Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (69 page)

Lloyd motioned southwest of the helicopter,
then
quickly returned his hand to the controls. "Looks like bushes or something, in a line."

Grant saw what Lloyd was talking about. It was a line of bushes stretching north and south. At over a hundred miles per hour, the helicopter approached quickly and Grant saw that it was actually two lines of bushes with an expanse of dark sand in the middle. He recognized it immediately as the lagoon coming up from the ocean just south of the delta. The lagoon was mostly dry with only a few puddles, which told Grant the tide had withdrawn.

Lloyd slowed the helicopter.
"Where now?"

Grant looked north. "I wonder how far the water is. It should get here pretty soon." He saw nothing, but it was dark and he knew the water was out there on the horizon, coming very quickly.

The helicopter hovered over the empty lagoon.

Grant pointed to the west shore, at the bushes on the shore. "He would be on that side."

"What makes you say that?" Special Agent Williams asked.

Grant considered the question. He had just assumed that the environmentalist would come from the highway on the west. He had no reasoning for it. In fact, the protestors had come from the east. "I don't know. I just figured --"

Lloyd interrupted. "You want to follow it north or south? We don't have much longer until we won't be able to see a thing."

Grant wanted to follow it north. He wanted to see the floodwater, but Shauna pointed out the front of the helicopter.

"Look!" she yelled.
"The water."

Grant saw it too. A long, dark line moved toward them over the gray sand, both in the lagoon and outside of it. They all watched it come, mesmerized.

"How fast is that?" Shauna asked.

Lloyd answered. "It's slow, not much more than ten miles an hour." The water passed under the helicopter and Lloyd swiveled it so they could watch it flow downstream.

"Follow it," Grant commanded. He pointed toward the west shore. "Over there."

The helicopter moved forward and they angled southwest. They followed the water for several minutes. Visibility had dropped to less than a hundred feet.

"How long do you want to keep this up?" Lloyd asked.

Grant didn't know what to do. Part of him wanted to tell Lloyd to accelerate off in some direction, any direction. But what good would that do? They were looking for a needle in a haystack.

Just ahead of the helicopter the lagoon widened in front of them. To stay over dry sand the helicopter veered west for a few minutes. Then, as they rounded the wider section of the lagoon, Lloyd again aimed southwest.

"What was that?" Agent Williams' voice boomed through the headphones.

Grant scanned underneath the helicopter. "What?"

"Over there."

Grant couldn't see where she was pointing and had no idea where to look.

"There it is again! It's somebody." She touched Grant on his right shoulder. "He's on your side. He's in front of the water."

Grant finally saw him. It was a man riding a four-wheel off-road vehicle. The man looked like he had his hands full trying to keep the vehicle under control as it bounced over small clumps of sand and dodged the sparse weeds and brush that grew throughout the dry delta. The man swiveled his head as if he had just noticed the helicopter, then swerved hard right and disappeared into the darkness.

"He's gone," Agent Williams yelled.

The helicopter moved in the direction where they had last seen him. Grant felt a wave of excitement. Could this be him? It made sense, except for the fact that this guy seemed so - he couldn't think of the word - well, weak. Or was he overreacting to how skinny the man was?

"Give me my gun back," Agent Williams said from behind.

Grant flinched. That thought had never occurred to him. Was she going to just shoot him from the air, without even finding out for sure if he was the right guy? Grant reached down on the floor between his feet and carefully brought the gun up and handed it over his shoulder to the special agent. He heard the mechanical sound of her checking the chamber.

Lloyd swept the helicopter back and forth along the front of the slow-moving line of water, but they saw nothing. They searched for what Grant thought to be five minutes, but he didn't trust his sense of time with his heart racing. It was almost completely dark. The man could not have gotten away. There was no place to go.

"There he is!" It was Shauna's voice. Grant saw her reach up and point over Lloyd's left shoulder.

The helicopter banked left. Grant saw him again. They were almost on top of him. The skinny man looked up at them for an instant, craning his neck. The quick look nearly cost the man, as the four-wheeler hit something and he was almost bucked off. He must have lost the accelerator in the motion because the helicopter passed over him and they lost him again.

"There he goes!" Agent Williams said.
"Due west."

The helicopter swerved and Lloyd positioned himself approximately three car lengths behind the bouncing four-wheeler, enough space to react. The next time when the driver jigged left, Lloyd followed.

* * *

9:10 p.m. - Colorado River
Delta
,
Mexico

He couldn't believe it. How had they found him? He swerved east again and applied full throttle. He bounced over a mound of sand and sagebrush and nearly crashed, which forced him to back off the throttle. The loud whopping sound of the helicopter told him that they were right behind him. He veered south. They were still there.

He applied more throttle and prepared for another swerve to lose them. He scanned ahead, but his visibility was almost
nil
. Up ahead he saw the lagoon widen in front of him. He was too far east. He would get trapped. He veered southwest and tried to close the gap before the water trapped him. When he finally rounded the corner of the lagoon, the floodwater had only been ten feet away. He stayed in fourth gear full throttle and aimed again in a southwesterly direction. He had to try to get around it. After running in the same direction for a few minutes and no longer able see the water behind him, he swerved west. The helicopter was right behind him.

Since his angle of due west was perpendicular to the direction of the water, he knew he couldn't hold his heading long, or the water would catch him. He was preparing to turn when unexpectedly the four-wheeler spun around in a huge spray of water. He grasped frantically to hold on. He was instantly soaked and he blinked to clear his eyes and gasped for air. He knew in no time at all the water would be too deep for the quad, so he slammed it down one gear and goosed the throttle, aiming in the direction he thought was south. The tires spun. He relaxed the throttle slightly and they bit. He felt the water behind him almost shoving the vehicle ahead. Miraculously, seconds later he was back on dry ground. The helicopter was still right behind him. He aimed due south, forgot the swerving, and accelerated. He needed some distance from the water before he tried anything else.

He maintained a fairly straight course for a few minutes, veering only to miss a clump of brush. Although he hadn't completely given up, he knew that the chances of losing the helicopter were slim. The pilot was too good. And even if he could lose the chopper, the water was going to force him so far south that he would never get back to his truck. He would miss it by twenty miles. A thought occurred to him. How would they be able to apprehend him, with the water encroaching so fast? They couldn't set the helicopter down, or it would get washed away too. Although he saw no exit for himself, the thought that the people in the helicopter had no clear option either gave him a sliver of hope.

With his eyes watering and the lack of light, he didn't see it at first. When he did, it was too late. In a fraction of a second he saw the ground in front of him raise a couple feet into a hard crested bank, then drop off abruptly into a flat wet sandy area. He knew immediately it had to be the north tip of the
Gulf of California
. At over thirty miles an hour, the quad hit the raised area like a ramp and it shot him into the air over the wet sand. Releasing the throttle at the last minute had only worsened the trajectory of the vehicle, making it land in a severe front-down position. His body was launched forward onto the handlebars by the abrupt landing, causing the quad to veer sharply. The motion was too severe and he was thrown off an instant before the quad rolled. He thought he had landed clear, but felt the quad roll over his leg. The impact only lasted a second, but he felt an unmistakable snapping sensation.

His body slid to a stop, and amazingly he felt no pain. He was lying in a puddle of wet sand. His tongue tasted salt. He struggled up on his side and looked at the quad. It was upside down with a front tire still spinning. He looked at his leg and saw it jutted awkwardly to the side, still with no pain. He needed to get up and get going. But even if a miracle occurred to roll the quad back over, how would he start it with a broken leg?

He looked north toward the crest just in time to see the gray floodwater roll over the top and head toward him. This was it. He laid his head back and relaxed. He had no regrets. A small miscalculation would end his life, but not before a string of successes that would be talked about for generations. The fact that he would be a victim of his own destruction seemed to fit somehow. It was not the way he planned it, but compared to getting caught and living the remainder of his life in prison, it was the preferable alternative. He was ready to die, and wondered how long it would take for the water to reach him. He didn't know much about drowning, or how bad it would hurt, but he welcomed it.

The loud whooping noise of the helicopter was still there in the background. But he didn't care, and tried to ignore it. The noise, however, increased in intensity until it became almost deafening. He was buffeted by the wet spray and sand from its rotors. He turned his head and held his arm up to shield the spray. He tried to roll, to escape from the turbulence, but his leg protested with intense pain. A blindingly intense light illuminated him from the helicopter.

* * *

9:15 p.m. -
Gulf of California
,
Mexico

"Did you see that?" screamed Shauna from the rear seat. "He's probably dead."

The quad had abruptly swerved left when it hit the beach, and then rolled multiple times before stopping upside down. It was hard to focus in the dwindling light.

"The water'll reach him any minute," said Agent Williams.

Lloyd motioned at the silver handle on Grant's right. "Use the spot."

Grant spun the handle and saw that it maneuvered the spotlight just outside the cabin. He aimed it down and flipped the switch to illuminate below. He swept it wildly for several seconds while he got the feel of it. He found the man lying on his back, his right leg bent awkwardly to the side. The man seemed dazed.

Lloyd brought the helicopter in close and the man lifted his hand up to shield his eyes. Grant only saw his eyes for a second, but it was enough. It was him, the bomber. Here was the man who had blown up the Glen Canyon Dam, and the Colorado River Aqueduct, the same guy who tried to blow up Davis Dam and poison the
All
American
Canal
. Here was someone who would stop at nothing to restore the
Colorado River
, even if it meant killing innocent people. He was seconds from drowning in the flood he had created, seconds from being buried in the delta he had tried so hard to restore. What justice did he deserve? If they rescued him and took him back to
America
, his trial would be a media circus. Lawyers would line up to defend him. The liberals would scream for a presidential pardon. It would divide the country, Grant was sure of it.

But even in that fraction of a second, Grant had seen something else. Although Grant did not agree with what this man had done, he understood.

There was no decision to make. Grant shucked the headphones, opened the door and jumped from the helicopter, which was now only six feet from the ground. He landed off balance, fell, and rolled in the wet sand. Disoriented from the dark and the rotor turbulence, Grant stood, shielding his eyes from the swirling wet sand. His knees and arms were wet from the beach. An instant after regaining his feet, he felt water run over them.
The floodwater.

The floodlight swept erratically after Grant released it. With the light moving back and forth, he searched for the environmentalist. The water had risen almost to his knees. Finally he caught a glimpse of him, and slogged in that direction. When Grant reached him, he was on his back in the water flailing his arms. Grant grabbed his shoulders. He yelled to the man. "Who are you?"

The man stared up at him before reaching for Grant's hand. He didn't answer.

Grant pulled him up and put the man's arm around his neck. The man grimaced in pain,
then
looked into Grant's eyes. Grant asked the question that was burning in his mind, although he already knew the answer. "You're him, aren't you? You're the one who's been blowing up the dams?"

The man nodded in affirmative,
then
his eyes rolled up into his head as if he might pass out. The water was rising quickly and was almost to their waists. The man's eyes came back to life and Grant tried to move him toward the helicopter.