Tim Brown said, “What an unholy stink there’s going to be. How many people were tuned in and heard that—threat, ultimatum, whatever you want to call it?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” This was Giddings.
“It worked,” Patty said. She looked down at Nat and smiled.
“Number fifty-three,” the secretary general said, “if you please.”
Fireman Howard said, “What’s your number?”
The secretary general smiled. “It is sixty.” There are seven more ahead of me.”
“And I’m one of them,” Howard said. “Fifty-eight.” The secretary general smiled again. “My congratulations.” He paused. “It has been a pleasure working with you.”
“Maybe,” Howard said, “we can have a drink together on that when all this is over.”
“I will look forward to it.”
The senator walked over to Cary Wycoff. The senator still held the candlestick in his hand. “The next time, Cary,” he said softly, “I will crack your skull.” He paused. “You can believe that.”
She was sitting still where the governor had left her, perched on the comer of the desk, long clean legs swinging gently, calm blue eyes seeming to smile.
This, the governor thought, was how he would always remember her.
Always?
Always. Through eternity.
“You are leaving now,” he said. He saw objection forming in her face and he attacked it immediately. “Yes,” he said. “You are going. Because, my dear,” he said, “it is my wish, my plea, and if that sounds stilted, I can’t help it. At times like this you hide behind formality.”
“Bent—” She stopped. Her eyes no longer seemed to smile.
“I will not end a long life with an act of craven selfishness,” the governor said. He smiled suddenly. “That in itself is selfish, I’ll admit. I can’t help posturing.” He walked toward her and held out his hands. “Come along.”
They came out of the office holding hands. The big room was subdued now, spiritless. The transistor radio played quietly; no one listened.
To the secretary general, “Number forty-nine was overlooked. Walther,” the governor said “Here she is.”
Cary Wycoff, watching, listening, opened his mouth and then closed it again in silence.
The room was still.
The secretary general smiled at Fireman Howard. “I was wrong,” he said. “There were eight ahead of me.”
Beth said, “Oh, Bent!”
“Goodbye, my dear.” The governor hesitated. He smiled. “Catch a trout for me some day.” He turned away then and walked back to the empty office.
“Sixty-one!” The fire commissioner’s voice.
“Sixty-two!”
Cary Wycoff started forward. The senator stepped in front of him. “I’m number sixty-five,” Cary Wycoff said and held up his slip.
The senator merely glanced at it. He nodded and stepped back. “You would be,” he said.
Within the giant structure the heat continued to rise. Floor by floor the incandescence crept up, following the evening shadows.
In the plaza it was almost completely night now, and standlights had been rigged. In their glare the moving men and equipment cast strange contorted shadows against the building, into the smoke.
Behind the police barricades the crowds stood quiet, no signs waving, no chanting, no voices raised.
Patrolman Shannon said, “It is a scene out of Hell itself, Frank.”
“It is.” Frank Barnes’s voice was quiet, solemn. “Only the poor damned souls are hidden.”
High above them, still in sunlight, the breeches buoy swung again down the catenary curve toward the Trade Center roof.
“You don’t think they’ll get them all out?” Shannon said.
Barnes lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “Even if they do, it’s a sad day to remember.” He paused. “For us all,” he said.
“Seventy-six!” the fire commissioner said. His voice was hoarse from smoke and strain. He coughed, coughed again with a deep retching sound.
The senator turned from the west bank of windows. Breathing was hard and painful. He looked around the great room.
Over by the fire door the white tablecloth marked Grover Frazee’s remains.
In a nearby chair a man the senator did not know, an elderly man, was slumped, head back, mouth and eyes open. As nearly as the senator could tell, he was no longer breathing.
Ben Caldwell lay in the center of the floor where he had collapsed. His body had curled itself into the fetal position. He made no movement.
The waiter on the floor held up his bottle offering a drink. He had a silly grin on his face.
“Thanks anyway,” the senator said, “but I’ll wait a little.” His voice sounded strange, heavy. He straightened himself with effort and walked toward the office.
The governor was in the desk chair. He looked up, smiled, and coughed. When the coughing had stopped, “Sit down, Jake,” he said. “What shall we talk about?”
Together the chief and Kronski hauled the man out of the breeches buoy bag. “Hold him up.” the chief said, and added, raising his voice, “Oxygen over here!” He waved at the Tower Room windows and slowly the breeches buoy began its return trip.
“Seventy-seven,” the chief said. He spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Name of Bucholtz. He’ll need ambulance care.”
He stood waiting then, large and massively calm, his eyes on the Tower Room windows, while Kronski paid out the breeches buoy guideline.
Here on the Trade Center roof from the beginning it had been cold. Now in the last slanting rays of the sun the evening chill worked its way into a man’s bones. Kronski stomped his feet and beat his hands together. “Freeze the balls off a brass monkey.” he said.
The chief showed no signs of discomfort. “Think of those poor bastards still over there,” he said. “Heat enough, and to spare.” And then, “Look!” For the first time his voice rose perceptibly. “Look there! It’s coming out empty!’
The breeches buoy swung through the window. No hand held it back. Of its own weight it began the careening slide down the immense curve, faster, faster, swinging, swaying like a mad thing—
“Oh, Jesus!” the chief said. “That’s done it!” He was pointing.
Like a snake the heavy supporting line slid through the window, its end whipping from the weight of the knots that still held, the line itself melted through from the heat of the beam it had been tied to. It fell endlessly.
“Stand clear!” the chief said, and jumped aside himself as the heavy line lashed viciously against its fastening on the roof. Then it was still.
The chief strained to see through the Tower Room windows. He held out his hand. “Binoculars.” He studied the room through the glasses in silence and then let them dangle from their lanyard around his neck.
Slowly he raised the walkie-talkie. “Roof to Trailer.”
“Trailer here.” Nat’s voice.
The chief’s voice was expressionless. “The line has parted. You’ll find the breeches buoy somewhere down below. It’s empty.”
Nat said softly, “Oh my God!”
“It doesn’t matter,” the chief said. “I can’t see any movement over there. I think it’s all over.” He paused. “The best we could,” he said. “It wasn’t enough.”
The time was 8:41. It had been four hours and eighteen minutes since the explosion.
Gotterdammerung.
Epilogue
They walked in silence in the evening chill, block after block, without destination, each deep in his own thoughts.
They stopped at last, almost as at an inaudible signal, and turned to look back.