by Dale Brown
"Folsom Dam? What's all this about?"
"Never mind!" Patrick shouted. "Get the MV-22
ready to fly right now! We've got to get out to the
dam!" He hit the print button on the keyboard,
printed out a copy of the diagram, and raced out
onto the flight line.
NEAR FOLSOM LAKE,
TWENTY-FIVE MILES NORTHEAST OF
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
A FEW MINUTES LATER
This is the forensic-summary report on the Gate
umber Three rupture back a few years ago at
Folsom Dam," Patrick said on interphone. He and
Hal Briggs were sitting in the rear of the MV-22 tiltrotor
aircraft, heading northeast toward the large
concrete dam. "The support structures on one of
the spillway Tainter gates broke and sent half the
volume of the lake into the American River. The
river canyon contained the water from that
break . . ."
"So you think Townsend is going to blow up
these Tainter gates?" Briggs asked. "Heck, why not
just blow the dam itself?"
"The dam is concrete, probably thirty feet thick.
How much dynamite would it take to blow that
wall?"
"Probably ten thousand pounds of TNT."
"It would probably take a lot less trouble and explosives
to duplicate the 1995 accident and blow
those struts on the Tainter gates," Patrick said.
"That forensic report they downloaded from the Internet
spelled out exactly where theycould set the
charges to dislodge those gates. And if more than
two or three of those floodgates let loose, with a
nearly full dam it would cause a massive flood
downstream. Christ, it could wipe out a half-dozen
towns along the river and inundate most of downtown
Sacramento. The lake is near capacity right
now from all the rains and runoff."
"But I still don't get it," Briggs said. "Why do all
this? Is he just plain crazy?"
"I don't know," Patrick replied. "But we've got to
stop him first."
"You ever think about the possibility that this
might be a trap?" Hal asked. "What if he planted
that information on the computer so you'd find it
and chase him out there? What if this is another
diversion?"
"We've got nothing else to go on, Hal," Patrick
said. He put on the suit helmet, activated the BERP
system, then clicked open the radio commlink:
"Drop me off at the top of the dam," he said to the
pilot over their command channel. "Then get as
close as you can to the face of the top of the dam.
Watch out for power lines."
"We've got the power lines on radar," the pilot
reported. The MV-22 used a millimeter-wave radar
that could detect power lines as small as a half-inch
in diameter in time for the pilots to steer over or
under them.
The big aircraft settled into a hover just ten feet
above Folsom Dam Road atop the huge concrete
dam. Patrick, fully suited up, jumped out of the
right-side cargo door. He could see the level of the
lake on the northeast side of the dam-it was just a
foot from the top, 465 feet above mean sea level. No
doubt about it: If the dam let go, it would create a
monumental disaster for miles downstream on either
side of the American River.
Patrick landed on the road, climbed over the
guardrail, and jumped down onto a catwalk. The
catwalk ran across the top of the spillways, eight
steep concrete chutes that plunged 340 feet down
into the American River gorge. All the spillways appeared
dry, with no more than small rivulets of water
running down the steep faces. That meant that
the entire discharge from the lake was being diverted
to the hydroelectric turbine chutes to make
electricity.
Right below the catwalk were the tops of the
eight Tainter gates. The Tainter gates were huge
curved steel doors fifty feet high and forty-two feet
wide, with support struts in the middle that attached
the gates to trunnion pins on each side; the
pins were mounted on the concrete supports on
both sides of the spillway. Each gate had two large
chains resembling huge bicycle chains, that lifted
the gates when necessary and allowed water to flow
down over the spillway to relieve hydrostatic pressure
from the reservoir side of the dam.
From the catwalk, Patrick could look down the
back of the Tainter gates at the chains, using the
infrared scanner visor on his helmet. Everything
looked normal. He ran down the catwalk and inspected
the top of each gate. Still nothing. "I don't
see anything yet," Patrick radioed to the MV-22.
"You guys see anything?"
"Not yet," Briggs replied. The pilots were using
the infrared scanner in the nose turret to scan the
face of the dam. "We're getting as close as we can,
but those transmission lines will keep us at least
two hundred feet from the dam. We'll see if we can
slip in between the lines and the dam, but it'll be
tight. We've got dam inspectors and National Guard
on the way to secure the dam. Their ETA is about
fifteen minutes."
"Copy," Patrick answered. ,rm going to have to
go down the face of these gates, Hal. The way
they're designed, blowing the chains would prevent
the gates from opening."
"Roger that," Hal acknowledged. He was rereading
the computer printout as the MV-22 began to
maneuver over the transmission lines. "According
to this forensic report you got off the computer,
when that gate let loose back in 1995, it was friction
from one of the trunnion hinge pins on the sides of
the gate that caused the strut braces to buckle. The
braces hold the gate against the spillway opening.
Once they bent, the water pressure and the weight
of the gate just pushed the gate out. Check the
struts on each gate. If I was going to blow anything,
that's where Id set the charges."
Copy," Patrick said. He looked over the edge of
the catwalk. There was another catwalk forty feet
below him, at the same level as the trunnion pins
on which the Tainter gates pivoted. Patrick considered
trying to jump down to the lower catwalk, but
if he missed, it was a three-hundred-foot fall down
the face of the dam to the river below. "Hal, come
back to the top of the dam and pick me up," Patrick
radioed. "It's too far to jump to the lower catwalk."
"On the way," Hal replied.
Patrick hit the thrusters and jumped easily to the
road above. He saw the MV-22 climb and start
toward him, maneuvering easily over the transmission
lines. With remarkable speed and agility for a
bird its size, the huge tilt-rotor aircraft moved
smoothly toward the road.
Then a streak of fire arced across the sky from
the lower catwalk and plowed directly into the right
engine. The engine disintegrated, a shaft of fire
blowing downward from the right rotor as burning
fuel streamed out and was caught in the rotor wash.
The MV-22 dipped down below the rim of the dam.
Patrick heard the left engine spool up to full military
power, and the bird veered right, missing the
lower catwalk by just a few feet.
"Will!" Patrick screamed into his helmet radio to
the pilot. "Pull up!"
"We got it! We got it!" one of the pilots radioed
back-Patrick couldn't tell who it was because the
voice was so high and squeaky. But it didn't look as
if he had control. As he watched, the aircraft slipped
to the right, barely missing the power lines across
the gorge in front of the dam, and dropped.
But the MV-22 had a crossover transmission system
that allowed power from one engine to drive
both rotors, and as it fell down into the gorge, power
was coming up on both rotors. What started as a
barely controlled crash quickly turned into a powered
glide. It was still going down but the pilot was
back in control. just in time, the pilot pulled back
on the control stick and flared the aircraft as it hit
the water a few yards from the rocky shoreline. It
skittered across the rocks, spun around facing upstream
as the dead right-engine nacelle struck the
water, and came to rest on the edge of the shore,
with the right wing and right-engine nacelle dipping
into the American River.
"We're okay! We're okay!" Hal radioed. "We're
evacuating the aircraft!"
Patrick's relief gave way to a rage that rose up out
of his chest and flooded his brain with hatred.
He was past thought or calculation-he reacted. He
used his helmet's infrared scanner to pinpoint the
location of the terrorists on the lower catwalk-one
of them was still holding the re.hot rocket
launcher so spotting them was easy-and he hit his
thrusters. He bounded over the railing on the road
and soared out into space, aiming for the terrorists
in the darkness nearly a hundred feet below.
His aim was perfect. He landed on his chest and
face right on top of the guy holding the spent
rocket-launcher tube. He went down hard, but so
did Patrick, who then crashed over onto the catwalk
. The electrical surges coursing through the
suit startled him with their force. Screaming in
the effort to clear his head, he reached up to grab the
handrail of the catwalk . . .
. . . and the bullets struck him in a high-speed
drumming on his back, then his helmet, then his
chest. Within seconds, two terrorists, in front and
behind him, emptied their thirty-round magazines
of 9-millimeter automatic-weapon fire on him. The
suit kept him safe but electrical pulses nearly overwhelmed
him. He struggled to his feet as the
gunmen reloaded fresh magazines and opened fire
again. A warning flashed in his heads-up displayhe
was already at reserve power levels from the long
fall from the road, followed by all the bullets at such
close range. He ran forward and grabbed the gunman
in front of him, head-butting him, crunching
his jawbone, and knocking him out-and was hit
square in the chest by a LAWS man-portable antitank
rocket, fired from about fifty feet away down
the catwalk. He was blown thirty feet back, up and
over the catwalk's safety railing, and onto the number
five Tainter gate.
Patrick opened his eyes after several long moments
and checked the systems in his armor. The
check did not take long: The report on the heads-up
display simply read EMERGENCY. That explained why
he wasn't feeling any feedback shocks from the suit:
It no longer had enough power to electrocute him.
The infrared-scanner visor was dead, so he retracted
it.The environmental system was shut down, and
he felt as if an elephant were standing on his chest.
He managed to roll onto his hands and feet, desperately
trying to get his balance back. But he was
alive, goddammit, alive!
A hand grasped the bottom of his helmet and
jerked his head up and back. He grabbed the hand,
but found he didn't have the strength to pull it free.
Then he felt the point of a knife right under his
sternum.
"Well, well, General McLanahan," said a voice
with a heavy German accent. "We meet at long last.
I am Major Bruno Reingruber. I understand you
have been looking for me for some time now. Unfortunately
, our meeting will be short-lived. I am
sorry I was unsuccessful in killing your brother or
your friend Dr. Jon Masters, but killing you will
compensate for those previous failures."
Patrick swung at Reingruber with his free arm,
but the blows had no effect. "It seems your armor is
no longer functioning," Reingruber said. He slowly
pressed the point of the knife against the suit and up
toward Patrick's chest, a fraction of an inch at a
time. "If my man's report is true," Reingruber went
on, "your suit will not activate if it is not struck. In
that case, we will do this nice and slow . . ."
The knife pierced the fabric. Environmentalsystem-conditioning
fluid gushed forth. "He said
not to be fooled, that this is some kind of coolant in
the suit and not blood, ja? But a little more, and the
Tin Man will not disturb us ever again." The knife
point pierced the suit, the cotton undergarment,
then pressed against his chest. Patrick cried out.
"Auf Wiedersehen, General."
Through the stars clouding his vision, Patrick activated
the heads-up display in his helmet. He canceled
the EMERGENcy readout and called up the
status display. All systems were shut down. Everything
was dead . . .
The knife penetrated the skin . . .
No, not every system was down. The thruster gas
accumulators were fully charged. Patrick coughed
inside the helmet as the pain intensified. just as the
knife started to pierce through the skin to muscle,
Patrick summoned up the last volt of power left in
the suit, braced his feet squarely against the number
five Tainter gate, and activated the thrusters. They
pushed Patrick, with Reingruber clutching him, up
off the gate, over the lower catwalk, and out into
space.
Reingruber screamed as they plummeted three
hundred feet down the spillway and into the American
River. In his terror, he kept a tight grasp on
Patrick the entire way down, and it was his body
that absorbed the brunt of the impact with the icycold
water.
The strong current running from the hydroelectric
power plant swept Patrick downstream. There
was enough air in the helmet to breathe, although
cold water was leaking into the suit through the
knife puncture. The weight of the backpack po
wer
unit dragged him under, but scrabbling desperately,
his fingers found the releases forthe spent unit and
he freed himself of it. His helmet burst above the
surface. He kicked and paddled and found he was
strong enough to keep his head above the water, so
he unlatched the helmet and pulled it off. Cold,
damp air never tasted so sweet. The cold water filling
the suit was starting to numb his Jegs, but he
was breathing, and he was alive.
Now, where was the nearest shoreline? He heard
a shout: "Patrick! Over here!" It was Hal Briggs.
Spotlights lit up the river, and they turned right on
him. Somehow Briggs had managed to'see the fight
up on the catwalk, and to find Patrick in the
swirling river. Rescue teams came after him, and
minutes later, Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies
and California National Guard soldiers dragged
him out of the water and began first aid.
"Check the dam, Hal," Patrick said through chat-
tering teeth. His face was white, and his hands, lips,
and legs trembled uncontrollably. "Have them
check the dam!"
"They're doing it right now, Patrick," Briggs said.
They were carrying him into a minivan ambulance
that had pulled down the American River Bike Trail
to the river's edge. "They already got a couple of the
charges. You were right, man-Townsend was going
to blow up the gates on the dam."
"Tell them to find Reingruber," Patrick said urgently
. "If I survived that fall, he might have too."
"Don't worry about it, Patrick," Briggs said.
"You're done for the night. Let the National Guard
and FBI . . ."
Bright flashes of light lit the sky behind them,
followed seconds later by loud booms, the noise of
cracking steel-and the sound of rushing water.
"Explosions on the dam!" someone shouted. In
the glare of the searchlights illuminating the huge
concrete dam, they could see pieces of the Tainter
gates tearing off and flying into space. One thirteenton
gate popped off the wall of the dam and fluttered
through the air like a playing card tossed into
the wind. A shaft of water shot through the opening
like a massive lateral geyser.
Boots scrambled on rock and gravel, car and truck
doors slammed, and the vehicles raced up the access