Free The Towers by David Poyer Page B

handrail quivered with each concussion. The avalanche slams came louder and louder, with that roar growing behind it until she couldn’t think, as if the whole sky were falling in on them. Cookie screamed and launched herself into the air. Blair tottered under her weight.
    SLAM. She jumped down a step, almost fell, her side cramp forgotten in sudden panic terror as the lights went out, plunging them into that utter blackness again.
    SLAM. She sobbed and stepped down a step.
    SLAM . Sean groaned, across from her in the sudden dark.
    SLAM, and Cookie screaming in the midst of a noise louder than anything Blair had ever imagined could be. Needles driving into her eardrums. The taste of dust and concrete in the air, gritty on her tongue, stinging her face, her scalp, sanding the back of her neck.
    The stairway reeled, then seemed to topple, and as she cowered helplessly, it all came down on her in the dark, an annihilating thunder louder than anything she’d ever heard in her life, compressing the black into something hard and incredibly heavy that all in an instant battered her bent head and crushed her upraised arms.
    9:00 A.M., THE NAVY COMMAND CENTER
    Dan tried the phone again. What was wrong with the thing? Just a click as if it had connected, then nothing. Or else “All lines are busy. Try your call again later.”
    He put it away. The images were up on the large-screen displays, dwarfing the smaller rectangles of the televisions. The watch team stared in silence. Smoke blanketed the canyons of downtown Manhattan. He tore his gaze away. The watch captain sat overlooking the room, eagles glittering on his khaki collar.
    â€œSir? My wife’s in New York. At the Trade Center. What are we getting on this?”
    â€œJust what’s coming over the networks. CNN said some waiter saw a light plane hit and bounce off.” The captain kneaded a grizzled scalp. “It’s a huge complex. Lots of other buildings. Chances are she isn’t in the one it hit.”
    â€œNow they’re saying a two-engine jet,” someone called. “Maybe a 737.”
    â€œPilot lost control,” the captain said. “Maybe a heart attack.”
    But wasn’t that what copilots were for? Dan was turning away, pulling out the cell again, when beside him the captain stiffened. Someone gasped.
    Men and women started to their feet. He turned. The screen had the ABC logo. Live, the caption read.
    Sailing low across the city, seeming to pass behind the towering, smoking spire of the North Tower, a large, dull blue airliner, twin-engine, swept-wing, slid across the skyline of the city and merged with it. For a moment he thought, So someone filmed it. Then the angle changed, the network switched to another camera, on the ground, and he realized with numbed horror that the second plane had hit the tower that wasn’t yet on fire. The South Tower.
    â€œNo,” he said. If she hadn’t gotten out in time … but surely they’d have evacuated by now. Surely.
    An immense, off-center bloom of poppy-colored fire. White-hot parts shooting off like sparks. He stood frozen, appalled. He wanted to rush outside. But to go where, to do what?
    Voices rose around him again. “No way that’s an accident.”
    â€œWas it a missile?”
    â€œNo. I saw it. A fucking airliner.”
    Dan checked his watch, memorizing the time by some obscure reflex. The captain said, “Listen up! Get the word out. Contact the CNO. Is the Vice CNO still back there? Get him out here ASAP. He needs to see this.”
    Niles emerged, arms dangling, to halt mesmerized like all the rest at the unbelievable images. Dan stared at his broad back. What they’d just discussed suddenly seemed petty. A promotion board, another ship … now the country was under attack. By whom, they didn’t yet know. But they had to act. Prevent more deaths, if they could. He took a step toward the watch captain, who was