“We have a search warrant, Mr. Simmons,” Wright said.
Paul looked at the pile of file folders. “You won’t find anything—”
“Wrong, Mr. Simmons, we already have found a great deal. The originals of some highly suspect change orders, for example.”
Paul’s mouth opened. He closed it with effort. He looked at Ruth.
“They weren’t destroyed, Paul,” Ruth said. “I thought it better to keep them. That way I had them to make copies to send to Mr. Giddings.” Her voice was perfectly calm, modulated. “I was sure he would be interested.”
In the silence, “You bitch,” Paul said.
The girl smiled then. It was a pleasant satisfied smile. “Perhaps,” she said. And then, “You see, I don’t like being used, Paul. I don’t think many women do.”
Wright said, “Shall we go, Mr. Simmons? We’ll have a nice ride downtown.”
25
One of the Coast Guard ratings whose name was Kronski walked with hesitant steps to the low parapet at the-edge of the Trade Center roof. He put both hands on the structure and cautiously, fearfully leaned forward to look down. Hastily he backed away. “Jesus, Chief,” he told Oliver, “you can’t even see the ground! I never been this high in my life!”
“You’ve been in an airplane,” the chief said.
“That’s different.” Kronski paused. “But I don’t even like that. I ain’t no paratrooper.”
Standing well back from the roof’s edge, Kronski studied the World Tower, the row of broken windows that was the face of the Tower Room.
At his feet was the riflelike gun to fire the projectile carrying the light messenger lines, which lay neatly coiled and ready in tubs.
“You got to be kidding, Chief,” Kronski said. “That far, in this wind?” He shook his head. “No way.”
Privately, Oliver agreed. It was even farther than he had guessed from the ground—five hundred, maybe even six hundred feet—and the wind, was blowing naif a gale. On the other hand he had offered Wilson assurances that they would try, and he was not going to go back on that.
Besides, he could see people over in that great goddam building and he could smell the smoke that was blowing toward him, and although this wasn’t exactly the same as fire at sea, those three words that hurdle any sailor’s blood, it was near enough to start the juices flowing. There, but for the grace of God, go!, that kind of identification … “I didn’t ask your opinion, Kronski,” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”
Kronski shrugged and picked up the rifle, loaded it carefully. “Suppose we do get a line there. Chief,” he said. “An’ we get a breeches buoy rigged.” He paused. He looked squarely at Oliver. “How’d you like to take a ride from there to here, up this high, in this wind?”
“Get on with it, Kronski.”
Kronski nodded. He raised the gun to his shoulder and aimed high for maximum trajectory.
Into the walkie-talkie Oliver said, “We’re firing the first try.”
“Okay.” Nat’s voice. “They’re standing by in the Tower Room.”
“Poor fucking landlubbers,’ Kronski said, “can get themselves into the goddamndest situations, can’t they?” He pulled the trigger.
The light line rose shimmering from the gun’s muzzle.
It grew in length, light as a contrail, glistening in the late sun.
Rising still, it reached in a graceful climbing arc for the row of broken windows, higher, higher until it was level with the tip of the communications mast itself.
And then it reached its apogee and, obeying the inexorable tug of gravity, began to fall, arching still, while the line paid out hissing from the tub.
They measured its reach and its fall with their eyes, and even before the head of the line dipped beneath the level of the distant windows, they knew they had failed.
“Shit,” said Kronski.
Standing tall and broad and solid, massively calm, “Try again,” the chief said. “We’re not giving up yet.”
The governor stood well back in the Tower Room, his arm around Beth. Together they watched the line rise shining and clean and bright, and for a moment there was hope.
Ben Caldwell’s artist’s eye first measured the failure. “Start thinking of something else, Nat,” he said. It was a whisper, no more, but the senator heard it.
“Hopeless?” the senator said quietly.
“Probably,” Ben said, “with that rifle. I think some of the shore stations have cannons, but how accurate they are—” He shrugged. “Getting a line aboard a ship the size of a freighter is one thing: all you have to do is land the line somewhere across the deck. Getting a line into these windows from this distance—” He shrugged again.
Grover Frazee, drink in hand, watched as if hypnotized, and when the line dipped sharply and disappeared beneath the windows his lips began to move without sound and the look in his eyes was not quite sane.
Someone in the big room had turned on a transistor radio. Rock music blared to a heavy beat.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mayor Ramsay said, “this is not the time for that kind of thing!” He too had watched the reaching line until it plummeted out of sight beneath the windows. “I’ll put a stop to it.”
“Leave it, Bob,” the governor said, “unless you think psalms and prayer are more appropriate.”
“I fail to see the connection.”
“It’s there.” The governor’s voice was weary. “The band played on the deck of the Titanic while it was sinking. Some people prayed.” His voice sharpened but did not rise in volume. “Goddammit, man, some of these people are scared to death, and I don’t blame them. Let them do their own things.” His arm tightened around Beth’s waist. “I’ll get back to the phone.” He hesitated. “You?”
“Wherever you go, I go,” Beth said. “I—don’t want to be alone.”
On the phone, “Sorry, Governor,” Nat’s voice said. “It was a long shot. The chief is giving it another try, but—” He left the sentence hanging.
“Understood,” the governor said. “The best you can—” He smiled suddenly at his own words. He shook his head. “Never mind.” Pause. “The elevators are out of the question?”
“Too much heat,” Nat said. “Distortion of the rails. Sorry about that too.”
To Beth, the office seemed small, crowded, claustrophobic. Howard and Storr, the two firemen, had come in, along with Ben Caldwell and Grover Frazee and the fire commissioner. Beth had the insane feeling that she could smell fear and she looked around to try to identify its source.
The governor had turned from the telephone. He said to Howard, “You’re sure the stairs are out of the question?”
“For a fact,” Howard said. He looked at Storr, who nodded. “We’re better off here,” Howard said, “which isn’t saying much, to be sure. Look—” He opened his hands in a mounting gesture. “You’ve seen a forest fire? Or maybe you have not. It starts small, usually. Somebody is careless with a campfire, a lighted cigarette, like that. Grass catches, then brush, then the lower branches of the big trees.” He paused, with vivid gestures demonstrating how it was. “Up in the wee top of one of the big trees, say, there is a nest of little birds. Down on the ground and even in the lower branches of their big tree there is a fire, smoke and heat are rising, the flames are climbing branch by branch.” He paused again. “But for a long time the nest is still safe.” He shook his head. “Not forever, mind you, but for a time. Until the flames reach the topmost branches the little birds are best off where they are.” One final pause. “Particularly,” Howard said, “if they cannot fly.”