The Culmination

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

At 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, a UPS delivery man places three boxes on the floor beside the receptionist’s desk for NBC’s The Nightly News. A tour guide and twenty-six visitors exit an elevator and walk toward the studio. The delivery man pushes them aside in his hurry to take the elevator to the ground floor.

Emma Delaney, the tour guide, apologizes for the rude behavior and walks over to the receptionist. Emma provides the names of her guests, shows her identification, and then turns to her group to explain what they will soon see. Mid-sentence, one of the boxes behind her explodes and unleashes a fiery hell. Shrapnel and flames engulf the room.

Thrown all the way to the far wall, where she lands with an agonizing impact, Emma yells, “Help!” Her legs have become bloody masses. She cannot move. She cannot see. She cannot hear. The smoke and debris have taken the light. Only silence roars in her ears. Emma struggles to breathe and, finally, gives in to deadly unconsciousness.

Emma drifts in and out of awareness. She is vaguely aware when the police and first responders arrive and set about identifying those most in need of help. Emma is one of the severely injured. A medic puts tourniquets on her legs. After a few minutes, she rouses more, gasps for air, and sees through the clouds of dust to those helping her.

“A man with boxes,” she whispers. A police officer bends over her to listen.

“UPS,” she mutters and, again, loses consciousness.

The team moves at speed, putting the injured on stretchers and taking them to the many waiting ambulances. A few in the tour group manage to stagger to their feet and, though unstable, they evacuate with the assistance of police.

“Did you notice anything unusual?” an officer asks Emma once she rouses again.

She shakes her head and winces in pain. A woman off to the side whimpers, and through her tears, says, “A UPS delivery man brought in boxes. He must’ve been in a hurry because he pushed past us.”

A nearby teen says, “He was an ass; he shoved us. He wasn’t an American.”

Another officer asks, “Why do you think he wasn’t an American?”

The teenager appears confused and just stares. The officer repeats the question, and then the young man says, “He couldn’t answer the secretary’s question.”

“What did she want to know, son?”

“Where his clearance papers were. That’s all she said.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Middle Eastern, mustache, 5’11”, about 190 lbs.”

“Would you be willing to come to the station to help identify this guy?”

The teenager glances at a man leaning against the elevator wall. “Dad?”

His father stares at the floor without speaking. His face is pale and speckled with tiny cuts and debris.

“Dad? Can we go to the station?”

The police officer says, “I think your father has gone into shock. We’ll have an officer accompany you to the hospital and will talk later.”

The teenager acknowledges the policeman, and then shuffles off with Emma on a stretcher and into a free elevator. From the stretcher, Emma looks at the faces of the other ash covered victims with her. They look like zombies, she thinks. No one’s talking. Maybe they can’t. Maybe they’re all in shock. Then she notices blood pooling on the floor and reaches for the medic by her side. She points to the gory mess.

“Step back out of the way, people,” the medic says, but no one moves. He pushes his way over to a woman crouched in the corner and calls to her. When she doesn’t respond, he shakes her. Blood drips from her torso. The medic radios for another emergency crew to meet them at the elevator doors. Within minutes, the car arrives on the ground floor, and two more medics whisk the woman away.

The police officer turns to the teenager. “Stay with your dad, and we’ll meet with you at the hospital.”

As the crew lifts Emma into an ambulance, she stares around at the crowds of spectators, the reporters demanding information, and the helicopter flying low above, and decides, This is what war is like.