The driver was yelling out the window at an officer. "What about Navajo bridge downstream?"
"It's closed, too." The officer motioned up toward the lake. "You'll have to go around."
"That's almost three hundred miles around! It'll take five hours!"
"I'm sorry, sir," said the officer. "The bridge isn't safe right now."
"Bull. Look at all those people out there." He leaned out of his window and pointed at the bridge where four police cars were trying to move about fifteen parked cars and pedestrians off the bridge. Some cars were turning around. Others were boxed in by other cars or waiting for pedestrians to get out of the way.
Earl walked past the argument and the roadblock, and approached the edge of the bridge. He looked over the edge and down into the river. The water was only four hundred feet or so below him, far less than the normal eight-hundred-foot drop to the river. The water was hitting the steel girders in the arch that supported the bridge. Earl could feel the bridge moving like it was alive. He heard a loud creak from flexing metal. He picked up his radio.
"Get 'em off now. Turn on your sirens. This thing's gonna collapse."
He heard the sirens come on. He saw some of the pedestrians start running. Three cars drove past Earl off the bridge. The bulk of them, however, were going east toward Page. He saw about seven or eight cars get off the bridge on the other side. There were still three cars plus the four police cars. Two of the cars started to move. The third, a motor home, wasn't moving yet. A door opened and some idiot jumped out with a video camera. The PA on the police car roared, "GET BACK IN YOUR CAR." The guy kept filming.
Earl got on the radio. "All units get off the bridge now."
One of the police cars followed the two passenger cars toward the east side. The other two headed west toward Earl. The last one stayed with the motor home. The girders groaned and Earl felt the road move a little. He saw a crack open under his feet. He took five steps backwards off the bridge, keeping his eyes on the road. Two police cars flew passed him, slamming on their brakes once they were off the bridge. The cops jumped out of their cars and ran back to where Earl was standing. Earl took several more steps back from the bridge.
Earl saw that the motor home had started moving slowly toward him. The man with the video camera ran and jumped in the side door of the moving vehicle, but quickly re-emerged, hanging out the door with the camera rolling. The motor home was coming up to speed. The police car was right behind, siren still urging. As the motor home got within seventy-five feet of Earl, he could see the young male driver, shirtless and grinning from ear to ear.
While Earl was watching, the bridge let go with a screeching sound loud enough to hurt Earl's ears. The bottom of the west arch under Earl's feet broke loose and the road dropped and twisted, throwing the motor home and the police car off the bridge. Earl was still looking into the driver's eyes when it happened, and saw the grin replaced by an open-mouthed scream.
The asphalt in front of Earl disappeared just three steps in front of him. The motor home and the police car hit the water a hundred feet below. The police car knifed in and went under, but the motor home plopped in like a beach ball and bobbed on the surface. The west end of the bridge was pulled under immediately. The east end of the bridge, still attached, flexed downstream, then it broke loose and was gone too. The police car bobbed back up for a couple seconds, then back under. Earl watched the motor home floating along on the surface, front end down, the water twisting it around as it went. He saw the rear window, now on top, break open with unidentified debris exploding outwards. Without the window to trap air inside, the motor home sank like a rock.
The two officers, who barely escaped, ran up behind Earl. "How many did we lose?"
Earl responded, "One of our officers, and one motor home full of idiots."
Grant saw the bridge collapse and two vehicles go into the river. The thought of being inside the car sickened him. He hoped it wasn't Earl in the police car. He turned and barked at the FBI agent with the radio. "Get ahold of Earl. Find out if he's okay. See if he knows how many people went in."
The agent walked away from the group while talking into his radio. He quickly gave a thumbs-up sign. "Earl's okay. There was one police officer in the car. They aren't sure how many civilians were in the motor home."
Phil looked at Grant. "What are you going to do now?"
"My job just moved three hundred miles downriver. After I talk to Earl, I'm flying downstream to the next dam to get ready to receive this water. Is that all right with the FBI?"
Grant spoke to the agent. "Tell Earl I need a police car immediately to take me back into Page to the airport."
There was a brief radio communication. "Earl says without the bridge, it's about five hours to Page," the agent relayed.
Grant forgot he needed the bridge to get to Page. He couldn't wait five hours. Suddenly, he was in a hurry to get back to the Gulfstream before the commissioner stole it from him. "Isn't there another way across? Do they have a helicopter?" He waited while the agent asked Earl the question.
"Earl says they don't have any choppers, but he might be able to talk one of those news teams into taking us across in their helicopter. They're still hovering around with cameras. He's going to try to get ahold of one on his radio. He'll let us know."
Fifteen minutes later, Grant was climbing into the green helicopter for KBXY out of Phoenix, Arizona. The chopper sat in the visitor center parking lot with its rotors idling. The network affiliate was more than happy to take Grant across, as long as they could ask a few questions.
Surprisingly, Earl climbed in the helicopter and sat next to Grant. "I DIDN'T WANT TO GO THE LONG WAY, EITHER," he yelled over the noise.
A cameraman climbed in next to Earl and shut the door. The helicopter became amazingly quiet. Grant felt the rotors accelerate. A head appeared around the seat in front of Grant. The guy shoved a microphone in his face.
"What caused the dam to break apart?"
"I'll answer a few questions, but no cameras or microphones."
The reporter showed displeasure, but pulled back the microphone. In an instant, a pad and pencil materialized out of nowhere. "Okay, why is the dam breaking apart?"
Grant felt the helicopter take off. "We think a bomb was placed in the west elevator shaft early this morning. The explosion caused a small hole deep in the dam. The force of the water then tore the dam apart in just under four hours."
"Has any group taken responsibility for the bomb?"
Grant didn't want to talk about that. "Law enforcement should answer questions about the perpetrator. The FBI is handling the criminal investigation."
"What kind of flood should be expected downstream?"
The helicopter was now above what used to be the Glen Canyon Dam. Grant paused to take a look. The water in the canyon was now flowing through the dam site as if it were not even there. The remaining dam only created what amounted to a fifty foot rapid in the river. Grant looked at the high water marks just upstream of the dam site and estimated the water had dropped more than fifty feet next to the dam.
Grant looked back at the reporter. "Could you repeat the question?"
"Flood. What kind of flood will this cause?"
"Luckily, downstream from here the Grand Canyon runs for almost three hundred miles, so not a lot of people or structures to worry about. There are efforts underway to evacuate the visitors from the canyon. Those efforts started almost three hours ago, long before the dam failed."
"Will the dam be rebuilt?"