The closer the two couples got to the arch, the larger it became. Julie knew it was three hundred feet tall. She tried to imagine a football field standing on end under it, and agreed that it might fit. They were climbing now, but they stopped about a quarter mile away to rest and take a group picture. Julie glanced at her watch. They had plenty of time.
Grant gazed out the window of the Bureau of Reclamation's Gulfstream IV-SP. He was the sole passenger on the small jet — just him, two pilots, and a pretty flight attendant. The jet had already been running when he arrived. Supposedly the jet had just arrived from the east coast after dropping off the commissioner from his international connection the night before.
Before that morning, he had never seen the Bureau's jet. When he had approached it at the airport, the Gulfstream had glistened in the rising sun and looked brand new. He remembered hearing the scuttlebutt when the Bureau purchased it in the late nineties, replacing their older jet. Everyone at work was surprised that the government had funded it. And even now, riding in it, he wondered what kinds of shenanigans were performed to justify it. With federal deficits, how could the Bureau justify a 50-million-dollar-plane?
The story of how the Bureau of Reclamation had bought its first jet was legendary. In the 1960's, the haydays for building dams in America, Floyd Dominy, the most famous commissioner to ever serve in the Bureau, had asked for a jet and been denied. However, Dominy arranged for the cost of a jet to be buried in a dam appropriation bill in Congress. His bosses at the Department of Interior had been furious, but Dominy kept the plane. And over the years most of the other large government agencies had followed the Bureau and acquired jets. Since Dominy paved the way, commissioners of the Bureau of Reclamation, and whoever they wanted to schmooze, had flown in style, zipping back and forth between Denver and Washington DC at five hundred thirty miles per hour.
Grant repositioned himself into the comfortable leather seat, which felt infinitely better than a coach airline seat. Travel on commercial airlines would never be the same after this trip. The Gulfstream was even more luxurious than he imagined. The first thing he noticed was the huge oval windows along the sides. They were much larger than anything he had ever seen before. And they looked more like clear glass than the milky plastic of a commercial airliner. An expensive lever lowered an accordion blind between the panes. The cabin actually felt roomier than a full-sized plane, which Grant attributed to the lack of storage compartments overhead, and the large and well-spaced leather seats. Grant ran his hand along the polished wood grain hand rests below the windows. He stretched his legs out. No problem. A seven-footer could ride comfortably in this seat. The plane was beautiful as well as roomy. It made Grant envy the lifestyle of his bosses.
He knew that this particular trip was an anomaly. Normally he wouldn't be allowed within a hundred miles of this situation. He could guarantee the commissioner and his entourage would take over as soon as Julia could arrange their early exit from the symposium in Kenya. The remoteness of the location in Africa, however, would slow their return.
As the plane climbed out of Denver, Grant looked west over the Rocky Mountains separating Denver from Utah. A few cumulus clouds floated over endless mountains. The view from the valley floor in Denver was misleading, and gave the impression that one only needed to drive through a small mountain pass to arrive on the other side to another open valley. But the view from above told a different story. The range visible from the valley was only the beginning. The mountains continued, peak after peak, for what seemed like at least fifty miles. Grant knew that if someone tried to hike through, without a compass to point west, he would end up hopelessly lost in the range with no hope of ever finding Salt Lake and the Mormons.
The flight attendant tapped his shoulder. She held out a plate with a selection of bagels.
He nodded yes and selected one with onions on top.
She handed him a napkin, knife, and small package of cream cheese. "Would you like some orange juice?"
He nodded. "Sure."
He guessed she was in her thirties. She looked plain at first glance, but her smile changed everything. The perfect white teeth and sparkling brown eyes, in addition to her trim figure, made him wonder if she had been a model before. If not, it was only because she hadn't smiled enough.
She returned with a cup of orange juice, then sat on the arm of the chair next to him. "Hi. I'm Wendy."
"Grant Stevens," he replied.
When he first arrived, he was surprised to find a flight attendant at all. For some reason, he expected a big cooler on the floor, and executives tossing each other sodas and peanuts. Now the thought seemed absurd. When he cut open the bagel, it felt warm and fresh, making him wonder how Wendy could have had time to shop during the short layover.
"So how long are we going to be in Page?" she asked.
The question surprised him. It had never occurred to him that the plane would be waiting with him in Page. "I don't know. I'll have to figure that out when I get there."
The thought made him wonder what was happening at the dam. He looked out the window and decided the plane was at cruising altitude and he should probably make the call to Glen Canyon. He asked Wendy if the Gulfstream had a phone, and she pointed to a compartment by the window.
"What are you doing at the dam? Do you have an important meeting or something?" she asked.
He looked up at her and saw mild interest, but no fear whatsoever. "Julia didn't tell you?"
She shook her head. "No. She just said to be ready to fly somebody immediately. I just figured…" Her voice trailed off, then he saw her brows furrow. "Julia didn't tell me what? Why, what's going on?"
He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by another phone in the rear of the plane.
"Excuse me, please," she said, then quickly stood and walked back toward the rear of the plane.
While she was gone, he figured he better make the call. He leaned forward in his seat and searched in his right rear pants pocket for the card he used to scribble the phone number. He found the crumpled card and straightened it enough to read the number. Grant took a bite out of the bagel, then punched in the nine digits. Someone picked up immediately.
"Hello, this is Brian."
"Brian, this is Grant Stevens from the Bureau of Reclamation. How bad is it down there?"
The man sounded nervous. "Well, there was an explosion about an hour ago. I didn't see it, but I heard it. It blew the top out of the elevator shaft and a hole in the dam."
Grant wondered what could blow up the elevator shaft. None of the turbines were even near there. "What blew up? Do you have any idea?"
"Heck, I don't know. It must have been somewhere down the elevator shaft. Something blew. It seemed like a bomb."
For the first time since the call from Julia, Grant considered that the explosion might have been intentionally set. Until then, he had considered it an equipment-related explosion, but, if it were intentionally caused, then why? "You said there was a hole in the dam, Brian. How big?"
Brian hesitated. "It looked pretty small when I first saw it, but now it's way bigger. It keeps growing. The water is really shooting out the hole."
Grant pictured water pouring over the top of the dam in a small cut, but Brian's description didn't make sense. "Where exactly is the hole?"