9.11 - 39. Chapter 39

September 11, 2001

10:15am: Tribeca

I surveyed the scene in front of me, pondering how best to explain our next move to my devastated family. Brad and Will were huddled on the floor, while Darius and JJ sat with Stefan, looking stunned, with tears pouring down their faces. I knew that I would feel their pain, and I knew how horrible it would be, but I had buried that for the time being. I had gone fully into crisis mode, and that had given me the distraction I needed to avoid focusing on the pain. Will’s guests had left almost as soon as they’d come, primarily because the dust was abating outside, just as it was increasing inside. It seemed that the tightest windows could not keep out the smoky air. The air flow in the condo was already diminished as the ventilation filters became more clogged.

I looked at the nurse, who was sobbing, and pulled her aside. “We will be leaving in the next ten to fifteen minutes. We probably won’t be back for a while. You need to pack up things for Maddy.”

“You are leaving?” she asked, getting upset.

“We are leaving,” I said firmly. “I would like it if you would come with us, but you do not have to.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I haven’t figured that out yet, but we need to leave Manhattan,” I said.

She looked at me and blinked, then nodded. “I will go. I will go gather up what we need.”

“Thank you,” I said. I went back out to the living room and saw that nothing had really changed. I stood in front of the television to get their attention. “I have made arrangements for us to leave here shortly.” I made it sound like that had not required an intensive series of phone conversations on my part, and I made it sound like leaving was a simple decision.

They looked at me, stunned, as if I’d announced that I could walk on water. “We are leaving?” Stef asked.

“Yes. So if there is anything you need to grab to take with you, now is a good time to get it,” I said.

“I don’t have anything left,” JJ said. “All my shit was in the hotel room.”

“It is just as well. That way we can travel lightly,” I said.

“I’m not leaving them behind,” Darius said obstinately, referring to Robbie, Jeanine, and Hank. “What if they’re still in that building? What if they’re struggling to get out? What if they need us, and just when they’re calling out for us, we’re driving away?” I tried not to let his dramatic speech irritate me.

“A very large, multi-storied building collapsed, depositing tons of materials onto its foundations, and sending up clouds of smoke and debris, much of which is probably toxic,” I said. “You are suggesting that they could survive having tons of metal, rock, and wood piled upon them.”

“You’re saying it is impossible?” Stef asked.

“I am not, I am saying that it is very nearly impossible,” I said.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Darius insisted. “If there’s even a slight chance, I’m helping.”

“There is no chance,” Brad said, his voice breaking as he did. “I heard them, as the building collapsed.” I blinked as if to dismiss the horror of what that must have sounded like, and to try and get that image out of my mind.

“I am also saying that it is possible that this is part of a concerted attack that is still in progress, and that there could be other targets.” As if to emphasize my point, a pair of jet fighters blasted down the river; we couldn’t see them, but we could hear them. “It is not safe in New York.”

“I’m not running away,” Darius said.

“Two planes drove themselves into these towers, and one of the towers has fallen. It remains to be seen if the other tower will survive.” There was no firm opinion on the news programs, but the chances that it would fall were looking better than the odds of it surviving. “Another plane crashed into the Pentagon.”

“What?” Brad said, pulling himself out of his grief induced haze. “They attacked the Pentagon too?”

“They did,” Stef said. He’d been focused on the news.

“And I would finally like to note that this air is very unhealthy. We have already inhaled too much of it as it is. We cannot stay here in Tribeca.”

“We can help,” Darius said. “We can get out there and look for survivors, and help clean things up.”

“I understand that you want to help, and I understand that you want to try and do what you can for them, but it is not safe for us to stay here,” I said to Darius firmly. “This is one of those times where you have to think of the family. If you refuse to go, everyone may refuse to go. Do you want Maddy breathing these fumes? Do you want to endure another potential attack?”

Darius and I were having this argument, but Brad was following it. He was really the only one who could put up a credible argument for staying. If he opted to remain here, we all would. Yet he had sat there, dithering, because he understood both points. Our eyes met, and the sadness he was enduring ripped me to the core, but I managed not to show it. “It’s hard to leave them behind,” he said softly.

“Yes,” I said, to acknowledge his dilemma. “But you must think of your family. Your sons and your, uh, Maddy are here. We are all of us in this one place, where an attack has happened, and more may follow. They are evacuating buildings all over the country. The Sears Tower in Chicago, the IDS Tower in Minneapolis… ”

“They are evacuating the United Nations,” Stef interrupted, pointing at the television. I moved aside so they could see the television.

“We can go later,” Darius said.

“No,” I said firmly. “They will be closing all the tunnels and bridges to all but emergency vehicles, if they have not already done so. It will be almost impossible to get off this island if we wait.”

“Grand is right,” Brad said, and I looked at him, stunned. He had transformed himself before our very eyes, from a grieving mess into a man firmly in control of himself and the situation. “What kind of vehicle are they sending?”

“A Suburban limo,” I said. I didn’t add that it was bulletproof. “Will you watch for it?” I asked JJ. He nodded and went to the window.

“I think you should all go, and I’ll stay,” Darius said.

“We are not leaving you here,” Brad said.

“Did you see those guys, those firefighters?” Will asked dramatically. “They were so brave, they charged right into the buildings, to try and help other people. I’ll never forget the expressions on their faces, the way they looked. And you want us to leave, to desert them? That’s bullshit. I’m staying, I’m getting a shovel, and I’m going to do my part.”

Brad looked at him, his expression one of sadness and pleading. “Do not do this to me now.”

I had never seen Will stopped in his tracks cold like that before. With that one statement, Brad had taken the wind completely out of his sails. He recovered, and then rebounded. “I have a deal for you.”

“What?” Brad asked, annoyed now.

“I’ll go with you, but Darius gets to stay,” he offered.

Brad looked at me, exasperated, but I gave him a slight nod. Maybe Darius would change his mind, and if he did not, it was better to not have both of them here. I turned my attention to Darius. “We’ll take you at least as far uptown as we can before we get off the island. You’ll need to get someplace safe to stay, and they won’t let anyone back to the World Trade Center for now.”

“Fine,” Darius agreed.

“Come on,” Will said to Darius. He led them out of the room, and they came back shortly with damp towels, attempting to wipe the soot off their bodies.

“The car is here!” JJ said.

“Let’s go,” I said. This was a tense time, and seeing us loading into a limousine may spark some less than pleasant reactions from the people on the streets. We hustled down the stairs, out the door, and directly into the limousine, with me leading the way, followed by Stef, the nurse and Maddy, then JJ, Will, Darius, and Brad. The limousine had Federal license plates on it.

We closed the door behind us, and I heard the locks click as the driver hit the button. Despite these precautions, the people here seemed uninterested in us. “Professor Crampton?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“I got orders to take you as far as Jersey. You’re on your own after that.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I am sure we can manage. It would be helpful if you could take us to a hotel, preferably to a location where there is some shopping.”

“I can do that,” he said. “I’ll take you to Newport Centre. There’s a hotel there.”

“I have Julian on the phone,” Stef said, which was a lucky coincidence. Cell phone service was almost impossible to get. I took the phone from him and began rattling off orders to Julian. He tried to ask me how we were doing, but I didn’t have time for that, and neither did he, once he realized all that he had to do.

“I’ll get things set up for you,” he promised when I was finished. “How will I get in touch with you?”

“Leave a message at the hotel,” I told him. “We’ll hope the land lines work better.” He hung up, and went to go attend to all our arrangements.

The car moved slowly through the dust-covered streets, past the people fleeing Lower Manhattan.

“Stop the car!” Darius shouted suddenly.

“What?” the driver asked.

“I said stop the car!” Darius said. “Unlock these goddamn doors.” The driver did as he was told, and Darius leapt out, letting dusty air in as he did. Stef and JJ looked at this nasty, polluted air with disdain, even as JJ peevishly closed the car door. I watched Darius as he rushed over to a woman who was moving quickly.

“See if you can shadow him,” I said to the driver. He gave me a dirty look, but did as I asked.

“Look, I’ve got a limited amount of time to take you over to Jersey before I gotta get back. You dick around, you’ll end up walking in the middle of the tunnel,” the driver said.

“You would leave a one year old child and a crippled man in the middle of a tunnel?” Stef asked acidly. I put my hand on his knee to calm him down, and the driver ignored him.

“Where the fuck did he go?” JJ asked.

“He went chasing after a woman,” Will said.

“Figures,” JJ said. The limo finally managed to catch up to Darius, and we saw him talking to someone. It wasn’t until we were right upon them that I realized it was Ella. Her hair, her whole body was covered with the dust that had come from the collapse of the building. Darius opened the door and they both hopped in.

“Hello Ella,” I said pleasantly. She was my niece, after all.

“Hi,” she said nervously. She had treated Darius quite badly with the way she’d broken up with him, and that got her a few disapproving looks from this crowd, but I decided that it was not our place to judge her for that, it was up to Darius to make that call. And as he was the one who had jumped out to save her, one could assume that he had chosen to forgive her.

“What are you doing here?” Will asked, trying to be nice, but not quite pulling it off.

“I was at one of the buildings by the twin towers,” she said. “We evacuated and were clearing out just as that tower collapsed.”

“We’re leaving Manhattan,” Darius told her. “You should come with us.”

“I can’t do that,” she insisted. “I don’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “We’ll have you back here in a few days.” She still looked nervous. “Classes will be cancelled for the next few days, at least.”

“You can call him and tell him that you won’t be home,” Darius said, much more bitterly than he probably wanted to. He must be referring to Ella’s boyfriend.

She didn’t say anything; she just looked confused and upset. I stared at her, demanding an answer, and got a nod. We got to the Holland Tunnel, where we were stopped.

“No vehicles are allowed to pass,” a cop said firmly.

“We got a special permit,” the driver said.

“There are no special permits,” the cop replied.

“Yes there are,” the driver said nastily. “Read the fucking license plate.”

I chose that moment to intercede. “Perhaps you can call this number, and confirm what the driver has told you,” I said to him, handing him one of my cards with a phone number on the back. He walked away, and I had visions of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s flight to Varennes, where they were trying to flee from revolutionaries but were ultimately apprehended before they could make their escape. I wondered if the same thing would happen to us; if my big attempt to leave Manhattan would end here, thwarted by this cop. That we were all silent for the entire time the cop was gone only added to the tension.

He walked back toward the limo, twirling my card in his hand. “You can pass,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. The driver knew better than to wait, and he drove ahead slowly until we were past the checkpoint, then drove through the Holland Tunnel with indecent speed, clearly enjoying the unique circumstances that removed any need for speed zones.

“Newport Centre is in Jersey City, right across the river,” the driver said. “I’ll drop you off at the hotel there.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I wish I could take you further, but we’re on restricted duty,” he said, plugging for a tip.

“You have done more than enough, and I would feel guilty for asking more of you,” I said, hoping that would shut him up. We exited the Holland Tunnel, and looked back toward Manhattan, only to see a huge cloud over the city.

“It looks worse from here,” Will said.

“No wonder it was hard to breathe with all that dust,” JJ agreed. We stared at the scene as we drove up to the mall, amazed at how persistent the cloud of debris was. It still looked like it did after the tower fell, at least according to the television broadcasts we’d seen. I would have expected that it would have gotten a bit smaller by now.

“The other tower is gone!” Darius said when we turned back toward the river. We watched as this dust cloud got thinner, and could see that the other tower was gone as well.

“What did you say!?” the driver asked, and pulled over so we could get out and look.

“The other tower fell,” I noted sadly. The chaos and pandemonium that must be causing were incomprehensible. I was glad that we had managed to get out before it collapsed.

“Come on,” the driver said. “Let me take you to the hotel.”

We piled back in the car and he drove us to the hotel, where we dutifully piled out again and stood there at the lobby entrance, looking quite disheveled. I gave the driver a sizeable tip to thank him for his efforts, and to acknowledge his hints. All of us were dusty to some degree or another except for JJ, but even he’d gotten some on him. It was inevitable, and it seemed to permeate everything. We strode into the lobby confidently, despite our appearance.

“A Courtyard Marriott?” Stef asked, with raised eyebrows.

“It will serve,” I said. I got five rooms, all they had available. Stef and I took one, Brad took another, I gave one to Maddy and her nurse (whose name was Nancy), and another to Will and JJ. Darius was standing close to Ella, in an intimate posture, and they were off to the side, away from the rest of us. I strode over to them, and they broke apart slightly when I got to them. “I am wondering if you would be willing to share your room with Ella? If not, Nancy and Maddy are more than happy to have her share with them.”

“You wanna share a room with me?” Darius asked her in a way that was slightly sexy, but a little apprehensive, the whole effect making him quite compelling.

“I’ll share a room with you,” she said to him with a slight smile.

“Alright,” I said more loudly, and gathered them together. “At 12:30, another vehicle will arrive to take us to Virginia.”

“We’re riding in a car to Virginia?” JJ asked, finally annoyed enough to say something. “What are we going to do in Virginia?”

“We are going to Goodwell,” I said.

“Wade’s home,” Will augmented, in case JJ forgot that was Wade’s estate in Virginia.

“It is in the country, and it is safe,” I said.

“Why do we have to drive?” JJ asked. “Why can’t we just go home?”

“Because they’ve grounded all the planes,” Darius said.

“Not all the planes,” JJ argued, sounding like a smarmy seven year old.

“All the planes, dumbass,” Darius said. “Nothing but military shit is in the air.”

JJ looked to me for confirmation. “It appears there will be no air traffic for at least the next day or two. Our planes are grounded.”

“Fine,” JJ said.

“In the interim, we can use these rooms to clean up. After we do that, you will have time to do some shopping, to get a few things to tide you over until we get home.”

“Here?” JJ asked, as if this mall were anchored by a Wal-Mart.

“I suspect we will find something,” Stef said to him. “Perhaps you would like to shop with me?”

“Sounds good,” JJ said, and gave him a slight smile. We vanished to our rooms after that, to wash the dust off, and to try and compartmentalize what had happened until we had time, and a safe place, to process it.

September 11, 2001

10:45am: Goodwell, VA

Nana and I tore across the field, our horses galloping as fast as the terrain would allow, while Matt and Tiffany followed at a less breakneck pace. We arrived back at the paddock, with Nana beating me out by a couple of yards. “Hah! Beat you again, Wade!” she proclaimed triumphantly.

“Well it’s not the horse,” I grumbled, pretending to be annoyed, even though I didn’t really care if she beat me or not. That was unusual for me, as I was normally very competitive, but not with her. “Probably because you’re so much lighter than me.”

We walked the horses around the paddock, letting them cool down, even though there were stable hands that would take care of that for us. “I like to ride in the morning, before it gets hot,” she said.

“It’s September, and the weather is beautiful,” I reminded her. “In a month, you’ll be back in Palo Alto, enjoying the same temperatures.”

“It gets cold there too,” she argued.

“Not as cold as here,” I said, and then eyed her more carefully. “Are you thinking of staying here?”

“I’m not sure that I have to be that decisive,” she said, dodging the issue.

“It’s a simple question,” I said.

“I want to be around you and Riley, but I feel like this is my home,” she said.

“You know what I think?” She just stared at me, waiting for me to go on. “I think you should go where you want, when you want. Spend some time here, spend some time with us.”

“That’s very flexible of you, Wade,” she said, teasing me. I was known for being hyper-organized, and for having everything planned out.

“I’m very flexible, when it’s not my life and my plans,” I joked back. Matt and Tiffany came riding up and joined us.

“You could have waited for us,” Matt groused. He hated to lose, even when it was just racing the horses for fun, and even if he was losing to Nana and me.

“You could have kept up,” I said, winking at him.

“Well that’s my morning exercise,” Tiffany pronounced. “Now I have to get ready to head to New York for this ceremony.”

“I’m surprised you want to go,” I said. She gave me a dirty look.

“I want Jeanine to know that I wish her well, and I want Hank to not see me as some threat to their relationship,” she said.

“Why would she see you as a threat?” I asked.

“Because Jeanine and I were pretty close for a long time,” she said. “So if I go to the ceremony and smile and cheer them on, it makes me part of them as a couple, not a potential home wrecker.”

“I’m going because everyone’s going to be there and they’ll want to see me,” Matt said. “I like to be popular.” We laughed at him.

One of the stable hands came out, looking frazzled. “Mr. Danfield, you have a phone call. It is Dr. Crampton.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. I hopped off the horse and handed him the reins, then strode confidently into the main house, wondering why JP was calling me. It wasn’t all that unusual for him to call, but it was unusual for him to have me retrieved to take his call. I’d been thoroughly enjoying this summer, spending most of my time with Matt, Nana, Tiffany, and Riley, while dedicating some of it to getting all of my financial affairs in order. I’d just hammered out the outline of a sales agreement with my father on Friday, but it still had to be drawn up and formalized. We’d only done it after his divorce from my mother was finalized. I was fairly sure she didn’t know about our plans, because even though Goodwell was a Danfield family treasure, she liked to spend time here, and always considered it as part of her portfolio. She had been none too happy about giving it up in the divorce, and I suspected that she was scheming to ultimately get it back from my father, one way or the other.

Cherise, the cook, called out to me as soon as I entered the kitchen. “Mr. Danfield, we’ve been looking all over for you.” She had tears in her eyes, unusual even for a demonstrative woman like her. There was something wrong, and I pushed all my other thoughts aside.

“What did you need?”

“They attacked us,” she said, and pointed at the television. I walked up to it and saw the New York skyline, only there was smoke pouring out of the twin towers. “That one building fell down.”

“What?” I asked, shocked. Apparently the news reel wasn’t live, because when they switched to the live feed, there was only one tower where there had once been two. And then they switched again, and both towers were gone. “What happened?”

“They’re saying those Arab terrorists flew planes into the buildings, and now both of them is knocked down,” she said.

“Run and get the others,” I told her, even as I picked up the phone. “Wade Danfield,” I said formally.

“Wade, it is JP,” he said crisply. “I am calling to ask if we may impose upon your hospitality for a day or two.”

“Of course,” I said without even thinking about it. “You should treat this as your home, since that is how I view Escorial.”

“I appreciate that, and I anticipated that you would feel that way, but I did not want to impose upon you without calling first.”

“What is going on? I’ve been out riding, and just walked in to see that the twin towers have collapsed.”

“It seems that someone, supposedly terrorists, flew large aircraft into each of the towers, and a third plane into the Pentagon. There is a rumor that another plane was hijacked, but taken over by passengers. It crashed in western Pennsylvania.”

My mind processed that like lightning, subtracting the horror from the equation so I could contemplate it’s meaning. The horror would be added in later, when I was by myself, or just with Matt. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said, more to stall for time to think about this. I saw Matt, Tiffany, and Nana come in and look at the television. “Are you alright?”

“No,” he said, and even with his one word response, I could feel the pain and anguish leaking through his shields. Something truly tragic had happened.

“Who all will be coming to stay?” I asked gently.

“Stef and I, along with Brad, all three boys, Maddy and her nurse, and Ella,” he said.

“Is Robbie staying in New York with Jeanine and Hank?” I asked. It made sense that they’d send Maddy out of the city after an attack, but I would have expected Jeanine to come with her. Maybe she didn’t want to leave Hank behind.

“They are dead,” he said flatly.

“What?” I asked, although it must have sounded like a scream, as it was so loud for me. Unfortunately I attracted the attention of the other three people with my outburst. “How?”

“They died when the South Tower collapsed,” he said, and his voice cracked as he did. “Would you mind if I explained things when we get there? We should be there this evening.”

“Of course not,” I agreed. I hung up the phone, even as the others looked at me, and while I could try to seem strong, I could not stop the tear that fell out of my eye.

“What happened Wade?” Matt demanded, knowing that it was really bad news, for it to make me cry.

“The twin towers were attacked by terrorists, they think, who flew jetliners into them,” I said.

“That’s what they’re saying on the news,” he said, to tell me that he already figured that out.

“Robbie, Hank, and Jeanine were in the South Tower,” I told him.

“Which one is that?” Tiffany asked.

“One of the ones that collapsed,” I said. Tiffany put her hand to her throat, as if she were being strangled. “The three of them are dead.”

“My father is dead?” Matt asked.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to him. “JP, Stef, Brad, Will, JJ, Darius, Maddy and her nurse, and Ella will be here tonight to stay with us.” I had idiotically hoped that would distract him, but it didn’t.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and headed outside.

“Wait!” I said, as I hurried after him. He stopped and turned around so he could look at me squarely.

“I just need some time alone,” he said, in a tone that was plaintive and authoritative at the same time.

“Come find me when you’re ready,” I said. He nodded and went outside. I walked back over to Tiffany and Nana. Neither one of them had moved, or said anything.

“I can’t imagine how they’re surviving this,” Nana said, referring to JP and his clan.

“I don’t think they have much choice at this point,” I told her. “Do you think you can make sure Maddy is taken care of when they get here?” I asked Tiffany. I was trying to spark her maternal instincts, which were amazingly strong, and it worked.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll work to make sure they set up another nursery.”

“And I’ll attend to the other rooms,” Nana said, looking for something to do. She left us to go do that, so now Tiffany and I were alone.

“I loved her Wade,” she said to me, even as the tears began to flow. “I don’t now, but I used to love her. I guess I still have some of those feelings, because I was happy for her. I was happy because she was happy. All that Jeanine went through, that hell that she endured, and she finally found happiness with Hank.”

I wrapped my arms around her and let her cry on my shoulder. “She seemed to be doing well.”

“Depression is a black place, an awful place,” she said in an aggressive way, but I’d learned that when she did that, she wasn’t fighting with me, she was fighting internally with what was pissing her off. “She had to deal with that, lose her whole family over it, and then she comes out of it, finds someone to make her happy, has a beautiful daughter and a great life in New York. All that, and now it’s gone. How is that fair? How is that fucking fair?”

“It’s not fair,” I said. “It’s not fair at all. I think all we can do is try to think about the good times she did have, and hope that made her happy, on the whole.” She nodded, and then turned to go arrange the nursery for Maddy.

I walked outside and found Matt standing over by the fence to the paddock, watching the horses. “Is it OK if I’m here?” I asked.

He turned and looked surprised to see me, so far off had his mind been. “Yeah. I just needed to...”

“I understand,” I said, cutting him off. I put my hand on his shoulder as we stood side by side at the fence, looking at the paddock. I could read him so well, and I could feel the emotions roiling inside of him. It helped me hide my own pain, by focusing on his. They were bubbling up inside him, and I could feel the tension building through my hand, until it broke.

He turned to me and grabbed me, almost violently, and clung to me as he sobbed, truly sobbed. I’d never seen a human break down like this, to lose it so badly. I wrapped my arms around him and held him tightly, pushing my face against the back of his head to accentuate the gesture. I stroked his back lovingly, trying to do everything I could to show him he was loved. “He was such a good man,” Matt finally said.

“Yes he was,” I agreed. Robbie had annoyed me at times, but he was a good man, as Matt said, and in the end, I’d come to respect him and his judgment.

“I feel like once I met him, I had a foundation, like I was grounded. And now I feel like I’m back in limbo. Why do I feel that way?”

“Because he was such a loving man, and because he gave you that love unconditionally,” I said, because it was true, and because I needed to say something.

“Mr. Danfield,” Cherise said nervously.

“I’ll be with you in a bit,” I said to her, letting her hear my annoyance. What was she thinking, bothering me at a time like this?

“I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a man on the phone from the Defense Protective Service,” she said. That was the government agency charged with security at the Pentagon, among other things.

That would explain the interruption. It was probably something routine, about protection issues, but they warranted my respect at least to the point of taking their call. “I’ll be back,” I said to Matt. He nodded and resumed his gaze out at the paddock. I walked briskly into the house and picked up the phone. “Wade Danfield,” I said crisply.

“Mr. Danfield, this is Officer Dennis Grivens of the Pentagon’s Defense Protective Service,” he said officially.

“What can I do for you, Officer Grivens?” I asked politely, hoping that I could get him off the phone quickly, and that I’d then be able to go back and comfort Matt.

“I’m sorry to inform you that a hijacked plane was crashed into the Pentagon,” he said.

“I saw it on the news,” I said, even as my complacency about this phone call vanished. This was no ordinary discussion of security measures.

“Your father was in the western side of the Pentagon where the plane hit,” he said, and his official voice had softened. “We haven’t found his body yet, but he is presumed to be dead from the explosion.”

“My father is dead?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Danfield,” he said. “It appears likely.” And then I understood Matt’s pain all too well.