I still give fair odds that the guys caught a ride to a casino and have been dead drunk and knee deep in hookers spending their kids inheritance. That in a few days they will come stumbling out of the desert, suspiciously well fed and watered, and tell some miraculous tale of being led in a strange mist to a tiny hidden spring by the ghost of an indian, or an alien abduction.
I'll take some of that action.
If he (the "mastermind" in charge) won't even take water or a phone (regardless of whether it'll get a signal), how much do you think he really has set aside for the kids to inherit?