Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (53 page)

"You really think they'll come after you?"

"Hey, look at what happened in
Oklahoma
. Remember when that whacko blew up the
Oklahoma
Federal
Building
and killed all those people including the kids in the daycare center?"

"Yeah, but he intentionally blew them up."

"The bomber is not who I'm talking about. If you remember, the president vowed to track down everyone responsible. The bomber had a friend who supposedly taught him how to build fertilizer bombs on his farm."

"I remember him. Isn't he the one they want to re-try in
Oklahoma
?"

"Yeah.
He's only serving a life sentence, but they want the death penalty." Grant overemphasized the word "only" to make the statement sound more sarcastic.

Lloyd looked confused. "I don't understand what that has to do with --"

Grant interrupted. "He's a fall guy. When the feds prosecuted him in
Colorado
, the jury acquitted him on all the murder counts. They couldn't prove that he knew anything about the bomber's plans to blow up
Oklahoma
."

Lloyd's brows furrowed. "That doesn't sound right. If that were true, why'd he get life in prison?"

"The jury found him guilty of two crimes - involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy to make a weapon of mass destruction. Then they leaned on the judge to throw the book at him."

"Well, if he's guilty of those two things, why shouldn't they throw the book at him?"

"Do you know what involuntary manslaughter means?" Grant continued. "Involuntary manslaughter means there was no intent to kill and that you were only indirectly responsible for someone's death. Involuntary manslaughter is the law we use to punish people for accidents. You know, it's the law district attorneys use when a child drowns in a swimming pool, or a parent accidentally backs over their kid in the driveway."

Lloyd raised his voice.
"Yeah, but what about the other one?
What'd you call it, mass destruction?"

"That's one of the government's 'big brother laws.' It's a selective prosecution law."

"What do ya mean?"

"They make a law where everybody's guilty, and then big brother can decide when to come in and prosecute. This law, Conspiracy to Make a Weapon of Mass Destruction, is broadly written. Hypothetically, let's say I'm a smart guy, and we sit down at your kitchen table one day over a couple beers, and you ask me how nuclear bombs work. Let's say I build a small model using apples and toothpicks. We could both be guilty of the conspiracy law."

Lloyd shook his head. "I don't think so; just talking about it can't be illegal. There are books in the library that tell you how bombs work, and internet sites. How can we make it illegal to teach somebody how to make a bomb?"

"That's just it. They don't prosecute everybody, just who they want. That's why the other guy is in prison for life, and in jeopardy of being re-tried so they can get the death penalty, even though re-trying someone for the same crime in this country is supposed to be against the law."

"But that bomb was actually used to kill people."

"But the second guy didn't know that. At least they couldn't prove it or he would have been guilty of murder. They couldn't prove he knew anything about the plan to blow up
Oklahoma
. They only knew that he taught the bomber how to make fertilizer bombs. That's it."

"Well, building bombs in your corn field is illegal."

"Yeah.
But it doesn't warrant life in prison, or the death penalty, does it? No, he was a scapegoat, a fall guy, someone that the president could throw to the masses."

Lloyd was quiet for a long time. Both of them had stopped walking without realizing it. Lloyd finally looked up at Grant. "And I thought I was into conspiracy theories."

Grant smiled.

Lloyd's smile vanished. "You're not saying they're going to prosecute you for these floods, are you, all the deaths and everything?"

"No, but they will look for scapegoats, both the government and the media, especially if they don't catch whoever's blowing up the dams. And firing somebody like me from the Bureau of Reclamation is a small price to pay, to be able to say that you've . . ." Grant made a sign in the air for quotation marks with his fingers, ". . . implemented corrective action."

Grant saw Shauna walking through the crowds, scanning her head back and forth, obviously looking for Grant. He yelled at her. "Shauna!"

She turned at the sound and her face lit up when she saw them. She quickly walked toward where they were standing.

"What's happening with the water levels?" Grant asked.

"The water is still rising, but just barely. After you opened number five, the rate changed from an inch every two minutes to almost five minutes per inch. Since then, the lake has risen another six inches and now the rate has slowed to almost ten minutes for the last inch. And we're still six inches below the tops of the spillways."

"So you think it'll handle it?"

"No problem," she said immediately.

"All right then. Let's go."

Shauna stepped back. "You mean leave? Before the water level stabilizes?"

"Yeah.
You said it'd handle it." He knew he was pushing her. She didn't like leaving loose ends. But then, neither did
he
. Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough time to eliminate every reasonable doubt. If there were, he'd still be at
Hoover
; actually, he might even be at
Glen
Canyon
. He pointed downstream. "Right now, the water's probably topping Headgate Rock. We need to go."

"Yeah, but what if --"

"They'll call us, believe me." Grant motioned for the helicopter.

At that moment, Charlie walked up, followed by a guy in a hard hat. "Well the demolition guys are here." The guy in the hard hat nodded toward Grant. Charlie adjusted his glasses then returned his hand to its resting place on his stomach, which was now stained from the sweat and grime from the last hour. "Guess we don't need them anymore, since we got the gate open.
Right?
You want me to send 'em home?"

Grant glanced over at Shauna before answering. "No, we were just talking about that." Grant stepped closer and reached out toward the guy in the hard hat. The man responded and they shook hands. "Grant Stevens."

"Duane." Duane's hands felt dry and rough.

Grant pointed toward
Lake
Havasu
. "The water levels haven't stabilized yet. We expect them to, probably sometime in the next hour." He checked Shauna's expression to verify accuracy, and since he saw no changes, assumed he was okay. "But we'd like to have you hang around for a few hours until the water level does stabilize.
Just in case."

Charlie looked surprised and quickly adjusted the glasses again. "The spillways are pretty much open now. And we couldn't get Duane down there to blow it anyway."

Grant knew where this was going. "Charlie's right. The spillways are as open as they're going to be. If that's not enough to stop the water from rising, then we have to do something else." Grant saw Charlie's mouth drop open. "Lloyd and I were thinking that the concrete at the top of the dam that goes over the top of the spillways is probably, what, about six to eight feet thick?" Grant looked at Charlie for affirmation.

Charlie nervously adjusted his glasses.
"Yeah, sure.
That sounds about right, but --"

"So if the spillways can't handle it, you could blow the top off a few of them. That would definitely open them up enough." Grant looked directly at Duane. "You think you could open up that much concrete?"

The man in the hard hat shifted uncomfortably and glanced over at Charlie. "Well, sure, I guess. But I'll need to check to see -"

Grant held out both of his hands. "Look, we're pretty confident we're okay. You're probably not going to have to blow up anything. But we'd like you to hang around and be ready. You can work with Charlie."

Charlie looked over, concerned. "Why? You're not leaving, are you?"

Grant nodded quickly at Lloyd, who immediately left toward the helicopter. "Yeah, Charlie, we are."

"How soon?" he asked, adjusting his glasses again.

"Right now."

"But the water --"

"Don't
worry,
you can call us if anything goes wrong." Grant felt confident that Charlie wouldn't blow up anything without calling first.

"But --"

"Shauna will tell your people what we expect the water levels to do. If it varies much, call me and we'll figure it out. If it gets bad enough, we'll come back. Don't worry."

Grant heard the whine of the turbine on the helicopter and started walking toward it. Grant saw Shauna dart away, most likely to brief the person watching the water levels. Charlie hustled up to walk next to Grant. He looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what. As they reached the outer perimeter of the now spinning rotors, FBI Agent Susan Williams joined them. She looked surprised.

"Are we leaving? I heard the helicopter."

Grant nodded.
"Yeah.
You ready?"

"Yeah.
I guess."

Grant turned back to Charlie and shook his hand. "Nice working with you, Charlie. Hopefully we'll run into each other again sometime."

Charlie's lips moved, but he didn't say anything. He looked nervous, but realistically the hard part was behind him. Parker Dam's spillways would be at full capacity for the next sixty days. He'd settle in after a while. He'd have to. Looking at Charlie Jorgensen, Grant realized he kind of liked the guy, in spite of his weirdness.

Grant broke the handshake, patted Charlie on the shoulder to reassure him,
then
walked under the rotors toward the passenger seat of the helicopter. Right before he opened the door, he turned and pointed to Charlie. Grant motioned a phone at his ear and mouthed the words "call me."

Charlie nodded weakly.

Grant climbed in. Lloyd held out the headphones, which Grant pulled on. He saw that Agent Williams was doing the same.

"Are we waiting for your girl?" It was Lloyd's voice in the headphones.

"Yeah.
She'll only be a minute."

They waited without talking. When the door opened and Shauna jumped in, the rotors had already begun to accelerate. She was still attaching her seat belt when the chopper lifted off.

As they rose quickly into the air, Grant noticed the water exiting the five spillways. The aerial view didn't do it justice. You had to be standing right next to it to get the real feeling for how much water was heading down the
Colorado River
.

* * *

12:00 p.m. -
Lake Powell
,
Utah

Julie was ecstatic. Finally, a crew had arrived to clean the launch ramp. They brought five power washers, and had started scouring back and forth at the top of the ramp. The moss was washing right off, although many of the boaters were now considering that the power washers might have been the wrong approach. It seemed that after being exposed to the dry desert air through the night,
then
baked in the sun all morning, the moss could almost be swept off the ramp. But with a crew busy cleaning, nobody wanted to throw a wrench into the works for fear the effort would stop.

They had yet to see any equipment arrive that was capable of lifting the boats onto the trailers. The equipment was available in Page, as it was frequently used to move boats around in the repair lots. But the bridge across
Glen
Canyon
was gone. The Crawfords had been surprised to find out that it had collapsed in the flood.

Paul pointed at the team of men power-washing above them on the ramp. "How much longer before you think we can load up?"

Greg shrugged. "It'll be a while." He motioned at the boats farther up the ramp. "We'll have to wait for all these guys to go first."

"Do we have a couple of hours?" Paul asked.

Greg nodded. "Sure. This will take a while. Why?"

Paul pointed in the direction of where the Glen Canyon Dam had been. "I thought maybe we could drive over and check it out. It's only a few miles."

Greg looked up at the men working. "I'd better stay here by the boat, but Julie'll probably want to go." He looked at her.

Julie nodded enthusiastically. She was dying to do something besides wait.

Paul waved at Julie and Erika. "Let's go, then."

A few minutes later they had made the hike up the ramp and climbed into Paul and Erika's SUV. It was a short drive to the highway, but the road was blocked as they neared the dam. Paul parked off the side of the road like many other vehicles, and the three of them jumped out and started walking. As they approached, the canyon opened and they could see more with each step. Another barrier had been set up to prohibit pedestrians. About 40 or 50 people were crowded along the barrier for a look.