Keller told the rafters to paddle hard at the shore. David felt the raft nose up onto the sand. The landing had been small and a little tricky and they almost missed it. The rock cliffs and sandy beach looked enticing. Named Elves Chasm, the place featured a small stream that trickled through white and orange rock walls. According to the guidebook, Elves was located at Grand Canyon mile one hundred sixteen. A large waterfall, one of many at Elves, was visible just two hundred yards from the landing. The water seemed to flow right out of the rock then fall about twenty feet into a pool at the bottom. Half way up, there was a big cavern in the rock behind the fall, which Keller said they could climb up into. In the mist of the small waterfall, green plants covered the rock walls, more like a rain forest than a desert. It was one of the most incredible sites so far on the trip. Keller said that Elves Chasm continued above the lower fall with more falls and more small pools.

Judy expressed what David felt, "Wow, it's so beautiful."

They were all tempted to run toward the site, to explore it, but they were hungry. It was after one o'clock and they hadn't eaten since breakfast.

"Let's eat first," Keller said. "Then you guys can climb into that hole above the waterfall and I'll take a picture of you. We'll hang out here for a couple hours. There's more waterfalls and pools upstream from the main one." He looked directly at Becky and Sam. "It's very romantic up there."

Sam blushed enough to make the others laugh, but Becky showed no embarrassment.

"When are we going to meet up with the other raft?" asked Sam.

That morning, the group in the other raft, had decided to sleep in. They had seen Elves Chasm before and were feeling lazy. So the guides had agreed to separate.

Keller motioned upstream. "When they finally get up, they'll meet us here. It'll give you guys some time to explore Elves."

Afram popped the top on the cooler "All right. What's to eat?"

Keller looked confused. "I thought you guys were doing YOYO for lunch."

"Screw YOYO," Afram said smiling. "We'd all starve and you know it."

Keller gave in. "All right, who wants to make the sandwiches?"

No one actually volunteered, but everyone in the boat pitched in and helped. Why not? They were at an incredible spot and the mood was upbeat.

* * *

1:30 p.m. - Dangling Rope Marina, Lake Powell, Utah

Julie checked her watch. They had been waiting for gas at Dangling Rope for almost forty-five minutes and there was still a crowd of boats ahead of them. This was taking way too long. Additionally, the wind had started blowing, which was typical in the afternoons at LakePowell. Patience was wearing thin in all the boats, and numerous arguments about who was next had taken place. The gas pumps had been operating non-stop since they arrived.

Dangling Rope's gas pumps were self-service with a slot to insert credit cards, and there were a total of eighteen pumps. On a big day, the marina pumped twenty thousand gallons, but Julie thought today might be a new record.

"What if they run out?" she asked.

Paul shook his head. "They better not."

While waiting, Greg had continued to nose the boat closer to the dock. Now they were pinched by boats that had arrived after them. They were committed to pump #11. A small yellow boat had just replaced the nozzle in the pump, and was trying to back out of the slip. The crowd of boats made his exit very difficult.

"Make room!" someone shouted.

Another man waved his arms at a red boat blocking the exit of the yellow boat. "Get out of the way!"

The man in the red boat looked uncomfortable, and when he tried to back his boat to make room he nudged a boat behind him.

"Watch it you moron!"

The small yellow boat took the opportunity to slip past. As soon as he was gone a large white boat pulled up to the pump. Instead of inserting a credit card, he started jogging down the docks toward the store.

A fat guy in an orange shirt in the boat next to Julie, yelled at him, "Where the hell are you going?"

The man's wife, who was still in the white boat, stood and faced the man in the orange shirt. "Sorry, but we only have cash."

"Then get out of the way, and let somebody else pump."

"It'll only take a couple minutes," she argued.

"We don't have a couple minutes, lady."

"Leave her alone," Greg said.

The yeller turned toward Greg. "Stay out of it. I don't have to wait for them. If you want to wait, you get behind them."

Julie wished that Greg would have stayed out of it, even though the lady needed somebody to support her.

The man in the orange shirt turned back to the white boat. "Move it out of the way lady."

She turned away and tried to ignore him.

"Lady, I'm talking to you."

Julie spoke before she could stop herself. "You're not helping."

"Like I said, if you guys want to wait, go ahead. But, they're not holding the rest of us up." He motioned at the other boats behind him as if everyone supported what he was doing. He turned back to the white boat. "Lady?"

Julie saw that the man from the white boat was now running back down the docks toward them. She pointed to him. "Here he comes."

The man in orange sat down and didn't say anything else.

While Julie watched the man take the nozzle and put it in his boat, she calculated that each boat took between ten and fifteen minutes to fill, and there were still four boats waiting for #11 ahead of them, including the man in the orange shirt. Counting their own boat, that was five boats total. She guessed they would be stuck at Dangling Rope for another hour.

While they were waiting, they overheard that at Dangling Rope, which was just over forty miles upstream from the dam, that water levels were dropping approximately ten feet per hour. Closer to the dam, levels were dropping even faster. At the upstream end of the lake, another hundred forty miles away, they hadn't noticed anything yet. Paul had pointed out a man adjusting cables on the floating docks to compensate for the changing levels.

Julie let her mind wander downstream to where the dam was supposed to be. She imagined boats getting sucked over the top, and people drowning. Maybe they were better off up here, miles away from the dam. But on the other hand, Greg was right about getting stranded, and staying this far north would guarantee days or more before they were rescued. Julie wondered if they could save the Mastercraft. They had paid over twenty thousand dollars for it. She wondered if insurance would cover it, if they abandoned it someplace.

Hopefully, Max and Darlene would be waiting when Greg got them back to the houseboat. Julie wondered if Darlene would take the initiative to pack everything up in preparation. Then again, what if Darlene and Max didn't know. Maybe nobody had told them what was going on.

* * *

1:40 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Max felt someone shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw Darlene's face.

"Wake up." She pointed at where they had kayaked through the slot canyon. "The water's gone."

"What water?" he mumbled. What was she talking about? He pulled himself up on his side and looked at where she was pointing. Then he sat bolt upright. "What the--"

"It's gone," she said.

Max saw that the water had dropped at least five feet since he fell asleep, because there was no water at all in the canyon, and the muddy bottom was at least five feet below where the water had been, when they paddled in.

After they had stopped an hour before, Darlene had spread out the two beach towels and they ate a quick picnic lunch. The romantic atmosphere of the private rock cavern interrupted their lunch, and well, one thing had led to another. Afterward, Max had taken a nap, while Darlene read her book. And obviously, while he was asleep, the water had disappeared.

Max stepped carefully over the rocks down into the wet streambed. His feet sunk up to his ankles in deep sticky mud. He moved forward with slow movements and wet sucking sounds, until he rounded the corner and could see into the narrow canyon. No water. He yelled for Darlene to wait, while he looked around. His movements were slow and awkward, but he managed to move all the way through the narrow portion, until it opened up and he could see. The water was now visible, about a hundred feet away.

Max tried to imagine what it had looked like when they kayaked through here. The water had been approximately ten feet deeper and had covered the bottom of the muddy canyon. Max looked at the shore, and the wet band, and cursed that he had ignored the signs. He realized now that he had noticed something even before they left the houseboat. In total, he guessed the water had dropped over thirty feet.

But, how could this happen? LakePowell was a hundred eighty miles long. How could the water drop so fast? And then it hit him. There was only one answer. Something had happened to the dam. He turned back into the canyon.

"Darlene!" He tried to move quickly through the sticky mud. "Darlene!"

* * *

2:15 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David looked at the rock ledge. Keller had said that the way to the upper falls at Elves Chasm was tricky, but he didn't think it'd be this bad. The ledge was only about a foot wide. If someone fell, they'd die. "I dunno," he said, shaking his head.

"Don't be ridiculous," Judy said as she slid past. "You desk jockeys are all chickens."

She stepped onto the narrow ledge and grabbed at the rock wall for hand holds. She shimmied carefully along the ledge without ever looking down and without hesitation. At the other end of the ledge, about fifteen feet away, she hopped onto the cliff and turned around. She motioned with her arm. "Come on, it's easy."

"Nothing like a girl to make ya feel like a complete wuss, huh?" Afram said, smiling.

David nodded. "Go ahead while I clean out my pants."

Afram started across, much slower and much more careful than Judy.

Although the ledge scared David, Elves Chasm had turned out to be a blast. After a leisurely lunch, they had hiked up to the lower falls and played for over a half hour. They climbed up behind the waterfall and maneuvered until they were all in the picture. Per Keller's promise, he played the photographer. Of course Becky and Sam had their arms around each other. It ended up being one of those screwy scenes where Keller had everybody's cameras around his neck and the group had to stay in place while he took a picture with each one. David's leg was stretched across a wet rock and it felt like it was going to slip. He needed to stand up and adjust it, but Keller kept yelling for them to hold still for a couple more.

After the pictures, Judy jumped down the waterfall into the pool at the bottom, something David had not even considered. After some amount of prodding from Judy and Keller, Afram followed, then Sam and Becky. David would never have done it, but after watching the girls and seeing that it was no big deal, he mustered up the courage and jumped in himself. After resurfacing from the cold water David realized that it had been no big deal after all. The entire group climbed back up and jumped again. Afram must have jumped five times, the last time holding one knee into his chest to splash everybody. At one point the whole group floated around in the pool under the waterfall. The weather was incredibly hot so the cold water felt good for short periods of time, but after a few minutes of sitting in the pool, the whole group felt hypothermic. Becky's teeth started chattering. Everyone climbed out and sprawled on the hot rocks to get warm.

Keller told the group how to get to the upper falls, then he headed back to the rafts. The group climbed higher. A short hike later they had arrived at the ledge where Sam and Becky had just made their way across, practically holding hands.

"Okay David," Afram called.

David approached the ledge, still nervous. However, watching the rest of the group go across without incident had convinced him that it was possible. His feet seemed heavy and unresponsive. When he gripped the rock with his hands, in spite of the great handholds, he kept imagining the rock breaking loose or his hand losing its grip, neither of which happened. He reached the other side and took what must have been his first breath since leaving. His heart was racing, but he'd done it.

Judy patted him on the back. "You need to get out more."

They continued up, hiking over and around some large boulders until they came around the bluff and could see some of the upper falls of Elves. The first thing they noticed was that they were not alone. A couple was lying next to the large pool completely naked. The group stopped when they saw the sunbathers, except for Judy who hadn't seen them yet.

"Hang on, Judy." Afram said in almost a whisper and Judy stopped.

David noticed that the sunbathers had noticed them too, but they didn't seem to mind, not even bothering to cover up. He had a better view than he wanted and even from thirty feet away got an instantaneous refresher on male and female anatomy. Aside from their lack of clothes, he noticed the almost white hair on the guy and the obviously non-shaven armpits on the girl. He guessed Europeans, which explained their comfort in lying around naked. Although he'd never actually been to Europe, he'd always heard about them hanging around without clothes in city parks, and beaches. Since there were no other rafts at the bottom, David at first wondered how the couple came to be at the site, and then he spotted the backpacks.

When the naked couple noticed them, the man stood and waved them over. "Come, we can share this place."

The accent seemed German to David. They were obviously friendly, but who wanted to walk up and shake hands with a naked guy? The girl must have figured it out, because she said something to the guy in another language. He nodded and they both retrieved some shorts and pulled them on. By then, the rafters had reached the pool. The man and the woman walked over to shake hands, neither of them wearing a shirt, which for the man was normal enough, but for the woman, well, not something you see every day.

"I am Ralph," the guy said, but it sounded more like Rolph. "This is Anna." He pointed to the smiling topless girl.

The groups shook hands. David had never shook hands with a topless girl before and although he was extremely nervous, she was not, and so he relaxed slightly. He tried to keep his eyes high. Each of the rafters introduced themselves. David happened to glance back while Sam was shaking hands with Anna, and he couldn't help notice the scowl on Becky's face in the background.

David waited until Ralph was looking, then pointed high on the cliffs. "You hiked down from above?" He over-enunciated to make sure he was understood."

"Yes, we hiked down from Royal Arch this morning." He pointed up above the falls. "There is a small cliff that requires a rope to descend. We left the canyon rim the day before that."

The English was near flawless and David regretted the way he had asked the question. He had heard that Germans spoke better English than most Americans and Ralph seemed to have driven the point home.

Afram asked the question that David wanted to. "Are you from Germany?"

They both smiled and nodded. David found his eyes drifting back to Anna and tried to control them, aiming them someplace safe.

"How far does this go?" Judy asked, pointing above the waterfall.

Ralph explained. "There are a few more small waterfalls and many pools above this one. If you haven't seen them, you should go. They are very beautiful. Anna and I will wait for you here. When you return, we can talk for a while. Yes?"

Judy answered, "Okay, we'll be back in a while," and she started heading up a trail.

David and the rest of the group followed. David consciously avoided taking a last glimpse toward Anna.

* * *

2:25 p.m. - Dangling Rope Marina, Lake Powell, Utah

Julie watched the gas pump count past fifteen gallons. "That's enough!"

Greg held the nozzle. "No. A little more, just in case."

Paul and Erika both stood and nervously watched as the gallon numbers counted higher.

Julie looked back at the boats behind them. There were even more than when they arrived an hour and a half before. She pitied the poor people who would be leaving hours from now.

Greg released the lever, climbed out of the boat and replaced it in the pump. He jumped back in the boat and fired up the engine. Julie noticed the gas gauge climb up to just over half full. The other boats made a space for them to back out of the slip, and Greg expertly backed the Mastercraft into the small spot. Immediately, another boat pulled into the space. Paul jumped up on the bow to prevent the boat from hitting anyone else, and Greg began a slow tedious meandering through the crowd of boats waiting to get fuel. Julie saw what looked like envious glances from other boaters.

When they finally passed the last boats and were out in open water, Greg pushed the throttle forward, ignoring the low speed buoys. The rangers had more important things to worry about than speeding tickets.

Julie cupped her hand so her husband could hear her. "How long to the houseboat?"

He shrugged. "We're close. Half hour, maybe less."

CHAPTER 17

2:30 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

A diesel four-wheel drive pickup with "Las Vegas - Demolition" on the door, led three industrial one-ton trucks with the same insignia down the switchbacks toward the dam. Grant saw the dam security guards wave them into the employee parking lot next to the Nevada spillway. The driver of the pickup jumped out of his truck and came over to where the group waited. He was a tall blond man in Levi's and a t-shirt. He wore lace up work boots. Grant guessed he was in his forties. The guy took off his hard hat with his left hand and reached out his right and Fred Grainger took it.

"Hi, I'm Todd Fisher." Seven other guys in hard hats crowded up behind Todd.

"Fred Grainger, site supervisor." Fred pointed to Grant. "And this is Grant Stevens from the Bureau of Reclamation in Denver."

The three shook hands.

Todd said, "I understand you have an emergency job for me."

Fred walked over to the fence by the spillways and pointed to the concrete wall holding back the water. "We need that wall blown as soon as possible."

Todd whistled for a second. "All that waters going to come charging through here after she blows, ain't it?"

"That's the whole point." Grant pointed to the other side of the dam. "Oh, and the spillway on the Arizona side will need to be blown too."

Todd looked at both Fred and Grant. "This is all related to the news on TV about the Glen Canyon Dam, isn't it?"

Fred nodded.

Todd looked back at the spillways. "I assume you want me to blow the wall as low as possible to allow the most water through?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Do you guys have any idea how thick the concrete is at the base of that wall?"

Fred responded. "We found the blue prints while we were waiting."

Fred turned and one of his employees handed him what looked like a rolled up poster. Fred unrolled it in one motion and Todd and Grant crowded around to get a look.

Todd spoke first "Wow, that thing is thirty feet high and over eighteen feet thick at the base. Plus the whole thing is full of rebar."

Fred looked over at Todd. "Can you do it?"

"Oh, we can break it up, no problem. But the rebar is going to hold all the pieces together. The water pressure might be able to tear it apart, but then again, you may need to get a crane in here to reach down and tear some of it out. We won't know until after the initial explosions."

Grant groaned. "It'll take hours to get a big crane in here."

Todd thought about it for a second, "Well, I can always increase the explosives. I won't be able to guarantee a precision job." He smiled. "I might blow the end of this parking lot off." It was said as if Todd blew up parking lots every day.

Grant and Fred's eyes met, both of their heads were nodding.

Fred looked back at Todd. "We'll risk the parking lot. How fast can your guys work?"

Todd turned and talked to one of the other guys in a hard hat. He motioned down into the trough leading to the Nevada spillway tunnel, and to the base of the concrete spillway itself. He pointed over to the Arizona spillway across the river. He walked back to Fred and Grant. "I think we'll be ready to detonate in less than an hour. However, I recommend we blow one spillway at a time, in case we need to make adjustments." Todd smiled.

* * *

2:50 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Greg pointed at the canyon and slowed the boat down. "It's that one."

Julie looked around "Are you sure? It looks different."

The trip back from Dangling Rope Marina had been difficult. The amount of boat traffic was unbelievable and during some sections where the lake narrowed, the water was dangerously rough from waves trapped in the channel. They even saw a boat that had capsized. In a couple of places, the water was so low that rocks protruded into the normal boating channels, forcing the traffic to alter its course.

Greg motioned to Julie and Erika with his hand under his eyes. "Mask your view so you can only see above the water line. Then all the new exposed rock won't confuse you. See? Our houseboat is in the canyon with that big rock sitting in front of that wall of rock. We were just used to seeing it at water level, not forty feet up the slope."

Julie nodded, trusting her husband, although it didn't look anything like she remembered it.

As the Mastercraft entered the mouth of the canyon, Greg accelerated. The water was much smoother here than in the main channel. He looked over at Julie "Okay, no dilly-dallying at the houseboat. We get the necessities and get out."

Julie looked questioningly at her husband. "If we're going all the way up there, why wouldn't we bring the houseboat back with us? What about our deposit? That's thousands of dollars."

Greg answered immediately. "I'd love to, and I hope we can. But unless Max untied it, the houseboat is gonna be sitting high and dry on the rocks right now, thirty or forty feet above the water line. If so, we couldn't bring it back if we wanted too."

Julie looked over at Erika and Paul to see if they had heard the same thing. The look on Erika's face was as blank as Julie's. Julie had not thought about that. While she tried to imagine the scene, Greg accelerated again and she leaned back in her seat. Looking over her shoulder she noticed Erika staring behind in a trance. She now dreaded seeing the same houseboat that just a moment before she had been so anxious to see.

Julie marveled at how much the canyon had changed. Before, it felt more open. Now, with water forty feet lower, the canyon walls were higher and seemed to be closing in on her. The wet canyon walls were darker too.

The boat banked back and forth for a while as Greg carved deeper into the long canyon. A few times in the past, usually when she was sitting in one of the seats facing backwards, Julie's stomach had been affected by these long canyon excursions. She was all too familiar with the initial feelings of motion sickness, when butterflies started flapping around down there, the clammy skin, the dry mouth, and finally the apprehension that she needed to throw up, followed by relief after she finally did. But, that was not what she felt now. This feeling was worse, a deep pit, almost a pain, in her stomach, caused by heading farther into a canyon, which every bone in her body knew, was the wrong direction. She wanted to be back in the main channel, rough water and all, speeding downstream toward the marina, or better yet, back in the truck, on the road, headed home. She wanted to hug her children.

They rounded a bend and Greg swerved suddenly hard left. Julie wasn't ready and was thrown out of her seat onto the floor, hitting her head on Greg's hip. Julie rubbed her head and started to get up and she noticed Erika had also been knocked on the floor. The boat slowed quickly.

"Sorry." Greg reached down and grabbed her arm to help her up. "That was close."

"What was close?" said Erika from her hands and knees on the floor behind them.

Greg pointed directly behind the boat, where they had just been. "Look."

A large boulder was visible just under the surface of the water directly behind them in the exact area where they had swerved. Julie could only imagine what would have happened if Greg had not avoided it.

Greg grimaced. "I'm going to need to slow down a little."

There were no arguments from the passengers as they climbed back into their seats. As they rounded the next bend, much slower, Greg pulled the throttle all the way back and the boat coasted, settling back into the water. Julie saw many of the protruding boulders scattered around the channel.

Greg looked over at Paul. "Hey, can you climb up on the bow and keep an eye out. I don't want to tear up the prop and I can't see how deep it is in front of the boat.

Paul climbed up on the bow. Julie and Erika stood and watched over the side of the boat. Rocks were everywhere, especially ahead.

"Hang on," Paul said, pointing off to the right. "It gets too shallow up there. Go over that way." He pointed to the left.

Greg reversed the transmission, backing up a few feet, and then headed where Paul pointed. That worked for a while, as Paul guided him through a shallow channel. Greg had to back up a few more times, but they kept going. When they rounded the next bend however, Julie wanted to puke. There were rocks all over the place, but worst of all, the water ended completely about two hundred feet ahead of them on a rocky beach newly exposed by the dropping lake.

Greg cursed, which was something he never did. "We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot."

"How far are we?" Erika asked from behind, her voice cracking in mid sentence.

Greg looked around. "We've got to be close. It can't be more than a couple more bends up the canyon." He bit his lip when he finished talking, something Greg only did when he was nervous. "Why aren't Max and Darlene here, waiting for us?"

Paul shrugged. "They should be here, unless they got a ride with someone else."

"Or unless something's wrong," Julie added. "We better park the boat and get going." She had an overwhelming feeling that they needed to hurry.

Her husband turned and looked at her. "We can't leave the boat Julie. Somebody's going to need to stay with it."

"Why?" Erika asked.

"The water's dropping too fast," Greg answered. "We'd get back here and find the boat high and dry. Then we'd never get out of here."

Julie looked back and forth between the other three. "Then who's staying? You want me or Erika to stay?"

Erika pointed back toward where they came. "I can't drive the boat back through that."

Julie realized immediately that she couldn't either. She was great with the boat out in the open, but in close proximity to anything, Greg always had to maneuver it. "It'll get trickier as the water drops." She looked at her husband. "You better stay with the boat."

Greg looked unhappy, but he nodded, having come to the same conclusion. She could tell he was worried, and that was enough for now.

"Besides Max and Darlene, what do we need to bring back?" Julie asked.

Greg counted on his fingers. "Truck keys, my wallet, your purse -"

"What about clothes?" Julie asked her husband.

He shrugged. "Don't try to carry too much."

She looked around the boat for a second, wishing she had a list.

He pointed back the way they had come. "I need to move the boat back out of here before the water gets any lower. You're going to need your shoes." He pointed at the rocks.

The comment made perfect sense. Julie reached down and grabbed her sandals. Not great for hiking, but they would have to do. She looked at Erika and Paul who both wore flip-flops.

"You guys be careful," Greg said. "And hurry."

She kissed him on the cheek then slid over the side into the water, holding her sandals up so they'd stay dry. Erika and Paul followed. As soon as they were away from the boat, Greg backed it away from them. Julie swam a few strokes toward a rocky strip poking out of the water, then climbed up on it and started walking toward the shoreline in front of them. When she looked back, the boat was already pointed the other direction, Greg was standing on the seat looking at the water in front, steering the boat with his left hand. She waved but he wasn't looking.

* * *

3:10 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David decided he liked Ralph. They'd been talking about ten minutes since the rafters returned to where the Germans were sunbathing. He was extremely friendly. Not like the stereotype of stiffness and arrogance he'd expected. Then again David didn't know why he'd expected Germans to act any different anyway. After all, how many had he actually met? He liked Anna too, even after she put her shirt on. She was much quieter than Ralph though, speaking only when spoken to. At first David guessed she didn't speak very much English, but after hearing her speak, she proved she was as fluent as Ralph.

Ralph had been asking questions about the rafting expedition. "So what will be the total duration of your river trip?"

"Thirteen days," said Afram.

"And where do you sleep?"

"There are campgrounds all along the river. We stop, setup camp, and sleep on the sand in our sleeping bags."

"Do you recommend the river trip?" Ralph wanted to know.

Afram looked around at the other rafters. "Yeah, it's great. Real relaxing. But if you want to go, you have to get reservations early, like a year in advance."

"How did you determine -"

"The internet." Afram interrupted. "We searched around until we found the deal we wanted."

David started to get up. "Why don't you and Anna come down to the rafts and we'll introduce you to Keller. Maybe he has a business card he can give you."

Ralph and Anna both agreed enthusiastically and the group, including their new friends, started back down toward the river.

* * *

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

The sound of jackhammers echoed off the canyon walls upstream from Hoover Dam. Todd's crews, one on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side, wasted no time before cranking up the air compressors in the industrial trucks, tossing air hoses down into the spillways, and starting work. They used jackhammers and impact drills to drill the deep holes into the concrete walls. Todd was down in the spillway pointing to where each hole should be drilled. If there was a science to where Todd had them drilling, Grant didn't recognize it. The holes seemed fairly random. They were focused around the bottom and sides of the wall, with a few vertical lines of holes in the middle, which Grant assumed, were to break up the big wall segments. Each hole was drilled at a slightly downward angle.

After forty-five minutes of the noise, the sounds stopped. The workers climbed a ladder out of the spillway. They unloaded boxes marked with a yellow triangle on the side of each box and the words "Danger - Explosives." Grant noticed the workers jockeyed the boxes around as if they were just normal building materials.

He pointed the boxes out to Todd. "Aren't you afraid that stuff will blow up when you throw it around like that?"

"Nah, this stuff is completely stable, even after we add the propellant, it doesn't get dangerous until you detonate it."

"So why the big warning labels?"

"Government mandates it. Some desk pilot that didn't know anything about explosives decided we better handle them like eggshells." Todd smiled at Grant. "The markings do tend to keep people away and make the psychos trying to steal it a little more visible."

The men handed the boxes down into the spillway. Then one by one they opened the corner of each box and poured what looked like a coarse white powder in each of the holes on the wall. Grant now understood the drilling had been aimed downward so the powder would go into the hole; it would have been harder to fill horizontal holes. It took over ten minutes to fill all the holes with explosives.

When the holes were full, they passed the remaining boxes up the ladder. The hard hats immediately passed down a few five-gallon gas cans and began pouring the liquid in the holes.

Grant again approached Todd. "Is that just gasoline?"

He shook his head. "Kerosene. It burns hotter than normal gas."

"What else do you put in there?"

"That's it. Just the detonators and we're done."

The workers passed the cans up and Todd passed one box, again marked as explosives, down into the spillway. The workers took the detonators and stuffed them in the holes. One guy worked behind them, linking the wires coming out of the detonators together. A longer wire was used to extend from the last detonator up the ladder to where Todd was standing. The box was passed up the ladder, the workers followed, and the ladder was pulled out of the spillway. The workers loaded the remaining materials in the truck and drove the truck out of the parking lot. Todd stood holding what looked like a transistor radio in one hand and the wires in the other.

"This is where you can blow yourself up if you don't know what you are doing. I suggest you guys clear out of here."

Grant didn't need any more encouragement. Fred and the other staff from the dam started walking across the parking lot to where the hard hats were waiting. Grant walked over to one of them.

"What's he doing now?"

The man pointed. "That little unit in his hand is the receiver for the detonator. First he'll hook it up to the big battery by his feet. It will make some lights illuminate. He'll verify that the detonation light is not illuminated, that would be bad. If it's not, he'll hook up the wires and flip a switch to activate the receiver."

As the explanation was finishing, Grant saw Todd set the box down walk over to where they were standing.

Todd nodded. "Okay. We're ready on this side." He reached down and unclipped his radio. "Steve, how're things in Arizona? You guys about ready?"

The radio responded. "Yeah we're just waiting for you."

"Okay, I'm gonna blow this side and see if it works, I'll give you the word."

"We'll be waiting."

Todd took another black box out of his pocket and flipped a switch. Grant saw a green light illuminate. Todd pressed another button and a red light started blinking. Without looking back Todd yelled, "Cover your ears." He waited a couple seconds and pressed another button.

Grant saw gray and black dust shoot high in the air in multiple directions. A fraction of a second later, the sound of the explosion reached them. The dull noise offended Grant's ears even though they were covered. He felt the impact of the explosion over his entire body, especially in his chest. As he dropped his hands he heard a sparkling sound like crystals and looked to his right and noticed that some windows were broken in the snack bar. While Grant was still verifying that he was alive, the workers jostled past him, jogging toward the spillway, led by Todd. Grant followed.

When he reached the spillway, he could hear the water and loud banging noises like rocks hitting each other. Most of the wall had been opened up. Rebar was hanging from the walls on both sides. The water was dragging and rolling concrete remnants of the wall into the huge spillway. The moving water seemed to be clearing out most of the concrete dust in the air. The water level appeared to be about half of the way up the culvert. But even that was an amazing amount of water to behold as it crashed down into the spillway. Each Hoover spillway was capable of almost 200,000 cubic feet per second, about the same as Niagara Falls, and he guessed it was currently running at about half, which was more than the total amount of all Hoover's turbines combined, plus the twelve outlets spraying across the canyon. He estimated the spillway, plus all the other gates that were open, had increased the normal downstream flow from Hoover by a factor of ten. Looking down the spillway, he couldn't help but feel that the water was going to suck him, and the parking lot as well, down its fifty-foot hole.

Todd walked a few steps away from the spillway and lifted his radio to his ear. "There were a few big pieces of wall that didn't break up, but they fell over. The water will do the rest. Go ahead and blow your side."

A few seconds later Grant saw the dust shoot into the air on the other side. Todd headed for the diesel pickup "Come on, let's go see how that one looks." The workers piled into the back of the truck, while Grant and Fred squeezed into the front.

The hole on the Arizona side wasn't as clean. The left side was broken, but still hanging on by the rebar. There was a big piece in the middle also, with water rushing around it from both sides. But, Grant guessed the two obstructions were only impeding about twenty percent of the flow. Besides, the water pressure would eventually finish the job.

With the water flow on this side only slightly less than the other, and adding the two together, plus the twelve outlets in the canyon, Grant came up with a little over 250,000 cubic feet per second being dumped. He walked over to the hood of Todd's truck and took out a piece of paper. He borrowed a calculator from Todd. He multiplied the number by 60 twice to get cubic feet per hour, then divided it by a conversion factor to get acre-feet/hour. By this time, Fred, Todd and the workers had huddled around to see the result. He then divided the number by the total acreage of Lake Mead, 161,000 acres, which he got from Fred, then multiplied it by 18, the approximate number of hours until the flood arrived. He looked up.

"A little over two feet, maybe closer to three feet when you consider that the spillways will double as the water starts to rise." Grant got a couple blank looks from the huddle, so he continued. "The level of the lake, I was trying to figure out how many feet we are going to drop the lake before the flood arrives."

Grant saw that the group was largely unimpressed. They didn't get it. He completed the explanation, while looking straight into their eyes. "When a wall of water flows over the top of the dam for ten days straight, it will be three feet smaller because of what we just did. It might save the dam."

Many of them turned their heads toward to crest of the dam. Grant knew they were trying to visualize water flowing over it. When they turned back, a couple of them had mouths hanging open. He thought that they now understood.

CHAPTER 18

3:30 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

As the rafters and the two Germans approached the Colorado River, David noticed the second raft had just arrived. George was transferring his stuff from the other raft into Keller's. Keller was holding onto the ropes for his raft. As they walked closer, David could see that most of the sandy landing was now covered with water.

When Keller caught sight of the group, he called out to them. "Get over here. We gotta go." He seemed edgy.

The group came to life and started loading into the raft.

"What's up Keller?" said Judy.

"The water's rising fast. It must have risen almost ten feet in the last hour. I've never seen it rise this fast. We gotta get downstream and find a high campground." Keller's voice communicated near panic.

The other raft pushed off. They also seemed edgy. As David climbed into the boat, he remembered Ralph and Anna who were standing on what was left of the shore, staring at the now panicky rafters. "Keller, these two hikers we met at Elves are interested in one of your trips. Do you have a card or a flyer or something with a phone number?"

Keller didn't even look up at them. "coloradoriverfoam.com. All one word. The number's on the web site." He pushed off and the river current grabbed the raft and pulled it downstream.

David looked back at the Germans and waved. "Bye." Not the kind of goodbye he would have liked.

Ralph and Anna waved at them from the shore as the raft drifted downstream.

"Right side paddle. Left side paddle." Keller called out from behind.

* * *

3:35 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Julie's feet were killing her. After forty-five minutes of hiking on wet rocks, they ached all the way up to her ankles. Erika was suffering too; you could see
it in her face. Both grimaced as they walked. Both had slipped on the wet rocks countless times, but neither complained. It wouldn't have helped. Julie vowed she would buy differently in the future when shopping for shoes. To hell with fashion. And most maddening was that Paul had not slipped or had any problems, even though he had the same flip-flops.

Julie was also nervous that they had not reached the houseboat yet. She could not help wondering if they were in the wrong canyon, or if Max and Darlene, had already moved the houseboat. What if they had already taken it downstream?

"There it is," Erika called from behind.

Julie looked up. She saw the houseboat still tied to the shoreline, resting on a steep patch of rocky ground about forty feet above the bottom of the canyon. It hung downward at a steep angle. There was no sign of Max or Darlene anywhere.

Paul cupped his hands "MAX? DARLENE?" but no one responded. "Where are they? I hope they're okay."

Julie was worried. Where were they? Darlene was not the type to wander. "MAX?"

Erika pointed at the houseboat. "Come on."

After a somewhat difficult climb up the steep muddy hillside, Julie reached out and pulled herself up next to the houseboat using one of the ropes dangling off the back. She felt the houseboat give slightly at her pull and immediately released the rope. It wasn't stable. Erika climbed up behind her and grabbed her arm. She was panting. Paul passed them both, climbing up to where the boat had been tied to the shore.

Julie and Erika maneuvered upwards to where Paul was standing. When they reached the top, Julie sat down in the shade caused by the front deck and looked back down in the muddy canyon. Erika sat next to her. Julie looked downstream and up, even up on the cliffs surrounding the small canyon, but saw no signs of the other couple.

"Where are they?" Julie asked.

Paul shrugged. "I wonder if someone already picked them up."

"Maybe they left a note or something," Julie said hopefully.

Paul motioned to the two women. "Let's climb up and start gathering everything together. We can look around and see if there's a note or something."

Erika nodded.

Paul grabbed one of the lines tied to the shore and hoisted himself up. The houseboat shifted with a loud groan. He dropped back to the ground and backed up a few steps. "That's not going to work. How bad do we need that stuff anyway?"

"My wedding ring is in there," Erika argued. "I'll climb up."

Paul looked at her apprehensively. "Don't be stupid Erika, it's not safe."

Erika walked over and tested the ropes that held the houseboat to shore. The first rope was tight enough to not budge when she pulled on it, the second almost the same. She crouched down and looked under the boat, where the two pontoons sat on the rocky ledge. "I think it's okay."

Paul walked behind her. "You're not going. If anyone is going I'll do it."

Erika walked over to the side of the boat and put her hands on it, dug her feet, and shoved. The boat didn't move. She wedged herself against it and shoved again. Nothing. She glanced at her husband. "I'm lighter, I'm going to do it."

Julie protested. "Wait. Let's think about this for a second."

Erika shook her head. "It'll be okay. I'm the lightest. And we have to look for a note from Max or Darlene. We can't just leave them."

Paul nodded reluctantly. "Okay, but if something happens, be ready to jump off."

Paul clasped his hands together to make a step for Erika. She put her foot in and climbed onto the deck. The houseboat creaked loudly, which made Julie's heart stop, but the vessel didn't move. Erika stood, ready to dive off if necessary. They all hesitated for an instant, before Erika headed inside.

"Leave the door open while you're in there," Paul yelled. "Actually, try to leave all the doors open. Leave yourself an escape route, and be ready to jump if it starts to move."

Julie called out a list of all the things they needed, starting with car keys, wallets, a cell phone, and a few pieces of clothing. Based on the hike up the canyon, they needed better shoes for the hike down. Since there was some probability of spending the night outside, they needed blankets. Julie tried to describe as best as she could the location of each item on her list, based on what she could remember.

"I can't find your truck keys."

Julie looked up. "Did you try Greg's shorts?"

"Yeah."

"And on the hutch next to the bed?"

"Hang on. I found them. They were on the floor next to the hutch."

Erika appeared and handed both sets of keys, wallets, purses, an armload of clothes, and Julie's tennis shoes to them. She then went back into the boat.

Paul yelled inside. "That's enough. Get out of there."

Erika returned with an armload of blankets and pillows. She dropped them to Paul, then went back into the boat. "I'm looking for some shoes for me. I'm not going to--"

The houseboat shifted slightly with a loud screeching noise from the metal pontoons on the rocks. Julie heard Erika scream from inside and a thud that sounded like her falling down. One of the ropes holding the boat snapped and fell slack.

"Get out of there!" Paul screamed.

No response.

"Erika? Are you okay?" Julie called out.

The last rope vibrated with tension. The houseboat shifted again with another loud screech. It wouldn't last much longer.

"ERIKA!" Paul screamed.

The second rope let go. The houseboat started to slide. Through her scream, Julie saw a motion through the door of the houseboat. The houseboat fell, but a running Erika dove headfirst off the boat onto the sand like a baseball player sliding into second. She hit the ground hard completely stretched out on her front side. Julie heard a loud groan when Erika landed.

The houseboat picked up speed fast and fifteen feet down, one of the metal pontoons dug in and the momentum caused the houseboat to roll over in one swift motion. After that, it rolled a few more times, leaving small pieces along the way. It hit a rock outcropping and lost one of the pontoons. It hit the next rock dead-on and the whole thing disintegrated, debris shooting in all directions. The pieces all came to a stop at the bottom.

Stunned, Julie stared at the rubble for a second before kneeling by her friend. "Are you okay?"

Erika lay on her stomach. She pulled one of her arms out from under her and lifted herself up. She had a bloody splotch on her forehead and her cheek. In spite of her condition, she smiled. Her voice came out broken and soft like someone who had the breath knocked out of her. "I got 'em," she said, and she held up her tennis shoes.

A sound came from behind them "Hello!"

All three of them looked up the canyon to see where the sound had come from. They saw Max and Darlene running toward them.

* * *

4:00 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

After two days on the river, David had learned that water levels varied daily. Supposedly, these changes were caused by adjustments at the Glen Canyon Dam, even though it was over a hundred-thirty miles upstream. Some mornings when they awoke, the water could be as much as five feet higher than the night before. However, David had never seen Keller nervous like he was at Elves Chasm. Keller said he didn't remember ever seeing it rise that fast. After that, Keller hadn't spoken much since they pushed off. He kept scanning the banks of the river as if he were looking for something. In all the days on the river, David had seen many emotions from Keller, but never fear.

As the raft came around the next bend, they could see white water ahead. Judy pointed at it. "Keller, what's this one called?"

Keller craned his neck around. "There aren't supposed to be any rapids here. Something must have . . ." Keller then yelled to the guide in the other raft. "What happened here?"

The other guide yelled back, "Nothing. The water is just way higher."

Keller looked at Judy. "I've never seen this much water in the river. Usually, this section is calm." He looked upstream nervously. "They must be doing some kind of experimental dump up at the dam.

"What do you mean experimental dump?" asked Afram.

Keller motioned upstream. "In the early nineties, a politician from Arizona, think his name was Babbitt or something, made 'em open the gates at GlenCanyon for a couple weeks to stir up the silt in the river. They were trying to restore the sand on the banks. Maybe they're doing it again." He shook his head. "Although, you'd think they'd have said something." He looked confused. "It's going to make it tough to find a camp site."

Judy got an excited look on her face. "You've never seen it this high, right? So if this experimental dump lasts for a few days, does that mean we're going to have the best white water you have ever done Keller?"

All eyes were on Keller.

"Yeah, I guess so. This is higher than I've ever seen it." He shrugged. "It'll definitely make for good whitewater, but right now we need to find a campsite."

David wasn't good at reading Keller, but he didn't need to read minds to see that Keller was nervous.

* * *

4:30 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Boulder, Nevada

Back inside the visitor center, Grant, Fred, and Shauna sat over by the large windows looking over the canyon. They could hear the governor talking on his cell phone. Shauna stood, and asked Fred where the restrooms were. He motioned down the hall. Fred and Grant waited in silence for a moment before Grant spoke.

"What's going on at Davis and Parker Dams?"

Fred looked nervous. "Not enough. I told them what you told me, to open everything, but they wouldn't hear it. They wanted more time."

Grant looked pleadingly at Fred. "Look, I've never been to Davis, so I'm not too familiar with it. What's the flow capacity of its spillways?"

Fred looked at his watch, as it if the answer were inscribed on it, then looked back up "I'm not exactly sure, but I think Davis can handle around the same as Hoover, 75,000 cubic feet per second through the water works and another 400,000 through the spillways."

Grant furrowed his brows. "That's not enough." He hesitated for a moment. "It won't be able to keep up. It needs to be more than Hoover. When water starts going over the top of Hoover, Davis won't be able to dump fast enough. LakeMojave's water level is going to rise like crazy."

Fred held out his hands. "What can we do about that?"

"Well there's going to be some flooding on the banks. The water will definitely go over the dam. We'll just have to hope she holds."

Fred got a terrified look on his face. He spoke so softly that Grant barely understood. "Davis is a landfill."

"What?" That didn't jive with what Grant remembered. "I've never been there, but I've seen pictures of the structure. I thought --"

Fred shook his head. "It's definitely a landfill. The water works are concrete, and so are the spillways, but the levy creating the dam is rock and dirt. It definitely can't be breached. Overtopping would break it in five minutes. It'd drain LakeMojave."

Grant remembered an aerial picture, taken at night, of Davis Dam and the Casinos downstream. The concrete waterworks were off to the side of the earth dam. "Damn! What about Parker downstream, it's definitely concrete, right?" Grant remembered Parker Dam. Parker was a semi-circle shaped concrete arch dam wedged into a tight canyon.

Fred nodded. "Parker is concrete, not a landfill."

"That's good, but it probably doesn't matter. It wouldn't hold if Davis busted upstream, and LakeMojave drained into LakeHavasu. Would it?"

Fred rubbed his eyes. "LakeMojave is almost three times bigger than LakeHavasu. The flood would definitely bust Parker."

Grant sat back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. According to simple math, Davis Dam could not keep up with the water coming out of Hoover, even if only a foot of water went over the top of Hoover Dam. The water flow would overwhelm the output capacity of Davis Dam. He slowly looked up at Fred and held out his hands. "We can't save Davis, can we?"

Fred shook his head. He had obviously come to the same conclusion.

Grant slouched back into his chair. "How big is LakeMojave?" Grant's voice was lifeless.

"Just over a half a trillion gallons. A little over five percent the size of Lake Mead."

"And LakeHavasu is only a third of that?"

Fred answered without hesitation. "Yeah, only a couple hundred billion gallons."

Grant thought it over. "Well according to the report from the Bureau, the water probably won't breach Hoover until tomorrow morning. Figure a couple more hours after that before LakeMojave rises high enough to bust Davis. I'd say by noon tomorrow, we're looking at the second biggest flood in North America since the ice age."

Fred stared at Grant with a confused look. "What's the biggest?"

Grant pointed out at Lake Mead. "The one that's already headed our way from GlenCanyon."

Fred's eyes glazed over. "Oh yeah. I forgot about that one."

Grant sat up. "Hang on." He stood and looked downstream as if he could see all the way to Davis Dam. "If Davis is going to collapse anyway, why don't we turn it loose early, before the water gets down here?"

Fred wasn't following. "What do you mean?"

"We could get a couple bulldozers up on the dike and dig a little trench. All we'd have to do is get it started. The water would finish it"

Fred caught up. "You mean bust Davis ourselves? Break open the dam? What good will that do?"

"It'll spread out the damage a little. The water we let go, will be a lot less than LakeMojave tomorrow at noon when it's ready to overflow."

Fred waved his hands back and forth. "I don't see what difference it'll make. It's still going to flood all the houses in Laughlin and BullheadCity, and bust through Parker Dam. Plus it'll leave even less time to evacuate the area."

Grant couldn't deny Fred's logic. "Is there anyway to drain Havasu at the same time? I wonder if we can blow Parker Dam and drain some of the water out of Havasu before we bust Davis?"

Fred didn't respond. He looked around as if he was afraid somebody else was listening.

Grant got back to basics. "Look, let's go get the governor and at least get him to make the calls to get Davis and Parker to open the gates.

Fred held his hands out in front of him. "You're not going to say anything about busting the other two dams yet are you?"

Grant shook his head. "No, we'll wait to bring that up until after we get the gates open."

Fred stood and they both went to find the governor.

* * *

4:55 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Julie stopped to wait. Paul set down his armload of blankets on a clean rock. Erika sat down on a muddy rock, too tired to worry about getting dirty. Erika had been limping slightly and she showed Julie what was going to be an awful bruise on her hip from her leap from the houseboat. They waited for Max and Darlene. Darlene was traveling very slowly and was holding the group up.

Julie guessed they had started hiking down from the remains of the houseboat more than a half hour before. Julie's ankles and feet were aching even with the tennis shoes. She was also thirsty, and hungry. She realized now, that they should have searched through the remains of the houseboat for some food. Too bad she had not thought of that until it was too late.

As soon as Darlene and Max reached them, Paul started walking again. "Let's keep moving."

Julie helped Erika up. She had mud on her legs from the rock. As they walked Julie thought about brushing it off, but decided to ignore it. She was too tired to care and felt sure that Erika felt the same. Darlene and Max followed behind.

After they walked for a few minutes, Paul stopped and turned around, facing the girls. "Is this the section where Greg dropped us off?"

Julie looked around. "I don't think so. It looks completely different."

Erika nodded. "Yeah, it is. It just looks different because all this was underwater." She pointed at some rocks. "See, that's the ridge over there we walked along after we got out of the boat."

Julie stared for a moment before her eyes confirmed it. "Wow. Good thing we didn't leave the boat here like I wanted to, huh?" She managed a small smile. There were only a couple pools left with trapped water, none very large. The pool she and Erika had swum through was empty.

"The water is dropping that fast?" Max asked. "You guys were just here a while ago weren't you?"

Darlene stared at her husband. "Well, that's about how fast the water dropped while you were asleep."

Paul started off again. "We should be close, let's keep moving." The others followed.

Around the next bend was the section where Greg had swerved and both girls were thrown out of their seats. The water had drained this section too. Julie wondered if Mars would look similar. She had seen pictures of Mars and its rocks. The orange rocky landscape seemed exactly the same.

When they passed the boulder, they could see around the next bend. Although most of this section had also drained, a hundred feet away was the receding shore of the lake. Julie looked back and guessed in total the water had dropped twenty-five feet since they had left Greg. The sight of water ahead gave all five hikers a boost of energy and they picked up the pace. When Paul reached the water, he walked around it along the left shore. The canyon continued for another hundred feet before the next bend.

"Where is he?" Erika asked.

Paul cupped his hands. "GREG."

They listened, hoping he was just around the corner. No answer.

They continued hiking until they reached the bend. Vertical cliffs down to the water prevented them from avoiding getting wet.

"I'll swim around this bend and see if I can see him." Paul said.

"Crap." Erika sat down on another muddy rock. "I thought he'd be down here."

"He's probably just around the corner a little bit," Julie said, although she felt as disappointed as Erika.

Darlene sat down on a rock. By this time Paul had waded into the water. He waded out until the water was up to his chest then put his head in the water and started swimming. The bend wasn't too far and Paul reached it in a few minutes. He stopped for a second, treading water. He turned and started swimming back. He walked up the bank and ran his hand back through his hair. He motioned at the expanse of water they had just walked around. "This is just a hole." His voice came out winded from the swim. "The water has drained on the other side. We'll have to swim through, then hike again for a while."

"What?" Julie said. "This is just a pond?"

"Yeah. I saw more wet rocks around the bend.

Julie wanted to complain, but she knew it wouldn't help. Darlene groaned.

Paul started rolling the blankets tight like a sleeping bag. Julie realized they would need to swim while holding their possessions over their heads to keep them dry. She motioned to Erika that they should get ready too.

She spread out two shirts and rolled everything else into them. Julie tied her car keys to the strings on her swimsuit.

Paul tried to keep the group focused. "Are you ready?" He held the roll of blankets over his head and waded into the water.

The others followed. By the time Julie got to the other side, the muscles in her arms were burning from holding the clothes above her head while swimming. Paul came down and took the clothes from her, and helped her up.

"Thanks," she said.

He helped Erika and Max, then Max held Darlene's hand as she climbed out. They were off again. Paul picked up the pace slightly which Julie didn't mind. She felt anxious to find Greg again. They had been gone a long time. She hoped nothing else had gone wrong. The thought of him not being there when they arrived kept popping back into her head. She tried to push it out, knowing that he would be waiting, but she kept picturing an image of him screaming as the Mastercraft floated over the Glen Canyon Dam. In the image, she was looking over the edge of the dam and the boat kept falling and falling until she lost sight of Greg in the mist of the waterfall.

Paul had put a little bit of distance between himself and the group. He turned and yelled for the others. "We made it. I see him."

The tired feeling seemed to subside as Julie covered the distance. As she rounded the next bend in the river, she saw a pool of water that this time seemed to go on forever. Greg was floating about a hundred feet from the edge. He apparently hadn't seen them yet.

"GREG, WE MADE IT."

His head cocked and he smiled. "About time." He fired up the boat and idled it over to where all five hikers were now standing. "I was beginning to wonder if you guys were ever coming back."

Julie saw Greg look them over, especially Erika and Darlene. Erika was starting to look like a ghost. She didn't have any color in her face except for the red dirt and dried blood. Her eyes were lifeless. Darlene was breathing heavy. Julie looked down at herself and decided she didn't look very good either. She had the red dirt on her legs and swimsuit. Paul, on the other hand, looked fine.

"What happened to Erika?" Greg asked.

While Max handed bundles of clothes and blankets to Greg in the boat, Julie gave a brief description of the events at the houseboat including Erika's last second jump to safety. Erika didn't peep for the whole conversation. Max then gave a short explanation of his and Darlene's aborted kayak trip. When finished, Julie reached up to climb in the boat. Greg raised his eyebrows, and told her to rinse off first, a testament to how dirty she was. The other four followed Julie's example, cleaning and refreshing themselves in the water, before climbing in the boat.

A few moments later they were under way. The padded seats and the breeze felt wonderful. Julie took a long swig from the water jug and passed it back to the others. She had a clear view back at Erika. She was falling asleep, the poor girl.

* * *

5:00 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

"Right side paddle. Left side paddle. COME ON. Becky, don't give up."

David was exhausted. "We're trying Keller."

"One last burst. NOW. Paddle. Right side. Left."

The current moved them quickly along a rocky shore toward a sandy canyon inlet just up ahead. They needed to be in perfect position or they would miss it, and they were going too fast. Keller had tried to maneuver the raft so they could land in the big campground. But the current was pulling them away from the beach, out into the river.

Becky started to cry, "We're not going to make it."

Keller stood. "WE ARE GOING TO MAKE IT! Come on folks. Give me all you got. NOW!"

All six rafters dug in with the paddles and pulled as fast as they could. David's arms were burning. If anything, the raft seemed to be a few feet farther from the shore. The beach swept by at an alarming speed. Then the beach was gone, replaced by rocks.

"Damn it!" Keller sat down. "Okay, right side paddle a little and let's get away from these rocks."

The rafters gasped for breath. Becky sobbed in slow convulsions. Sam put his hand on her shoulder.

The beach was the raft's second failed attempt at a campground in the last fifteen minutes. Keller kept commenting that the speed of the water was increasing dramatically as it rose. David didn't think the group needed Keller to keep reminding them. It was obvious. It made timing the landings much more difficult. Three other campgrounds Keller wanted to stop at had been completely underwater when they passed. David was beginning to wonder if they would be able to land the raft at all.

Afram swiveled and looked at Keller. "How far's the next one?"

Keller looked around, rubbing his forehead. "ForsterCanyon is the next big one, but it's on the other side of the river." He stood up in the raft and looked across. "But it's only about a half a mile. We'll never make it in time." Keller sat down as the raft slid through a rapid splashing the left side of the boat.

"What about past Forster?" Afram asked.

"There's a couple small ones around the bend, but I bet they're under water too."

Becky turned around still sobbing. "Well what're . . . we . . . gonna do?"

"There's a small canyon about a mile down on our right. It's too rocky to make a good campsite, but maybe we can land there and find some shelter in the canyon until the water subsides a little."

"Can we rest for a minute?" David asked.

"Yeah. Good idea. Everybody rest," Keller said.

* * *

5:15 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

After an hour of phone calls, conference calls, explanations, arguments, persuasion, and coercion, the gates were finally opening at Davis and Parker Dams. The decisions would not have been made without Rally Jenkins, the governor of Nevada. His clout made the difference, especially when the governors of Arizona and California got involved. With a break in the action, Fred motioned for Grant to follow him.

"How long since you ate anything?"

Grant looked at his watch. "Not since I got here."

"I thought so. I sent one of my guys out to get us some sandwiches. Let's take a little walk and clear our minds a bit."

Fred led him up the stairs and out the glass doors into the hot, dry Nevada air. Grant shielded his eyes from the sun until they adjusted. The stifling air immediately sapped the energy from his body.

Fred started walking away from the visitor center, out onto Hoover Dam. Grant followed. Fred walked on the sidewalk, even though the road was closed. As they walked, Grant looked down the downstream side of the dam to the river below. Fred stopped in a five by five foot viewpoint jutting out from the top of the dam. He leaned over the rail, which was actually an eighteen-inch thick concrete wall, and looked straight down the face of the dam.

"I wanted to get you out here before you talked to the governor about your idea of intentionally breaching Davis Dam."

Grant put his head down and kicked at a candy wrapper on the ground. "Yeah, I can only imagine how he'll react to that."

"Are you absolutely sure that it's going to fail?"

"Of course, based on the report from the -"

"How do you know the report is right? Didn't they make lots of assumptions when they put it together?"

Grant looked up. "Fred, the computer modeling is all we've got. The engineers spent months putting the report together. Even if it's not perfectly accurate, it's predictions could be worse just as easy as they could be better. Besides, the report is based on facts, numbers, and calculations. You want us to make decisions on feelings instead?"

They were both silent for a moment. Then Fred continued. "You said that the water is thirty feet lower in Lake Mead than the report assumed. Plus, blowing the two spillways should drop it another three feet." Fred turned and looked across the crest of the dam. "So what's your guess as to how much water's going to go over the top?"

Grant looked across the dam too, as if the answer was painted on the cliffs on the other side. "We have a couple other things going for us. The study assumed that both Lake Mead and LakePowell would be full, as a worst case. LakePowell is lower than normal due to this drought. With both lakes lower, it'll make a big difference. That's what I've got Shauna doing. She's trying to adjust the numbers based on the lower levels. My guess is that when it's all said and done, ten to fifteen feet of water is going to go over this dam, but twenty is not out of the question."

"Well that's better than the seventy you told the governor."

"Yeah, but even if it were only five feet, it would still take out Davis and Parker Dams. I don't see anyway possible to prevent it."

Fred looked over the face of the dam again, seemingly mesmerized. He looked depressed. When he finally raised his head, his face seemed lifeless. "So what you're saying is that seventy years ago, five thousand men spent five years building this dam seven hundred and twenty six feet high, and it needed to be fifteen feet higher."

The reality of Fred's observation hit Grant in the gut. His heart skipped two beats. He looked across the dam, then ran out into the middle of US-93 to get a better look. He looked right down the yellow line across the dam. He mentally calculated the distance between the handrails on both sides.

"That's it Fred!" He looked at his watch. "You're a genius."

"What is it?" Fred joined him in the middle of the street. "What did I say?"

Grant turned and started running back toward the visitor center with Fred right behind. He called over his shoulder. "We'll make the dam twenty feet higher! Let's go talk to the governor."

CHAPTER 19

5:30 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Julie couldn't help but marvel at the height of the watermarks on the rock walls. She guessed the water levels had dropped over seventy feet. The crowd of boats heading south had grown too. There were literally hundreds of boats, and they could be divided into two groups, the sane, and the insane. The sane meandered down the center of the channel at a steady pace; this group included many houseboats. The second group, the insane, swerved back and forth recklessly in between and around the others; this group included the faster crafts including smaller water-ski boats and all types of personal water craft. When Greg merged the Mastercraft in with the other boats, part of Julie was glad that he chose the steady pace of the sane, but a small part of her understood the other group, and wanted him to gas it.

At one point, the canyon had narrowed at a bend in the river, forcing everyone to slow, including the insane. Boats funneled together, bumper-to-bumper, through the tight turn caused by the much lower river. Paul had moved to the bow, and with his feet, kept the boat from banging into the boats in front of them. After the delay, and the river widened again, the boats were able to accelerate back to speed.

They had continued that way for a while, when Greg slowed the Mastercraft again. Julie stood and looked at what must be five hundred boats crammed together, all of them snaking around a huge red rock butte directly in front of them. The butte, which appeared as if someone had placed it right in the middle of the channel to block traffic, was vaguely familiar, yet something looked out of place.

"Where are we?" Julie asked.

Greg pointed at the rock. "That's Gregory Butte. And over on the right is LastChanceBay."

Julie looked around. "Wait. I thought Gregory . . ."

Greg pointed to the left of the huge rock structure. "Normally, we pass through over there. All that . . ." He motioned across a rock plateau from Gregory to the left shore. ". . . is usually underwater."

Julie saw that the exposed rock left of Gregory Butte was dark and wet, something she should have noticed before. She tried to imagine what the area would look like if it were still underwater. She decided that if the water level had been higher, she might have recognized the butte, if not by name, at least by sight.

As the Mastercraft fell in line with the other boats, they again drifted almost to a complete stop. Paul flipped the boat's bumpers over the side and climbed back on the bow. A boat nudged the Mastercraft gently from behind.

Exhaust from so many boats in close proximity made it hard to breathe. Since the line wasn't moving at all, Greg shut off the engine. Many of the other boats followed. Within minutes of stopping, other boats filled in behind them until Julie could barely see water. Although they drifted slowly downstream, Julie was sure walking would have been faster.

They heard a radio squawk in an old red boat that had pulled up next to them. Julie and Greg's boat did not have a radio. There had been one in the houseboat, but they never used it because it did not work when they were in the canyons.

Greg motioned to a bearded man in the red boat. "What's happening on the radio?"

The bearded man with tattoos on both arms took a swig from a can of Coors. By the glazed look in his eyes, it wasn't his first. A woman stood up next to him, and although she didn't have a beer in her hand, she had the same lazy look in her eyes as the bearded man.

The man motioned downstream. "The CastleRockPass is officially closed. The water's already too low to get through to Wahweap".

Julie didn't like the sound of what she heard. Wahweap was the largest of the three primary marinas, and the only one on the south end of the lake for fifty miles. It was where the Crawford's car and boat trailer was parked.

"What does that mean?" Julie asked her husband.

"Well, it's bad, but we knew that would happen. It means if we want to go back to Wahweap, we have to go all the way around AntelopeIsland, right past the dam," He grimaced. "what's left of it."

Julie shivered at the thought. Wahweap Marina was not built on the edge of the river, but on a large bay named WahweapBay that branched off of the river. To travel up lake from Wahweap, boaters avoided the main channel, instead taking a shortcut through a shallow gap next to Castle Rock Butte into WarmCreekBay. Whenever the water in LakePowell dropped low enough, Castle Rock became impassable, and everyone was forced to go the long way, an additional twenty miles down the windy main river channel, around AntelopeIsland, and then back into WahweapBay. The entrance to WahweapBay was only a mile from the Glen Canyon Dam.

Greg had told her that in the early days, while the lake was still filling, the only possible route was the long way around Antelope. But after the lake filled and flooded between the two bays, a shortcut was born, and AntelopePeninsula became AntelopeIsland, and all traffic immediately diverted, leaving the main river channel and the backside of Antelope largely unused. Exceptions occurred in the late summers of dry years, when the water dropped low enough to force everyone around again. In these years, the park service sometimes dredged Castle Rock Channel to delay the inevitable detour as long as possible.

Although Julie was concerned about the time that would be lost on the detour, the danger of passing so close to the dam was her main concern.

She questioned her husband. "Won't that be dangerous? Aren't you afraid we'll get sucked over the dam if we get that close?"

Greg nodded. "Yeah, sure." He turned back to the bearded guy. "How fast is the water moving down there, aren't they afraid some of these boats are going to go over the dam?"

The man motioned with his beer can. "Well, first of all, the rangers ain't sayin nothin on the radio. I'm getting my info from other boaters. But yeah, for a while they were making all the houseboats divert into WarmSpringsBay. Course nobody wanted to just wait in the bay till they got grounded, so it sounds like they stormed the ranger boats or something, cause now the rangers aren't tryin to stop em no more."

Paul stood up on the bow. "Did you hear whether any boats went over the dam?"

He shrugged. "Nah, I ain't heard of any. Course I imagine that they wouldn't be talkin on the radio much if they was getting sucked over the dam." The guy chuckled at his own humor.

Greg seemed perplexed. "So you say that for all practical purposes, the radio is silent from the rangers?"

The bearded man motioned with his beer again, causing some to spill out. "This morning, they was all over the radio, telling folks the dam broke, but to stay put, ya know, not rush back to the marinas. But every time they said to stay put, about a million people would try to talk to 'em at once. You couldn't understand nothin. Everybody wanted to know when they'd get rescued and everything. Finally, I bet most started worryin how they was going to get their boats up seven hundred feet up sheer rock onto their trailers to go home. They figured the rangers didn't have a plan for that yet. And they was right. You sit around too long and your boat is gonna be high and dry. Then if ya ever get out alive, you're gonna hafta hike fifty miles back to visit your boat next year. Cause if you don't move it now, it'll be there forever, and the Indians'll be painting teepees and deer on the side of it."

Julie grimaced at the comment.

He continued and motioned around at the mass of boats with his beer can. "Just like me, all these people said to hell with the rangers. If ya want to get out a this bathtub before it drains, ya gotta get out now, while the gettin's good."

Julie noticed that while he had been talking, his red boat had been creeping forward in relation to the Mastercraft, and another boat was sliding forward to replace it. Ironically, Julie had a knack for always picking the wrong line at the grocery store, the bank, or even on the freeway, but why did it have to happen here? At this rate, it could take over an hour to get around the bend, and then how many more bends would there be beyond this one?

Somebody from another boat asked the bearded man a question that Julie couldn't hear and he walked to the other side of his boat to answer. Julie glanced back at the people in the boat that replaced him. The guy driving the new boat tipped a blue hat stenciled with the letters 'BYU.'

"Where you guys from?" he asked.

Greg pointed at Paul. "They're from Southern California." He pointed at himself and Julie. "And we're from Phoenix." He pointed to Max and Darlene. "And they're from Las Vegas. How about you?"

The man didn't have to answer for Julie to know they were from Utah. The friendly looking guy's t-shirt was also stenciled with 'BYU.' A very petite wife, who's skin looked so white and pasty that it was obvious she never got out in the sun, sat in the other front seat, and five kids, including a couple of teenagers, were sitting on a pile of bags and suitcases stacked in the back of the boat. The teen-agers were unusually clean-cut with no goofy hair, tattoos, or piercings.

The man pointed north. "We're from Provo, just south of SaltLake. We come down here every year for a week. At least we used too. Doesn't sound like we'll be back next year."

"You guys have a houseboat?" Paul asked.

"Had one. It's grounded upstream in one of the canyons. We came back from water-skiing and found it sitting on some rocks. We tried to pull it back in the water with the boat and a water ski rope. All we accomplished was to break the rope. How about you guys?"

Greg explained. "We were headed back from Hole in the Rock this morning, when we figured out something was wrong. We had to get gas at Dangling Rope, and then we had to hike a couple miles up the canyon to find our houseboat. We were trying to get some stuff out of it when it slid down the hill and broke to pieces. We're a little bit worried about the deposit."

"Thank heavens for insurance." The man grinned.

Julie wondered if the Utah man was an insurance salesman.

Paul continued. "We just hope it's covered. This is one sequence of events we didn't count on when we signed the waiver."

As they talked to the Utah man, she noticed that they were drifting ahead of him. Maybe they picked the right line after all.

* * *

5:45 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David and Afram were positioned on the front of the raft. Both had coils of rope in their hands.

"Get Ready!" said Keller.

Since they had been unsuccessful at beaching the raft, the plan was for David and Afram to try to jump onto the beach and pull the boat in by the ropes. It had been Afram's idea. Keller had initially resisted, but had finally caved when they missed two more potential landing spots.

"Right side paddle. Left side paddle," Keller yelled, as he tried to position the raft close enough to the shore for them to jump.

"We're down two paddlers," Sam complained. "and our arms are dead."

David looked back at Sam. It was unusual to hear him complain, but his face looked pale and sweat ran down his forehead. Becky looked even worse.

"Get ready." Keller said. "Paddle! Come on."

David could see the transition from rocks to sand up ahead. It looked like they might be close enough this time. He adjusted the rope in his hands and re-checked the bottom fastener on his life jacket, just in case.

"Okay, everybody paddle hard. Let's get em as close as possible," Keller encouraged.

David watched the sand approach, faster than he wanted.

"Ready . . ." Keller called out. "Set . . ."

David put his foot up on the edge of the rubber boat, ready to jump.

"GO!"

David thought he was ready, but Afram jumped an instant before, which jostled the boat just enough to make David's foot slip on the slick rubber. The result was a pitiful head first plunge off the front of the raft which immediately ran over him. The cold water shocked him, and he resisted the impulse to gasp for air. When he popped up, he was under the raft and rammed his head into the bottom. However, while he was under the raft his feet found sand. It was shallow. He let the boat pass over him and he tried to stand, but the current was too strong. He pushed toward shore with his feet. He saw that Afram was up on the shore now, trying to pull the rope. Everyone in the raft was looking at Afram.

David pushed toward shore until he could stand. Then he quickly ran through the shallow water up onto the beach.

"Pull, David. Help him." It was Keller's voice.

David pulled as hard as he could, but he realized immediately that he and Afram would never be able to pull the boat against the strong current. It was pulling both of them at a fast walk toward the rocks at the other end of the beach.

"Dig in when I tell you." Afram said over his shoulder.

David leaned back even more and prepared to dig in.

"Now!" Afram said.

David dug in his heels and saw Afram do the same, but they were both pulled vertical immediately. David saw large rocks ahead and knew that the whole effort had been in vain. He wondered how he and Afram would get back in the boat. Then while looking at the rocks he saw something. He stopped pulling, letting his rope go slack.

"Hey, what are you -"

David crossed under Afram's rope and ran toward the rocks. "Come on," he said.

Afram figured out what he was doing and followed.

When David reached the rocks, he wrapped the rope around a large rock twice. Afram did the same on another rock. Not a second later both ropes were pulled tight, but they held. In the water, the raft stopped with a jerk and slid quickly over against the rocks. The others in the group yelled their approval and climbed out of the raft onto the rocks. A moment later Keller and Sam reached them. Together the four men were able to pull the now empty raft back upstream and onto the sandy beach. David collapsed on his back in the sand.

"You kinda did that the hard way, didn't you?" Judy smiled at him from above. "That whole under the boat thing was planned, right?"

David laughed. "At least we made it, and we're safe."

Not if the water gets any higher." Keller said. He pointed at the beach where they had just landed. They all looked. If the water rose another twenty feet, the sand would be underwater, and then they would be floating in a small canyon with vertical rock walls on all sides.

* * *

5:50 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Arizona

"You want to do what?" The governor put his hands on his hips.

"We want to extend the height of the dam another twenty feet." Grant pointed out at the concrete dam.

"What good is that gonna do?"

Grant tried to choose his words carefully. "Governor, we're in a dry year. Luckily both Lake Mead and LakePowell are lower than usual. The Bureau's study in 1998 assumed both lakes would be full, as a worst case. We've run some new numbers based on the newly opened spillways and the extra capacity available in Lake Mead. If we're right, only about ten or fifteen feet of water will end up going over the top of Hoover."

The governor's eyebrows furrowed as he tried to understand the reasoning. "That's good, isn't it?"

"Yeah. It means that the overtopping won't be as bad as I originally told you."

"Then why do we need to do anything?"

Grant started ticking off his fingers. "Two reasons, governor. First, even ten feet going over Hoover could still break it apart. Second, even ten feet would definitely take out Davis Dam downstream, and Parker too."

The governor' s face lost some color and he wiped his hand across his forehead. "If the water breaks though Davis Dam, LakeMojave's going to drain out and flood Laughlin?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Hell, most of the casinos are below the lake. It'd wipe em out. Laughlin would be obliterated."

Grant knew Laughlin's casinos were going to be destroyed either way with all the water that would be going downstream, whether or not Davis Dam failed. But, he didn't want the governor to worry about that yet. "Exactly, governor."

"That's billions of dollars." He looked at Grant and his voice changed from bewildered to harsh. "What makes you think Davis's gonna break? How can you be sure?"

"It's a landfill dam, governor. It can't withstand overtopping."

The governor looked as if his home had just fallen into the ocean. "So what are you guys suggesting?"

Grant jumped back into the conversation. "We think if we can build up the top of Hoover Dam by another twenty feet, we can hold the flood water in Mead. And save Davis and Parker." The tone came out almost pleading.

The governor looked confused. "Is there enough time? The concrete wouldn't even have time to set."

"We're not going to build it with concrete. We're going to build a landfill dike on top of Hoover."

Fred looked at Grant with a questioning expression. "Landfill, do we have enough space?"

Grant grabbed a piece of paper off the table and turned it over so he had a blank sheet. He drew a cross section of a dike. When he graduated in civil engineering and joined the Bureau over fifteen years ago, he'd had high hopes of designing huge engineering marvels like Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams. Finally he would build his first dam. With the governor and Fred looking over his shoulders, he estimated that he would have at least thirty seconds to perfect his design. "Okay. The standard formula for a land fill dam is a three to one ratio of substrate to the height of water you want to contain."

"So to hold ten feet of water it needs to be thirty feet wide?" The governor pointed at Grant's picture.

Grant smiled. "Kind of. I'd like a little bit of a safety margin. In case the water is over ten feet."

Fred nodded. "The dam is about forty feet wide at the top."

"Then let's use it all. We can build it twenty feet high and forty feet wide. Then we'd be able to contain almost fifteen feet of water. If it gets any higher than that, we'll be in trouble." Grant looked up for approval.

All three men looked at each other, waiting to see if there were any arguments.

The governor looked at his watch. "Is there enough time? It's already 6:00."

Grant's stomach felt like something was boiling inside. They expected the water to rise above the top of Hoover early the next morning. According to Shauna's latest calculations, they had roughly twelve hours to build the dike. "There's only one way to find out."

CHAPTER 20

6:15 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Boulder, Nevada

It'd taken only fifteen minutes to persuade the governor, although Governor Jenkins still didn't think they could build it fast enough. In the end he had convinced himself that even if they didn't finish building up the dam in time, whatever they did finish would delay the floods downstream. Grant, Shauna, and Fred stood in the hallway of the visitor center and plotted how to accomplish their task.

Shauna shook her head. "It won't work."

"It has to," Grant said.

"But Grant, when you build a land fill dike, you have to build it slowly, and wet it, and you have to use non-permeable soil. If we rush it, it'll leak."

Grant knew she was right. They couldn't just throw it together, even if they compressed it with bulldozers. If the soil allowed water to seep through, it would wash out. He wondered if they would find the right kind of soil around Las Vegas, where as far as he knew, everything was sand. And everyone knows you can't build a dam with sand.

Grant held out his hands. "How do they build those dikes around the Mississippi River when it floods? It seems like they're always trying to protect some town from getting flooded by the river. Don't they need to be built fast?" He felt helpless. He had convinced the governor, but now he wasn't convinced himself.

"Seems like all the ones I see on the rivers in the Midwest are built out of sand bags," Fred said.

Grant and Shauna both looked up at him. Sandbags? It just might work. Heaven knew there was certainly plenty of sand around Las Vegas. Besides, building a dam out of sand bags would be faster since the layers would not need to be meticulously compressed with heavy equipment. The more he thought about it the more excited he became. A sandbag dike might even hold up if it were overtopped by a foot or two. It could even hold water while it was being built. The question was, where would they get enough bags, and the labor to fill them?

* * *

6:20 p.m. - Lake Powell, Arizona

Julie guessed they had been in the traffic jam at Gregory Butte for almost an hour. They were almost out. The narrowest point had only enough room for ten boats to go through the turn at a time. Unfortunately, about 50 lines were merging into the small space. And after living in California, Julie knew what happened during rush hour when cars needed to merge. Boats were even worse. It was like a herd of sheep trying to get through an open gate. Julie was glad the bumpers were out because the Mastercraft had been bumping other boats for an hour. Finally they were only a few boats away. Greg let the boat on his left go past.

"We're next," Greg said. "Everybody sit down."

Paul climbed down off the bow and started pulling in the bumper pads from both sides. As the boat on their right pulled out, Greg pulled in behind it. They idled slowly at first around the bend with the boat almost touching on both sides. As the canyon turned straight again, it widened. As a result, the boats were able to spread out and speed up. Greg gave the boat some throttle.

Julie had been on many crowded lakes before, but nothing compared to this. There were probably between 15 and 20 rows of boats, all going as fast as possible. Greg tried to stay in the wake behind the boat in front of him, but many others were swerving back and forth passing each other. That many boats, traveling that fast, made for rough water. Julie saw Darlene and Max hanging on tight as the boat jarred up and down, sometimes with loud banging noises. Personal watercraft darted between the boats. It reminded her of the motorcyclists in southern California that dart between the cars on the freeways. Even though it was perfectly legal in California, she was always afraid one would go down in front of her and she would run over it.

Julie felt Greg swerve hard right and looked up in time to see a stalled boat in front of them. A family with kids was standing up waving their arms to be seen. She guessed Greg had missed the boat by less than ten feet. The family would be lucky if they lasted another five minutes before they got hit. When Julie looked back, the stranded boat had disappeared, lost in the chaos behind them. Julie offered a silent prayer for the small family.

* * *

6:30 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David looked around. The sandy beach where they had landed was now completely underwater. David and Keller were standing in waist-high water while holding the raft. Everyone else had already climbed in, not because they wanted to go anywhere in the rubber boat, but because they couldn't stand the cold water. David could feel the cold swirling around his thighs and felt it sapping the heat out of his body. He sensed his teeth were close to chattering.

For the last few moments he had been thinking about the final scenes of the movie Titanic, when thousands of passengers froze to death in only a few minutes in the icy water. How ironic was it that this could happen in hundred-degree desert air? Although David could see no ice floating in this water, he knew most of it came from the bottom of the Glen Canyon Dam, and was probably in the forties. He wouldn't freeze to death as fast as the victims on the Titanic, but he would die of hypothermia just the same if he stayed in the water long enough. As he felt the water creep up around his waist, he wondered how long he could last. 45 minutes? An hour?

Afram peered down at him. "You want to switch?"

David shook his head. "Wait 'til my teeth start chattering."

Afram nodded, but nobody laughed at David's attempt at humor, not even David.

"We're not going to be able to do this much longer anyway," Sam pointed out. "The water'll be too high in a few minutes."

Judy pointed toward the main channel of the river. It was running even swifter than before, and new rapids had emerged where the river had been smooth. "Well, we can't go out there, either."

Becky sobbed, "Why is the water doing this?" Sam put his arm around her.

David agreed. "They should have warned us if they were going to let this much water out of the dam."

When Keller spoke his teeth chattered. "I don't think this is a controlled release."

"What do you mean?" Judy asked.

Keller continued, "The water must be 50 feet above normal, and we are more than a hundred miles downstream. Opening a few head gates wouldn't have done that."

"Then what could it be?" Afram asked.

Keller looked reluctant to speak, and his teeth continued to chatter. "I wonder if the dam broke."

"What?" David heard himself say.

Everybody talked at once and no one could understand.

Finally, Afram spoke. "If the Glen Canyon Dam failed, then we haven't seen the worst yet. The water will get a lot deeper, won't it?" The question seemed to be aimed at Keller.

Keller nodded. "Keep looking for handholds, or places we can climb. If the dam really broke we'll need to climb out of here."

The group craned their necks upward looking for anything.

Afram pointed about twenty feet above. "If we could just get up there. It looks like we might be able to hike a little from that ledge."

Sam stood up in the raft. "Yeah, I think he's right."

David and Keller, with their backs against the rocks, could not see where the others were looking.

"Unfortunately, these two can't hold the boat while it rises another 20 feet." Judy said angrily.

Afram pointed at something above them. "See that rock outcropping up there? What if I get the rope around it? We could tie up the boat, then everybody could get in."

"Try it," Becky said, wiping tears from her eyes.

David's teeth chattered while he watched Afram make a loop in the end of the rope. Afram secured the loop with a square knot. David was no Eagle Scout, but he felt pretty sure that there was a better knot than a square knot for the situation. Afram must have been thinking the same, because he added a double knot to make sure. Nobody spoke while he coiled the rope, hesitated, then tossed it underhand. David knew Afram had missed without seeing it; he could see it in Judy's face, which contorted before the rope fell back down in the raft. Afram picked it up and tried again. Same result. Sam wanted a turn, and Afram gladly conceded the rope. The water had risen above David's waist, and his teeth were chattering uncontrollably now, but no one noticed. He hoped one of these cowboys learned to lasso quickly, because he didn't think he or Keller would be able to hold the boat much longer.

* * *

6:50 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Julie looked up at the vertical rock walls on both sides of them. After clearing the traffic jam at Gregory Butte, they had been able to go fast for a while before traffic thickened and the water became rougher, forcing Greg to slow again. But the landscape was changing. Just south of Gregory was PadreBay, the largest open area of water at LakePowell. Normally, PadreBay by itself would be a huge lake, but with the water levels so low, most of it had disappeared. The main river channel, normally too far underwater to be visible in the bay, now cut back and forth like a snake. Access to what was left of the bay had been reduced to numerous channels. Most of these channels were impassable, however, since the amount of water draining from Padre into the river was so great. Attempting passage would be like running upstream through rapids.

Greg slowed slightly as they rounded a bend. Up ahead on the left, a waterfall about ten feet high flowed from a side canyon into the main channel. The volume of the waterfall was staggering, and the boats ahead were steering as far to the right as possible to avoid getting sucked under the falls and capsized. Julie cupped her hand over her mouth in horror as she saw a boat upside down next to the falls. She couldn't see anyone in the water, but if they were not wearing life jackets, she wouldn't be able see them, would she? She tried to imagine the Mastercraft being pulled under the falls and taking the brunt of the water. She suddenly knew that the people in the boat were dead.

As they pulled alongside the capsized boat, Greg had to actually accelerate to pull away from the current that pulled them toward the falls. Julie saw what looked like a life jacket bobbing. Her first thought was that somebody was still stuck in there, being bobbed like a toy up and down under the falls. But then she saw the life jacket was empty. She wasn't sure whether it was good or bad. Where were the people?

"Man, that's amazing," Paul said.

Greg nodded. He pointed to the hull of the boat floating upside down. "It looks like it's at least a twenty-footer."

Paul shook his head. "Wonder why they let it get too close."

Greg shrugged. "Maybe they stalled it or something. Without an engine, it would suck you in."

Julie thought of the family they had passed, the one whose boat had stalled in the middle of the channel and Greg had swerved to miss. What would happen to them when they drifted down here? She thought of the little girl clutching her mother. Julie suddenly realized this would not be the last waterfall. All the bays, canyons and side chutes off the river would eventually have to drain into the main channel. Over the next several hours, the LakePowell channel would become a gauntlet of waterfalls.

CHAPTER 21

7:00 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Boulder, Nevada

Grant looked at his watch. This was taking way too long. After everyone agreed a dike made out of sandbags would work, the calls had gone out all over Las Vegas. They expected trucks to start rolling in any minute, but so far nothing. Based on quick estimates from the construction companies, there were somewhere between 75,000 and a 150,000 bags available in the Las Vegas area, although only a small fraction were already full. The remainder would need to be filled. Even if they were full, Grant knew that wasn't nearly enough. A few more calls located a distributor in Los Angeles and a manufacturer in Salt Lake City. The manufacturer was already closed, but the owner had been located on a cell phone and he was arranging to get enough staff to ship his entire inventory. Between the two companies, Grant figured they could get another million bags. Speed was a big issue, but cargo planes would be used from both locations. Grant went out on a limb and said the Bureau would pay, and Governor Jenkins pulled a few strings to make it happen.

In the meantime, the construction companies didn't think they could possibly fill a million bags before 5:00 a.m., which was the goal Grant gave them. They estimated they would be lucky to fill a tenth of that. The problem had then become how to fill a million bags in the next ten hours, bags that probably wouldn't be in Las Vegas for a few hours.

"Why don't we ask for volunteers?" asked Shauna. "Anybody with a shovel."

Grant shrugged. "Where are we gonna get enough volunteers on this short notice?"

"They're all watching the news. All we'd have to do is make an announcement on the ten o'clock news."

Grant scoffed. "That would be chaos. What are we gonna do, just tell them to bring their shovels and come on down?"

"Why not?" Fred said, moving over next to Shauna. "Everybody's got a shovel, and right now we need all the help we can get."

Grant shook his head and glared at his friend. "You can't be serious, Fred."

"I am serious. Every time those guys in the Midwest get flooded out, it's always the people themselves that are sandbagging to protect their cities. Don't underestimate the people - they care more than you think."

Grant looked at the two of them while they waited for his response. Actually, Shauna's volunteer idea would probably work if they just had more time. He felt bad for snapping at both of them. He wondered how many volunteers they would need to fill a million sand bags. What if each person filled a hundred bags? That would be 10,000 people. But, a hundred bags seemed like too many for one person; maybe 20,000 people would be better. What about loading and carrying? Better double it again. Grant guessed, to be safe, they would need at least 50,000 volunteers.

Grant held out his hands as if to say slow down. "All right, let's think out loud for a second. What if we asked for volunteers and we got 'em? Where do we want them to go? We'd need to have multiple locations; we can't just have them digging on the side of

Boulder Highway

. And who is gonna supervise them, and distribute the bags? What about light? It's gonna be dark, right? And what about moving the bags when they're full? We're gonna need trucks. We can't have a thousand pickups driving down to the dam to unload their bags. This is a big enough deal that we are going to need somebody to organize it, somebody who can focus specifically on this task."

Shauna and Fred both smiled at Grant. Grant could tell they were both happy he was at least considering it.

"Didn't the governor say the mayor of Las Vegas was here at Hoover?" Fred asked.

"Politicians need to get re-elected," said Shauna. "And politicians are usually great at delegating. The mayor could appoint a bunch of his buddies to head up other groups."

Grant didn't like the way it sounded, but he wondered if there were other types of people who could handle thousands of volunteers better. "What about cops, or firemen? What if we had about 50 cops team up with each group of politicians? Would that be enough supervision for a couple thousand volunteers?"

Fred nodded. "Yeah. That would be good, or even the National Guard. As long as they had uniforms. Then the volunteers would know where to go to ask questions."

"Okay, where do we tell them to go?" Shauna asked.

Grant considered that. He cringed at the thought of 50,000 volunteers scattered along the highway. Their cars would block the road and cause a horrific traffic jam that wouldn't allow the sand bag trucks through to the dam. But where else could they go? The best plan would include numerous locations scattered around the desert. Then they wouldn't conflict with each other; the crowds would be separated and not blocking anything. Unfortunately, Grant didn't know any locations. He wasn't from Las Vegas.

"We'll need some help from the mayor," Grant said. "We'll recommend that he and his staff choose ten or twenty places around Las Vegas with lots of sand and gravel where we can have the volunteers go. We can list the sites on TV. We can have a politician or two head up each spot, with a bunch of police and firemen to support them."

"This could work," Fred said, smiling.

Grant looked at his watch; they were running out of time. "All right, let's go talk to the mayor of Las Vegas. We'll find out what he's made of, see how he handles responsibility."

* * *

7:15 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David couldn't believe how far the water had risen in the last hour. Could it be a hundred feet? He thought so. It seemed like ages ago when Afram and Sam were trying to lasso the rock outcropping. Thankfully, they succeeded, but the rope hold had only lasted maybe ten or fifteen minutes before the raft had risen up to the same level of the outcropping. Luckily, by then they found other handholds, and were able to hold the boat without anyone in the cold water. Over the past few minutes the water seemed to be rising a foot or two per minute.

Although the sun was still a few hours from going down, it was already getting dark deep in the Grand Canyon, and David had to look up to see where the setting sun still shown on the east rock faces high above them. Meanwhile the dark water of the Colorado River was making more noise as it rose. David thought he could hear a waterfall somewhere downstream, although that seemed unlikely. Either way, just looking out at the main channel scared him. The water was traveling so fast.

"Look how smooth the water is," David said. "It looks like a lake."

"Except it's moving." Judy motioned with her arm.

Afram pointed to the other side. "David's right. It's perfectly flat and spread out. If I didn't know better, I would think there was a dam just downstream."

Keller spoke. "There is, kind of."

Afram looked perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, GraniteNarrows is at mile 135, and we are probably a mile or less from there."

"What is GraniteNarrows?" Judy asked.

David knew the answer. He had read about it. "It's where the Grand Canyon squeezes to less than a hundred feet wide. It's by far the narrowest place in the whole canyon."

"76 feet to be exact," Keller said.

"How is that a dam?" Becky asked.

"Think about it," Afram explained. He pointed to the other side. "The river is almost a half mile wide, and yet it all needs to fit through the narrows. It's like a dam."

Becky furrowed her brows. "But wouldn't the water just go faster through the notch?"

Keller nodded. "No question. The water has got to be blasting through the gap. But it would still back up, which is what we are seeing here."

Sam spoke for the first time. "The water level would be lower on the other side. It would be like a waterfall."

David cupped his hand to his ear. "That must be the sound I can hear."

"You know what this means?" Afram asked the group.

"What?" Becky said nervously.

"It means that we're lucky that we found this spot when we did. I don't want to even think about what would happen if we had tried to drift toward GraniteNarrows."

David imagined the raft getting sucked through the gap and spit over a hundred-foot waterfall.

The group sat silent for a moment. An explosion echoed through the darkening canyon, making them turn their heads.

"There goes another one," Afram said, craning his head around.

Becky whipped her head around. "Was it upstream or down?" Becky had evolved from jittery to frantic over the last hour. Her voice was now a few notches higher than normal.

The explosive sounds of the rock breaking off and falling in the river was starting to occur every few minutes. Although they couldn't see most of them, one had broken off just across the river about a half hour before in an earsplitting bang that had reverberated off the canyon walls.

"I think that one was way upstream someplace," Keller said reassuringly. "It sounded like it was a long ways away."

"Not to me!" Becky argued, near tears.

Sam put his arm around her, a maneuver that seemed unnatural to David under the circumstances. David would have been more apt to slide away from her while she was being so hostile, and give her some space.

David considered their situation: water rising a hundred feet an hour, getting dark, raft being held by people's hands grasping the cliff in precarious holds, with no place to stand or hike in a rimmed canyon. David wondered again if they were going to make it.

"Heads up," Keller yelled. He grasped the rock for a better hold.

David felt the raft pulling away from the rocks and he renewed his grip. He thought about GraniteNarrows downstream and gripped harder. Every now and then the current swirled under their raft and tried to pull it out into the channel and downstream. Sometimes these currents lasted a few seconds, and sometimes a few minutes. David's hands ached. He didn't think he could last much longer. After a while, the current let up and David relaxed his hold slightly. He looked up at the sky. Was there a God? He had always believed it, but now he wondered. If there was a God, would he help? David wasn't sure. But there was one thing for sure - it didn't hurt to ask. Without anyone else seeing what he was doing, David nodded his head slightly, then without making a sound he talked to his God. He thanked him that they were still safe, and then he pleaded with him to spare them through the rest of the night.

* * *

7:40 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Greg pulled back on the throttle in response to a large houseboat cutting in front of them. He veered to the right and passed it.

"Look up ahead." He pointed off to the right.

Castle Rock could be seen miles in the distance. Julie noticed they were passing Padre Point on the left, which signified they were beyond the remains of PadreBay, and were entering the narrows. The narrows did not look much different from before except now the walls were much higher. The waves in this stretch of the lake had always radiated back and forth between the cliffs, which sometimes capsized smaller boats. But, Julie had never seen it this rough and she held on as the Mastercraft rocked violently.

The narrows, from Padre Point to AntelopeIsland, was a four-mile straight shot with AntelopeIsland dead ahead. There were two choices at AntelopeIsland: the narrows veered left and wound for another 11 miles to the dam, or WarmCreekBay, which opened to the right. Logically, the only decision would be to turn right into the safety of Warm Creek. As the water dropped, the boat would be stranded, but that was infinitely safer than continuing down the narrows, which would take them within a mile of the Glen Canyon Dam site.

"We need to talk," Greg said.

Julie faced her husband. "About what?"

Greg rotated so the other four passengers could hear him. "What do we do up there?" He motioned in front of the boat.

Julie felt confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Which way are we going? Right or left?" Greg was biting his lip.

Julie couldn't believe it. "I thought it was settled. We're going into Warm Creek." Julie saw nervousness on the two other couples' faces, as if this were her and Greg's argument.

Greg shook his head. "We haven't even talked about it."

Paul spoke up. "Going into Warm Creek would essentially be writing off your boat."

"Couldn't you come back and retrieve it later?" Darlene asked.

Max put his hand over Darlene's. "If the dam is gone, the lake will eventually drop another three or four hundred feet. By then, Warm Creek will be just a muddy wash. It would be basically inaccessible as far as retrieving a boat was concerned."

Darlene eyes bulged as the realization set in.

"I wouldn't abandon this boat if it was mine!" Erika said.

Julie was shocked that they were all talking this way. "So all of you are willing to risk your lives for this boat?"

Greg shook his head. "I never said we all have to go. I could drop the rest of you off at Warm Creek."

Julie pictured Greg leaving the five of them on the rocks someplace and taking the Mastercraft down past the dam by himself. She didn't like that idea any better. She remembered what she had felt like earlier in the day when they had been separated, and she didn't want to be separated again.

Paul leaned forward in his seat. "I'll go with you, Greg."

"Paul, the boat isn't worth you dying over," Greg responded.

Julie pointed her finger at her husband. "Then why are you going?"

Erika spoke directly to Julie. "If Greg thought he was going to die, he wouldn't go."

"I don't think he's thinking that far ahead," Julie responded. "Or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Max motioned at Greg. "Is Julie right? Have you thought it out?"

Greg chose his words carefully. He glanced at Julie, then pointed to the shore of the narrows. "Look, you can see how fast the water is moving here. It's reasonable to assume that it's traveling about the same down by the dam, or possibly a little faster."

With all the traffic in the channel, Julie hadn't even noticed the strong current carrying them down the narrows. She looked at the rock walls moving past on the shore and realized they were already being pulled toward the Glen Canyon Dam. It scared her.

Greg continued. "But, at full speed, the Mastercraft can do almost 30 knots, which is way more than enough to overcome this current."

"How do you know it's not way stronger down there?" Darlene challenged.

"The width of the narrows is relatively constant," Greg answered, "and it's the same water down there as it is here."

"Isn't the spot where the dam was built the skinniest part of the canyon?" Paul asked.

Greg shrugged. "Well, yeah, but it's much wider where I would be turning into Wahweap." He motioned at the shore. "It's at least this wide."

"What if you ran out of gas?" Julie argued.

Greg pointed at the gas gauge. "We have plenty of gas. That's why we stopped at Dangling Rope."

"What if the engine stalls?" Darlene asked.

"It hasn't stalled all week."

"But what if it does? You'll die!" Julie said.

Greg stared into his wife's eyes. "Julie, if I thought I was going to die, I wouldn't do it. The engine is running great. I'll be fine."

No one said anything.

Greg continued. "I don't think insurance is going to cover it, if we just abandon it. I think I should try."

Julie knew that Greg would not be able to afford to replace the Mastercraft for years without insurance money. And there was still the issue of the houseboat, for which hopefully, they would not be held financially responsible. But Julie still didn't feel it was worth risking a life. "The problem, Greg, is that there is no trying. Once you go left toward the dam, there's no turning back."

"That's not completely true," Paul inserted. "There's that new marina in the narrows."

"Antelope Point," Greg said, remembering.

"Yeah, you could get off there if you were in trouble," Paul said.

"If we can get to Antelope Point, why are we even talking about Wahweap?" Julie asked.

Paul shook his head. "Antelope Point was never designed to launch boats with the lake this low. You would basically be looking a hundred-feet up the cliffs at the launch ramp."

"Wouldn't Wahweap's ramp be the same?" Max asked.

"No." Greg said. "They used to launch boats at Wahweap while the dam was filling. The ramp goes hundreds of feet down."

"But it would be covered with moss and slimy stuff, wouldn't it?" Paul said.

Greg shrugged. "Probably. But all you'd need is a power washer to clean it off. Then you could drive right down and grab your boat."

Max leaned forward. "So is that your plan? Just park the boat next to the ramp at Wahweap, and retrieve it after they clean the ramp?"

Greg nodded.

The three couples looked back and forth between themselves.

"And you're dropping us off first?" Max asked.

Greg nodded. "Yes, both for your safety, and the lighter the boat, the better."

Erika spoke for the first time in a while. "But that means you'll be back to the marina tonight, and the rest of us will be stuck on the shore through the night."

Greg smiled. "That's the upside."

"I want to go with Greg," Erika said teasingly. "I'd willingly risk my life to avoid a night out on the rocks."

Julie could see that ahead they were quickly approaching the landmass of AntelopeIsland. The island loomed huge, much larger than Julie ever remembered it before. Judging from the height of the wet marks, she estimated the water levels had dropped over a hundred feet at this spot in the lake. On the left side of the channel Julie saw a ranger boat tied to a rock, its lights blinking. The boat was broadcasting some sort of message that she could not quite decipher at first. But as they got closer, she could understand.

"Danger. Danger. Currents downstream near the dam site are hazardous. All boats must detour right, into WarmCreekBay, especially houseboats and other slow-moving watercraft. Repeat. Danger. Danger."

Slightly past the first ranger boat, another one on the right side of the channel broadcasted a similar message. She could see that ahead most boats were veering right, but a small number were ignoring the warnings and turning left. The sight gave her the chills. When their turn came, Greg turned right with the larger group.

As they passed into WarmCreekBay, they could see that it was littered with boats, many of them stranded high and dry around the edges of the bay. Hoards of people were standing around the beached boats. There were trails of people hiking up the hillsides toward Castle Rock. Julie guessed that many had decided to try to hike to Wahweap Marina tonight, a journey she estimated at almost ten miles.

When the boats parted in the large bay, Greg accelerated toward Castle Rock. Julie was nervous about the separation that would occur in a few minutes. A million arguments were running through her mind. Too soon, Greg slowed and brought the Mastercraft up to the shore. He shut off the engine. Without saying anything, Max, Darlene, and Erika started gathering their clothes and blankets.

Paul walked up behind Greg. "I'll go with you."

"Not necessary."

Paul nodded, not waging much of a fight.

Max had jumped into the waist-deep water, and was helping Darlene down. Julie handed the pile of blankets to Max. Erika followed, then Paul. Julie handed Erika's and Paul's shoes to Erika. Greg moved to help Julie, but instead, she sat down in the front seat next to her husband.

"What are you doing, Julie?" he asked.

"I'm going with you."

He looked concerned.

"Are you going to die, Greg?"

"No, but--"

"Then, I'm staying with you." She could see she was making him re-think his decision.

"Honey, there's no reason for both of us to risk--"

She stood and raised her voice. "We both go, or we both stay."

He backed off, considering her statement. "Are you okay going?"

She nodded. "We can always ditch at Antelope Marina, right?"

He smiled. "Yeah. And you're not mad?"

She shook her head. "I want to go with you."

He nodded and turned to the others, who had been quietly watching the argument. "Okay, if everything works the way I think it will - and it will!" he emphasized, "--then I'll pick you guys up on the other side of Castle Rock in a half hour. Then I can motor you back to the marina and you won't have to sleep on the rocks." He winked at Erika.

Julie hadn't considered that option. That was better for them. Paul pushed the Mastercraft out into deeper water, and then both couples wished Greg and Julie good luck.

CHAPTER 22

8:00 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Nevada

Standing on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam, Grant watched as a line of trucks formed on the winding road from the Nevada side. The trucks, loaded with sand bags from construction companies all around Las Vegas, had started arriving 20 minutes before. The logistical nightmare was beginning to sort itself out. The original plan was to direct the trucks to turn around, and then back all the way across the dam to unload their sandbags. It was Shauna who had suggested the alternative. Plan B called for the trucks to drive across the dam, turn around on a small access road on the Arizona side, then pull back onto the dam. The sandbags from many trucks could then be offloaded simultaneously by a swarm of volunteers and National Guardsmen. After the trucks were all unloaded, they pulled out at the same time, making room for the next group waiting on the hill. The plan meant that sandbags were to be stacked only on the upstream side of the dam, leaving the downstream side open for vehicles. Starting on the Arizona side where the east side of the dam abutted into the cliff, and all along the upstream side, a ten-foot wall of sand bags was being erected. Plan B ended up being a huge time saver, since the sandbag dike could be built all the way from Arizona to Nevada at the same time.

Only after the first phase was done, sometime in the middle of the night, would they go back and extend the dike to its planned twenty-foot height and widen the base to the full width of the dam. And by building the dike in two phases, it gave them much more time, almost a day, before the water rose above the eight-foot first phase dike.

A man with a bullhorn moved along the dam, barking orders. "Overlap that one, soldier. That's it. Right to left. Yeah you." He pointed to someone placing a bag below him. "Butt it right up against the others or it'll be a weak spot. Yeah, pick it up and move it over. That's it. The stagger gives the dike strength."

Originally, Grant had expected to be in charge of the construction of the wall of sandbags, something he was not confident about, especially since he had never worked with sandbags before. However, the mayor told them about the man with the bullhorn, a retired engineer named Steve Alby, who lived in Las Vegas. Before he retired, Alby had actually been in charge of building sandbag dikes along the Mississippi for the Army Corp of Engineers. Grant had been more than willing to concede the responsibility to the old engineer who had arrived just before the trucks.

Grant watched as the old man trained the soldiers. He was incredible. He watched the placement of every sand bag. He barked orders through the bullhorn like an auctioneer. When the cops found him at his house a few miles south of the strip, he was working in his yard. They hadn't allowed him to change. So he was still dressed in denim shorts, a grimy white t-shirt, black tennis shoes with contrasting white socks, and a green camouflage hat, which he hadn't been wearing when he arrived. Grant guessed he had been given the hat by one of the soldiers.

When Grant first saw Alby, he wondered if they had made a mistake. The man seemed feeble in his movements and speech. Grant guessed the man was in his mid-sixties. He had short gray hair, bird legs, and a potbelly that peeked out from under his t-shirt. However, after they explained to Alby the goal of the next 24 hours, the man went right to work. The National Guard gave Alby a bullhorn, and as soon as the trucks started to arrive, he transformed from a lamb into a lion. It was obvious he had done this before. When Grant looked at him, he thought he could imagine a much younger Alby, dressed in a raincoat in pouring rain, helping farmers build dikes along the Mississippi to protect their farms and homes. Grant wanted to talk to him, to ask him some questions about the dike, but to interrupt him now would be like trying to talk to a conductor during a symphony.

When Grant looked back at the incoming trucks, he wondered if everything could happen in time. These bags came from the construction companies. The bags from the volunteers would come later. The empty bags being flown in were not expected to arrive in Las Vegas for an hour or more. To avoid needless chaos, a TV announcement calling for volunteers would not be made until after 9:00 p.m. In the meantime, eighteen sandbag locations had been chosen around the area, and police crews were roping off parking areas, making signs, ordering portable toilets, and generally making whatever other preparations they could think of before they were mobbed by thousands of volunteers.

So much could still go wrong. The extra bags could be late. It could take longer than planned to fill them. Traffic could affect their delivery to the dam. And what if the call for volunteers went unheeded? Grant worried more about the opposite: that they would be bombarded by crowds too large to manage. Even if the plan for sand bags worked, what if the Bureau's numbers were wrong? What if the water rose more than fifteen feet over Hoover? What if the water arrived early, before the dike was completed? Grant stared upstream. He tried to imagine the water coming toward him. He imagined a tidal wave roaring across Lake Mead. But that wasn't logical. No, there would be no waves on the lake. It was too big and would dissipate the flood. If anything went wrong, it would happen gradually, as the water rose inch by inch until it breached the dam. All violent waves, currents, or flooding would be limited to the Grand Canyon.

* * *

8:15 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

Julie saw Greg look at his watch. They had made good time from Warm Creek. Since most of the boats had gone the safer route, the lower canyon had not been nearly as crowded. The boats had taken advantage, spreading out and going full blast. The water was rough, but not unbearable. Greg had even leaned over at one point and commented to Julie that if they weren't in danger, it could have been fun, going full bore, racing other boats down through the narrows. Julie was still nervous, but she was glad she had come.

When they approached AntelopePointMarina, Greg slowed and pointed at the docks. "Do you want to stop?"

Julie noticed that the ramp was in fact isolated high on the rock wall, well out of reach of the boats. The current was moving very fast in the channel, but she was comfortable they could overcome the current and make the turn into WahweapBay. This wasn't as bad as she had feared. She shook her head and Greg accelerated back to speed and they continued.

The jaunt continued and after a while Julie wondered how far it would be. Finally, they rounded a bend and they could see a mile ahead to where the Colorado River split, the right being Wahweap, and the left, the dam. Julie watched nervously.

As they approached the fork, the water became rougher, and the Mastercraft jarred up and down loudly. Then Julie saw something that made her heart stop. A small green and white striped boat was running on the left edge of the pack of speeding boats. A man and a woman were in the boat. Julie saw the small boat was having trouble with the waves, actually coming clear of the water a couple of times. Then the driver lost control and the boat veered sharply to the left and rolled twice before stopping on its side. It filled with water. Julie scanned the surface for the two passengers and held her breath until both their heads bobbed to the surface. They looked to be at least thirty feet from their boat. Instantly, Julie knew that without intervention, they would both be sucked over the dam, and killed. But the risk to anyone who tried to help would be too great. Greg had seen it too and looked over at Julie.

Julie made the decision. She nodded vigorously.

Greg didn't hesitate. He weaved through the boats to the left of them, and headed for the two people in the water. The current was already dragging them around the corner and when Julie caught sight of them, she could see the Glen Canyon Dam visitor center on the hill behind them. Although it was almost a mile away, it didn't look far enough. At the rate of the current, they would be pulled past the dam in a minute. Greg looped behind the two, and drove right between them.

"Throw them something!" he yelled.

Julie, now panicky, ran to the back of the boat and started pulling the water-ski rope out of a small compartment. She looked downstream and saw what remained of the Glen Canyon Dam, the broken concrete protruding from the cliffs on both sides. She willed herself to ignore it, and threw the tangled rope toward the woman. The coils of rope landed right on her head. The woman began pulling herself hand over hand toward the Mastercraft. Julie pulled on the other end. In the meantime the man had swum to the back of the boat and was trying to climb in. He had difficulty with the ladder before finally climbing up and falling awkwardly into the boat. Julie had pulled the woman to the back, but the woman made no move to climb in.

"My leg," she said, her face showing intense pain.

"Hurry!" Greg urged.

Julie lunged toward the man on the floor who was trying to stand up. She grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet. She looked at the woman again, then at Greg. "Her leg is hurt. We're going to have to lift her." Greg left the steering wheel for a second to look at the woman, then returned quickly to the controls.

"Flip her around so her back is against the boat. It's easier."

Julie remembered once when she was too tired to climb in the boat after water-skiing. Greg and Paul had lifted her in that way.

She and the man climbed out on the platform on the rear deck and they each grabbed an arm. Julie saw that the dam was approaching much too quickly.

"Ready?" the man said.

Julie nodded and they both pulled. The lady was heavier than Julie expected and Julie lost her balance. She had no choice but release her grip. The woman slipped back in the water.

"Can you do this?" the man asked nervously.

Julie nodded. She had just underestimated. As she prepared for the next pull, she saw what looked like a group of policeman up on the right shore, near the dam. They were waving frantically at the boaters.

Julie braced herself and looked at the man. He nodded and they both pulled hard. The lady came up out of the water, and all three of them fell into the boat. She felt the Mastercraft accelerate immediately. She pulled herself up to her knees.

Greg had the boat going full blast and was heading up the river, but they were only gaining ground slowly. When Julie looked back, she saw that they had been close enough that the wake was now rolling over the remnants of the dam. She looked up on the canyon walls and saw that the policemen were clapping and thrusting their fists into the air. Julie crawled forward and hugged her husband's leg.

* * *

8:30 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David was out of the raft again. They all were. The water had risen to where the canyon spread out. There were finally flat places to stand. That was the good news. The bad news was that where they had been in a protected canyon before, if the water rose any higher, they would now be exposed. And it was very dark. Deep in the canyon, the sun had set long ago. The last remaining rays touched the west-facing rocks thousands of feet above them. The river, which an hour before had been expanding from its channel, now enjoyed free rein to flow where it wanted. Although it was getting too dark to be sure, David guessed the big, black expanse of water to be a half mile across.

* * *

8:40 p.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

The Mastercraft merged back with the other boats entering WahweapCanyon. Julie glanced back at the couple still sitting on the floor. The lady was sobbing uncontrollably and clutching her leg. Julie guessed the tears were not for the leg, but for how close they had come to losing their lives. The man sensed Julie's eyes and looked up. His eyes were also misty. He nodded thanks at Julie, and turned back to his wife. Julie looked back at the remains of the Glen Canyon Dam again. That had been too close.

With the water down over a hundred feet, the entrance to Wahweap felt like a canyon. The walls were narrow and steep, and Greg and the other boats had to slow to get through safely. WahweapBay was draining into the channel, and creating a current, but not nearly as strong as in the Narrows.

Only a few minutes later, the canyon opened into the wide expanse of WahweapBay. The water here was wide and calm. Greg and many of the other boats slowed and took a breather. Up ahead on the left were the buildings and docks of Wahweap Marina. On the right was Castle Rock, and even in the setting sun, Julie could see crowds of stranded boaters cresting the pass and hiking around the bay toward the marina.

CHAPTER 23

9:15 p.m. - Hoover Dam, Boulder, Nevada

Back in the visitor center, Grant felt like sleeping. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn he left Denver a week ago. He checked his watch and added an hour for the time change. It was already 10:15 p.m. in Denver - past his bedtime. He imagined his wife getting ready for bed and putting on her worn flannel pajamas, which she wore year round, even in the summer. He detested those pajamas. They were the least sexy things he could imagine. But right now, he decided, they wouldn't bother him at all.

He walked over to the wall of windows in the visitor center and looked out at Hoover Dam. The lights on the canyon walls lit up the dam like daylight. The dam itself was buzzing with action. The trucks kept coming. The sandbag dike had grown steadily along the upstream side of the dam, now reaching almost ten feet high in some sections. At the current rate, they were on target to finish the upstream portion by 3 or 4 a.m. - just in time, based on the projection that the water would rise above the concrete dam somewhere between 6:00 and 9:00. But it would be close. Then the slower and more difficult task of building it up to fifteen feet would begin. Grant could not see the old man with the bullhorn on the dike, and guessed that he must have taken a break. Hopefully the stackers had learned something and a sandbag wouldn't be misplaced in his absence.

Fred walked up behind Grant while he was gazing out the window. "You look beat."

"Yeah, I think it just caught up to me."

"You want me to find you a room for a couple hours? That casino between here and BoulderCity is only a few minutes away."

"There's no way I could sleep tonight, but thanks anyway."

It was quiet for a minute, while both men watched the action on the dam. Grant broke the trance and looked over at Fred. "You think it'll work?"

"What? The dam?" Fred hesitated, and rubbed his chin. "I guess that depends on your girl's estimates. If she's right about the water levels, sure, I think it'll hold. The old man definitely knows what he's doing with the sand bags."

They were both silent for a few moments, staring out the windows, before Fred smiled and spoke again. "They're calling it 'Hoover-Two', you know."

Grant turned, raising his eyebrows. "What, the dike? Who is?"

Fred pointed down at the dam. "I think the soldiers started it. But I heard 'Hoover-Two' in the visitor center a few minutes ago. It seems to be catching on."

Grant looked back at the dam. Hoover-Two. It seemed appropriate. A small dam built on top of the famous one below. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it himself. He looked back at Fred. "Hoover-Two." He felt the words roll off his tongue. "I like it. Let's just hope Hoover-Two's legacy will be a success."

Fred nodded. "Yup. There's a lot riding on it, that's for sure."

Grant changed the subject. "What's been happening downstream?"

Fred glanced up. "Nothing yet. We know LakeMojave has been rising about nine inches an hour since we blew the two spillways. Davis Dam's internal gates are open, but that won't keep up with the water we're dumping. They're supposed to open the spillways at Davis, but just like here, they won't run at full capacity until the water level rises. According to Shauna's calculations, that won't happen until a little after midnight."

Grant pondered the data. "Once her spillways are running at full tilt, Mojave should be able to hold her level, right?"

"Yeah. Theoretically."

Grant pursed his lips, trying to imagine the spillways at Davis Dam. "They've never been tested at full capacity, have they?"

Fred smiled. "Course not."

Grant smirked. "That would be too good to be true."

Fred shrugged. "We have to trust them. They were designed specifically to keep up with Hoover. The problem is, even assuming they work, the trouble will just move downstream. LakeHavasu will have to rise high enough for the water to reach the top of Parker Dam's spillways. Its internal gates aren't going to be able to keep up either. Both dams, Davis and Parker, will need their spillways flowing at full capacity to keep up with all the water we're dumping."

A thought kept nagging Grant. "How certain are we that Parker's spillways can really handle it? Isn't that just theoretical too?"

Fred rubbed his forehead. "Same story. None of the spillways have ever been tested at capacity." Fred turned toward Grant. "Why are you asking me all these questions? You work for the Bureau too."

Grant nodded. "My guys in Denver are all desk jockeys. You're out here in the real world. I was just curious what you think."

Fred showed a hint of satisfaction at Grant's remark. "If I were betting, and I am from Vegas, I'd bet on the Bureau's numbers. They may be desk jockeys today, but these three dams were all designed over fifty years ago. Those boys got out in the sun and got their hands dirty. They ran their calculations on slide rules. They checked their numbers, then checked them again. Yeah, I trust them."

Grant smiled. It had never occurred to him that the calculations were done by hand. Over the last fifteen years the Bureau had not done anything without modeling it on a computer first. If someone took all the computers away today, the Bureau would stop dead. They wouldn't know what to do. Grant had seen slide rules, but he didn't even know how to work one. Actually, Grant wasn't sure he could balance his checkbook anymore without a computer.

Fred looked at him. "What are you thinking?"

Grant shrugged. "Just that we're sitting here racking our brains, and the flood's not even here yet." Grant looked back out at the action on the dam and kept talking without looking at Fred. "If we're able to contain all this water in my little dam extension project - Hoover-Two," he corrected himself, "then all three sets of spillways will be running at full capacity for weeks. None of the three dam's spillways have ever been tested at full capacity for a minute, let alone weeks."

Fred spoke from behind Grant. "In 1983 when the water was high, only two feet of water went over the spillways at Hoover for sixty days - less than five percent of capacity. Even that almost ruined the spillways. I can't imagine what this is going to do."

Grant smiled. "Compared to what would happen if the water breaches Hoover, they're going to be happy to re-build the spillways after it's over."

Grant's cell phone rang. He picked it up. "Hello."

"Grant, it's Howard."

Grant recognized the voice of his boss. His stomach turned. His boss was the last person he wanted to talk to. "Oh, hi Howard. How's Yellowstone?"

Howard spoke fast, obviously excited. "We've been driving around in the park all day, then we went out and ate. I hadn't heard any news. I flicked on the TV and . . . the Glen Canyon Dam - unbelievable. I called Cindy at home and she forwarded me to Julia. Julia told me that you're there handling it. I can't believe . . ." His voice tapered off.

Grant silently cursed the two secretaries for giving Howard his phone number. "Yeah, that about sums it up."

"Where are you? Page? Why didn't you call me?"

Grant hesitated. Actually, the thought of calling Howard had never occurred to him. Howard would have no idea what to do, and of course Grant didn't want the bureaucratic interference. He felt like he had plenty of obstacles without his boss questioning everything. "I'm at Hoover Dam in Veg-"

"I know where Hoover is. Why aren't you at GlenCanyon? Isn't that where the problem is?" Grant could already detect the condescending attitude.

Grant couldn't stop the defensiveness in his voice. "What'd you want me to do at GlenCanyon? The dam's gone."

"Well, what are you doing at Hoover?"

"We're getting ready for the flood; we're dumping as much water as possible to lower the lake." Grant decided not to bring up the part about dynamiting Hoover's spillways. "And we're building a dike on top of the dam to try to prevent overtopping." The phone went silent for a moment.

"Overtopping - you think that might happen?"

Grant talked down to him. "Yes, Howard, Hoover is going to get overtopped."

"How do you know that for sure?"

It never ceased to amaze Grant how some people could argue with so much conviction when they were completely wrong. "Howard, LakePowell holds almost two years of river flow. You think Mead has that much extra capacity?"

There was silence on the line before Howard continued. "Well, then, what makes you think a dike on top of Hoover will hold it? Two years of flow held by a dike?"

Grant willed himself to not lose his temper.