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.
ELEVEN
SEPTEMBER 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 …” Wald
en 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.”
With a final terrified glance at Eric, Walden disappeared, his footsteps echoing down the hallway and out into the main corridor.
Eric stared at Allen. “Can't it wait, sir? No one else in New York City is working right now.”
Allen only pointed to the files in Eric's hands and kept typing. Ten more minutes passed and Eric felt something change, something in the way the building trembled. Maybe it was his imagination, but the shaking seemed worse, more noticeable. Eric glanced out the window at the chaos reigning six hundred feet below. Buildings like this one were on rollers, weren't they? That could explain the movement—especially with the inferno blazing above them. But what if that wasn't the reason the building was trembling? Sixty-four floors was an awful long way up.
Eric shuddered.
“Sir …” He set the files on the desk and stood. “I'm going. I have a family to think about.”
Allen stopped typing and gave him a sad, disappointed frown. “I thought you were committed.”
Eric hated the way his boss's comment made him feel weak. He gave a single shake of his head. “I am committed, sir. I think we should both go. The building doesn't feel right.”
This time Allen sat back, crossed his arms, and directed his gaze at Eric. “You're not the man I thought you were, Eric.” He mumbled something under his breath as he looked back at the screen. Then without making eye contact with Eric again, he waved his hand. “Go … join the others. I'll finish it by myself.”
Eric didn't waste time giving Allen a response. He turned and raced down the hallway, hurrying through the maze of desks and partition boards as he made for the stairs. Along the way he found a man in his early twenties typing frantically.
“What're you doing? The building's being evacuated.”
“No one ordered an evacuation.” The man's fingers kept moving. “I'm on a deadline.”
“Listen, pal.” Eric's tone was frantic. “Yes, they have ordered an evacuation. The fire's headed this way.” Eric glanced at the wall, looking for the place where the computer was plugged in. The outlet was hidden by the man's desk, and Eric straightened and shouted at the man. “Get out!”
The man stopped typing and sent a vicious look at Eric. “It's my life. Leave me alone. I get a bonus if I finish this thing today.” He pursed his lips. “I'm not letting some fire twenty floors up stop me, you got that?”
Eric huffed and spun around, running once more for the stairs. Fine. If the guy wanted to stay, what was that to Eric? He reached the stairwell a minute later and yanked the door open. The place was empty, and he took the steps at a full trot. At the fifty-third floor he began seeing firemen trudging their way up.
“Anyone else up there?” one firefighter asked him.
“My boss … he has a few transactions to finish.” Eric huffed, trying to catch his breath. “And a crazy guy on a deadline. Won't leave his desk.”
The firefighters nodded and continued up. They were breathing hard, carrying what looked like fifty pounds of equipment each and refusing to slow down in their quest to reach the fire. Eric resumed his pace, and at the forty-third floor, he caught up with the line of people, all moving steadily down the stairs one flight at a time. That's when he noticed something.
The shaking was getting worse; it wasn't his imagination.
He could hear windows rattling beyond the stairwell, feel a subtle sway from above. Eric kept up with the group, wishing they could walk faster. What did the building's movement mean? Were helicopters dropping water on the fire? Or were the flames enough to shake a hundred floors of cement and steel? Whatever the cause, Eric didn't want to think about it. There was nothing he could do, nothing any of them could do but keep taking the stairs.
One step at a time.
The businesspeople making their way down were orderly and calm. Probably in shock, Eric figured. He knew none of them, and the people from Koppel and Grant were probably twenty floors below him by now. Eric tried to draw a deep breath but couldn't. The air in the stairwell was hot and thick and stale, tinged with a sense of barely controlled panic. Every time they cleared a landing, Eric would glance at the number on the door.
Thirty-one … thirty … twenty-nine … twenty-eight …
Six more floors and then it happened. Eric tripped on a briefcase left in the stairwell and tumbled face first down five steps. A piercing pain stabbed at his ankle, and he struggled to right himself. At that instant a hand reached out for his. Eric grabbed it, and as he worked to get his feet beneath him, a firefighter's helmet fell against his chest.
People were making their way down the stairs, still inching past Eric as he let the firefighter pull him to a sitting position. The man's helmet was near Eric's feet now, and he took hold of it. But just as he went to hand it back to the firefighter, something caught his attention, something inside the helmet. Eric peered at it and his heart skipped a beat.
It was a photograph of a little girl, four or five years old. And beneath the photo, in a child's printing, was written the name “Sierra.” Both were taped firmly to the inside of the helmet. Eric felt a lump in his throat as he leaned up to return it. With people still making their way past him, Eric locked eyes on the firefighter and felt his breath catch in his throat.
The fireman was staring at him too. And now that Eric could see the man clearly, the reason was obvious. The two of them could've been twins. Identical twins, even. Eric blinked hard. Was he seeing things? He'd heard of strangers having an uncanny resemblance. But he'd never seen anyone who looked this much like him. Exactly like him. Not ever. The short dark hair, square jaw, high cheekbones, blue eyes. Even their builds were the same.
Looking at the firefighter was like looking in a mirror.
Eric's mouth hung open, and he couldn't look away. So far the entire incident had taken five seconds—more than either of them had. Eric rose to his feet, his eyes still glued to the firefighter's. “Thank you.” He handed the helmet out toward the man.
“That's … that's my little girl.” The firefighter took his helmet back from Eric and set it on his head. “Better keep walking.”
“Thanks …” Eric wanted to say more. He wanted to thank the man for helping him up after his fall, for risking his life for all of them, for doing what he was doing, even though it might cost him everything.
Including the chance to see his little Sierra again.
But the moment passed, and the firefighter nodded one last time as he continued his climb up into the building. Eric worked his way back into the stream of people heading down. His ankle hurt, but he could do nothing about it now. They had to get out of the shaking building.
Fifteen … fourteen … thirteen …
Eric moved down the steps, but his mind was back on the twenty-second floor, back with the firefighter and the strange resemblance they shared. Something about the man's expression and the picture of his little girl, Sierra, seemed permanently etched in Eric's mind. It stayed with him, haunted him, made him certain that as long as he lived, he would remember forever the child's face, the way her picture smiled at him from the inside of the firefighter's helmet.
He reached floor number twelve … eleven … ten …
What was it he'd seen in the firefighter's eyes? A raw determination, an intense sort of focus to reach the victims on the upper floors regardless of the danger? Yes, that was it. And more than that, a peace. A peace that Eric knew nothing of.
Nine … eight … seven …
Eric's left ankle was numb now, and his heart raced within him from fear and exertion. But none of that mattered. The only thing he could think about was Sierra and her firefighter father. For a moment he thought about praying for the man. But then, what good would that do? The firefighter was
going up, heading straight toward the inferno. And the building was shaking more now than before.
He won't come out, will he, God? He's going to die, and Sierra won't ever see her daddy again. For what? The people upstairs are probably dead by now, anyway. Smoke and heat and fumes. Who could possibly live through the nightmare that had to be happening from the crash site up.
Eric stopped moving for three heartbeats. Maybe he could run up and find the man, grab him, and insist he come down with the other sensible people. That way they could talk about their resemblance and compare notes. Were they related somehow? Was the man a distant cousin who had been born with identical features as Eric? If the firefighter continued making his way upstairs, Eric was almost certain he'd never know, never see the man again.
But there were too many people in the stairwell, and he had no choice but to keep moving down with the others. Six floors left, five … The shaking was getting worse now, bending the stairwell as though it were made of rubber.
“Get us out of here!” one man shouted from three floors up. “The whole thing's coming down.”
The whole thing? Even with the shaking, that was an idea Eric hadn't considered. Could the World Trade Center actually collapse? An ominous creaking came from somewhere in the core of the building as Eric rounded a corner onto the next floor. God help me! Just four more sets of stairs and I'll be out!
He moved as quickly as the crowd in front of him would allow, but even as he did he thought one more time of the firefighter and the little girl who obviously mattered so much to him. Almost at the same time another thought hit him. Why wasn't he worried about his own child, the boy he had never made time for? Josh had to know about this by now. And what about Laura? If the World Trade Center collapsed on top of him, he'd die without having told them the truth—that he did love them, even if he never showed it.
Never said it.
Sorrow filled his heart as he moved his feet one agonizingly slow step at a time. What had he done? He'd put success and position and money ahead of the people in his life. Laura, the woman he'd loved from the moment he first saw her. And Josh, the child who looked so much like her. The truth was, he didn't even know the boy.