Ground Zero(11)

“Nnnnnnnn,” someone groaned.

Reshmina froze and looked around for the source of the sound. A few meters away, lying on his stomach among dried leaves and dirt, was an American soldier. His face was charred like a scorched pot, and there were dark, wet spots on his uniform. Blood, Reshmina realized. He must have been injured in the battle.

The soldier groaned again and dragged himself forward. Where was he going? He twisted his head this way and that, as though he was looking for something, but there were only scrub trees as far as Reshmina could see.

The soldier’s head turned toward Reshmina, and she held her breath—but his eyes swept past her like he hadn’t even seen her.

He’s lost his eyesight, Reshmina realized. The black marks on his face—he had been wounded and couldn’t see. If someone didn’t help him, he would die out here in these woods. Or the Taliban would find him, and his death would be far more painful.

Reshmina frowned. Why should she care? The Americans had killed her sister, after all. Pashtunwali, the way of the Pashtun people, said that it was right and just to seek revenge against someone who had done you wrong. In Pashto, that revenge was called badal, and it never ran out. Reshmina could wait a dozen years—a thousand—and still take her revenge on someone who had wronged her.

Why not just slip away, then, and let this man die?

Reshmina flipped her notebook shut to leave, but she fumbled it. Her notebook hit the ground with a flump, and the soldier’s head turned in her direction again.

“Is someone there?” he asked in English. “Hello? I can’t see, and my ears are ringing. I’m hurt. Hello? Can you help me? Please?”

Reshmina silently cursed her clumsiness. If she had been able to slip away without him hearing, she could have left the soldier to die and been done with it. But now he had heard her and had specifically asked her for help. Just as Pashtunwali gave her the right to revenge, it also said that when a person asked for help or protection, no Pashtun could refuse—no matter who was asking, friend or foe. That was nanawatai. What the Americans would call “refuge.”

Reshmina sagged. She could still slip away and have her revenge, but now it would mean denying aid to someone who had asked for it.

“Hello?” the American soldier asked again, his voice weak. “Please,” he begged. “Whoever you are, will you help me?”





A motion sensor picked up Brandon climbing out of the hole in the wall, and fluorescent lights in the ceiling flickered on.

He had landed in the middle of a bathroom. A ladies’ bathroom. But Brandon didn’t have time to be embarrassed. He scrambled to his feet and peered back through the hole at the people still trapped in the elevator.

“I’ll bring help!” he promised, and ran for the bathroom door.

Brandon burst out into a corridor. He ran past a fire extinguisher and fire hose box hanging on the wall and into the first office he came to—a company with the name HYAKUGO BANK printed on the door. He saw a reception desk and a couple of chairs for visitors, but no one was around.

“Hello?” Brandon called. There was no smoke here. He pulled down the wet napkin he’d tied around his face and took a deep breath of fresh air. “Is anybody here? We need help!”

Brandon ran past the reception desk. A small group of people stood together at the far wall, staring out the window at something.

“Hey!” Brandon said, running toward them. “Hey, we need—”

Brandon stopped short, mesmerized by what he saw out the window.

Paper. The sky was filled with thousands and thousands of sheets of paper, flipping and falling like the ticker tape parade when the Yankees had won the World Series last year. But this wasn’t right. No one could have thrown these papers out a window on purpose. The World Trade Center windows didn’t open.

Large chunks of glass and metal sliced through the paper blizzard, and some kind of liquid poured down the side of the building, even though it wasn’t raining.

Brandon’s stomach twisted. Something very bad had happened above them in the North Tower. But what? And how high up? All the way up at Windows on the World? Was Brandon’s dad all right?

“Gas explosion,” one of the bankers said. “Has to be.”

“No way,” said another banker. “The World Trade Center doesn’t have gas lines in it.”

“Please, we need help,” Brandon cut in, making them jump. “Four people. Trapped in an elevator. There’s a lot of smoke—”

“Where, kid?” a man asked.

“I’ll show you!”

Two men and one woman from the group followed Brandon back down the hall and into the bathroom. Brandon was almost afraid to look through the hole. What if the elevator had fallen while he was gone? What if everyone inside was dead? Dark black smoke poured from the hole, making it hard to see, but Brandon heard Stephen cough, and he sagged with relief. His friends were still there!

“Oh my God,” said one of the men who’d come with Brandon.

“Here, get back,” the other banker said. The two men took turns kicking at the drywall, and the woman ran back to the office to call 911.

Brandon heard the elevator car drop suddenly. Dishes clattered, and everybody inside cried out in surprise and terror. The car jerked to a stop a foot lower, and Brandon held his breath. If the car dropped too much farther, the passengers wouldn’t be able to reach the hole.