Robert Smith - The Planner

The radioman said “Ok. Get rolling, though, it’s coming in fast. Four, three, two… oh my god! Oh my god!”

There was an explosion on the South Tower directly above them.

The workers on the 97th floor of the south tower were watching as they felt the impact and saw the explosion below them.

“Oh Shit!” said the first worker.

A jet engine component fell into the street and crashed into an empty taxi. A young woman was hit by the debris in the leg and was slammed back into a wall.

“These are live-pictures coming from the World Trade Center,” said a TV newsreader discussing the fire in the north tower. Then the World Trade Center South Tower exploded on the TV. “Oh… my Gawd! There’s… a major explosion from the South Tower.” The newsreader falls silent as he swears with the microphone switched off. Multiple TV cameras surrounding the tower record the explosion and the smoke plume rising from both towers.

The channel 5 helicopter was flying some distance away over New Jersey, the cameraman onboard zoomed in onto the Twin Towers where a single plume of smoke was emanating. He zoomed in again tightly framing the Twin Tower dead center within the picture. At that point, mysteriously a fast jet appeared on the right hand side of the screen and apparently ploughed into the South Tower. A fireball exploded. The camera inexplicably went to black.

On the Brooklyn side of New York, across the river from the WTC, five men next to camera tripod leapt for joy; They high-fived each other. One of them caught sight of a woman watching them from a balcony. They quickly packed up the camera and bundled into a van with an “Urban Moving Systems” logo. 155

* * * *

Karl Rove taps Whitehouse official, Andrew Card, on the shoulder and nods at him. Card realised it was his job to interrupt the President. Cameras were trained on the POTUS as he was being read “The Pet Goat” at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, Saratosa, Florida. He goes up to President George W Bush and whispers into his ear, “Another plane has hit the World Trade Center. America is under attack!”

The President nods and continued to listen to the school children reading with a far away look in his eyes. 156

* * * *

Planner, Orange, Ochre, Purple and Bates gathered to watch the TV news on one of the displays. Indigo, Magenta and others stayed at their stations. Planner watched the live newsfeed and noticed it went black for a second before live broadcasts resumed. Planner returned to his seat rather miserably rubbing his chin. He slumped into his seat. Bates turned and his eyes narrowed as he noticed Planner’s body language.

* * * *

In the North Tower, Katherine and Jerry joined a group of ten people descending the stairs.

“What’s up?” said Jerry.

A woman below turned and stammered, “There’s a locked door. Why would there be a locked door on an emergency exit?”

“So what are we doing? Is there another way down?” said Jerry.

Somebody else called up to him. “There’s firemen on the other side. We just have to wait until they bust through.”

Katherine sat down on the steps and rocked gently back and forth.

* * * *

Within Office of the Vice Chief Of Naval Operations, at the Pentagon, Chief Lafleur 157was walking past an office open area which featured a wall mounted TV displaying the news channel and replaying the impact on the South Tower. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. “Look at that!”

Captain Toti and Commander Radi sprung out of their offices and looked agog at the TV screen. Lafleur repeated the Holy Shit mantra a few more times while holding his head.

“A daylight attack?! This must be terrorists!” said Toti.

“Two planes?” said Radi. “That’s unreal!”

“This is organised!” said Toti. “If they can do two then they can do three… The next target to hit after WTC… is here. Washington, for sure. We’re next.”

“The White House?” said Radi.

“No. Too small,” mused Toti. “Here. The Pentagon is dead easy to spot from the air.”

“They’d never get through our air defences. Our missiles,” said Radi.

Lafleur turned and said bitterly, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The defences are mobile I doubt whether they’ll be available.”

* * * *

Scoggins was surrounded by animated FAA staff. Someone called out to Scoggins waving a phone, “It’s NORAD”.

“Scoggins here,” he said taking the phone.

A NORAD Intelligence Officer blasted down the phone, “What’s the fuck’s going on?”

“Two hijacked aircraft. Both crashed!” said Scoggins bitterly.

“I know that!” continued the angry man. “Why weren’t we told? We could have done something!”

Scoggins said, summoning as much patience he could muster, “We called you 40 minutes ago. And before you say anything else, note that we have four other potential hijackings, that we can’t accurately track.”

“Shit!” said the NORAD guy, stunned.

“We’ve set up a phone bridge with NEADS. We’re trying to share data but having some issues with track correlation. Perhaps you’d like to sort that out your end? The hijackers have switched off their transponders. We’re getting spurious ghost tracks from NORAD. We’re not getting primary returns.”

“Ghost tracks?”

“Yeah. Fake information. Simulated tracks 158maybe?”

“I’ll get onto it,” said the contrite NORAD officer. He signed off with another, albeit apologetic, expletive.

* * * *

Planner leaned over towards Indigo, “How’s it coming along, Indigo?”

Indigo was typing furiously into his computer keyboard, “I need more time!” he croaked.

Planner said, “Magenta, slow down the drones. Switch off drone-77’s transponder. Delay the 93 switch.”

Nicholas piped up, “Two F-16s were just about to take off. I’ve managed to delay them but only by returning them to affix missiles.”

Planner replied, “We need more widespread delays. Have you any ideas?”

“Yes, I have a back-up plan,” said Nicholas.

“JFDI,” said Planner.

Bates said, “Starting phase 1 of north tower demolition.”

Planner looked at Bates with some alarm.

* * * *

Janitor William Rodriguez unlocked emergency doors within stairways, in the North Tower, to allow firemen, entry further into the building and also free people descending the stairs. They reach the 30th floor where Katherine and a dozen others were held up. But just as the door was being unlocked, they heard loud bbuh-der, bbuh-der, bbuh-der of synchronised explosions from the four corners of the central elevator area.

“What the hell was that?” said one of firemen.

“Bombs in the building! They’re trying to bring it down!” said another.

Several people, leaning out the window to avoid the smoke, were ejected from the North Tower by the explosions, to fall 90 stories to their death on the WTC plaza pavement. 159

* * * *

“Bates,” Planner said. “The demolition phasing needs to be delayed.”

“No, we need to accelerate the demolition,” retorted Bates forcefully.

“That’s a change of plan,” said Planner with an edge.

“A delay or a change? Which is it?” replied Bates with more edge.

Purple noted this exchange with some concern.

Then all eyes were drawn to Nicholas when he announced, “Otis National Guard have just gone onto war footing. They’ll be launching two interceptors shortly.”

* * * *

Katherine and Jerry continued to follow a slow moving queue down the stairs, with some fireman walking up them.

“Damn radios aren’t working,” said one fireman to another.

Another round of extreme-disco sounding explosions were heard and felt. One of the firemen twisted his body around following the progression of the explosions around the building.