Ground Zero

by Alan Gratz

  Esther twisted the knob on the radio. She found a news station where a woman was talking about the plane crash, and Brandon paid attention, hoping to learn something new about what happened.

  “We’re still unclear at this point how this horrible accident could have happened. The New York Fire and Police Departments are both responding, and we’re awaiting reports from the ground. In the meantime, we have somebody on the line calling in by phone from one of the floors above the accident. Mr. Collins, are you there? I understand you’re trapped in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the North Tower. Can you tell us what it’s like there?”

  The 104th floor! Brandon immediately perked up, and he and Richard shared a hopeful look. The fire had been the worst on the 93rd floor. If there was someone alive on the 104th floor, that meant people above the impact had survived. That meant Brandon’s dad was alive!

  “Well, there’s a lot of smoke,” the man from the 104th floor said. “The elevators are destroyed, and all the stairs down are blocked. We called 911, and they told us to stay where we are and they’ll come get us. We just wanted to let our families know we’re okay, and …”

  The interview went on, but Brandon wasn’t listening anymore. He leaped to his feet.

  “Richard—he’s calling from the 104th floor!”

  “I know. That means your dad is okay.”

  “No,” Brandon said. “I mean, yes. But he’s calling from the 104th floor. That means the phones up there are still working!”

  Brandon scrambled for the big black phone on Richard’s desk. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He could call his dad in Windows on the World!

  “Pasoon?” Reshmina called.

  She didn’t understand. One minute, Pasoon had been right in front of her, and the next—poof. He was gone. But how? The path they’d been following stretched slowly and steadily up the hill. You could see up to the next ridge, and all the way down into the ravine below. And there were no big rocks or trees for Pasoon to hide behind.

  “Pasoon, you son of a donkey!” Reshmina cried. “Where did you go?” She spun, looking all around, but Pasoon had completely disappeared. Reshmina started to panic. If she lost him, if he found the Taliban before she’d been able to talk him out of it—

  Reshmina started up the path. If Pasoon had somehow made it up the long hill while she wasn’t looking, she would see him from the top of the ridge. She ran halfway there, then stopped. No, there was no way Pasoon could have sprinted all that way in the few seconds she hadn’t been looking. It was too far.

  He has to be around here somewhere, Reshmina thought.

  But where?

  Reshmina came back down the path to where she’d planted the seed and opened her senses. She scanned the terrain in minute detail, lingering over every rock, every bush. She listened for the slightest sounds on the wind: a snapping twig, a scuffling footstep, an accidental rockfall.

  Nothing.

  But then—tink—Reshmina caught the smallest metallic sound, almost no louder than her heartbeat. She wouldn’t have even heard it if she hadn’t been listening so hard.

  The sound had come from a steep wall of rock along the path. She moved closer to the wall, listening. Watching. But there’s nothing here! she thought. She put her hands to the rock face, as though there was some kind of secret door Pasoon had walked through. But no.

  Reshmina sighed and looked down at her feet. Wait—were those the faint marks of shoes in the dirt? She crouched down low. It was only when she put her head almost all the way to the ground that she saw it beneath the rocky overhang.

  The entrance to a cave.

  Pasoon, that sneaky rat! The Afghan mountains were full of hidden caves like this. Some caves were no bigger than the snow leopards who liked to sleep in them, but others went deep into the mountains, carved out long ago by ancient waters and smoothed into hiding places by decades of jihad fighters. Pasoon must have known the cave was there and waited until she wasn’t looking to scramble inside.

  The entrance was just big enough for a grown person to squeeze through, and Reshmina wiggled inside. Beyond the entrance there was room to sit up, and then stand—but it was pitch-black and cold in the cave. She waited for her eyes to adjust, but it was too dark. There was only a sliver of light from the entrance to orient herself.

  “Pasoon?” Reshmina whispered. The little toad had to be in here somewhere. He could be standing right next to her, for all she knew. But the cave might also go deep within the mountain.

  She was going to have to go farther inside to find out.

  Reshmina put her hands out in front of her, feeling her way through the darkness. Almost immediately she ran into something about thigh level, and her heart caught in her throat. Wood scraped softly against rock, and there was a clink of glass. A small table, maybe? With something on it? She felt tentatively in the dark. Yes, a table—and in the middle of it, a lantern! She could tell from its shape. And if there was a lantern, there might be …

  She patted the tabletop until she found it. A small plastic lighter!

  Reshmina struck the flint on the lighter, and suddenly she could see her hands. She squinted in the glare. There was a glass lamp on the table like the one Reshmina’s family had at home, and this lamp still had oil in it. Reshmina lit the wick, and a warm glow cast light all around her.

  Something was stacked against the smooth walls of the cave just beyond the edge of her light, and Reshmina stepped closer with the lantern to see what it was.

  Weapons. The cave was filled with them. Rifles. RPGs. Boxes of bullets. Unburied land mines. The metallic sound Reshmina had heard outside must have been Pasoon tripping over a weapon in the dark.

  Reshmina brought the lantern down for a closer look. The weapons were made by many different countries. She recognized some of the languages written on the weapons, and others she guessed at: English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Chinese. No Pashto or Arabic though. Afghanistan didn’t make the weapons. They just bought them and shot them. It was the big countries that made money selling weapons to the little countries. Who they killed with those weapons wasn’t any of the big countries’ concern.

  What would happen, Reshmina wondered, if the big countries stopped selling weapons to the little countries? How would Afghanistan and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Iran and the countries around them fight each other and the rest of the world? With bows and arrows? Swords? Rocks? Fists?

  Maybe, Reshmina thought, they wouldn’t fight at all. Maybe they would spend their time doing something else instead, like building factories and schools and hospitals.

  But that was never going to happen, and Reshmina knew it. She knew too, as a chill ran down her back, that what she was looking at right now was a Taliban weapons cache—a big one.

  Reshmina turned, and there was Pasoon, standing right next to her. He’d appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost. Reshmina screamed, and Pasoon lunged for the lantern. Reshmina jumped, and the lantern clattered to the floor.

  Krissh! The glass lantern shattered, and—fwoomp—the spilled oil ignited.

  “No! The explosives!” Reshmina cried.

  “Help me put the fire out!” Pasoon yelled.

  Together they kicked dirt at it, and Reshmina used her headscarf to beat out the last of the flames. She was still scared that one of the weapons might go off, and now it was pitch-dark in the cave again.

  “Get out—we have to get out!” Pasoon told her.

  Pasoon scrambled out first, then helped Reshmina through the hole. When she was back on her feet, she shoved her brother, hard.

  “You idiot!” she cried. “You could have killed us both in there!”

  “You’re the one who dropped the lantern!” he told her.

  “Because you popped up like some evil spirit and scared me to death!” Reshmina yelled.

  They were both shaking so much they had to sit down on the ground.

  When Reshmina could breathe again, she turned to her
brother. “How did you even know that place was there?”

  Pasoon looked away. “Darwesh and Amaan showed it to me.”

  Reshmina blew out a laugh. Darwesh and Amaan. Of course.

  Pasoon got up angrily and stalked off up the path.

  “Pasoon, wait,” Reshmina called. She got to her feet and followed him again. “I’m sorry. Please, stop this foolishness and come home. Mor and Baba need you. I need you.”

  But Pasoon was done talking. Reshmina glared at her twin brother’s back as he walked away. Why couldn’t he see there was another path? Another future? Why did he have to follow so doggedly in the footsteps of all the other boys who had left home for the Taliban before him?

  High up on a ridge, Reshmina spied a familiar rock with a phone number painted on it—the same one she and Pasoon had passed a couple of years ago. The spot she had guessed he was going to all along.

  “The rifle’s not going to be there,” she told Pasoon. “It can’t be.”

  But it was. They passed the painted rock and came to the small plateau again, and there, right where Pasoon had left it, was the same Soviet rifle he had used to shoot at the American army base.

  Pasoon picked up the rifle and checked to see if it was still loaded. Apparently it was.

  “Pasoon, what are you doing?” Reshmina asked.

  Chik-chik. Pasoon slid the bolt back in place and took aim over the side of the mountain.

  “I’m going to call the Taliban,” he said.

  Brandon dialed the office number for Windows on the World from memory, his heart racing.

  The line buzzed with a busy signal.

  No, Brandon thought. No no no no no. Please tell me their phones aren’t out.

  Maybe he’d dialed the number wrong. His hands were shaking as he hung up and dialed again. He just needed to know his dad was alive. That he was okay.

  The phone was ringing. It was ringing! Someone was answering!

  “Hello! Hello, this is Brandon Chavez!” Brandon said, practically shouting into the phone. “Is my dad there? Is he all right?”

  There was silence on the line for just a moment, and Brandon held his breath.

  “Leo!” the person on the other line called. “Your kid’s on the phone!”

  Brandon waited breathlessly for what felt like minutes. Hours. And then, at last—

  “Brandon?”

  “Dad!”

  It was such a relief to hear his father’s voice. To know, after everything Brandon had been through today, after everything he’d seen, that his dad was still alive. Tears streamed from Brandon’s eyes, but he laughed at the same time.

  “Oh, Brandon! Thank God you’re okay!” his dad was saying. “There was this sudden crash, and the smoke, and I couldn’t find you anywhere! I didn’t know if you were alive or dead!”

  Brandon sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I was going down to the mall to buy those Wolverine gloves for Cedric. I should never have left you. I was in an elevator when the plane hit, and I was trapped. I got out and I tried to get back up to you. But I can’t. There’s a fire, and the stairs are blocked.”

  “I’m just so glad to know you’re okay,” his dad told him. “I went down looking for you, but we can’t get past the 100th floor.”

  The 100th floor? Brandon frowned. If Brandon and Richard couldn’t get up past the 93rd floor, and the people up top couldn’t go down any farther than the 100th floor, that meant there wasn’t just one floor where the plane had hit. It had taken out seven whole floors. Were all those floors on fire like the 93rd was? How would the fire department ever be able to put something like that out?

  “But that means all those people from the 100th floor up,” Brandon said out loud as he realized it. “That means they’re all trapped!” His breath caught, and he started to cry again. “That means you’re trapped!”

  “It’s okay, Brandon. We’re okay,” his dad said. He sounded so calm it calmed Brandon down too. A little.

  “There’s about seventy of us up here,” his dad went on. “There was a big event happening on the 106th floor, but we’re all together now. It’s really smoky, but we’re going to be okay, all right? It was just an accident. This old building is tough. It can take whatever the world throws at it, just like me and you, right? You’re all right now. That’s all that matters, Brandon. Madre de Dios. I thought I would never hear your voice again.”

  “Me too,” Brandon said.

  He felt so helpless. He wanted to do something.

  “Do you need us to call 911?” Brandon asked, glancing at Richard.

  “We’ve called them already,” his dad said. “They told us not to move. To wait for the firefighters. What floor are you on? Are they up to you yet?”

  “We’re on the 89th floor. There’s other people here, but no firefighters. Not yet.”

  “Don’t worry, Brandon,” his dad said. “We’re going to be okay. Both of us. Are you with somebody who can keep you safe?”

  “Yes. I’m with a man named Richard. He’s nice.” Brandon looked up at Richard again, and Richard smiled. “He was on the escalator with us this morning. The one who almost spilled his coffee. Remember? He works on the 89th floor.”

  “Okay. Good. You stay with him until you’re safe.”

  Brandon’s mind went back to the inferno on the 93rd floor. The wreckage. The woman who’d burned. “What if the firemen can’t get to you in time?” Brandon asked.

  “Then they’ll take us off the roof by helicopter,” his dad said.

  Yes! Brandon had seen the helicopter. And while there was nothing it could do for him, it could easily land on the roof and evacuate the people trapped in the floors above.

  “It’s all right, Brandon. We’ve been through worse,” his dad told him.

  Brandon couldn’t believe his dad was being so calm about everything, especially when Brandon felt so close to freaking out. He’d been able to put his feelings away through most of it, to push on when things were so horrible he shouldn’t have been able to think straight. But now that Brandon was still for a moment and finally talking with his dad, all his fear and worry and confusion came bubbling back up, and he could feel himself starting to panic.

  “Brandon—Brandon, are you still with me?” his dad asked.

  “Yes! Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry. I—”

  “Brandon, it’s all right. You still have your key, right? To the apartment? You can get yourself home on the subway. You’ve done it before. If they evacuate the building, I want you to take the subway home and wait for me there. Got it?”

  “I can’t do this without you, Dad,” Brandon said. He was crying again, and he turned away from Richard and the others, embarrassed. “We’re a team. You always—”

  Outside, through the window, Brandon suddenly spotted something glinting in the blue sky. It was an airplane. A jumbo jet. Larger than life, and flying too low across the harbor, too close. Terror seized Brandon at the sight of something that should. not. be. where it was. Esther saw it too, and she gasped.

  The plane was coming right for them in the North Tower—another plane—getting bigger, and bigger. Too big. Too close. Brandon took a frightened step back—and then the plane’s wing dipped and it turned, disappearing behind the South Tower right in front of them. There was a dull POOM, and suddenly a bright orange fireball erupted from the side of the South Tower facing them.

  Everyone in the office ducked, and Brandon cried out in shock and terror. The North Tower shuddered again, and Richard cursed. Through the phone, Brandon could hear people screaming in Windows on the World. He put the receiver back to his ear, his hands shaking.

  “Dad? Dad! Are you all right?” Brandon cried.

  “Yes, something just happened to the South Tower, but we don’t know what! I didn’t see it!”

  “It was a plane,” Brandon said with growing horror. He didn’t understand what he’d just seen. Planes didn’t fly into buildings, but he’d just watched one fly straight into the World Trade Center. “D
ad, a plane just hit the South Tower!”

  There were more screams through the phone as people began to understand what had happened. Richard stood back up and put a trembling hand over his mouth. “Dear God in heaven,” he whispered.

  “Brandon—Brandon, are you there?” his father asked.

  “Yes,” Brandon said. He was still trying to process what he’d seen, but he just couldn’t make his brain accept it. For one plane to hit the World Trade Center—that was a terrible accident. But for a second one to hit the South Tower …

  “Brandon, you have to get out of the building right now,” his father told him. The calm in his dad’s voice was gone, replaced by a breathless, electric fear. “As fast as you can. Do you understand? Don’t wait for the fire department. Get out.”

  “What?” Brandon said, confused. Nothing made sense. What was happening? What was going on?

  “Brandon, listen to me. You have to get out of the building. Now.”

  “I don’t understand,” Brandon said. He held the phone with both hands. “Dad, I don’t—”

  “Brandon, hang up and get out of the building as fast as you can,” his father told him. “This wasn’t an accident. We’re under attack!”

  Reshmina ran to look over the edge of the mountain where Pasoon had aimed his rifle, and she pulled back in surprise. The American camp, the one Pasoon had shot at years ago, was abandoned now. The Taliban had torn down the tin roofs and painted insults on the rock barriers, but nobody was there. The Americans had packed up and left. The ANA still had bases in the province, but not the Americans. Not anymore.

  “Ha!” Reshmina said. “Look! All that shooting, all that fighting, and for what? Neither side won anything, and neither side lost anything—except lives.”

  “We won,” Pasoon told her. “We drove them out.”

  “Out of what? Why? Nobody lives here!” Reshmina cried. “We’re in the middle of nowhere! There’s no water, no food, nothing for animals to graze on. Nobody really wants this place—not the Americans, and not the Taliban either. They just wanted to fight. It’s like it’s all some big game.”