Clear Blue Sky

by F. P. Lione

  “He never would have found me there,” I said as I walked around the desk, and I heard him more clearly now.

  “I want to know where my son is!” he yelled. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. Don’t tell me he’s fine, that you talked to his sergeant, I want to see my son. If he’s fine then why isn’t he here? Why hasn’t he called back?”

  “Mr. Cavalucci, we have no way of getting in touch with him,” I heard someone say.

  “Listen, I was a cop in this city for twenty-two years. If something happened to my son I want to know about it. If he’s hurt or dead down there I want to know, because I’m gonna go get him!” he yelled.

  I could hear how upset he was, and I called out, “Dad?”

  “Tony,” he said as he grabbed me. He was dressed for work, dusty in his blue jacket. The stuff he uses to slick back his hair was gone, and clumps of his hair fell on his forehead.

  “Hey, Tony,” Goldberg said. “Good to see you.”

  I nodded. “Hey, Whoopie,” I said as I hugged my father, surprised at how glad I was to see him. I could feel myself choking up, and I didn’t want to lose it in front of Goldberg. It’s not that I didn’t like Goldberg, we’re just not close.

  “Denise called and said she saw your partner on TV as the building fell,” he said. “We locked down the courthouse, and then I went over to the mobile command center and asked what precincts responded and where the South was. I told them my kid responded, but everything was all over the place and they didn’t know where you were.”

  “It was a madhouse, Dad,” I said. “You never would have found us.”

  “I didn’t want to go there, Tony, I saw enough in the service. I didn’t need to see more dead people.” He held up his hand as his eyes filled up, and his voice cracked as he tried to talk. “But I want you to know, if you were hurt, or dead, I wasn’t gonna leave you down there all alone. I would have found you and got you out of there.”

  “I know. It’s alright, Dad. I’m alright,” I said, hugging him.

  “No,” he held up his hand, “I want you to understand, I wouldn’t have left you there.”

  “I know, Dad,” I said. I knew there were a lot of things about him that I didn’t like, but I couldn’t think of any just then.

  “I love you, Tony,” he said, crushing me with each word.

  “I know you do, Dad, I love you,” I said as I tried not to think about all the people who wouldn’t get to say that tonight.

  “Your sister is . . .” He looked for a word. “Inconsolable,” he said, wiping his eyes. “She still hasn’t heard from Nick.”

  “When was the last time you talked to her?”

  “I don’t know. My cell phone’s dead. But call your mother, she needs to hear from you,” he said.

  “I don’t have her number on me,” I said.

  “I have it. I wrote it down, she called me, hysterical, and said she wants to hear from you herself and not have someone else call her.” He fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “Did you hear about Gino?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe he got out, Tony, and he just hasn’t gotten in touch with anyone. All the phones downtown are out, I heard the junction box for Verizon was in the explosion site. Look how long it took me to get in touch with you,” he pointed out.

  We both knew he was dead, but we weren’t ready to say it out loud yet.

  We walked back out by the desk, and my father surprised me by hugging Fiore.

  “What are you gonna do now?” I asked him.

  “I’m going back to the federal building. They locked the building down as soon as the second plane hit and they realized it was sabatoge. I’m gonna go back and relieve Pete,” he said. “We’ve been there since six o’clock this morning.”

  “Hang on, let me get someone to take you back down,” I said.

  We walked back out to the desk, and I waited for Terri to get off the phone.

  “Terr, can you get someone to give my dad a ride down to the federal building?”

  “Sure, Tony,” she said without a smirk or wisecrack for once.

  Rice and Beans wound up taking him downtown. They wanted to get a look at what was going on down there. I walked my father out to the RMP, letting him hug me in front of Rice and Beans without being embarrassed. When he drove away I realized that was the first time in my life I’d ever seen him cry.

  I went back in and called my mother. Because it was an out-of-state call, I needed to get clearance. A while back the department got fed up with cops waiting till they were at work to make their long distance calls, and now we can only call certain areas.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said when she picked up.

  “You sound exhausted,” she said. “And I won’t keep you. I just wanted to hear your voice. I’m very emotional right now, and I don’t want to make this worse for you.”

  “Thanks, Mom, I appreciate it,” I said, not having it in me to deal with one more thing. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “I love you,” she said, choking up.

  “I love you too.”

  Hanrahan was at the desk, talking to Coughlin, who for once wasn’t wearing his wise guy smirk.

  “Hey, boss,” I said to Coughlin.

  “Good job, Tony,” he said, nodding.

  “What was it like down there?” Terri asked Walsh.

  “It was horrible,” Walsh said.

  “We can’t talk about it yet, Terr, give us a little time to get through this,” Joe added.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m just glad everybody’s okay.”

  I was catching bits and pieces of the conversations around the desk. Vince Puletti was talking to Rooney about the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.

  “Mark my words, Mike,” he said as he pointed at Rooney. “We shot it down ourselves. Either that, or the people on that plane took it over. They should just line ’em up and shoot ’em. No more playing games with these animals, that’s the only thing they understand.”

  I’m sure everyone was throwing their opinion in, and I just didn’t have the energy to get into it with anyone.

  Hanrahan and Coughlin still had their heads together at the desk, and they called Bishop over. When they finished talking, Hanrahan gave me, Joe, Rooney, and Walsh a “Come here” signal with his hand.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “We’re doing twelve-hour tours until further notice and no days off.” We nodded, exhausted. “The day tour is four in the morning till four in the afternoon. The four to twelves will do four in the afternoon until four in the morning, and the midnight tour is split, half to the day, half to the night. They decided we’re the detail to the Trade Center, I guess ’cause we were there already.”

  I was glad we were going back. As tired as I was, I needed to get back there.

  “You okay to go back?” Hanrahan asked Walsh.

  “Yeah, I wanna go back,” Walsh said.

  “You sure? Because there’s enough to do up here if you think it’s too much.”

  “I’m sure, boss. I’m not saying I’m not upset, but I still want to go back.”

  They must have been working on this all day, because they had all the posts in place for the day. Even though our command is only about one square mile in size, we’re one of the largest, if not the largest, in the city, with over three hundred cops.

  We would be guarding every government building, especially the post office on 33rd and 8th, which is the largest in the world, open twenty-four hours a day. We’d have details at the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, Port Authority, Grand Central, Penn Station, and all the subway stations. There were posts at the synagogues; at El Al, the Israeli airline; up and down every corner of 42nd Street; and all through Times Square. Any place that was considered a target would have a detail.

  The streets would be closed south of 42nd Street with nothing but emergency vehicles allowed through. Coughlin told us that no one but emergency pe
rsonnel was allowed into the city, and even then only with ID. He told us the Staten Island Ferry would only be running for emergency personnel, and ID had to be shown and bags would be searched.

  Since we’d only be getting a couple of hours sleep, Joe and I headed down to the lounge. Walsh and Rooney went upstairs to sleep in the dorm, which was probably better. The TV was on in the lounge, and we saw for the first time the images of the planes hitting the buildings.

  They had the film of the first plane hitting, which a lot of the guys said they were seeing for the first time. The images were being played over and over, and while seeing the first plane hit was horrendous, the second plane hitting seemed so much more vicious to me. I could hear the plane accelerate as it approached, something I hadn’t noticed from the van. The fireball was huge, and the flames glowed inside the building. I got so angry as I watched it, I wanted to find whoever did this, like Paulie said.

  The cameras zoomed in, and I could clearly see the people up in the windows, waving pieces of clothes as they were enveloped in smoke. I just hoped none of their families could recognize any of them and know it was them who jumped and died that way. As I watched them jump I could still remember the sound they made when they hit the ground. They actually showed the clip from the cameraman who was with us. Out of all of us, you could see Joe the most clearly, and the horror showed on his face when the building started to come down.

  When the smoke churned out when the building collapsed, it almost looked like a tornado spinning, with pieces of paper and debris flying out of it. I was looking at it, stunned that this could happen. It was like I couldn’t believe this happened. I was there, and I still couldn’t believe it happened.

  I saw for the first time the carnage at the Pentagon. They didn’t have any film of the plane hitting the Pentagon, but I could see where it hit and the people being evacuated. Without the smoke and debris like we saw downtown it looked almost mild compared to the Trade Center. Then I saw the hole in the ground with smoke coming out of it where the plane went down in Pennsylvania, and I hoped to God those people never knew what hit them.

  I watched the replay of the president’s address to the nation. I was glad to see that he quoted the Twenty-third Psalm, and I knew without a doubt he was going after whoever did this.

  I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my mind was still awake. I didn’t think it was physically possible for me to be awake, but I was.

  I heard the guys talking and found out that people walked from all over the city downtown to the Brooklyn Bridge to get out of Manhattan. They said all public transportation had been shut down since this morning, and the only way to get home was on foot.

  “Come on, guys,” I heard Joe mumble. “We gotta get up in a couple of hours.”

  “Sorry, buddy,” someone said.

  I guess I fell asleep. The last thing I remember was the flickering of the TV and the sound of the fighter jets circling Manhattan.

  18

  I woke up stiff and groggy to the sight of the second plane hitting the South Tower on the TV screen. I didn’t know what woke me until I heard Joe’s watch beep. I picked up Joe’s cell phone, which was charging on the table, and saw that it was 4:00 a.m. I had only slept for probably two hours, and I was heading out for a twelve-hour tour.

  “C’mon Joe.” I shook him as I flipped through the channels on the TV. It was one after the other with the planes hitting the towers, the buildings falling, the blizzard of smoke that followed, the Pentagon, and the crash in Pennsylvania. I don’t know why I sat there looking at it, but I couldn’t turn away. I finally hit a station that had arrows and planes, outlining where the planes took off from and where they crashed.

  The plane that hit the North Tower was American Airlines, hijacked out of Logan Airport in Boston, and the one that hit the South Tower was a United Airlines flight hijacked out of Newark. The one that struck the Pentagon was American Airlines, hijacked out of Dulles, and the one that went down in Pennsylvania was United, also hijacked out of Newark. I wondered if Rooney knew yet that none of the hijacked planes were Continental, even though two of them were out of Newark. I went to use the bathroom and brush my teeth so I could go tell him.

  “Joe, c’mon,” I said again as I returned from the bathroom. He was sitting up now, looking like a zombie with his eyes wide and his hair flattened to his head.

  “I’m up,” he said with a nod. “Go head up, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  I stopped to watch the local news giving a rundown on the damage to the downtown train stations. The 1 and 9 lines at Cortland Street were destroyed, with structural damage to the tunnel, and the station was buried in debris. The 1 and 9 and the N and R at Rector Street were buried in debris, and the 2 and 3 lines at Park Place were underwater.

  The muster room was packed, with all of the day tour cops and half the midnight cops present for duty. They spilled out of the room and were lined up outside it, all the way to the desk.

  Everyone had been ordered into uniform—detectives, plainclothes, undercover, it didn’t matter. I saw Sullie and Eileen Toomey and almost didn’t recognize them dressed like cops.

  “I heard you were down there,” Sullie said.

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “Y’alright?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “I want to get back down there.”

  “So does everyone else. I don’t know why they’re sending you guys back down, you’re exhausted,” Sullie said. “And you look shell-shocked.”

  I guess that was it, then. The city probably figures if they send the same cops back down, it’ll cost less later on with the shrinks because not as many will be shell-shocked and the three-quarters pay if we get hurt down there.

  Everyone was talking at once, and I was catching bits and pieces of the conversations:

  “So I hear my wife yelling at the TV, saying, ‘What’s the matter, you didn’t see the building in front of you? . . .’”

  “And I hear him say this moron flies his plane into the Trade Center . . .”

  “I had no idea, my mother called me from Florida . . .”

  “He was on the ferry when it hit . . .”

  “No, I was on the Belt Parkway, listening to Howard Stern . . .”

  “My brother-in-law works in that house, their entire company is missing . . .”

  I caught a few people looking me up and down, and I realized I was still in my clothes from yesterday.

  “Tony, we’re gonna stop for coffee and head down there,” I heard Hanrahan say.

  I turned around and saw that, like me, he was still in the same clothes. No sense in changing them. They were just gonna get filthy again anyway.

  “Hey, boss, did you see Rooney?”

  “Yeah, he’s out in the van already.”

  “Do you know if he talked to his wife?”

  “Yeah, she called the house while we were down there. He got in touch with her last night.”

  We all piled in the van at 4:30 and stopped for coffee on 35th and 9th. Everyone but Noreen and Big Bird wanted bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll. Noreen wanted a blueberry muffin, and Big Bird wanted a buttered roll.

  Joe, Walsh, Rooney, and I went in to get the coffee and breakfast.

  Geri started cursing us out the minute we walked in the deli.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said, coming around the counter, looking mad and kinda messy.

  I thought she was gonna hug us, but she gave me and Joe a whack on the head, slapped Rooney on the backside, and kissed Walsh on the lips. Then she hugged us.

  “You know, I thought I meant more to you than that,” she said. “I see you guys as the building’s coming down, I think you’re dead, and nobody comes in to tell me you’re okay.”

  “We just got back here a couple of hours ago, we were exhausted,” I said. “How’d you get back into the city? I thought everything was shut down.”

  “It is,” Geri half yelled. “I’ve been here for two day
s already. I was supposed to go home eight o’clock yesterday morning, and my brother-in-law’s backing out of his driveway, and some old man plows into him. He winds up in the hospital with thirty stitches in the head. The next thing I know they’re flying planes into the Trade Center, and I see you guys in the middle of it and the camera goes blank.” She put her head down, and I could see her shoulders start shaking.

  “It’s alright, Ger,” Joe said.

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “Nothing’s alright.” She went behind the counter and got a napkin, wiping her eyes while she was talking. “I went over to the precinct, and they hadn’t heard from you yet. O’Brien came in for coffee and said you called, but that was the last thing anybody told me.”

  “Sorry, Ger,” Walsh said.

  She looked us over and smirked. “I thought I looked bad, you guys look like a truck hit you,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Joe said and smiled at her. “We’re on our way back down, so I hope you got some coffee for us, and maybe even some bacon and egg on a roll.”

  “I got coffee. I didn’t get rolls delivered, so the ones I got are stale. If you want I can make the eggs on bread.”

  “We don’t care,” I said. “The rolls are fine.”

  “You guys get the coffee.” She nodded me and Joe toward the coffee machines. “I made up some sandwiches to send over to the precinct, you can take some with you.”

  She pointed to about a hundred sandwiches made up and wrapped in white paper.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “My brother-in-law was too cheap to close the store down so I could walk the ten miles home like everyone else. He said all the cops would be here and he could make money on the sandwiches. I told him I was making three hundred sandwiches and donating them or I was gonna quit and leave the store open with a sign that said, ‘Going out of business, take what ya need.’”

  I smiled, because she would actually do it too.

  “Come on, Walsh and Mike can help me make the egg sandwiches.”

  “Ger,” Joe said. “We appreciate it, but we can’t carry the stuff around.”