Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (24 page)

"Hang on, Judy." Afram said in almost a whisper and Judy stopped.

David noticed that the sunbathers had noticed them too, but they didn't seem to mind, not even bothering to cover up. He had a better view than he wanted and even from thirty feet away got an instantaneous refresher on male and female anatomy. Aside from their lack of clothes, he noticed the almost white hair on the guy and the obviously non-shaven armpits on the girl. He guessed Europeans, which explained their comfort in lying around naked. Although he'd never actually been to
Europe
, he'd always heard about them hanging around without clothes in city parks, and beaches. Since there were no other rafts at the bottom, David at first wondered how the couple came to be at the site, and then he spotted the backpacks.

When the naked couple noticed them, the man stood and waved them over. "Come, we can share this place."

The accent seemed German to David. They were obviously friendly, but who wanted to walk up and shake hands with a naked guy? The girl must have figured it out, because she said something to the guy in another language. He nodded and they both retrieved some shorts and pulled them on. By then, the rafters had reached the pool. The man and the woman walked over to shake hands, neither of them wearing a shirt, which for the man was normal enough, but for the woman, well, not something you see every day.

"I am Ralph," the guy said, but it sounded more like Rolph. "This is Anna." He pointed to the smiling topless girl.

The groups shook hands. David had never shook hands with a topless girl before and although he was extremely nervous, she was not, and so he relaxed slightly. He tried to keep his eyes high. Each of the rafters introduced themselves. David happened to glance back while Sam was shaking hands with Anna, and he couldn't help notice the scowl on Becky's face in the background.

David waited until Ralph was looking,
then
pointed high on the cliffs. "You hiked down from above?" He over-enunciated to make sure he was understood."

"Yes, we hiked down from Royal Arch this morning." He pointed up above the falls. "There is a small cliff that requires a rope to descend. We left the canyon rim the day before that."

The English was near flawless and David regretted the way he had asked the question. He had heard that Germans spoke better English than most Americans and Ralph seemed to have driven the point home.

Afram asked the question that David wanted to. "Are you from
Germany
?"

They both smiled and nodded. David found his eyes drifting back to Anna and tried to control them, aiming them someplace safe.

"How far does this go?" Judy asked, pointing above the waterfall.

Ralph explained. "There are a few more small waterfalls and many pools above this one. If you haven't seen them, you should go. They are very beautiful. Anna and I will wait for you here. When you return, we can talk for a while. Yes?"

Judy answered, "Okay, we'll be back in a while," and she started heading up a trail.

David and the rest of the group followed. David consciously avoided taking a last glimpse toward Anna.

* * *

2:25 p.m. - Dangling Rope
Marina
,
Lake Powell
,
Utah

Julie watched the gas pump count past fifteen gallons. "That's enough!"

Greg held the nozzle. "No.
A little more, just in case."

Paul and Erika both stood and nervously watched as the gallon numbers counted higher.

Julie looked back at the boats behind them. There were even more than when they
arrived
an hour and a half before. She pitied the poor people who would be leaving hours from now.

Greg released the lever, climbed out of the boat and replaced it in the pump. He jumped back in the boat and fired up the engine. Julie noticed the gas gauge climb up to just over half full. The other boats made a space for them to back out of the slip, and Greg expertly backed the Mastercraft into the small spot. Immediately, another boat pulled into the space. Paul jumped up on the bow to prevent the boat from hitting anyone else, and Greg began a slow tedious meandering through the crowd of boats waiting to get fuel. Julie saw what looked like envious glances from other boaters.

When they finally passed the last boats and were out in open water, Greg pushed the throttle forward, ignoring the low speed buoys. The rangers had more important things to worry about than speeding tickets.

Julie cupped her hand so her husband could hear her.
"How long to the houseboat?"

He shrugged. "We're close.
Half hour, maybe less."

CHAPTER 17

2:30 p.m. -
Hoover
Dam,
Nevada

A diesel four-wheel drive pickup with "
Las Vegas
- Demolition" on the door, led three industrial one-ton trucks with the same insignia down the switchbacks toward the dam. Grant saw the dam security guards wave them into the employee parking lot next to the
Nevada
spillway. The driver of the pickup jumped out of his truck and came over to where the group waited. He was a tall blond man in Levi's and a t-shirt. He wore lace up work boots. Grant guessed he was in his forties. The guy took off his hard hat with his left hand and reached out his right and Fred Grainger took it.

"Hi, I'm Todd Fisher." Seven other guys in hard hats crowded up behind Todd.

"Fred Grainger, site supervisor." Fred pointed to Grant. "And this is Grant Stevens from the Bureau of Reclamation in
Denver
."

The three shook hands.

Todd said, "I understand you have an emergency job for me."

Fred walked over to the fence by the spillways and pointed to the concrete wall holding back the water. "We need that wall blown as soon as possible."

Todd whistled for a second. "All that waters going to come charging through here after she blows, ain't it?"

"That's the whole point." Grant pointed to the other side of the dam. "Oh, and the spillway on the
Arizona
side will need to be blown too."

Todd looked at both Fred and Grant. "This is all related to the news on TV about the Glen Canyon Dam, isn't it?"

Fred nodded.

Todd looked back at the spillways. "I assume you want me to blow the wall as low as possible to allow the most water through?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Do you guys have any idea how thick the concrete is at the base of that wall?"

Fred responded. "We found the blue prints while we were waiting."

Fred turned and one of his employees handed him what looked like a rolled up poster. Fred unrolled it in one motion and Todd and Grant crowded around to get a look.

Todd spoke first "Wow, that thing is thirty feet high and over eighteen feet thick at the base. Plus the whole thing is full of rebar."

Fred looked over at Todd. "Can you do it?"

"Oh, we can break it up, no problem. But the rebar is going to hold all the pieces together. The water pressure might be able to tear it apart, but then again, you may need to get a crane in here to reach down and tear some of it out. We won't know until after the initial explosions."

Grant groaned. "It'll take hours to get a big crane in here."

Todd thought about it for a second, "Well, I can always increase the explosives. I won't be able to guarantee a precision job." He smiled. "I might blow the end of this parking lot off." It was said as if Todd blew up parking lots every day.

Grant and Fred's eyes met, both of their heads were nodding.

Fred looked back at Todd. "We'll risk the parking lot. How fast can your guys work?"

Todd turned and talked to one of the other guys in a hard hat. He motioned down into the trough leading to the
Nevada
spillway tunnel, and to the base of the concrete spillway itself. He pointed over to the
Arizona
spillway across the river. He walked back to Fred and Grant. "I think we'll be ready to detonate in less than an hour. However, I recommend we blow one spillway at a time, in case we need to make adjustments." Todd smiled.

* * *

2:50 p.m. -
Lake Powell
,
Utah

Greg pointed at the canyon and slowed the boat down. "It's that one."

Julie looked around "Are you sure? It looks different."

The trip back from Dangling Rope Marina had been difficult. The amount of boat traffic was unbelievable and during some sections where the lake narrowed, the water was dangerously rough from waves trapped in the channel. They even saw a boat that had capsized. In a couple of places, the water was so low that rocks protruded into the normal boating channels, forcing the traffic to alter its course.

Greg motioned to Julie and Erika with his hand under his eyes. "Mask your view so you can only see above the water line. Then all the new exposed rock won't confuse you. See? Our houseboat is in the canyon with that big rock sitting in front of that wall of rock. We were just used to seeing it at water level, not forty feet up the slope."

Julie nodded, trusting her husband, although it didn't look anything like she remembered it.

As the Mastercraft entered the mouth of the canyon, Greg accelerated. The water was much smoother here than in the main channel. He looked over at Julie "Okay, no dilly-dallying at the houseboat. We get the necessities and get out."

Julie looked questioningly at her husband. "If we're going all the way up there, why wouldn't we bring the houseboat back with us? What about our deposit? That's thousands of dollars."

Greg answered immediately. "I'd love to, and I hope we can. But unless Max untied it, the houseboat is gonna be sitting high and dry on the rocks right now, thirty or forty feet above the water line. If so, we couldn't bring it back if we wanted too."

Julie looked over at Erika and Paul to see if they had heard the same thing. The look on Erika's face was as blank as Julie's. Julie had not thought about that. While she tried to imagine the scene, Greg accelerated again and she leaned back in her seat. Looking over her shoulder she noticed Erika staring behind in a trance. She now dreaded seeing the same houseboat that just a moment before she had been so anxious to see.

Julie marveled at how much the canyon had changed. Before, it felt more open. Now, with water forty feet lower, the canyon walls were higher and seemed to be closing in on her. The wet canyon walls were darker too.

The boat banked back and forth for a while as Greg carved deeper into the long canyon. A few times in the past, usually when she was sitting in one of the seats facing backwards, Julie's stomach had been affected by these long canyon excursions. She was all too familiar with the initial feelings of motion sickness, when butterflies started flapping around down there, the clammy skin, the dry mouth, and finally the apprehension that she needed to throw up, followed by relief after she finally did. But, that was not what she felt now. This feeling was worse, a deep pit, almost a pain, in her stomach, caused by heading farther into a canyon, which every bone in her body knew, was the wrong direction. She wanted to be back in the main channel, rough water and all, speeding downstream toward the marina, or better yet, back in the truck, on the road, headed home. She wanted to hug her children.

They rounded a bend and Greg swerved suddenly hard left. Julie wasn't ready and was thrown out of her seat onto the
floor,
hitting her head on Greg's hip. Julie rubbed her head and started to get up and she noticed Erika had also been knocked on the floor. The boat slowed quickly.

"Sorry." Greg reached down and grabbed her arm to help her up. "That was close."

"What was close?" said Erika from her hands and knees on the floor behind them.

Greg pointed directly behind the boat, where they had just been. "Look."

A large boulder was visible just under the surface of the water directly behind them in the exact area where they had swerved. Julie could only imagine what would have happened if Greg had not avoided it.

Greg grimaced. "I'm going to need to slow down a little."

There were no arguments from the passengers as they climbed back into their seats. As they rounded the next bend, much slower, Greg pulled the throttle all the way back and the boat coasted, settling back into the water. Julie saw many of the protruding boulders scattered around the channel.

Greg looked over at Paul. "Hey, can you climb up on the bow and keep an eye out. I don't want to tear up the prop and I can't see how deep it is in front of the boat.

Paul climbed up on the bow. Julie and Erika stood and watched over the side of the boat. Rocks were everywhere, especially ahead.

"Hang on," Paul said, pointing off to the right. "It gets too shallow up there. Go over that way." He pointed to the left.

Greg reversed the transmission, backing up a few feet, and then headed where Paul pointed. That worked for a while, as Paul guided him through a shallow channel. Greg had to back up a few more times, but they kept going. When they rounded the next bend however, Julie wanted to puke. There were rocks all over the place, but worst of all, the water ended completely about two hundred feet ahead of them on a rocky beach newly exposed by the dropping lake.