Angel's Wings

Chapter 2 The Memory

Flashback

The fire truck sped through New York. Engine 19 had been called in to help with an emergency situation in lower Manhattan. Very little information more than an issue at the World Trade Center. It was 9:15 in the morning and Steven Sanders had not yet had his coffee. “Sergeant I can’t get through, traffic isn’t budging even with the siren.” Maya Ramirez, a no nonsense Puerto Rican and the driver of the engine called back to her superior. “What do I do?”

“Take Canal St to Broadway and turn right on Chambers. The NYPD were supposed to clear that route for us.” Sergeant Steven Sanders looked a lot like Captain America. He was six foot three inches, a fighting trim two hundred twenty pounds of muscle. He was blonde with blue-green eyes. Sanders had done twenty years in the United States army, and his face showed the stress of time in lines next to his eyes. He stood up and moved toward the front of the moving truck. “ Get as close as you can Maya.” Maya Ramirez was small and skinny. Even fully geared up, dark curly hair trying to escape the helmet, she reminded him of his daughter.

“It’s no good Cap…” Maya surveyed the rubble and dust in the streets, there was no way to fit the truck through.

“It looks like we are walking then. Grab your stuff and lets go.” Sergeant Sanders exited the rear of the truck with his oxygen tank and an axe. He led his team the rest of the way to the Twin Towers.

Smoke and Dust lay on the ground everywhere. People ran by, some screaming some stunned into complete silence. Sanders walked toward a police tent behind the barrier. “Lieutenant, where do you need my crew?” before he could finish a loud roaring noise came from further up the street. A cloud of dust pushed by an ungodly wind came spewing toward them. Men and women rushed toward cloud.

Midday twilight. There area a first clear and chilled was now filled with smoke and fire. The eeie yellow light belied the time of day. Sergeant Sanders took his team closer to the tower entrance. A fat policemen was manning a desk swapping out equipment and talking almost non stop on a radio. “Are you 19?” He called out as the fire fighters approached.

“Yes” Seargent Sanders answered.

“North Tower” The fat policemen stated “ you will take over for whats left of Engine 6.”

“What’s left? What do you mean?” Sanders questioned.

“Where have you been all morning? Haven’t you been listening to your radio chatter?” The fat policeman barked. “Get over to the North Tower and help get people out.”

With that remark he picked up his radio and continued belting out orders to people. Sanders had six firefighters with him, including Ramirez. They made their way to the entrance of the North Tower. There was debris every where. Fallen rocks and Concrete. Twisted pieces of steel beaming and pipes that supplied the water to the building. Broken glass littered the ground. On the opposite side of the entrance clearing, a line of shrouded figures now covered in dust as well filled up the street. Others who had jumped to their death from higher floors that hadn’t been shrouded yet, littered the area like grotesque garden statues. The firemen worked their way to the propped open doorway.

Inside they found an abandoned tiled expanse of floor. To the left a glass walled coffee shop that had been hastily closed. The espresso machines still ready to make the perfect cup. The power had been cut to stem the spread of fires, but emergency lighting still flickered overhead. Straight ahead stood two banks of elevators, shiny steel doors closed to entry. Above the elevator a blinking light to indicate the car was stuck on the ninety sixth floor. To the right a stairwell again propped open to allow easy exit for those fleeing the building.

The firemen entered the dark stairwell. The building groaned and moaned. Sanders and his team made it to the thirty fourth floor before encountering an unsurpassable obstacle. The door opened to a set of cubicle offices running down a long hallway. Sanders checked each desk for survivors or any left stranded, but found nothing. He made his way toward the back of the building. Another stairwell on the left allowed for entrance to the higher floors. A bank of elevators sat on this end as well. The car on this floor was half opened. A piece of steel had pierced through the car and pinned its occupants to the bottom. Three individuals, crushed and burned could be counted from the outside viewpoint. All three were dead and there would be no extracting their bodies from such a precarious situation. Ramirez leaned over and wretched upon seeing the inside of the car.

On the next floor up, they found another expanse of tiled floor. This floor looked to be a rest area of sorts. The tiled marble floor was surprisingly clean and shiny given the situation. Sergeant Sanders directed his team toward the left side of the room. Pieces had fallen from the walls and ceiling, leaving broken glass in their path. The building rumbled and for a moment the room seemed to tip sideways, then righted itself again.

“Cap can you here that?” Carter Vance, another fire fighter, called to Sanders using his nickname.

“It sounds like banging, it could be nothing.” The sound was coming from an area back toward the front of the building. “Let’s go over and see if we can find where it is coming from.” Sanders skirted a fallen beam and proceeded toward the sound.

The group came to a stop at a crumbled pile of wall and glass. The banging sound continued as if someone were beating on a pipe. “Is someone there? Hello! Can anyone hear me?” Sanders called. He received no reply, but the banging sound continued and even seemed to grow louder. “ I think there may be someone trapped in there. Look for a way to enter.”

Ramirez was the smallest and found it easy to crawl along the base of the rubble. She found a opening that she could barely squeeze through. “ Here Cap, I can fit here if you help lift this beam.” Sanders made his way to Ramirez and with the help of Vance, lifted the beam enough for her to slide through the hole.

“It’s clear on this side.” She called back to her team.

“See if you can locate the sound. We will try to find a way to get to you.” Sanders turned from the hole and made his way further down the collapsed wall. On the far side of the wall, a large vase stood next to a plate glass panel section that remained largely intact. Sanders picked up the vase and threw it into the plate glass. The wall shattered as expected. He climbed through into an executive office with one desk positioned close to what was once a very nice view of Manhattan. The office door was jammed open by a large piece of steel and rock. Sanders climbed over the obstruction and out into the open again.

He could see Ramirez in the dim light walking toward an illuminated exit sign. Another door close to the exit read “Break Room” in blue lettering. The noise was coming from beyond that sign. Ramirez reached the door first. She pulled expecting the door to stick, but it swung wide without a problem. The room appeared empty except for a a table and some chairs that had been up ended. One counter with some cabinets and a small sink hugged the wall to the right. A fire extinguisher had sprung loose from it’s home on the wall. It swung side to side banging on the edge of the countertop. Disheartened but glad nobody was trapped, Ramirez turned around. Sanders had just reached her, when the building gave another lurch. The fire fighters both fell to the floor and slid back toward the collapsed wall. The building rumbled and groaned. More pieces fell from the ceiling anf the floor started to rip open. Ramirez careened into the collapsed wall. Her forehead connected with a pipe sticking out of the wall. She fell on her side, unmoving.

Sanders managed to slow down enough to avoid smashing into the wall. He worked his way slowly to where Ramirez lay on the ground under some debris. “Maya, can you hear me? Ramirez!” She groaned but did not stir. A larger hole had opened at chest level in the wall. “Vance!” Sanders yelled through the hole.

“Vance is down Cap.” Brayden Smith is the fire fighter that answered the call. He was average in every way. Average height of five foot ten, one hundred eighty pounds with plain brown hair and mud brown eyes. “ Short is taking him back down. Miller and I are here.” He explained.

“I am going to hand you Ramirez. Have Miller take her down and out.”

“What about you?” Smith said moving to receive Ramirez through the hole.

“I will be fine but you need to get everyon e else out.” Sanders reached down and pulled Ramirez from the debris. He lifted her easily and again thought of his daughter.

Sanders passed Ramirez through the hole to Smith and watched him hand her over to the other female Miller. Both disappeared from sight as they headed back to the stairwell.