Tim Washburn - Cyber Attack

“Same one I used yesterday, the orange midge.” Tommy makes a couple of practice casts, waiting for Dale to tie on his lure. Both were disappointed to discover they weren’t going to have the river all to themselves. The campground is filled to the gills, and people of all shapes and sizes line the river, casting for the elusive rainbow trout. “You about ready?”

“Just about.” Dale finishes tying on the fly and sticks a box of extra flies in the bib pocket of his waders. “I’m going to head upstream a bit and fish those riffles. You fishin’ the deep hole you fished yesterday?”

“I think so. Hot as it is, they might be in the deeper water.”

“Be careful. That current is a lot faster than it looks,” Dale says.

“That coming from the man who worked on the water rescue team. I’ll be careful, Mom.”

Dale laughs and it echoes around the canyon. This stretch of the Colorado River is walled in on both sides by part of the original Glen Canyon and the ragged cliffs soar nearly a thousand feet overhead. The upper part of Glen Canyon is now underwater, flooded with the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam, thus creating Lake Powell. And it wasn’t done without protest. Many along the river want the dam removed so that the Colorado River will return to a more natural flow, helping to reduce the sediment that builds up along the bottom, choking off some of the native wetlands. Dale doesn’t care one way or another as long as there are trout to catch. He walks upstream a hundred yards and ventures out into the water.

Though the waders are insulated, he can feel a chill as the cold water swirls around his calves. The spot where he really wants to be is occupied by a man and a young boy who looks to be about ten years old, so Dale drifts toward the middle of the river where the water is waist-deep and begins casting. He glances over his shoulder to check on Tommy and finds him midstream, casting into a deep pool that hugs the far bank.

Dale has been fly-fishing exactly twice in his life—including day one of this trip—and it’s not long before his line becomes a snarled mess. Muttering a string of curse words, he strips the line from the reel and slowly reels it back in, using his left hand to apply some tension to the line. Once he has everything squared away, he begins casting again.

“Wrist firm, up, out, and follow through,” he mutters, mimicking the instructions from a fly-fishing YouTube video he had watched endlessly before the trip. It’s not long before he’s in a rhythm, landing the fly in the exact spot he wants and letting it drift, hoping a trout will charge to the surface and swallow his lure. Dale is so focused on his technique that he’s unaware the current is growing swifter and the water level is rising. Slowly, he realizes he’s exerting greater effort just to remain upright. He stops casting and looks around. The water is now chest-deep and a tiny tingle of apprehension begins to nibble at the edges of his brain. He turns to look for Tommy and spots his friend floundering in the middle of the stream. “Tommy,” he shouts, “are you okay?”

“No,” Tommy shouts, struggling to maintain his balance. “Waders are full of water.”

“Can you make it to shore?”

“I’m trying.”

Before Dale can decide what to do about his friend, the man fishing with the young boy screams, “Ethan!”

Dale whips his head around to see the young boy drifting downstream, his arms churning. After twenty years of training, Dale’s instincts kick in. He drops his rod and reel and lunges through the water, racing to grab the boy. The water level continues to rise, eventually filling Dale’s waders with ice-cold water. He turns to find the boy and spots him drifting farther away. He shouts to Tommy, “Grab the boy,” as he slips the suspenders over his shoulders, allowing the current to pull the waders free. Now unencumbered, Dale starts swimming, his stroke powerful and efficient. He swims toward the middle of the stream where the current is faster, hoping to shoot past the boy so he can grab him farther downstream. Screams echo around the canyon as others are swept away in the swift current.

Tommy is struggling mightily and is still a long way from shore. “Strip your waders,” Dale shouts, now a hundred feet from his friend. Both had slipped since retirement—too much easy living and too many beers—and Dale can see Tommy fighting to catch his breath. He glances to his right. The boy is twenty yards ahead, but still afloat, his arms pinwheeling.

A sudden dilemma hits Dale like a slap to the face—save his friend or save the boy?

Dale focuses on controlling his breathing while his mind flips through scenarios he’d either been involved in or had trained for while part of the water rescue team. Now twenty feet from Tommy and closing fast, Dale is out of time. He takes two, huge, lunging strokes, snags Tommy by the shirt, and aims for the boy, dragging Tommy along with his left hand. “Hang on, Tommy, I’m going for the boy.”

Screaming continues to echo off the walls of the canyon, yet lurking underneath that noise, Dale can just make out a low sound that sounds a lot like a locomotive rumbling down the tracks. He glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t see anything. He turns his focus back to the boy, who is still about ten yards away. Dale can’t seem to make up any ground stroking one-handed and, to make matters worse, his right shoulder feels like someone is stabbing him with a hot poker. He glances toward the shore, praying someone will step in to help. Instead, he sees people running toward the road that leads out of the campground.

With a sinking feeling Dale looks back upriver and his heart nearly seizes: A wall of water and debris is jetting around the bend of the narrow canyon only three hundred yards upstream. He turns and swims for the boy, burning through his last reserves of energy as he churns his feet and stabs at the water, pulling with everything ounce of power he has left. He and Tommy are fifteen feet from the boy when the enormous wave engulfs them, pinning them to the bottom of the river and pummeling their bodies with debris.

Detroit, Michigan

Paul and Irene Betkowski have been agonizing over this decision for weeks. Paul lost his job in automobile manufacturing last year when the parent company opened a new plant in Mexico. Irene lost her job two years ago when the auto parts manufacturer she worked for downsized. Fearing the companies would find some way to shirk their pension liabilities, their financial advisor, son Paul Junior, convinced both parents to take a lump-sum pension payment upon termination. Their son’s advice proved golden when both companies filed for bankruptcy months later. But now, after locking their money up in a one-year certificate of deposit that paid a paltry 1 percent, Paul and Irene are struggling to find other investment options.

Paul and Irene sold their house last year for half of what it was worth ten years ago and are now renting an apartment in a small retirement community in St. Clair Shores. With the home sale proceeds added to their nest egg, Paul and Irene are sitting on $473,546. The figure represents every dime they could scrape together, excluding the ten grand they keep in their checking account for living expenses. Paul, sixty-seven, and Irene, sixty-five, have been resistant to putting their money in the stock market despite their son’s assurances the money will be safe.

Now, sitting at the kitchen table, Paul is eyeing the computer screen displaying their current balance in an account he had opened with one of the large national discount brokerages. He shifts his gaze to Irene sitting across the table. “What do you think, hon?”