License to Thrill (16 page)

“The bowler dudes!” Coke yelled. “Not
again
!”

“At your service!” said the snickering, mustachioed bowler dude. “Long time no see!”

Yes, once again the twins were being hassled by the pair of moronic, sadistic brothers who had already buried them in a sand pit, attacked them with bowling balls, and assisted in several other attempts on their lives over the past five weeks.

“How did you get past security?” Coke asked John Pain.

“We
are
security,” he replied.

“Good one, boss,” giggled the clean-shaven bowler dude.

“Shut up, you idiot!”

“You want us to kill 'em now?” asked the mustachioed bowler dude.

“That ain't gonna be necessary, boys,” Pain drawled.
“Their daddy was too cheap to pay for the full tour, but we're gonna give it to 'em for free. They'll get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the insides of the dam.”

“We don't want your dam tour!” Pep shouted. “Let us go!”

Both twins thought about making a run for it. But it was so dark in the tunnel, they were sure to injure themselves if they ran into something.

“There are four
trillion
gallons of water in Lake Mead,” John Pain informed them. “That's a lot of water pressure.”

“We don't care!” Pep barked. “Leave us alone!”

“Oh, you
will
care,” Pain said. “'Cause right now we're inside one of the four intake tower pipes of Hoover Dam. It's thirty feet in diameter. At regular intervals, they open a gate and ninety thousand gallons of water comes shootin' through this pipe. That's ninety thousand gallons of water each
second
. It would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than seven seconds.”

“Help!” Pep screamed. “Somebody help us!”

“They can't hear you through the concrete,” Coke said sadly. There was no fight left in him. He was a beaten man.

“You kids ever been on a waterslide?” asked John
Pain. “This is gonna be a lot like that. Except at the end, you don't land on your fanny in a nice little pool. You land in the spinning turbine of a hydroelectric generator. Ha-ha-ha!”

“Ha-ha, good one, boss,” said the clean-shaven bowler dude.

“Quiet!” barked John Pain. “You're ruining my flow.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“It's an engineering marvel, ain't it?” asked John Pain, pointing the flashlight beam left and right. “The water rushin' through here generates enough 'lectricity to power millions of homes and businesses. And think of it. When your bodies get sliced up by those giant turbine blades, you'll become part of the history. Thanks to you, America will be green. You'll become an alternative source of energy.”

The bowler dudes couldn't stop themselves from giggling.

“We're going to die in here!” Pep wailed. “Do something, Coke!”

“What am I supposed to do?” Coke asked.

“Oh, don't feel so bad, little lady,” John Pain said. “Lots of folks died right here, buildin' this dam. Ninety-six, to be exact. Legend has it that some of 'em are buried in the concrete and became part of the dam itself. So you'll be in good company.”

“You'll never get away with this!” Pep said. She didn't really believe that, but felt the need to say it anyway.

“Lemme tell y'all a little story,” Pain said. “The first person to die here was a man named J. G. Tierney, back in 1922. He was a surveyor lookin' for a good spot to build the dam. Poor fella fell into the Columbia River and drowned. And you know who was the
last
man to die here, exactly thirteen years to the day later?”

“Who?” Coke asked.

“His son, Patrick,” said John Pain. “He fell from one of the intake towers. True story. Sad story. Makes me kinda tear up, I gotta tell ya.”

“You're sick, you know that?” Coke asked. “You need help.”

John Pain laughed.

“If anybody needs help, it's y'all,” he said as he looked at his watch. “'Cause I reckon that ninety thousand gallons of water is gonna come shootin' down
this pipe in . . . about fifty seconds.”

“You want me to tie 'em up, boss?” asked one of the bowler dudes.

“Nah, they ain't goin' nowhere,” said Pain. “But we really must be taking our leave. Unfortunately, I got me a touch of aquaphobia—fear of water.”

The bowler dudes followed John Pain to the door they had used to get inside the giant pipe.

“Wait!” Coke said desperately. “You told us you were going to get uranium for Dr. Warsaw so he could build an atomic bomb. Did you?”

“I most certainly completed that mission,” Pain said as he opened the door. “And now I'm gonna complete this one. Ta-ta, y'all. Have a nice life, or what's left of it, anyways.”

The door slammed shut. Coke and Pep rushed over and tried to pull it open. No go.

“So Dr. Warsaw
does
have a bomb!” Pep shouted.

“Who cares about that? We're going to
die
in here!” Coke said. “After all we've been through, this is how it ends.”

“He was bluffing,” Pep assured her brother. “Nothing's gonna happen.”

“You're pretty sure of yourself all of a sudden,” Coke said. “Ever since you killed that snake.”

“Think about it,” Pep told him. “How could John
Pain
possibly
know the exact moment when they're going to release the—”

“What's that noise?” Coke shouted.

“What noise?”

“
That
noise!”

Both of them stopped to listen. There was a
whoosh
ing noise in the distance, echoing off the sides of the pipe. It was getting louder, closer.

“It's the water!” Pep shouted. “It's coming!”

“This is it,” Coke said, taking his sister's hand. “This is the end.”

“Hang on!” Pep had to shout now to be heard. The pipe was vibrating.

“There's nothing to hang on to!” Coke shouted back.

“We're gonna have to swim!” Pep yelled.

“What, right into the turbine blades?”

They could feel the spray now. The roar of 90,000 gallons of water rushing through the pipe made it impossible to communicate anymore. But Pep tried anyway.

“Hold your breath!” she screamed. “And no matter what happens, I love you!”

There was no point trying to swim. The water swept the two of them up like ping-pong balls and flung them forward. Instinctively, they curled themselves
into the fetal position, covering their heads with their hands.

What felt like an eternity took about nine seconds in real time. Coke and Pep rocketed down the pipe on a wave of water, rolling, tumbling, and sliding, upside down and sideways, completely without control.

Now I know what you're thinking, reader. You're thinking that there's
no way
Coke and Pep could survive the crush of ninety thousand gallons of water and then manage to make it past the blades of a spinning turbine. Surely, they would be drowned, their bones broken, their bodies sliced into tiny pieces. How could they possibly get out of
this
mess?

Well, they did, okay? I can't explain it. I wasn't there. All I can say is that Coke and Pep didn't drown. Their bones weren't broken. Their bodies weren't sliced into tiny pieces. It's preposterous, I know. But hey, that's why you found this book in the fiction section. Miracles happen. Just go with the flow, so to speak.

Once past the turbine blades, the pipe spit the twins out into the Columbia River downstream from Hoover Dam.

A few seconds later, Pep bobbed to the surface,
choking and gasping for breath. She managed to get her bearings and swim to shore. When she saw her brother nearby, floating face down, she waded back in and grabbed him. Then she pulled him up on a rock and slapped him in the face see if he was conscious.

“Are we dead?” Coke asked, opening his eyes.

“Not yet,” Pep told him, panting. “Not yet. Let's blow this pop stand.”

Like a couple of drowned rats, the twins struggled to climb up the rocks at the side of the river and back to the visitors' center.

“We've been looking all over for you,” Dr. McDonald said when he saw them. “I was about to call the police! You missed most of the tour! What happened?”

“You wouldn't believe us if we told you,” Pep said.

“You're soaking wet!” said Mrs. McDonald.

“Hey, at least my shirt isn't ripped,” Coke replied.

The twins staggered to the bathroom to change into dry clothes, and soon they were in the Ferrari and on the road again. Dr. McDonald circled back to Route 93 and crossed the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, which was built in 2010 right next to Hoover Dam. At the end of the bridge, this sign came into view. . . .

W
hen she didn't hear any hooting and hollering from the backseat, Mrs. McDonald turned around to look behind her.

“Coke, aren't you going to shout ‘Woo-hoo!' and share some Nevada trivia with us?” she asked.

“Woo-hoo,” he mumbled, with a total lack of enthusiasm.

“What's the matter, son?” Dr. McDonald asked. “Not feeling well?”

In fact, Coke wasn't feeling well at
all
. Thanks to the incident at Hoover Dam—combined with all the
other
incidents—he was beginning to show classic signs of depression, or maybe learned helplessness. It had finally sunk in with Coke—this is what life was going to be like from now on. Every couple of days, some nutcase would do something horrible to him and his sister.

So far, he and Pep had been lucky. But eventually, one of these attempts on their lives was likely to succeed. It was only a matter of time. They would be dead and Dr. Warsaw would probably kill thousands more with his bomb. That thought would depress anybody.

Besides, there was no reason to hoot and holler about entering Nevada. This was
not
the family's first visit to the state. They'd crossed northern Nevada when they were heading east at the beginning of their trip. Now they were at the southernmost tip of the state on their way back home.

Coke continued to feel glum as the Ferrari headed west on Route 93, also known as The Great Basin Highway. More rocks. More desert. Miles and miles of nothingness. The sun was starting to set, yet the temperature was still close to triple digits.

But then, not more than a half hour after leaving Hoover Dam, signs of civilization started to pop up here and there. At first they were just gas stations and warehouses. But very soon the signs became larger,
brighter, and more colorful. The architecture became flashier.

Dr. and Mrs. McDonald knew which city they were approaching, but had decided to surprise the kids. Coke's mood perked up when he spotted this sign. . . .