Robert Smith - The Planner

Such worries did not trouble Bates, “I’ve alerted the ground crew to expect demolition of the north tower in 20 minutes.”

Planner nodded slowly.

Bates turned to Planner, puzzling over the unplanned events. His eyes narrowed and started forming some words. But then a new crisis occurred.

Orche stated without emotion, “Two F-16s, closing in on Drone-93”

“They are armed,” said Nicholas emphatically.

“What are their orders?” asked Planner.

“Shoot-Down,” said Ochre.

“Can we change the orders?” said Bates.

“Maybe. I’m onto it,” said Nicholas.

Ochre stated, “Too Late. Missile away. Impact in just a few seconds.”

Indigo was staring blankly, open-mouthed. The computer screen showed a missile dot closing in on drone-93 dot.

“Impact,” said Ochre blandly.

There was silence in the command room.

After a few seconds, Orange stated, “Old-77 and Old-93 still following us. Chase planes returning back to base.”

“We need to get back to bases as soon as possible. That second E4-B will be taking off shortly and we’ll be spotted by them, for sure,” said Nicholas

“I’ll inform flight crew,” said Purple.

“Insert more dummy tracks. Make the tracks military. We’ll hide in the herd,” said Planner. “In the meantime, keep the Flight 93 spoof transmissions going for a couple more minutes, Orange. You too, Indigo. 181

“Onto it,” said Orange.

“Bates,” Planner continued. “Get the ground crew to activate the 93 crash site as best they can.”

“Already done,” said Bates tartly.

“We can resolve the story later. Indigo? Indigo?” said Planner, looking over to dishevelled man transfixed on his computer screen. Indigo raised his hand in acknowledgement but did not look around.

Bates was clearly irritated. He sprung his hands together and pursed his lips, before saying, “Planner. A word?”

Planner and Bates stared at each other for a moment before Planner sprang from his seat.

Purple was not amused that Bates and Planner had left the control room again.

* * * *

Due to radio communications failure, fire fighters inside the North Tower did not receive any evacuation order; most were unaware that the South Tower had already gone.

An NYPD helicopter was circling the Twin Towers aghast at the scene below them. Having seen the South Tower blow up, the aviation unit studied the north tower intensely. One of the passengers said, “Look at the top of the tower. It might be leaning.”

They circled around and he exclaimed, “It is buckling! Look on the southwest corner. It’s leaning to the south.”

Suddenly there was a downward movement in the 100 foot antenna on top of the North Tower. The top block of the building above the impact point appeared to rotate almost in its own footprint before, apparently, turning into dust. A huge plume of debris sprung out of the building and the building unravelled down its whole length with small squibs of material ejecting from the building in front of the debris wave. The building had descended at about the speed and acceleration as any of the jumpers seen falling from the building just a few minutes earlier. It had almost completely disappeared. In the space where the North Tower used to be, strikingly, a single steel column of the interior central structure stood alone. About twenty stories tall, it wobbled in the air for a few seconds before that too came straight down, hiding in its own minor dust cloud and looking like it had vanished in a magic trick. None of the twin towers main interior columns, which were progressively thicker and stronger the whole length of the building, remained standing. However, ten stories of the weaker outer columns stood bent like petals of a flower at the location soon to be known as Ground Zero; a term previously only used for the epicentre for a nuclear blast.

The twin towers had only stood for 102 minutes after the first aircraft impact.

Three hundred and forty three fire fighters died in the Twin Towers. No one person was able to escape from above the impact zone in the North Tower after it was hit, as all stairwells and elevator shafts on those floors had been destroyed or blocked. Some of the blockages were locked fire doors, not only to the roof but also to the ground.

* * * *

Planner and Bates entered the Small Conference Room. Planner slumped in a chair and held his head with both hands.

“Why did you do that?” asked Bates softly.

“What?” said Planner.

“Building 7. You set up the bombing sequence. You changed it and stopped the building from coming down,” said Bates carefully.

“The bombs were planted incorrectly, I think you’ll find,” said Planner tersely.

“Hmm. I checked that personally,” said Bates leaning with both arms on the table. “They were correctly laid. Do you want me to recall all the numbers for you? I can do that if you want. No, it had to be you. That eleventh hour change you made.”

“You don’t trust me, huh?” smiled Planner. “I guess a member of the shadow team, wouldn’t!”

“Oh touche, Robert. CO-INTEL doesn’t trust anyone. Especially someone that seems to have…” he said with disgust, “…empathy. Someone like you! Your mind wasn’t totally on the job, was it?”

Planner tried to fake a puzzled expression.

“Emotional weakness. Your lady friend,” said Bates.

But now, Planner could not hide his shock.

“Of course, I know! We know,” said Bates with daggers. “What do you take us for, Robert? We’ve been thinking… isn’t it a bit stupid of you to get emotionally attached to someone earmarked as collateral damage?”

Planner’s mouth dropped.

“It was good of you to keep her in the dark, though, about the Big Event,” said Bates with glee. “The ground team reports she dutifully went into the office today. Sorry.”

Planner looked away, “Shit.” Planner held his head and said quietly, “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“But what were you thinking, Robert? By sparing WTC7, were you trying to save her work to bring down Enron? As-if that was going to happen! You’ve just delayed the buildings destruction by an hour or so.”

“Oh, I know it’ll come down,” said Planner with voice wobbling slightly. “I expect it to. But it’s just going to be like JFK’s magic bullet: a bit difficult to explain.”

“Ah, you admit it then? You admit it!?”

Planner was silent.

“But you think people are ever going to worry about something like that? They won’t even hear about it. And even if they do, we’ll have an expert to explain it away. What on an earth were you expecting to achieve?”

“I cut out cancer,” said Planner recovering himself. “I don’t cause it. The anomalies will be spotted. Society will know and correct itself.” Planner took out shaded glasses and puts them on to hid any redness he suspected may be forming in his eyes.

“Oh give me a break! What warped sense of morality do you have? Killing 20, 200, 2000 innocents? It’s still more than one! That’s where the morality line is!” mocked Bates, “Using aircraft as surgical weapons? Bah. How do you even know there were any aircraft?” he taunted

“What?”

“Suppose we switched plans? Rather than use drones we used the Psyop-7’s plan: no planes at all?”

“That’s impossible?” gasped Planner.

“A cheaper, more reliable plan? You think the COG wouldn’t go for that?” Bates teased.

“But we were flying the drones?”

“Or were you flying virtual drones, pretending to be drones, pretending to be civil aircraft. I have sizeable bonus payment to bet you that you couldn’t tell the difference!” he beamed.

“The aircraft investigations will be the judge of that!” croaked Planner.