Dead Man's Footsteps

Sandy was two years younger than him. She had disappeared on his thirtieth birthday, when she was just twenty-eight. The same hair. A capped tooth.
    ‘Are you OK, Roy?’ Joan Major asked him suddenly.
    At first, lost in thought, he heard her voice only as a distant, disembodied echo.
    ‘Roy? Are you OK?’
    He snapped his focus back to her. ‘Yes, yes. Fine, thanks.’
    ‘You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’

15
11 SEPTEMBER 2001
    Ronnie hurried down West Broadway, crossing Murray Street, Park Place, then Barclay Street. The World Trade Center was right in front of him now, on the far side of Vesey Street, the two silver monoliths rising sheer into the sky. The smells from the fire were much stronger and sheets of curled, burning paper were floating in the air, while debris tumbled down and smashed to the ground.
    Through the dense black smoke he could see crimson, as if the tower was bleeding. Then flashes of bright orange. Flames. Jesus , he thought, feeling a terrible dark fear in his gut. This cannot be happening .
    People were staggering out of the entrance, looking dazed, staring upwards, men in sharp shirts and ties without jackets, some on their mobiles. For a second he watched an attractive young brunette in a power suit stumbling along with only one shoe on. She suddenly clamped her hands to her head, looking pained, as if a falling object had just struck her, and he saw a trickle of blood run down her cheek.
    He hesitated. It didn’t look safe to go any further. But he needed that meeting, needed it so desperately badly. Just have to chance it , he thought. Run like hell . He coughed, the smoke pricking his throat, and stepped off the sidewalk. The kerb was higher than he realized and, asthe wheels of his case bumped down, the handle twisted in his hand and his briefcase fell off.
    Shit! Don’t do this to me .
    Then, just as he ducked down and grabbed the handle of his briefcase, he heard the scream of a jet aircraft.
    He looked up again. And could not believe his eyes. A split second later, before he had time to register intelligibly what he was seeing, came an explosion. A metallic thunderclap boom, like two cosmic dustbins colliding. A sound that seemed to echo in his brain and to go on echoing, rumbling around out of control inside his skull until he wanted to stick his fingers in his ears to stop it, to choke it. Then he felt the shockwave. Felt it shuffling every single atom in his body.
    A massive ball of orange flames, showering diamanté sparks and black smoke, erupted from near the top of the South Tower. For one fleeting instant he was struck dumb by the sheer beauty of that sight: the contrast of colours – the orange, the black – stark against the rich blue of the sky.
    It seemed as if a million, billion feathers were floating in the air around the flames, drifting unhurriedly towards the ground. All in slow motion.
    Then the reality slammed into him.
    Slabs of wood, glass, chairs, desks, phones, filing cabinets were bouncing, shattering, on the ground in front of him. A police car pulled up, just past him, doors opening before it had even stopped. A mere hundred yards or so to his right, along Vesey Street, what at first looked like a burning flying saucer dropped with a massive clanging sound, smashing a deep crater, then bounced, shedding parts of its covering and innards, spraying out flames. When it finally lay still it continued to burn fiercely.
    To his utter numb horror, Ronnie realized that it was a jet aircraft engine.
    That this was the South Tower.
    Donald Hatcook’s office was here. The eighty-seventh floor. He tried to count upwards.
    Two planes.
    Donald’s office. By his quick estimate, Donald’s office was right where it hit.
    What the hell is happening? Oh, Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on?
    He stared at the burning engine. Could feel the heat. Saw the cops run forward from their car.
    Ronnie’s brain was telling him there wasn’t going to be any meeting. But he tried to ignore it. His brain was wrong. His eyes were wrong. Somehow he would still make that meeting. He needed to keep going. Keep going. You can make the meeting. You can still make the meeting. YOU NEED THAT FUCKING MEETING!
    And another part of his brain was telling him that while one plane hitting the Twin Towers was an accident, two was something else. Two was badly not right.
    Propelled by absolute desperation, he gripped his bag handle and walked forward determinedly.
    Seconds