The chopper pilot said, “We’ll give it a try.” He shrugged. “How close I can get, I don’t know. You get anywhere near these goddam tall buildings, and the wind—” He shook his head. “It blows in every direction at once, you know what I mean?”
The chief’s face was expressionless.
“Look,” the chopper pilot said, “I don’t mean to make a big thing out of it, but if we bang into that building, it isn’t going to do anybody any good, is it?”
The chief’s head moved a fraction of an inch in acknowledgment of the point. His expression did not change.
“You know about Hell Gate?” the pilot said. “Water from the Sound coming in, meeting the Harlem River, those whirlpools, crisscross currents?”
“I know Hell Gate,” the chief said. He had seen small craft completely out of control in Hell Gate waters, powerless to maneuver against the force of the currents, slammed against bridge pilings, against walls.
“Same thing in the winds around these big goddam buildings,” the pilot said. He paused. “All I’m saying is that we’ll give it a try, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Okay,” the chief said. “Kronski, get into that thing.”
“Thanks a lot,” Kronski said.
Nat stood in the doorway of the trailer, looking up. Nothing yet. Waiting was the hard part—now who had said that? But it was true, and he had never realized it before. You have an idea and you set it in motion, and then you wait, and hope, because there is nothing else to do.
“It will work,” Patty said. She smiled. “It has to.”
28
6:24P.M.-6:41P.M.
With the windows broken out it was perceptibly cooler in the Tower Room, although, as some noticed with mounting alarm, the flow of smoke from the air-conditioning ducts was also increasing.
“Cause and effect, probably,” Ben Caldwell explained again. “As long as this was a more or less sealed chamber, the flow of smoke, or air, through the ducts was limited. Now with the broken-out windows acting as vents—” He spread his hands and shrugged.
Henry Timms, the network president, said, “Then we shouldn’t have allowed the windows to be broken.” His voice was assured, decisive, and critical. “There was obviously little chance that a line could be shot here.”
Caldwell said merely, “It isn’t entirely black-and-white,” and turned away.
He was an architect, a designer, and in his view life was rarely black-and-white. He detested even the word compromise, but he was also aware that the accommodations it spoke for were all that made most enterprises possible. The choice here had been between the chance that a line could be shot from the Trade Center tower and the certainty that more smoke would be brought in. As far as the decision was concerned, he was happy to leave it to others. He could not have cared less.
He supposed that a majority of people in the room still entertained some hope. He did not. He was used to facing tangible facts; attempting to avoid them was exercise in futility. How deep the eventual damage to the building’s structure was going to be he could not begin to estimate, but long before the damage was complete, everyone in this room was going to be dead. He had long ago resigned himself to that. And it no longer had the power to bother him because a large part of himself had already died.
This was his building, his vision, his soaring dream. And now it was ruined.
On whose shoulders lay the ultimate blame he had no idea. Nor did he particularly care. What difference whose hand had wielded the hammer that disfigured the Pietá? Oh, society might wish to take revenge, but nothing could restore the work of art.
In New York, in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Pittsburgh and a dozen lesser cities he had his monuments, and they would stand long after he was gone. But this building was—had been—his masterpiece, and it was now beyond redemption; visions, calculations, compromises, labor, love, all the blood, sweat, and tears of the process of achievement—for nothing.
When he stood in his office this morning, the pile of change orders lying on his desk, Nat Wilson summoned, had he felt then the first intimation of disaster? Hard to tell; hindsight was always suspect. No matter. The disaster was now taking shape.
Senator Peters walked up, wearing his crooked smile. “Deep in reverie,” he said. “Ideas?”
Caldwell shook his head. “Regrets only.”
“That sounds like an invitation to a party.”
Caldwell’s tight little smile was expressive. “For this party, I am afraid, there will be no regrets.”
“So I understand.” The senator paused. “It doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“Does it you?”
“You know,” the senator said, “I’ve been trying to find the answer to that for some time. I’m not sure.” He made a deprecatory gesture. “Oh, I don’t mean that I’m above any fear of death. I’m not. What I do mean is something entirely different.”
“Such as?” Despite himself, Caldwell was interested. “Some kind of faith?”
The senator smiled. “Not in any established sense. I have always been a heathen. No”—he shook his head—“it’s part, I suppose, of a lifetime of learning that some things can’t be avoided, some battles can’t be won, some decisions have to be accepted—”
“In a word,” Caldwell said, “politics? The art of the possible?”
The senator nodded. “We’re shaped by what we do.” He smiled. “Bent couldn’t shuck the habit of command if he tried. He’s like a veteran airplane pilot, uncomfortable when anybody else is at the controls.”
More and more interesting. “And Paul Norris?” Caldwell said. “Grover Frazee? How do you explain their behavior?”
The senator smiled. “I’ll tell you a story about Paul Norris. At college he had a fine suite of rooms in Adams House. His bedroom window looked right out at the campanile of the Catholic church. Some of us had an idea and Paul went along. We mounted an air rifle on the window sill in a steady rest aimed at the bell tower. At midnight when the church bell struck twelve, we pulled the trigger and the bell struck thirteen.”
Caldwell was smiling now, nodding, in this moment taken back forty years to youthful fervor. “Go on.”
“We did it again the second night,” the senator said. “A couple of Catholics who lived in Adams House attended Mass and reported that the good fathers were understandably puzzled, even mildly upset. There was talk of a miracle.” The senator paused. “The third night the bishop came over from Boston to listen for himself. We didn’t disappoint him. The clock struck thirteen. Then we dismantled the steady rest and took the air rifle away.”
Caldwell, smiling still, said, “But what about Paul Norris?”
The senator shook his head. “He wanted to keep it up. Night after night. He couldn’t see that it was best left right there—a mystery. Among other unpleasant things about Paul, he was stupid, and I don’t like to waste time arguing with stupid people.” He paused again. “Although, God knows, a politician can’t ever hope to avoid it.”
Caldwell said, “You said part of your—acceptance was that some things couldn’t be avoided, some decisions had to be accepted. What other parts?”
“I suppose,” the senator said slowly, “that I have a sniggly feeling it’s all for the best. Don’t ask me how, because I can’t give even a rational theory.” He paused. “Do you recall,” he said, “that in Athens, when things went wrong, the king had to die? Theseus’s father threw himself off the cliff because the black sails on Theseus’s ship indicated that things had gone wrong.” His smile was apologetic. “Maybe we’re a mass sacrifice? Ridiculous idea, isn’t it?”
“To atone for what?”
The senator’s smile faded, disappeared. “You do keep your nose to the grindstone, don’t you?”
“If you mean,” Caldwell said sharply, “the world’s troubles, the troubles in this country, poverty, bigotry, that kind of thing—what have they to do with us? I’m not responsible for them in any way.”
“A comfortable
view.”
Caldwell’s gesture took in the entire room. “I’m not even responsible for these people’s troubles. I just happen to share them.”
The senator was silent.
“If you’re thinking,” Caldwell said, “that because I designed this building I am responsible for its failures, I deny that. The design was, and is, sound. I don’t know all that has happened to produce this end result, but it is not my design that is to blame.”
“I think your reputation is secure,” the senator said, “and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?”
Caldwell studied the senator’s face for mockery. He found none. He relaxed a trifle.
“You asked me,” the senator said, “how to explain Grover Frazee’s behavior. I think I can in one word: panic.” He too looked around the room.
In the far corner the heavy rock beat once more blared from the transistor radio. The almost-naked girl gyrated endlessly. Her eyes were closed, her movements erotically explicit; the world was shut out.
In another corner a mixed group was joined in song. The senator listened carefully.
“‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’” he said, “or ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’ With my tin ear I can’t tell which.”
By the bar the three religious leaders who had participated in the ceremonies in the plaza conferred: the rabbi, the Catholic priest, and the Protestant minister.
“I can think of a good subject for prayer,” the senator said. “It would have to do with deliverance from a fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar would have dug this scene, wouldn’t you say?”
Caldwell said suddenly, “All right. I will have to admit that I share the responsibility. It is not all mine, but I share it.”
The senator stifled a smile. “It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” His voice was gentle.
“It does to me.”
“Ah,” the senator said then, “that’s a different story.”
“There is nothing fallacious in the design.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Execution. There is where the trouble begins. When you turn the actual work over to others, you have lost control.”
“It’s a hell of a feeling, isn’t it,” the senator said, “when you have to turn over to somebody else something you’ve sweated over?”
There was a long silence. “In your own way,” Caldwell said slowly, “you are a wise man. And compassionate. You make me feel better, cleaner. Thank you.” He started to turn away.
“Which group?” the senator said. He no longer stifled his smile. “Dancing, song, or prayer?”
Some of the perceptible tension went out of Caldwell’s narrow shoulders. He half-turned and his smile was easy. “I may sample them all.”
“Good for you,” the senator said.
He walked slowly toward the office, alone. “And now, physician,” he said almost whispering, “heal thyself.”
The governor was coming out of the office. His expression was inscrutable. “Come along, Jake,” he said. “We’ve got good news, I hope.” He paused. “But if this try fails too, then I think we are really going to have panic. We may anyway.” He paused again. “The traditional rush for the lifeboats or the exit.”
The governor found a chair and climbed upon it. He raised his voice. “I promised news if and when there was any. Now I want your attention.”
The singing died away. Someone turned down the transistor radio’s volume. The room was hushed.
“We are going to try again to get a line into this room,” the governor said. “This time—”
“More crap!” Cary Wycoff’s voice shrill with anger, tinged with terror. “Another sugar pill to keep us quiet!”
“This time,” the governor said, and his voice carried through Cary’s, “they are going to try to shoot the line in from a helicopter.” He paused. “I want this entire side of the room cleared so nobody will be hurt if the shot is successful.” He beckoned the fire commissioner. “Have two or three men standing by to pounce on the line when it comes through the windows. Then—”
“When?” Cary shouted. “You mean if! And you know goddam good and well that it isn’t going to happen.” The words were almost running together now. “All along you’ve kept things from us, made your own decisions, your own little deals—” He took a deep shuddering breath. “We’re stuck here! Right from the start it’s been a fuckup! Rotten clear through, the whole city government!”
From the crowd behind Cary Wycoff there was a low, angry murmur.
“Easy, Cary,” Bob Ramsay said. He shouldered his way through the crowd to tower over Wycoff. “Easy, I say. Everything has been done that could be, and now this—”
“Shit! Give the voters that crap, don’t give it to us. We’re here to—die, man! And who’s responsible? That’s what I want to know. WHO?”
“I’m afraid we all killed Grandma.” Senator Peters’s voice raised enough for attention. He faced Wycoff and took his time. “Ever since I’ve known you, Cary, you’ve had more questions than a tenement has rats. But damned few answers, only reactions. Have you wet your pants yet? You’ve made every other infantile move.”
Cary took a deep breath. “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Give me one reason why not.” The senator was smiling. It was not a pleasant smile. “By your standards, I’m an old man, but don’t let that bother you if it’s violence you’re thinking of. In the neighborhood I grew up in a ten-year-old kid would eat you for breakfast.”
Cary was silent, indecisive.
“All of you,” the senator said, “simmer down. The man is trying to tell you what to do. Now, goddammit, listen!”
Suddenly the governor was smiling. “I’ve said it all,” he said. He pointed. “Look!”
They all turned. A helicopter was swinging toward the bank of broken-out windows, its staccato engine sound growing louder by the moment.
Inside the chopper: a man, Kronski thought, could spend a lifetime in one of these contraptions and never get his sea legs. Boats, even small boats in heavy seas, move with some kind of rhythm. All this chopper did was buck and jump, and how in hell the chief thought he could even hit the building, let alone the windows, he didn’t know.
His stomach was bucking and jumping too, and he swallowed hard, swallowed again, and breathed deep in the cold air.
He could see faces now inside the Tower Room. They stared at the chopper as at a vision.
The pilot looked at Kronski. There was question in his eyes.
“Closer!” Kronski roared. “Closer, goddammit!” He bloody well wanted only one shot, he told himself, and then back to solid ground, or at least the solidity of that Trade Center roof.
The pilot nodded shortly. He moved his control stick as if it were a fragile thing that might suddenly break loose in his hand.
The building moved toward them. The faces inside were plainer. The bucking and jumping increased.
“Close as I’ll go!” the pilot said. “Shoot from here!”
Inside the room people were on the move now, scurrying to one side of the room. A large man—it was the fire commissioner—was waving his arms to hurry them on.
Kronski raised his gun and tried to take a sight. One moment he was looking at the gleaming mast of the building, and the next moment what he saw was a row of intact windows below the Tower Room. The silliest goddam business he had ever engaged in. He raised his voice in a great shout: “Can you, for Christ’s sake, hold this thing still?”
From inside the room they could see Kronski’s strained face, and the gun he held, pointed, fired.
Against the chopper’s bellowing clatter the sound of the shot was inaudible, but the fragile line itself was tangible for all to see. It shot twisting into the room, crashed against the far wall, collapsed in a writhing tangle on the floor.
The fire commissioner and three waiters pounced on the line and held it tight.
The helicopter lurched quickly away, paying out line as it went.
29
6:41P.M.-7:02P.M.
Patrolman Shannon, four stitches in his cheek beneath a fresh white bandage, was back at the barricade with Barnes. “You read about things like this,” Shannon said. “But did you ever think you’d see it?”
His gesture took in the plaza, the hoses and scurrying firemen, the smoke pouring out of broken windows on the building’s face, the plume of smoke near the tower’s top, and now high up the hovering helicopter, tiny against the immensity of the buildings.
“An Irish ghoul,” Barnes said. There was no rancor in his voice.
“There is,” Shannon said, “nothing like a good fire. Nothing.” He paused. “Oh, I know, Frank, I’m sounding like the bloodthirsty man I am not, but it is true. Why do people gather to watch? Because of the excitement of the great leaping flames, a foretaste of Hell itself.”
“How are you,” Barnes said, “on a good juicy traffic accident? Bodies strewn around? Gore?”
“Oh, now, Frank, it is not the same at all. The one is man’s little foolishness. The other, this, is something—grand! Look there. Flames showing halfway up the monster structure! Do you see?”
“I see,” Barnes said. He paused. “And all I can think of is Gotterdammerung.”
“Put that into English, you black rascal.”
“Valhalla burning,” Barnes said. “The home of the gods burning to the ground.”
Shannon was silent for a few moments, still staring upward. “It’s blasphemous,” he said, “but I think I like it.”
The telephone hooked on his shoulder and the walkie-talkie on the desk directly in front of him, “So far, so good,” Nat said to the trailer in general. “They’ve made the messenger line fast inside the Tower Room. The chopper pilot is working back toward the Trade Center roof.”
Tim Brown said, “God be praised!” He took out the half-empty cigarette package, looked at it, and in sudden decision threw the entire thing into the wastebasket. “I’ll never have a better reason for quitting,” he said.
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