoning. In fact he wasn't sure he knew himself. All he knew was that he'd just been given clue number four, and it fit. All four attacks were intended to send more of the Colorado River downstream. He felt it more than knew it.

"No, you're right, Agent Williams. I'm not saying we shouldn't close the gates. The point I'm trying to make is about the bomber himself. He doesn't care what happens to the canal, and by warning us, he's telling us his intent is not to kill, he just wants us to divert more water downstream."

"But what's downstream? Just Mexico."

Shauna walked over from the river and joined the conversation. "The Mexican Dam is called Morales. It's similar to Imperial Dam in that its primary purpose is to divert water for irrigation."

Lloyd looked confused. "So even if our bomber's intent is to steal all this water for the Mexicans, would their canal even hold it?"

"No way," said Grant. "Their canal isn't even as big as the All American."

"Then what's below that?" asked Agent Williams.

"Nothing," said Shauna, "just a dry riverbed. Morales diverts almost the entire river west."

Agent Williams sounded surprised. "Then where does the water go that continues downstream?"

Shauna shook her head. "Basically nowhere. There isn't much left. By then the riverbed is almost dry."

The special agent looked confused. "All the water? Dry riverbed? You mean the Colorado River is gone after Morales?"

Grant winced. It was like he had just been gut punched. His mind began racing and the voices of the others started to fade. The puzzle fit. He had all the pieces. And now that he did, he felt like an idiot for not seeing it before. It was the damn Mexican border; he hadn't been thinking beyond it. He had been hypnotized by the old "that's not my job" theory, the same theory he hated when others adopted it. In order to understand the intentions and motives of the Colorado River bomber, he needed to look at the Colorado River as a whole.

Shauna continued, "Yeah. Like I said before, we ended up signing a treaty with Mexico to guarantee what they get today. Without the treaty, the river wouldn't even make it there. The Americans would use it all."

Agent Williams thought about that for a minute. "What about where the river hits the ocean?"

Shauna laughed. "The delta? There isn't one. The water doesn't make it there any more. The whole thing is dried up."

Grant jumped back in, but his voice was dreamy. "People who visited the delta in the early 1900's described endless marshes, filled with millions of waterfowl. Huge fish hunted in the brackish water. The delta stretched across almost fifty miles. Explorers considered the Colorado River Delta one of the most incredible places on earth. Jaguars were even seen hunting there."

Agent Williams looked between Shauna and Grant. "And it's all gone now?"

Grant nodded. "All of it. The river bed dries up almost sixty miles from the ocean; it just kind of disappears into the sand."

Lloyd, who had been silent, argued, "But every map I've ever seen, shows the Colorado River emptying into the Gulf of California."

Grant looked him in the eyes and shook his head. "Not any more. Not for decades."

Lloyd rubbed his eyes, then responded with vigor. "Hey, I'm no tree hugger, but that stinks. So we need water. Fine. Divert a little here and there, okay. But, all of it? Every drop? We dry up a delta that big so we can have water fountains and palm trees in Los Angeles and Las Vegas? That seems a little over the top."

Agent Williams spoke again, almost pleading. "I don't understand how this could happen."

Grant hung his head. "Well, it did. It was a different time." He knew how it happened. Everyone had been looking out for number one. When the U.S. government allocated the water in the Colorado River between the western states and Mexico in 1930, the squeaky wheel got the oil. California squeaked the loudest, and the delta didn't squeak at all. Early in life Grant learned that water flowed downhill. But, after joining the Bureau, Grant learned that water flowed uphill, toward money, and in the West, nobody had more money than California.