Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (43 page)

By the time he gassed up the truck and bought a Big Gulp for the road, it had been almost 1:00 a.m. After driving south for several hours, he had turned west away from the
Colorado River
on Highway 62. That had been almost twenty minutes before. If he continued that way, he would eventually end up in
Palm Springs
, but for now, he had another destination in mind.

Ideally, he would have loved to stop and blow up Parker Dam, but he figured by then it would be heavily guarded, along with all the other dams on the
Colorado River
. They would be on to him by now, and a little less trusting of white pickups with explosives.

On the desert highway, with no traffic, he drove with the
brights
on, and easily spotted the gravel road on his right. He slowed and turned onto the bumpy road and headed up a slight incline for a quarter mile. Up ahead, barely visible in the night, was a string of four large culverts stretched across the top of the road, causing the road to dip to get under them. He slowed, turned off the gravel road, and pulled up alongside the culverts and shut off the truck. He opened the door and climbed out into the desert air. When the door light extinguished, it was just him, the moon, and the stars. He took a few steps away from the truck, unzipped, and drained his radiator while his eyes adjusted. By the time he was done and had zipped up, his eyes were more dilated, and with a little help from the moon he saw the outline of the hills clearly, and could even pick out sagebrush on the hillside. He spun and looked back toward the Colorado River and
Lake
Havasu
, over fifty miles away, and scanned for lights. But he saw nothing, which was not surprising since there were hills in between.

He took a few minutes and looked around, allowing his eyes to further adjust. He could just make out Highway 62 as it carved through the small valley. Finally, after he procrastinated as long as he could, he walked to the back of the pickup and grabbed a shovel and his cowhide gloves. He pulled on the gloves and carried the shovel over to the first of the four large metal culverts. The culverts were eight feet in diameter each and carried the water from the huge canal over the gravel road. If he had continued driving straight, he would have driven under them. Each one was almost thirty feet long.

He moved under the culverts, until he found a spot where the dirt angled down enough to give him a couple of feet of clearance to dig. When he dropped the shovel head to start digging, he heard a distinct buzzing sound. He jumped back, but after his nerves settled, he returned, bending down for a better look. The moon and the stars did not provide enough light under the culvert, so he reached the shovel where the sound seemed to be coming from and swept it out. He got it on the third sweep. Without a flashlight, he couldn't be sure it wasn't a Mojave Rattlesnake, but considering the location and the size of the snake, he felt confident he was looking at a
Western Diamondback
, almost a four-footer. Shaken from getting dragged out of its hiding place, the snake took a moment to coil again and resumed rattling. With the gentleness of a mother, he carefully scooped up the snake in his shovel, carried him over to the sagebrush in front of the truck, and let him go. No sense killing the poor thing.

He returned to the spot and started digging a hole under the culvert. When the hole was approximately two feet in diameter and eighteen inches deep, he moved to the second one. This hole ended up being slightly more difficult, the dirt being harder for some reason. He continued working and finally, with all four holes dug, he walked back to the truck and drank some of the melted ice and water in his Big Gulp. He took off his t-shirt and wiped sweat off his face. In the distance, he saw the lights of a car coming down Highway 62. He rested a moment while he watched the car get closer and finally pass by. They would never be able to see him up here on the hill, he knew, unless he turned on a light.

He carried two of the white buckets over to the culverts, uncapped them, and dumped a bucket of ammonium nitrate in each of the first two holes. A second trip for two more buckets and all four holes were done. A blue bucket of diesel was next. He poured it on top of the ammonium nitrate. The one bucket was enough to douse all four holes. He put all the buckets and lids back in the truck. He returned and poked one of his detonators in each hole, and wired them together with strands from his spool of wire. Finally, he hooked up the batteries and the small timer. Again, he felt tempted to set the timer short so he could witness the destruction, but Davis Dam had been too close for comfort. He stuck with the plan and set it to twenty minutes, enough time to get miles down the road. Long before anyone figured out what happened, he would be deep into
California
.

He pushed the button, causing the red light to illuminate and the timer to start counting backwards from 20:00. He walked quickly back to the truck and was just about to jump in when he saw car lights in the distance. He knew if he opened the car door and jumped in, the lights would give him away, so he had no choice but to wait. Unlike the car he had watched earlier, this one seemed to take forever. When the car finally passed, he considered jumping into the truck immediately; maybe they wouldn't be watching their mirrors. He felt glad he didn't, however, because he saw another car behind. This time his heart raced as he watched it slowly get nearer. He thought about stopping the timer, but he didn't. His heart beat loudly when the car appeared to slow in preparation to turn onto the gravel road. But when the car passed, he realized it had only been his imagination.

He only waited until the car was a few miles down the road before jumping in the truck. Let them watch their mirrors. He started the truck and slammed it in reverse, backing it under the culverts. He pulled it into drive and sprayed rocks everywhere as he accelerated back down the gravel road. The truck jarred as he bounced onto the highway and headed west toward
Los Angeles
. They would be watching for him if he stayed too close to the
Colorado River
. His plan was to take the long way through
L.A.
down to
San Diego
, then back east to the river.

He was miles down the road when he saw the next car, and he was miles farther when his watch told him the explosion had occurred.

* * *

3:15 a.m. -
Hoover
Dam,
Nevada

Grant awoke at the slight jar of the helicopter landing. He had wanted to inspect the progress of Hoover-Two from the air, to get a better perspective of the progress. But, unfortunately, he slept through the whole thing. Grant had never been a night owl, preferring to be in bed snoring long before 11:00 p.m. In fact, his wife and kids complained every year when he insisted on celebrating New Year's Eve at 10:00 p.m. with
New York
, and then going to bed. He hadn't made it to midnight on New Year's Eve for years. He had never gone an entire night without sleep and he tried to ignore his body's desire for more. Hopefully the short nap would help. When he tried to step out of the chopper, the throbbing pain in his foot reminded him of the ordeal at Davis Dam. After the helicopter departed, he headed down the stairs from the top of the visitor center parking structure.

After being waved past security in the visitor center, Grant walked straight to the big windows looking out over Hoover Dam. The first ten-foot phase of the dike looked complete. It stretched all the way across the dam from the
Arizona
side and butted into the cliffs on the
Nevada
side. The manner in which the artificial light cast shadows on the sandbag dike gave Grant the impression that the dike was not an addition, but part of the structure itself. The texture of the sand bags from a distance reminded him of scales on a lizard. As he stared outside, Fred and Shauna arrived and joined him at the windows.

"The progress is amazing," he said excitedly to Fred and Shauna. "It looks incredible."

Fred nodded. "Yeah, I think we're going to make it."

"What happened to you?" Shauna's eyes were large and filled with concern.

Grant glanced down at the bandages on his arms, the coveralls, and the oversized tennis shoes. "Ah, well, I had an accident down at
Davis
."

She interrupted him. "I can see that. What'd you do?"

He took a few minutes to explain to Shauna and Fred the sequence of events at Davis Dam. Shauna cupped her hands over her mouth when he explained how close the dam had been to breaking, and how he was swept out over the rocks by the water.

"So what's wrong with you?" Fred asked, pointing at the bandages.

Grant held up his arms. "Oh, they're just scraped up. It's not as bad as it looks." He pointed at his shoes. "It's my foot that hurts, where the toenail was ripped off. Do you have anything? You know, Advil or something?"

Fred nodded. "We'll find you something."

Grant looked over the dike to the water. "The water's way up, isn't it?" He turned and looked at Shauna.

"It's risen about ten feet in the last three hours," she said.

Grant returned his gaze to the ongoing construction. "Is that within our projections?"

"It's close. We actually expected it to be a few feet higher by now. I think we'll be okay."

"Are the spillways at capacity?" asked Grant.

Fred answered.
"Not yet, not for another hour or so."
All three sat silent for a few moments before Fred spoke up. "You know, I haven't checked them for over an hour. You wanna go look?"

"Absolutely," Grant said, moving away from the windows.

"You guys go ahead," Shauna said. "I need to finish my downstream calculations."

The two men headed out the door, Grant limping on his sore toe. As they walked out of the visitor center, Grant saw a truck had just unloaded sandbags and a group of National Guardsmen scurried to place them on the dike. The old man was still on the dike with the bullhorn, and barked instructions when somebody placed a bag incorrectly.

Fred detoured around an empty truck and found a spot of partially constructed wall where they could climb sandbags to get over Hoover-Two. As they crested the dike, Grant heard it. It reminded him of a gigantic waterfall. After they descended the other side, the rumbling increased with each step. Grant felt his excitement build as they walked past the snack bar. When they came around the rock cliff and looked over the fence, Grant had to catch his breath.

The water was still ten feet from the top of the fifty-foot-diameter spillway tunnel, but the amount of water moving into it was staggering. The tunnel's steep fall, coupled with the sheer volume of water, created a strong suction, and the sound of air being pulled into the hole alternated with loud "wuf" noises as air pressure occasionally pushed spray back up the hole. Part of Grant wanted to turn and run to save
himself
from getting sucked in. The other part wanted to stay and stare for hours.

Fred cupped his hands and yelled to be heard. "Impressive?"

Grant only nodded and returned his eyes to the water. They both stared, not saying anything, knowing that they were both witness to something never before seen at Hoover Dam. In 1983, the only other year the water reached the spillways at
Hoover
,
it had only been one tenth of what they were seeing now. The spillways had never been full.

They remained standing, unable to move, mesmerized by the scene. Finally, Fred touched him on the shoulder to get his attention, and motioned with his thumb. "You ready?"

Grant nodded and reluctantly pulled his eyes from the spectacle. Neither spoke as they walked back toward the visitor center. When they climbed over the wall of sandbags, they stopped to admire the work in progress. Grant followed Fred over to a National Guardsman who looked like he was in some sort of supervisory role. The three men shook hands.

"How much longer for this phase?"
Fred raised his voice to be heard over the trucks.

The guy looked at his watch.
"Probably less than an hour."
He looked at Fred. "Will that be soon enough?" Grant could see the concern in the man's face.

Fred filled in the details. "Yeah, that will be fine. The leading edge of the floodwater hit us a couple of hours ago, so we expect the water level to start rising very fast now." He pointed over at the parking lot and the snack bar by the spillways. "It'll probably flood the concrete by 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. Peak flow into
Lake Mead
will be a few hours after that. That's when the water will be rising the fastest."

The guardsman cupped his hand by his mouth to be heard. "What about the ten-foot dike? When will the water go over that? When do we need to have the second phase of sandbags done?"

Fred deferred to Grant who answered the question. "We don't expect peak levels until late this evening. But the levels should be almost as high as the current phase of the dike by noon. Is that a problem?"

The man looked at his watch, then smiled nervously, obviously not completely comfortable.
"It'll be hard to estimate until this phase is done and we start building the taller dike. We'll have to see how fast that goes."

The man hesitated before asking the next question. "You think it'll hold?