He paced around the house several times; he had to block out distracting thoughts. He cursed himself for not thinking through his wife and daughter’s death more fully. He could have obtained evidence!
While paranoia was indeed a possibility, there were two pieces of evidence that confirmed his suspicion that was murder, information that was always there but just not connected; the broken exterior light and the crash barrier. He never had replaced the broken light. He took a stepladder from the garage and went outside to examine the light. He climbed the ladder and with a torch examined the bulb without touching it. He saw nothing unusual; a dud bulb and spider webs.
He put the stepladder away and considered driving to the spot of the crash. But no, there would be no point. The barrier would have been replaced. There would be nothing to see. He realised that no-one collects evidence for murder when they accepted death as an accident. He knew that. The CIA knew that. Whoever murdered his wife and daughter knew that.
Planner went to his drinks cabinet and took out the whisky bottle. There was hardly any left; mainly downed during the Depression stage of grief, he recalled. He had not been attentive enough to refill his stockpile. He finished what was left of the Scotch. He decided that it was best not to make a cocktail from the assortment of spirits and liqueurs at the back of the cupboard.
He switched on the TV but did not sit down to watch it. He just wanted distraction. He had to find a way to not think of her, of them, of how they died. He had to channel his energies onto a productive course; he needed to keep busy. Opening his filofax, he went down his To-Do list. After writing down a list of actions and re-reading them, he crossed most of them out. Finally adding another in capitals: “Phone Katherine!” Then he read down the list again. There were many notes that he had made earlier in the day. Then he found just the thing to keep his emotions at bay.
He unpacked his laptop and booted up the Windows 2000 operating system. Slipping in the CD-ROM disk that Digger had given him after the Snow White meeting, Planner accessed new data within his Nastran software; a 3D model of WTC7. Like many New York Buildings, its design is highly constrained by the city environment in which it exits; for example, WTC7 had a trapezoidal cross section, a very strange shape for any building, to fit within the haphazard lower Manhattan street plan. It was 47 stories high and would have stood out in most cities in the USA, it would have been the tallest building in 32 states. However, in New York, it was dwarfed by its proximity to the 110 story twin towers. The North Tower, WTC1, was 355 feet away and WTC2 was 600 feet. In between WTC7 and WTC1 was one eight storied building, WTC6, which, he realised also needed to be destroyed. What team was going to be doing that?
Planner searched for more information on WTC7 using the state-of-the-art, Lycos internet search engine and discovered some interesting facts: Massive building works were undertaken two years after WTC7 was built, to withstand the load of heavy computer equipment. These new areas, built at a cost $200million, were regarded as a “building within a building”. And there were other expensive changes in the following years: the CIA office facilities and its secret entrance via the Defense Department and Mayor’s Emergency Command Center. A name cropped up “Larry Silverstien”: his company had not only built the original tower but also undertook all the renovation and improvement work. 104
Planner drummed his chin. Where had he heard that name before? It finally came to him; Silverstien was in the process of bidding for the 99 year lease on the rest of the World Trade Center. He was the winner of the contest despite offering less, but won when his ex-brother-in-law, Bernard Mendik, pulled out of the competition. And then Mendik died of a heart attack;105 unlucky Mendik, lucky Silverstien. Planner was reminded of the CIA Heart Attack Gun that was developed in the 1960s: another murder-without-consequences106 weapon in a similar vain as the Boston-Brakes devices. Considering his own job, Planner could not be too self-righteous about the morality of such action; just suspicion and a reminder of his own pledge of allegation, until death, to his lodge and brother Masons.
Planner extracted large paper blueprints from his brief case. He decided to compare the Nastram model with Blue Prints of the building he had come across in the Rainbow Office. He printed out a report describing the structural strength of the components within the model and compared them with the blueprints. He yawned. He decided to finish the analysis in the morning but he dashed off an email before going to bed.
He wrote: “Digger. Looks like the model does not fully account for the extra strengthening undertaken in 1989 when 350 tons of steel was added to WTC7. Can I suggest some further changes to the model? Regards Planner”
He pressed a button to encrypt the message and then another to send it.
* * * *
Planner was asleep. In his dream he imagined the mechanism under his wife’s car activating and turning the wheel sharply, plunging it over a cliff. Falling… He heard the Lodge Master saying, “Tragic. Your wife was such a caring and intelligent lady”. Caring? Intelligent? Why those words? How did he know?
He imagined a bomb explosion destroying four levels in the basement of the North Towers, and the building slowly toppling, falling into the second tower, the floors locking together, and drawing out a huge gash down the side of the other tower, with thousands of people sliding out the building, hanging onto the columns on the outer wall until they no longer were able to hold on any longer.107 He dreamt he was in the Plaza and witnessing the building as it toppled, whole, down towards him.
Planner woke up with a start. He turned and saw his wife in bed with him asleep surrounded by dappled sunlight. This startled him again and he awoke again. He was alone at home. This time, he was certain he really was wake. He rolled over looked at a picture of his wife and young daughter. The emotional dam burst; he held his head and wept.
He recovered his composure in the shower. Returning back to the bedroom in his dressing gown, Planner looked at the clock and sighed. It was already mid-morning. Sitting on his bed, he arranged his cell phone next to his landline phone and sighed again. He took out a new sim-card, inserted it into his cell-phone and made a call.
“Hello?” answered an uncertain female voice.
“Hi, Katherine. It’s Robert. I hope you don’t mind me calling you… er, at home,” said Planner, grabbing a tissue to mop his nose.
“No, hey. This is a… surprise,” stammered Katherine on the phone. “Er… no problem. I’m glad you called. In fact, I was hoping you would. We’ve both been kind of busy, haven’t we?”
“It’s been real crazy. Crazy bad. Can you talk?”
“A short while. What’s up? You sound tense,” she said.
“I’ve just had some bad… er… feelings. About my job. About your job too,” confided Planner.
“Oh? Can you explain?”
“I’m almost lost for words on this, you know, without my powerpoint slides,” he tried to joke.
“Well, ok. We’re on-the-phone. Give it a try,” she said patiently.
“Perhaps it’s because it is on the phone. All those potential ears on the air waves. At the exchange. Along the line,” Planner said with a cringe.
“Ok. I think you can talk to the main bullet points,” she suggested.
“Ok. I just wanted to make sure that you have copies of all your files. From work.”
“About… the Jerks?”
“Yeah. The Texan Jerks. You know who I mean?” he said.
“I do have them backed up. Stored very securely,” she said.
“Where?”