was absolute honesty, even, in his opinion, at the risk of starting a panic. He doubted Weston was telling these people everything he knew.
A few in the crowd starting whistling. “You’re lyin,’ mister,” someone yelled. “You got to know what’s happened to that dam. Hell, you just told us the engineers just finished inspecting it.”
“The information will be made available at the appropriate time.” Weston said, sitting back in his chair. He’d regained his composure. Hands palm down on the table, he looked at Holleran, his gaze unflinching.
“Do you remember what happened in the San Fernando Valley in 1971?” she asked.
“Oh, come on,” Weston said. “The two situations aren’t the same at all.”
“Let’s hope so,” Holleran said. She explained for the audience’s benefit that in 1971 an earthquake in the San Fernando Valley almost breached the Lower San Fernando Dam near Los Angeles. It came perilously close to failure and forced the evacuation of eighty thousand people. A thin wall of dirt was all that separated the valley from 15 million tons of water.
“The governor wants you all to know he’s making absolutely sure the dam is safe,” Weston said, forcing a smile. He figured he better end this as quickly as possible. “We’ll be back to you with more information, everything you want, as soon as we get it.” He gathered his papers and started to stand up.
A heavyset bearded man in a down vest grabbed Weston’s arm. Two state troopers immediately ran toward him.
“Here it comes,” Atkins told Jacobs.
The man pushed one of the troopers away. Two others grabbed him from behind. Then everyone was up. There were shouts, screams, the slam of folding chairs being overturned. Someone threw a punch. The deputies and troopers moved in to restore order.
ATKINS approached Elizabeth Holleran, who was talking to Lauren. They turned and walked quickly out of the gymnasium. Atkins followed. He wanted to see if Holleran was all right. One of the troopers had given her a pretty good shove, trying to get at the bearded farmer.
He caught up with Holleran and Lauren at the far end of the parking lot, which was jammed with cars and pickup trucks. He saw them stop next to a late-model station wagon with its headlights on and engine running. They were talking to the driver.
The woman sitting behind the wheel saw Atkins approaching. She stopped talking, backed up quickly, and drove off the lot, gravel flying from the rear wheels. She almost sideswiped another car that was also trying to leave.
Atkins said to Holleran, “Are you okay? I saw what happened—”
“That was the wife of the hydrologist who works out at the dam,” she said, interrupting him. “The man who told Lauren the dam was in trouble.” She started to introduce Atkins to Lauren Mitchell.
“We’ve already met,” he said, shaking Lauren’s hand. “I was out at her boat dock the day before the quake.”
“He wants someone to go to the dam right now,” Lauren said. “He says the damage is a lot worse than anyone’s letting on. He thinks it’s all a cover-up, that the cracks can’t be repaired.”
She explained that the hydrologist had left a door open so that someone could slip inside the dam for a firsthand look at what was going on. The catch was that they’d need a boat to get to it. The door allowed access to an equipment platform and was on the side of the dam facing the lake.
“How can you get out there?” Atkins said.
Lauren said, “I’ve got a boat. It’s a little rough out on the water, but I can take you.”
“When?” Holleran asked.
“How about right now.”
Taking Lauren’s car, they drove to her marina. She gave each of them a snowmobile suit and slipped into one herself. It would be bitter cold on the lake.
“How long has it been this choppy?” Atkins asked as they walked along the boat dock. They were heading to the roofed enclosure where Lauren’s twenty-foot outboard was tied up.
“Ever since the first earthquake.” she said. “It’ll calm down for a while then kick right up again.”
The lake was about three miles wide at that point. Far off in the darkness, Atkins thought he could make out tiny pinpricks of lights on the opposite shore. The water slapped hard at the dock, splashing over the wooden walkway. Floating on oil drums, the dock was rocking, pitching up and down like a buoy. Atkins had to grip the handrails tightly to keep his balance.
He didn’t doubt that the repeated aftershocks were causing the water turbulence.
He looked out at the lake. He wasn’t looking forward to going out there in an open boat.
“We’ll need to be real careful when we get up near the dam,” Lauren said, handing each of them a life vest and showing them how to tie it on. “The water’s pretty rough on that end. We don’t want to get caught in the current up there.”
Lauren climbed down into the V-bottom and started the big 150-horsepower Mariner outboard, which roared to life in a plume of blue smoke. She sat at a steering wheel in the middle of the cockpit. Holleran sat on a bench seat in the stern.
Atkins untied the bowlines and hopped aboard. The current spun the boat around like a wood chip. Lauren gunned the engine and pulled away from the marina. They had to go about two miles down the lake. Atkins sat next to Holleran and tried to keep his face out of the spray that kicked up over the gunwales every time they plowed through a wave.
Lauren was as good as her word. It was a bone-jarring ride made all the more uncomfortable because she hugged the rocky shoreline, where the wave action was rougher. She wanted to keep out of open water as much as possible so they wouldn’t be seen as easily. About halfway to the dam, the main channel forked. Lauren steered down the smaller arm, where it would be even harder for anyone to spot them from the dam.
The trip reminded Atkins of some rafting he’d done on the Colorado River back in his grad school days. They ran Class IV white water all the way down the canyon.
Holleran was holding on to her seat for dear life. Every time they pancaked down on a wave, they were almost pitched off their seats. She had to shout to make herself understood over the engine.
“You… can… hear… it!”
In the distance. Atkins heard the waves hitting the dam, the noise carrying over the roar of the outboard.
They finally came out of the long cove. The dam loomed up in front of them three hundred yards away. A massive, chalk-colored wall of rough stone and sloping, poured concrete. Streetlights illuminated the top where the two-lane highway ran.
Lauren cut her speed and let the waves and current wash them into an eddy about forty yards from the western end of the dam. A narrow, curving spit of land jutted out at a right angle from the base of the dam and served as a breakwater, creating a pool where boats could anchor. It was relatively sheltered from the lake’s open water.
Skillfully handling the wheel and throttle, Lauren eased up close enough to the shore for Atkins to jump out and tie the bow lines to a mooring post. A thick stand of pine trees shielded them from view from the dam.
They’d have to climb up a wall of broken stone to get to the door that Tom Davis had left open. The door opened from the inside and gave access to heating and air-conditioning units located on a steel platform that jutted from the dam’s outer wall. It was about forty feet up from the water.
Lauren stayed with the boat. Holleran and Atkins started climbing the pile of broken rock, carefully working their way across the face of the dam to the platform. They were soon out over the water, the waves crashing below them against the wall of stone.
Holleran, a strong climber, easily made it to the platform and pulled herself over a low railing. Atkins was right behind her. She opened the metal door. Slipping inside, they found themselves in a darkened service tunnel.
Atkins was relieved to get in out of the biting wind and cold. Water poured off his snowmobile suit. He wiped it from his face and eyes.
Turning on flashlights, they walked about thirty yards down the tunnel. There they heard heavy machinery, the pounding of pneumatic drills and truck engines. It sounded like a construction site. The tunnel—it was more of a catwalk—ended at a ladder. They climbed down to a lower level about twenty feet below them.
