by N R Brooks
“Hey man, don’t shoot. I’ll leave.” He said holding his hands in the air as if I were a police officer. He just stood there shaking rather than leaving.
“Then fucking leave!” I screamed. This seemed to do the trick as he took off running down the dark alley they emerged from.
I looked down at the pathetic douche still laying on the ground, crying. I didn’t blame him, I would definitely be bawling like a child too. I knelt down and got right in his face.
“What the fuck is your problem, man? This is not how you treat a lady. You stupid fuck. She didn’t want you the first time, what makes you think she would ever want you? Didn’t I tell you that she would fight you to the end?” I said, reminding him of what I said at the pizzeria. “Huh? You hear me motherfucker?”
“Stan, let’s just go, please?” Keiko said trying to get me to leave with her. She still sounded frightened even though she was the one who saved the both of us.
“Fine,” I said and stood up. “Let’s see what this guy can do to apologize.”
I grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket and took it. If anything maybe he had a few bucks I could take. It’s not like he is going to be running to the cops. I looked inside and found a five dollar bill. Then I saw his ID and realized they still used laminated licenses in this time. Easy to alter, plus I really needed some sort of ID that wasn’t issued twenty years in the future. I put the money and his ID in my pocket and threw the wallet back at him.
“Thanks, pal. Tell your buddy thanks for me too.” I teased just before I kicked him in the teeth, most likely knocking a few out.
Keiko looked down at him after I kicked his teeth in and just scoffed and spit on his face before grabbing my hand and walking the rest of the way home with me, but much closer and tighter than before.
While walking back, I removed the clip from the gun and tossed it in a dumpster we passed on the way home. I then dismantled the gun itself and threw each piece in a separate dumpster to be sure it was gone. I had no use for it. Guns were for bitches. Bitches like the douchebag clutching his destroyed balls a mile or so behind us.
When we finally got home, we walked inside, and Keiko just plopped down on the bed and began sobbing. It wasn’t like I was much help back there. She pretty much handled it all herself. I felt useless. But it was still my job to console her.
“Hey, I’m here. It is okay now.” I held her tight and let her cry on my chest.
“Thank you, Stan. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.” She mumbled into my shirt.
“Hey, I didn’t do anything except maybe distract him while you took him out with those knees of yours. I almost fell down in pain just from watching.”
This made her laugh but didn’t stop her tears. “I just acted on instinct. Do you think I hurt him pretty bad?”
“Babe, I don’t think he will be trying that any time ever again. You definitely don’t have to worry about running into any of his offspring…ever.”
“Good.” This finally got her to stop crying. “Fuck ‘im.”
I smiled when she said that. I loved hearing her talk like this. “I agree. Fuck ‘im.”
I hugged her until I was sure she was over the shock of what transpired earlier. We didn’t end up going to sleep until well after the sun had already come back up. Neither of us had to work, so it didn’t really matter what time we went to bed. One thing was for sure though. I was damn proud of my woman.
The next few months would go just as well as the first month we had been together. But despite how much I loved being with her, I couldn’t forget the whole reason I came to the east coast in the first place. And the time where I would have to start taking action was getting closer and closer. I had to start planning out how I was going to leave New York to head to Florida without divulging my mission to anybody close to me—especially Keiko. There were some things she just didn’t need to know.
I had until summer to start connecting the dots of my plan. This was more than enough time, so I really wasn’t stretched thin between what I had to do and what I wanted to do. Due to our schedules, this left me with time to myself in the mornings to do whatever research I needed to do and put together a timeline of how I would proceed. The evenings were spent relaxing and enjoying my time with my woman.
January turned out to be an interesting month for my interest in aviation disasters. The last two days of the month saw two nasty plane accidents, one in Africa and another one off the coast of California. Both were incredibly tragic, and the California incident was one that I remember quite vividly as it was the result of shoddy maintenance—someone didn’t grease the jack-screw which controls the elevators on the horizontal stabilizer! 88 fatalities because someone didn’t use lube.
I could ramble on for days about planes and plane crashes because it was a topic I always loved reading about. Not because I have some sick and twisted fascination with death—okay, maybe a little—but because most accidents were caused by human error. The one thing humans will never grow out of.
Keiko didn’t have the same interests in airplanes that I had, but she nevertheless always listened when I rambled on about it. She asked questions and sounded genuinely interested whenever I explained certain incidents with her. If she wasn’t, she was a very good actress.
I knew from memory that another major accident would happen later in the year, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t be around here to discuss it with Keiko. Sometime in July an Air France Concorde jet would crash just after takeoff in Paris. If only there was a way I could prevent that, but unfortunately that one just wasn’t in the cards.
I knew that Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi would be arriving in the US sometime during the summer and would be attending flight school in Venice, Florida. I hated not having my books with me as I would be able to get much more specific dates and details to go by but I was instead left with only my memory. Luckily for me, I have done enough research on them so while exact dates were not going to be readily available, I was familiar with many of the locations and travel plans the men made during their stay in the US. This was going to be difficult, but I had plenty of time to work out how I would do it.
For the next six months, my time alone would be devoted to this plan. It couldn’t fail. I had to succeed. For if I didn’t, I would lose yet another person in my life that I held very dear. I wasn’t sure if that was something I could live through again. I definitely didn’t want to.
Chapter 14
The first task I gave myself was altering the ID I had stolen off of the douchebag on New Years. They wouldn’t switch to plastic cards with scan codes for a few more years so that worked out to my advantage. I purchased an exacto-knife so I could carefully cut open the laminate on the ID and remove the photo—my mom always told me how they altered their IDs when she was a kid to buy beer. I found a photo booth close by the apartment and took pictures of myself until I had just the right size of picture that would fit in the laminate without looking like it had been tampered with.
That was when I saw the douchebag’s name, the one I would adopt when eventually encountering the hijackers in Florida. Charles Winkle. Seriously? No wonder the guy is such a loser. I would kick my own ass for having that name. I guess for the next year or so I would be known to people as Charles Winkle. Maybe I would shorten it to Chaz or Chuck. Nah, Chaz is pretty lame too. I guess Chuck it is. I wouldn’t feel like such a dweeb that way.
The next few months consisted of jotting down what I actually did remember about the movements of the hijackers. I was able to come up with a couple pages for a timeline of roughly where I would need to be to keep an eye out. Ziad would be the easiest since I knew where he went to flight school. I would plan on meeting him in the classroom. This meant that I could make up the story that I wanted to attend flight school and Florida had by far the best schools. I was sure Keiko would support me, but it will sure be rough going that long without her. I just have to remind myself that I am doing this for her
. Her and all the other innocent people that lost their life—will lose their life, if I fail.
I picked out key players that would be the bare minimum I could interfere with and make the whole plot fall apart. Obviously the ringleader, Mohamed Atta would have to be taken out. Without their leader, some of the hijackers might back out. I was confident I knew enough about Ziad Jarrah that I could try to convince him to back out at the last minute. The only one that might pose a bit of a problem is Flight 77, the plane that hits the Pentagon. I knew very little about their pilot, Hani Hanjour, simply because most of the texts I read in my time didn’t cover much about him. I did know that two of the muscle hijackers for that flight were already on the CIA’s radar. They were the two morons that would come to California for a while then leave the country again. I would just have to involve the FBI since that never happened in my timeline which would be an embarrassing admission by the government. If I could possibly get them taken out, three men might not be enough to effectively carry out the hijacking. Flight 77 was going to be a leap of faith.
I had the basic framework of a plan laid out; the rest would have to be made up on the spot as I was relying purely on chance encounters and brief knowledge of the personalities of the men. I was confident that I could pull this off. Soon I would have to break the news to Keiko that I would be leaving for a while. It would be painful for the both of us, but the other option would be far too painful to bear. I had to steel myself for what lay ahead.
By the beginning of May, I had spent as much time with Keiko as I could, treating her like the queen she deserved to be. We had so much in common we never argued or bickered. We were always happy when we were around each other. And that is what made bringing up my relocation so much more difficult.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and Keiko wanted to take me to the observation deck on the South Tower. The tower she worked in did not have an observation deck because it housed many of the city’s TV and radio antennas, including the large one that is such an iconic part of the New York skyline.
It was almost summer, and it had already started to become warm enough for t-shirts and shorts. I had secretly looked forward to this part of the year just to see what sexy outfits Keiko had in store for this weather. I was definitely not disappointed. On this day, she wore a very simple sundress. Black and white floral mini sundress with spaghetti straps. She looked great like always. I always told her she could wear grease-stained overalls and still look sexy although she never planned on testing the theory.
Our plans were to walk to the twin towers early that morning and have breakfast at the Windows on the World restaurant in the North Tower before making our way to the final floors of the South Tower and on to the observation deck on top. It was a clear day with sunshine all around. One thing to note is that while there may be no wind on the ground, the towers were so high that there could be times where winds could get quite harsh on the deck. It was warm outside, but we brought light jackets just in case it was windy up there.
As we arrived at the North Tower, we walked inside to see a throng of people like us; those coming to see what the towers had to offer. Never before had I seen so many velvet rope barriers and steel stanchions in one place before. We stood in line in the six lanes of retractable belt and rope barriers and waited our turn for our pictures to be taken with a canvas backdrop of the New York skyline. A little memory to start off our day together.
We smiled for the camera while embracing each other tightly and walked onward to the security checkpoint. I found this to be rather ironic as the security here seemed to be much more aggressive than what you would see at an airport during this time period. If their security teams had been swapped, I might not even have to undertake the mission I had given myself in the coming months.
We walked hand in hand through a hallway that was plastered with posters of movies and Broadway plays. I no longer felt like I was inside the World Trade Center but rather in the corridor of a movie theater or a concert hall. Definitely not what I had expected to see in a place like this.
Eventually, we arrived at the lobby to wait for one of the express elevators that would shoot us towards the upper floors of the tower at gut-wrenching speeds. When the door shut and the carriage began to ascend, I watched the digital counter that displayed the floor numbers as we passed them. After a moment, the elevator had reached a speed of a little over two levels per second. On most elevators in much smaller buildings, you rarely feel the movement of the elevator until it either begins its climb or stops at its destination. In this elevator, you could feel the gravity pick up only slightly during the entire trip—all 110 floors.
When we finally arrived, we were seated at a small table for the two of us next to a window on the north facing side of the tower. I requested this for reasons pertaining to my mission. It gave me a way to relate to those who died in my time on that fateful day. That and the view of the entirety of Manhattan Island was sublime. In my opinion, the view alone was worth the price.
Our food arrived and Keiko and I shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate six months together. I had read before that while the food here was great, it could never match the view in terms of greatness. I may or may not have to agree with them. The view of the city was absolutely stunning, probably even more so after the sun had gone down. But the food was excellent. A cacophony of flavors on my palate. Keiko gave a similar review of her course upon finishing.
When we had both finished our plates and were sitting there not wanting to move for a bit, I determined now would be a good time for me to bring up what I had planned all these past months.
“You know, the view of the city from up here is breathtaking. How do you stay focused on your work with a view like this?” I asked her to break the news lightly.
“Well, if my desk was right up next to a window like this, I imagine I would get far less done. My desk is close but not right up to the window, so I don’t have to deal with the distraction.”
“I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I think I would like to be able to look out and see the sprawl of the metropolis below me. But yeah, it definitely would affect my productivity.”
“Well, it is a good thing you aren’t working with me. I think that would be much more of a distraction than the city.” She said, wrinkling her nose at me and smiling.
“Pretty sure I could beat you in a game of least productive employee any day. Especially if I was working with you nearby. I wouldn’t get a damn thing done.”
“Some days I wish you did work up here with me.”
“Me too. I love Pops, but I can’t be making pizzas forever. It definitely won’t pay the bills around here.” She gave me the perfect segway into what I wanted to bring up. “That actually brings up something I’ve wanted to ask you.”
She looked up from her champagne glass with an expression that meant to go on.
“So, I’ve actually been thinking, and I really want to do something with my life. You know, job-wise.”
“Okay, what’s on your mind?” She asked.
“Well, I want to learn how to fly,” I said, failing to hide any sense of childlike interest. “I want to be a pilot. I have ever since I was a kid, you know this by now. I just never really had the motivation to do anything or to get out and actually try to achieve something. I feel like now is the time to finally get off my ass and do something worthwhile.”
“Stan, that is great! You know I will support you in anything.” She looked genuinely happy for me.
“Are you sure? I may have to leave for a while for flight schooling and all. Are you okay with that?”
“Well, how long do you think you will have to be gone for?” Her look of happiness seemed to dim slightly.
“I don’t know. You know I love airplanes, especially commercial jets. It might take a while. I have to start from the bottom and work my way up.” I explained, trying to give the impression that I would be gone for a good length of time.
“Well, oka
y. I mean, if that is what you really want to do, I will do anything I can to help, you know that.” She grabbed my hand after assuring me.
“Well, I wanted to make sure you are okay with it. I really want to do this, for both of us.”
“Then do it, Stan. I want you to be happy. As long as you are, I will be happy right there with you.”
“I know.” I pulled her hands toward me so I could kiss them. “That is why you are so amazing.”
She smiled and took another drink of the champagne. “That doesn’t mean I will be happy while you are gone.”
“Trust me, I will be miserable being away from you for even a day.”
“Oh, you are such a liar.” She nudged my arm and playfully pushed me.
“Serious! Anyway, enough of this sad talk. Everything will work out, I promise. Now let’s finish this bottle and go over to the other tower and check out the observation deck.”
We drank the remainder of the champagne and paid our hefty bill—worth every penny in my humble opinion—and rode the swift elevator ride to the bottom only to walk to the South Tower and ride the elevator another 110 floors.
The inside observation level turned out to be much different than what I had in my head. I knew nothing about the inside of the building or what the various floors looked like before coming here. This was all a very new experience for me. As the elevator door opened, we were greeted by a corridor filled with silhouette cutouts of people on both sides as well as in front of the windows looking out onto the city. This struck me as an odd choice of decor. This would only be the entrance area to the observatory.
Once inside there were handrails and mounted binoculars to use to peer out over the city. For miles and miles, it was civilization as far as the eye could see. Even a day like today with excellent visibility, it is just miles and miles of concrete and steel structures. It is quite mesmerizing.