New York - The Novel

reckoned that if he was going to be of any use to anybody, he’d better look around and make his own assessment. He was in the upper lobby when he heard the first thud. At first he didn’t realize what it was. A few moments later, there came two more.
    Bodies. They were coming from the North Tower. He understood what that meant. People must be trapped up there in heat which was becoming unbearable. So you had the choice: burn alive or jump. He’d read accounts of people jumping from buildings, but this was different—these bodies were falling a thousand feet. The math wasn’t difficult. Accelerating at thirty-two feet per second, after falling a thousand feet, a body hits a hard surface very hard indeed. He wasn’t sure if you’d be conscious just before impact, but death would be completely instantaneous. If thesewere his only options, he reckoned, he’d choose to jump. But the sound it made … He tried not to hear the sound it made.
    “There’s my doctor. You thought I’d forgotten you.” The Irish face of the fire chief, looking a little red from exertion. “Like to do me a favor?”
    “Of course.”
    “Well then, doc, what I’d like you to do is go over to Trinity Church. There may be some folks over there that need attention, and I believe some of my boys are there too. Would you do that?”
    “I’m on my way.”
    He went outside onto Liberty and started south down Broadway, glad to have something to do. He’d better call his wife to let her know he was safe. She could call the office. And while she was at it, he suddenly thought, why not call the realtor and tell her they’d changed their minds about that damn Park Avenue building. He didn’t want to live there any more.

    It was nearing ten o’clock. What could be taking her so long? Gorham stared at the tower. While the flames were still burning brightly up in the North Tower, the South Tower seemed to have settled into a smokier, more sullen mood. Several times he’d heard explosions from lower down in the towers. Stores of gas or electrical equipment? Or perhaps, he guessed, fuel from the planes might have run down the inside of the buildings, collected again, and suddenly exploded. Who knew? But whatever the causes of these other sounds, it was smoke rather than flame that was to be seen issuing from the South Tower now.
    Almost ten o’clock. Surely she must appear any second now.
    His cellphone rang.
    “Hi, honey, it’s me.”
    “Thank God.”
    “That was a bit of a journey down.”
    “Maggie …”
    “What’s up?”
    His eyes were fixed on the upper part of the South Tower. Something was happening. The top seemed to be leaning, twisting.
    “Maggie, where are you?”
    Now the tower seemed to be righting itself, but only because furtherdown, something had snapped or shifted. For suddenly the roof of the great tower was beginning to sink.
    “It’s okay, Gorham. I’m down, and—”
    “Maggie—”
    Nothing. Deadness. The top of the huge tower had started to travel downward. He had never seen anything like it, except in movies, or old newsreels. The controlled demolition of high-rise buildings. It was amazing how they could just sink, like a collapsing concertina. And that was what was happening now. The South Tower was falling in on itself.
    But so slowly. He could not believe how slowly. Second by second, as if in slow motion, the tower was traveling down. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four … With majestic, deliberate, measured speed, the top was sinking while, at the bottom, with a slow roar, like a groaning waterfall, a huge, grayish cloud of dust was belching out.
    “Maggie.” No voice.
    The ground was trembling now. He could feel the tremor underfoot. The billowing tidal wave of dust was rolling up the street toward him like a volcano’s pyroclastic flow. He must back away and flee. He had no choice. He couldn’t stand his ground. He backed into Chambers Street, hoping the dust wave would not sweep down over the rooftops and smother him. But the rumbling continued, for nine interminable seconds, as the tower fell, and the cloud of dust, as if it had acquired a life of its own, grew and roiled on itself, and grew again until, in all the streets around, you could not see the light at all.
    He could hear people running northward, half choking, many of them. After a while, he unbuttoned the top of his shirt, pulled it up to use as a mask, and tried to make his way south into the dust storm. But it was no