Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (44 page)

Grant responded, "It'll hold as long as the water doesn't get too much higher than fourteen or fifteen feet over the original dam." He smiled and put his palms together as if in prayer. "And our calculations say it shouldn't."

The soldier laughed. "I just hope your math is better than mine."

* * *

4:15 a.m. -
Mohave Desert
,
California

The red Chevy Cavalier barreled down Highway 62 at almost 90
m.p.h
. Milton Jessop was in big trouble. He told his wife he would be home before she went to bed, and now it was almost 4:30 in the morning. Home for
Milton
was
Palm Springs
, and he guessed he had another hour to go. She would be mad enough that he had been gambling, but when she found out about the two hundred bucks he lost on the blackjack table, she just might kill him. He floored the Cavalier to see if he could get it over ninety. He figured he was unlikely to encounter a cop on this stretch at night. At this hour cops were more likely to be snoozing in their cars or sampling the merchandise in some all-night donut store.

Milton
looked ahead and saw something glistening across the road. It almost looked like water.
Milton
had lived in the desert his whole life and he knew a mirage when he saw one. When heat waves radiated out of the desert, it looked just like water. However,
Milton
could not remember ever seeing a mirage at night. He wondered if the alcohol in those complimentary drinks at the casino was playing with his mind. One strange thing he noticed about this mirage, besides it being at night, was that usually they moved away from you as you approached them, kind of like rainbows, but this one seemed to stay put.

Suddenly,
Milton
wondered if it wasn't a mirage at all, but real water. But where would enough water come from to create a lake in the middle of the
Mojave Desert
? He had no idea.

When
Milton
finally realized it was real water, it was too late. He slammed on the brakes. The car skidded a few feet before it hit the water. At almost ninety, the small Cavalier hydroplaned easily, shooting across the top of the water. The back end came around on
Milton
and he tried to steer out of it; however, the effort seemed to backfire as the small car swapped ends. At least he hadn't hit anything. But then the car left the road and the tires dug into the deeper water. The motion flipped the car and it rolled twice before sliding to a stop upside down and sinking into waist deep water.

Upside down,
Milton
touched himself to make sure he was still alive. The left side of his head hurt. He must have hit it during the roll. As the car sank, water poured through the broken right window.
Milton
decided he'd better get out or he would drown. When he reached for the seatbelt release his head went underwater. He found the latch and when it released he fell on his head. The Cavalier was cramped and he gulped water and almost drowned before he turned upright. Finding the door release, he pulled.
Nothing.
He braced himself and pushed with his feet while pulling the lever and finally the door released with a loud screeching noise.

Milton
stumbled onto his feet and found himself standing in three feet of water. He saw lights coming toward him from another car and he sloshed farther away from the road in case there was another crash. This car slowed, however, and stopped. Once
Milton
decided he was in no danger, he found the submerged road and waded back to where the vehicle had stopped.

"Are you okay, buddy?" the man asked, walking in front of a black SUV with its hazard lights blinking.

Milton
put his hand up to the left side of his head. "Yeah, I think so."

"Didn't you see the water?"

"Not until it was too late." He looked around and saw water in all directions, illuminated by the lights of the SUV. "Where'd all this come from?"

"The aqueduct probably broke," said the man.

"Aqueduct?"

"Yeah.
The California Aqueduct runs right along the hill over there." The man pointed up on the hill.

Milton
should have known. He knew about the California Aqueduct. It was one of the main sources of water for
Los Angeles
from the
Colorado River
. Without it,
Palm Springs
would be even more of a desert than it already was. It's just that his head was a little foggy.
Milton
wondered what they should do. "Should we report it?"

"Definitely."
The man headed back toward his car. "I've got a cell phone.
Looks like we're the first ones here."

Milton
looked around again. He tried to see the other side of the water, but the SUV's lights were not bright enough to reach. He wondered briefly if his wife would go easy on him now that he was hurt, then decided not. He was lucky to be alive, but his wife would not see it that way. She might still kill him. And another thing -
Milton
had thought about it for a while now and he was pretty sure there were no mirages at night.

CHAPTER 29

4:30 a.m. -
Hoover
Dam,
Nevada

After Grant returned to the visitor center, he found his suitcase and changed out of the coveralls into a clean pair of slacks and a polo shirt with the Bureau of Reclamation's logo on the breast pocket. He ran a brush through his hair and adjusted the bandages on his arms. He tried his shoes, but they fit too tight on the swollen toe, so he put the oversized jogging shoes back on.

When Grant walked back into the lobby, he saw the governor had returned, surrounded by his entourage. The group huddled around someone that, at first, Grant didn't recognize. However, as he and Fred walked toward the group, Grant saw that the man shaking hands with the governor was his boss Roland Blackwell, the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. Grant felt a knot in his stomach. He hadn't expected the commissioner for another hour or more. The flights and connections from
Paris
must have gone well. While still shaking hands, the governor led the commissioner over to the large windows. Grant thought they looked good together, Roland and the governor, both wearing suits, and both completely comfortable rubbing elbows with other politicians. Grant saw the commissioner's eyes pass over his with recognition. The commissioner looked slightly angry. Grant knew immediately that was a bad sign.

The governor swept his arm across the panoramic view of the dam. "As you can see, my boys have almost completed the first phase of your dam extension project." He paused for effect.

Roland looked at the sandbags stacked across the top of Hoover Dam as if he were seeing a ghost. He hesitated,
then
reacted angrily. "Dam extension? Who authorized that?"

The governor's eyebrows furrowed. "Uh . . . the Bureau did." He spotted Grant and Fred, motioning toward them. "Mr. Stevens, come over--"

The commissioner cut him off and took a couple of steps toward Grant. "You authorized this?"

Grant looked up into his boss's eyes.
"Yes, sir.
It was the only thing we--"

"You're fired," the commissioner said quickly.

Grant heard the words, but couldn't believe it. "What?" he said.

"You heard me. You're done. I remembered specifically telling you not to make any big decisions until I got here." He turned to walk,
then
faced Grant again. "And you go off and come up with this crazy scheme. Unbelievable." Roland turned and started walking.

The governor watched in disbelief, then quickly grabbed Roland's arm. "Whoa, hang on a second there commissioner." Roland turned to face him. "Am I hearing that you don't approve of Mr. Steven's dam extension idea?"

"I'd call that an understatement. I've been in the Bureau for twenty five years and I've never seen anything so stupid." One of Roland's sidekicks nodded to reinforce.

The governor looked briefly at Grant, then back at the commissioner. "What should he have done?"

"Well, not that!" spat Roland, pointing again at the dike.

The governor's lips formed a sinister smile. "That's not what I asked, Mr. Commissioner." He paused for effect. "What would you have done, if you would've been here?"

The commissioner stammered, "Well, I uh -"

The governor, sensing the vulnerability, piled on. "Commissioner, as the governor of
Nevada
, I am formally requesting instructions from the Bureau of Reclamation. I have the bulk of
Lake
Powell
, which I am told . . ." He looked briefly at Grant. ". . .
constitutes
almost two full years of
Colorado River
flow, barreling my way as we speak. I need your organization's expertise to tell me how to save my communities, here and farther downstream. You have just insinuated that your employee gave us bad instructions. Please tell us, commissioner, what should we do instead?"

While waiting for an answer he knew wasn't coming, the governor motioned toward Grant and Fred. "Can I assume that you do not trust the calculations of your team here? If not, then how long do we have until the flood water peaks?"

Roland Blackwell looked around confused for a second,
then
glared at Grant. "When did you tell them the flood would arrive?"

Grant's mouth still hung open from being fired. He looked at his watch and tried to get his brain moving again. "Uh, in the next few hours, I think."

"You think?" the commissioner bellowed.

The governor raised his voice. "Commissioner Blackwell, we have two or three hours to high levels. What are your instructions? Do you wish me to halt construction on the dike we are building?"

Commissioner Roland Blackwell looked scared. "There's not enough time to make any intelligent -"

The governor raised his voice. "Do you want me to halt construction?"

Roland must have realized the hole he'd dug himself into. "I need to confer with my team for a few minutes."

The governor folded his arms as if he were waiting.

"In private!" said the commissioner. He looked around. "Don't you have a room someplace?"

Fred motioned to the small theater they'd been using as a conference room. Roland and his two sidekicks started walking. Grant stood still. The three men had barely disappeared into the theater before one of them stuck his head back out.

"Stevens, get in here!" he said.

The governor held out his arm to block Grant. "I thought you just fired this man?"

The Bureau man's head disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared. "You're not fired Stevens. Now get in here."

Grant walked into the small conference room to find them all sitting, Roland massaging his temples with both hands. Grant shut the door behind him and one of Roland's men motioned him to a seat. In spite of the way he'd been treated, Grant understood how the commissioner felt. He was in over his head. The modern Bureau focused on politics, budgets, and schmoozing, not flood dynamics and disaster mitigation. However, compassion or not, the commissioner had already jettisoned him with little concern for Grant's well-being. Grant knew he had to tread very carefully for the next few minutes.

The commissioner started talking without looking up. "You've put me in a difficult situation here, Stevens."

Grant wanted to point out that he felt like he was in an even worse situation, but thought better.

Roland looked up at him. "What the hell is that dike out there? How did you come up with that crazy scheme?"

Grant tried to choose his words carefully. "I used the Bureau's research from the late nineties. According to the report, over sixty feet of water would breech
Hoover
, or about two million cubic feet per second."

Grant saw Roland's jaw drop, but he kept going. "As you know, that would wipe out
Hoover
, and most of the dams downstream." He paused in case the group had any comments, but they remained silent. "We knew that water levels in both Mead and Powell were below maximum due to the drought, so we had to estimate the new flood levels compared to the research. With the lower levels, we calculated just over fifteen feet would still overtop, which I reduced a few feet by blowing the spillways." Grant hadn't meant to talk about the spillways yet.

The commissioner's head came up. "What? What do you mean 'blowing the spillways?
'"

Grant wanted to get the subject back to Hoover-Two, but didn't know how. "When I arrived here yesterday, they weren't dumping as much water as I told them to. I'd called them from
Glen
Canyon
and told them to open everything, all the gates. But when I arrived, the governor was here, preventing them from opening the gates. They wanted more time to evacuate downstream."