Cary took a deep breath. “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Give me one reason why not.” The senator was smiling. It was not a pleasant smile. “By your standards, I’m an old man, but don’t let that bother you if it’s violence you’re thinking of. In the neighborhood I grew up in a ten-year-old kid would eat you for breakfast.”
Cary was Silent, indecisive.
“All of you,” the senator said, “simmer down. The man is trying to tell you what to do. Now, goddammit, listen!” Suddenly the governor was smiling. “I’ve said it all,” he said. He pointed. “Look!”
They all turned. A helicopter was swinging toward the bank of broken-out windows, its staccato engine sound growing louder by the moment.
Inside the chopper: a man, Kronski thought, could spend a lifetime in one of these contraptions and never get his sea legs. Boats, even small boats in heavy seas, move with some kind of rhythm. All this chopper did was buck and jump, and how in the hell the chief thought he could even hit the building, let alone the windows, he didn’t know.
His stomach was bucking and jumping too, and he swallowed hard, swallowed again, and breathed deep in the cold air.
He could see faces now inside the Tower Room. They stared at the chopper as at a vision.
The pilot looked at Kronski. There was question in his eyes.
“Closer!” Kronski roared. “Closer, goddammit!” He bloody well wanted only one shot, he told himself, and then back to solid ground, or at least the solidity of that Trade Center roof.
The pilot nodded shortly. He moved his control stick as if it were a fragile thing that might suddenly break loose in his hand.
The building moved toward them. The faces inside were plainer. The bucking and jumping increased.
“Close as I’ll go!” the pilot said. “Shoot from here!”
Inside the room people were on the move now, scurrying to one side of the room. A large man was the fire commissioner—was waving his arms to hurry them on.
Kronski raised his gun and tried to take a sight. One moment he was looking at the gleaming mast of the building, and the next moment what he saw was a row of intact windows below the Tower Room. The goddam business he had ever engaged in. He raised his voice in a great shout: “Can you, for Christ’s sake, hold this thing still?”
From inside the room they could see Kronski’s strained face, and the gun he held, pointed, fired.
Against the chopper’s bellowing clatter, the sound of the shot was inaudible, but the fragile line itself was tangible for all to see. It shot twisting into the room, crashed against the far wall, collapsed in a writhing tangle on the floor.
The fire commissioner and three waiters pounced on the line and held it tight.
The helicopter lurched quickly away, paying out line as it went.
Someone cheered. It was contagious.
29
Patrolman Shannon, four stitches in his cheek beneath a fresh white bandage, was back at the barricade with Barnes. “You read about things like this,” Shannon said. “But did you ever think you’d see it?”
His gesture took in the plaza, the hoses and scurrying firemen, the smoke pouring out of broken windows on the building’s face, the plume of smoke near the tower’s top, and now high up the hovering helicopter, tiny against the immensity of the buildings.
“An Irish ghoul,” Barnes said. There was no rancor in his voice.
“There is,” Shannon said, “nothing like a good fire. Nothing.” He paused. “Oh, I know, Frank, I’m sounding like the bloodthirsty man I am not, but it is true. Why do people gather to watch? Because of the excitement of of the great leaping flames, a foretaste of Hell itself.”
“How are you,” Barnes said, “on a good juicy traffic accident? Bodies strewn around? Gore?”
“Oh, now, Frank, it is not the same at all. The one is man’s little foolishness. The other, this, is something—grand! Look there. Flames showing halfway up the monster structure! Do you see?”
“I see,” Barnes said. He paused. “And all I can think of is Gotterdammerung.”
“Put that into English, you black rascal.”
“Valhalla burning,” Barnes said. “The home of the gods burning to the ground.”
Shannon was silent for a few moments, still staring upward. “It’s blasphemous,” he said, “but I think I like it.”
The telephone hooked on his shoulder and the walkie-talkie on the desk directly in front of him, “So far, so good,” Nat said to the trailer in general. “They’ve made the messenger line fast inside the Tower Room. The chopper pilot is working back toward the Trade Center roof.”
Tim Brown said, “God be praised!” He took out the half-empty cigarette package, looked at it, and in sudden decision threw the entire thing into the wastebasket. “I’ll never have a better reason for quitting, ’ he said.
Patty sat quiet on a stool, watching, listening, smiling proudly.
Giddings said, “Half the battle won. The other half—”
“Agreed,” Nat said, his voice suddenly sharp, “but, goddammit, if we hadn’t won the first half, there wouldn’t even be a second half to try.” Then, into the phone, “Yes, Governor?”
“Assuming it is going to work,” the governor was saying, “what all is involved? Happily, I have never had to ride in a breeches buoy, so I know nothing about it. There is wind, considerable wind. Can a woman alone ride safely?”
“You stick your legs down through two holes,” Nat said. You’re inside a kind of sack. All anybody has to do is close his eyes and hang on.” He paused. His voice was solemn. “But you do have a couple of things to work out, Governor. Who goes in what order—”
“Women first. We decided that earlier.”
“Governor. The round trip, Trade Center roof to Tower Room and return, is going to take a little time. Say a minute. You have a hundred people up there, maybe half of them women. It’s going to take the better part of an hour just to get the women across, and another hour for the men. That’s a lot of waiting, and you’d better have the exact sequence—” He stopped at the sound of another voice in the office background.
The governor said, “Good for you, Jake.” And then, to Nat, “Senator Peters has anticipated you. I was afraid he was cutting out paper dolls. He is preparing numbered lottery slips instead.”
Nat nodded. He smiled. “Good.” He paused. “And somebody to enforce the sequence?” he said.
“That too is in hand.” The governor’s voice paused. “Two hours? That is your estimate?”
“Maybe less,” Nat said. “But slow and easy is the way, the only—”
The walkie-talkie crackled. “Oliver to trailer,” it said. “We’ve bent on the heavy lines. Well pay them out as they haul in. Tell them to take it slow, easy. When all this heavy line is out, they’re going to have a lot of weight to haul. More, because of the windage.”
“Will tell,” Nat said. “Hang on, Chief.”
He spoke into the phone again. “All set, Governor. Tell your men to haul away, and be prepared for a load before they get the job done.” He paused. “Good luck.”
“Thank you, young man.” The governor’s voice was tinged with’ anxiety. “You will continue to stand by the phone?”
“Yes, sir. And the walkie-talkie.”
“Bless you,” the governor said.
Nat laid the telephone on the blotter and leaned back in the desk chair. He caught Patty’s eye. She smiled.