The driver turned on the siren, moved around the stopped cars on 57th, and turned left, forcing the driver of an oncoming bus to slam on his brakes. The cop revved the engine and sped south through the heavy 5th Avenue traffic.
After a moment of silence, Isabelle suddenly exclaimed, “Oh God, I gotta call John!”
She turned the mobile speaker on for Christian to listen in, and struggled to hear her friend over the siren’s scream.
“Burning debris’s everywhere, a heck of a lot of people trapped up above the impact zones. Jesus—”
“John, you there?”
“Donno if you hear it?” Bodies were falling onto the plaza. “What the hell?”
O’Neill paused for a moment, then continued.
“I’m looking at the face of a pretty young woman. Not a scratch on it. But the body’s gone. The head . . . is just . . . sitting here on the ground . . . staring right at me.”
Isabelle could find nothing fitting to say.
“I gotta get up there, get those people out. Can’t believe my worst nightmare’s coming true. Promise me, you’ll go after the bastards who did this.”
“I promise, John.”
The line went dead.
It took ten minutes to reach downtown, where chaos reigned. Isabelle and Christian fought their way through a steady stream of pedestrians frantically rushing through the streets, away from the towers, some with faces covered in black soot. In front of the high-rise at 26 Federal Plaza, they made their way past hundreds of bewildered foreign nationals, who were turned away at the glass doors by uniformed police officers wielding machine guns. A hand-written sign announced all interviews with the biggest leaseholder in the building, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, cancelled for the remainder of the day. Isabelle and Christian gained access only after producing their IDs.
Upstairs, Isabelle found her colleagues at the New York City field office running back and forth, shouting at each other, while phones were ringing off the hook. Inside the operations center, the Diplomatic Security Service agents tried to juggle the impossible demands of their multifaceted job. While handling all security for the State Department, they also carried out international criminal investigations, in addition to administering the Rewards for Justice Program that offered large rewards for information about notorious terrorists and major criminals. It had indeed been DS agents who located and captured the first World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef, in Pakistan.
The staff had been busy with security preparations for the foreign dignitaries, about to descend on the city in two days’ time for the opening session of the yearly United Nations General Assembly, UNGA. DS commanders were now placing these activities on hold while evaluating the status quo, which was changing for the worse minute by minute. Agents involved with investigations that required no immediate action came in and, like Isabelle, many off-duty agents arrived to volunteer. As foreign diplomatic representatives flooded the phone lines with inquiries and requests for assistance, everyone tried to grapple with the ramifications of what had just happened. The confirmation that two commercial airliners had been involved left no doubt that it was indeed an attack.
When the station chief asked for volunteers to assist with the rescue, Isabelle and Christian eagerly volunteered, along with around thirty other agents. She quickly changed into the black business suit and shoes that she kept in her office and the team set out, all carrying weapons and wearing bulletproof vests; NYPD had reported the situation to be fluid and unstable.
Just then, a call came in reporting an explosion at the Pentagon.
“This is an act of war,” Christian declared as they jogged through the crowd of panicked, shocked office workers, toward the disaster scene half a mile to the west.
“And what happens at the outset of a war?” Christian wanted to know.
“A first, second, third wave of attacks,” Isabelle replied.
“Exactly! Imagine if they strike at the rescue operation or bomb midtown,” Christian suggested.
As they neared the site, they stopped talking and focused on the task at hand. Just as they turned right off Broadway onto Fulton Street, there was a massive roar and the earth trembled. Suddenly a huge white cloud rushed along the ground toward them. As they ducked for cover, a mist of heavy dust engulfed everyone and everything.
“The South Tower’s just collapsed!” someone yelled.
Christian automatically wiped dust off his watch, obeying his ingrained training. It was 9:59 a.m.
They grabbed bottled water from a deserted hot-dog stand, which was covered in white ash like everything else. As they cleaned their faces, they stared at one another in silence, trying to grasp the reality of the situation. They then continued into the chaos that was the World Trade Center Plaza.
At the base of the remaining tower, it seemed to Christian some invisible giant had strewn the wide space with huge slabs of white concrete and shiny metal, crushing cabs, limos, police cruisers, ambulances, fire trucks, buses, and private cars. And people.
Christian’s vision blurred, as dust fell like powdery snow, blanketing every surface. In the hot air hung a stench of jet fuel and smoke, mixed with something sweet Christian could not identify. Through the mist he saw civilians, police officers, firefighters, and paramedics alike feeling their way through the thick fog in slow motion, on their way to help the wounded. Suddenly Isabelle stumbled over something on the ground, but Christian caught her just in time. She gasped as she realized what it was. The dust-covered suit only partly concealed the gory remains of what had once been a human being. It had flattened to a state of un unseeable unseeable unseeable unseeable recognition. Christian embraced his wife and looked up at the remaining tower. The fog was lifting now, and he glimpsed people waving their arms. Then something fell. He looked away. Then a loud crack sounded in the distance, then another. Isabelle came to her senses, and they continued, now hand in hand.
While Christian and Isabelle managed to remain close together, her DS colleagues soon became scattered as they responded to weak calls for help from all directions.
Suddenly they heard someone cry out from a taxi. Its roof had partially collapsed under a large metal beam, and flames shot out from under the hood. Although they pulled with all their weight, the doors were jammed. The driver was passed out at the steering wheel, but the passenger nowhere to be seen. But they heard him, calling for help from the floor in the back, where he was stuck. Christian spoke calm words to the man, as he tried again to pull the door open. It did not budge.
Isabelle, quite petite but strong, and used to make quick decisions in the midst of chaos from her time with the NYPD Emergency Service Unit, looked around and quickly fetched a crowbar and a power saw from a burning fire truck. First, they smashed the window in the door and pulled the driver out. While he quickly gained consciousness, Isabelle and Christian plied the trunk open. As Isabelle readied the saw, Christian kept speaking with the man, who told them he was the only passenger, and that he was a Pakistani police officer on vacation with his parents. Then Isabelle began to saw through the rear seat, while the toxic smoke from the engine fire grew thicker. Suddenly, the passenger stopped talking.
Finally, Isabelle got through. Christian pulled out the seat, and then Isabelle crawled into the trunk, put her arm through the hole, grabbed the young man’s arm and together with Christian slowly pulled him out, trying not to injure him further. They moved him away from the burning vehicle, next to the middle-aged driver, who sat on the sidewalk, still dazed, drinking water from a bottle. Soon the passenger opened his eyes and claimed to be OK.
The small group walked east, together with three women in business attire, all covered in white ashes, who had escaped the South Tower just in time. They reached the corner of Broadway, where an ambulance was parked. As the paramedics began to check the cab drivers respiratory function, the Pakistani police officer handed Christian a Parker pen, and piece of paper, and asked for his contact information.
Christian smiled, looked into the Pakistani’s thankful eyes, and handed the paper back with his info, about to return the Parker pen as well, when suddenly he felt an eerily familiar tremble. Again, a tremendous roar was followed by a huge white cloud, and Christian was blinded. Then everything went silent. It was clear what had happened: The North Tower had collapsed as well, and the World Trade Center Towers stood no more. The time was 10:28 a.m.