Deadly Waters (10 page)

XXI

7/4/07 22:30 Eastern Daylight Time

Margaret Smythe and Ronald Goodman watched the spectacular fireworks display over the Capital from her apartment balcony in the Watergate Building. Ever since she was a child Margaret had felt sad at the end of Independence Day; the celebration came and went, and everyone had lavished attention on the flag, on historic events, on old men in uniforms, and no one had paid much attention to her.

The festivities concerned events and dead people from more than two hundred years earlier, when men wore powdered wigs and everyone behaved--according to her understanding of the facts--pretty much the way the Amish still do. This was mid-summer, a time of year when she was tan and could lose that pesky extra five pounds because she could exercise outdoors, and yet she remained unappreciated.

Congress was not even in session, and while the senators and representatives were back home, there was no one in town she wanted to impress, had any of them been paying attention to her.

She was thinking of this as she lay beside Ronald on her metal outdoor furniture. A great red chrysanthemum of fire burst overhead and made the white marble of the Capital Building glow pink for a few fleeting seconds.

“I love you,” whispered Ronald.

“What?” she said. “Don’t say crap like that. You sound like a country and western song.”

“I thought women wanted men to say that,” said Ronald.

“What women? Ones waiting tables in nasty little towns in Oklahoma?” asked Margaret. “You read that in some stupid magazine, didn’t you?”

“No, absolutely not,” said Ronald, who had indeed read in
GQ
that after coitus women needed to be told they are loved. “I take it back, anyway. I was only being nice.”

“No you weren’t,” said Margaret. “If you were a nice guy you’d be sweeping floors or flipping hamburgers with the other losers. You sure as hell wouldn’t be in your thirties and already an undersecretary.”

Ronald adjusted his bathrobe and sat upright on the edge of the lounge chair. “Have you given any thought to what we should ask the Army to do?”

“Do about what?”

“I was talking about this new initiative the Secretary of Defense has thought up,” said Ronald. “You should read your inter-office memos, Maggie.”

“I’ve told you can’t call me Maggie,” she said. “Is this the Delta Force thing you’re talking about?”

“That’s close. We can access Delta, as well as some other units. It’s in the budget. I doubt if anyone but us and a few staffers know about it.”

“How much did they give us? You’re the only one Hasket talks to.”

“A hundred million. Plus we get two full battalions of light infantry whenever we need them.”

Margaret went to the balcony rail and thought long and hard about what she could do with a hundred million dollars and several thousand men. She thought for nearly thirty seconds. “Teach them how to fix dams,” she said. “Dams are what we are supposed to be experts in.”

“The trouble is,” confessed Ronald, “I had a chat with one of those engineering fellows--the Corps of Engineers is full of them--and it seems dams aren’t very fixable, don’t you see. Not once they’re broken. According to him, should a terrorist blow one up, it would be deuce hard to build again. The big ones cost millions in the Thirties, and these days they would cost billions and billions.”

“Really?” said Margaret, surprised to learn that dams were so expensive. “Did you say ‘deuce’ just now?”

“Yes,” said Ronald. “It sounds English, doesn’t it? I like to throw ‘deuce’ and ‘bloody’ and ‘hey what’ and other Anglo phrases in now and then. I’ve got a rumor going round Capital Hill I was educated at Oxford. Should someone ask, please don’t tell them any different, Margaret.”

“You say the dams can’t be fixed?” she asked, at the same time thinking of important people she would tell that the closest Ronald had ever been to Oxford was when he was wearing a certain style of shoe.

“Water pressure is a real problem apparently,” said Ronald. “Who knew water was so heavy?”

“How about if we train soldiers to evacuate people from urban areas?” said Margaret. “They could evacuate the same bunch in case of a chemical or biological attack. We’d be killing two birds with one stone.”

“Not bad,” said Ronald. “Though there is another problem this engineer fellow mentioned to me. Turns out that if one of these big dams breaks the water will come rushing out like the bloody deuce.”

“How fast is ‘the bloody deuce’?” asked Margaret.

“According to him, it would get going at about two hundred miles an hour in no time. Evacuating anyone down river would be a bloody miracle. I think we best not mention that when we float our ideas past Lew this Monday.”

“Lew?” asked Margaret. “Do you mean Senator Hasket? Why are we seeing him on Monday, and since when did you call him by his first name?”

“You sound paranoid,” said Ronald. “We’ll be appearing before him together. Lew has come to thinking you should have the title, be official head of the task force, rather than me.”

Margaret watched a yellow starlight explode outside and counted one thousand one, one thousand two, before she heard the loud “boom” the eruption had caused.

“You aren’t sleeping with him, are you?” asked Ronald.

“Good God!” exclaimed Margaret. “Now who sounds paranoid? The man’s old enough to be my grandfather.”

As anyone knowing Margaret Smythe could have guessed, she was indeed sleeping with Senator Hasket, and had been doing so since the night of her first embarrassing

presentation in front of his committee, when Ronald had showed her up badly.

“How can you ask me that, darling?” she said and stroked the arm of Ronald’s dressing gown.

XXII

7/9/07 11:18 EDT

“So I think,” said Margaret to Senator Hasket’s committee, which was again meeting in truncated form to hear testimony from the DoD’s Anti-Domestic Terrorism Task Force, “that the lion’s share of the task force’s budget be given to a joint Army/National Guard/Civil Defense unit designed to save civilian lives in large urban areas. Specialized Army brigades would be trained to move human assets dwelling in afflicted regions to zones unaffected by chemical or biological attacks or--in the case of sudden, explosive-induced floods--to locales above the flood plain.”

She looked up from her notes and made eye contact with Senator Hasket, a sign that she had reached a resting point where he might ask some more of his inane questions.

“Now, Miss Smythe,” he asked, “about how much damage would the destruction of a major dam cause?”

“Billions.”

That’s an answer? thought Ronald Goodman, seated right beside her. He’ll eat you alive if you don’t get more specific.

“Thank you, Miss Smythe,” said the senator.

She
is
sleeping with him, thought Ronald. You slut! You filthy little slut. That’s why you’re leading the task force again. The old fart told me it had to do with putting a woman in charge and how that would please the affirmative action jackals. Don’t you worry, bitch, I don’t get mad; I get even.

“The extent of damage depends upon how close the city or other human environment is to the ruptured dam,” said Margaret, stroking her long, light brown hair and pursing her full, blood-red lips together. “If a tentative group was situated a few miles downstream from a broken dam--say Pierre, South Dakota, immediately down river on the Missouri from the Oahe Dam--it would be immediately overwhelmed by twenty-two million acre feet of water. The sudden change in pressure would also destroy the Big Bend Dam and destroy the cities of Chamberlain and Yankton and cause serious damage three hundred miles down the Missouri in Sioux City.

“Communities farther downstream in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri would suffer negligible damage. These cities would witness a gentle raising of the river’s level as the original giant wave loses its power. The loss of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia would cause major damage as far away as Richland, Washington, but do almost nothing to Portland, Oregon.

“Should Hoover Dam be destroyed--or Hoover and Glen Canyon together--that would be perhaps the worst of all possible scenarios. If Glen Canyon Dam were lost, the resulting wall of water would accelerate through the Grand Canyon--much as the smaller Big Thompson River accelerated through Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado in 1975--and would reach into parts of Las Vegas and utterly demolish smaller communities on the lower Colorado River.”

“Wait, Miss Smythe,” interrupted the senator, stealing a glance at a map an aide had handed him, “you say the water would reach Las Vegas? My map shows Las Vegas to be west of the river by forty some miles.”

“The river bends south there, senator,” said Margaret, who had made a phone call to a civil engineer and thus had a good idea of the potential damage. “Boulder City would be devastated, completely erased. Some water would escape the flood plain and reach clear to the Las Vegas Strip. Because of the steep fall in elevation they have out west, and because of the narrow natural river bed, the river bore would dissipate very slowly. Downstream towns such as Laughlin, Riviera, Bullhead City, Needles, Lake Havasu, Blythe and Yuma would all be severely damaged.”

“No kidding?” exclaimed the senator, for once truly impressed by information Margaret had brought him. He regained his composure. “That’s a lot of would be’s, Mar,,,er Ms. Smythe.”

Damn, thought Ronald, I have to regroup. She stole a march on me while I thought I had a safe lead. Well, Maggie my love, the big chiefs lead the tribe. They also take the arrows. We’ll see how many arrows your pretty hide can hold.

“We can’t prepare for anything like that,” said the senator, stung by an original thought. “We’d scare everybody living in that part of the country if we even talk about it. They see the Army out practicing for a broken dam and it’ll frighten the pants off them. No, we can’t go down this road.”

“Senator Hasket,” said Margaret, “we already have funding—”

“No!” said the senator. “Look at those little towns there along the Colorado. All those retired folks in their Bermuda shorts, out on their patios drinking sun tea. We can’t upset retired folks. We might as well cut Social Security. The AARP would have our heads either way.”

This I like, thought Ronald.

“Senator—” Margaret began to say.

“I won’t hear any more,” said the senator, gathering his papers and rising to leave. “Let the Army boys do what they have to do. Make sure they’re way out in the boonies somewhere when they play their war games. Or evacuation games, or whatever you want to call them. Spend the money you’ve been allotted and keep the Management and Budget people happy. But keep quiet and play smart. Or play stupid, if that’s what’s needed. Don’t ever bring this up to anybody who has to run for re-election. They can’t help you. Good day to you all.”

How you like being in charge now? thought Ronald. To Margaret he said, “I know the fellow to set up secret exercises for you. He’s one of our fast-track full Colonels; ambitious and discrete.”

“Contact him for me,” said Margaret, also rising to go. “We’ll see what he can do for us.”

Oh, I’ll contact him all right, thought Ronald, but he’s not going to be working directly for you.

“Anything you want, Margaret,” he said.

XXIII

7/10/07 17:24 Atlantic Daylight Time

Mondragon and Taylor sat at the rear of the elevated platform Harris and Abe Wilson had constructed in the jungle mess hall; they and the forty Colombians listened to Col. Method address the assembled conspirators. Another day of moving empty oil drums about the nearby lake had left the men exhausted and hungry for Bill Thorpe’s evening meal. They had learned to pay close attention to the man they knew as “Senor Max,” the former Stasi man. During their training they had seen him fire a gun with a deadly accuracy neither they, nor any of the street toughs they knew back home, could come close to matching. When he gave some brief lessons in personal defense, he had shown total mastery of the martial arts and had tossed the toughest of them through the air like a circus seal tossing so many hapless beach balls.

“My comrades,” said Method in Spanish to the attentive criminals, “we have come to the point in our endeavor when we are ready to perform a rehearsal on the soil of the United States. Our leader, Mr. Petrovski,” he indicated Taylor, “and his chief associate, Mr. Corello,” he nodded toward Mondragon, “have arranged for sixteen drums, similar to the ones you have been using, to be brought into the state of Arizona. We will take you to a place in the desert north of Tucson. There, each team will receive the drums they will take to their respective sites.

“The Glen Canyon team will take four drums. Everyone else gets three. By now you should know the route you will take to your dam site. You also should have memorized the latitude and longitude of the place our pilot will meet you after your mission is accomplished. If you forget these things, a member of each team will carry, hidden on his person, a written copy of this same information.”

He had Harris and Wilson dim the lights as he turned on a projector that illuminated a screen behind him.

“Now then,” said Method of the first slide he showed the men, “this is a North

American U-Haul truck. We will be using the larger twenty-four foot type, which will accommodate the drums. You must be careful to make the drums--and later the torpedoes--secure in the rear of the truck. No more than two men will ride in the front. Three men up front will make you look foreign. You will all board your U-Haul trucks at the staging area north of Tucson and within twenty-four hours drive to your separate destinations. One man, the best English speaker in the group, will do the talking for each team. Tell anyone you happen to meet you are businessmen from Venezuela going fishing. Do not say you are Colombians. Colombians have a certain reputation in the minds of some Yankees.”

Some of the men, particularly the seven among them who had served time in American prisons, were amused by that notion.

“You do not have to worry about securing a pontoon boat at your respective sites,” continued Col. Method, and showed a slide of a deployed oil drum and its attached cable and anchor. “Like your trucks, your pontoon boats will be awaiting you at your respective sites. Someone will return them to the rental companies after you have deployed your drums and have departed the scene. At a remote place on the edge of your reservoir, load your drums onto your boat and take them to within a quarter mile of your target dam. Dock your boat securely, go back to your truck, and drive--at the speed limit--to your designated pick-up area.”

Col. Method showed them a slide of the old DC-3 that Jonathan Greeley would use to carry them to safety.

“Each of your teams will be going to either a remote landing strip or a small municipal airport,” explained Method. “Someone else will return your trucks to their rental companies. You merely have to park them, then board the airplane when it comes for you. After the completion of this trial run, you will each be given 10,000 United States dollars.” He showed them a slide of a pile of money, and the forty men clapped in appreciation of the beautiful sight. “At the end of the real mission next year, you will each be given another 488,000 dollars.” He showed them a last slide of an even larger pile of money, and the men cheered. “You should know the routine in your sleep, my friends. You have only to do as you are told, and you will be both rich men and heroes among the oppressed nations of the world.”

Col. Method ceded his spot on the podium to Mondragon amid general applause.

“I want to tell you,” said Mondragon, “that my Russian comrade and I are well pleased with you men. Senor Gusman said you were the best of the best. You have not

disappointed us. Every day you have become more expert at your jobs. Each day we have sent favorable reports to our comrades on the other side of the world. This trial run you are about to embark upon will be watched more carefully than any phase of your training. I know you will not disappoint us.

“One more minor detail I want to further explain to you,” Mondragon added. “As Senor Max has said, one of you on each team will be carrying a slip of paper that gives the coordinates of your landing sites. Now then, when you go on your actual mission, we expect you to have memorized these same co-ordinates, and the slip of paper one man in each team will be carrying will bear false information. Should--God forestall the possibility--any of you be captured, this false information will mislead the Yankee authorities and help your comrades escape to freedom. Should any of you be arrested on this trial run, do not be afraid; you will have committed no serious crime, and we shall have you out of jail and back here in no time. Feel secure that you are never in any real danger. Our Russian friend will now say a few words to you.”

Taylor stood at the podium and struggled to think of something to tell them.

“Just say something,” Mondragon whispered to him.

“It may rain today,” said Taylor in Russian.

Mondragon translated this into Spanish as: “You are the vanguards in a revolution that will shake the world.”

“How much does an apple cost?” said Taylor, which Mondragon translated into: “History will write your names in granite.”

“This is the way to the train station,” concluded Taylor, and Mondragon rendered this in Spanish as: “Go forth and win a victory the Yankees will never forget!”

The forty Colombians stood and cheered the befuddled Taylor. Col. Method retook the podium and told the men that there was special entertainment awaiting them

back at the barracks. He was referring to the prostitutes Mondragon had arranged to be brought to the camp at least twice a week. These women were Indians from the interior and spoke little Spanish and therefore could tell no stories when they were sent home to their villages. Mondragon made a single weekly payment to their pimp, and everyone but the much abused women were happy with the arrangement. The forty men charged back to their barracks, leaving the leading conspirators behind in the humid mess hall.

“We should expect,” Mondragon told Taylor, “at least one team, maybe two, to make a serious mistake during the trial run. They’ll do the same during the real sortie.”

“How do you figure?” asked Taylor.

“They are very low quality individuals, generally speaking,” said Erin. “We’ve got the best of them in charge of each team. Old Method has rehearsed them till they should be able to do everything blindfolded. Our difficulties arise from the fact they don’t fear American prisons or anything else the Americans can do to them. They fear violence, and nothing violent can happen to them in the U.S. At least nothing like what can happen to them back home. So they’re going to be careless, so careless some of them are certain to screw up. Can’t be prevented.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t do it then,” said Taylor. “They’ll get us caught.”

“They will get themselves caught,” said Mondragon. “This time, they will be guilty of some littering. Next time, the charges will be more serious. At any rate, as long as the Glen Canyon team--our best team--gets its target, we will be home free.”