Fall and Rise

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  The sight of Tracy rising in the gloom gave Regina a burst of adrenaline. It felt like witnessing a child running toward traffic. Distracted from her own submission, Regina reached up and grabbed Tracy’s skirt. She yanked Tracy to the ground and resumed yelling for help.

  “Where are you?” Regina called.

  “Come on! We’re right here!” said Tony Rose.

  Tony told Regina that she was close to a door. He urged her and Tracy to keep moving. She followed his voice, bringing Tracy with her. On the other side of the door was Rose, who’d crawled back to lead them through the Fourth Corridor. He guided them through the building to the interior A Ring and down into the courtyard.

  Separately, Bob Grunewald, who’d helped to design Dilbertville’s technology layout, led Martha Carden on a serpentine crawling path.

  “Don’t you leave me here,” Martha pleaded, even as she knew he wouldn’t.

  “I’ve got you, Martha,” Bob said. “We’re going to make it.”

  Until the sprinklers came on, Martha feared that her clothes would catch fire from the heat. Even after, she wondered how long it would take to die and how much it would hurt. Only when they reached the Fourth Corridor did she know she’d survive. After rescuing Martha, Bob Grunewald tried to return to search for other survivors, but the smoke drove him back, so he followed Martha to the A Ring and down into the courtyard.

  Burned and disoriented, John Yates also somehow made it to the Fourth Corridor, where he collapsed. After a short time, he stirred and rose. He focused on the office space that he’d spent years helping to design, now ruined but still imprinted on his mind. Although still in shock, Yates realized he knew where he was. He started walking and ran into a lieutenant colonel, Victor Correa, who helped him to the courtyard to begin treatment for burns that covered nearly 40 percent of Yates’s body.

  Meanwhile, Marilyn Wills grew frantic when she realized that she’d lost track of Regina Grant. She felt for the major in the dark and yelled her name. She heard nothing, so Marilyn crawled forward, with Lois Stevens still hanging on to her for dear life.

  On the first floor, Dave Tarantino took a halting, zigzag route through the dark, on a narrow path lit by the glow of flames, half-crawling over and around debris. With fires closing in, he didn’t want to get closer to where Dave Thomas tried to help free Jerry Henson. Dave Tarantino could hear the damaged building creak with complaint about its broken pillars. The roar of flames grew louder. The smoke felt so dense it seemed to make a sound all its own, and he thought he’d soon be overcome.

  Jerry Henson’s eyes were dull and glassy, but Dave Tarantino locked onto them.

  “Come on, man. Get out of there!” Dave yelled.

  Jerry said nothing.

  Not realizing that Jerry was pinned, the Navy doctor issued a stream of orders familiar to anyone who’d been through basic training: “Get your ass out of there! Move your ass! Let’s go! C’mon, you’ve got to come to us!”

  Pale and unresponsive, struggling for breath, Jerry seemed about to slip into shock. Nearly out of breath, he mouthed two words: “Help me.”

  Dave Tarantino was out of options. A voice in his head screamed that he might never get out. But once they’d made eye contact, he knew he wouldn’t leave Jerry behind. Dave Tarantino went to his knees, then crawled on his belly into the small space between Jerry and Dave Thomas, who continued his exertions. Dave Tarantino placed a wet T-shirt over Jerry’s mouth to help him breathe.

  “I’m a doctor, and I’m here to get you out,” Tarantino said. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Jerry roused from his torpor. He thought Dave Tarantino’s promise was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

  Then Dave Tarantino added a catch: “But you gotta fight. We can’t do this alone.”

  “I’m pinned,” Jerry murmured. “I can’t move.”

  Dave Tarantino stood and tried to help Dave Thomas lift the load off Jerry. They removed what they could from the desktop. But even with both rescuers straining against it, the weight wouldn’t give. Jerry was nearly a goner. If they didn’t get out soon, Dave Thomas and Dave Tarantino knew that they would be, too. Each breath grew more strenuous.

  The same was true for SEAL Craig Powell and General Paul Carlton, who’d fought their way back into the burning remnants of Pentagon room 1C466 to help. Carlton and several others formed a line, standing in ankle-deep water, passing out pieces of wrecked furniture and computers to clear a path. When smoke overcame one man at the front of the line, Carlton stepped up4 and took his place.

  Powell stood5 at the far end of the ruined workspace, tossing burning pieces of debris from their path. He felt the sting of burning metal and looked up to see melting slag from wires dripping from above. The little office shared by Jerry Henson and Jack Punches had been a secure facility, encased by a wire cage to prevent electronic eavesdropping. Powell held up the hot, twisted remains of the cage. He warned Dave Thomas and Dave Tarantino to hurry: “Hey, ceiling’s going6 to come down. Get out!”

  Meanwhile, General Carlton7 tried using a fire extinguisher to knock down the flames all around them, but the water caused flare-ups, which he understood meant that they were fuel fires. The general saw smoke rising from Jerry Henson’s clothing, so he doused him instead.

  From behind him in the darkness, Dave Tarantino heard Powell shouting: “You gotta get out—now! It’s going to go!”

  With no time, little air, and no other way to free Jerry Henson, Dave Tarantino took one last shot. It was a throwback move, inspired by grueling days in his college weight room after his skydiving accident, when he rebuilt the atrophied muscles in his broken foot and leg. Stanford University’s “Most Inspirational Oarsman” scooted under the desk, into a coffin-like space next to Jerry. His lungs aching, his heart pounding, Dave Tarantino flipped onto his back. He pressed the half-melted soles of his dress shoes against the underside of the desktop stretched across Jerry’s chair.

  With every last ounce of strength, Dave Tarantino pushed.

  On the fiery second floor, Marilyn Wills continued her crawl through the darkness toward the AE Drive windows with Lois Stevens, not knowing that Major Regina Grant had already found another way out. Even as she reassured Lois, Marilyn doubted herself.

  “God,” Marilyn thought, “I hope I’m going the right way.”

  She sensed that they were getting close, but she expected to see bright sunlight shining through the windows. Instead she saw more smoke. Marilyn began to pray: “God, please help me. I cannot see anything in here.” Marilyn and Lois kept crawling, and Marilyn saw a dim glow, illuminating the outline of a young soldier banging on a window frame. She focused and saw that he was flanked by several other survivors from the conference room and nearby cubicles who had crawled in the same general direction, with the same escape plan. Marilyn had delivered Lois to the windows, as promised. But they still weren’t safe.

  Fighting to break open the window was Specialist Michael Petrovich. He ignored the pain of second-degree flash burns that had melted the skin on his nose and forehead and swelled his ears to twice their normal size. Despite his injuries, he’d led his friend and colleague, civilian Dalisay Olaes, from their cubicles through the wreckage of Dilbertville. Also at the windows were Lieutenant Colonel Marion Ward, who’d been in the conference room, and demographer Betty Maxfield, who’d been talking with Tracy Webb about her Avon scarf when their world exploded. For a short time after the blast, Betty had clung to Bob Grunewald’s heel as he crawled ahead with Martha Carden. She’d lost her grip and become disoriented but bumped into Colonel Phil McNair, who led her to the windows.

  To no one’s surprise, Wedge One’s new blast-resistant windows worked as designed: they hadn’t shattered and become flying shrapnel. But they also wouldn’t open. Michael Petrovich found one window bowed outward by the explosion, its metal frame bent a few inches out of whack. He grabbed a laser printer from a nearby desk and beat it against the window, to no avail. He threw it against
the bent frame, only to have it bounce back into Marilyn’s lap. Phil McNair joined Michael on the windowsill and stomped and kicked at the frame. The window held fast.

  Marilyn feared they’d all die from smoke inhalation or the encroaching flames. Half in alarm and half in rage, she set Lois aside and climbed on a chair to reach the window. She slammed the frame with her hands and feet. With Marilyn and the two men beating it, the window frame pushed open about a foot and a half, the safety glass inside bowed but still intact.

  As smoke poured out, the three stuck out their heads to gulp fresh air from AE Drive. Michael Petrovich tossed out the printer to attract help from other service members farther down AE Drive, who came running.

  Marilyn turned to Lois: “Come on—you’re going first.”

  Phil McNair and Michael Petrovich held Lois’s wrists as they lowered her as far as they could from the window, a nearly twenty-foot drop. They released her safely into the arms of fellow Pentagon workers below. While they waited, Marilyn shared her moist sweater with rasping Betty Maxfield. Next out was Dalisay Olaes, who clung to the window sill, afraid, until Marilyn commanded: “Jump!” Dalisay broke her leg in the fall, but she understood that her choice was “jump or get toasted”8 and remained grateful to Marilyn. Next came Betty Maxfield. The commotion drew the attention of more sailors and soldiers in AE Drive who were helping with rescue efforts in the Navy Command Center. Several rushed over yelling “Come on down! We’ll catch you!”

  His facial burns festering, his lungs scarred by smoke, Michael Petrovich’s throat began to close. Struggling to breathe, he went next. Marion Ward jumped out on his own, breaking his leg in the fall.

  The last two, both of whom had saved others, were Colonel Phil McNair and Lieutenant Colonel Marilyn Wills. He told her to go, but Marilyn refused. She worried that Major Regina Grant was lost in the smoke, and she feared that Marian Serva and others were trapped inside. She told her boss that she wanted to return to Dilbertville.

  “We have to go,” Phil McNair said.

  “Sir, we can’t go,” Marilyn answered. “Why don’t we just stay here and let’s yell and scream and people will come to the window. And we can get them out of here.”

  Ignoring the pain of their smoke-ravaged throats, both let loose:

  “Come this way!”

  “Come over here if you can hear us!”

  “We can get you out of here!”

  No one answered. No one came.

  “You’ve got to go,” the colonel told Marilyn.

  “Sir,” Marilyn said, her mind fixed on Regina Grant. “I’m trying to buy time because I’m thinking she’s got to be right there. . . . Sir, let’s be quiet. If you and I just be quiet right here, maybe we’ll hear somebody crying or wailing and we can go back and get them.”

  Again, they heard nothing. McNair told Marilyn to wait while he looked for others. But the smoke was too thick, and the colonel quickly returned to the window. He shook his head, “No.” As Marilyn broke down in tears, McNair gave her a direct order.

  “You’ll get out of the window—now!”

  By then, the helpers in AE Drive had placed a painter’s ladder atop a garbage bin outside the window, and two men had climbed atop the rickety pyramid. With Phil McNair right behind, Marilyn climbed out the window and scrambled onto the backs of the men who’d turned themselves into extension ladders.

  “Just jump,” someone called from below. “I’ll catch you.”

  Marilyn followed the sound of the voice. Standing in AE Drive was the biggest man she’d ever seen: Commander Craig Powell, his muscular arms outstretched. He encouraged her again to jump. The slender Army lieutenant colonel looked down at the big Navy SEAL and let go.

  Flat on his back in the stifling heat, feet against the desktop, Dave Tarantino pushed. His leg press raised the load of debris that trapped Jerry Henson by an inch, then two, then an inch more. Dave Thomas helped by squatting low like a weightlifter and pushing upward with all his might.

  As Dave Tarantino gritted his teeth and held the weight aloft with his legs, he thought, “Well, now you’ve shifted this debris. What’s going to happen when you let it down? Is it just going to keep coming and coming?” He’d worry about that soon enough. First, he needed to get Jerry free. He reached up, grabbed Jerry, and pulled him out of the chair, dragging the older man across his body. Jerry clawed at Dave Tarantino’s arm, then his neck, reaching toward Dave Thomas, who pulled him the rest of the way out.

  “Are you it?” Dave Tarantino asked, still holding the load with his legs. “Is there anyone else in here?”

  “My buddy,” Jerry rasped. “Jack Punches.”

  As Dave Thomas dragged Jerry out, Jerry’s foot caught on a thick printer cable.

  “Get your ass out!” Dave Tarantino yelled, his legs shaking as he still supported the desktop. “This thing’s going to go. I can’t hold it.”

  Dave Thomas pulled off Jerry’s shoe and hauled him out toward AE Drive. They moved past SEAL Craig Powell, who’d entered the ruined Navy Command Center after catching several people from the second floor, including Marilyn Wills. He braced open the melting wire mesh in the ceiling to preserve their escape route.

  Dave Tarantino eased down the load. He said a silent prayer of thanks when it held steady atop Jerry’s empty chair. People were still calling for him and Powell to hurry out, but Dave Tarantino yelled back, “Be quiet! Shut up out there!”

  General Carlton repeated the doctor’s orders for silence, even as he grew anxious at the sight of flames spreading across the desktop above Dave Tarantino’s head.

  When the voices silenced, Dave Tarantino listened carefully. He heard nothing, so he shouted again for Jerry’s friend Jack Punches: “Is there anyone else in here? Anyone else?”

  More silence, except for the crackle of fire, the sparks and pops of live electrical wires, and the ominous creaks of a building losing its integrity. Sapped by the intense heat, Dave Tarantino rolled over and crawled out from under Jerry’s desk. He moved past Powell, a tower of strength still holding up the passageway. General Carlton heard someone yell, “Come on, Big John!” The general chuckled at the reference to the old Jimmy Dean song, about a mountain of a man who held up the timbers of a collapsing mine to save his friends.

  Dave Tarantino hustled outside with Carlton, Powell, and several others. They huffed like three-pack smokers, trying to catch their breath on AE Drive. Even before he reached safety, Dave Tarantino planned to go back inside to look for Jack Punches and other possible survivors. But just after he and the other searchers exited through the jagged hole in the C Ring wall, a boom sounded. Fire and smoke spouted through the hole like a geyser shooting sideways onto AE Drive. What remained of the first-floor supports collapsed, bringing down the upper floors and preventing further rescue efforts.

  Jerry Henson was the last person rescued from inside the Pentagon.

  After catching Marilyn Wills, Craig Powell handed off the lieutenant colonel to another military first responder, who carried her to the Center Court. Her ordeal caught up with her. Even in the bright sunlight and clean air, Marilyn’s smoke-filled lungs wouldn’t work. She couldn’t speak and could barely breathe. Scrapes and burns blistered the skin on her cheek, shoulder blades, knees, and shins. Her biceps muscles refused to relax. Her left shoulder locked into its socket.

  Through the haze of pain, she heard the voices of people attending to her:

  “Oh my God, she is not going to make it.”

  “Get some water.”

  “We don’t have any water.”

  “Get some oxygen.”

  “We don’t have any oxygen.”

  “We have to do something! She’s dying.”

  Even as she neared losing consciousness, Marilyn refused to believe that. It might take a while, but she knew that somehow, she’d get home to Kirk, Portia, and Percilla.

  Through her haze, Marilyn understood that she was being moved to a triage station in the north parking lot where
she’d left her car only hours earlier, its CD player ready to resume blasting its gospel plea for divine protection. Then came a bumpy ride to Arlington Hospital in the back of an SUV. As they pulled away, Marilyn opened her bloodshot eyes long enough to see smoke pouring from where her office had been. At the hospital, she wrote Kirk’s phone number on a doctor’s sleeve. Then she passed out.

  While Marilyn was being taken to the hospital, civilian survivors Lois Stevens and Martha Carden fell into each other’s arms in the Pentagon courtyard. Trying to wring humor out of tragedy, Martha grumbled that her lifesaving crawl with Lieutenant Colonel Bob Grunewald had ruined an especially good pair of pumps.

  “Lois,” Martha joked, “I want reimbursement9 for my damn shoes.”

  Lois answered: “Well, I’d like some damn shoes.”

  Martha looked down and saw Lois’s stockinged feet.

  “Okay,” she said, “never mind.”

  Soon Bob Grunewald joined Martha and several others from their office. They huddled close on a bench in the courtyard, grateful to be together.

  After helping to rescue colleagues including Major Regina Grant, Tracy Webb, and Betty Maxfield, in separate escape routes from the Army personnel office, Sergeant Major Tony Rose and Colonel Phil McNair joined other military first responders in AE Drive, pulling several survivors through the punched-out holes on the first floor. From there, McNair went to the courtyard, where he saw a group of medics huddled over a soot-covered figure on the ground. He overheard someone say a name: “Yates.”

  John Yates, the Army personnel office security chief, lay on the courtyard grass as medics cut off his pants. His face was charred, his hair burned off. John looked down at his ghostly white hands and saw skin hanging off them like shrouds. Phil McNair walked over with words of encouragement. John heard a female doctor say, “He needs to get out of here10—and needs to get out of here now.”