Through the Gate: The Chronicles of Cornu Book 1

by L J Dalton Jr

  Dave spoke up, “The guys and I live in Brooklyn, so I’ll be heading towards Gracey Mansion and the entrance to the bridge. We can walk across it and then figure out how to get home. Anybody from Brooklyn or Queens it may be a good idea to come with us. If we can’t get across, we’ll head for South Sea Seaport and hope for ferries.” Several people nodded their head.

  Jim Davis, an I/T guy said. “I live up on the Westside. I can hike up there. I’m going to stay on Broadway all the way up. Anybody who lives in the city or Westchester should come along. We can stop at my place to rest and then anybody who needs to go further can head on after they get it together.”

  John and a number of people headed east along Fulton towards the South Sea Seaport. As they were walking somebody screamed. “OH NO, My God look at that!” They turned and they could see people jumping off the tops of the North tower; preferring to die from the impact instead of burning to death. The sight was met by a lot of crying and cursing. “We’ll find the mother fuckers responsible for this and rip their hearts out.” Somebody in the group said. That was met by a low grumble of approval. Not able to look anymore, most of the people turned away and continued walking down Fulton.

  When they got to South Sea, there was a crowd of people milling around. The cops were there to keep order, but practically everybody was pulling together. They waited patiently for hours as New York Waterway ferries took people across to New Jersey. A couple of hours after arriving the towers collapsed and a huge cloud of choking debris covered them. John and other people covered their faces and tried not to breathe it in. John finally got on a ferry around 3PM. It was headed for Exchange Place in Jersey City. An hour before, he managed to get a phone call through to his wife and let her know that he was all right. She promised to contact the kids and let them know. When he finally got to Exchange Place, there was another big crowd waiting for New Jersey Transit buses to take them someplace close to home. It was almost 8PM by the time he got dropped off on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair. He called his wife to come pick him up.

  A few minutes later Mary drove up. She got out of the car and rushed to him, hugged him and started to cry. “Are you all right? I was so worried about you? Why didn’t you call sooner? I let everybody know you were OK.”

  The hugged and John explained the issues as they headed to the car. Halfway there she stopped and looked at him. “What about Tom?” John just shook his head. Both of them started to cry.

  When they got home, John just left his stuff in the entranceway and told Mary he was off to get a shower and get cleaned up. When he came out of the bathroom in his pajamas, he poured himself a double scotch and sat down in the living room.

  He and Mary went over the whole ordeal. John told her how he got everybody out as soon as the first plane hit. That he knew that it was likely Tom wasn’t going to make it. The waiting, the collapse of the towers and the choking cloud that covered everyone. John was pretty sure that it was toxic. His wife said that the EPA said it was nothing to worry about. “BULLSHIT” was his reply.

  Mary then told him what she saw on TV and she sat transfixed watching the whole thing unfold. She was worried about him but had faith that he would get out. She too was sure Tom didn’t make it. She had no idea what to tell Betty and what they could do. Both vowed that they would do whatever necessary to help their friend. They were empty nesters and plenty of money. Although they doubted money would be an issue. Emotional support was going to be needed.

  Over the next few days, John spent time on sending out emails to his employees. Calling everybody to see how they were doing. Talking to his boss. The company wasn’t large, but it made a lot of money and the mid-town offices hadn’t been damaged. They needed office space and new equipment. His boss, Jerry, promised that he had a group on it and that his executive assistant Sandy was in charge. With Sandy running it, that meant things would get done. The kindly looking older woman was a dynamo when she went into action and not much stood in her way. When necessary the power of the firm would be brought to bear. He was to keep Jerry up to date on how people were doing. And if he or any of the people needed anything call him or Sandy. They also talked about the people they knew who didn’t make it.

  Jerry was emphatic. He was sure New York City and state as well as New Jersey and Connecticut would all help. Some of the yahoos in Congress might turn into assholes. But they would soon find out about screwing with rich, powerful wall street types who were pissed off. Wall street was inbred, everybody knew somebody who hadn’t made it. There had been talks already. Big Republican donors were making calls, a couple them had enough juice to get the president on the phone. The democratic donors were calling their people. Calls were going out to people in Chicago, San Francisco, LA, Dallas, Houston and other big financial centers. Everybody was on board. The message was the same, people needed to be taken care of no ifs ands or buts about it. The whole country was behind them.

  Oceana.

  Jack Mulvaney left his town house in Virginia Beach getting ready to head to NAS Ocean where he the assistant operations officer for VFA-136, the Nighthawks. His buddy and wingman, George, Scoter, McRay was waiting at the curb in his yellow corvette. Scoter and his wife didn’t have any kids yet, so he could indulge himself with a couple of toys, the corvette being one. Both flew FA-18 hornets as part of Carrier Air Wing One, the airwing of the USS Harry S Truman CVN-75, the stick. All the pilots had duties besides flying, Jack in Operations and Scoter in Maintenance. They were getting ready to deploy in the next few weeks so there was a lot of work to be done for both men. Their normal duties had to be taken care of, as well as an increased training tempo, which meant more time in the air. Although the latter was not considered a chore by pilots, since they loved to fly. But it did lead to some late nights.

  Scoter looked at Jack. "Hey striker (Jack’s call sign, as Scoter was George’s call sign) how’s your little brother Mike doing? It’s is first semester at MIT. Is he really going to get his Doctorate in a few years? He certainly doesn’t look like the average pencil necked geek.”

  “He’s doing well. Yeah, he played soccer and took Karate. In fact, he’s like a 3rd degree black belt or something.”

  “Whoa, don’t mess with him. Did he take it for self-defense or what?”

  “Nah, my parents thought that he needed the discipline. He was so smart that school came way to easy, so they put him in Karate to learn self-discipline. Soccer was sort of the same thing and that you just couldn’t be good at something right away. Somethings you had to work to be good at. Also, both things got him around kids his own age. Being super smart is not all good, there are some real downsides, mostly social and phycological, all that was to blunt some of those downsides.”

  “I can see that. He’s already finished college. What about girls? You know not going to school with kids your own age limited the dating possibilities.”

  “Well he did have a girlfriend a year younger than him. And my brother-in-law Bill told me on the QT that one of his wife’s friends husband dumped her for some bimbo. She popped Mike’s cherry and kept him busy to meet her ‘needs’ most of the summer. I know her and she is quite hot. Don’t tell my wife, but she had some of best tits I’ve ever seen. Not only big, but firm. She had the look that she would be hot in bed.”

  “Poor guy.” Scoter deadpanned.

  By that time, they were almost at the gate. There was the normal traffic jam. Once the Marine sentry saluted and waved them through, they headed to the squadron area. It was 7:50AM when they arrived, plenty of time to make quarters and officers’ call. After officers’ call, they headed off to their offices to get their work done. Neither man was scheduled to fly, but they had a four-hour flight tomorrow. Jack was sitting in his office working on the schedules and the deployment checklist, when a first class rushed into the office “An airliner just crashed into the world trade center.”

  Jack’s had sinking feeling in his gut. “My Dad works there.” Was all he managed to get out. The pilots
headed to the ready room. There they found the CO, Commander Morely, on the phone.

  “Master Chief I want my plane and the XO’s planes ready to go ASAP. I need them loaded with war shots. After that I need a flight of four read to go, Lieutenant Commanders Morris, Lieutenants McRay, Mulvaney and Snyder are the pilots. Also, load them with war shots. Then I want two ready 5 aircraft put on the runway and they should be armed, Sidewinders and Mavericks. We’ll let you know who once we figure it out. The Seahawks are launching a Hawkeye in 15, great. What about the other squadrons?” The skipper listened for a few then “Ok, we’ll be out there in 10.”

  He turned to the pilots. “Two passenger planes crashed into the into the World Trade Center. We can assume that we are under attack. The XO and I are getting ready to take off. This is our show, if there are more of them, we might have to take down a passenger plane. Don’t want any of you to have to make that decision. Bill and I will handle it. Sam, as Ops officer, you are on the phone to the base. The CO is on the phone to the pentagon waiting for the word to go. As soon as it comes through, call the Master Chief and we’ll be in the air heading to DC or wherever. We can get there in 20 at full military power. Ranger, Hook, Striker and Scoter, you’re out in 30. I want you boring holes in the sky over the VACAPS op area. I’m pretty sure our surface friends will have their Aegis ships up, especially any doing ops in the VACAPS. Co-ordinate with the Hawkeye once your airborne. We’ll pass call signs as soon as we’ve got them. Sam, you’ve got the show on the ground. We’ll have ready 5 planes on the runway. You handle who goes in those. I want your butt on the ground handling this, unless it all goes in the shitter, then do what you need to do. Bill let go saddle up, this is going to be a shit day any way you slice it.” With that the skipper and the XO headed out to get suited up and head to the flight line. The other four pilots followed.

  Thirty minutes later the four F/A-18s roared down the runway heading out to sea away from the base. The groups call sign was Defender 14. Four of their planes would be followed shortly by four from VAF-11, their group would be Defender 15. The CO and XO were still sitting in their planes on the runway along with the CO and XO of VFA-11. Defender 14 was to loiter at angels 30, 30,000 feet, 50 miles directly east of Oceana. Defender 15 would do the same 60 miles northeast of the base. All of them were armed with air to air missiles, two sidewinders and two sparrows. Each also carried two mavericks and drop tanks.

  The Hawkeye, Skywatch 11, was coordinating the 8 aircraft as well as an Arleigh Burke destroyer and an FFG operating in the VACAPS. Both ships had gone to general quarters and were high tailing to where they could take on anything heading towards the Norfolk area and the target rich bases. Between the eight aircraft and the two missile equipped ships they should be able to stop any airborne attack on Norfolk or any surface threats. The F/A-18s moved further out. They’d take anything from 50 nautical miles to 100 nautical miles. The ships would take any leakers. The planes ready to take out any rouge airliner sat on the runway at Oceana waiting for the word from DC.

  Jack was in the air doing something. He was still worried about his dad, but that went into the back of his mind as he concentrated on flying and the mission. They all listened as the controllers kept the up to date on what was going on. They were relieved when the heard over the radio that there were two F-16s in the area. What nobody knew was that they were on a training flight and had no weapons at all. They listened as an airline was tracked heading into the DC area. This was American flight 77, but they didn’t know that. The pilots all silently hoped that the F-16s would get there in time to do something if they needed to. And in some part of their minds were glad it wasn’t them having to do something that may haunt them for the rest of their days. At 9:38AM flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. All the pilots knew was that it had apparently hit the ground. The radio was filled with curses, somebody in Washington had ‘screwed the pooch’ and froze. A military airbase, 150 air miles from DC, had not been told to put planes in the air to protect the nation’s capital. They couldn’t have helped with the towers, but the Pentagon strike could have been stopped.

  They stayed up in the air for six more hours until another flight of 4 F/A-18s relieved the 8 planes. Then they headed back to base. There were mixed emotions, sadness at the loss of life, frustration that they couldn’t do anything and a determination to find who was behind this and punish them. Jack had the additional worry about his dad. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, that his wife, Rosa, called to tell him that his dad was OK.

  MIT.

  In July, Mike drove up to MIT over a weekend to check out the housing. All the graduate accommodations were nice. It wasn’t luxury, but they had amenities and air conditioning. The cost was the same no matter what building you were in. He decided that he didn’t want to live alone, so he eliminated the one room and efficiency apartments. What he did put in for was a two-bedroom apartment. It had two single person bedrooms, shared bath, a basic kitchen and a shared living room. They’d have to furnish it. He’d have to get a dresser, bed, desk and a comfortable chair. Other stuff like a sofa could be bought used later. He called his parents and gave them low down. They agreed that he should go shopping up in Boston for what he needed.

  When it came time to start at MIT, Mike and Ellen had good-bye-sex before he left. Mike thought that was just a great way to start off his time at MIT. Great sex with a very sexy woman. He already knew that he’d be living in Edgerton in a two bedroom. When he got there, he found his roommate, David Lee already moving in. David was third generation Chinese American and came from Hartford. He’d done his undergraduate work at Yale. David’s parents had him all set and where just leaving. They introduced themselves and Mike left to buy some furniture and get it delivered on Monday. He’d bought a collapsible camp bed along for the couple of days before his furniture arrived.

  After he came back from shopping, he and Dave, as he wanted to be called, sat around and talked. It soon became clear that they were compatible. Mike played soccer and did martial arts. Dave was into tennis. What he couldn’t wrap his head around was that Mike was a hunter. Fishing made sense; his father liked to fish. But hunting? Mike tried to explain, but soon realized that Dave was much more of city kid then he was. They could both live with the difference. They agreed that they should go find a sofa, used would be good, a small kitchen table and couple of chairs. On top of the list was a TV. Mike had brought his X-BOX and they could play HALO. They started talking about the different options they had for meals and decided to go slow on figuring it out.

  Mike and Dave started classes and things went along smoothly. Both of them needed to adjust to the graduate experience. In talking both wanted to get into research so they knew that being a TA was not for them. It also added extra time to the five years that they were already looking at. Mike decided to apply for a research assistant position with Dr. Peterson. He was working on graphene and some of the other new material. Dave agreed that was good and he put in for that as well. They had backup plans but that was their first choice. Mike had an interview scheduled for 2PM on September 12.

  Then on September 11, 2001 everything changed for Mike. The two roommates were just getting back from breakfast. They’d gotten up early hit the gym and then gone to breakfast. Their first class wasn’t until 10AM. As they were passing a common area with a TV, a student stops to say, “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.” Mike was stunned. Dave knew that Mike’s father worked there. They went into the area and sat down to watch the TV. They could see the smoke coming out of the North Tower. Just as they sat down another plane smashed into the South Tower. Mike just moaned and put his head in his hands.

  Dave knew exactly what was going on. Mike’s father worked in the World Trade Center, he hoped that he survived. All he could do was to stay with his roommate until this was over and they knew one way or the other. One of the other students started talking. “Shit, if those planes had a full load of avgas, then the fire is going to be big e
nough and hot enough to cause problems. The structure steel is either going to warp or melt. That means that the towers will collapse.” A couple of other students gathered round and they put their heads together and started talking quietly and pulling out calculators. Finally, one looked up. “He’s right those towers are fucked. They’ll go down in an hour, two at the most. I hope those dipshits in DC can figure this out and get people out.” Another student answered. “Those stupid fucks can barely use e-mail; they’ll never figure it out. Also all the shit that comes with that will be toxic as hell.” The exchange made the mood even grimmer.

  The students watched the whole thing. When they saw people jumping from the towers to their death to avoid burning up, some cried, some shouted angrily, some just sat stunned. Mike was one of the ones sitting stunned. He could imagine that one of those was his father or somebody he knew. Just before 10, the south tower collapsed. Mike knew that his father worked there. He just got up and headed to his room. Dave got up and followed him. He lay in his bed just staring at the ceiling, numb. He his phone rang he feared the worst. When his mother told him that his father was safe, he just cried. Once Dave knew that his father was safe, he left him alone. A couple of the other residents asked Dave how Mike was. There was relief when they found out his father was safe. Dave tempered their joy. “Mike’s family knew a lot of people who worked there. Even if they all made it out, a lot of people died. Some of them Mike and his family knew.”