Deadly Waters

by Theodore Judson

  “Lovely folks,” whispered Taylor to Mondragon.

  “They are like us on one level, the important level,” said Erin. “They are here to get even, my friend. Just as we are.”

  XVIII

  2/21/07 07:05 AST

  Early the next day, as soon as the forty men had completed their second breakfast at the base mess hall, Col. Method and Abe Wilson the machinist led the Colombians a mile and a half into the jungle to a small lake on which floated a rectangular pontoon boat. Method took the men in groups of five at a time onto the boat so they could practice positioning empty oil drums in the cloudy water. The lake’s surface was covered with lily pads as big as an elephant’s ears, which slowed the boat’s progress and at times completely gummed up the two propellers. The ample vegetation presented a small nuisance compared to the clouds of mosquitoes that swirled around the men’s heads. The Colombians were swatting and swearing at the insects for the four straight hours they were on the lake that morning.

  “Ignore your pain,” Col. Method advised them in Spanish. “Concentrate on your task at hand. Look at these barrels: one end, the end painted red, must point toward the shoreline. These empty drums, like the torpedoes, are semi-buoyant and will remain suspended in the water below the surface. This anchor and cable attached below the drum hold the apparatus in place.”

  After lunch at the base, Col. Method divided the forty men into five teams. Seven men were assigned to group Fontenelle, seven to the Strawberry team, seven to each of the Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa groups, and twelve men--led by Claudio and including his cousin Alfonso--were designated to the very important Glen Canyon squad. Method took the men into the largest of the three metal buildings, the workshop, which also contained the lodging quarters of the non-Colombians, and showed the forty how to set the dials on the real torpedoes. He explained that Harris and Greeley, whom he called Von Heilmul and Franz, had built the weapons on site from parts ordered from the USA.

  “We will strike at the North Americans with the tools of North America,” he said. “Look. All we ask of you is to turn the timer switch to 50:00 before you lower the torpedo into the water. At the launch time, the torpedo will release itself from its cable and anchor. Using a television camera mounted in its nose, it will travel straight into its target. The entire operation will be very easy to perform.”

  Later, after a dinner of rice and black beans, Col. Method gave the forty men their first lesson in English phrases. He set up his classroom in the barracks building and used a mobile blackboard, not an especially good tool on this occasion because many of the forty could not read. He had them repeat after him: “Where is the marina?” and “How much does this cost?” They spoke so poorly the colonel decided to teach only the smartest man in each of the five teams a few things to say, and hope that in the American Southwest there were enough Spanish speakers to help the teams reach their destinations.

  “Tomorrow,” the colonel told the forty men, “we will practice lifting the torpedoes.”

  He showed them the two steel eyelets that had been welded onto the torpedo shells along the dorsal spine of each machine.

  “A typical World War II torpedo was about seven meters long and weighed over two metric tons,” Method told them. “The sailors needed wenches and other mechanical devices to move those monsters. Our torpedoes travel a very short distance and carry a warhead of only two hundred English pounds or about seventy-five kilograms. Each entire device weighs about two hundred and twenty-four kilograms or about six hundred pounds. Each torpedo is small enough to carry on your pontoon boats and small enough for four men to manhandle by putting steel bars through the two eyelets.”

  He explained to them that the guidance camera and the first detonator occupied the

  foremost seven inches of the torpedo; then came the shaped charge of plastique; finally, the last two thirds of the weapon were the electronic motor and the steering wires that moved the guidance fins.

  “Before we take the torpedoes north,” Method said, “Senors Von Heilmul and Franz will charge the batteries in each of the motors. They will also install a canister of pure oxygen. None of you are ever to touch any part of the mechanism, especially not the pure oxygen. It is highly flammable. Your respective team leaders will set the timers on torpedoes’ backs. The rest of you will handle either the torpedoes or the anchor and cable. When the timer hits 00:00, that is, when fifty minutes are past, the motor will come to life, the cable will release, and the detonators will arm themselves.

  “The team leaders will have to learn how to stagger the timers. In practice this means the leader will have to set the timers all at the same time before they are loaded into the water. Except for the Glen Canyon team. They will have to lay four torpedoes; everyone else will lay three. The Glen Canyon team will have to place their torpedoes end to end in a straight line and to set their timers so that the devices strike the dam in approximately the same place at two second intervals. At Glen Canyon the first torpedo will be set at 50:00, the second at 50:02, the third at 50:04, and the last one at 50:06. Confused? Good. We will practice again and again in the coming months until you understand.”

  As Method lectured the men, John Taylor, playing the role of Russian agent Vladimir Petrovski, roamed about the workshop, nodding his head whenever he recognized a Spanish phrase and grunting some Russian words to Method and the others. He and Mondragon exchanged several entire sentences in Russian, which greatly impressed the Colombians.

  “Russian is a bestial tongue, isn’t it?” a pick-pocket from Calle said to Claudio. “Listen to how they sound like pigs when they get going.”

  “No, that’s German they’re using,” said Claudio. “When they talk Russian they bark like dogs.”

  XIX

  4/3/07 09:00 Arizona Standard Time

  Taylor and Mondragon met Wayland Zah on Highway 89, twelve miles northwest of the Glen Canyon Dam, at nine o’clock sharp. Mondragon was pleased by Zah’s punctuality and more pleased that both of his companions were sober that morning. They drove their rental Taurus southeast, in the direction of the dam and Page.

  “Look at the size of that thing!” declared Taylor as they passed over the river. They could see the dam directly north of them. “I never thought it would be this big.”

  Since he was supposed to be Vladimir Petrovski, he spoke his English with a supposed Russian accent that sounded partly like the deep baritone of Boris Karloff and partly like the silly affectations of Boris Badenoff. The accent irked Mondragon. Wayland Zah had never heard a real Russian and he accepted Taylor as the genuine article.

  “This bridge will be gone like that when the dam goes,” said Mondragon and snapped his fingers. “Of course, Wayland, we should speak of these things only when we are in a secure place, as we are now.”

  The three men stopped on the south side of the bridge and walked onto the abutment. Taylor kicked some gravel pebbles through the railings and into the water below them. They were so far above the Colorado they could not see or hear the rocks hit the muddy surface of the river.

  “The key to success,” Mondragon was saying to Wayland, “is planning. Research and research again. We are seven hundred feet above the river here. The bridge is twelve hundred and seventy-one feet long. We have to know these things. Today, you--and we also--will drive from the loading ramp at Wahweap Marina on the west shore of Lake Powell to the first pay phone on Lake Powell Boulevard in Page. We will time ourselves to see how long it takes. The whole trip has to be traveled in under fifty minutes.”

  “Check and double check, Mr. M,” said Wayland.

  Unlike the Colombians, Wayland Zah had served time in a federal prison with Mondragon and knew his true identity.

  “Don’t say ‘check,’” said Mondragon. “You sound like a cop at roll call. You are supposed to call me Charles Corello. Always. Always Charles Corello.”

  “Yes, Mr. Corello,” said Wayland.

  The three of them drove in Mondragon’s rental car northwe
st along Highway 89 taking the dirt cut-off to Wahweap Marina, a resort the size of a small village that was situated just inside the Arizona state line. They remained in the car, parked off the road about a quarter mile above the lake. From that vantage point they watched two boaters launch a small motor boat from a concrete jetty, and with binoculars Mondragon showed Wayland how he could keep track of every detail on the lower section of the reservoir.

  “On D-Day,” said Mondragon, “there will be many, many people on the lake. It won’t be the off-season like today. It will be sometime around Memorial Day. At 11:22--and that will be 11:22 in both Mountain Daylight Time and Arizona Standard Time--after the Colombians have set the timers and have dropped all four of their torpedoes into the water, you will approach an elderly couple in one of those double houseboats-”

  “Why an elderly couple in a houseboat?” asked Wayland.

  “Because they will be the proper ticket,” said Mondragon. “Old people have medical problems, and they aren’t very mobile. Old people living in a houseboat on Lake Powell are affluent and will be able to afford a cell phone. Now, you will tell them, in an offhanded way, you saw these men lowering something into the water. The twelve Colombians have twenty-three minutes to get to the shore, get inside their cars, and take off for Page. You will follow after them in your vehicle. If they and you drive at least sixty miles an hour, you will be past the Colorado bridge before twelve noon. I cannot emphasize how important it will be that you be beyond the river by then.”

  “Can I pass them if they go too slow?” asked Wayland.

  “Absolutely not,” said Mondragon. “They must not see you. They might panic, do something foolish.”

  “What if they break down or something?”

  “Then you would have no choice but to go on,” said Mondragon. “Keep a steady speed. Don’t stare at them as you go by. And change your phone call accordingly. Go on. I’m going to time you.”

  Mondragon took off his wrist watch and held it in his right hand, and Wayland Zah got behind the steering wheel. The young Navaho was very nervous in the presence of Mondragon and the man he knew as Petrovski. He went much too quickly through his first practice run from the landing to the bridge. Mondragon repeatedly told him to slow down as the car bounced over the gravel road near the lake and as it whizzed past the slower vehicles on the paved highway.

  “The Colombians will be driving at the speed limit,” Mondragon lectured him. “They don’t want to attract attention. Go forty on the dirt, sixty on the highway. No faster. You have a good half an hour to get across the river.”

  Even with Mondragon right there in the passenger seat telling him to keep his foot off the accelerator, Wayland made the drive from Wahweap to the south side of the Colorado in only twenty-two minutes. Erin was not pleased with his performance. Wayland asked if he could do it again, but Mondragon told him that for now he should drive on into Page and stop at the first pay phone.

  “Try making your phone call, the one I wrote for you,” Mondragon instructed him. “When the real event comes, you will have to wait another twenty minutes at the phone booth to give the Columbians time to drive across Page to the airport. This time you can make the call right away.”

  “Should I dial the number?” he asked.

  “I think you don’t need to practice dialing 911,” said Erin. “Don’t dial anything this time. Pick up the receiver and talk.”

  “Hey,” said Wayland into the dead phone, using his dead-on imitation of the local airport manager, “this here is Harold Peterson out at the airport. I don’t know what’s going on out here; there’s a bunch of foreign men out here in Hanger... Hanger—”

  Wayland glanced at the paper he kept in his shirt pocket.

  “Hanger B,” said Mondragon.

  “In Hanger B,” continued Wayland. “I counted twelve of them. They dartled in there like they’re hiding from somebody. You’ll send somebody out? O.K.”

  “Dartled?”said Mondragon after Wayland had hung up. “I didn’t write anything like dartled.”

  “I threw that in,” said Wayland. “Mr. Peterson is from Mississippi. He uses made up words like that.”

  “I thought he was from Texas,” said Erin. “This morning, when we met him at the airport, he had the quick, almost clipped speech one associates with the west. He doesn’t dawdle. You have to learn to talk a little faster, Wayland. Now let’s get back in the car and drive away.”

  “You don’t want me to go all the way to Bluff, do you?” asked Wayland.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Mondragon, wondering if he had chosen the right man in Wayland. “You can make the drive during the trial run. No need to go that far today. Is there some place here in Page we can get some coffee before we go back to the lake?”

  Wayland stopped at a doughnut shop in downtown Page, an unextraordinary place in which Mondragon and Taylor saw no danger. Not until they were inside did they realize that a half dozen Page policemen and Coconino sheriff’s deputies, Bob Mathers among them, were seated inside and having an early lunch. The officers had each arrested Wayland on various occasions and gazed with curiosity at the two strangers with him that morning. That the strangers were older men, one a tall blond gentleman in a full beard and the other a shorter, darker man dressed in a green silk suit, interested them that much more.

  “Couldn’t you have found someplace else?” Mondragon whispered to Wayland.

  “Where else?” said Wayland aloud. “This is Page. We would have to sit down to a real dinner if we went anywhere else.”

  “Why don’t you just shout?” muttered Erin. “One of them may not have heard you.”

  To his great displeasure, one of the sheriff’s deputies stood from the table where the lawmen were seated and walked toward them.

  “Bob!” said Wayland to Deputy Mathers, recognizing his friend. “I didn’t know you started taking your lunch with the rest of the doughnut eaters.”

  “Just having a decaf,” said Mathers, and his eyes narrowed while he drank in the features of Wayland’s two companions. “The wife doesn’t let me drink the real stuff anymore. Who are your pals, Wayland?

  “Some people...” began Wayland, and gave a feeble wave of his hand in the direction of Taylor and Mondragon. “You know...” he added in lieu of an explanation.

  “Are these the men you said were going to give you a job?” asked Mathers, pressing closer to the strangers.

  “Charles Corello,” declared Mondragon, and stuck out a hand Mathers did not take. “I’m in real estate. Currently developing summer homes for rich folk. We’re trying to

  interest Mr. Zah in taking prospective buyers around Page. Very scenic area. He knows it like the back of his hand. Our personnel department want to hire some Native Americans; get the feds off our backs and all that.”

  “Is that a prison tat?” asked Bob of the yellow butterfly on Mondragon’s wrist.

  “That?” said Mondragon. “Oh, no, of course not. A youthful indiscretion. I’ve never been in prison. What a question,” he made himself laugh. “You have some colorful friends in this town, Wayland.”

  “Odd that you and Wayland have the same tattoo in the same place and that he got his in federal prison,” commented Bob. “What about your other friend?” he asked, referring to Taylor. “Has he ever been to prison?”

  “That’s Mr. Vladimir Petrovski,” offered Wayland.

  Taylor looked absolutely terrified. Adhering to Mondragon’s plan while they had been in South America had been easy. For the first time the unexpected had happened, and he was expected to say something in his phony Russian accent to a real English speaker.

  “Vladimir Petrovski, that is I,” said Taylor. “I was thinking of investing in Mr. Corello’s real estate venture. I too think Mr. Zah would be an excellent guide.”

  “You do?” said Bob. “Where are you from, sir? You have a strange accent, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Russia,” said Taylor and nodded his head to the east, the
direction one must go to find that vast nation.

  “Russia is a big place,” said Bob. “You from any city in particular?”

  “Moskowa,” said Taylor, using the Russian pronunciation. “You know it as Moscow. The capital city.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Bob Mathers. Turning back to Mondragon he said: “I made some phone calls when I saw that same tat on Wayland. That belongs to an east Los

  Angeles gang. What’s a gentleman like yourself doing with that on your wrist?”

  “The man in the tattoo parlor said it was a popular design,” replied Mondragon, demonstrating how quickly he could improvise. “The thing was a lark. I know, my wife hates it too. Tell me, Officer Mathers, didn’t you ever have a black leather jacket or a big Harley you used to ride around when you were a kid? We do that sort of nonsense when we’re young. I have a nephew, a real little milksop, or so I thought; the little dunce went off to Princeton and came back home with a tiger on his rear end.”

  Mondragon punctuated his remarks with a giggle to demonstrate to the lawman how unconcerned he was about the situation. His two companions did not appear to be nearly as carefree. Taylor’s forehead showed beads of moisture, while Wayland Zah nervously tugged at the long hair on the nape of his neck as he had done when he was a young boy and was about to be punished by a parent or teacher for something he had done.

  “A tiger?” said Bob. “Come over here,” he said to Wayland. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Does the law say I have to?” said Wayland, for he was unwilling to follow Bob into a far corner of the small shop. “We’re not doing anything, just getting some coffee.”

  *

  “Get over here!” Bob ordered Wayland Zah, and pulled him away from the other men. “What’s going on?” he demanded when they were at a safe distance. “Don’t tell me those two clowns are in real estate.”

  “So I won’t tell you. They are anyway,” said Wayland.