Free The Towers by David Poyer Page A

hauling himself up on the handrail, between gasps for breath.
    â€œWe’ll get her out,” the guy who had Cookie’s right arm said. His blue silk shirt was sweated through. “Good to see you fellas.”
    â€œYeah, good to see you,” Blair said, the words petty and inadequate. But she couldn’t think of any better.
    â€œSeen the fire, lady?”
    Lady. “Yes. It’s on the seventy-eighth or eightieth floor. I smelled jet fuel.” He pulled himself past and she smelled sweat and rubber and smoke and char, that must be from their gear, their clothes, the fires they’d fought in the past, and a trace of garlic. “Was it another plane?” she called after him.
    â€œYeah. Another one.”
    â€œBe careful,” she shouted. The second fireman eyed them too, tall, with a flash of blue eyes, reddened Irish cheeks, wordless. Then others, filing steadily upward, filling the stairwell with clanking and huffing and the scrape and scuff of heavy boots. They went up as her little party limped down, through what was now nearly an empty stairwell, only a few late departures scampering shamefacedly past, turning to slip by, not meeting their eyes. Not one stopped to offer a hand.
    â€œAlmost there,” the guy said. He was sticking, anyway. She looked at her watch. They’d been in this stairwell for almost an hour. But they were almost out. The fourth floor!
    But how bad was the fire, above them? Could the New York Fire Department put it out? Those men had looked as if they knew what they were doing. But all they’d had to work with was what they could carry.
    Cookie said something Blair didn’t catch. Then rasped, louder, “I need to rest. No. I really really need to … pee. Can we stop? On one of these floors?”
    â€œWe better not, honey. Let it go, if you have to. Just three more floors! We really do need to get out of here.”
    â€œJust leave me. I’ll catch up. You all go on ahead. You done enough.”
    â€œNo way, honey,” Blair told her. “Not till we get you outside. Hey, uh, you—”
    â€œSean.” He gave her a tousle-headed grin. Too young for her, but cute. Yeah. The chiseled look.
    â€œSean, let’s switch sides, okay? I’m getting a cramp—”
    A door slammed far above them. For a moment she thought that must be what it was. Then, that it was another plane. That distant roar. But it didn’t sound like a plane.
    The others had heard it too; they halted, teetering on the steps, sparrows on a swaying wire. Sean cocked his head like a border collie. The sound was like nothing she’d ever heard before. A distant slam. Slam. Slam . Muffled, distant, regular concussions, with a gradually building grating tumult behind them. “What the hell is that?” she muttered. “Cookie?”
    â€œDon’t know. Never heard such as that before.”
    â€œLet’s go,” Sean said, voice going high, but determined. “C’mon.”
    He was right. Whatever it was probably wasn’t good. They hobbled downward. Cookie cried out. Blair lost patience with her shoes and kicked them off, then cursed as she immediately stepped on a bottle of fingernail polish fallen from someone’s purse. The noise was getting closer. Louder, as if a freight train were rolling end over end down the stairway behind them. Something big, really big, Godzilla sized, had started at the top of the building and was eating its way down to them.
    Slam. Slam  … SLAM. Faster and faster, louder and louder. Her ears popped as if she were back in the elevator. The walls quivered. They were taking the stairs as fast as they could now, nearly running, trying to keep in step and failing, weaving, stumbling. Cookie yiped. Her hair had fallen down over her eyes and wet patches stained her blouse. Blair came down wrong and pain shot through her ankle.
    She kept going. The whole stairway was shaking. The