The Towers

by David Poyer

  He crawled out hacking, drooling black snot, collapsing against the outer wall and vomiting into a black puddle of oil-coruscating water. Others stood aside until he straightened, then led him back toward the corridor.

  He collapsed there for some minutes, trembling so hard it was close to convulsing, examining the blood dripping off his palms, which were black with soot and ash and fuel. He ought to feel something. Rage? Sorrow? But it wasn’t here yet. A headache pounded like barbarians slamming a ram into a castle gate. Someone held out a bottle of water and he poured it over his head, sluicing off soot, and drank the rest. It almost came back up, but he breathed slow and closed his eyes and kept it down.

  He kept coughing up black phlegm and spitting it onto the muddy tile. A smoky haze lay over the drive, above the heads of men bringing out more bodies. Now and then one would move or cry out. Medics bent over these and got them onto backboards, and others carried them off down the corridor. Two men were talking. They said the Twin Towers had collapsed. Dan thought that unlikely. Blair was there. But there was something odd about that because he wasn’t really sure who this “Blair” was. His brain seemed to be calling in long distance. The men said the Sears Tower in Chicago had been hit too. They said a truck full of explosives had gone off outside the State Department.

  Someone blocked in his light. Army, a light colonel. “We okay, Commander?”

  “Just getting my breath.”

  “Were you in there?” Pointing to the blown-out hole.

  “Just came out.”

  “Any more in there?”

  “If there are, we’re not going to get to them.”

  “How about this corridor? Is it clear?”

  Dan tried to concentrate. “Four. This is four. It’s clear a little ways. Up till the C ring, I think.”

  “Can you get into the spaces that are on fire?”

  “I don’t think so. Either the walls are blown out or the doors are buckled.”

  “How about on the second floor? That’s Army Personnel. Did they get out? Do you know?”

  That explained the bodies in army uniforms, and the woman who’d fallen through the hole in the ceiling. He said he didn’t, but they could go look. Where was the emergency response? But when he looked at his watch, only fifteen minutes had passed. It seemed like much longer. Still, there should be firemen. Police. When he stood, the corridor reeled. He steadied himself against the wall. Made himself take a step. Then a couple more.

  He and the colonel found a stairway and went up.

  On the second floor the smoke was even worse than it had been down below. The heat scorched Dan’s cheeks and forehead and he pulled his undershirt up over his mouth. They went down the corridor trying to get doors open, but all were either locked or jammed. The colonel pounded on the doors but no one responded. Dan took a knee, then went to all fours, gagging. His throat was closing up. His hands and legs kept cramping and a red thread was lacing itself across his visual field. He rubbed his face, but that only scrubbed in some kind of grit that was all over him.

  “You don’t look so good,” the colonel said. “Can you walk?”

  “Can’t breathe. May have to … have to pack it in.” He gagged again on something deep in his throat that didn’t belong there. He struggled to get air, then coughed until the red thread got larger, much larger, and somehow sucked him down into it.

  He must have passed out again. When he came to, he was still in the corridor, looking up at the ceiling tiles, being carried between two men. A smoky pall drifted between him and the ceiling. His skull was being compressed in a hydraulic vise, but much worse was the thing blocking his airway. He could only get a breath now and then and, in between, had to cough out thick, sticky mucus. He got out, “… going?”

  “Got to evacuate,” one of his bearers said without stopping. They were really humping along; the doors were flying past. He caught the number on one; they were almost to the A ring. “Another plane on the way.”

  “… ’nother?”

  “Four minutes out. Got to get you out of here.”

  The thought barely registered, as if there were so much horror in the day already any addition was high on an asymptotic curve. He marveled vaguely at how well someone must have planned, to strike the most powerful country on earth such savage and unexpected blows. He turned his head and gagged, then concentrated on getting the next breath. It didn’t come, that thing in his throat was blocking it, and he twisted and threw his arms out, panicking, as a black, rotating tunnel opened and sucked him down.

  * * *

  THEY must have carried him all the way out to the courtyard because the next time he came to, a brilliant blue sky lay looking flat just above his eyes, and dappled shadows of trees with smoke rising behind them. People were running and shouting all around. Another plane had hit Camp David, a woman called. Sirens ululated. Firemen jogged by. He stared up at the smoke. Terrified. Like trying to breathe through a pipe straw. The harder he tried, the tighter his throat closed.

  What he’d been trying to feel in the corridor came through just for a moment then. Find out who did this, and kill them all. But then his airway closed again, and he had to put everything into the battle for one more lungful. The thing in his throat was growing. Choking off his last bit of air.

  He passed out again, and when he came up this time, not only couldn’t he breathe, someone had forced the spigot of a gas pump into his mouth. It was rigid and sharp-edged, and they were jamming it down his throat, talking urgently in some foreign language. He fought them with his last strength, sobbing. The black came in again, sweeping him around the toilet bowl in tightening circles. Then a wasp stung his arm, and he tipped up on end, like a torpedoed ship sliding under, and went down for good.

  10:00 A.M., EST, ABOARD UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 93

  After taking control the four hijackers warn the passengers to stay in their seats. The young, clean–shaven men inform them there’s a bomb aboard. They’re returning to Newark, where they’ll present their demands. This feels so familiar from a hundred movies the passengers obey. In all their lives, most have never been physically threatened. They’ve been told over and over that if they are, they should not resist. “If confronted by a criminal, a weapon, a threat, do as you’re told; cooperate; do not anger them.” The police, the courts, the government, the military, detectives, fire crews, SWAT teams will rescue them. This too they’ve seen on a million television screens.

  Do what you’re told. Don’t resist.

  Comply.

  Their new pilot climbs to forty thousand feet and heads toward Washington.

  The FAA and the Command Center are trying to get jets in the air, but the air defense system, unalerted and geared to intercept threats approaching the Atlantic coast, is slow to reorient.

  Meanwhile the passengers are on their cell phones. The news filters from seat to seat. Two airliners have crashed into the Twin Towers. A third has hit the Pentagon.

  Someone isn’t just hijacking airliners. They’re crashing them into buildings. Turning them, and their occupants, into flying bombs.

  A new understanding filters through these average citizens.

  Within ten minutes, something within them shifts, changes. Doing nothing will end in their deaths, and those of others. They may die. But first, as Americans were once used to doing, they will fight.

  A little before ten o’clock, led by a few men, they mass in the rear of the plane, getting ready to rush the cockpit.

  A passing National Guard transport reports the aircraft waggling its wings. Shortly thereafter, it crashes south of Johnstown, near a little town called Shanksville.

  Everyone aboard dies. But whatever the intended target—the White House, the Capitol, a second blow at the Pentagon—by the passengers’ sacrificial bravery, no one else is killed.

  7:25 P.M., YEMENI TIME, SANA’A, YEMEN

  The embassy cafeteria was packed with staff Aisha had never met; she hadn’t known there were this many American
s in Sana’a. Strangely, not one Yemeni, though dozens were attached to the embassy—drivers, maintenance people, translators. As if they knew this wasn’t where they wanted to be. Not today.

  The televisions were tuned to different channels, CNN, the BBC World Service, but for some reason the one with the biggest crowd was Al-Jazeera. Maybe the picture was better. Though by now the images were burned into her mind. Smoke pouring from the towers; a vast holocaust staining the sky. She watched each time the airborne cameras panned, relieved each time to see that as best she could tell, the pall was drifting southeast, across to Brooklyn. Not that she didn’t care about people who lived in Brooklyn, or the thousands who must have died when the towers collapsed; but Tashaara and her mother lived to the north, three blocks above Central Park.

  The flower-flame logo of the Arabic satellite channel flashed, and a modestly clothed, dark-haired commentator began speaking excitedly. Beside Aisha, Doanelson, the FBI agent, was breathing hoarsely. Sweat darkened the armpits of his gray suit. He nudged her. Muttered, when she frowned at him, “What’s she saying?”

  “What is she…? The same thing every other channel is.”

  “I can’t follow when they talk that fast. She looks happy. Are they gloating?”

  “Scott … she’s reporting the deaths. She’s saying airliners hit the buildings. There’s no gloating. Believe me. An accident this huge—”

  “Whoa! This is no accident.” Scott’s cheeks were flushed; he mopped his face with one sleeve. “This’s the same guys who hit the Cole, who hit the embassies. Same as your little dance buddy, Al-Nashiri. ‘Allahu Akbar.’ You know who I mean.”

  She studied him, heart sinking. He couldn’t be right. Not this great evil. “You believe that?”

  “Nobody else has this kind of organization. We’re going to have to refocus the whole investigation. Find out how it all links up.” He seemed to remember something then and blinked and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re really gonna need you.”

  She examined him quickly; looked around. Noticing only then that she sat in the center of a cleared space, that the cafeteria chairs around her were empty. Doanelson was still holding her shoulder, but to the others it might have looked like the sort of grip one used to apprehend a criminal. They stared at her abaya and headscarf with loathing in their eyes.

  She looked back at the screen. A street full of chanting demonstrators—dear God, no, of celebrating Palestinians—were screaming joyfully and waving signs. She understood suddenly that everything had changed and would never again be the same.

  II

  An Altered World

  1

  Los Angeles, California

  TEDDY slumped in his Camaro outside the restaurant, sucking on a Coke, trying to get his head clear. He’d punched the alarm and almost missed getting up. But then had remembered the Germans—the investors—and pushed the sheets off by sheer strength of will.

  And discovered long, smooth legs that led to a Brazil-waxed, pouting heaven. The silvery blonde’s thighs had parted, and for a moment he’d been tempted again. Until the headache sledgehammered him like a bolted steer and he staggered into the 1940s-gorgeous bathroom that was now seedy, mirror speckled, tiles missing, and gagged over the sink.

  Fifteen minutes later, showered, dressed, unshaven—but that was okay—he pulled out of the driveway headed for Beverly Hills. The traffic on Laurel was horrendous. He pounded the wheel and cursed. Flicked the radio on, then off again. Loki would kill him. Hanneline Muruzawa, from Breakbone Pictures, would be there too. A year’s work on the script. Dozens of meetings. Now the Germans wanted to look into his eyes before they wrote the check. He wasn’t sure what they expected to see, but Loki had been clear. Without them, there’d be no film.

  Another red light. He rooted his notes out of the glove compartment, from behind the holstered HK, and tried to focus.

  Credit and money. Everything came down to that. Credit and money, and money was credit and credit was money, so it was really only about one thing in the end.

  Which meant he had to go in acting as if he had it, even if he didn’t.

  A honk from behind. He flipped up a finger. Imagined for a savage moment taking the HK out and shutting the asshole up for good. But just then the light went to green, and he swore and stomped on the gas.

  * * *

  THE Polo Lounge was off the main lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Loki had wanted the Germans to feel as if they were being treated right. Teddy didn’t mind. The McCarthy salad was good. They made the steak tartare at the table. The hostess walked him through the dining room into the garden area. Private booths lined what he couldn’t help thinking of as the perimeter, the booths deep green under peach walls, screened by hanging plants and dangling ivy. You saw famous faces here, stars, producers, executives, deal makers. This morning, though, the urbane waiters in white jackets and black bow ties stood amid empty tables set with heavy silver and fine china and good linen.

  A hell of a contrast with MREs salted with powdered camel dung, the way it blew up off the desert in Ashaara.

  He found Loki Dittrich at a table on the sunny patio, where they could almost see the pool, could smell the chlorine on the morning air. He bent to kiss the shadowed, lovely cheekbones of the legendary beauty she still was, even after all these years. Dressed western, a checked shirt, fitted Levi’s, boots gleaming with silver and turquoise. Loki introduced a slight woman with shoulder-length hair, Asian features, and no makeup as Hanneline Muruzawa, producer of Market Basket and Leave Her to Me and Mean Eddie, plus plus. Teddy got a handshake that surprised him with its strength.

  Loki introduced the two middle-aged banker types in suits as Hirsch Gerlach and Werner Neustadt. Teddy gave them both hearty handshakes, watching them react to his six foot two and the scars radiating out from his nose like a Maori warrior’s. He could’ve had those lasered, but why look like everybody else? He took a seat beside Muruzawa. A little past his age bracket, but a seriously sexy lady. A waiter who introduced himself as Dominic leaned to pour coffee.

  “Good flight in?” Teddy asked the Germans.

  “We sleep very late, I am afraid,” said Neustadt. “Jet lag. It is very nice to meet you at last.”

  “Very interesting, Mr. Oberg, this script. About where it is, Ashaara,” Gerlach said. “The Brotherhood. You have been there, I think? In that unhappy country?”

  “From the start of the insurgency. Lost a good friend there.”

  “Our friend’s a BTF,” Neustadt put in. Teddy glanced at him; where’d he get that? BTF—Big Tough Frogman—was a SEAL putdown.

  “This is … the Aleko character? He is Japanese?”

  “Hawaiian,” Teddy said. There were no Japanese SEALs. No Jewish ones, either, at least that he’d ever run into. Had this guy even read the script?

  “I would like to hear why you want so much to make this film,” the younger German, Neustadt, said. “Why it will resonate with the American market.”

  By now Teddy had pitched it so often he didn’t have to think. “It was because of Sumo—I mean, Aleko. I want to do a film that finally tells the truth about fighting, about honor, and about death. Not Sands of Iwo Jima, but not Apocalypse Now, either. No heroes and no fools—just the reality of combat and the kind of man it takes, and the kind it leaves once the fighting’s over. Why will it resonate? Every man wonders how he’d act if it really came down to it. That’s what Chief Strange comes face-to-face with, in the insertion and raid scene.”

  “Have you seen Stalingrad?” Gerlach said. “German, but it sounds like what you are describing. A very antiwar film.”

  Teddy said antiwar wasn’t exactly the message he had in mind. He caught Loki’s glance; Never say the word “message,” she’d told him often enough. Then Dominic was back and he looked at the menu, starting to get hungry. Loki got oatmeal. Muruzawa ordered Alpine muesli. The Germans ordered big breakfasts, heavy on the meat. So did Teddy, to mirror them. And a big Coke for his head.

/>   “Werner was saying, his investors like the script,” Muruzawa said. “And Breakbone likes the concept. I’ve talked to distributors. Loki tells me you have Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell. Those are very hot names right now.”

  “Crowe,” Loki put in. “Ridley Scott.”

  “Russell’s a maybe. I have a call in, but let’s leave that to one side. We need the financials firmed up before we go any farther.”

  Werner cleared his throat and put the menu aside. “We can do it, but we can not do it all.” Though Neustadt was younger than Gerlach, Teddy thought he held rank. “Our goal, you appreciate, is not exactly the same as yours. Of course we want to make a good picture. If we can, a great picture. And your dead friends, heroes, yes. We Germans know something about dead heroes.

  “But our goal is to protect the money. That is our prime directive, you might say. Star Trek, eh? We must cap the budget. Ten million dollars, US.”

  Teddy glanced at Loki. She’d estimated fifteen. On-location shooting in Morocco. Special effects from Industrial Light & Magic. Muruzawa smiled but didn’t give him any clues. He diced his corned-beef hash, letting it perk in his head.

  Money and power. He didn’t have money in this picture. Not yet. So he decided to bust their balls. Outrageous to ask for it, for his first movie. But it would stick it to them. They’d have to say no, then compromise somewhere else. So at the end, he’d still end up with more than if he hadn’t been a selfish prick.

  “A Teddy Oberg Production” above the title still wouldn’t give him complete control; a lot depended on the director. But clout … that it would give him.

  But it would be stupid to say this. That would put his nuts in their vise, let them whipsaw him.

  “I can make it for twelve,” he said. “If I get dollar one gross profit.”

  Muruzawa looked dismayed. The Germans traded glances. Neustadt chewed a whole sausage before he said, “Actually, we were thinking along those lines too. To close the gap. Here is what we do. We defer your entire fee. Push it all to the back end. You’d come out with better numbers, in the finish. If that is okay with Breakbone—”