Dead Man’s Footsteps

15

Ronnie hurried down West Broadway, crossing Murray Street, Park Place, then Barclay Street. The World Trade Center was right in front of him now, on the far side of Vesey Street, the two silver monoliths rising sheer into the sky. The smells from the fire were much stronger and sheets of curled, burning paper were floating in the air, while debris tumbled down and smashed to the ground.

Through the dense black smoke he could see crimson, as if the tower was bleeding. Then flashes of bright orange. Flames. Jesus, he thought, feeling a terrible dark fear in his gut. This cannot be happening.

People were staggering out of the entrance, looking dazed, staring upwards, men in sharp shirts and ties without jackets, some on their mobiles. For a second he watched an attractive young brunette in a power suit stumbling along with only one shoe on. She suddenly clamped her hands to her head, looking pained, as if a falling object had just struck her, and he saw a trickle of blood run down her cheek.

He hesitated. It didn’t look safe to go any further. But he needed that meeting, needed it so desperately badly. Just have to chance it, he thought. Run like hell. He coughed, the smoke pricking his throat, and stepped off the sidewalk. The kerb was higher than he realized and, as the wheels of his case bumped down, the handle twisted in his hand and his briefcase fell off.

Shit! Don’t do this to me.

Then, just as he ducked down and grabbed the handle of his briefcase, he heard the scream of a jet aircraft.

He looked up again. And could not believe his eyes. A split second later, before he had time to register intelligibly what he was seeing, came an explosion. A metallic thunderclap boom, like two cosmic dustbins colliding. A sound that seemed to echo in his brain and to go on echoing, rumbling around out of control inside his skull until he wanted to stick his fingers in his ears to stop it, to choke it. Then he felt the shockwave. Felt it shuffling every single atom in his body.

A massive ball of orange flames, showering diamanté sparks and black smoke, erupted from near the top of the South Tower. For one fleeting instant he was struck dumb by the sheer beauty of that sight: the contrast of colours – the orange, the black – stark against the rich blue of the sky.

It seemed as if a million, billion feathers were floating in the air around the flames, drifting unhurriedly towards the ground. All in slow motion.

Then the reality slammed into him.

Slabs of wood, glass, chairs, desks, phones, filing cabinets were bouncing, shattering, on the ground in front of him. A police car pulled up, just past him, doors opening before it had even stopped. A mere hundred yards or so to his right, along Vesey Street, what at first looked like a burning flying saucer dropped with a massive clanging sound, smashing a deep crater, then bounced, shedding parts of its covering and innards, spraying out flames. When it finally lay still it continued to burn fiercely.

To his utter numb horror, Ronnie realized that it was a jet aircraft engine.

That this was the South Tower.

Donald Hatcook’s office was here. The eighty-seventh floor. He tried to count upwards.

Two planes.

Donald’s office. By his quick estimate, Donald’s office was right where it hit.

What the hell is happening? Oh, Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on?

He stared at the burning engine. Could feel the heat. Saw the cops run forward from their car.

Ronnie’s brain was telling him there wasn’t going to be any meeting. But he tried to ignore it. His brain was wrong. His eyes were wrong. Somehow he would still make that meeting. He needed to keep going. Keep going. You can make the meeting. You can still make the meeting. YOU NEED THAT FUCKING MEETING!

And another part of his brain was telling him that while one plane hitting the Twin Towers was an accident, two was something else. Two was badly not right.

Propelled by absolute desperation, he gripped his bag handle and walked forward determinedly.

Seconds later he heard a dull thud, like a sack of potatoes falling. He felt a wet slap on his face. Then he saw something white and ragged roll across the ground towards him and stop inches from his feet. It was a human arm. Something wet was sliding down his cheek. He shot his hand up to his face and his fingers touched liquid. He looked at them and saw they were smeared in blood.

His stomach heaved liked wet cement in a mixer. He turned away and threw up his breakfast where he stood, almost oblivious to another thud only a few feet away. Sirens wailed, sirens from the pit of hell. Sirens from all around. Everywhere. Then another thud, another spatter on his face and hands.

He looked up. Flames and smoke and ant-like figures and sheet glass and a man, in shirtsleeves and trousers, tumbling in free fall from the sky. One shoe came away, flipping over and over. He watched it all the way down, end-over-end-over-end-over-end. People the size of toy soldiers and debris, indistinguishable from each other at first, were raining from the sky.

He just stood and stared. A set of postage stamps he had once traded, commemorating the Dutch painter Bosch’s vision of death and hell, came into his mind. That’s what this was. Hell.

The foul choking air was thick with noise now. Screams, sirens, cries, the overhead chop of helicopter blades. Police and fire officers were running towards the buildings. A fire truck bearing the words ‘Ladder 12’ pulled up in front of him, blocking his view. He moved around the far side of it as helmeted firemen poured out and broke into a run.

There was another thud. Ronnie saw a plump man in a suit land on his back and explode.

He threw up again, swaying giddily, then dropped to one knee, covering his face with his hands, and stayed there for some moments, shaking. He closed his eyes, as if somehow that would make everything go away. Then he turned in a sudden panic that someone had taken his bag and his briefcase. But they were there, right behind him. His smart fake Louis Vuitton briefcase. Not that anyone was going to care at this moment who the hell had made it. Or whether it was fake or real.

After some minutes, Ronnie pulled himself together and stood up. He spat several times, trying to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth. Then a flash of anger turned in seconds to a burning rage inside him. Why today? Why not some other fucking day? Why did this have to happen today?

He saw a stream of people, some of them covered in white dust, some bleeding, walking slowly, as if in a trance, out of the entrance of the North Tower. Then he heard the distant honk-honk-honk of another fire engine. Then another. And another. Someone in front of him was holding a video camera.

News, he thought. Television. Stupid bloody Lorraine would be panicking if she saw this. She panicked over everything. If there was a pile-up on a motorway she would instantly call to make sure he was all right, even when she must have known, if she’d only thought about it, that he couldn’t have been within a hundred miles of it.

He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and dialled her number. There was a sharp beep, then the message on the display:

Network busy.

He tried again, twice more, then put the phone back in his pocket.

He would come to realize just a little while later, when he reflected on it, how lucky he was that his call did not get through.