Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River by Gary Hansen

mumbled from the bed. She shielded her eyes from the light.
    "Somebody from work. I don't recognize the number."
    "I thought they were all out of town," she said.
    "Me too."
    He walked over to the nightstand next to the bed and grabbed the cordless phone. His wife got up and went into the bathroom. Who could it be at this hour? Maybe someone headed to
Kenya
had forgotten something, some document or report. The fact that they would page him this early in the morning, with a 911, bugged him to no end, as if he didn't have anything more important to do. He walked back over by the dresser and considered for a while whether to delay calling back. However, a morbid curiosity of who was nervy enough to do it made him decide to make the call.
    The number on the pager had timed out, so he pressed the button again to re-illuminate it. He keyed in the number and waited. In the process of holding the phone in one hand and the pager in the other, his towel fell to the floor. He had just bent over to pick it up when the person on the other end of the line answered on the first ring.
    He propped the phone between his shoulder and ear while trying to position the towel. "Hello."
    "Grant? This is Julia, you know, Roland's admin."
    He knew who Julia was. She was the commissioner's new executive secretary. The consensus at the Bureau was that Roland had selected her because she looked like a model. Grant himself had never talked to her in his life. What could she possibly want? He wrapped the towel around his waist and tucked it in before he answered. For some reason he didn't feel right about talking to Julia when he was naked, even on the phone.
    "Hi," he said.
    "I'm so glad you're there. As you know, Roland and the other executives are on their way to
Kenya
. I can't get a hold of them."
    Grant could tell she was nervous; she sounded like she might cry. "That's okay. What do you need?"
    "I just got a call from the Glen Canyon Dam. There's been an explosion."
    Grant sat down on the bed. "What?" The image returned from the day before of the concrete dam he had seen on TV.
    She continued. "The guy who called's name is Brian. He's a night security guard."
    The shock of the information waned enough to make Grant ask another question. "Julia, what is the Bureau doing?"
    There was silence on the other end before she finally spoke again. "That's just it, Grant. Everybody's gone. That's why I called you."
    He knew she wanted a response, but he couldn't speak.
    "Grant, Roland told me he was leaving you in charge. You need to handle this." She continued, "I just called the pilots for the Gulfstream. They'll meet you at the airport."
    Although the Bureau of Reclamation had an expensive corporate jet, only the commissioner and other executives used it. Grant had never flown in it.
    "The Gulfstream?" Grant repeated.
    "They'll get you down to the dam within the hour. I have Brian's number at
Glen
Canyon
. Do you have a pencil?"
    Grant realized his mouth was hanging open. They were sending him on the Gulfstream? He stood and moved back toward the dresser, subconsciously realizing the towel had dropped again. This time he made no effort to retrieve it. "Hang on a second." He grabbed a pen and one of his business cards, then flipped over the card to write on the back. "What's the guy's name again?"
    "Brian," she repeated.
    "Okay. Give me the number."
    She read it to him and made him repeat it back to her.
    "Is there anything you need from the office?" she asked.
    Grant couldn't think. Then all of the sudden he wondered what would happen downstream if the Glen Canyon Dam failed.
Lake
Powell
was huge, one of the largest reservoirs in the country. The damage downstream would be catastrophic. He remembered suddenly that the
Grand Canyon
was directly downstream from the dam.
    "Julia, wait a minute. The Bureau did a study in the late nineties about what would happen if the dam failed. Can you get me a copy of the report? It's a Failure Inundation Study. I think