Ground Zero(35)

She hurt all over from her rough descent, and her face still burned where Pasoon had struck her. But it was the loss of her brother that hurt worse than anything. Everything they had ever had, everything they had shared as twins, as close as two people could perhaps ever be in this world, was gone forever.

Reshmina glanced over her shoulder one last time. Pasoon was talking animatedly with the Taliban and pointing back in the direction of their village.

Reshmina ran faster.





A plane had hit the South Tower. A second plane. Brandon still couldn’t believe it. But he’d seen it. Flying in, turning at the last second so that it hit the South Tower full on. Not an accident. Deliberate.

An attack.

But by whom? And why?

Brandon was so distracted he almost tripped as he followed Richard and his floor mates down the stairs. They formed two rows, going down side by side: Esther leading Mr. Koury by the elbow in front, Anson and his guide dog behind them following the railing, Brandon and Richard together in the rear. Brandon wanted to run down the stairs, to get out of the North Tower as quick as he could, but Anson and Mr. Khoury couldn’t go any faster.

“At least the stairs are better than the last time,” Esther said. “After the bombing.”

Brandon looked up. “What bombing?” he asked.

“Terrorists set off a bomb in the parking garage under the building,” Richard explained. “Back in ’93.”

Brandon’s dad had been working in Windows on the World then, but it was no wonder Brandon didn’t remember it—he’d only been a year old.

“Was anybody hurt?” Brandon asked.

“A few people died, and a thousand more were hurt,” Richard told him. “It was a scary time.”

It couldn’t have been as scary as today, Brandon thought.

“It took us three hours to get downstairs that day,” Esther said. “The bomb took out the building’s power, and you couldn’t see a blessed thing in the stairs. They were total caves. It was chaos. All the smoke from the bomb came up the stairs. You couldn’t breathe. Now at least there’s fluorescent paint on the walls. But they didn’t make the stairs any wider.”

“Why did terrorists bomb the World Trade Center back then?” Brandon asked. “Is this another terrorist attack?”

“I don’t know, kid. Maybe so,” said Richard. “I don’t know who else would do it. The ones who bombed the building back in ’93 said they did it because we kept sticking our noses in the Middle East, and they wanted us out.”

“But why the World Trade Center?” Brandon asked.

“It’s a pretty easy target,” said Esther. “And a pretty noticeable one too. Sticking up taller than everything else around it.”

Brandon still didn’t understand. What purpose did attacking the Twin Towers serve? Hurting all these innocent people?

Down and down they went. Broken light fixtures hung from the ceiling, and water still streamed down around their feet. But not as much as before. There were more cracks in the walls too, ten floors down from where the first plane had hit. Through some of them, Brandon could see flames. Why were some floors on fire, and others weren’t?

They didn’t stop to find out.

“You doing okay, Anson?” Richard asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he called back, even though his voice sounded strained.

“How about you, Mr. Khoury?” Richard asked.

“I too am all right,” Mr. Khoury said in heavily accented English.

“You seem very calm, Mr. Khoury,” Esther told him. Brandon had been thinking that too. How could the old man be so chill with everything that was going on?

Mr. Khoury shrugged. “In 1978, I come to United States from Lebanon, where these war like this happen when I am young man,” he said, waving his hand at the destruction. “I am refugee once. Now I am refugee again.”

Brandon didn’t understand. The United States wasn’t at war with anybody, were they? No—not that he knew of.

But maybe now they were.

Brandon thought going downstairs would be easy. It was certainly easier than going up. But his legs burned and his feet ached. All he wanted to do was sit down and rest, but he knew he couldn’t stop. Not for long. Besides, if Mr. Khoury could do it, Brandon could do it. Despite his age, Mr. Khoury moved right along at his slow, deliberate pace and never stopped, never complained.

At the 78th floor, they came to the highest of the two Sky Lobbies, where people got on and off the local elevators that serviced the floors above and below them.

This was where I was headed in that first elevator when I left Windows on the World! Brandon realized with a start. How long had it taken him to go thirty floors?

“Let’s get out here and see if we can find somebody in charge,” Richard suggested, and the group exited the stairwell.

The last time Brandon had been through the Sky Lobby, on another trip to work with his dad, it had been quiet and mostly empty. Now it was dark, smoky, and crowded. People called out numbers—“86! 84! 79! 81!”—and Brandon finally figured out they were saying their floor numbers, trying to connect with friends and coworkers. Trying to find out who had made it and who hadn’t.

Nobody called out any numbers higher than 89.

“This is a madhouse,” said Richard.