Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (59 page)

Fred looked east to the
Arizona
shore, and admired the sandbag extension. From a distance, the sandbags blended together perfectly, and the dike looked like it was made of concrete, but with an interwoven texture where the bags fit together. Fred was proud of what they had done, and he wished Grant and Shauna were here to see it. So far it was working, just as Grant had planned.
Lake Mead
was higher than ever in history: crest plus almost eleven feet. Although the next few hours would be nerve-racking as the water continued to rise, Fred was confident that the dike would save Hoover Dam. With that thought in mind, he headed back into the visitor center to call Grant.

* * *

2:10 p.m. - Palo Verde Dam,
California

According to their watches, the floodwater from Headgate Rock was due any moment. Grant did not expect anything spectacular. If everything went as planned, the water behind what was left of the Palo Verde Diversion Dam would rise between ten and fifteen feet for an hour or more, then gradually subside a few feet. The water being dumped through the head gates plus through the new notch in the dike would stabilize at just
under
500,000 cubic feet per second, and remain like that for about two months. Five hundred thousand flowing through Palo Verde would be the most water in 70 years.

Lloyd stood next to Grant, watching upstream. Shauna had walked over by the reservoir and peered at a measuring stick again, while Agent Williams remained separated from the group, talking on her cell phone.

Don Simpson walked toward Grant and Lloyd from the house. The white dog followed him, wagging its tail. "I was just thinking," he said.

"I hate it when that happens," whispered Lloyd.

Grant laughed, but put his hand on Lloyd's to signal him to be quiet. "Thinking what, Don?"

The irrigation manager stopped in front of them. His cowboy boots weren't shiny anymore. "I was just thinking that when Headgate Rock broke, it let all its water out at once, just like we did. Doesn't that mean that we're going to get a tidal wave down here?"

Grant shook his head. "When we flew over it in the helicopter, it had already jumped out of its channel and spread out.
Looked like it was going to flood all the Reservation farms upstream.
Anyway, that will disperse it. We might get more water during the first hour, but I don't expect any tidal waves."

Grant felt a wet nudge under his hand and looked down at the dog's pleading eyes. He scratched behind its ears.
Living clear out here, the dog probably only encountered visitors occasionally.
But with all the people on the dam, the dog was getting lots of action. The dog had no sense of the flood to come. In a way, Grant envied the dog.

"It's started," yelled Shauna from the reservoir.
"The level just rose an inch."

Grant saw a group of policemen sitting in the shade under the willow tree stand and move toward the water. Grant walked over to where Shauna stood.

She pointed at a measuring stick in the water. "Look at it for a
second,
you can almost see it rising."

Grant stared at the stick, while the water lapped against it. He couldn't see anything move, but sometime during the thirty seconds he stared, it went up another inch.

"See?" Shauna said.

He stood and looked upstream. One of his clearest memories from Headgate Rock Dam was the trailer houses being piled up against the railroad bridge. Although illogical, Grant couldn't help wondering if he would see a mobile home drift around the corner.

"Another inch," called out Shauna to a growing crowd.

Don arrived and stood next to Grant. "When will the peak --"

"Another one," said Shauna.

"Now," answered Grant. "We only expect the peak to lag the leading edge by five or ten minutes."

"Two more," called Shauna. She pointed at the stick. "Now you can actually see it rising."

Grant looked back at the stick. Sure enough, he could see the water rising on the index marks. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn it was the stick sinking into the mud, not the water rising.

He left the small crowd gathered around the stick and walked back to where he could look downstream. If the current had increased below the dam, it wasn't visible, at least not to him.

"What do you think?" Lloyd asked.

Grant shook his head. "I can't see any difference over here."

"Did you expect to?"

"No, not yet."
Grant cocked his head around and looked downstream.

When they first arrived at Palo Verde, two clean green streams exited the dam, the river itself and a large canal. Both flowed in man-made channels, which only covered a small percentage of the original riverbed. Trees and other bushes grew in the other sections. Now, brown water covered the entire expanse, having toppled most of the trees. Brush poked up through the water in places and wet marks were visible on the banks.

"Looks kind of like a lull in the storm, doesn't it?" Lloyd said.

Grant looked back at Lloyd and nodded. "Yeah, hopefully whatever wildlife lived in the riverbed will take the hint and get out while the getting's good. Heaven knows there's not going to be anymore lulls for several months."

Lloyd pointed toward the slice where they broke the dike. "I have a question. What's going to happen to the dike, after two months of floodwater? Won't that tear it up even worse?"

Grant shrugged. "Sure. It'll probably be two or three times wider by August, when
Hoover
's spillways shut down. That's the whole reason we wanted a controlled break. Even if it grows by a factor of three, it'll still be a ways from the concrete structure and the head gates, and that's what we wanted to save."

Lloyd held out his hands. "It all comes from us taxpayer's pockets anyway,
don't
it?"

Grant laughed. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I like the government throwing money down holes when people are stupid."

"Then why are you working for the Bureau? I bet you guys waste as much as anybody in the government."

Grant nodded. "You have no idea. I ask myself why I work there every day. Unfortunately, it's too late to go anywhere else."

Lloyd raised his eyebrows. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Sure. Where would I go? You think your company would hire a washed-up dam engineer as a helicopter pilot?"

"No, but there's got to be some place."

"Oh, it happens, occasionally. Other countries are still building dams. But then I'd have to move my family to
Brazil
or
China
. I could always try to slide sideways and become a bridge or freeway designer, but then I'd be starting over and competing with college grads."

Lloyd shook his head. "You're an engineer. You talk like you're all washed up."

Grant smiled. "I am. For the most part, American engineers as a breed are headed for extinction."

"What are you talking about? Engineers are the brains behind everything. They design our cities."

"Not if we can outsource it," Grant said. "Haven't you noticed how many electrical engineers have been laid off over the last twenty years?
U.S.
companies are figuring out that they can outsource more than labor to third-world countries. Have you called tech support for your computer lately?"

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."