Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020)

by Cussler, Clive

  Visible through windows to one side were the large turbines that helped electrify large swaths of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. At the far end, glass walls enclosed the control room, where, inside, computer screens flickered and two engineers regulated the intake of water, the speed of the turbines and the output of electricity.

  Looking around casually, Kai noticed one armed guard near the control room and a second guard standing against the far wall.

  He nodded to his men, noted their acknowledgment and then crouched to tie his sneakers once more. Loosening and then retying them, he pulled the long metal tips from the ends of the laces, palming them as he stood up. That done, he twisted the cap off of his water bottle, took a sip and then slipped the tiny strips of metal into the bottle.

  The shoelace caps looked like ordinary snips of aluminum, but they were actually made from an exotic combination of lithium and cesium, two metals that react violently when exposed to water. To prevent an instant explosion, they’d been coated with a layer of paint that would dissolve in approximately thirty seconds.

  After screwing the cap back on, Kai walked over to a blue recycle bin and casually tossed the bottle in. Walking back toward the tour group, he began counting in his head. Right at thirty seconds, the bin exploded with a thunderous boom.

  The blast was louder than it was destructive. Paper, plastic and bits of the recycle bin itself flew in all directions while gray smoke billowed across the room.

  Some members of the tour froze, some hit the floor, others ran. The security guards, flinching, turned toward the explosion. Before they knew what hit them, Kai and his men had attacked.

  The guard near the control room door was Kai’s target. He slammed a knee into the man’s groin, dropping him to the ground. He followed that with a blow to the back of the head, severe enough to knock the guard unconscious.

  The second guard presented more trouble. He’d managed to pull his weapon from his holster and was now wrestling with Kai’s people. In the melee, two shots were fired, but they flew harmlessly through the ceiling.

  “Take him down!” Kai shouted.

  By then, his men had gained the upper hand. The gun was pulled free and the security guard pistol-whipped into submission with it.

  Seeing that it was about to turn into a hostage situation, the rest of the tourists started to flee. Kai aimed the weapon he’d taken off the first guard above their heads and squeezed off a shot. “Everyone, on the floor!”

  The gunshot did its job. Those attempting to escape froze. The others covered up. The room grew quiet.

  “That’s better,” Kai said. “Guard them.”

  As his men spread out, Kai moved toward the control room door. He didn’t bother trying the handle. Rapping on the glass with the pistol, he got the attention of the two engineers. “Open the door.”

  The man and woman looked at each other. The woman shook her head.

  Kai hauled up the bloodied guard and held the pistol against his head. “I won’t ask again.”

  Reluctantly, the woman pressed a button. The door buzzed and Kai barged through. “Good choice.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re not here to kill anyone. We’re … eco-warriors,” the word sliding off his tongue. “We’re here to do a little bit of sabotage and put the dam out of action for a few months. Of course, I’d blow the whole thing up if I could, but that’s far easier said than done. Don’t you agree?”

  The woman had no idea what to make of him.

  “I’ll bargain with you here,” Kai said. “You help me turn on every single faucet and start flooding the canyon and I won’t stain this control room with your blood.”

  “That’s all you want?” she asked.

  “That’s my part,” he said. “Deal?”

  With the security guard’s pistol aimed at their backs, the woman and her partner began opening the floodgates. One after the other, every turbine in the power plant spun up to full capacity.

  “The bypass channels too,” Kai demanded.

  The engineers did as asked, opening all the side tunnels, which allowed water from Lake Powell behind the Glen Canyon Dam to flow around it and its turbines and then out into the Colorado River beyond.

  It took a few minutes for the surge to reach maximum capacity. At that point, water was blasting from the outflow diversion tunnels at a rate of fifty thousand cubic feet per second. Kai saw the effects on one of the computer screens and felt it in the control room as the building began to vibrate with a subtle rhythmic energy.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now you need to leave the room so I can flood it with nerve gas.”

  “What?”

  The engineers looked at him as if he were joking, but when he raised the pistol they headed for the door so rapidly that they nearly knocked each other over.

  As the engineers left, one of Kai’s men came inside. He carried his own bottle of water and the metal tips from his own shoelaces. Placing the bottle on the control panel and tossing the cap aside, he dropped the strips of metal into it. These tips were made of another chemical, one that would react differently with water.

  “Good,” Kai said. “Let’s go.”

  Kai and his partner left the room, sealing the door behind them. Within seconds of their departure, the water in the bottle began to foam and bubble. Soon, the bottle was venting a greenish gas that spread across the room like a witch’s potion.

  “That’s Q5 nerve gas,” Kai told the hostages. “If anyone goes in there, they’ll die. If the door is opened, you all die. Understand?”

  Half the group nodded. That was good enough.

  “What about the Japanese tourists?” one of Kai’s men asked.

  Kai turned back toward the control room. It was slowly filling with the green fog. “I don’t think that needs much of a translation.”

  With everyone amply scared, Kai looked for the exit. Using the key cards they’d taken off the security personnel, they released one of the sealed doors and moved through it. Crossing the open-air corridor, they reentered the dam.

  “Part one of this plan is in operation,” Kai said proudly. “Let’s hope those techno-geeks can handle part two.”

  Out on the waters of Lake Powell, Xandra and Fydor watched the Glen Canyon Dam through binoculars, looking for any sign the floodgates had been opened. They’d expected a sudden current or maybe a whirlpool to appear behind the dam, or the roar of a waterfall, as acres of liquid were sucked into the twin intake tubes. But from half a mile away no sign of any change could be seen.

  “They must have failed,” Fydor said, “or been captured. I knew we should have remained anonymous. Let’s get out of here.”

  Xandra ignored him. While she saw no sign of a whirlpool or even rapidly moving water, she did see a veil of fine mist floating up from the other side. It caught the afternoon light, creating a barely visible rainbow.

  “The water’s flowing,” she said.

  Changing her focus, she spotted a line of cars racing toward the dam. They had flashing red and blue lights on top. They pulled out onto the dam itself and began hustling tourists and employees off of the structure.

  “They haven’t failed at all,” Xandra said, lowering the binoculars. “Policemen are swarming the dam. They’re rushing everyone to safety. Time for our attack. Let’s make sure our impact is more obvious.”

  Fydor looked as nervous as ever. “Fine,” he said. “We should hurry though.”

  They moved to the aft end of the boat and loosened the cord on a plastic tarp. Pulling it aside revealed a pair of ROVs. The aquatic machines were roughly torpedo-shaped and painted dark gray. After lifting the first one up and dropping it into the water, Xandra attached a payload of explosives spaced along a rope to the back of the vehicle.

  Both ROVs would act like miniature tugboats, hauling their respective payloads and releasing them near the dam. The currents in and around the dam would do the rest, bringing the expl
osives into contact with the wall of the dam, where they would explode like mines.

  The random spacing between each explosion would keep the authorities off balance. The delay caused by explosives drifting would give her and Fydor time to make a leisurely escape.

  Fydor got on his laptop and directed the first of the ROVs toward the dam. The small craft submerged thirty feet, vanishing from view, and moved off.

  “ROV One is on its way,” he said.

  Xandra attached the payload to the second ROV. She’d selected one of the most powerful combinations of explosives available, each forty-pound charge deploying the equivalent force of five hundred pounds of TNT. They wouldn’t do any real damage to the concrete dam, but the display would be impressive enough to warrant an all-out response from the authorities.

  “Charges set,” she told her brother. “Send number two on its way.”

  Fydor put ROV 1 on automatic pilot before taking control of its sibling. He would switch back and forth over the next few minutes, guiding first one, then the other. While he did, Xandra began easing the powerboat away from the center of the lake.

  “ROV One is approaching the dam,” he said. “I’m taking it toward the right-hand side, near to the visitor center. That should result in maximum surprise and shock.”

  “Excellent idea,” Xandra replied.

  “Releasing initial payload,” Fydor said.

  From there, Fydor directed ROV 1 to cross the face of the dam, releasing another of the explosive charges every hundred feet or so.

  “Second payload released,” he announced. Then, a minute later, “Third payload released. Sending ROV One to the bottom.”

  The plan was to dispose of the ROVs in the silt rather than retrieve them. Fydor had no wish to be traced to the machines.

  “Make it quick,” Xandra said. “I’d like to be back at the dock and leaving this place behind before the carnage begins.”

  Fydor put ROV 1 into a full nose-down dive and then switched to ROV 2. Just as he changed over, a thunderous explosion echoed across Lake Powell. He looked up to see a geyser of water erupting against the right-hand side of the Glen Canyon Dam. It rose a hundred feet above the observation causeway, spread out and then crashed back down, drenching the top of the dam, the police officers and their cars with the flashing lights.

  Fydor couldn’t see through the mist, but he imagined the police running for cover and leaving their vehicles behind.

  No sooner had the water from the first explosion subsided than the second mine hit, followed moments later by a third explosion. The water thrown up by the last blast proved to be the most impressive. It was dark in the center, filled with sediment, but white and effervescent around the edges. It looked as if a depth charge had gone off on the side of the dam.

  Both Fydor and Xandra marveled at the towers of water, but for different reasons.

  “It’s beautiful,” Fydor giggled.

  “It’s too soon,” Xandra said. “You released the charges too close to the dam.”

  “I didn’t,” Fydor insisted.

  “Why are they hitting so quickly, then?”

  “It must be the current from the open floodgates,” Fydor explained.

  “Don’t make that mistake with the next three.”

  Fydor looked offended. “I know how to do my job,” he snapped.

  Going back to his screen, Fydor directed ROV 2 on a course away from the dam. He was surprised when it didn’t respond. He moved the throttle to full power and yet found the ROV traveling backward. He soon realized the problem. “ROV Two is caught in the current.”

  He tried to guide it sideways and then turned it one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction, but neither maneuver had any effect. The ROV had drifted too close to one of the open floodgates.

  “Get it out of there.”

  “I can’t,” Fydor replied. “It’s getting sucked into the intake tower.”

  “Brother!”

  “I’m losing it,” Fydor said desperately.

  He made one more attempt to change the depth and direction, but then the ROV was gone.

  It had been drawn down into the bypass channel as it gulped massive amounts of water.

  Unlike the two tunnels devoted to generating power, the bypass tunnel was simply designed to take as much water as possible from one side of the dam to the other. The slope inside was steep, the pipeline tracking downward through the dam and then off to the side. There were no turbines in the way to slow anything down. The path took the water through part of the dam and then around it, out through the edge of the sandstone cliffs and down, where it traveled past the power plant before being dumped back into the river on the other side of the dam.

  Entering the bypass channel, the water accelerated rapidly, twisting as it went down. That spiraling action kept the ROV and its charges from impacting the wall—at least until they reached the bottom.

  There, the ROV crashed into a baffle designed to control water flow at lower rates. The three explosives made contact a fraction of a second apart, detonating almost simultaneously. The proximity of the explosions served to amplify their combined destructive power, with each detonation magnifying the effect of the previous one.

  Because the tunnel was completely filled with water, the entire force of the explosions was transferred to the surrounding enclosure. The sixty-year-old tunnel was not up to the task of resisting such a force. The walls cracked and fractured, allowing the high-pressure water to get at the sandstone beyond, which immediately started to erode.

  Water blasted through every tiny pore of the rock, finding and widening every microscopic fissure. The dam had always taken on water from the sandstone around it—one of the ironies of building a concrete structure amid porous rock—but now it would experience an internal flood.

  Watching from a spot in the visitor center, the Director of Water Operations gazed in horror at the watery explosions erupting outside. As rumblings from a deeper impact shook the dam, he lifted a phone.

  “Get me the Director of Homeland Security,” he said. “Glen Canyon Dam is under terrorist attack.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Treasure Cave, Silver Box Ravine, Navajo Nation, Arizona

  Kurt didn’t know about the attack on the Glen Canyon Dam or the superintendent’s call to the Director of Homeland Security. Nor could he know how quickly and completely it would bring about action.

  Within minutes of the message reaching Washington, orders went out to the FBI, the Arizona National Guard, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office and—in what felt like an incredible stroke of good luck to the Director of Homeland Security—a twenty-man squad of counterterrorist Army Rangers who were cooling their heels at Camp Navajo in Flagstaff, only a thirty-minute flight from the dam.

  The Rangers were already on alert, sitting in their Black Hawks, armed and ready to go. They were airborne and racing toward the dam less than sixty seconds after the call came in, leaving Kurt and his group to fend for themselves.

  Morgan summed it up. “If Barlow’s not bluffing, this could be a long afternoon.”

  She and Kurt were huddled behind an outcropping of rock that stuck up from the cave’s floor. The sloped protrusion of sandstone was no more than three feet tall and four feet wide. They crouched behind it, pressed against each other back-to-back.

  Kurt watched the depths of the cavern, hoping for a shot at Barlow, while Morgan watched the tunnel that led in from the outside, hoping Barlow and Robson’s men didn’t charge.

  With so little cover and enemies on both sides, they were in the most precarious position of anyone.

  “I don’t think he’s bluffing,” Kurt said. “We’re going to have to do this ourselves.”

  His first step was to up the war of words. Turning his head, he shouted, “Anyone who wants to live a long, prison-free life can run on out of here now. We only want Barlow. The rest of you can head for the hills, we won’t stop you.”

  The next shout came from across the c
ave. It was Robson. “Any of you bloody fools leave and I’ll kill you myself when I get out of here.”

  Silence followed.

  “Not hearing a stampede to the exit,” Morgan said.

  “Not even a measured retreat,” Kurt said. “We need a way to instill some uncertainty in these men.”

  “What if we shoot out the lights?” Morgan suggested. “If they can’t see us, they won’t know where we are.”

  “You realize we won’t be able to see them either, right?”

  “We’ve been in here for hours,” she said. “They just came in from the blinding glare out in the canyon. They’ll find it hard to see anything but green spots for a while.”

  She shifted her weight, leaned against the rock and fired off three quick shots. The bullets from her 9mm Beretta tore into the portable light that sat beside the southern wall.

  The first bullet ripped through the light’s plastic housing and flew out the other side without damaging anything, but the second and third bullets hit the battery pack and the controls that regulated the brightness. The light flared and went out.

  “One down, one to go,” she said.

  Kurt saw a method to the madness. And without a better plan to lean on, he jumped on the bandwagon. “Good point. Cover me.”

  Morgan fired toward the front, forcing Barlow’s men to duck. From there, she swung her aim toward the back and fired in the direction of Barlow, Robson and Professor Cross.

  As she kept them pinned down, Kurt slid out from behind the rock until he could get a bead on the second lighting unit. He fired twice. The first shot from the Colt hit the casing dead center, knocking it over and shutting it down. The second went through the battery pack.

  The cave fell into near-total darkness, with the crashed ATV and a few discarded flashlights the only remaining illumination.

  “Let the hunting begin,” Kurt called out.

  Professor Cross had fought to remain calm, but sitting in the darkness and hearing the threats go back and forth was too much for him. He didn’t belong there and he knew it. He pulled on Robson’s sleeve. “I say we run for it. Go now while it’s dark.”