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The detonators had been made using household chemicals and electronics. He had driven out in the desert one weekend and tried one and was surprised at how violent of an explosion the little suckers made. They needed to be pretty hot, to get the ammonium nitrate and diesel to react the way he needed it to.

Admiring what he had done in the elevator, he felt mixed emotions. On one hand it looked great. It had gone together exactly as he had envisioned it. On the other hand, he wondered if it would be enough. He needed to blast through nearly a hundred feet of concrete. Would any bomb be powerful enough to do that?

He reminded himself to keep moving, so he stepped out of the elevator and turned the key to let the door shut. He taped a strip of yellow stripping labeled CAUTION across the elevator door, although if anyone walked in, the smell of diesel would tip them off. He hustled out of the building and noticed that the security man was back in his shed. Walking around to the front of the trailer, he unhitched it. He wouldn't be needing it anymore.

The guard was waiting for him when he drove up the access road. But it wasn't Brian, it was someone else. His tag read "Jessie."

The new guard walked right up to the truck's window and looked inside. "What's wrong?"

He leaned out. "The good news is I found the lever that's starting to stick. That's probably why the thing was hit and miss. The bad news is I ran out of grease. I need to run into town for a second and get another tube of grease."

The guard checked his watch. "Everything's gonna be closed."

"I can get this grease at the gas station. I should be back in a few minutes."

The guard walked over to unlock the gate. "You gonna be done by eight?"

He responded out the window as he drove past. "Don't worry. I'll be miles down the road by eight. I guarantee it."

CHAPTER 6

6:00 a.m. - Lake Powell, Utah

"Okay, everybody ready?" Without waiting for an answer, Greg turned the key and fired up the Mastercraft.

Paul stood on the deck of the houseboat and unwound the rope from the two cleats. He tossed the rope into the water-ski boat, pushed off, and jumped in. He sat in the seat facing backwards from Greg. Julie sat in the other front seat next to her husband, and Erika sat facing backwards from her. Erika was rubbing her eyes, still half asleep. Greg shifted to forward and idled away from the houseboat.

Julie felt bad that Max and Darlene were staying behind, although spending the morning with just Paul and Erika would be fun. She felt the boat throttle up, and her body was pulled back into her seat. Julie watched her husband. He looked over at her and smiled. She relaxed and took in the majestic scenery all around them. The rising sun cast long shadows in the canyon. It had been hard to get going so early, but it was worth it. She loved being in these remote canyons. She grabbed the armrest on her seat as the boat banked in to a slow turn around a bend. She looked ahead and saw another curve. Every time they left the houseboat, she meant to count the number of twists and turns it took them to get to the main channel, but she never remembered until they were half way. This time she remembered but didn't feel like counting.

She turned and glanced back over her shoulder at Erika, who was gazing up at the red rock walls behind. Erika looked tired and had not spoken since they woke. Paul and Greg looked calm and happy. Julie changed her mind. Let Max and Darlene enjoy the morning alone. What difference did it make that they were separating for the day anyway?

6:05 a.m. - Page, Arizona

The man rode his motorcycle onto the Glen Canyon Bridge. The white truck was back on Navajo Street, safely parked inside the storage unit, away from curious eyes. After riding over the bridge, he continued slowly up the hill. He glanced in his mirrors to verify no one was behind him. The image of hundreds of police officers, sirens wailing, kept projecting into his subconscious mind. However, a quick scan of the road ahead and behind revealed that he was alone. Page, Arizona was not an early-bird town.

Approximately fifty yards up the hill, he pulled over to the side of the road. He put the bike on its kickstand and dismounted. He left the engine running. He pulled a cell phone from an inside pocket of his jacket. It seemed to tingle in his fingers. He walked across the street to the other side where he had a better view back toward the Glen Canyon Dam. Every movement seemed to be playing in slow motion in his head. The sun had just poked its head above the horizon. The effect left the rock walls on the opposite side of the canyon in darkness while sunning the ground under his feet. He focused on the huge concrete structure. Night lights still lit the top of the dam. Everything looked normal. No blinking police lights, no sirens.

He held the cell phone in front of him and dialed the nine-digit number from memory. Before he hit send, he hesitated. He thought about the Colorado River. He fantasized about it breaking through all the man-made chastity belts blocking it from where it wanted to go. Maybe the city dwellers, especially the greedy Californians, would finally have to conserve a little, turn down the sprinklers, turn off the water fountains, drain some of the pools and artificial lakes. He snickered as a scene floated through his head of a big fat guy diving into an empty swimming pool, the guy squishing head first into the bottom of the pool and tipping over, like in a cartoon.

He stopped the images. He'd come here for a reason. None of it would happen if he didn't press the button. In a moment of frustration, his head told his thumb to press, but it wouldn't obey. How could it all fall apart now, at the final moment? The thought made him angry. His brain sent the signal again, and this time he felt the small button click under the pressure. He stared at it for a second then cupped it to his ear. He heard two rings, then a connection, then nothing.

In the west elevator of the Glen Canyon Dam, another cell phone, this one with wires hanging out of it, rang twice and stopped. Electricity from the phone's ringer traveled onto a small circuit board, through a voltage relay, then down two wires into the elevator control panel. The elevator reacted immediately by starting down. Simultaneously a digital timer started a very quick countdown. Since the elevator was near capacity, stuffed with twelve barrels of ammonium nitrate soaked in diesel fuel, the downward motion began with a jerk. The elevator continued to descend into the dam. Exactly 18 seconds after the cell phone started its motion, the elevator had traveled approximately two hundred feet from the top of the dam. At that moment, the timer expired. A very small electrical current traveled from the timer to a voltage relay. This relay sent a much larger current from the car battery to the homemade detonation devices tucked into each barrel of ammonium nitrate. The result was immediate and forceful. Because of the way the explosives were packed in the elevator, the energy of the explosion was channeled horizontally upstream toward the lake side of the dam.

The skinny man timed the 18 seconds on his watch. It seemed like an eternity. For an instant, he thought something had gone wrong. Then directly below where the vertical elevator disappeared into the dam, a ball of fire and concrete exploded out of the face of the dam. Chunks of concrete fell to the river four hundred feet below. An instant later the top of the elevator shaft on the top of the dam exploded upwards, scattering debris in all directions. A crushing sound wave followed both explosions. The skinny man ducked instinctively.

Although the fireworks were impressive, they were less than he had expected and he felt certain the entire effort had been in vain. He strained to assess the damage, specifically if any water was leaking from the dam. Unfortunately, his view of the face of the dam was totally obstructed by a huge cloud of smoke. He stepped closer and craned his neck for a better look. The smoke swirled and for a moment he thought he saw something, then his view was blocked again. He needed to leave now, but he also needed to know.