Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (41 page)

"He's almost here," Agent Williams shouted from above. "Get out of there or he'll bury you!"

A much larger block of dirt caved off of the upstream side of the crater. Grant saw it out of the corner of his eye, but with both feet in the water, he couldn't move fast enough to evade it. He put up his arms and the dirt hit him head on, knocking him back into the water. He went under. When he tried to stand up, he realized his right leg was partially buried and he had to pull hard to get it out. He lost the shoe in the process.

The thought of getting buried alive by the bulldozer motivated him that he needed to climb out, but looking up at the sides of the crater and remembering his descent, he wondered how. Then he looked downstream and realized that was the answer. He slogged toward where the dirty water was now washing out onto the face of the dam. Grant felt a gush of water take his feet out from under him. Before he went under he saw another section of the dike between him and
Lake
Mojave
start to drop and he heard the female agent scream. For the next few moments he wasn't driving; he was just along for the ride. After he got his head back above water, he tried to grab with his hands and dig with his feet. He felt the water carry him along from the crater onto the outside face of the dam. He was dragged down the steep slope. For a moment he felt like he was on a waterslide, then he banged his arms on some rocks. He felt his big toenail tear out on the shoeless right foot. The thing that saved him was the water spreading out on the face of the dam. He stopped himself by grabbing a large rock with his right hand. Ignoring the pain now radiating out from multiple body parts, he quickly traversed across the stream to the dry incline and collapsed.

"Oh my!
Are you okay?" Agent Williams had hurried down to where he lay.

He looked up at her. "Yeah," he said, although he really didn't feel okay.

She grabbed his hand. "You're a mess. We need to get you out of here." And to punctuate the statement, Grant felt water flow over his left foot as the stream expanded.

The ground vibrated and the diesel engine screamed as the bulldozer approached the flowing crater. The operator wasted no time, dropping the blade and pushing a swath in. Not waiting for the result, the machine reversed, backing up for another load. The bulldozer went back and forth multiple times until all the material from the truck was in the crater. Grant saw that the operator was getting the upper hand, as the stream diminished and finally stopped. Meanwhile, the second truck had arrived and the bulldozer waited while he dumped. The bulldozer then shoved it into the hole. When that material was in the hole, he started carving into the original dike, and pushing that into the hole. Before long the operator had built up the crater enough to drive into it and compress it, which he spent a while doing.

Grant lifted himself up, and felt what were going to be bruises. Agent Williams held his arm and they started the steep hike back to the crest. The operator stopped the bulldozer, left it idling, and jumped down and jogged over to where Grant and Agent Williams stood. "
Wow, that
was close. You okay, buddy?"

Grant nodded. "Just a little banged up." He pointed at the partially filled crater. "For a while there I didn't think you were going to be able to stop it."

The operator smiled. "For a while there I almost didn't. A few more seconds and it would have
beat
us. We'd be evacuating this place."

While they talked, Reese pulled his pickup behind the idling bulldozer and walked over. "Thanks for the heads up, Mr. Stevens. Good save." His eyes gave Grant a once over. "By the way, you look terrible."

Grant looked down and saw that his clothes were filthy. There was blood on both his arms and on his foot where he lost the toenail. "Thanks," Grant responded, managing a small smile in spite of the pain.

They were interrupted by the sound of diesel engines again and Grant noted that two more dump trucks had finally appeared below.

Reese looked over at Grant. "I'm gonna drive back down there and give my boys their marching orders. We're going to need more material than I thought. You want a ride, or you gonna slide down the face of the dam again?"

Grant couldn't imagine anything better than sitting back in the leather seats of Reese's truck. "I think I'll ride this time."

* * *

1:20 a.m. -
Grand Canyon
,
Arizona

More than anything, David wanted to sleep. He wanted to crawl into his sleeping bag and get into the fetal position. Only then would it be possible to wake up and find that this all had been a bad dream. Besides, he was freezing. Even though he and Afram had been up on the ledge with Judy and out of the water for more than an hour, their clothes were still wet, and the night temperature in the
Grand Canyon
was cold.

As Judy had first anticipated, the outcropping enabled them to traverse upward to a small ledge where all three could sit down. Originally they had worried that the water would rise and rim them again, but that had not happened. The water had only risen about five feet farther after they lost the raft, and since then had actually receded slightly.

During the last hour, they had talked sporadically about their friends in the raft. All three agreed that their friends' chance of survival was minimal. Could they have survived going over the falls? Potentially, yes.
Realistically, no.
Could they have landed the raft someplace before they went through the narrows? Potentially, yes.
Realistically, no.
The logic had depressed them too much to allow long conversations on the subject.

David shivered and his teeth started chattering again. "I'm real cold. I don't know how I can make it through the night."

Afram agreed.
"Me too."

Judy reached over David and motioned for him to move over so she could crawl in between the two men. "I'm cold too." She snuggled close to David. "We're going to have to share body heat to avoid hypothermia."

David embraced her and felt Afram do the same from the other side. The spot they were on was small and jagged and they were uncomfortable.

"And don't either of you try anything," Judy said jokingly.

David felt himself smile slightly for the first time since his friends died.

* * *

1:25 a.m. -
Lake Powell
,
Utah

Julie cuddled Greg, draping her arm over him. Although the seats on the Mastercraft could be reconfigured into a comfortable bed, tonight she did not feel comfortable. It was not the seats; it was the way the boat was leaning. Gravity kept reminding her that her body was not level, which made her imagine they were on the verge of falling.

In the last three hours since they arrived in
Wahweap
Bay
, they had been busy. First they had dropped off the rescued couple at the marina. Then they had retrieved Paul, Erika, Max, and Darlene from Castle Rock, and
motored
them over to the marina.

The marina itself was chaos. All of the docks were sitting on the ground. Although Wahweap's docks were capable of being adjusted for changing water levels, the water had dropped too fast, and they couldn't keep up. There were probably five hundred boats in the bay. Many sat high and dry on the banks below the marina; many more were crowded together on the water, and some motored around in the bay or parked on the shore. Just like in
Warm
Creek
Bay
, trails of people hiked around the rocky shore toward the marina.

After an hour of talking to other boaters and deciding what to do, Greg had finally beached the Mastercraft at about 10:30 p.m. He parked it right next to the launch ramp for easier access. The Crawford's boat was one of many boats that had been parked nose-to-tail on both sides of the ramp. Since the water was now dropping almost twelve feet per hour, it was now stranded on the slope over thirty feet out of the water, with many boats parked behind it; hence the lean.

Greg had been right about the Wahweap launch ramp. It continued down with the receding water. He had also been right about the mossy growth. The ramp was covered in a thin film of slimy plant life that made the ramp slippery to walk on. The general consensus of all the boaters was that someone would clean the ramp in the morning, and everyone could begin retrieving their boats. The
details of how everyone would get their boats up off the ground and onto their trailers was
still being discussed. A crane had been suggested.

After Greg parked the Mastercraft and the water had abandoned it, the three couples discussed what would happen the next morning. It quickly became evident that it was not necessary for everyone to remain at the lake. Max and Darlene elected to head home. Although Greg argued it was not necessary, Paul and Erika decided to stay, primarily because Paul did not want to leave and miss out on the action of retrieving boats the next day. When sleeping arrangements were discussed, Erika had insisted that she and Paul sleep in the back of their van, which was at least oriented horizontally in the parking lot above.

Julie whispered to her husband. "Are you asleep?"

He rolled onto his back and looked at her. "No. It's too noisy."

She laughed. "I keep feeling like the boat is going to slide down the hill."

In the night air, they could hear conversations all around them from other boats. It seemed like no one could sleep. Julie's mind kept returning to the scene at the dam where they had rescued the other couple. In her head, the results were not always the same. Sometimes the boat stalled, or the water just pulled faster than the Mastercraft would go. Julie would be standing in the boat, drifting closer and closer to the edge.

"We could be here for days," Greg said. "There's no guarantee we'll get out tomorrow."

"At least we're here," Julie responded. "We could have been stuck at the houseboat, or at Warm Creek, or dead below the dam. There are a lot of people worse off than us. I'll take our predicament."

Greg spoke carefully. "It wasn't too smart. I can see that now. We could have died. I wasn't thinking."

Julie hugged her husband. "Maybe it wasn't smart. But we made it. And we're way better off, and that other couple is alive because of us. It might not have been smart, but it worked." She kissed her husband on the cheek. "It's behind us now, so try to get some sleep."

"I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight."

"Then let's just snuggle."

* * *

1:30 a.m. -
Davis
Dam,
Nevada

Grant stepped out the door of Davis Dam's generation plant into the night air. He felt much better. He had bandages on his arms and he was wearing dry clothes, albeit work coveralls that did not fit. Special Agent Williams and Blaine had bandaged him up from a first-aid kit in the plant. They dressed the deep scrapes on his arm with antibiotic ointment and wrapped them in large gauze pads.
Blaine
found a pair of running shoes in one of the offices upstairs. They were a size too big, but that actually worked in Grant's favor with the bandage on his big toe. Wearing the coveralls with running shoes looked a little strange, but Grant didn't plan on giving any more interviews, especially before he returned to
Hoover
and changed into his other clothes.

He looked back up to the crest and saw another truck dumping. Reese's men had already rebuilt most of the dike.

"Grant." A voice came from behind.

Grant turned and saw Phil, the FBI agent he'd met at
Glen
Canyon
. "Special Agent Williams tells me that you saved the dam, but got beat up a little in the process." Phil reached out to shake his hand while Agent Williams and two other agents stood behind him. Grant thought he recognized the two men from
Arizona
the previous morning, but he wasn't sure.

"I'm a little sorer than yesterday, but I think I'll be okay," Grant responded.

Phil put his hands in his pockets. "Look, I know you said you'd be heading back to Hoover once things settled, but I wondered if we could sit down and talk before you leave."

Grant looked at his watch. He figured the floodwaters from
Glen
Canyon
would have reached
Lake Mead
by now. The lake was probably rising by the minute behind Hoover Dam. He definitely needed to get back. However, it would be many more hours before the water rose above the concrete dam. And he wanted to talk to the FBI anyway. "Sure, I can give you a few minutes."

Phil pointed back at the metal door. "Special Agent Williams found a room in the building where she thought we could talk. With a conference table," he added.

They moved back into the building with Grant limping to keep up. As soon as they reached the room and sat down, Phil started firing questions. "I'm going to ask you the same question I asked at
Glen
Canyon
this morning. Why would anyone want to blow up this dam?"