When the banging started, Kyle Foreman was sitting on the
floor with his back to the door, shaking from head to toe. He
had no idea how long he had been there. All he could think
about was Sandy – and the baby he would never see.
Shouts broke through the panic. At first, Foreman couldn't
work out where the sound was coming from. Then he realised
it was a human sound, voices and thumping on the door.
He pulled himself up and saw that the door had a glass
panel above the handle. Through it he could just make out
a shape on the other side. Then a face came into view. It
was streaked with dirt and blood. A man. He was screaming
something and coughing. Then, almost as though he was
waking from a daze, Senator Foreman understood what the
man was screaming. 'It opens from your side!'
'It's locked,' he shouted back. His chest was burning from
the acrid fumes and he went into a coughing fit. Turning, he
scanned the floor and the walls to see if there was anything
– anything at all – that he could use to smash down the
door. He could make out a shape to one side, and he crawled
towards it on all fours. He was below the smoke but it was
still getting into his throat. He had almost reached the object
when he felt his stomach heave and he retched, feeling
burning acid slither into his mouth.
Another effort and Foreman was there. It was a metal box.
He cut himself on a sharp corner. Then, feeling around it
gingerly, he found a wire coming from one side. The other
side had knobs and switches. Peering closely, he realised
what it was – an amplifier from the sound system.
Crouching, Foreman picked up the amp and heaved it
over to the door. 'Get back,' he yelled. He smashed the
amp against the glass, which cracked but did not break.
Foreman pulled back and again slammed the object forward.
This time the glass shattered. Encouraged, he kept going,
ramming the metal box against the wood of the door with
all his strength. After four more blows, he was exhausted
and feeling sick again. He paused, trying to breathe as little
as possible.
Foreman watched as a small backpack flew through the
opening. A leg appeared, then the rest of a man's body, a
torso, an arm. He just fitted through the jagged opening,
but cut himself on the splinters and shards of glass. He
was a young, skinny guy with very short hair, wearing a
pair of round glasses and a 49ers sweatshirt. One lens of
his glasses was cracked. His bony face was filthy and he
had a gash that ran from the bridge of his nose to his left
cheek.
'I was trapped,' he was saying, 'in the john. Whole fucking
place was shaking.' He was on the verge of hysteria. He bent
down and pulled the backpack across his shoulders. Then
he recognised Foreman. He started to say something but the
senator took him by the arms.
'What's your name?'
'Dave,' the kid gasped. 'Dave Golding.'
'Dave. The passage your side. It's blocked, yeah?'
'Locked from the other side.' He nodded and gasped for
air. 'A girder came down in front of it.'
Foreman looked back through the dim light towards the
metal door at the end. 'There's only one way to go,' he said.
'Back to the auditorium.'
'But the heat –'
'We don't have any choice. Come on.'
The light grew redder as they approached the metal door.
Foreman touched the door and recoiled. A searing pain shot
up his arm. It was scolding hot. Yanking off his jacket, he
bunched it around his palms and pushed on the door. It was
stuck fast.
'Help me,' he said. 'Take off your sweatshirt.'
Dave did as he was told, wrapped the fabric around his
hands and pushed as hard as he could against the metal
sliding door. It gave, but they could feel the heat on their
hands. Dave jumped back. Almost in tears, he was shaking
his hands in pain. He bunched the shirt in his palms and
they gave the door another push. It opened two feet. Just
enough. A moment later they were on the other side.
Hall A was filled with smoke and the sounds of hopelessness
– death groans. The only way they could move forward was
to close their minds to it. They stumbled to the nearest wall,
which was covered with cracks and smeared with blood.
The only light came from the flames – reds, oranges, an
occasional flash of purple.
They made it to the other side of the room. Foreman was
trying to visualise where the room was in relation to the rest
of the building. He had hardly noticed the Reception and
the Main Concourse when he'd arrived earlier that day. All
his thoughts had been focused on getting to his room, being
alone. What a simpler life it once was.
'I need to stop,' Dave said. His breathing was laboured.
Foreman could feel the dust and smoke in his own throat.
He leaned against the wall beside the kid. Two hunched
shapes came out of the gloom, and Foreman and Dave
saw they were an elderly couple. The woman was limping,
and the man was supporting her and helping her along.
Their clothes were shredded and blackened, faces cut and
bloodied, and their white hair was flecked with purple from
the glow of the fire.
As they reached the wall, the woman stumbled and
fell forward into Foreman's arms. He and the elderly man
managed to break her fall. The blood on her face was streaked
with tears.
A few yards away, the wall had collapsed. There was a pile
of smouldering rubble spread in a great jagged semicircle
across the room. Underneath lay scores – perhaps hundreds –
of bodies. From beyond the wall they could hear the sound of
falling masonry, more moans, a gushing sound, water, steam.
Looking down, Foreman noticed a small stream of water
running from outside the room. It was pouring through the
collapsed wall. At the edge of the rubble lay an industrial-sized
water heater, its side ripped open. There was a terrible
stink of burning rubber, charred hair and incinerated flesh.
The elderly woman looked up into Foreman's face and
there was the sudden light of recognition in her eyes. She
had a huge bruise on her left temple and small cuts all over
her cheeks and under her eyes. He could see a sliver of glass
protruding from the soft skin to one side of her nose.
'I think her leg is broken,' the elderly man said, his voice
little more than a rasp.
'We've got to get out,' Foreman replied. 'There could be
more bombs.'
The dread thought seemed to jolt the other three. Dave
pushed away from the wall. 'Here,' he said, and took the old
lady's arm and slung it over his shoulder. Foreman took the
man's arm as gently as possible. 'Let me do this,' he said. He
let the woman rest her weight on his shoulder.
They edged their way along the remains of the wall. 'Don't
touch the water,' Foreman warned. 'It could be in contact
with live wires.'
Picking through the rubble, they reached a point where
the wall disappeared completely. They could see some of the
Main Concourse. It was lit up from outside, and a few neon
strips were still functioning. They hung from their wires and
swung precariously, throwing wild shapes across the scene
of devastation.
It was a massive space, at least 200 feet from end to end
and almost as wide. It was obvious that the epicentre of
one blast lay somewhere behind Reception. This area was
completely obliterated, a ghastly black hole, strewn with
rubble, girders, piles of wood and plastic, pieces of bodies.
Clothing had been torn from victims and lay burning.
The air was a little clearer here but the fires were worse.
Flames ran along the wall all the way to the auditorium
and flickered up to the ceiling. Towards the main doors,
whose frames were now twisted into jagged columns of
metal, there were more lumps of charred flesh. A pair of
jeans lay a few feet in front of them. Just visible in the
flickering shadows were two red and white circles, stumps
encased in skin-tight denim. The top half of the body was
nowhere to be seen.
They saw movement ahead. Shapes formed out of the
smoke and the irregular patterns of light. A young man
and a young woman were leaning over two figures in the
rubble. Dave and the senator lowered the elderly woman to
the floor, and Foreman crouched beside her. 'What's your
name, my dear?' he asked.
She looked up at his face and muttered something. He
leaned closer. Her husband crouched on her other side. 'Her
name's Nancy. I'm Marty Gardiner, Mr Foreman.' His voice
was shaky.
'Nancy. You wait here a minute with Marty. We'll check
out the main entrance.' He looked to Marty, who nodded.
Foreman glanced down and realised his jacket was still
wrapped around his hand. He unwound it, rolled it up and
lifted Nancy's head, gently, placing the jacket under her.
Dave was walking towards the group of people a few yards
ahead. Foreman went after him across the smouldering piles
of rubble.
'Steve!' Dave exclaimed as he reached one of the
figures. He looked down and saw Todd Evans on the floor.
'Todd!'
Todd's face was lined with pain. He nodded towards his
arm and Dave could see it was covered with blood. A bone
was protruding from the flesh midway between elbow and
wrist, and his shirt was soaked with blood. Next to him lay a
teenage girl. Her dress was ripped to ribbons and the front of
it was crimson. Another young woman was crouched beside
her, crying desperately.
Steve straightened up just as Foreman arrived. He did
a double-take as he noticed the senator, but Foreman was
already leaning over the young girl in the debris. She looked
up at him, her eyes slightly unfocused. He took her pulse.
Glancing at the other young woman, he said, 'Is she a friend
of yours?'
'She's my sister, Jenny.'
'We have to get her out.'
Dave was at Foreman's side. 'Can you stand?' he asked
Jenny.
She nodded weakly. 'I think so.'
'What's your name?' Foreman asked the other girl.
'Martina.'
'Okay, Martina. Stand back a second. Dave, you get
Jenny's left side. On three.'
They lifted the girl and she swayed.
At that moment they heard a cry from behind them.
Marty Gardiner screamed a terrible 'No!'
Foreman snapped back to Steve and Martina. 'You two – get
a shoulder under each of Jenny's and find a way to the main
doors. She'll die if she doesn't get attention immediately.
Todd, you go with them.'
Foreman turned back towards the Gardiners, and Dave
helped Todd to his feet. He stood up unsteadily and the
pitiful little group staggered towards the doors.
It was slow going. The Main Concourse resembled a
battlefield. Rubble was strewn across the expanse of marble
floor. Concrete slabs lay beside jagged shards of glass, some
sticking up like stalagmites. Others lay in treacherous sheets
on the ground. Martina and Steve led the way with Jenny,
and Dave followed with Todd.
Jenny stumbled and fell. Steve and Martina caught her just
before she reached the ground, but as they dropped to save
her, Steve gashed his side on a protruding metal rod partly
encased in concrete. He screamed with pain and clutched at
the wound, letting Jenny go. Dave dashed forward and just
broke the girl's fall.
It took them a few moments to pull themselves together.
Steve was crying with pain. They could see a red circle of
blood spreading across his Led Zeppelin T-shirt. He could
barely breathe, but somehow they all managed to reach the
Main Concourse.
The framework of the main doors was almost completely
obliterated. Only daggers of glass pointing at weird angles
remained in the metal frames. Outside, they could see more
fires burning. Debris peppered the broad stone steps that led
down from the doors to a large plaza and a tree-lined street
beyond. A huge jet of water from a burst pipe was drenching
the floor near the doors, splattering across massive chunks of
concrete and marble. One of the main supports close to the
doors had collapsed and smashed to pieces. Several corpses
lay pinned under the fragments.
'Come on!' Dave shouted. He stepped ahead, picking a
way through the mess. Todd came up behind Steve and the
two girls. Reaching the doors, they could feel the cool air of
night.
Dave took a step back and went to help Todd move out
through the doors. He felt a strange movement to his left, a
jerking, a spasm. Turning, he saw blood spray into the air,
and acting on pure, animal instinct, he dived to the floor.
As he fell, he saw Steve and the two girls shudder. Martina
and Steve slipped away from the injured girl, who stood
erect for a strange, timeless moment, her arms outstretched,
beseeching. Then her legs gave way and she fell backwards
in a pathetic heap.
Dave scrambled back, away from the doors, miraculously
avoiding the bullets spraying the area, and pulled Todd
down. 'Fuck!' he bellowed.
Todd landed heavily and screamed in agony, but Dave
was oblivious to it. He dragged his friend back into the Main
Concourse and out of the line of fire. Looking back towards
the doors, Dave could see the three youths in their death
throes, laying horribly contorted in a puddle of red that
crawled outwards across the marble floor.
There were shards of glass and pieces of twisted metal a
hundred yards from the CCC. Freddie Bantelli negotiated
carefully. The road was covered with debris and slick with oil
and water, and the air was filled with smoke and dust.
McNally instructed Bantelli to pull up ten yards from the
mangled remains of the main entrance to the CCC. The
captain opened his door. 'Wait here a second,' he yelled
into the cabin. But Bantelli was already out of the truck and
running around the front.
'Shit!' McNally hissed. Then he took a deep breath. 'Okay,
Bantelli,' he called back. 'As you're out, check the main
entrance. I'll guide the other trucks in. Don't – I repeat,
do
not
– go beyond the doors. You got that?'
'Got it.'
'Fucking kid,' McNally hissed to the other three firemen.
Two of them were adjusting the settings on their oxygen
tanks, and Raul Burgos was reaching for the door handle.
McNally looked over their heads towards the back of the
truck. He had a torch in his hand and his helmet light on.
He could see the first of the other Station 9 trucks slowing
a few yards away. It was then he heard a burst of gunfire
ripping through the sounds of destruction and mayhem.
Some sixth sense told McNally what was happening, no
matter how unbelievable it might be. He heard one of the
guys in the back scream, and he threw himself to the floor,
gashing his knee on a sharp piece of metal. It sliced through
his suit and he felt a surge of pain shudder up his leg.
'Stay here!' he yelled into the back, and ignoring the
pain he crawled beneath the fire truck, quickly pulling his
legs under the vehicle. He spun round on the ground to
face the wreckage of the main entrance, and saw the soles
of Bantelli's boots. He scrambled closer and crawled into a
stream of fresh blood trailing away from Bantelli's body. The
boy was shaking. McNally reached him a few inches beyond
the undercarriage of the truck. The young fireman stopped
moving.
Crawling out from under the rig, McNally managed
to pull Bantelli's body into deep shadow between the fire
truck and the shattered building, a gap of about three feet.
He ripped off Bantelli's mask. The kid's face was white. He
turned him slightly and saw that his back was ripped open
from the nape of his neck to the middle of his spine, a mass
of blood and bone protruding from under the remnants of
his jacket.
McNally sat still, the ruined body of the kid draped across
his lap. He closed Bantelli's sightless eyes. Only then did he
hear the operator's voice. She was trying to keep calm but
gradually losing it. '9-Alpha. Status, please? 9-Alpha, please
respond!'
'McNally,' the captain said robotically. 'We have a
shooter.'