by Vincent Heck
The NEADS battle commander responded calmly,“Not quite sure yet. We’re on the phone with FAA. Seems like there’s been a hijacking. We’ve sent fighters to look for the plane; it’s Flight 11.”
“Well, where is it?”
“The transponder is off sir. We’re searching.”
“This is real? Where did the call come from?”
“Texas base. A flight attendant reported a hijacking. Yes, sir, it’s real.”
“Keep me in the know.” He said before hanging up.
Jason ran out into the hallway where a collective chatter was growing increasingly louder. Chatter about missiles; chatter about an aircraft hitting the towers; chatter about an explosion. Questions without answers bred speculation about terrorism.
The 1993 World Trade Center attacks became the hot topic on the floor.
Jason called Michael.
“Hello?”
“Mike!”
“Jason! Where are you?”
“I’m in WTC 7. What’s going on? I hear the noise.”
“I don’t know. The lobby blew up.”
“Wait a minute. I just got out of the building… something hit the World Trade Center, Jason.”
“Which one?”
“WTC 1.”
“Vanessa’s in there!”
“Oh my god!” Michael shouted before his went dead.
“Michael?!”
It was too late. The phone had cut off. Jason tried dialing the number back. It went straight to voicemail.
Jason peered across the hall where the co-commander of the defense department and C.I.A. stared somberly out of the window with his hand covering his mouth.
Jason approached the window to see a gaping hole in the side of the north tower’s building. Black smoke emerged from the flames flaring out of the holes, and billowed into the clear blue sky.
He scurried back into his office and grabbed his phone. Dialing Vanessa’s number, he ran into the hallway towards the elevators.
Rapidly tapping on the down button, his anxiety rushed ahead of him. Still, time forced him to await Vanessa’s voice.
“Hello, daddy?!”
“Vanessa, baby! Where are you?” He asked as the elevator doors parted.
“I’m in the building. We’re trapped in an elevator right now.”
“What happened?”
“After we called you, we were going up the elevator back up to see more sights. Then there was a large crack of thunder that made the whole elevator shake. The lights went off then on. And now we’re stuck in here.”
“Hold on babe. I’m coming.”
Jason got onto the elevator and hit the base floor.
“How many teachers are with you?”
“Three. Mrs. Crumbart, Mr. Lambert, and Mrs….”
The line began to break up as his elevator sped to ground level. A beep indicated that he had lost connection with her.
Once he reached the lobby, he ran past the front desk.
“Is the mayor in here?”
“No.” The desk lady answered. “He nor the rest of the crew have come in here today.”
“Thanks.” Jason sprinted through the lobby out to Vesey Street where he saw the enormous gaping hole at the very top of the World Trade Center north tower without the protection of a window pane in between. The air smelled like a burning science lab.
It had now sunk deeper into his reality; a reality that now felt like a convergence with a nightmare.
Everything but nothing seemed real.
After his brief trance, he dialed Vanessa’s phone again only to get a busy signal. “All circuits are busy” the operator said calmly.
He dialed again and amidst the chaos, the operator said just as calmly and politely the exact message as before. Rage filled his chest. Jason wanted to scream.
He ran towards the building while calling Michael.
All circuits busy.
Jason continued his run down the block continually attempting to dial Vanessa’s phone. The phone rang this time, but, it kept ringing. It didn’t stop ringing until the voicemail picked up which was a message created for her by her mother.
“Sorry Nessa can’t come to the phone…” The message blurred off into a distance muffle as he glanced up at the building which had appeared to be giving off more smoke than before.
His phone rang and it was Jill.
“Have you heard from Nessa?”
“I had about ten minutes ago, but I haven’t been able to get through to her since.”
“Was she OK?”
Jason didn’t want anymore panic than what was surely already panic setting in. He made the risky decision to keep his wife calm, and slightly out of the loop.
“She was fine, babe. She said they were in there, but I’m sure they’ll be able to get her out.”
There was no reason to tell her Vanessa was stuck, just yet, was there? The horror of having a daughter caught in a burning skyscraper stuck in an elevator was stressful enough. His wife’s grief would only make the situation more unbearable.
He needed his emotions in check enough to operate.
“I’m heading over there now, babe. I’m going to get her. I’ll call you back.”
A boisterous swooping sound swished fluidly and power trickled between the blocks of the tall buildings as another explosion erupted – this time, from the south tower. Debris ejected high above him.
The explosion appeared in slow motion like an action movie as he watched the pieces splash out of the face of the building and float like sulfur and fire from the heavens down onto the ground below.
Jason ducked for cover under a car parked on by the sidewalk. Metal of all sizes clanked around him. A large fireball crashed through the store window just beside him setting the place on fire.
When the debris finished falling, Jason hopped to his feet.
Another plane had hit the opposite tower.
Screams, cries and profanity played, seemingly, on loop from every direction. Residual fiery debris continued to race down to the street.
Jason ducked back under the car for a moment before the next wave of debris calmed.
From underneath the car, he saw feet running away from the chaos. Panic was everywhere.
When Jason finally crawled from under the car, he stood up to one of the most surreal scenes of his life. People were hurt, some were bloody. His surroundings were littered with pieces of random building and airplane remnants. Things were on fire, windows were broken, cars were crushed. Car alarms blared, emergency vehicles, and the bustling roar of flames burning out of two massive buildings. It looked like Armageddon. It sounded like Armageddon.
It felt like Armageddon.
The atmosphere was slightly smokey with most of the people—men, women, and children—dazed in horror.
Sirens swirled from every direction and with the thudder of helicopter blades, bounced off of the surrounding Manhattan buildings. Every street he turned down offered a new set of screams accompanied with the sorrow and sobbing fear—and despite the slow motion nature of what he saw, nothing was still. Everything was moving.
The entire lower portion of Manhattan spun around him maybe six times until he was dizzy. He couldn’t tell if he had spun, or if the world had rotated around him; he couldn’t feel his feet.
His knees gave out for a second, dropping him to the pavement. He caught himself with his hands, and waited until he had some composure back. But, his condition worsened. He felt sick. He was going to hurl, at any moment.
His phone ran; it was Vanessa’s phone.
Quickly, he answered. “Babe?!”
“Daddy. We’re out.”
Jason rolled onto his back. Covering his eyes with his left forearm he cried, “Oh, thank God…” Jason didn’t even believe in God. He was non-religious. “Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”
“We’re coming down the stairs. We’re halfway there.”
“Ask your teacher what stairwell. What floor are you on?�
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Jason knew that building like the back of his hand. He would know where to go if he only knew which stairwell they were going to be in. He heard Vanessa shout back at the teacher asking for the stairwell.
The phone cut out again.
He tried to call back only to get a busy signal, once more. That operator was torturing him.
He called Jill back.
“Hello?”
“Jill, she’s fine. I’m going to get her now. She just called and she’s on her way out.”
Jill began to sob. “Thank you, hon. I knew you could do it.”
“It’s going to be OK. Let me call you back.”
As Jason approached the entrance of the north tower, the firefighters stopped him.
“Sir, it’s just not safe enough for you to enter.”
“I’ve got people in there. I work for the C.I.A. Their covert defense sector -- I’m stationed in the WTC 7 building, and it’s imperative that you let me in there.”
“OK, agent. But, it’s not safe in this way. There’s falling debris and bodies. This really is not a place you want to be.”
“Sir,” Jason said with a stern voice, “it’s not your choice. This is a matter of national security. Move.”
The firefighter stepped aside as Jason ran into the building.
The scene was amazing. Fire alarms blared a steady high-pitched squeal echoing off of the hollow bare white walls and bellowing out of the shattered windows.
He saw a parade of people on the mezzanine level marching towards the bridge. He ran to the command post set up by the firemen and police. The captain was there.
“Excuse me sir. C.I.A. Where are you evacuating these folks?”
“We can’t send them out the lobby way, so we’re sending them through the underground to WTC 4 and out on Liberty St. It’s the Safest way.”
“OK. St. Mary’s middle school. Do you have any clue where they are?”
“Sir, I don’t have a single clue about anything, right now. This is chaos.”
“Thanks for your hard work, sir. Your men are the bravest I know.”
Jason darted into the middle of the lobby. The noise overwhelmed him. The dazed looks on the people’s faces made things seem unreal. Like a spooky nightmare after a terrible horror film.
The firefighters moved less confidently than usual. Some moved swiftly. They acted bravely. But none of their faces—were like any other firefighter expression he had ever seen. Confusion and uncertainty was the main expression that emanated off of their face. One firefighter stood still in the middle of the lobby staring into dead space. He removed his helmet, wiped his forehead with his forearm and scratched his head. Dazed, he returned the helmet to his head and continued his stare ninety degrees to the left of him.
Jason looked in each direction, constantly and repetitively, scanning each face on the mezzanine, looking for Vanessa.
He made his way to the staircase and fought through the police guarding the top of the staircase so as not to let anyone back down to the lobby. Standing in that spot, the fear of the people around him hadn’t seemed to have eclipsed the fear of those on the outside.
The fear on the mezzanine was more shock swallowed by a zombie march towards one uncertain direction: where everyone else was going. He figured he’d march in the direction of the exit until he reached a far point to stand and wait.
As he squeezed and skipped through the dazed throng of people, he flashed his agent credentials.
He never made it to the exit, however.
A thundering roar, at last, caused the urgent panic missing inside to erupt into fearful gasps and shouts. Jason looked out of the shattered windows to an abnormal amount of debris falling onto the ground outside.
“Get down!” Jason shouted flashing his badge.
The folks around him dropped to the floor causing a slow chain reaction. Jason ran to the window, hopping over bodies to see what was happening. Nothing changed for the first few seconds. Then, the debris from the sky became increasingly thick. Suddenly a grey powder crashed into the ground. The powder thundered through the window, violently, knocking Jason on his back and blinding him.
A mouthful of debris tasted like hot ash-tray mixed with chalk and dirt. It choked him. He literally felt like he was hacking up a lung as everything around him went pitch black. Only thing his ears registered is what sounded like a herd of bulls. And just like that, everyone disappeared. It felt as if he were dying alone in a dark lobby. He coughed out dust, only to suck in another disgusting mouthful.
He was going to die drowning in blazing hot dirt. It went up his nose, into his mouth, and it clogged his ear-holes.
Complete silence evaporated into a slight ringing noise before what seemed like a lifetime of pitch-blackness, dissolved slowly into a peach-hue haze. A muffled bass thump and echoing of inaudible voices slowly returned his senses.
His eyes burned, his ears were stuffed, and the only thing he could hear sounded like an ocean full of whales crying out under their fogged ocean.
When things cleared enough, people around him were coughing, vomiting and aimlessly tripping over one another. Soon, he heard a firefighter walking through order everyone to get up and continue marching towards the exit.
Jason approached him.
“What happened out there? That wasn’t a nuke, was it?” He shouted.
The fight fighter shouted back, “What?!”
Jason repeated the question a bit more slow, loudly, and deliberate.
“I don’t know. Some sort of explosion. It could very well, possibly some nuclear sonic-boom. I’m not sure we have a city anymore, sir.”
Jason ran back towards the lower lobby. He wanted to get to the central stairwell. He had a feeling that his daughter would be there. Just a feeling. If she were going to survive with the way this building were built, she would have to go to the central staircase.
Covered in gray, powdered, debris, he darted into the stairwell, and fought through the folks rushing down the steps. As he passed everyone, they glared at him as if they had seen a ghost. Some even screamed upon sight of him. They were still clean.
“Vanessa!” He called. “Did you see school kids coming down here?” He asked as he passed people on their way down. He didn’t get much response from the people.
As he continued fighting though the resisting crowds, another thunderous sound shook the building. Jason’s thoughts tunneled. He thought about Vanessa—where was she?
Jill crossed his mind. She’s about to lose both of us. He thought to himself.
Screams echoed and the crowd in the staircase became exceptionally pushy and dangerous. Jason stepped off to the side as the rumble bared down on them. The rumble became louder and the shaking violently increased. Jumping back into the center of the crowd he ducked down covering his head. His phone rang as everything above him collapsed into darkness. He felt a body crash on top of him and several blocks accompanied by dusty debris before everything, once again, settled and went quiet.
In the dark silence, dust trickled, as Jason’s phone rang its final ring before complete silence.
May 2003
Westfields Marriott hotel: Chantilly, Virginia.
“We’ve got the last two—and possibly the most difficult—set of tasks left in Operation F.A.I.T.H. left. We need to execute these tasks with a precision that folks will not full-out reject. They have to believe there’s peace and security.” Said chairman Mr. Jack Brendenhall. “So what have you come up with?”
“Well, I think the public here in America are fearful enough. Everything from 9/11 and beyond has shaken them up pretty good.” Michael said.
“What about the conspiracy theorists?”
“They’ve gotten so far off of the track, no one even takes them seriously.”
“So, the 9/11 Commission is mostly accepted?”
“Yes. Some people may question it, but not enough to do any damage. There’s too much going on, and this land is entire
ly too comfortable for people to want to agitate things, too much. We’re good enough to move forward. We plan to move to action in the fall. We’ll take the backlash, as usual, then Christmas and New Years will distract and calm things down. ”
“Where do the Megiddos stand, at this point?”
“They’re still idle. They have not expressed any opposition to anything we’ve done.”
“So where do we go from here?” Brendenhall asked.
“We’re pitching this war on terror.” President Harris said. “We’ll ‘fight’ these extremists until we feel F.A.I.T.H. is ready to go into its final stage, then we’ll activate the home stretch of this thing and begin our new era.” Michael said.
“And these extremists are?” Brendenhall asked.
“We’ve been using them for years like this. They’re a group of people the Megiddos found us during the 80s. Extremists under the impression that they’re Muslim. They don’t have enough of anything to challenge the U.S., really, but the Megiddos use them as an easy group to hate and kill.”
The Brendenhall members were sitting around the table slouched back in their padded luxurious oak chairs, while the government representatives were sitting erect with their papers in front of them.
“How long do you suppose you’re going to ‘activate the home stretch?’” George Dempsey, CEO of the biggest oil company in the world asked. “I don’t want us to have to discuss peak oil with the folks, any longer.”
“They don’t have a clue what’s going on. Don’t worry. I know we’re on a time-table with that and Operation F.A.I.T.H. We’ll get it done. Banks, oil, business… all of it, we’ll have a plan for all of it. It will work. The only people who can foil it are those crazy Megiddos. They’re silent.”
“What about religion?”
Michael felt uneasy. He peered off to his left towards his colleagues. Some never picked their head up to acknowledge the question, at all. A congressman spoke up, “Well, that’s, as you can imagine, a bit of a challenge—“
“We’re on top of it, though.” The President interrupted. “We have a group of folks here in America who are a bit stubborn. Our forefathers gave so much freedom to the people that they fail to realize total freedom couldn’t be given.” Shaking his head, the President continued, “If our forefathers had made it legal to kill someone who attempted to, let’s say, try to sleep with your wife, then the American citizens would have accepted that as their birth right. It’d probably be a debate up to this day. But, because the founding forefathers did not, it’s not accepted.”