by Robert Smith
The twin towers had only stood for 102 minutes after the first aircraft impact.
Three hundred and forty three fire fighters died in the Twin Towers. No one person was able to escape from above the impact zone in the North Tower after it was hit, as all stairwells and elevator shafts on those floors had been destroyed or blocked. Some of the blockages were locked fire doors, not only to the roof but also to the ground.
* * * *
Planner and Bates entered the Small Conference Room. Planner slumped in a chair and held his head with both hands.
“Why did you do that?” asked Bates softly.
“What?” said Planner.
“Building 7. You set up the bombing sequence. You changed it and stopped the building from coming down,” said Bates carefully.
“The bombs were planted incorrectly, I think you’ll find,” said Planner tersely.
“Hmm. I checked that personally,” said Bates leaning with both arms on the table. “They were correctly laid. Do you want me to recall all the numbers for you? I can do that if you want. No, it had to be you. That eleventh hour change you made.”
“You don’t trust me, huh?” smiled Planner. “I guess a member of the shadow team, wouldn’t!”
“Oh touche, Robert. CO-INTEL doesn’t trust anyone. Especially someone that seems to have…” he said with disgust, “…empathy. Someone like you! Your mind wasn’t totally on the job, was it?”
Planner tried to fake a puzzled expression.
“Emotional weakness. Your lady friend,” said Bates.
But now, Planner could not hide his shock.
“Of course, I know! We know,” said Bates with daggers. “What do you take us for, Robert? We’ve been thinking… isn’t it a bit stupid of you to get emotionally attached to someone earmarked as collateral damage?”
Planner’s mouth dropped.
“It was good of you to keep her in the dark, though, about the Big Event,” said Bates with glee. “The ground team reports she dutifully went into the office today. Sorry.”
Planner looked away, “Shit.” Planner held his head and said quietly, “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“But what were you thinking, Robert? By sparing WTC7, were you trying to save her work to bring down Enron? As-if that was going to happen! You’ve just delayed the buildings destruction by an hour or so.”
“Oh, I know it’ll come down,” said Planner with voice wobbling slightly. “I expect it to. But it’s just going to be like JFK’s magic bullet: a bit difficult to explain.”
“Ah, you admit it then? You admit it!?”
Planner was silent.
“But you think people are ever going to worry about something like that? They won’t even hear about it. And even if they do, we’ll have an expert to explain it away. What on an earth were you expecting to achieve?”
“I cut out cancer,” said Planner recovering himself. “I don’t cause it. The anomalies will be spotted. Society will know and correct itself.” Planner took out shaded glasses and puts them on to hid any redness he suspected may be forming in his eyes.
“Oh give me a break! What warped sense of morality do you have? Killing 20, 200, 2000 innocents? It’s still more than one! That’s where the morality line is!” mocked Bates, “Using aircraft as surgical weapons? Bah. How do you even know there were any aircraft?” he taunted
“What?”
“Suppose we switched plans? Rather than use drones we used the Psyop-7’s plan: no planes at all?”
“That’s impossible?” gasped Planner.
“A cheaper, more reliable plan? You think the COG wouldn’t go for that?” Bates teased.
“But we were flying the drones?”
“Or were you flying virtual drones, pretending to be drones, pretending to be civil aircraft. I have sizeable bonus payment to bet you that you couldn’t tell the difference!” he beamed.
“The aircraft investigations will be the judge of that!” croaked Planner.
“There will be none. No-one will ever find out. We’re playing the Big Lie182. The bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed. Basic PsyOps,” Bates lectured. “You can’t correct human nature.”
“I know the theory, Bates,” said Planner. “We all know our Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. But these theories were developed before video tape and forensic science. People are not as stupid as you think. They don’t need eidetic memory when they have video on the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building Seven. They will work it out. You know which science is going to win out in the long run? Between psychology and physics?”
“The long run?” sneered Bates. “I think you need to be worrying more about the next five minutes rather than the next five centuries. Five centuries is about the time it will take to unravel this one.”
Colonel Purple burst angrily into the room. “I don’t believe I have to do this again!”
Planner stood and regaining his full confidence said, “Hi, Colonel. Thanks for coming in. Another change of plan, I’m afraid. We need to do some tidying up early…”
Planner pointed aggressively at Bates.
Bates snorted in derision, “Really?” Then he saw the look in Purple’s eyes and lost his smile. “Hey, wait a minute, Colonel.”
Planner said sarcastically, “If only we had the time…”
Bates said, “I have the authorization. I do the tidying up!”
“For a coup d’etat, maybe,” said Planner.
The Colonel took out a taser.
“What?” said Bates, confused.
“I’m in counter-counter-intelligence, Master Bates! You’ve lied to the team, you’ve lied to me. I suspect you are allied to a revolutionary plot to assassinate the President. I don’t have the time to give you a fair trial on this. You have been sanctioned,” said Planner with his voice rising above Bates’ spluttering protests. “Please expedite, Colonel!”
Bates stopped pleading. His fight-or-flight reaction kicked in. He sprung at Planner letting out a loud growl at the same time. He’d got his hands around Planner’s neck and started throttling him.
Bates then stopped rigid as Purple activated the taser; thin wires darted into him and deliver its charge and froze his muscular control. Bates released his grip and vibrated down to the ground. Planner felt a touch of the charge but was free, gasping and rubbing his neck.
“Excuse me, Sir,” said Purple. He made the taser safe, bent down and twisted Bates’ neck sharply. He was dead. “It’s a long time since I’ve had to do that.”
“Sorry, Colonel. It’s a horrible business,” wheezed Planner. “Wheels within wheels on this one.”
“So I understand. The President is about to take off,” said Purple.
“Right. We need to make sure he is safe. I think Bates was involved in the plot against him. Hence that warning message.”
“Angel is next?” asked Purple.
“Right,” said Planner. “Wouldn’t surprise me if this other E4-B, the one about to take off from Washington, is something to do with it too.”
“This is a messy business,” said Purple.
“Right. That’s why we need you guys,” smiled Planner.
They exited the room and paused in the corridor. Purple said, “I’ll lock this door. We can sort this out once we land.”
“Good idea,” said Planner. “I need to freshen up.”
“Don’t be long. We need you,” said Purple grimly.
Planner hurried to the back of the aircraft along the starboard-side corridor and into the E4B Rest Room, slamming the door behind him and stood panting. He looked at the luggage piled against the bunk beds. Planner sprang forward to locate Bates’ carry-on bag. He found it quickly but it was locked. Planner looked around and found a toolbox. Inside was a Box Cutter183. He looked up to the heavens knowingly; he bent down in order to slice open the bag around the zip but his hands started to shake violently. He steadied his hand and then consciously started to breathe. He closed his eyes and when he reopened them, noticed a
bolt cutter in the toolbox. Using the bolt cutter on the padlock, he gained entry into the bag. He uncovered an envelope. Inside were a passport, official documentation and bankcards. Planner took the envelope and opened his own carry-on open bag and put the envelope inside. He placed his own padlock on Bate’s bag and sealed it.
* * * *
Having splashed some water over his face from a bottle, Planner re-entered the Command Room, red-faced, dripping and shaking. His entrance was barely noticed. The Rainbow Team were watching the North Tower collapse. Planner looked over to Purple.
“I confirmed the order,” Purple said.
“Thanks. Ok, let’s get these flights down. I think we all want to get back on the ground now,” said Planner wiping a drip from his chin.
“Indigo,” said Ochre and was able to stretch back and nudge him, “you still had a 93 transmission running. I’ve closed it down now.”
“Ok, right. Thanks,” said Indigo dejectedly.184
* * * *
At Tinker Air Base, the Rainbow Team left their bus and entered into the airbase reception. A TV was on and a newscaster was estimating the number people killed to be 10,000.
Planner, Purple and Ochre walked through with their bags into an open area. Following them were Indigo and Nicholas and other members of the Rainbow Team. However, their path was blocked. A burly security guard directed them to another channel that had a baggage check machine and X-Ray body scanner at its end.
In a side office, Planner was given a brief case filled with new dollar bills. He was then able to skip the mission-briefing meeting and able to leave from the front of the terminal building. Even though it was a military air base, the terminal building was just like any other airport terminal building, albeit with extra security. Planner walked a short distance out to the main gate. He showed his CIA pass and was allowed to leave. There was a taxi rank outside. He asked to be driven to the nearest AVIS Auto Rental office.
Driving past the back of the terminal building, Planner saw large plastic crates were being rolled into the back of a van marked “Biological Hazard”.
Chapter Seventeen: Ground Zero
There were 2753 people killed on 9/11 in New York. Workers have recovered 22,000 body parts, identifying 1254 victims. But for 1198 victims there were no remains. There were less than 300 intact bodies; only 12 of these could be identified by visual recognition. The high level of dismemberment indicated explosive force would be their cause of death, although this was never discussed on TV or in the papers. In 2006, many small body parts were found on top of nearby skyscrapers over 400 feet away from the twin towers, flung there in the micro-seconds that the twin towers remained above 43 stories.185 The DNA evidence was handled by two laboratories: the one in New York was a private laboratory set up by a friend of Mayor Rudi Giuliani. The other in Washington which handled the Pentagon and Shanksville Crash was, after a minor dispute with the local Police, managed by the military.
Each news channel had experts on hand to describe the perpetrators of the attack: Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.186 One of them was Katherine’s boss: Paul Bremer; not only CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, the risk and insurance services subsidiary of Marsh amp; McLennan Companies Inc, but he was also a counter terrorism expert (and later to be Governor of occupied Iraq). At WTC, a passport supposedly from one of the hijackers was handed to Police Chief Kerik187. This news was quickly reported via a TV newscaster, with the addition, “…if you can believe that!”
Osama Bin Laden was mentioned as the most likely villain even before the twin towers had collapsed. The overwhelming majority of the public had not previously heard this name before; not even security staff at airports had heard of his name. Another of the TV talking heads that morning talked about Osama Bin Laden. This was Jerome Hauer, Managing Director of Kroll Associates, who was contracted to Silverstien Enterprises. Hauer had recruited John O Neil, the FBI Osama Bin Laden specialist that had just started worked at the WTC. John O Neil’s body was found, intact, 11 days after 9/11 at the bottom of a stairwell in the South Tower. His body was on the twelve that could be identified by sight alone. He was identified by Jerome Hauer.188
After the towers had collapsed, a man in the street was able to describe the collapse sequence of the twin towers exactly as described by the official story, despite the intellectual dispute of the tower collapses since and the multiple reports from Policemen and Firemen and news reporters at the scene describing secondary explosions. Jerome Hauer also dismissed the reported explosions in the towers on TV on the day of 9/11.189
The Bush Administration even had its own grieving victim, TV personality and political pundit, Barbara Olson, who was on Flight 77. She had apparently phoned husband Ted Olson, United States Solicitor General, on maybe her cell phone or a seat back airfone, (that information changed daily after the crash), to give the story of box-cutter wielding hijackers.190
Many stories in the newspapers described calls from victims from cell phones including stories of people in the toilets or displaying caller-id phone numbers from cell phones, in other words, definitely not from airfones. However, slowly the official story claimed the calls were from airfones. Texas-based Verizon, who ran the airfone company, announced that all airfone calls on 9/11 were to be “free”, thus relieving them of the duty to demonstrate that any calls took place that day or distributing any confirming evidence one way or the other.
American Airlines stated their capacity for a Boeing 767-223ER was 165. AA Flight 11 had 76 passengers, 11 crew members, and the 5 hijackers. United Airlines flight 175, a Boeing 767–222 with the same capacity, had 51 passengers, 9 crew and 5 hijackers. American flight 77, a Boeing 757 with capacity of 188, carried 53 passengers, 6 crew, and 5 hijackers. United flight 93, another Boeing 757, carried 33 passengers, 7 crew and the 4 hijackers.
The load factors for these aircraft were pretty low compared to the industry average for the period: 49 % for AA flight 11, 33 % for UAL flight 175, 32 % for AA 77, and 20 % for UAL 93. But if you remove the hijackers from the total, the load factors were lower still 46 % for AA flight 11, 30 % for UAL flight 175, 29 % for AA flight 77, and just 18 % for UAL flight 93. The low load factor for UA Flight 93 may be more understandable when it was revealed in 2004 that UA flight 93 was not a regular, scheduled flight, but had been newly inserted into the system. While there had been a few flights of UA93 for a few days previously, 9/11 was the first-ever Tuesday flight for the by United Airlines Newark to San Francisco route.
Truly the most baffling aspect of 9/11 is the collapse of WTC7.
On the late night BBC 24 hour news channel, the BBC were broadcasting a live report from New York. It was 5.15pm local time, New York, and 11.15pm in London. The BBC’s Jane Standley was reporting the destruction of the Solomon Bothers Building, WTC7. “New York is still completely unable to take on what has happened to them today…” she said. However, what she probably did not know was immediately behind her, in clear view in the distance, the WTC7 was still standing. Then two minutes before the tower actually collapsed, the live TV picture went black. The BBC news anchor, Phil Hayton, in London was in mid-sentence, “Everyone here are just flabbergasted. It almost seems just too far-fetched. I was wondering what it felt for you in New York. Ah… We seem to having some technical difficulties there.”191
“Far-fetched”, indeed. But many other people assumed that WTC7 would come down.
“Keep your eyes on this,” said a building worker to a camera crew, “It’s coming down shortly.”
Others claim that they were kept away from the building and heard a countdown over the radio, “Three… Two… One.”192
And then WTC7 collapsed straight down, symmetrically, in 7 seconds.
Other news channels also reported the collapse of the building, most implying that it had previously collapsed at the same time as the one the twin towers. Unlike the BBC where news coverage was cut just before collapse event, Fox News reported WTC7’s destruction immediately as the live picture o
f the WTC7 collapse occurred. The newscasters appeared shocked and embarrassed by the live collapsed and invented a reason for the collapse193, which has since proven to be false according to FEMA and NIST reports.
The CBS TV anchor stated, “The third time today, a skyscraper collapses. Extraordinary. It reminds me of those old hotels knocked down in Las Vegas…”
* * * *
The President had flown in Air Force to Offutt Air Force Base, in Nebraska, where coincidently William Buffet, one the world’s richest men, had invited the WTC CEOs for a “charity” golf tournament.194
Air Force One took off without fighter escort195. Maybe because after the “Angel is Next” warning the POTUS was not sure who to trust.196
At Offutt AFB, the President was advised that the attacked “smelled like Al Qaeda”197198. Which was fortunate, since the order to invade Afghanistan was signed the previous day.199200
Later that night, the President’s brother and Florida State Governor, Jeb Bush, escorted by Police and Specials Forces, raided the Florida flight school where the Rainbow Actors had been receiving flight training. They took away cabinets holding the flight school records in the back of a Hercules C-130 that had landed on the flight school runway. Fortunately, again, Jeb had changed the rules and regulations associated with such property seizure, just a few days before.201
* * * *
Planner had driven all night and arrived at Katherine’s door in the early morning. She opened the door, held her face and bent over. When Planner came forward she rose up and started beating him on the chest. Planner held his face away and took the punishment. When Katherine started to slacken off in tears, Planner reached out to comfort her. They sank to the ground together in each others arms.
* * * *
On a computer screen, a graphic designer edited a picture of the WTC Towers and removed 47 of the interior columns, and replaces it with a single thin pole.202 This was part of a disinformation campaign to disseminate the view that the Twin Towers were poorly designed and frail. The documentary “How the Towers Fell” was compelling but failed to mention WTC7, molten steel or much about the tower’s inner core.203