Ричард Стерн - The Tower

The blaring rock music stopped suddenly. The almost-naked girl continued her gyrations, lost in her own ecstasy, but the other dancers turned to watch the confrontation, to listen.

The governor raised his voice. “I’m not going to make a speech,” he said. “There isn’t anything to make’ a speech about. We’re in this together, all of us—”

“Who’s responsible?” Cary shouted. “That’s what I want to know.”

“I don’t know, the governor said. “Maybe down on the ground they do, but I don’t. Unless”—he paused—“unless we all are because we’ve come too far from our beginnings, lost touch with reality.”

“That,” Cary shouted, “is crap!”

The governor merely nodded. He was beyond anger now, into the calmness of scorn. “Have it your own way, Cary,” he said. “I won’t argue the point.”

A new, quiet voice said, “What is your assessment, Governor?”

“Grave.” The governor faced them all. “I won’t try to fool you. There would be no point. We are still in contact with the ground by telephone. They know our situation. You can look down at the plaza and see the fire equipment, the hoses like spaghetti leading into the building. Everything that can be done is being done.” He spread his hands. “Grave,” he said again, “but not hopeless—yet.” He looked around the room, waiting.

There was silence.

“If there is any change,” the governor said, “I promise to let you know. That is damn small consolation, I realize, but it is the most I can give.” He turned away then, and walked back toward the deserted comer, past the tablecloth-covered body without a glance.

Beth was waiting with Paula Ramsay. “We heard,” Beth said. She was smiling gently. “That was well done, Bent.”

“The next time,” the governor said, “isn’t going to be quite so easy.” He felt old and tired, and he wondered if his subconscious was merely preparing for the end. He gathered himself with effort. “And there will be a next time,” he said. “Panic comes in waves, each one stronger than the last.” Well, all they could do was wait.

Chief Petty Officer Oliver had his twenty years behind him in the Coast Guard. He had served on shore stations and aboard cutters, in tropical waters and in the Arctic ice lanes. He had helped fish men from burning oil-covered water and plucked them from the decks of foundering vessels; and sometimes the men he had gathered in had been dead.

He had learned the long hard way that some operations are impossible. But a part of him refused to believe it, and all of him rebelled against failure of any kind.

Now, standing large and helpless on the roof of the Trade Center tower, staring across at the row of broken windows marking the Tower Room, so close, really, and yet so goddam far away, he was almost, but not quite, on the point of explosion from sheer frustration.

Kronski said, his voice weary, “So we shoot another line?” He paused. “You remember that poem? ‘I shot an arrow into the air! It fell to the ground, I knew not where’ ? I’ll bet that guy lost a lot of arrows that way. You want me to try another?”

“No,” the chief said at last. Sheer waste, he thought, and that he could not countenance either. He stood motionless for a time, staring across the gap. There were people over there. He could see them. And he could see and smell the smoke.

Fire and storm: all of his adult life both had been his enemies. He had met them and fought them, and sometimes won, sometimes lost, but always before he had been able somehow to come to grips. Now—

He raised the Walkie-talkie. “Oliver here,” he said. “Come in, Trailer.”

Nat’s voice came on immediately. “Trailer here.”

“It’s no good,” the chief said. His voice was heavy with disappointment. “The range is too long and there’s too much wind against us.”

“I see.” Nat kept his voice carefully expressionless. Another idea gone bad. Think, goddammit! Think!

“We might as well pack it up,” the chief said.

Holding the walkie-talkie in one hand, Nat pounded softly on the drafting table with the other. “Hold it a minute, Chief. Let me think.” A plea, a hope.

The trailer was still. Brown, the battalion chief, Giddings, and Patty all watched in silence. You’re grandstanding, Nat told himself, just playing to an audience—and despised himself for it.

And yet, something was crawling around in the back of his mind, and if he could get it out in the open—Goddammit, what triggered that feeling anyway? What— Another idea gone bad, he thought suddenly. That was the key. Another idea—but what if two of them were taken together? Into the walkie-talkie he said, “We had a chopper up there early on, Chief.” He made himself speak slowly, with unnecessary clarity, thinking it out as he went along. “They couldn’t find any place to land, so they couldn’t do any good.” He paused. “But what about getting the chopper back to take you and your gun over close to the building, close enough for you to shoot a line into the Tower Room? Then haul the line back to the Trade Center roof and start your operation from there?” Another pause. “Will that work? Is there a chance?” There was a long pause. Then, in slow wonderment, “I,” the chief said, “will be goddamned.” He was grinning now, and the sense of helplessness had fallen away like a discarded cloak. “I don’t see why it won’t. Call in your whirlybird.” He was looking at Kronski. “You’re going for a ride, son. Just don’t get airsick.”

They called the governor from his secluded comer to the office. He listened to Nat’s voice on the telephone speaker. “Will it work?” the governor said.

“We think it may.” Nat’s voice carefully controlling enthusiasm. “The chopper can hover and give the Coast Guard almost a point-blank-range shot into the Tower Room. You’ll have to clear a good share of the room so nobody gets hit by the shot.” He paused. “It may take a couple of tries, but it shouldn’t be all that hard.” I hope, he thought.

“We will see to clearing that whole side of the room?’ the governor said. “And we will have men standing by to catch the line. And then?”

“Make it fast to structure,” Nat said. “There’ll be strain while they carry the rest of the line back to the Trade Center tower. I’ll be on the walkie-talkie to Oliver, the Coast Guard chief, and I’ll also stay on this line with you. That way we can keep our signals straight.” He paused. “When they have the messenger line on the Trade Center roof, they’ll bend the heavier line to it. Then your men can start hauling in.” He paused again. “But not until we get the word.”

“Understood,” the governor said. He was smiling faintly. “Your idea, young man?”

“We promised to think of something.” Nat hesitated. “The only thing is, why didn’t we think of it before?”

The governor’s smile spread. “For years,” he said, “I have been on the lookout for an idiot child of three I could hire to point out the obvious to me.” He turned the smile on Beth. “But there are also times,” he said, “when I manage to recognize a good thing as soon as I see it. Thank God.” His tone changed. “What is the status of the fire?”

“Not good.” In the two words there was finality.

“And those two men in the other stairwell?” the governor said.

Nat could hear again the screams coming over the walkie-talkie. It was my idea to send them in the first place, he thought, and knew that he would make the same suggestion again at need, because it was a chance that had to be taken. “They didn’t make it,” he said.

The governor watched Beth’s eyes close. He said gently, “Neither did Grover Frazee. He tried to go down the stairs.” His voice turned almost brutal. “What is the eventual butcher’s bill going to be?” And then, quickly, “Strike that.” He leaned back wearily and was silent.