Frank Kennedy shook his head. "That won't work. The dam's full of silt," he said, still looking confused.
"No, she's right," said Grant. "If we blow the bottom out of the spillways, the water will take care of the silt in no time. It would more than double the capacity of the spillway.
Frank nodded slowly, comprehension setting in. "She's right."
Frank lifted his radio to his mouth. He hesitated and looked at Grant who nodded confirmation. "Demolition team, hold everything. We have a last-minute change of plans. I need all available people to stop what they're doing, and instead, start planting explosives on the lower part of the spillway. We need the spillway to be deeper."
Grant heard a response from the radio, which he guessed was the guy in charge of the demolition team. "But Mr. Kennedy, isn't the water almost — "
Frank keyed the mike and shouted into the radio. "Yes, the water is almost here! That's why you need to hurry!"
"But if we're not done in time? Then we won't have blown anything."
Frank looked over at Grant.
"Have them leave a small team on the Gila side," said Grant quickly. "We can blow that as a backup."
Frank forwarded the instructions into the radio and almost immediately they saw the results as the men on the dam started hustling toward the center.
Grant looked anxiously at his watch again.
"I wish you still had your helicopter here so we could scout the water upstream," said Frank.
Grant nodded. He agreed. Hopefully Lloyd would be back soon. Grant wondered if the pilot had beaten the FBI to the airport.
The thought of sneaking past the FBI into Mexico was starting to bother Grant. What was driving him to do it? It wasn't his job to find the bomber. He had no expertise at apprehending criminals. But for the last two days, the FBI had shown no signs of solving this crime. They'd been two steps behind from the start. The FBI was better when they had time to do computer simulations, run background checks, and analyze information. This whole thing had gone down much too quickly. Grant realized it had been less than eighteen hours since the first bomb at the Glen Canyon Dam, and he was already over 500 miles from there. It felt like a lifetime ago.
And what about Mexico? It seemed like the FBI had no intentions of going past the border. Could they really trust the Mexican police to do this by themselves? What if Grant actually did sneak into Mexico and they found the bomber down there? The environmentalist would surely be there. Maybe they could follow him in the helicopter until the Mexican police could pick him up. But how could they communicate with the Mexicans on the radio? None of them spoke Spanish. What about Lloyd — did he? He had forgotten to ask the pilot. He wondered for a second what Roland and Howard and the other officers in the Bureau of Reclamation would think of his idea to go into Mexico after the bomber against the direct orders of the FBI. It was a line of thought that he did not want to explore. Frank's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
"Will this floodwater hit hard at first, or gradually build?"
Grant looked up and saw the entire length of the spillway lined with demolition guys busy at work. He realized that even a small amount of water coming over the spillway would disrupt their efforts. He looked back and forth along the dam before returning his gaze to Frank Kennedy.
"Open all the other gates, the All American, the Gila, and the river gates. It'll give them a few more minutes warning." Grant looked back at the men working on the spillway. "Tell them not to wait to wire the explosives. If the water forces them to ditch, I want them to be able to blow what's already done."
Frank spent the next few moments forwarding the instructions. Almost immediately Grant heard the gates on the All American and the river raising.
Grant pointed at a small hill on the west side of the river, just upstream from the dam. "Can we post some police officers up there to watch for the floodwater?"
Frank nodded and keyed the radio again.
David and Judy sat on a couch in the South Rim visitor center. Afram paced back and forth. The visitor center had been closed to tourists and had been converted to a make shift crisis center. After the red helicopter dropped them off four hours earlier, the three had been fed, clothed in warm green sweats, and examined by doctors.
Throughout the day, every time someone walked by in green sweats, and there were many, David checked to see if they were his friends. At every opportunity, he asked the doctors or the volunteers if they had any information about Sam, Becky, or Keller. The answers were always the same. "I'm not sure, let me go check," or "I don't have that kind of information, you'll have to talk to somebody else," or "They might be at another facility," or "We are checking into it, somebody will get back to you," or "I'm sure they are fine, now just relax and don't worry."
At one point Afram had gone searching through the building, pulling back curtains where others were being treated and opening doors. But their friends were not to be found.
Finally, a ranger with an orange vest approached them. He had a somber look in his eyes.
"I understand you have been asking about your companions."
"You have some information?" Judy asked.
They crowded around the man. He motioned for them to sit. David and Judy sat, but Afram remained standing.
"Can you give me a description of them, and what they were wearing?"
"Are they alive?" David pleaded.
The ranger held out his hands. "I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out."
"Well, take us to them and we'll tell you," Afram said.
The ranger did not even look at Afram, ignoring the question. David had a bad feeling about how the conversation was going. He suspected there was a reason they were not taking him to see his friends.
"How many of your friends were there?" the ranger asked.
"Three," Judy responded quickly. "Two men and a woman."
The ranger looked confused. He pointed at them. "You ran the Grand Canyon with only six of you, in one boat?"
David looked over at Afram. "No. Actually, there were two rafts. If you count everyone, there were fourteen total. But we got separated."
The man wrote down the number in a notebook. "So there were eleven besides you three."
Judy nodded.
"And you say you were separated in the flood?" He looked at Judy. "Can I assume there were six in your boat and eight in the other when you split up?"
Judy nodded.
"And you were all with Colorado River Foam?"
David didn't remember telling anyone that. "How did you know that?"
The man reached in the pocket of his vest and pulled out a bright green emblem like the one from their life jackets.
David's stomach sank. Judy put her face in her hands.
"They're dead, aren't they?" Afram pointed at the emblem. "You found their bodies, didn't you?"
The man nodded. "We found some bodies wearing these life jackets, yes." He waited while it sunk in.
"Eleven?" Afram asked.
The ranger shook his head. "Ten. We found an eleventh jacket, but no person."
David felt perplexed. "Does that mean somebody made it?"
The man shook his head. "The straps on the jacket were torn out. It would take a very violent situation to do that. We don't believe it's possible that the person wearing it could have survived."
"So they're all dead then?" Afram said.
The ranger nodded.
Deep down David had known it already. He had known it since the night before. He felt no shock now, only disappointment at the lack of a miracle.
"The three of you were picked up just above Granite Narrows. We can tell from watermarks that Granite Narrows basically acted like a funnel last night. So anyone that went through during high water… Well, let's just say, they wouldn't have much of a chance. There was just too much water."