Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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She smiled. "No, you beat the crap outta me and made me come with you," she shrugged. "I'm supposed to stay with you guys, remember? That is my excuse. Besides, you need me." She pointed at the pilot. "He's the only one of you that's ever tried to sneak up on a bad guy, and that was a million beers ago."

Lloyd smiled, nodding his agreement.

Grant couldn't see another alternative. He couldn't make the agent get out. She'd kick his butt if he tried. "All right then, but no funny stuff. We have a job to do and we need to get going." He took a step backward, and motioned toward Mexico with his thumb. "Lloyd, let's go find our environmentalist."

He glanced at Agent Williams and she nodded. He closed her door. Not that he didn't trust her, but, he didn't trust her. He kept the gun and left the cell phone in the dirt. He climbed back in his seat and Lloyd took off. The helicopter headed east to minimize the chance they would be detected. After a while they turned south. They passed silently over the border from the United States into Mexico about twenty miles east of Yuma.

7:20 p.m. - Mexico

As Grant looked down over the small shacks and lean-tos that housed most of Mexico's rural population, he felt privileged to live in the United States. He noticed that, just like in the southwest, down below in Mexico, any un-irrigated land had reverted to barren desert.

Like the Americans, the Mexicans diverted as much water from the Colorado as possible. Ditches and canals criss-crossed the entire landscape below. Grant was surprised to see so much irrigated farmland east of the river. It had been his understanding that the bulk of the Colorado River was shipped west from the Morales Dam toward Tijuana. He wondered what had become of the Morales Dam. He felt guilty for not trying to save it, as he had done for the American Dams. He hoped the Mexicans had gotten the message and had taken some sort of action. But if the American managers were any example, then he doubted the Mexicans would have the heart to destroy their own dam, even if that was the only way to save it. In the long run, it probably wasn't that important, since the Americans would end up bankrolling the reconstruction with foreign aid as penitence for allowing an American criminal to cause the damage.

Since they had entered Mexico so far east of Yuma, they had not yet encountered the Colorado River. But as Lloyd headed west, they saw the destruction ahead. The whole area below was covered with brown water. Debris, that Grant could only assume were the remains of living shelters, covered the surface of the water. A woman and six or seven children had sought refuge in a tree. A few old cars were half submerged. In one place, a dozen people were standing on a rooftop of one house.

He knew things would get worse and his fears were realized when Lloyd motioned toward a couple of bodies floating face down near some trees. He felt a knot in his stomach and heard some sniffling in his headphones, but nothing was said. The destruction was everywhere. Grant tried to focus ahead instead of below. Fifteen minutes later, they passed ahead of the flooding.

An unmistakable snaking line of green trees in front of them marked the original channel of the Colorado River.

Grant pointed toward it. "Follow it south."

He knew river levels ahead of the flood would be low, but was still shocked at the actual sight of such a meager stream of water in the Colorado River. It became so small that the trees completely closed the gap as if they lined a creek.

They followed the river southwest until it converged with a small mountain range running north and south. At that point, the river ran almost straight south, paralleling the mountain range. Highway 5 paralleled the river, running along the base of the mountain. During those miles where the river skirted the highway, it ceased to flow, but instead widened into standing water surrounded by reeds and willows. The area seemed more like a marsh than a river. Grant saw a few rundown huts between the river and the highway. One of the huts had a sign that said "Resort." But the grounds looked nothing like any resort he had ever seen.

They followed this marsh for almost five miles until it slowly turned southeast away from the highway and the mountain range. During the five-mile stint, Grant saw run-down dories tied up to trees along the sides. At one point he saw a man in a small boat with an outboard motor winding through the maze. A few miles from where the river cut away from the road, a gravel access road aimed toward the river. Two rundown police cars were parked just off the highway.

"That must be the Mexican FBI," said Lloyd.

Grant pointed at them. "With them parked out in the open like that, he'll drive right by. They'll never catch him."

As the marsh turned away from the highway, the landscape between the mountains and the river was flat and gray with no vegetation for as far as the eye could see.

They traveled a few miles over this flat barren land, keeping the river on their left, before Grant pointed at a spot. "Put her down over there for a second, would ya?"

Sand sprayed in all directions when Lloyd brought the helicopter close to the ground, making it hard to see. Grant waited until the rotors slowed and the dust settled before he opened the door. He stepped out onto the surface. It felt like walking on the beach in California. White flat objects about the size of a quarter littered the sand. He picked one up and rolled it through his fingers. It was a shape that even a small child would recognize. He picked up a half dozen more as they were everywhere. He looked south and the landscape didn't change for as far as he could see. According to the map, this flat surface continued for another forty miles.

Grant climbed back into the helicopter.

"What were you looking at?" asked Shauna.

Grant turned in his seat and handed one of the white objects to Shauna, then to Agent Williams. When he swiveled back, he handed one to Lloyd.

"Seashells?" said Agent Williams.

The pilot swiveled in his seat, holding the shell up. "This whole area used to be underwater, didn't it?"

Shauna's hand came to her mouth. "The delta?"

Grant swept his hand over the landscape. "This is it, the Colorado River Delta. A century ago it used to be a thousand square miles of marshes. Now look at it."

Grant nodded at Lloyd and they lifted off. When they were back in the air, they followed the dwindling stream southeast into the center of the dry delta. Only a mile or two later they came upon a series of square lots bordering the water. They were dirty and separated by wire fencing or rickety wood. Most of these lots looked abandoned, but a few housed small trailer houses or wood shacks. Two Mexican police cars were parked in the last lot.

"And you thought they weren't taking this seriously?" Lloyd said.

"If they saw the destruction and flooding we just saw, they wouldn't be parked there," said Grant. "Not without a boat."

"Hopefully somebody'll warn them on the radio," Special Agent Williams said from behind.

"What is this place?" asked Shauna.

"I saw a sign back there that said Campo," said Agent Williams. "I don't know if it means anything or not."

"Whatever this place is or was, it looks like everybody's either gone or going," said the pilot.

"The water's too salty," said Grant. "Probably very few fish and bad water."

After they passed over the small lots called Campo, the pilot struggled to follow the river. It wound back and forth through the reeds and willows, disappearing for a while, only to reappear later. At this stretch, the once mighty Colorado River had dwindled down to a stream the size of a small ditch, a ditch you could step over.

"Where'd it go?" asked Agent Williams.

"I lost it," Lloyd said.

Lloyd flew the helicopter back and forth across the dense willows for almost ten minutes while the four scanned for the Colorado River. At one point they backtracked to where they lost it, but again they could not locate the river past that point.

"It's gone," Shauna said.

Lloyd hovered the chopper and looked over at Grant, waiting for instructions.

Grant wasn't sure. It had seemed clear to him back when they were in Yuma, that all he needed to do was fly south to find the environmentalist, but now the thought seemed absurd. He looked south over endless miles of barren desert. They could fly around all night and never see anyone. The sun was sinking in the western sky. It would soon fall behind the mountain range bordering the delta's western shore. Grant looked southeast and saw that the dense willows continued for another mile or so. After that, the dry delta stretched in all directions. Vaguely he remembered from a map a small channel where the Gulf of California encroached into the dry delta during high tide. He wondered if it was really there, or if it too was a lie, like the millions of western maps showing the Colorado River draining into the Gulf of California.

Grant pointed in a southern direction where he thought the ocean might be. "Head that way."

7:50 p.m. - The Colorado River Delta, Mexico

The skinny man slowed and stood on the pegs of the quad. He had ridden east for almost an hour from Highway 5 where he left the pickup. He knew the Gulf of California extended up into the delta for twenty miles. He had taken a tour a few years before where they boated up the small channel. So riding to it on an ATV seemed simple enough. It would be the perfect place to watch the river flow into the ocean again.