“You have my private cell number, right?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Good. Then use it, the minute you have Barzani.”
“Will do, Sir.”
“Oh, and Nick, do me a favor will you?” There was a smile in the President’s voice. “Don’t wait until the last minute, okay? My heart isn’t what it used to be.”
“Neither is mine, Sir.”
Chapter 28
Matt was downing his third cup of coffee when he hung up the phone with Walt Jackson. Nick was barely keeping his eyes open, so Matt told him to take a ten minute cat nap on the couch. He’d let Nick go twenty since he was snoring in less than two minutes. Now, he went over and gave him a gentle kick.
Nick woke startled. His head jerked up, immediately grabbed his shoulder and winced from the unexpected jolt.
“Sorry,” Matt said. “We have less than an hour.”
Nick got up and went into the bathroom, leaving the door open. Matt heard the water running. A minute later, Nick returned with his hair sopping wet while rubbing it with a cloth towel.
“Where were we?” Nick asked with a yawn.
Matt was already on a knee organizing his duffle bag with the gear he needed. “I just got off the phone with Walt,” Matt said. “One of Ken’s goons just did a number on Semir and got him to admit their plan involved a giant flood.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Matt got up and pretended he was about to slap Nick’s face. “Wake up. I just got off the phone with Walt ten seconds before I kicked you. There’s a helicopter waiting for us at the hospital to take us to Hoover Dam. We can still make it before Merrick’s speech.”
Nick threw his towel onto the couch, grabbed his cell phone from his desk and said, “Let’s go.”
As they made it out the front door, a Salt River Project truck was idling next to the sheriff’s car, side-by-side, the driver’s side doors lining up. The SRP worker was leaning out his window and talking to Stevie Gilpin who was already behind the driver’s seat of the sheriff’s car with a giant box next to him in the passenger seat.
Matt opened the back door to the sheriff’s car for Nick to get in.
Nick went up to the SRP driver and said over the noise of the loud diesel engine, “You’re a little late for the party. We’ve already got things figured out. There may be a terrorist trying to bomb Hoover Dam. You might want to warn any employees up there to stay above the water line.”
The man said nothing. He did nothing. He simply rubbed his bald head and stared, like he was in deep thought.
Nick was almost in the car when he turned back and saw the man remaining still.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Nick asked.
The man shut off his engine and the world became quiet.
“Are you telling me there’s a nuclear weapon near Hoover Dam?” the man said.
“No, it’s not nuclear.”
The man nodded, but stayed completely unfazed.
“What’s wrong?” Nick said.
“I’m the head engineer at SRP. And pardon my frankness, Sheriff, but I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
That’s when Nick’s expression changed, like a hunting dog with his ears perked up. Matt had only seen the expression a couple of times in his career. He’d never questioned its genesis, but he knew enough to let it play out. He slammed the back door shut and joined Nick between the two vehicles.
Nick cocked his head. “What do you know about Hoover Dam?”
“A lot,” the man said. “I know more about Arizona’s dams than anyone in the country.”
“Nick, we’ve got to go,” Stevie said, urgently.
Nick waved him off. “Go ahead and go,” he said. “I’m staying here.”
Stevie looked at Matt and saw him nod his approval.
“All right, guys,” Stevie said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
The car spit up gravel as it took off for the hospital.
The man got out of his car and shook hands with both agents. He was trim and clean-cut, with jeans and blue collared shirt. “Chase Benton,” he said.
“Nick Bracco.”
“Matt McColm.”
“Now,” Nick said, “tell me why I don’t know what I’m talking about when I say Hoover Dam is about to be bombed.”
“Well, it’s just that Hoover Dam is over six-hundred feet thick. Made of the most durable concrete ever produced. What type of material do you suspect this terrorist is using?”
“Semtex.”
Benton shook his head. “There isn’t enough Semtex in the world capable of taking down Hoover Dam.”
“How can you be so sure?” Matt asked.
“Because,” Benton smiled broadly, “I did a thesis on the possibility of such an attack in grad school. It was right after September 11th and the next terrorist target was on everyone’s mind back then. My theory concluded that nothing less than a nuclear weapon could cause it to crack.”
The man’s demeanor oozed experience. He spoke as if he were a professor addressing his students.
Matt felt a sense of anticipation building. He looked down at his cell phone. There was less than thirty minutes before the President’s speech and Barzani’s direct response.
Nick took the lead. “We found samples in the shoes of some of these terrorists which were compatible with water found around dammed water. Chlorine and a certain type of moisture which gave us the conclusion it was Hoover Dam.”
Benton nodded. “That sounds plausible, but you may have the wrong dam.”
“Here’s the thing,” Matt said. “We know this terrorist very well. Temir Barzani. He’s not exactly going to bring down a dam just to cause long term hardship on a community or even a state. Now, we did some research on this, and Hoover Dam would cause more destruction and loss of life than any other target. It’s not even close.”
Benton rubbed the back of his neck and looked up into the twilight. The sun was going down, both literally and figuratively.
“Let me ask you a question,” Benton said. “Did you find any traces of copper in those shoe samples?”
Nick and Matt both looked at each other with wide eyes.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Benton said.
“We didn’t know what it meant,” Nick said. “You do?”
The engineer grinned. “I have an idea. There’s an active copper mine about forty miles from here and the water runoff tracks right by Roosevelt Dam. If someone were to walk anywhere near there, they would certainly pickup copper on their shoes.”
Matt nodded. “But we looked at that and Roosevelt Dam didn’t carry enough water to do enough damage.”
“Yes, but what you didn’t look at was what’s below the dam. If that dam were to be compromised, it would create an overflow of water too great for the next dam in Apache Lake to hold, so that dam would also be compromised and so on. Like dominos they would go down one by one.”
“And?” Nick asked.
“And a cascade of water would rush down the Salt River with the force of a giant tsunami.” Benton looked at both of the agents. “Are either of you familiar with Phoenix and its topography?”
Matt looked at Nick who gave him a sheepish shrug.
“Well, it’s called the Valley of the Sun for a reason. It’s a valley. We’ve done studies on this exact scenario. If Roosevelt Dam were ever ruptured, within four hours Phoenix would be under sixteen feet of water. We’ve estimated the loss of life to exceed three hundred thousand people. And that was a couple of years back when the population wasn’t as large.”
Nick looked at Matt. “Do we have anyone down there?”
“We sent everyone up north.”
“Shit,” Nick muttered. He pulled the hair on the back of his head. “We’re screwed. We’ll never get there in time.”
“What if we get the helicopter to bring down some agents from up north?” Matt asked.
“What’s the problem?” Benton asked.
Matt glanced at his cell phone. “The problem is we’re on a time crunch. When the President announces he has no intention of removing troops from Kurdistan, our terrorist friend is going to detonate a bomb somewhere in the state. If it’s Roosevelt Dam, that’s almost an hour’s drive. Nick’s right. We’re screwed.”