by Robert Smith
“We’ve had one hijack and we believe we have a second,” said Scoggins.
“Stop going around protocol. We’ll mobilise the Hijack Negotiators. Can you get them on the radio? Where are they headed?”
Scoggins sighed, “I said we had one hijack. That one has crashed. The other suspect has changed course. For New York. We won’t need negotiators for this.”
The manager’s voice changed instantly as if someone had hit him in the stomach, “I’ll call NORAD. Let me know how we can help.”
“Can you set up some phone bridges? And a few prayers wouldn’t come amiss,” said Scoggins.
* * * *
Orange looks up, “USAF interceptor has taken off. An F-15. Just calculating a diversion course.”
Colonel Nicholas sighed, “NEADS are starting to make independent decisions. I’ll call the Commander in Chief and make him re-take control.”
Orange gasped, “Oh… shit… another near miss! Just 30 seconds to impact!”
* * * *
At the base of the World Trade Center South Tower, a man was listening on a military style radio while his friend, the cameraman, lay on the ground angled his lens upwards.
The cameraman said, “Just keep listening to the radio. I want to get a reaction shot.154”
The radioman said “Ok. Get rolling, though, it’s coming in fast. Four, three, two… oh my god! Oh my god!”
There was an explosion on the South Tower directly above them.
The workers on the 97th floor of the south tower were watching as they felt the impact and saw the explosion below them.
“Oh Shit!” said the first worker.
A jet engine component fell into the street and crashed into an empty taxi. A young woman was hit by the debris in the leg and was slammed back into a wall.
“These are live-pictures coming from the World Trade Center,” said a TV newsreader discussing the fire in the north tower. Then the World Trade Center South Tower exploded on the TV. “Oh… my Gawd! There’s… a major explosion from the South Tower.” The newsreader falls silent as he swears with the microphone switched off. Multiple TV cameras surrounding the tower record the explosion and the smoke plume rising from both towers.
The channel 5 helicopter was flying some distance away over New Jersey, the cameraman onboard zoomed in onto the Twin Towers where a single plume of smoke was emanating. He zoomed in again tightly framing the Twin Tower dead center within the picture. At that point, mysteriously a fast jet appeared on the right hand side of the screen and apparently ploughed into the South Tower. A fireball exploded. The camera inexplicably went to black.
On the Brooklyn side of New York, across the river from the WTC, five men next to camera tripod leapt for joy; They high-fived each other. One of them caught sight of a woman watching them from a balcony. They quickly packed up the camera and bundled into a van with an “Urban Moving Systems” logo.155
* * * *
Karl Rove taps Whitehouse official, Andrew Card, on the shoulder and nods at him. Card realised it was his job to interrupt the President. Cameras were trained on the POTUS as he was being read “The Pet Goat” at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, Saratosa, Florida. He goes up to President George W Bush and whispers into his ear, “Another plane has hit the World Trade Center. America is under attack!”
The President nods and continued to listen to the school children reading with a far away look in his eyes.156
* * * *
Planner, Orange, Ochre, Purple and Bates gathered to watch the TV news on one of the displays. Indigo, Magenta and others stayed at their stations. Planner watched the live newsfeed and noticed it went black for a second before live broadcasts resumed. Planner returned to his seat rather miserably rubbing his chin. He slumped into his seat. Bates turned and his eyes narrowed as he noticed Planner’s body language.
* * * *
In the North Tower, Katherine and Jerry joined a group of ten people descending the stairs.
“What’s up?” said Jerry.
A woman below turned and stammered, “There’s a locked door. Why would there be a locked door on an emergency exit?”
“So what are we doing? Is there another way down?” said Jerry.
Somebody else called up to him. “There’s firemen on the other side. We just have to wait until they bust through.”
Katherine sat down on the steps and rocked gently back and forth.
* * * *
Within Office of the Vice Chief Of Naval Operations, at the Pentagon, Chief Lafleur157 was walking past an office open area which featured a wall mounted TV displaying the news channel and replaying the impact on the South Tower. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. “Look at that!”
Captain Toti and Commander Radi sprung out of their offices and looked agog at the TV screen. Lafleur repeated the Holy Shit mantra a few more times while holding his head.
“A daylight attack?! This must be terrorists!” said Toti.
“Two planes?” said Radi. “That’s unreal!”
“This is organised!” said Toti. “If they can do two then they can do three… The next target to hit after WTC… is here. Washington, for sure. We’re next.”
“The White House?” said Radi.
“No. Too small,” mused Toti. “Here. The Pentagon is dead easy to spot from the air.”
“They’d never get through our air defences. Our missiles,” said Radi.
Lafleur turned and said bitterly, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The defences are mobile I doubt whether they’ll be available.”
* * * *
Scoggins was surrounded by animated FAA staff. Someone called out to Scoggins waving a phone, “It’s NORAD”.
“Scoggins here,” he said taking the phone.
A NORAD Intelligence Officer blasted down the phone, “What’s the fuck’s going on?”
“Two hijacked aircraft. Both crashed!” said Scoggins bitterly.
“I know that!” continued the angry man. “Why weren’t we told? We could have done something!”
Scoggins said, summoning as much patience he could muster, “We called you 40 minutes ago. And before you say anything else, note that we have four other potential hijackings, that we can’t accurately track.”
“Shit!” said the NORAD guy, stunned.
“We’ve set up a phone bridge with NEADS. We’re trying to share data but having some issues with track correlation. Perhaps you’d like to sort that out your end? The hijackers have switched off their transponders. We’re getting spurious ghost tracks from NORAD. We’re not getting primary returns.”
“Ghost tracks?”
“Yeah. Fake information. Simulated tracks158 maybe?”
“I’ll get onto it,” said the contrite NORAD officer. He signed off with another, albeit apologetic, expletive.
* * * *
Planner leaned over towards Indigo, “How’s it coming along, Indigo?”
Indigo was typing furiously into his computer keyboard, “I need more time!” he croaked.
Planner said, “Magenta, slow down the drones. Switch off drone-77’s transponder. Delay the 93 switch.”
Nicholas piped up, “Two F-16s were just about to take off. I’ve managed to delay them but only by returning them to affix missiles.”
Planner replied, “We need more widespread delays. Have you any ideas?”
“Yes, I have a back-up plan,” said Nicholas.
“JFDI,” said Planner.
Bates said, “Starting phase 1 of north tower demolition.”
Planner looked at Bates with some alarm.
* * * *
Janitor William Rodriguez unlocked emergency doors within stairways, in the North Tower, to allow firemen, entry further into the building and also free people descending the stairs. They reach the 30th floor where Katherine and a dozen others were held up. But just as the door was being unlocked, they heard loud bbuh-der, bbuh-der, bbuh-der of synchronised explosions from the four corners of the central elevator area.
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“What the hell was that?” said one of firemen.
“Bombs in the building! They’re trying to bring it down!” said another.
Several people, leaning out the window to avoid the smoke, were ejected from the North Tower by the explosions, to fall 90 stories to their death on the WTC plaza pavement.159
* * * *
“Bates,” Planner said. “The demolition phasing needs to be delayed.”
“No, we need to accelerate the demolition,” retorted Bates forcefully.
“That’s a change of plan,” said Planner with an edge.
“A delay or a change? Which is it?” replied Bates with more edge.
Purple noted this exchange with some concern.
Then all eyes were drawn to Nicholas when he announced, “Otis National Guard have just gone onto war footing. They’ll be launching two interceptors shortly.”
* * * *
Katherine and Jerry continued to follow a slow moving queue down the stairs, with some fireman walking up them.
“Damn radios aren’t working,” said one fireman to another.
Another round of extreme-disco sounding explosions were heard and felt. One of the firemen twisted his body around following the progression of the explosions around the building.
“Holly Cow!” he exclaimed. “Synchronised explosions? We’re in shit creek!”
The other fire fighter nodded sternly and kept walking upwards.
* * * *
About this time, a rotund black man ran into the Mayor’s Emergency Management Office inside WTC7. Barry Jennings160 was a civil servant responding as expected by his training, burst into the WTC7 Emergency Management Office but found no one there. Although there was a steaming cup of coffee and papers on the desks; obviously people had just left.
He did not take long to decide that he too would evacuate. Barry took the emergency stairs down from the 20th floor. About half way down, a bomb marked “WTC7-7-1” strapped to a pillar inside the elevator shaft, started to vibrate as it received its computer controlled signal to explode. The cell phone device took just a few microseconds to identify the security code it had received to activate the detonator. The Komatsu-Dresser termite bomb efficiently fulfilled its mission; the stairs two floors below Barry were blown to pieces. He fell back, amazingly unharmed by the blast, but tumbled down the stairs and nearly fell into the gapping hole created by the explosion.
* * * *
Captain Ochre’s eyes widen, “Now there are cell phone calls going out from the aircraft! From 77!”
“How can that happen?” gasped Nicholas.
“It’s from us. I switched on the internal CDMA Transceiver. We’re now acting as a base-station transceiver. The calls are hopping from the planes following us over to our satellite link.”
“Talk English!” snapped Bates.
“The calls are connecting up through our network link!” retorted Ochre. Various jaws were dropping in the Command Room. Ochre punched a few keys. “Ok, I’ve blotted out the calls from 77 and suppressing them. Hopefully there’s no reaction from the ground.” Softly to Planner he added, “After our previous chat about cell phones, I switched it on. Sorry I wasn’t thinking.”
Bates snarled, “I’ll alert the crew management team.”
Planner said quietly with edge, “Crew management? This isn’t part of the plan either…”
Indigo was also indignant, “There shouldn’t be any calls from 77… except my pre-arranged calls. There shouldn’t be anybody onboard!”
Bates sarcastically replied, “Well, we all know that some of you are delicate little flowers… firewalled off from some of life’s harsher realities.”
Planner said cautiously, “So… you’ve loaded some ordinary Joes onto the aircraft?”
Bates said, “Fake stories and legends always unravel; we needed real victims. You should know that. Hey, you wanted better legends…”
Planner said, “And he flight crews?”
“Being managed, yes,” said Bates in a superior tone. This meant that the crew had no idea of the mission they were involved in; a CIA team would have exclusive communication with the flight crew and were following their instructions through an encrypted communication channel.
Planner looked over to Purple, when he responded to Bates, “And tidied up back at base?”
Purple nodded uncertainly.
Indigo interrupted softly but shaking to contain his anger, “Not only more collateral damage but this could upset everything; the manifests, back-story. This is completely reckless.”
Planner reassured him, “Spin it out, Indigo. In the meantime, Bates, I need a word. Colonel Nicholas, can you delay the air force further?”
“Sure,” said Nicholas, cracking his knuckles.
“How?” asked Planner.
“The Commander in Chief will er… be in his car,161” said Nicholas airily.
Planner and Bates walked out of the control room watched intently by Purple.
* * * *
In Montanna, the state governor, Judy Martz, was on a podium at the start of FEMA State Emergency Managers meeting in Montana where there are about 200 attendees.
“It’s my pleasure to welcome FEMA Director, Joseph Allbaugh, and senior representatives from the emergency management agencies of 47 states, to Montana. For this conference organised by the National Emergency Management Association,” said Martz.
A cell phone started to ring. She peered at the person with offending phone. “The subject for today,” she continued as a pager went off, “is the issue of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.” Four more cell phone started ringing and along with several pagers. Martz continued genially over the noise, “Not something we know too much about in my State…”
At that point there was a cacophony of cell phones and pagers. A young man raced onto the stage and alerted Martz to the news, who looked shocked. She later declared a state of emergency and an exclusion zone around the conference center, fearing for the lives of the FEMA State Emergency Managers.162
* * * *
Planner and Bates entered the E4-B’s Small Conference Room.
“So, Bates. Are you going to explain the flight crew management?” said Planner trying, but failing, to achieve a pleasant tone of voice.
“Just a little improvement since we were rather short of flight crew we could trust. The job was delegated to me, if you remember,” said Bates innocently.
“How many other improvements do you have? Faster tower collapses, real victims, your own escape?” needled Planner.
Bates paused momentarily, “You know, that is quite insightful, Robert. But really I wasn’t expecting these improvements to change the plans.”
“Because you’ve run them past the COG?” said Planner in a mocking tone.
“Right… Hey, you’re not forgetting the big picture here, Planner? The time for worrying about collateral damage has long gone,” Bates said expansively.
Colonel Purple burst into the room, angrily, “If you two ladies have finished, we have some unfinished business to attend to.”
Bates smiled and left the room, walking past Purple.
When Planner was close, Purple whispered angrily, “The president is about to do a TV address! He’s a sitting duck! I just heard through security channels that a foriegn TV crew tried to see him earlier; an unscheduled visit! They were let in, nearly got through. They may have been assassins!163”
“Maybe someone has a plan for a Coup D’etat. Let’s hope we’re not part of it,” sighed Planner.
Purple’s eyes widened!
* * * *
In his impromptu television address from the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, Sarasota, surrounded by kids and teachers, President Bush called for two minutes silence for the dead. However the vast majority of the people that were to die that day were at that time, still alive within in the burning World Trade Center towers.
In the North Tower, a woman stood and waved from the impact point hole. B
elow her were dozens of faces pressed against the windows on the North Tower.
Meanwhile, evacuation of the South Tower was going smoothly. Thousands of office workers were streaming out of the building including the workers from the 97th floor. They had found a staircase that took them past the impact zone floors. Some in the South Tower also tried to exit onto the roof but, just like the North Tower, found the roof exit doors locked. On the ground floor, fire fighters continued to arrive, strapping on equipment to walk up the 70 floors to the impact zone.
One fire fighter shouted to another above the screech of the fire alarm, “There’s secondary explosions in the north tower.”
The other fire fighter shouted back, “Explosions? You’re sure?”
“That’s what they say,” replied the first. “They’re professionals, aren’t they?”
The second fire fighter shrugged “Right.” He looked up with a grim expression, “Shit.” He tightened up a belt and announced grimly, “Let’s get going, I suppose.”
The fire fighters started on their final journey.
* * * *
Ed Balinger was the air traffic controller handling Flight 93. He was sending out the warning to all aircraft in flight in his patch. The warning read “Hijackings! Beware of cockpit intrusion” to all of the pilots in his domain. Pilots responded via the ACARS messaging system to acknowledge the message. Flight 93 responded with “Hi, Ed. Confirmed.”
* * * *
Purple and Planner re-entered the Command Room.
Bates had already sat down and had a smirk on his face, barely looking at his checklist, he said genially, “Time for the 93 switch?”
Orange responded, “93 is at Cleveland with old-175 following behind. All ready to go. Just waiting for your say-so.”
Planner said, “Ok, switch. Old-175 needs to stay in a holding pattern for 20 minutes before switching its transponder back on and requesting to land. So are you going to manage 93 down, Bates?”
Bates returned a sarcastic smile. Orange turned back to his console.
Indigo muttered, “This is the big one. It’ll take about 30 minutes to unfold the storyline.”
Magenta said, “Synchronising with crash point. Note that we’ve slipped about 15 minutes. Drone 93 taken over. Old-93 will be vectored to our position.”