False Impression

It must be another bomb, was Anna’s second thought. Everyone who had been in the building in 1993 retold stories of what had happened to them on that bitterly cold February afternoon. Some of them were apocryphal, others pure invention, but the facts were simple. A truck filled with explosives had been driven into the underground garage beneath the building. When it exploded, six people were killed and more than a thousand injured. Five underground floors were wiped out, and it took several hours for the emergency services to evacuate the building. Since then, everyone who worked in the World Trade Center had been required to participate in regular fire drills. Anna tried to remember what she was supposed to do in such an emergency.

She recalled the clear instructions printed in red on the exit door to the stairwell on every floor: “In case of emergency, do not return to your desk, do not use the elevator, exit by the nearest stairwell.” But first Anna needed to find out if she could even stand up, aware that part of the ceiling had collapsed on her and the building was still swaying. She tried tentatively to push herself up, and although she was bruised and cut in several places, nothing seemed to be broken. She stretched for a moment, as she always did before starting out on a long run.

Anna abandoned what was left of the contents of the cardboard box and stumbled toward stairwell C in the center of the building. Some of her colleagues were also beginning to recover from the initial shock, and one or two even returned to their desks to pick up personal belongings.

As Anna made her way along the corridor, she was greeted with a series of questions to which she had no answers.

“What are we supposed to do?” asked a secretary.

“Should we go up or down?” said a cleaner.

“Do we wait to be rescued?” asked a bond dealer.

These were all questions for the security officer, but Barry was nowhere to be seen.

Once Anna reached the stairwell, she joined a group of dazed people, some silent, some crying, who weren’t quite sure what to do next. No one seemed to have the slightest idea what had caused the explosion or why the building was still swaying. Although several of the lights on the stairwell had been snuffed out like candles, the photoluminescent strip that ran along the edge of each step shone brightly up at her.

Some of those around her were trying to contact the outside world on their cell phones, but few were succeeding. One who did get through was chatting to her boyfriend. She was telling him that her boss had told her she could go home, take the rest of the day off. Another began to relay to those around him the conversation he was having with his wife: “A plane has hit the North Tower,” he announced.

“But where, where?” shouted several voices at once. He asked his wife the same question. “Above us, somewhere in the nineties,” he said, passing on her reply.

“But what are we meant to do?” asked the chief accountant, who hadn’t moved from the top step. The younger man repeated the question to his wife and waited for her reply. “The mayor is advising everyone to get out of the building as quickly as possible.”

On hearing this news, all those in the stairwell began their descent to the eighty-second floor. Anna looked back through the glass window and was surprised to see how many people had remained at their desks, as if they were in a theater after the curtain had come down and had decided to wait until the initial rush had dispersed.

Anna took the mayor’s advice. She began to count the steps as she walked down each flight—eighteen to each floor, which she calculated meant at least another fifteen hundred before she would reach the lobby. The stairwell became more and more crowded as countless people swarmed out of their offices to join them on each floor, making it feel like a crowded subway during rush hour. Anna was surprised by how calm the descending line was.

The stairwell quickly separated into two lanes, with the slowest on the inside while the latest models were able to pass on the outside. But just like any highway, not everyone kept to the code, so regularly everything came to a complete standstill before moving off unsteadily again. Whenever they reached a new stairwell, some pulled into the hard shoulder, while others motored on.

Anna passed an old man who was wearing a black felt hat. She recalled seeing him several times during the past year, always wearing the same hat. She turned to smile at him and he raised his hat.

On, on, on she trudged, sometimes reaching the next floor in less than a minute but more often being held up by those who had become exhausted after descending only a few floors. The outside lane was becoming more and more crowded, making it impossible for her to break the speed limit.

Anna heard the first clear order when she reached the sixty-eighth floor.

“Get to the right, and keep moving,” said an authoritative voice from somewhere below her. Although the instruction became louder with each step she took, it was still several more floors before she spotted the first fireman heading slowly toward her. He was wearing a baggy fireproof suit and sweating profusely under his black helmet emblazoned with the number 28. Anna could only wonder what state he’d be in after he’d climbed another thirty floors. He also appeared to be overloaded with equipment: coiled ropes over one shoulder and two oxygen tanks on his back, like a mountaineer trying to conquer Everest. Another fireman followed closely behind, carrying a vast length of hose, six pole arms, and a large bottle of drinking water. He was dripping so much sweat that from time to time he removed his helmet and poured some of the drinking water over his head.

Those who continued to leave their offices and join Anna in her downward migration were mostly silent, until an old man in front of her tripped and fell on a woman. The woman cut her leg on the sharp edge of the step and began to scream at the old man.

“Get on with it,” said a voice behind her. “I made this journey after the ‘ninety-three bombing, and I can tell you, lady, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Anna leant forward to help the old man to his feet, hindering her own progress, while allowing others to scramble past her.

Whenever she reached a new landing, Anna stared through the vast panes of glass at workers who remained at their desks, apparently oblivious of those fleeing in front of their eyes. She even overheard snatches of conversation through the open doors. One of them, a broker on the sixty-second floor, was trying to close a deal before the markets opened at nine o’clock. Another was staring out at her, as if the pane of glass was a television screen and he was reporting on a football game. He was giving a running commentary over the phone to a friend in the South Tower.

More and more firemen were now climbing toward her, turning th

e highway into two-way traffic, their constant cry: “Get to the right, keep moving.” Anna kept moving, her speed often dictated by the slowest participant. Although the building had stopped swaying, tension and fear could still be seen on the faces of all those around her. They didn’t know what had happened above them and had no idea what awaited them below. Anna felt guilty as she passed an old woman who was being carried down in a large leather chair by two young men, her legs swollen, her breathing uneven.

On, on, on, Anna went, floor after floor, until even she began to feel tired.

She thought about Rebecca and Tina, and prayed they were both safe. She even wondered if Fenston and Leapman were still sitting in the chairman’s office, believing themselves impervious to any danger.

Anna began to feel confident that she was now safe and would eventually wake up from this nightmare. She even smiled at some of the New York humor that was bouncing around her, until she heard a voice behind her scream.

“A second plane has hit the South Tower.”

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