The Towers Still Stand

by Daniel Rosenberg

  CHAPTER 12

  White House: 4 p.m. ET

  Virgil stepped forward, punching up the volume on the television.

  “The two planes that collided above New York State today have been identified as American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175,” the CNN anchor said at the top of the hour. “A total of 150 passengers and crew were aboard the two planes, and so far, there are no reports of survivors. Let’s go to Becky Martinez, our reporter who is on site not far from the wreckage of the planes. Becky, are you there?”

  The camera had switched to a petite young woman with curly black hair and a smart blue blouse, standing on a New York street and talking rapidly into a hand-held microphone. Behind her was yellow tape labeled, “Police Line: Do not proceed beyond this point.” Smoke still swirled in the distance, and the noise of helicopter blades echoed. Fire fighters rushed to and fro. Virgil could see ruins of at least one house in the background, flames still licking at the roof, and hear sirens as the reporter talked.

  “Hi Bill,” the CNN reporter yelled, trying to be heard above the noise and confusion. “I’m here about 200 yards from the site where one of the planes went down, and it’s still very smoky. If you look behind me, you’ll see that some of the wreckage is still burning, and we’re being told the fires might not be totally extinguished for a while. Fire departments from six towns are here fighting the flames. We have no idea yet how many people on the ground may have been hurt or killed.”

  “Becky,” the anchor broke in. “Did the planes hit the ground together or far apart, and how much total damage are we talking?”

  “Bill, it appears the planes fell to the ground less than a mile apart. One fell in an open field, so we don’t believe it damaged any residences. The wreckage of the other is behind me, and it’s in an area of small homes about a mile from the center of the town. I’ve been talking to the fire chief here, and he believes about a dozen homes may have been destroyed. As I said, no word on the possible death toll on the ground, but we’re worried it could be high.”

  “Thank you, Becky,” the anchor said. “We’ll be going back to Becky regularly for any updates. As we know, this wasn’t just any plane accident. The National Transportation Safety Board has told us at least one of the two planes had been hijacked shortly before the collision. We don’t know yet who hijacked it, or how. And we don’t know the motives. But some experts we’ve talked to are surmising that the hijackers, who may have been Middle Eastern, might have tried purposely to cause the collision.

  “So far, none of the known terrorist groups have claimed responsibility, and there are competing theories about what the hijackers’ ultimate aim may have been. For thoughts on this, we’re now going to talk to Harry Deaver, a former CIA and Defense Department official who is an expert on terrorist groups. Good afternoon, Mr. Deaver.”

  Back in Washington, Virgil’s ears pricked up. He knew Harry, a former Defense Department man like himself, and a man who knew how to hold the television viewers’ attention.

  “Hey there, Bill, what a horrible day,” said Deaver, a well-built, salt-and-pepper haired man now appearing on the split screen of the television. He was in his 60s, wearing an open neck plaid shirt and khakis, sporting a belt with a big buckle and sitting in a chair in front of a bookshelf in what appeared to be his home office. Confident but in a non-cocky, very approachable way. The way news stations liked their talking heads, people who viewers sensed were both knowledgeable and “one of them” as well.

  “So Mr. Deaver, you spent many years studying terrorism, and you most recently worked on a report about the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Who do you think today’s hijackers may have been, how could they hijack a plane in this day and age with the security measures in place, and what were their motives?”

  “Well, Bill,” Harry said in a slow Southern drawl, an almost friendly nod to his head as he looked comfortably into the camera. “This is no surprise at all to me, and shouldn’t be to anyone who’s familiar with terror groups like Al-Qaeda. For many years, we’ve been aware that Al-Qaeda was interested in hijacking planes, and perhaps bombing them or trying to bring them down in other ways. I don’t think we should consider this the same type of hijacking we saw back in the 1960s, when hijackers wanted pilots to land planes somewhere and hold passengers hostage until they achieved their goals. No, I believe this is something far more serious. I reckon these fellas today were planning on taking some lives. And maybe their own, as well.”

  “So Mr. Deaver, are you saying these were suicide hijackers, and they crashed into the other plane deliberately?”

  “Well, Bill, we don’t have any information on that as of now, but I think the FBI has to explore all possibilities. Maybe they were going to bomb the plane but messed up and flew it into the other one. Or maybe they planned to crash the plane somewhere. These are schemes we’ve been warned about, but it’s always one thing to talk about it and another to actually see it happen.”

  “Mr. Deaver,” another anchor broke in. “How could hijackers gain access to planes? Wouldn’t the security measures we have prevent them from getting guns and knives aboard?”

  “Well, we don’t know exactly what tools these people used to hijack the planes. But whatever measures we have in place, they apparently didn’t work too well this time,” Harry said. “Look, I don’t know of any system that’s fool-proof. I’m sure the FBI and the White House are studying this very carefully right now, and although I’m not a betting man, but I’d wager a lot of new security measures will go into place very soon.”

  “And knowing that hijackers could board planes, are you comfortable with the decision this afternoon to allow planes to take off again?”

  Harry’s brows pulled together and his lips tightened.

  “No, sir, I’m not comfortable with it. Now the FBI and the White House probably know what they’re doing, and it’s not for me to second guess, but with groups like Al-Qaeda, there’s always a Plan B. I’m guessing the folks in control of the government have good reason to believe there’s no danger at the moment, but I think we need to keep our guard up in the days ahead.”

  Virgil angrily snapped off the TV and threw his remote control to the other side of the room. He couldn’t believe the flight ban was being lifted, against his advice. He’d been pacing up and down again, toothpick firmly in his mouth, as he watched the broadcast, getting angrier and angrier. He had done a lot of pacing around today. He was always like that. Even at home on the rare weekend he wasn’t at work, Virgil’s wife complained that he constantly puttered around the house, never comfortable sitting back and relaxing. The only time he ever really relaxed was on his long walk back up to his 19th-century, five-story townhouse in the wealthy D.C. neighborhood of Kalorama, about a mile and a half north of the White House, at the end of the day.

  On his computer screen now was a letter to the President and Vice President. Virgil debated whether to send it right away or think it over between now and tomorrow morning. He was usually a man who liked to say what had to be said and say it now, but something held him back.

  It had been a very long day, and he didn’t know when he’d get home. He’d spent all afternoon shuttling between phone calls and meetings. There were calls with the heads of the CIA and FBI, another meeting with Cheney and Rice, and calls with his best sources on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, people who’d been monitoring the group for years. His people were convinced – all of them – that this collision had the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda attack, and that more attacks might come. One of the people he’d spoken to, actually, was the fellow who’d just appeared on CNN, Harry Deaver. He and Harry went way back, all the way to the 1970s, when both of them had worked in the Defense Department under Donald Rumsfeld, the current Secretary of Defense. Harry suggested that Virgil ask Hofelder over at the CIA to do a check on the names of all Middle Eastern passengers on the two jets to see what links they could find, but Virgil had beaten him to it. That search was well in moti
on and Virgil expected to have the results soon.

  Oh yeah, he’d also talked to Rumsfeld. It was no surprise, Virgil thought bitterly, to hear the Secretary of Defense take up the same view as the VP – that the hijackers may have something to do with Saddam Hussein. Rummy, like the others, was obsessed with the guy. Virgil himself felt the United States had done a pretty good job these last 10 years keeping Hussein from being a problem. The real danger, he believed, was Al-Qaeda, and Hussein was an enemy of Al-Qaeda – another reason it could be helpful to have him around.

  The letter to Bush and Cheney on Virgil’s screen reiterated Virgil’s advice from the morning meeting. It warned that hijackings were part of Al-Qaeda’s known arsenal, and that it was far from certain whether this was isolated or the first of many. He warned that Al-Qaeda had talked of plans to target buildings with planes flown by suicide bombers, and that the planes involved in the collision had turned away from their assigned flight paths and toward New York City before the attack. He argued that the United States needed to warn the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden and his men, or face a U.S. attack.

  He also spelled out the reasons why it was unlikely that Saddam Hussein would have launched an attack like this, most notably because the man was addicted to power and an attack like this, if traced back to him, would mean the end of his reign. He spelled out his concerns about the hijacker’s cryptic comment about having “some planes.” He noted that other hijacking cells might exist even now, ready to attack again. His letter concluded, “Let’s move on Al-Qaeda now. Quickly and immediately. Or our first warning of another attack here could be buildings burning in New York or Washington.”

  The phone rang in his quiet office. Outside, it was getting dark. Very little light now made its way through the small window high on the wall. Virgil headed to his desk and picked the phone up. It was Harry Deaver.

  “Harry,” Virgil said. “Just saw you on TV. You looked good.”

  “Thanks, Virge,” Harry said in his slow, deep-voiced southern drawl. “I hope I talked some sense into a few people, assuming they were watching.”

  “I’m trying to do the same here, Harry,” Virgil said. “I’m writing a memo to them now. I’ll share it with you soon and see what you think.”

  “Sure, sure, fine,” Harry said. “Look Virge, you know and I know those bastards are going to try to use this as an excuse to ramp up the pressure on Iraq. We both know what a mistake that would be. We have to keep up the drumbeat here against Bin Laden.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Harry. I said the same thing to them myself over and over today. It’s like talking to a statue. The bunch of them, they’re all together on this.”

  “I don’t mean to pitch a fit, but why the hell did you lift the flight ban?” Harry asked. “That was one mighty stupid thing to do.”

  “Me? Hell, I insisted they ban all flights. Look, Harry, I do what I can around here, but I’m an army of one. And I lose too many battles,” Virgil said, pacing the room again.

  “Well, it’s time to stop carrying the load by yourself,” Harry said. “If they don’t take you seriously, you need to get this message out any way you can. I can go on CNN and talk all I want, but I’m not in the White House. I don’t have the power of office that you do. If you don’t get what you want from them, I’m encouraging you to go straight to the media.”

  Virgil pondered this for a minute. He could hear Harry breathing on the other end of the phone. The two tended to see eye-to-eye on foreign policy issues, maybe because they’d spent so long in the trenches together. Harry was a conservative Republican and Virgil was part of the endangered species known as liberal Republicans.

  “Harry, I’ll consider the media, but only as a last resort,” Virgil finally said. “Taking that route would probably be the end of my job, and I might be able to do more here in the White House than I could out there being a talking head on CNN, no offense.”

  “None taken, sir,” Harry replied with a bit of a chortle. Then he continued in a more serious tone. “But just think about it. This is too important to put your job ahead of it.”

  “Understood, old friend,” Virgil replied. He poured himself a glass of bourbon as he held the phone between his ear and shoulder. “Come on by my place over the weekend, Harry. We can talk some more. I’m still on Bancroft Place.”

  “Yeah, I remember your place. One of the nicest. I’ll let you know if I can make it over.”

  “OK, thanks for the support, Harry. So long.”

  “All the best, Virge. I reckon you’ll do the right thing.”

  “I’ll sure as hell try,” Virgil replied. He hung up and tilted back his glass. He drank it all in one gulp and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 13

  World Trade Center: 6:30 p.m.

  The sun was sinking low in the west, its red rays lighting up windows in the two towers of the World Trade Center. In the towers, workers rushed to get home, and the elevators were packed. Vacuum cleaners began to roar in the hallways, and janitors collected garbage from offices. Below the lobbies, crowds pushed and shoved their way onto subway trains, rushing by the restaurants and shops in the underground mall.

  Up at the very top of the north tower, it was almost prime dinner hour at Windows on The World, whose windows faced north and east toward Midtown and Brooklyn. The lights of the Brooklyn Bridge twinkled far below as men in suit jackets and women in their best clothes waited for guidance to their tables by hosts and hostesses also dressed in crisp white shirts and jet black slacks. Those already at their tables looked over the menu, which offered well-to-do guests the chance to order a $3,000 bottle of wine.

  Aside from the horrific plane crash north of the city, it had been a fairly normal day at the World Trade complex, a day that for most of its denizens would soon fade in their memories among the thousands of other work days in their lives, combining into a single blur as the years moved slowly by.

  Part Two: Sept. 11 Aftermath

  CHAPTER 1

  The White House Basement

  Virgil was back in his White House basement office at 4 a.m. the morning of Sept. 12, wearing the same rumpled clothes. They looked even more rumpled now. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he needed a shave. Virgil was never the kind who could go long without shaving. He tended to develop five-o’clock shadow at around noon. Now, it was 16 hours past noon, and there was no shaving gear anywhere near.

  But his own scratchy face wasn’t on Virgil’s mind at this graveyard hour. He was putting the finishing touches on the letter to Bush and Cheney and trying to decide if he should read it to Harry first. But emailing it to Harry was out of the question. This was very confidential, and the chances of someone hacking into the system and stealing it were too high. Within the White House, a secure email server protected internal messages, but it didn’t protect documents once they left the building.

  Virgil scratched his head and yawned. He’d been sitting in the same chair for several hours, and his legs cramped and his back ached. He got up and did a few toe touches, allowing his weight to stretch tired muscles and fatigued bones, then jogged in place for a minute. He made himself another cup of black coffee, twisting his neck gently from side to side as it brewed. Virgil was always a solitary man, and late nights weren’t unusual, as he could think best with everyone gone. But this was late even for him. Earlier, a janitor had gone by in the hallway with a vacuum, and had looked in through Virgil’s open door with a surprised glance to see someone still around.

  Virgil finally decided against sharing the letter with Harry. Even calling him and reading it over the phone presented security issues. He knew Harry would agree with what he was saying. And if the President and Vice President didn’t take it seriously, then he’d reconsider Harry’s advice about leaking it. But leaking wasn’t really in his nature. He was a team player, even if he didn’t love his teammates.

  Though he had no plans to leak any information yet, he believed the administration was going to
try to hold back too much. Throughout what was now the previous day, at a number of meetings, the emphasis coming from above was to let information out slowly to the public, if at all. Virgil was warned especially against airing publicly any of his hunches about this being Al-Qaeda, at least until they had more information. Virgil agreed this would be prudent, knowing his teams needed more time to research the Al-Qaeda connections and flight manifests to see who these hijackers were. Best not to show your cards until you knew which ones you had, he thought.

  But the President and Vice President wanted to only share the minimal information about the hijacking (or hijackings, he thought bitterly). The flight control transcripts and recordings were immediately labeled classified, and FAA and NTSB people familiar with them were told to keep their mouths shut. There’d be no public airing of the “we have some planes” transmission. There was even talk about classifying the two planes’ black boxes, once they were found, with national security cited as the reason. That would be pretty much unprecedented. Virgil had worked in several administrations, but this one was the most secretive. He sensed that Cheney and Bush had decided the hijacking was something that could reflect poorly on their abilities to secure the country, so they wanted to let out as little information as possible. He smiled wryly to himself. The media wouldn’t like that.

  CHAPTER 2

  The White House Press Room

  The reporters shifted impatiently in their seats in the small White House press room, grumbling about the late start of the briefing. Nancy Hanson, the New York Times’ White House correspondent, kept looking at her watch and sighing loudly enough for those around her to hear. “Typical,” she said in a disgusted tone to the Wall Street Journal reporter on her right. “I’ve been doing this 10 years, three administrations. Nothing ever changes. They always treat us like this. Why tell us the briefing is going to be at 8:45 if they aren’t going to be ready? I’m betting it starts right at 9.” The Wall Street Journal reporter nodded his head knowingly, as if he’d heard this many times before. Finally Press Secretary Ari Fleischer walked in at the top of the hour, 15 minutes late but not looking particularly sheepish about it.