One Tuesday Morning (16 page)

The moment Maxwell stopped speaking, Jake and seventeen men seated around the two picnic tables snapped into action, racing for their respective trucks, grabbing helmets and doubling up on nearly every seat so the men from both shifts would fit. Jake stared at the picture of Sierra taped to the inside of his helmet, then he put it firmly on his head and squeezed into the backseat of Engine 57, between Larry and a guy from the night crew.

God … be with us … get us home safely
.

I will be with you, son, always … always even until the end
.

The words were part of a verse, one Jake had memorized years ago. They flashed in his mind as the sirens on both trucks pierced the air and joined those sounding across the city. Jake steeled himself for the task ahead, for the horrific sights he would no doubt see.

This is the big one, God … we're gonna need You
.

Always, son … I'm with you always even until the end
.

Jake clenched his fists and stared at the buildings as they rushed past. He always prayed en route to a fire. It was something that came as naturally as stepping into his turnouts or finding his place on the truck. Prayer was simply part of going to a fire. And always God's peace and strength and assurance came as he prayed, giving Jake an invisible armor to go along with his uniform.

But rarely did a Scripture flash in his mind.

They rounded a corner and Jake held on. The streets were empty except for emergency vehicles, so they were making better time than usual. He closed his eyes for a moment. The Scripture was from the book of Matthew, the place where Jake had been doing his morning Bible study for the past few weeks. Comforting words, words filled with promise. Jesus would be with him always even until the end of the age.

It was the last part that seemed somehow more profound.

The Lord would be with him until the end.

Jake shifted and gazed out the windshield of the fire truck. Profound or maybe prophetic. The truck raced through an intersection, and Jake shook off the strange thoughts. He was psyching himself out, imagining warnings where none lay. This was a bad fire, but it was still a fire. And fighting fires was something he was trained to do. The dangers were the same as with any other call, weren't they? He glanced at Larry sitting beside him, but his friend's eyes were glazed over—the way they always were when he was mentally preparing himself for the call.

What had Larry said earlier about the temperature of jet fuel and the strength of the World Trade Center? Jake blinked and the questions disappeared. There was no point worrying. He had a job to do, and his body pulsed with adrenaline over the prospect. He couldn't wait to get it done. They were two blocks away when Maxwell—who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the fire truck—turned around and briefed them on the scene.

“Jet fuel shot through the elevator shaft a few seconds after both crashes.” He hesitated. “Some folks fell to their deaths. Others jumped. Many of them were on fire. Falling bodies have already claimed the lives of some of our men, so watch your step.”

Jake swallowed hard and resisted the urge to ask which men. It didn't matter. FDNY was a fraternity, and all of them were connected in one way or another. The losses they'd suffer individually and as a group that day would be too great to fathom. Especially with the fire still out of control.

They sped the remaining distance, turned onto West Street, and pulled up alongside another engine. Maxwell's warning could not have prepared Jake for the scene at the base of the south tower. Bodies were still falling from the upper floors, and Jake caught the expression of terror on a woman as she plummeted from the building. He looked away just as a thud echoed across the street.

The thud of her body hitting the ground.

God … it's a nightmare. Help those people … please
.

He stared at the street around them and gritted his teeth. It looked like something from a battlefield. Bodies lay strewn along the pavement, firefighters scrambled in a dozen different directions, and burn victims on stretchers were being carried to an endless line of waiting ambulances and paramedics.

Anger joined the emotions raging in Jake's soul. What type of monster would orchestrate mass murder on this level? And how dare they take aim at the heart of New York City? Jake and the others piled out of the truck, grabbed air tanks, and jogged toward the lobby of the south tower.

“Watch the sky!” Maxwell shouted over his shoulder.

The men did as he said, and Jake was struck by how macabre the moment was. With so many lives at stake in the building and outside it, the jumpers had become one more kind of hazardous debris. They could do nothing to help the falling people, so they directed all their effort to avoid them. Jake gritted his teeth and jogged with the others across the street.

On the way he nearly tripped over something bulky, something he first assumed was a piece of the building. Not until he was just past it did he stop, turn around, and stare once more. The thing he'd almost fallen over was not a windowsill or a chunk of debris. It was a body, burned completely beyond recognition. In the span of a single second, Jake glanced around. He couldn't count the number of bodies lining the streets.

“Come on, JB, there's work to do.” Larry was a few steps in front of him.

Jake inhaled sharply through his nose and kept walking. “Right behind you.” Certainly Larry had seen the same thing he'd seen. But Larry was right. They could take care of the dead later. Right now their job was in the building, not outside it. Both of their units entered the lobby and reported in at the command post. Battalion chiefs were manning the station using chalkboards to keep track of men assigned to various floors.

Maxwell stepped up and spoke for the group. “Engine 57, Ladder 96 here. Where do you want us?”

Jake could hear the captain talking with his peers, making decisions about where they would be assigned. “We need a staging area on the sixty-first floor. We think one of the elevators there is working, and we want to use it to transport victims to the ground. Other units are on their way up to the crash site, so have your men establish sixty-one. No elevators are being used to go up, so you'll have to walk.”

“Got it.” Maxwell nodded and moved the group across the lobby. There were so many firefighters taking and giving orders, Jake had to strain to hear his captain. “Everyone have air?” He gave a quick look at the line of men in front of him. Each of them had the mandatory tank, and several of them had two. A second one was optional. The weight of two would make it harder to climb, but an extra air tank could also save a firefighter's life.

Jake took two.

“Let's split up. It'll be easier to stay together if something happens.” He motioned to the other captain on duty—Captain Hisel. “Take the ladder company and look for victims along the way. Have your men take any victims back to the street and the waiting ambulances.” He looked at Jake and Larry. “I'll take the engine crew.” Maxwell started toward the main stairwell. “Follow me.”

Inside was a narrow set of stairs that would eventually lead them to the sixty-first floor. A quiet stream of people, their faces etched in shock and terror, streamed down one side of the steps. Company presidents and lowly assistants were on equal footing here as each of them continued moving, desperate to escape the burning building.

Maxwell turned around. “They want us to average one flight a minute.” He leveled an intense gaze at them. “I say we average two.”

Jake and Larry were behind Maxwell, and the group of them began attacking the stairs. Most of them were in excellent condition. Even with their equipment, a flight of stairs every thirty seconds would be manageable. At least for the first twenty floors or so.

At the first landing Jake realized something he hadn't before. The building was vibrating. Not badly, but it was moving some all the same, as though the entire hundred-story structure was shuddering in response to the inferno raging far above them. Of all the times he'd been in one of the World Trade Center towers, Jake had never felt the building tremble. He blinked and focused on his feet. The building could handle that type of heat, couldn't it? They kept walking.

Two floors, three, four … six … eight …

Jake's mind began to wander. Steel became compromised at a certain point, but in the confusion of the stairwell, Jake couldn't remember what temperature that happened at. Five thousand degrees? Ten thousand? And exactly how hot did jet fuel burn? Had anyone thought to protect these towers against that type of heat?

Once more Jake dismissed the thought and focused his attention on the people heading down the stairs. He wanted to be available if any of them had breathing trouble or needed help. He caught fragments of their conversations.

“Frank … hang in there, we're almost out.” It was a woman, her eyes wide as she kept pace behind a heavyset man with a red face.

Maxwell heard the conversation. “What floor you people from?”

“Fifty-two.” The woman stopped even with Maxwell. She put her hand on the heavy man and frowned. “I'm worried about Frank. He has heart trouble.”

“I'm fine.” The man was short of breath, but he kept walking. He waved back at Maxwell and the rest of them. “God bless you people … There's hundreds more upstairs. Don't worry about me.”

A cry came from somewhere above them. “Keep moving, people, please!”

The worried woman and the heavyset man began walking again, and the woman yelled over her shoulder. “How many more floors?”

“Eight.” Maxwell moved ahead. “Keep walking.”

Jake tried to calculate what they'd find when they reached the sixty-first floor. The building had been burning for about half an hour now. Seconds counted for any critical victims at or above the crash site. And if the stairwells were cut off at the seventy-eighth floor, what did that mean for the people trapped above it?

Again, Jake focused on the matter at hand. Ten floors … eleven … twelve … thirteen. They were making great time, taking three floors a minute. The tanks were heavy on Jake's back, and he was sucking air, feeling the exertion of the climb.
God, get us up there in time to help those people … please. And keep us safe too, Lord. We're going to need it
. He remembered the line he and Larry liked to say on the way to a fire. Their motto.
No worries. Put out some flames … save a few lives … back in time for dinner
.

It had been true every other time they'd taken a call. Jake could only pray it would be true today.

E
LEVEN

S
EPTEMBER
11, 2001, 9:22
A.M
.

Eric Michaels could feel the building trembling.

It had started twenty minutes earlier with the explosion somewhere above him, a blast that had knocked Eric and everyone in the outside hallway to their knees. Immediately, his phone had gone dead, and at the same moment, Allen raced up to him. Together they ran into the main area where dozens of people were screaming at once. What had earlier been merely grave concern and alarm was now full-fledged panic.

“We've been hit! We've been—”

“A plane … another plane! A plane went through the—”

“It was coming right at us, then it disappea—”

The voices had shouted simultaneously, and it had been impossible to make sense of any of them. What Eric and Allen had been able to get was the obvious. A second plane had crashed—into their building this time—and they needed to get out fast.

“Elevators are out!” Someone had screamed the news, and a mass of people headed for the stairwells. There were three in the building, and each of them would eventually connect with the lobby. Eric considered joining the group. After all, the battery on his cell phone was dead, and Laura would be waiting for his call. Probably frantic by now. TV news would be reporting that a second plane had crashed into the south tower, and she'd assume he was somehow in the middle of the carnage.

But just as he'd turned toward the stairs, someone grabbed his sleeve. Eric spun around and found himself inches from Allen. The man's brows were lowered almost over his eyelids. “Where are you going?”

Eric glanced at the stairs and then back at Allen. “We need to get out of here.”

“There's no hurry, Eric. The stairs will be packed with people.” Allen cast a quick look back toward the office of Koppel and Grant. “I have three foreign transactions that have to be made now. Before the morning's up.”

Eric turned and stared at Allen. The man was crazy. “Can't you feel it?” His words ran together, and he had to fight to keep from jerking away and running for the stairs. Running for his life. “The place is shaking, Allen. We need to go.”

“Look.” Anger flashed in Allen's eyes. “Those crazy terrorists have done enough damage—they aren't going to ruin a couple hundred-thousand-dollar purchases on top of it.”

Eric's heart raced. He looked from Allen to the crowd at the stairwell and back at his boss again. It would take five minutes, ten even, for the crowd of people to file into the stairwell. Maybe Allen was right. “Okay.” He took off toward the office, and Allen fell in step beside him. “But let's make it fast.”

They rounded the corner through the door of Koppel and Grant and ran back to Allen's office. Allen worked the keyboard while Eric read from a handful of files. Ten minutes into the transaction, Hank Walden, one of their top financial managers, stuck his head in the office. “Guys, they've ordered an evacuation.” The man's eyes were wide, his breathing short and ragged. “Everyone has to go.”

Eric was about to say something when Allen held his hand up. “There's no smoke on this floor.” He kept his eyes on the screen. “We'll be finished in thirty minutes, forty at the most. We'll lose thousands if I wait on this.”

“Sir …” Walden exchanged a desperate look with Eric. “We don't have a choice, sir. The building's in trouble.”

Allen waved him off without looking up. “This is the World Trade Center. The building's fine.” He shot a hurried look at Walden. “Go! We'll be right behind you.”