Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River

by Gary Hansen

  He looked past the pickup toward the police roadblock, but the police were busy with a line of almost ten cars. Opening the truck's passenger door and reaching behind the seat, he retrieved five small cylinder-shaped devices with wires hanging out of them. He had designed these detonators himself, just like the ones he used at GlenCanyon. With a converted broom handle, he tucked a detonator in each hole with the wires hanging out. Holding the wires, he kicked the loose gravel back in the hole, stopping occasionally to use the broom handle to tamp the gravel. With all five holes done, he took a roll of wire out of the truck and connected all five sets of wires together. A small motorcycle battery and a timer completed the project.

  He loaded the truck and shut the tailgate. He checked the guard shack one more time, and seeing nothing, bent down to set the timer. He'd planned on ten minutes, scripting the whole scenario, but his subconscious kept nagging him to do fifteen. He compromised at twelve. He pressed the button and a small red light illuminated while the digital timer started counting down from twelve. He immediately stood and walked around the truck. As he came around the back, he tripped on something. He looked down and saw the wires. Damn! With the timer still running, he quickly checked the connections between the five holes, making sure all five sets of wires were still connected. They looked fine.

  He jumped in the truck, hoping it would start. Thankfully, it did, and he drove back along the dike. It took all his self-control to resist the urge to floor it and speed down the hill. When he finally pulled up to the roadblock, he could feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck. The Bureau guard stepped over to talk. The man had hoped to get waved through.

  "What'd ya find out?" the guard said, looking in the back of the truck.

  "Dry as a bone, just as I expected."

  This seemed to relieve the guard. "I guess that's good news. This dam's likely to get a good work out for the next couple days with all the water headed our way."

  The skinny man had a hard time not rushing his words. "Yeah. You know it."

  "So ya think it'll hold?" asked the guard.

  For some reason, the question caught him off guard. No, it wasn't going to hold. It would explode in eight and a half minutes and counting. For a moment his brain told him to warn the guy, tell him to get away as fast as he could, to not look back. He felt like screaming, "There's a bomb, you idiot! It's going to blow! Get out of here!" But he didn't. Instead, he responded in a calm, clear voice that surprised even him. "Yeah, it'll hold. No problem. But there's going to be a ton of water barreling out of those spillways."

  "Unbelievable," said the guard, looking over at the dam itself. "Unbelievable."

  The skinny man nodded. "You said it. Things are going to get a little crazy around here."

  The guard smiled and stepped back, an unspoken signal that he was free to leave.

  * * *

  10:10 p.m. - Davis Dam, Nevada

  Blaine Roberts leaned against a police car and sipped his coffee. They had been turning cars away from the dam for three hours straight and finally they caught a break. Maybe the word was finally getting around that they had closed the road across the dam.

  What a night. He'd worked night shift security at Davis Dam for almost three years now. Nothing ever happened during the night shift. Then the disaster a few hundred miles upstream had changed everything. When he arrived at work at 8:30 p.m., the whole place buzzed like a stirred-up hornet's nest. They told him when he arrived that Hoover Dam, just sixty-five miles upstream, was going to try to catch all of the floodwater. Unfortunately for Davis Dam, that meant Hoover was dumping a ton of water, the most in its history - 250,000 cubic feet per second, ten times normal. It was going to get worse, too; when the water started to rise at Hoover, the flow would increase to almost 500,000 cubic feet per second. He summed it up to himself. Unbelievable.

  They had told him that in reaction to what Hoover was doing, this afternoon they had opened all the water works at Davis Dam. Unfortunately that wasn't enough. The water in LakeMojave was still rising over eight inches per hour, targeted to reach the top of the spillways a little after midnight. With full spillways, theoretically Davis Dam should be able to match Hoover Dam's 500,000 cubic feet per second, and the water in the lake would stop rising. None of that had ever been tested however. Unbelievable.

  In spite of everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off, the guy from the Bureau had been the first official visitor they'd had at Davis Dam today. Blaine was more than happy for the guy to go up on the dam and take some moisture measurements. Hell, he could measure all damn night if he wanted to, as long as he gave Blaine a heads-up if the dam was going to bust so he could get the hell out of here. It'd never bothered him earlier in the evening, but Blaine now wished the roadblock wasn't right below the earth dam. He'd prefer a place a little higher or maybe farther downstream.

  When the guy from the Bureau returned from his inspection and his measurements, he had seemed calm and cool. He said the moisture tests went well, whatever that meant. The guy had acted like the whole thing was routine, as if he drove around taking moisture measurements every day in the face of dam failures. Blaine wondered if the guy would return later, when the spillways were going full blast. That was when the moisture measurements would mean something. The guy hadn't said anything about returning and Blaine hadn't thought to ask.

  He stood and walked behind the police car to see if there were any more good donuts. The pink box sat on the hood of a second police car. He liked chocolate, but the only chocolate one left had coconut sprinkled on top, and Blaine was no fan of coconut. He grabbed it anyway because the sprinkles were easy to pick off. He leaned on the other car and looked up at the dam. He had never seen water in the spillways, not in his three years working here.

  He glanced up at the gravel dike, holding back all the water in LakeMojave, just in time to see the explosion, a gray and black cloud shooting high into the air over the middle of the dike. Blaine instinctively ducked for cover. Looking back out to the dam he could make out rocks and other large clumps of material in the cloud. While Blaine watched, mesmerized, the sound wave hit him like a hammer, knocking him backwards. He dropped the donut. The intense pain in his ears caused him to drop the coffee as well in an attempt to cover them to protect them. He heard one of the policemen swear. He looked up at the dike again and saw that most of the debris had fallen, but a large cloud remained. He looked down at the ground and saw his spilled coffee and donut.

  He articulated his feelings. "What the hell happened?" His ears were still ringing so loudly that ambient sounds were muffled.

  Blaine looked around. He knew the techs were over by the spillways someplace and he'd seen Billy, the other guard, walk over there too. Ears still ringing, he pulled his radio from his belt and looked at the display, half expecting the thing to be busted. The radio blasted before he tried to talk into it. It was Billy. "Blaine, you okay?"

  Blaine heard it, but just barely over the ringing in his ears. He turned up the volume and responded. "Roger, I'm okay, but my ears are ringing like a church bell. What happened?"

  The radio squawked again. "We don't know what blew. From the control center, we heard it, but we couldn't see anything."

  Blaine looked back up on the dike where the dust had mostly settled and now he saw a thirty-foot-deep, thirty-foot-wide notch in the dike. He keyed the mike. "Unfreakin believable, there's a big hole blown out of the top of the dam."

  There was silence after Blaine's description before Billy asked another question. "Blaine, the techs wanna know if there's any water, you know, coming out of the notch."

  Blaine looked hard, trying to see through the remaining cloud of dust. "It don't look like it."

  There was silence again. Blaine guessed that Billy was talking to the techs.

  Finally Billy said, "Blaine, the guys are going up to check it out. You'd better call Hoover and report it." The radio went silent for a second, then, "Maybe you'd better call the cop
s too."

  Blaine looked over at the two cops working the roadblock with him. They both stared up at the dam with they're mouths hanging open. Blaine didn't think he would need to call them. But the call to Hoover was a great idea.

  * * *

  10:15 p.m. - Boulder City, Nevada

  A waitress, probably in her fifties, far beyond the age to wear such a short, revealing cocktail dress, took their menus, then turned and headed back to the kitchen. Grant wondered how the casinos persuaded older ladies to wear those dresses. You'd think they'd go on strike or something. They were unionized, weren't they? Yet you saw it in almost all the casinos, especially the older ones.

  At Fred's request, she had seated them where they could look out over the casino floor. An infinite number of lights blinked on and off, while the sounds of clinking coins and the distinctive cycling sounds of slot machines permeated the large room. Grant watched a fat woman on a stool between two slot machines feed coins into one, pull the handle, then feed coins into the other, while waiting for the three windows to sequence and stop.

  The Hacienda Hotel & Casino sat on top of a hill offering a spectacular view of Lake Mead, just minutes from Hoover Dam. Fred told him that although listed in BoulderCity, the Hacienda was technically just outside the city limits, on county property, necessitated by an anti-gambling ordinance in BoulderCity, the only such ordinance in Nevada.

  In the 1930s, in the midst of the depression, BoulderCity had been a private community, built to house workers and their families employed in the construction of Hoover Dam. When the construction companies ran the town, they outlawed booze, gambling, and prostitution. In fact, to discourage bad habits, the workers were paid with special Boulder money, only accepted in grocery and clothing stores in Boulder.

  Fred laughed when he pointed out that it hadn't taken long for the casinos in Vegas to react, and accept the Boulder money. Consequently, citizens of Las Vegas, including prostitutes, casino workers, and liquor storeowners, often came to shop in Boulder for groceries or clothes, and spend the Boulder money. Once the dam was completed, BoulderCity transformed into a normal city, governed by elected officials, but the anti-gambling laws remained, something the citizens of Boulder were proud of.

  As Grant scanned the casino floor, looking at the people mulling through the slots, video games, and card tables, he tried to discern their level of anxiety. The gamblers did not seem overly concerned about the impending flood on the Colorado River, or about Hoover Dam being closed. Because of the Hacienda's location, he guessed that many of the casino's occupants lived in Arizona. This was their state-line casino. However, they didn't seem panicky or even nervous, trapped in Nevada with their only bridge closed. They acted more like skiers, snowed in at the ski resort, forced to call their boss and request a couple more days off due to an unfortunate turn of events that ended up forcing them to extend their vacations.

  When Grant looked back at Fred, Fred was smiling.

  "What?" Grant said.

  "You. What are you thinking?"

  "Just that all these people . . ." Grant motioned at the gamblers, "They seem oblivious to everything that's going on."

  "You jealous?"

  "Nah. It's just hard to believe, with all that's going on less than two miles away. Most of these people look more concerned with whether or not they're going to lose five bucks in the slots." Grant took a sip of ice water. "It's just amazing."

  Fred sipped his drink. "So how'd you get roped into this, anyway?"

  Grant smiled. "I almost didn't. I was supposed to be in Africa with the rest of them. It was a last-minute thing to leave me in charge. Believe me, if they had an idea something like this was going to happen, they would have sent me to Siberia. They wouldn't have wanted me within a hundred miles of this thing."

  Fred's brows furrowed. "Why not? You're doing a great job. Everything you've done has been right on."

  The day had been such a whirlwind that Grant hadn't thought much about it. He did feel good about himself, though. He had made more decisions today than in the last fifteen years at the Bureau. It felt like a different job. When he joined the Bureau as a new civil engineer, he had dreamed about this life. Not the crisis management, but the offsite assignments at construction projects scattered around the country. He had always felt he would be in charge of a big dam, making the necessary decisions. But the 80's and 90's bore few new construction projects for the Bureau of Reclamation. For the last few years, Grant struggled to fit in. He wasn't good at politics. He'd even considered leaving. But today had been different, more like he envisioned fifteen years before.

  Grant considered Fred's compliment. "I think it's a little early to say everything's going to work. Roland is never going to understand me blowing the spillways. Besides, if the Hoover-Two fails, I'll be the goat."

  Ever since coming up with the dam extension idea, Grant kept imagining the rising water breaking through his sandbag dam. He thought it would work, but the image of it failing kept playing over and over in his mind.

  Fred shook his head. "It's not going to fail. Besides, when it holds, you'll be hailed as a genius."

  Neither of them said anything for a moment.

  Fred finally broke the ice. "You're married, right? You got kids in Denver?"

  Grant looked abruptly at his watch. He had forgotten all about his family. He glanced at Fred apologetically. "You know, I've been so busy, I never even called my wife. I should probably take a moment and give her a call. With the news and all, she's probably wondering what's going on."

  Fred motioned away with his hand. "Sure. Take as long as you want."

  Grant stood and walked over to a quieter place in the restaurant where the casino noise was muffled before punching his home number into the cell phone. She was probably already asleep. The phone rang twice before his wife picked it up.

  "Hello?" Her voice sounded energetic, not sleepy.

  "Hi honey."

  "Grant!" she said, excited. "I wondered if you were going to call. We saw you on TV. The kids couldn't believe it. All the neighbors called. The news channels have been showing the dam breaking up all night. Wow, it's terrible."

  The image of the Glen Canyon Dam breaking apart seemed like a lifetime ago. Grant had actually forgotten about the TV interview. The thought of his face being broadcast around the country was incomprehensible. He tried to remember what he'd said, but couldn't. It really didn't matter anyway; Roland wouldn't like it.

  His wife continued, "I almost called you, but I wasn't sure it'd be okay. What are you doing now that the dam's gone?"

  "I'm not in Arizona anymore. I flew to Hoover Dam this morning, right after the interview."

  "Hoover? Isn't that where we went when we were in Vegas?"

  He remembered the trip.

  "Yeah, Vegas is about forty minutes away."

  "What are you doing there? Did something happen there too?"

  He laughed to himself that most people viewed a dam failure as an isolated event, not considering the inevitable destruction downstream from all the floodwater. "No, but it will. All the water from LakePowell is headed our way. We're doing everything we can to get ready for it. It's pretty hairy, actually. We're doing all kinds of crazy stuff."

  His wife hesitated for a second. "Are you in danger?"

  "No. Not really," he replied.

  "How does it feel to be in charge?"

  He thought about the question. The pressure had been intense but exhilarating. Even the governor of Nevada had acted on his decisions.

  "A lot different than normal, that's for sure," he said. It was all he could think of.

  She spoke boldly. "Well it's about time. You're smarter than those morons you work for anyway. They're just brown-nosers." She hesitated. "Have you heard from them?"

  Grant realized he was nodding. "Yeah. Roland called this morning and Howard called an hour ago."

  "Are they coming back?"

  "Roland never made it to Africa. He's trying to get bac
k here now. I expect him sometime tomorrow morning. Howard is still deciding." Grant laughed. "He's afraid to abandon his wife in Yellowstone. But I expect him, too. You know him, he can't stand being out of the loop, especially with Roland coming here."

  "He's a creep, Grant."

  "Yeah, I know."

  The phone went silent again. Grant looked back at the table and he saw the waitress setting the dinner plates on the table. He didn't know what else to say. "Hey, I better let you go so you can get to sleep."

  "When are you coming home?"

  He wondered the same thing himself. Realistically, he might get stuck out here cleaning up messes for weeks or even months. "I don't know, honey. I'll call you tomorrow when I get a better idea."

  "I love you," she said.

  Her comment caught him off guard. The "love" words were not often verbalized in their marriage. "I love you too," he mumbled uncomfortably.

  He hung up and wandered back to the table. Fred, already cutting into his steak, looked up and smiled when Grant returned.

  "What'd she say?"

  "She said all the neighbors saw me on TV."

  Fred grinned and stuffed some steak in his mouth and responded while still chewing. "Can I wait and get your autograph after dinner?"

  Grant laughed. "Yeah. Sure." He sat down and grabbed his steak knife and started to slice his steak when the cell phone rang. He looked at Fred apologetically. "Probably my wife again." However, when he saw the display, the number showed 702, a Nevada number.