The Tower

by Richard Martin Stern

  The senator hesitated. A waiter passed and the senator stopped him. “Take this stuff,” he said, “and let me have some honest whiskey.” He set the champagne glass on the tray. “I never can hold my pinky right for champagne drinking,” he said.

  The governor said, “What’s really on your mind, Jake?”

  The senator hesitated again. “There’s Cary Wycoff, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, concerned about mankind’s ills, which is fine. I told him we had today the means to cure them.” His sudden gesture took in the room, the people, the bar and the circulating waiters and waitresses, the talk and the laughter, and, quiet accompaniment, piped-in music playing through concealed speakers above the air-conditioning’s soft hum. “This is what we use our means for, a building to make a few people a lot of money. Or for a war, weapons to kill more people.”

  “I recommend two Alka-Seltzer,” the governor said.

  The senator smiled faintly. “I deserve that, Bent. I admit it. But I can’t shake it. ‘And doomed to death, though fated not to die.’ In school I never knew what Dryden meant by that. Today I think I do.”

  “Maybe two Alka-Seltzer and a Di-Gel,” the governor said. “You’ve got to break up those gas bubbles.”

  The senator was not to be distracted. “What you were saying to Bob Ramsay today,” he said to the governor. “You probably have a point. Look.” He gestured this time at the broad expanse of windows, looking out and down on lesser but still giant buildings in the foreground, the gleaming water of the river and upper harbor, the land of the far shore drifting off into industrial haze, smog.

  The governor said, unsmiling now, “It’s a mess, isn’t it?”

  “It is time we handed over, Bent,” the senator said.

  The governor’s chin came up. “To young Cary Wycoff? To the paraders and protesters, those who are only against, never for ?” The governor shook his head. He was looking again at the countryside spread before them, the rich, innovative, powerful, plundered countryside. “We’ve messed it up,” he said. “I won’t deny it. But in messing it up, we still have constructed something strong, durable, something around which we’ve built a nation.” He smiled suddenly at Beth. “Do I sound like a politician? Don’t answer that. I am.”

  “I’ll vote for you,” the senator said. He was smiling. “Good solid campaign oratory, Bent.”

  And Beth said in protest, “But I think the governor means it.”

  Jake Peters nodded. “He does. We all do, my dear. At least most of us. And there is the tragedy: the gap between belief—conviction—and performance.” He looked around. “Where is that waiter with my whiskey? I’ll go find him.”

  The governor and Beth stood quiet, together, and it was again as if a curtain had been drawn, shutting them off from the rest of the reception guests. Both recognized the illusion, neither questioned it.

  “I was married once,” the governor said. It seemed a perfectly natural thing to say. “A long time ago.”

  “I know.”

  The governor’s eyebrows rose. “How do you know, Beth Shirley?”

  “Your Who’s Who entry. Her name was Pamela Brown and she died in nineteen fifty. You have a married daughter, Jane, who lives in Denver. She was born in nineteen forty-six—”

  “Which,” the governor said, “can’t have been much after your birthdate.”

  “Is that a question?” Beth was smiling. “I was born ten years earlier.” She paused. “And you won’t find me in Who’s Who, so I’ll tell you that I was married once too. It was a disaster. I was warned, but warnings are usually worse than useless, aren’t they? I think more times than not they produce the opposite effect. I married John at least partly because I had been warned, and I got what they had told me I would—a thirty-five-year-old son instead of a husband.”

  “I’m sorry,” the governor said. He smiled suddenly. “Or maybe I’m not. I like it the way it is, your standing here talking to me.” He saw Grover Frazee making his way through the guests, an unconvincing smile on his face. “Brace yourself,” the governor said quietly. “We are about to be interrupted, damn it.” Then, “Hello, Grover.”

  Frazee said, “I want to talk to you, Bent”

  “You are talking to me.” The governor’s voice was unenthusiastic. “Miss Shirley, Mr. Frazee. Grover’s is the steel-trap mind behind the World Tower project.”

  “I’m serious,” Frazee said. “We have a problem.” He looked hesitantly at Beth. “I’d rather—”

  “I’ll leave,” Beth said.

  The governor caught her arm. “You will not. I’ll never find you again.” He looked at Frazee. “What’s the problem? Spit it out, Grover. Stop mumbling.”

  Frazee hesitated. He said at last, “We have a fire. Somewhere on one of the lower floors. Oh, it isn’t much, but there’s a little smoke in the air-conditioning and Bob Ramsay and the fire commissioner are on the phone about it, so I’m sure it will be cleared up in no time.”

  “Then,” the governor said slowly, “why tell me, Grover?”

  Ben Caldwell walked up, small, almost dainty, precise. His face was expressionless. “I heard the question,” he said. He spoke directly to the governor. “Grover is jumpy. He knows that there may have been certain irregularities in the building’s construction. He is worried.”

  “And,” the governor said, “you’re not?”

  The governor is a commander, Beth thought, watching, listening silently. He wastes no time in nonessentials; his questions probe.

  Ben Caldwell said, “I don’t make up my mind on insufficient evidence, but I am not worried, and I see no cause for worry. I know the design of this building, and a small fire—” He shrugged.

  The governor looked at Frazee. “You want your hand held while you’re told what to do? Very well. Take the fire commissioner’s judgment, and if he thinks it is prudent to get this room evacuated promptly, then, by God, see to it, no matter what kind of press—”

  It was then, without warning, with, some said later, an almost convulsive shudder of the entire great building, that the lights went out, the softly humming air-conditioning stopped, the music was silenced, and all conversation was stilled. Somewhere in the room a woman screamed.

  The time was 4:23.

  11

  The fire sending the smoke into the air-conditioning ducts was small, and in the normal course of events ought to have been quickly and automatically extinguished.

  It was in Suite 452, fourth floor, southeast corridor. The suite, already rented, was in the process of being decorated. Messrs. Zimmer and Schloss, the interior designers, did not believe in latex paint. There was something almost indecent in the ease with which a painter could clean his brushes in nothing more than soap and water. And the colors simply did not sing!

  Suite 452, then, was being decorated with traditional oil-base paint. Gallon cans of paint thinner were on the floor in the center of the inner room beneath a plywood board resting on two sawhorses which the painters used as a table.

  Oily rags igniting in spontaneous combustion were later believed to have started the blaze. A gallon of paint thinner apparently exploded from the heat and threw burning liquid in all directions.

  The overhead sprinklers came on, but the plywood board protected the heart of the fire for a time while it gathered strength; and in any event water does not easily contain a fire of paint thinner, which like flaming gasoline merely spreads on the water and continues to burn. But without the protection of the plywood it is probable that the first tiny flames would have been smothered.

  A warning light showed on the computer-control panel in the bowels of the building, but there was no one to see it.

  The air-conditioning ducts in Suite 452 continued to bring in a fresh supply of air to provide oxygen for the flames.

  New paint on the walls caught fire. More paint thinner cans exploded from increasing heat.

  The air-conditioning stepped up its efforts to control the temperature, thereby bringing in more oxygen. Smok
e began to seep through the entire system and at length reached the Tower Room ducting.

  But even at this point there was no real danger or even major problem.

  Primary systems went into almost immediate operation; backup systems stood by against their need.

  Automatic alarms sounded in the firehouse only two blocks away. Within less than three minutes two fire trucks were on the scene, working their way through thinning crowds in the plaza.

  Promptly the crowds began to gather again, hampering the firemen’s work. Police, Shannon and Barnes among them, moved the crowds behind the still-standing barricades. A kind of order was restored.

  High up on the building’s gleaming side a plume of smoke appeared, dark and ugly against the sky. Strangers in the crowd pointed it out to one another, not infrequently with glee; there is a kind of joy in discovering that the high and the mighty have their problems too.

  On the television screen in Charlie’s Bar, the camera had begun the incredibly long climb up the building’s face, floor after floor, the whole foreshortening as the angle steepened.

  “Beautiful damn thing,” Giddings said. “I hate to admit it to you, but it is. And we’ll find out tomorrow about those goddamned change authorizations, run them down, get things straight. I’ve talked with Bert McGraw and he says he’ll do whatever, and what Bert says, Bert does.” He was feeling almost friendly now. “You’re a prickly bastard sometimes, Nat Wilson, but I’ll have to say, even if you do get funny ideas, that by and large you know your trade. You—”

  Giddings stopped suddenly. His eyes were still on the TV screen. The camera now had reached the tower. It paused there, shiny structure plain, blue, blue sky the backdrop.

  Giddings said in a voice that was not quite steady, “What’s that little plume of smoke? Just there. Below the tower.”

  “I see it,” Nat said. He stared.

  “Air-conditioning exhaust,” Giddings said. “Somewhere there’s smoke inside, and that means—Where do you think you’re going?”

  Nat was halfway out of the booth. Giddings grabbed a fistful of Nat’s jacket and held it tight. “You son of a bitch,” Giddings said. His voice was low now. “You knew too much. All along, you—”

  Nat broke the big man’s grasp with astonishing ease. He slid out of the booth and stood up. “I’m going to the job,” he said. “Are you coming or are you going to sit there on your fat ass?”

  In the center of the plaza a battalion chief with a white hat directed operations through a bullhorn. Hoses snaked across the pavement. Water was beginning to gather in puddles on the concourse floor.

  At the barricade, “Nobody allowed through,” Patrolman Shannon said. And then, “Well, what do you know? It’s you again.”

  “Just get the hell out of the way,” Giddings said, and started forward.

  Patrolman Frank Barnes appeared, his dark face solemn. “Easy, Mike,” he said to Shannon. And then to Giddings and Nat, “Orders. I am sorry.”

  And here came a new siren sound wailing up the street, a black limousine, red light flashing. Assistant Fire Commissioner Brown was out of the car before it stopped. He was hatless and his red hair flamed. He walked with the awkward stride of a long-legged animal; a stork came to mind, an angry stork. He stopped in front of Nat.

  “Were you just guessing or did you know this was going to happen?”

  It was a question that was going to be asked again and again, Nat thought, and knew no way to stop it. “Does it matter now?” he said. “You’ve got a fire and we’re here to do what we can.”

  “Which is exactly what?”

  “I don’t know, but between us we know this building better than anyone who isn’t inside it.” He was thinking of Ben Caldwell, of course, and Bert McGraw. But they were top echelon. He and Giddings were the men on the job with the intimate knowledge only day after day and month after month of living with the structure could provide. “And,” he said, “maybe better than they do at that.”

  “All right,” Brown said. “Come on, but stay out of the way.”

  Shannon opened his mouth to protest. Frank Barnes held him silent with a gesture. “Good luck,” Barnes said. He paused. “I mean that.”

  Brown walked straight to the white-hatted battalion chief in the center of the plaza. “What’s the story?”

  “We haven’t found where it started yet. Third floor, fourth floor.” The chief shrugged. “It had a start, just the hell of a start, too much of a start.”

  Giddings said, “Sprinklers?”

  The chief looked at him carefully. “Sprinklers,” he said, and he nodded. “They help. Most fires that start they contain. This one they didn’t.”

  “And that,” Nat said, “means what?”

  “I wouldn’t know what it means,” the chief said. “When it’s all over, I hope, we may be able to find out. Sprinklers just make some fires worse. Potassium, sodium, electrical fires, gasoline fires—water can be bad.”

  Nat said slowly, “Potassium, sodium—that means a bomb?”

  “Possibly.” The chief raised his bullhorn. “More hose! Move it in!” He lowered the bullhorn. “The smoke’s heavy and that could mean anything too.”

  Giddings said, “You said electrical fire was a possibility too.” He looked at Nat.

  “God knows,” Nat said. “Third floor, fourth floor—” He shook his head. “They’re not mechanical floors.” He was silent.

  Brown said, “The Commissioner’s up in the Tower Room. And the mayor.”

  “And,” Giddings said, “more other brass than you can count.”

  Brown ignored him. To the chief, “Shall we bring them down? There’s a phone. And just two of those express elevators will do it.”

  “It’s a hell of a walk,” Giddings said, “in case you’re thinking of getting them down any other way. That building core where the elevators are is safe as anything can be.”

  They felt, then, rather than heard the sudden explosion almost beneath their feet. Sound, dull and distant, came a moment later, like a closet door closing hollowly with enormous force. The puddles of water on the concourse floor rippled gently. The interior lights were suddenly dead.

  Giddings said softly, “Jesus!”

  Brown looked at Nat. “That means what?”

  Nat closed his eyes. He opened them again and shook his head to clear away the cobwebs of shock. He said slowly, “The guts of the building are down there, everything that drives it and makes it live.”

  “Down in those subbasements,” the battalion chief said, “is where the primary power comes in, right?”

  Nat nodded.

  Giddings said again, “Jesus!”

  “Right from the substation,” the battalion chief said. “At eight, ten thousand volts.” He raised the bullhorn and sent men scurrying down into the bowels of the building.

  “Thirteen thousand eight hundred, to be precise,” Nat said. “And I’m not an electrical engineer, but if somebody-monkeyed with those big transformers, oh my God!” He was silent, motionless, staring into the concourse. “Come on,” he said softly, “come on!”

  Brown was frowning. “Come on who, what?”

  “Standby generators,” Giddings said. “If they function, we’ll at least have power for the elevators.”

  Brown said quietly, “And if they don’t?”

  “Then,” Nat said, “you’ve got a Tower Room filled with important people a hundred and twenty-five floors above a fire. And if it gets out of control—”

  “It won’t,” the battalion chief said.

  “It will.” Giddings was looking at Nat. “What are you thinking?”

  “That was an explosion,” Nat said. “Bomb? Maybe. But what about an enormous short in a primary circuit? You’ve heard a hundred-and-ten-volt light fixture short out?”

  There was silence. Giddings said, “Go on, goddammit, what are you thinking?”

  “I told you I wasn’t an electrical engineer,” Nat said, “but, damn it, what about an overload
because of a short? How long does it take with that kind of power to overheat wiring—particularly if it’s substandard wiring?”

  The battalion chief said, “Substandard?” He looked from one man to another.

  “We don’t know,” Nat said. His voice was quiet, almost resigned. “I haven’t heard a standby generator starting up. Maybe we wouldn’t.”

  “And maybe we would too, and it hasn’t functioned,” Giddings said. “Maybe it was damaged too. Computer control should have—”

  “Should have, shouldn’t have,” Nat said. He was thinking of Ben Caldwell’s comment. “The words have no meaning.”

  A fireman came stumbling out of the nearest concourse door, vomiting. Once in the open air he stopped and stood wearily, bent almost double, retching helplessly. He saw the battalion chief, and he straightened up and wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. “Bad down there.” The words were almost incoherent. “The whole—like a ship’s engine room—burning.” He paused for another retching spasm. Black vomit dribbled down his chin. “We found one man,” he said. “Fried like bacon.” He paused. “And at what looks like a computer panel there’s another one—dead.”

  An ambulance attendant led the fireman away.

  Brown was looking at Nat. “What about that substandard wiring and a big short-circuit overheating it?”

  “What he means,” the battalion chief said, “is that instead of a fire in the subbasement and another on the above-grade floors that we know about, we may have a hundred potential fires from buried wiring that burst its insulation when an overload hit.” He was looking at the building’s gigantic face in awe.

  “It couldn’t happen,” Brown said.

  The battalion chief looked at him. “Yeah,” the chief said. “I know. None of this could happen.” He paused. He said slowly, “But maybe, just maybe, it has.”

  Brown looked again at Nat. His question was wordless, but plain.

  “What do we do now?” Nat said. “We try to figure out what’s happened. We toss ideas to Joe Lewis the electrical engineer and he does with them what he can. We try to figure out some way to get those people down even if they have to come down on their asses because their legs won’t hold out. You people keep doing what you can, and we’ll try to think.” He spread his hands. “What else is there to do?”