“But they panicked,” the chief said, “and didn’t save any. That’s just the way it goes.” His voice was savage, and his eyes were still on the windows. No handkerchief waving. Yet.
The governor walked back to the office and sank into the desk chair. He felt suddenly old, and tired beyond mere fatigue. It was as if in Beth’s light presence he had spent these past few hours in the refreshing spring of eternal youth, knowing that it could not last, and yet half-believing that somehow it would. Now Beth was gone, the last woman out safely. At the final moment the governor had not been able to watch.
No fool like an old fool—he wondered who had first dreamed up that aphorism and in what circumstances. Probably some old gaffer mocking himself when the young chick he thought cared for him discovered that she preferred males of her own age after all.
Oh, it had not been like that with Beth. Given other circumstances in which choice was as free as choice ever was, the governor thought that Beth would have gone willingly, if not eagerly with him to that ranch in high New Mexico. Dream idyll—now where did that phrase come from? Dream stuff, pure and simple. And not to be.
But why not? The recurrent question that even Beth had asked. Why me?
Why couldn’t the dream stuff have become reality? Why did lightning strike one person and not another? Why couldn’t he have been allowed to live out what was left of his life in the peace and contentment he had planned, with the bonus of this new joy he had only today discovered?
If You exist, answer me that, Lord.
Feeling sorry for himself, wasn’t he? Well, why the hell not? Down in that plaza there were a thousand people, maybe ten thousand who were going home when the show was over to do whatever they damned well chose before they went to bed, knowing that they were going to wake up in the morning. Oh, sure, most of them, in Thoreau’s words, led lives of quiet desperation, but that didn’t alter the fact that they had at least some freedom of choice, some options open, and he now had none.
Did any man ever die happy? That was the question. No, strike the final word. Did any man ever die content? The governor thought not.
Some men accomplished a great deal, some accomplished little or nothing—but no man ever accomplished enough.
Jake Peters had said the same, and he, Bent Armitage, had chided him for it.
All right, he thought, all right! Cast up the balance. Things left undone, words unsaid, yes, but could any man say different? But no debts unpaid. And how many could say that? Pay as you go. Honest Bent Armitage. It sounded, he thought, like the name of a used-car dealer.
What of the knowledge and the judgment that would die with him? Well, what of them? Were they unique? Irreplaceable? Or was it just that he took such pride in them because they happened to be his?
Face it, he told himself as he had told the senator, you’ve had just the hell of a good time, haven’t you? And what would you change if you had it to do over? Probably not a single bloody thing.
Except Beth.
Maybe he thought, if he had tried harder, he might have found her or someone like her before it was too late. Someone like her? Well, if he had never met and known the real article, he would never have known the difference, would he? My God, what a rationalizing machine the mind was!
Beth. At least she was down safe. He hoped. He wished now that he had stayed to watch, just to be sure. Well, it was easy enough to make sure.
He flipped on the telephone’s speaker switch. “Armitage here,” he said. There was no answer. He punched the disconnect buttons, punched them again. There was no sound. The phone was dead.
And now, he thought, we are truly alone.
The heavy line stretching from Tower Room to Trade Center roof supporting the weight of the breeches buoy was nylon, strong, flexible, flawless nylon. It was secured around a ceiling beam in the Tower Room, and the knot that secured it, a bowline, had been tied under the watchful eyes of the two firemen.
Because with nylon even a bowline, the queen of knots, has been known to work loose, the firemen had taken the added precaution of bending the bitter end of the line into two half-hitches around the standing part. The half-hitches showed no signs of slipping, and unless or until they did, the bowline had to hold.
But the beam around which the line was bent was steel, a part of the building’s structure, major support for the communications mast that rose still shining into the waning sunlight.
Steel conducts heat well.
And nylon melts.
The telephone on the desk in the trailer made noises. Nat picked it up and spoke his name. The sound of his voice in the instrument was all wrong: it echoed. Like the governor, he tapped the disconnect buttons, tapped them again, and yet a third time. The dial tone sounded suddenly in his ear.
He dialed the Tower Room office number, dialed it again, and then hung up. “That’s that,” he said to no one in particular. “Their line’s gone.”
The buildings systems had been so carefully prepared, he thought, so cunningly designed, so expensively researched, and now one by one they were collapsing. Were collapsing? Had collapsed. There was something of finality, in the death of the telephone.
He dialed again the number he had already called once, the city radio station. He was answered immediately.
“World Tower Plaza,” he said. “Their phone line has gone. You’re the only way we can reach them.”
“We’ll hold this line open. When you give the word, you’ll talk right on the air.”
“One thing,” Nat said. “You have an automatic delay, don’t you? So you can cut off foul language, that kind of thing?
“You’ll go straight on the air. No delay.”
“Okay,” Nat said. “Thanks. We’ll stand by. He laid the phone on the desk again and picked up the walkie-talkie. To the chief on the Trade Center roof he said, “Telephone’s out. If you get a signal, call me. I’ll get on the radio.”
“Will do,” the chief said.
Nat leaned back in the chair and looked around the trailer. Tim Brown was there, one battalion chief, Giddings, and Patty. “You heard it,” Nat said. He lifted his hands and let them fall. “What the hell is there to say?” he said.
“I have the feeling,” the battalion chief said, “that something’s going to happen, you know what I mean? That the alarm will go off, or I’ll fall out of bed, or, you know, some way this goddam nightmare will end!” He paused. “Only it won’t will it?” His voice was low-pitched, venomous.
Giddings’s big shoulders moved restlessly. He looked at Patty. “Simmons is your husband,” he said, “and I’m sorry about that.” He paused. “But if I get half the chance, I’m going to kill the son of a bitch with my bare hands.”
Police Lieutenant Potter came in through the doorway. He looked at them all. “Anything I can do?”
No one spoke.
“That’s what I thought,” Potter said. He leaned against the wall. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stick around.” He paused. “Though God knows why I bother.”
It was Patty who said, “You found what you wanted about John Connors?”
“More than I wanted,” Potter said. He told them what he had told the captain and the chief inspector.
None of the men in the trailer spoke. Patty said softly, “The poor man.”
“I won’t argue,” Potter said. There was no bitterness, only sadness in his voice. Then, slowly, “I’m a rotten cop. My job is to find who’s at fault.” He shook his head. “Sometimes that’s pretty easy. But sometimes, like now, it isn’t.” He pointed upward. His voice rose. “Those people up there—somebody has to be to blame for them, isn’t that so?” He was looking at Brown. “Isn’t it?”