Free 43* by Jeff Greenfield Page B

Secret Service, the National Security
     Council advisor, and counterterrorism head Richard Clarke debated where the president
     should set up base—was this part of a broader attempt to decapitate the federal government,
     and were other hijacked planes in the air, ready to hit the White House?—Gore turned
     to his chief of staff, Ron Klain.
    “We’re going back to Washington, Ron,” the president said.
    “Sir, the Secret Service says there’s no way we can know—”
    “We’re going back to Washington,” Gore repeated. “I want the congressional leaders—both
     parties, House and Senate—in the Cabinet Room waiting for me.”
    “Mr. President, we don’t know right now who, how many … ”
    Gore was silent for a moment.
    “I remember when I was in the Senate, there was a protocol for a national emergency—nuclear
     war was the big fear. Congressional leaders were supposed to get to that bunker in
     West Virginia—you know, near the Greenbrier, built into a mountain. But now … if we
     don’t even know who the hell is alive … .”
    The president looked again at the TV monitor, watched on half of the screen as one
     of the Twin Towers collapsed in on itself, while on the other half a small army of
     rescue workers scrambled in and out of what remained of the Capitol. The phone at
     his console buzzed; he punched the speakerphone button and heard Richard Clarke’s
     voice, telling him what he already knew—the Al Qaeda attack they had feared for months,
     for years, had come.
    “I want that nailed down as fast and as solid as we can,” Gore said, “before there’s
     any panicked talk about the Russians or the Chinese or Iraq or whoever. And Dick—I
     know what you and the others are going to say, but I’ve got to get back to Washington—no
     delays, no hesitancy. The world has got to know that we’re still standing. But I think
     we both know what we’re looking at here.”
    “Sir?”
    “We’re going to wake up tomorrow … in a different country.”
    * * *
    In those first frenzied moments, through the early hours, the exact dimensions of
     what had happened were impossible to measure. Millions of television screens that
     had focused on the burning towers of the World Trade Center suddenly switched to images
     of the U.S. Capitol in flames, smoke and rubble enveloping the East Front, bodies
     of the dead and maimed scattered across the grounds. The Senate side had taken the
     worst of the crash, but no one knew who had been inside the chamber or the office
     building; Speaker Hastert had opened the House session moments before Flight 93 hit;
     now no one could find him. It was clear that the Supreme Court had been struck by
     huge amounts of debris—the Vermont-marble portico of the West Front and the sixteen
     columns that supported it had collapsed onto the First Street entrance—but the court’s
     term wasn’t set to begin for a month, so perhaps the building had been vacant; it
     took an hour before a correspondent at CNN remembered that the annual Judicial Conference
     of the United States was to convene that morning, with dozens of federal judges and
     the presiding officer—Chief Justice William Rehnquist—gathered under the same roof.
    The voices of the men and women on television, usually so in control, in command,
     so skilled at responding to crises with the proper blend of concern and reassurance,
     now spoke as if they themselves had been stunned into semi-consciousness by what they
     were witnessing, and they offered up scraps of factoids to fill the silences. Not since the British burned the Capitol in 1814 … A nightmare out of a Tom Clancy
     novel has become a living nightmare at this moment … The heart of America’s financial
     power, and the heart of its political power, suffered simultaneous, devastating attacks
     today … A day as dark as any in the history of the Republic … There is growing fear
     that many of our most important political leaders may have