The Test (23 page)

In a violent motion, Ashley twisted the ring off her left finger. With a jerk she flung it as far as she could toward Tower One. Then, like everyone else, she ran.

“Chinatown, Brooklyn Bridge, Fulton Street Ferry,” the police shouted. “Get out. Move. Evacuate.”

Ashley fell in with the crush of people. By now she was covered all over in ash. Her heels were too high and she discarded her shoes. She struggled to keep up in her slim skirt, sure that she'd be trampled if she fell. But she needn't have worried. The crowd was in control. Grim, stunned, but helping one another. She watched as two young men took an elderly gentleman by the arms and urged him along. All along the street, storefronts had opened up and were handing out bottles of water. A shoe store owner offered footwear, and she accepted a pair of sandals, the soles of her bare feet bloody from the shards of glass.

The ground shook. She was sure that this time all of NewYork City was under attack. For a moment the crowd halted and, as one, turned to stare. A collective gasp. A burning tower imploded in front of them. Thousands of people were dying at that very instant.

The cadre of marchers remained remarkably calm, grimly resuming their retreat in near silence. Ashley kept moving with the mass westward, toward the Hudson River until, amid a thunderous roll, the entire throng turned around again. The remaining tower, the first one hit, the one Ashley had stood in, collapsed into billows of smoke and debris. Lower Manhattan's skyline was being erased, leaving in its place a mass grave.

Too much death to fathom. When the throng reached the river, Ashley took her place in the line waiting for a boat to New Jersey. After only a half hour, she climbed aboard a Circle Line tourist boat. The boat was jammed, but she found space on a bench by the outside rail. Still sirens, still billows of smoke, and now overhead, fighter jets circled Manhattan.

“Blood. Red Cross needs blood.” Ashley looked to a matronly woman with a clipboard. “Will you donate?” she asked the thin young girl who had squeezed in beside Ashley.

“I can't,” the girl said. Ashley noticed how violently she was trembling. When she looked up her eyes were red and puffy, and there were tear tracks down her sooty cheeks. “I would, but I'm pregnant. Oh, God, I think Craig's dead.”

“Sorry, miss,” said the woman as she moved to Ashley.

“I can't,” Ashley said, unwilling to disclose her pregnancy, but wanting an excuse. “I'm sorry, but I've had hepatitis. I can't donate blood,” she lied.

Ashley turned toward the girl next to her who looked no older than
eighteen. She had long hair, but Ashley couldn't guess the color underneath the soot. Her slacks and short-sleeved shirt were concrete gray, as was the skin on her arms.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked.

“He doesn't even know.” Fresh tears started to enlarge the sooty tracks.

“Your husband?” Ashley asked.

“No, my boyfriend. We always said that if I got pregnant, we'd get married. But Craig worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. He was in there. The North Tower—the one hundred third floor. What if—”

“I'm sure he got out,” Ashley said.

“We were going to meet for lunch. I was going to tell him today about the baby,” she said through bouts of sobs. “What am I going to do?”

“I don't know,” Ashley said, answering both the girl's question and her own.

For a moment they both looked up as a jet fighter swooped in closer.

“Where do you live?” Ashley asked once the roaring noise dissipated.

“New Brunswick. With my Aunt Bea.”

“I'm pregnant too,” Ashley blurted out. “I'm not married either.”

The girl grabbed Ashley's hand. “My name is Julie Janinski. Why don't you come home with me? Just for now.”

“But your aunt—”

“Aunt Bea? No problem. Honestly, she has a heart that won't stop.”

Ashley considered her options. When she'd pulled off that ring, she'd set her course.

“Please. I could use some companionship. At least until the shock wears off. Please come home with me.” Julie began to tear up again. For a minute they both looked across the waterfront at a sky darkened by smoke and clouds of billowing debris.

She knows
, Ashley thought. She knows that her Craig is dead. Maybe Ashley could help her in some way. “Hey, I don't even know your name.” Julie said, sniffing back the tears.

“Ruthie.” Ashley grabbed her best friend's first name, but needed a surname. “Ruthie Hester.” Her mother's maiden name.

Judging the media briefing a wild success, Frank and Meredith headed back to Pennsylvania. Early the next morning, they settled into their respective offices in Philadelphia. As was their habit, they each read the
Washington Post
, the
New York Times
, the
Philadelphia Inquirer
, the
Pittsburg Post-Gazette
, Harrisburg's
Patriot-News
, and the
Wall Street Journal
. At eight forty-five, one of them would call the other. Each would have a list of priority issues culled from the news of the day, the focus being how the news impacted their long-term strategy. September eleventh was one of those rare days that this discussion did not take place.

Instead, they watched the day erupt on television, frantically clicking on CNN, then Fox, then the others, back and forth. At first, the sketchy story about a plane hitting New York's World Trade Center. Then, Frank's hotline rang. It was Matt from his Washington office. All hell was breaking loose in D.C., but nobody knew what had actually happened. Matt suggested that Frank hunker down in his office. Keep phone lines open. Cancel all appointments. The president was in Sarasota, reading to school kids. Matt promised to call Frank back with the latest at first word.

Frank stared at the TV coverage mutely as the second plane struck the second tower. It was three minutes after nine. He was riveted in horror. One minute later, Matt was on the line. “We're at war, but we don't know who with.”

“What's Congress doing? Will there be a special session?” Frank was too numb to think. Would they be coming together? Or going into hiding?

“Setting up a safe place in case an emergency session's called. You'd better get to D.C., boss. FAA's shutting down all air traffic, so the fastest way is by car. The corridor from Philly to D.C. should be okay. Wouldn't
want to be stuck in Manhattan. They're closing down all the tunnels and bridges.”

“I'm on my way.” Frank started throwing random papers into his briefcase.

He was in his limo focusing on the small TV as the American Airlines flight crashed into the Pentagon. His cell phone rang just minutes after.

“Where are you, boss?” Matt asked. “The Pentagon. Have you heard?”

“Yes. I'm approaching Wilmington.”

“Okay, call me when you get close to Baltimore. I'll line up an escort so you can get into D.C.—” The signal faded and the conversation ended. Frank tried to get him back on the line with no luck. Only then did he call Meredith to tell her that he was on his way to D.C.

TV reception for the next half hour was erratic, but for the most part Frank was able to monitor the disaster. Matt had called back and arranged to have the Maryland State Police pick him up on the proximate side of the Baltimore Tunnel. Security was heightened everywhere, and with a police escort from the tunnel to the Russell Building, by noon he'd be joining his fellow senators—unless, like the White House, the Senate Building had been evacuated.

His driver was searching for a local radio station when the phone rang.

“Frank, it's Tom Ridge.”

The governor of Pennsylvania. Frank's first thought was that the governor wanted him in Harrisburg. Certainly, he'd realize that a senator's place was in Washington at a time like this. The governor came right to the point. A fourth plane had been hijacked. It had crashed in Somerset County. United flight 93. Newark to San Francisco. Terrorists suspected. Did Frank want to join him at the sight?

He instructed his driver to head west, to Somerset County. He called Matt, who had just heard. Halfway through Pennsylvania, his car was intercepted by a state trooper and escorted to the crash site. Standing on scorched ground as close as he was allowed on the brink of the huge crater, Frank learned of the heroes on Flight 93. In a three-way call with Matt and Meredith, he discussed whether he should join the other
senators in D.C., or stay at the Pennsylvania crash site. They decided he should stay in Pennsylvania to assist the families of the victims. Meredith had just asked whether she should join him at the site, when the governor and his aide rushed toward Frank.

“Darling, I have to go,” he said. “And no, there's so much chaos here, you'd better stay in Philadelphia.”

Frank broke the connection just as Governor Ridge approached. Frank did not like the look on his face, or on the face of his aide. Something else must have happened. The country was under siege.

“Frank, you have an urgent call.” The governor had to raise his voice to be heard over the commotion surrounding the command center. Frank didn't hide a look of annoyance. He'd asked Matt to hold his calls.

“The call's from a Mr. Carl Schiller.” the aide explained. “He assured me you needed to take it.”

“Carl Schiller?” Why would he call in the middle of a crisis of these proportions? Then Frank remembered. Carl had stayed in Manhattan last night. He was having dinner with Ashley to tell her what they'd learned about Welton.

“I'll talk to him.” Frank guessed that the old man wanted to report his eye-witness experience.

“Hello, Carl? I'm at the crash site right now. Don't have time to talk.”

“Frank, thank God I reached you. I scheduled a meeting with a law firm this morning. Their offices are in the World Trade Center. The meeting was with Ashley.”

“What time?” Frank felt his stomach churn. Timing had been critical this morning in Lower Manhattan.

“Nine o'clock. I got held up in traffic. Didn't make the meeting, but she did. I talked to her only minutes before the first plane hit. I was several blocks away.”

“Ashley? In one of those buildings?” Frank felt a numbness creep through his body.

Frank checked his watch. It was now one thirty p.m. “What about Welton? Has she contacted him? Rory?”

“No, no one's heard from her.”

Frank struggled to think, as fear replaced reason.

“I'm okay.” He must have started to wobble because the governor reached out to steady him.

“Carl, I don't know what to think.” Frank could hear the tremor in his own voice. What if Ashley had been trapped in one of the towers? “Wouldn't she have called Welton?”

“After what I told her last night, I'm not sure. But Welton's beside himself—keeps calling. And there's something else. Not even he knows. Ashley's pregnant. She just found out yesterday.” Frank could hear Carl sniffle. “I'm really afraid she was in the tower. If not, we should have heard something. The city's a war zone, but—”

Ashley could be dead? His sister buried under tons of rubble? Frank stared into the gaping hole in the Pennsylvania field.

“Carl, keep trying to locate her. And you'd better call Dan, just so he knows.”

“Sure,” Carl said, then hesitated. “Frank, you are going home?”

“Right now I'm going to call Meredith. She'll contact you.”

As soon as Frank terminated the call, the governor asked, “National security?”

“No, a family matter,” Frank said. “It's my sister. She's missing. She was at the World Trade Center. I need to call my wife.”

“Frank, I'm so sorry.” Ridge pointed to a white van. “Please. Use the makeshift communication center. Do what you must to find your sister.”

Once he'd gotten though to Meredith, she'd already had several calls from Welton. “He's frantic. Carl told him that she'd been at the Trade Center. I assured him that we'd pull every string. Matt's putting out an alert to NYPD, but they're so overwhelmed. Frank, this is awful.”

“Meredith, you know what really surprises me? I care. I truly care about Ashley.”

“I know you do, darling, but right now, let me take care of the family affairs. And you know what? I'll bet Ashley is okay. Just shocked or something. You know how weird she's been lately.”

They agreed that Frank would stay at the crash site to participate in the two o'clock news conference. Then he'd head back to Philadelphia.

It was after eight by the time Frank arrived at his country house in Bucks County. He let himself in with his key, finding the house dark
except for the foyer lights set to dim. No surprise. Rory and Chan had insisted on taking Elise to their home in nearby Doylestown, leaving her parents free to deal with the day's public and personal tragedies. There had still been no word of Ashley. He had suggested that he have his driver pick Meredith up in Philadelphia, but Meredith had insisted that he go straight home. She still had to follow up on a few hospitals where Ashley might be. She'd have one of the firm's cars take her home.

Frank poured himself a glass of Chardonnay before turning on the big screen TV, switching among the news channels. Over and over. The twin towers imploding. Was Ashley buried there? Or one of those who had jumped to her death? How long would it be before they knew?

At eight thirty, Frank glanced at his suit pants, stained and flecked with debris, which reminded him that he needed to shower and change his clothes. The phone rang when he was drying his hair. He wrapped the towel around his waist and ran into the bedroom. Please, God, let it be that Ashley's safe.

“Chan here, Frank, sorry to bother you. What a hellish day. Meredith said you were at the Pennsylvania crash site. I can't even imagine, but that's not why I'm calling—”