Embers

by Carina Alyce

  "Do I seem like the type of person who would steal a fire truck?"

  "Yes, you seem to be exactly the person who would steal a fire truck,” Hank said.

  "Does your heavy equipment operator license also include fire trucks?"

  "I'm not stealing a fire truck," Hank said, hoping she wouldn't ask.

  Before he could say anything else, Abby was chatting up the first firefighter out of the 7-11.

  Hank, with wary expectation, watched the fortyish man go from surprised to crestfallen to charmed. Yet another poor guy who couldn't resist her. No wonder she was sure she could talk her way out of any ticket.

  "Great news," she said. "We've got a ride. I need you as pack mule. We're going to move everything—the water, the beef jerky, the chips, the masks, and our bags – into the fire truck.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Going to the bathroom. They've been peeing in water bottles. Not sure I'm ready for that."

  Ten minutes later, they left her car parked in the Ames parking lot and rode off in the firetruck. They sat in the back with Zack and Albert, while Clifford and Samuel took the front. The firefighters were more than solicitous to give Abby and Hank their own sets of earphones. The headphones protected them from the endless rumble of the firetruck but also allowed communication through the radio.

  Based on the ongoing chat between Abby and the firefighters, she wasn't pretending to be a member of the Cleveland Fire Department. Instead, she presented herself as Hank's procurement secretary. She embraced his suggestion to be part of his company and played the part to the hilt.

  The firefighters were eager to talk with her. Hank estimated they'd been driving since Tuesday, shortly after the Towers fell. Firetrucks couldn't have gotten good mileage. By his guess, a firetruck’s seventy-five-gallon tank used diesel at a rate of five or six miles per gallon, same as his heavy trailers and dump trucks. It would make for a long, slow drive from Medora, North Dakota—at least 1500 miles and over thirty hours with stops every five hours.

  The guys sounded tired of talking to each other, but as usual, Abby had a solution. Six rousing games of Twenty Questions/Animal-Mineral-Vegetable later, Hank caught on to her strategy. First, Abby didn't give Cliff any grief when he used saber-tooth tiger as his animal, nor did she complain when he erroneously said it wasn't extinct. Second, she let him talk between questions because it let her steal their lingo.

  The firetruck became a 'rig.' Hoses became 'pipes' and 'lines.' Their engine equipped with haz-mat gear was the 'Mop and Glow.' By the time they reached the Holland Tunnel checkpoint, these men treated Abby as a teammate.

  Dump trucks blocked eight of the nine toll booths, and a bunch of uniforms Hank couldn't quite make out stopped them. He got a glimpse of an M-16 assault rifle.

  Across from him, Albert bundled Abby into a firefighter turnout jacket and a helmet. They passed Hank the same, and he put it on. They were now members of Medora North Dakota Fire.

  The side door opened, and he saw police and national guard members give them a once-over. Even Abby remained completely silent, the helmet and jacket rendering her relatively shapeless.

  The door was closed, and the fire truck began moving again. They passed three more checkpoints and rolled forward and downward into the tunnel going under the Hudson River. The Holland went from Weehawken and ended in lower Manhattan, only blocks from what was now called Ground Zero. From his position, Hank did not see the smoke that was present on TV. It had also rained earlier, so perhaps it had died down some.

  Sound cut off as they entered as the sole traveler in the empty tunnel.

  The mood inside the cab subtly changed. There was no more time for Twenty Questions.

  Chapter 7

  They came out on the other side to a ghost town covered in dust. The gathering twilight partially obscured the thick debris coating every car window, fire hydrant, and news stand.

  He heard through the radio, Cliff reviewing their directions. "Turn left and head up Canal Street, then right on West toward the Javits Center by 34th street and the Lincoln Tunnel. Lots of fire trucks there.”

  They turned left on the empty streets and had turned onto Hudson when Abby keyed on her radio. "You can drop us off here."

  The truck slowed down. "Are you sure?"

  "Yep, it's only the two of us."

  "I don't know," Cliff said.

  "Don't worry. We're going to do a site assessment and then report in. Please, " Abby's voice words were thick with emotion now. She’d decided on the drive that she wanted to go directly to the site and not what the radio reported to be a disorganized convention center.

  "All right," said Samuel, "but we'll keep an eye out for you. Okay, Miss Baker?"

  "Thank you," she said. She took off the helmet and turnouts. Samuel turned on their flashers long enough to let Abby and Hank get out their bags.

  With his first breath of air, Hank recoiled in horror. The dust wasn't limited to a coating on the surface of every solid object; it permeated the air. Fiberglass, jet fuel, silica, asbestos, steel, concrete, benzene, and Lord knew what else. He felt the urge to clear his throat, but it wouldn't matter.

  He snapped, "Get your mask on."

  She was already trying to clear her throat. "My mask?"

  "Anytime you're outdoors, you need to be wearing your mask. Every single time." He took one out of his duffel and saw her do the same. Hank helped fit the masks over their faces, tightening the two back straps. The masks were pretty heavy, bulky affairs with filters on either side, but it was immediately less irritating to breathe.

  "Better?" she asked, her voice distorted now and only her eyes visible.

  "Better," he said. He jerked his head south. "That way to the site. If we see an open bathroom, stop there first.

  "Bathrooms?"

  "Trust me, I know what I'm doing. I told you I would help you, but you got to listen to me, even if you want to talk my ear off. Remember, you're my secretary."

  "What's the name of our company?"

  "Finster Contracting."

  They did find port-a-potties, and then proceeded down the Hudson Street which connected to Broadway and then Greenwich. The dust got thicker and heavier, and they passed a few tents with more bathrooms. They followed a line of people in hard hats joining up, not marching but walking purposefully toward signs that read World Trade Center and The Pile.

  They came between two buildings and entered a space like nothing Hank had ever seen in twelve years of construction.

  There was a thing in the middle of what had been five blocks of space. This thing was over six stories of crushed metal and masonry. It had neither a top or a bottom or a side. There was no ending but no beginning. The closest comparison he could come up with was crushing an entire garbage can of aluminum cans, shredding office paper, and then pouring sand directly on it.

  No structure, no substance, only the ghost of what had been. This wasn't a garbage bin's worth. This had been two of the tallest buildings humans had ever endeavored to build.

  And now they were crushed and buried, taking with them an unknown number of firefighters, police officers, and civilians.

  Silhouetted by the giant floodlights, he could see motion. There were bucket brigades, moving the towers’ remains one by one. It was like an ant hill of thousands of people covered in dust, most of them without masks.

  He took a second to check on Abby. It was too dark to see her face at this angle, but her body language communicated her feelings. She was shocked.

  They needed to do something—anything.

  He focused them. “Follow me. We’ll stay on the perimeter to get our bearings and figure out a way to start.”

  They walked south around the east side’s imagined perimeter. They saw whole walls of paper tacked onto every available surface. Some were pictures of the planes’ black boxes—red boxes, and others repeated the words “1=quiet. 3=evac.” Beyond them were messages about missing persons. There were phone numbers, photos, and na
mes. Many of them were entire firefighting companies and their last known locations.

  Periodically, a large map was posted, orienting them to their relative location. The World Trade Center plaza had been a rough circle. World Trade 7 used to be at midnight before it collapsed. World Trade 6 at ten o’clock was almost obliterated. World Trade 5 at three o’clock was still standing – sort of. World Trade 4 at five o’clock was also unrecognizable.

  World Trade 1, the North Tower, had been at nine o’clock, and its sister South Tower, World Trade 2 at six o’clock had crushed everything around it. World Trade 3 at seven-thirty no longer existed because it had been obliterated by the two larger buildings' collapses—now known as The Pile.

  It was amazing they were able to bring cranes and grapplers this close. A large number of crushed fire trucks and cars blocked half the way, and the bucket brigade was filling flat beds and dump trucks. While nightmarish now, it could only be worse in the light of day. Strange-shaped lights provided illumination but not the detail.

  After a complete circle, at the corner of Church and Fulton, they came to an iron wrought fence and the first intact building he’d seen yet. It was a church with a yard in the back. The spire went up about three stories, but not one window was broken, despite the litter of debris on the fence and graveyard.

  Eventually, he decided a tree was responsible. A tree had taken a direct hit by a massive steel beam, uprooting it. As unlikely as it seemed, he couldn’t come up with another explanation.

  Abby pointed to a sign reading ‘Coffee. Food. Love’ and directed them around the building. “Why don't we try in here?”

  They followed the fence around to the gate. Passing the small entrance way, the church immediately opened up into a large, balconied sanctuary full of white pews. The back, however, was full of supplies, signs, and respite stations.

  The pews were mostly empty, except for a couple of rows of firefighters and workers sleeping in the lighted sanctuary. Another group was actively praying, and more volunteers were passing water and granola bars to people awake in the pews. Rescue workers were eating or resting in the large space in the back.

  Even better, he saw the white helmet of a FDNY battalion chief. He had a crew of six guys peeling off filthy turnout uniforms, leaning together.

  The chief noticed Hank was still in clean clothing. The battalion chief was unmasked and had dust covering his thinning hair down to his chin. “Nice mask. Who are you with?”

  “Finster Construction. Independent contractor. Arrived thirty minutes ago.” Hank lowered his mask to his chin. The air was better in here.

  “You know how to handle a blowtorch safely?” the chief asked, skipping preamble.

  “Yes, sir. Got safety glasses?”

  “Plenty outside. When my boys are done having a spell, could you do training with them?”

  Hank glanced at the men. “Absolutely, sir. Propane or butane?”

  “Propane. We got a few from a hardware place.”

  “Won’t be pretty. Propane isn’t great for steel. Small stuff, nothing big. You need a cutting torch and rig.”

  “Not possible where they’re going. It’s better than nothing, and I can’t stop them from trying. I’d rather they get a refresher course than take one of their arms off.”

  “Got it, sir,” Hank agreed.

  "I tried to send everyone home, but they won't leave. It's been sixty hours. You're not going to make them ironworkers, but it’s the best we’ve got,” the chief mumbled.

  “All anyone can do.”

  The chief noticed Abby who had removed her mask and was talking to one of his firefighters. “Is that your woman?”

  “As much as she can be,” Hank hedged.

  “Don't let her leave this church. It's not safe out there.”

  “How not safe?” Hank asked cautiously.

  “The fire is burning underground. Every time we shift another section of the building, it just bursts into flame. My men, they're ready for it. She won't be.”

  “I'll try.”

  The chief grabbed Hank's arm, his brown eyes haunted. “It's not just the fires. That's not just debris. It's people… parts… my people.”

  There was only one answer to someone who had watched thousands of people die in seconds. “I will.”

  When he turned back around, Abby was hugging one of the firefighters. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. The other five guys lined up behind him, each waiting for a hug. The chief came up to collect his men, and Abby hugged him as well. He was surprised but then gratefully sagged into it.

  "Thanks, man." One of the firefighters patted Hank on his shoulder. "I haven't seen my wife for days. Good of you to lend me yours."

  As Abby didn't rush to correct them, Hank figured he would go with it. "Abby, babe. I want you to stay inside. Help out here. I can't take a risk with you on the Pile at night."

  "But Hank—"

  "It's dangerous in the light and even more dangerous at night. We'll talk about it in the morning, honey.” Hank used one of his more forceful command voices. It kept high school roofers in line, and, fortunately, it had the same effect on Abby.

  His sentiments were echoed by the firefighters behind him. "Stay in here, ma'am, please. For your safety."

  "Fine, but tell me if you find Noah or Wills."

  "Will do." Hank said and refitted his mask. Abby turned to join a mixed group sorting supplies and aid stations in the entryway.

  “Who are Noah and Wills?” the chief asked.

  “Her brother and his best friend. They were on vacation in New York. We haven't heard from them.”

  The chief thought for a second. “They probably evacuated to a different borough.”

  "The brother's fire captain doesn't think so. Noah just finished his rookie year with Cleveland Fire. His captain said he'd probably stay and help. You seen a skinny White guy with blue eyes like hers and a chubby Black guy with an Afro?"

  "Superman and Satan could be working next to me and I wouldn't notice," the chief said.

  Outside the fence, the chief led his firefighters to a pile of safety goggles, hardhats, leather gloves, and propane blowtorches. He explained to his men that Hank was going to show them safety procedures for blowtorches.

  Hank had no shortage of practice materials. There was more than enough rebar and remains of steel beam. As he reviewed safety with the torch and its relatively low ability to cut through real steel, the firefighters had a whole set of chilling questions. Their intention was to take blowtorches into the void spaces underneath the Pile.

  "You want to go underneath?" Hank repeated.

  "Yeah," Firefighter Russell Taggert explained. "Hundreds of us are missing, maybe thousands. They had protective gear. If there are open voids, they could survive for weeks.”

  Hank looked at the Pile, and he thought about the warm ground underneath his feet. He hadn't been wrong about the crushed cans, other than underestimating the scale. Floor after floor after floor had pancaked downward. While the Pile appeared seventy feet high, it was actually stories deep as well because physics demanded that matter go somewhere. Even the 'ground' wasn't 'ground.' It was a shifting pile of cement precariously stacked on metal and fiberglass.

  "When's the last time they pulled somebody out alive?" Hank asked.

  “Yesterday around lunch, right, Lieu?” another man asked.

  “Yeah. If there’s one, there can be more,” Russell, who must have been their lieutenant and in his forties, said. “Time to tag back in. To the Pile, guys.”

  “Now?” Hank said, unsure if he’d heard that right.

  “Yeah, the next void space is ours,” Russell said.

  These men were serious. They'd been awake for sixty hours, and they were going to go inside a crushed building after fifteen minutes of re-education on blow torches.

  “I'll come with you,” Hank volunteered without thinking. He was fresh; they weren’t. The idea of entering a chasm of razor-sharp dangerous metal that could cut him to
shreds made him want to vomit, but if there were people alive down there…

  “Good.” Firefighter Katz smiled with his dirty face. They fitted Hank with a rappelling harness, a safety helmet, and a flashlight. That was bad news, because if the firefighters weren’t wearing their fire helmets or turnout gear, it implied they expected the spaces to be very tight.

  As they got closer to the Pile, Hank figured out what was odd about the lights. The lights they were using were completely outside of Hank's previous experience. They had a combination of stadium lights and TV filming lights. He'd had one person film a demolition with him, and the equipment scarcely resembled this.

  What the hell was he saying? Nothing resembled this. Any usable piece of equipment was put to work. If they could find the Bat signal, and it gave a good light, it would have been on the Pile.

  His new team lined up and presented themselves near one of the bucket brigades. It only took a couple of minutes before he heard one, short, shrill whistle.

  Everything stopped.

  That was what the sign had meant. One blast quiet, three blasts evacuate.

  “Got a space,” a firefighter on the Pile yelled. “Team going to check it out?”

  “We got this,” called out Russell. “Come on…”

  Hank suddenly remembered he hadn’t introduced himself. “Finster.”

  “Four of us. Me, Katz, Smith, and Finny here.”

  Hank was waved forward with his blowtorch, and the man next to him was armed with a green bottle of spray paint. They climbed up the hot metal, warmer than any ground should have been. The man with the paint drew an ‘X’ on their entry point.

  Doing what needed to be done, Hank followed Russell Taggert into the darkness below.

  Friday September 14, 2001

  New York City

  The Diary of the Chaplain at MetroGen

  Friday September 14, 2001

  You don't know the world ended until it happens, and you're in the aftermath.

  The World Trade Center wasn’t just two buildings. It was seven, four more office buildings and a hotel. Emphasis on ‘was.’ The hotel was obliterated because it was between the Towers, and one office building was 47 stories before it collapsed right before I arrived.