Chapter 13

The next morning, Abby waited a block from the Church Street checkpoint. As only official vehicles were allowed to cross, one particular vehicle was due at nine-thirty.

Seeing the correct vehicle, Abby walked directly into traffic and stuck her thumb out.

“What the hell are you doing?” The battalion chief slammed on his brakes.

“Animal, mineral, or vegetable?” She raised her eyebrows.

The Chief stared. “Pink Lady?”

Abbey smiled. Her hair was shorn down to a pixie cut and she wore a Cleveland FD shirt; clearly, it had done the job of disguising her. “I need a ride.”

“Get a red card.”

“Who's been hugging your firefighters? Nate’s wife wants him to come home. How’s yours doing?” For once, he wasn’t wearing gloves, and she saw he had a wedding band on his left finger.

“She told me to stay home,” he admitted. “Where'd you get that shirt?”

“It's my brother’s. He was in World Trade 3. Please.”

The chief’s face softened. “You put on these turnouts, and I'll leave you at the Red Cross tent. Stay there. Do not go on the Pile. You promise?”

“I do.”

She got in the passenger seat, and no one questioned them when they crossed the checkpoint.

By Tuesday, Hank was asking himself why he was still at the Pile. He’d had every intention of hopping on a bus to Michigan. This was New York. Outside of the Frozen zone, he could catch a taxi or a bus to anywhere on the planet.

Anywhere except for an apartment in Tribeca with the women who had thoroughly smashed his heart and soul to smithereens.

She was delusional. She was insane. She said their relationship wasn't real. Yet she clung to the ridiculous idea that Noah was alive.

Noah was a firefighter. Odds were, he refused to evacuate and insisted on helping civilians. He was probably somewhere inside World Trade 3, now a tomb for so many others. Abby would never get the closure she wanted because he was a bone fragment. She asked the impossible and, as these days had proven, humans were only flesh and blood.

Damn it, why couldn't he just walk away? She wanted nothing to do with him. Hank’s whole life, people had left him, but he’d never been the one to leave. The idea of leaving her, now that he had found her, the person he needed…

It was cold comfort indeed to know Abby would be safe and not allowed back on site.

Instead, Hank flagged a taxi to the Javits Center. He waited in line with the volunteers and presented his credentials. Even more important was the presence of several firefighters, including Russell Taggert who vouched for his skills. They gave him a red card to get through the new, smaller perimeter as an independent worker. He was bused in from St. John’s University’s campus where the workers were temporarily sleeping.

The four construction companies—Tully, Bovis, AMEC, and Turner—provided their own staffing for the heavy equipment. Hank was assigned as liaison with the firefighter groups. Specifically, the companies wanted him to find out which sections had been explored to know the extent of the debris.  Joint Operations Commander Bill Keegan had multiple maps of varying quality. He had entire teams of visiting firefighters exploring the nooks and crannies around the Pile.

Between himself and Abby, they’d had lots of contact with the bucket brigade regulars but little with these teams. There were excellent chances for new faces.

On Monday, Hank had covered the west side and ran into teams from Florida and Georgia. More organized aid stations were popping up, including a huge tent on West Highway and Murray with the Red Cross. He grabbed his food outside St. Paul’s, checking to be sure Abby hadn’t snuck in. The volunteers swore she wasn’t there.

After arriving on Tuesday, he took breakfast in the Red Cross tent. He almost injured himself when he saw the Battalion Chief drop off a tall, slim woman with short hair at the tent. She was wearing a Cleveland FD shirt.

Abby had found a way to sneak back in after all.

Putting on his mask, he stayed out of sight, confirming she stayed inside the tent. It appeared so, because she was cleaning and playing I-Spy with many of the workers.

Based on his assessment of all things Abby, she must have realized that the Pink Lady with her game of Twenty Questions was too recognizable. I-Spy let people vent with similar effects, though.

As much as he wanted to approach her, he had nothing to offer. The best he could do was monitor her for trouble.

Keegan assigned him to confirm the firefighter excursions into the subway system. Hank hadn’t realized it, but the 1 Line ran along the east side of the site. The Cortlandt station was buried by rubble, but the path down to Rector Street and South Ferry stations had multiple labyrinthine openings.

Taking a paper map of the subway system, he followed the green X’s indicating places that had been searched. It was dirty, dark, and claustrophobic, dimly lit by portable lanterns. The architecture was ruined, and he wandered until it dead-ended in a debris field. Then he turned to chase the next set of X's, following holes until they ended in wreckage. When he ran out of X’s, he almost crashed into someone wearing an OSU Buckeyes shirt.

“O-H!” Hank shouted through his mask, even though in Michigan it was a total violation of all things holy.

“I-O!” the man responded gamely. “Buckeye?”

“Nah, Michigan fan,” Hank admitted. “Pity they let John Cooper go.”

“I’m sure Tressel will do better,” the man said tiredly, his mouth covered with grime, resting his back against a stone wall.

“He can’t do worse,” Hank said. “You from Ohio?”

“Yep. Ohio Valley Urban Search and Rescue from Columbus.”

“Another USAR group? I was with the Florida guys yesterday. I’m Hank Finster.” Hank stuck out a hand.

“Pink Lady’s Finny?” the man sounded impressed.

“Something like that,” Hank answered.

“I heard she got sent out after a close call. Everybody says you’re the luckiest bastard here.”

Hank scoffed since he hadn’t been very lucky for the past two days. “Have you ever met the Pink Lady?”

“Nah. Ever since we linked up with the Cleveland guys, we’ve stayed down here, sleeping off Battery Park. Occasionally, one of us'll join the bucket brigade for change of scenery.”

“The Cleveland guys?” Hank couldn’t believe it. Now he’d found the Cleveland guys?

“Yeah, we’ve been down here with them since Wednesday or so. Worst cell phone reception ever.” The firefighter gestured to the ruined walls around them.

“Got anybody from Cleveland named Wills? Heavy set huge Black guy with an Afro.” Hank figured Wills would be more recognizable than Noah.

The firefighter pointed at his hardhat’s close fit. “Nobody like that. An Afro wouldn’t survive the hat.”

“I’m looking for two missing guys from Cleveland.”

True to form, the Columbus firefighter didn’t suggest checking the yellow pages. ‘Missing’ only meant one thing at the Pile. “Tough break.”

“Can I see the Cleveland guys? Just in case.”

“Why not, but you’re going to have to crawl. I’m Bryon Munnis, by the way.” Munnis walked by the last lamp and led him into a crevice in the wall. He got on his hands and knees with his flashlight in his hands.

Hank followed suit, once again reminding himself that he wasn’t insane to crawl into unstable wreckage.

The tunnel went about twenty feet, and he could feel a safety line on the ground. It opened up into a wider space, still dark but with small dancing lights ahead.

“Who’s there?” a voice called out ahead of them.

“It’s Munnis and Finny from Michigan.”

“What the fuck is a Finny? Did you find a dolphin?” the loud voice cracked.

“Shut up, Jordan. Why do we keep you around, asshole?” another voice called.

Hank and Munnis walked toward the lights and found about twelve guys with pike poles and Halligan bars tapping on walls ahead of them. Three of the guys were wearing paper masks and similar shirts to Munnis. The ones wearing full respirators wore Cleveland FD T-shirts.

All faces turned toward them, and Hank shone his flashlight directly in the eyes of the closest man. The man squinted. “Careful.”

Hank tilted up his flashlight and grabbed at the man’s shoulder. The man, taller than Hank, had bright blue eyes.

Blue where the sky meets the sea.

“Noah?!”

The man stopped struggling. “Yeah?”

“Noah Baker! Wills?” Hank shouted and spun his flashlight.

“Who is Wills?” Munnis asked.

“Only that dickwad Noah calls me Wills.” A large Black man stepped forward, his features hidden by his mask.

“I thought you were Jordan,” Munnis said.

“His name is Jacen,” Noah said.

“Jacen with a ‘c’ and an ‘e’, none of that dumb ‘S-O-N’ shit,” the person who was either Wills or Jordan or Jacen or Jason said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Finny, as in Finster.”

“Oh, I know that one. Pink Lady’s husband. She was a fine piece of ass.” Now the heads snapped toward Jacen/Wills/Whatever. “In the platonic way. I did meet her on my day with the bucket brigade.”

“Forget about the Pink Lady. Are you Noah Baker who stayed in World Trade 3 with some guy named Wills?” Hank asked with urgency.

“Yes.” The pair of eyes that supposedly belonged to Noah Baker were confused.

“You got out of the hotel?”

“Yeah. Just in time. Me and Jacen.”

They were talking pretty normally for guys who were supposed to be dead. Hank had to be sure. “I need to confirm this. You are Noah Baker, and this is Wills, your friend from Cleveland State.”

“That sounds about right,” Jacen said. “What of it?”

Hank smiled, knowing they couldn't see his lips. “Your family thinks you’re dead.”

“Dead? Noah calls home every night,” Jacen said.

“You left a message on your parents' answering machine that ended when the South Tower fell. No one’s heard from you since.”

“No, I talk to my dad every night,” Noah denied.

It all clicked. Noah’s dad… “Did you ever call Abby?”

“I left a message in the afternoon at her office on the first day. Dad said Abby’s been working a lot at the college.”

“As fun as this family reunion is, can you take this outside?” Munnis said.

“Might as well, boss,” Jacen said. “I could use some not-fresh air anyway.”

“Sure thing,” Hank agreed. “Glad to see you got the respirators on.”

One of the Cleveland guys grumbled, “You don’t know our lieutenant; she’d kill us if we took them off. She has fangs and a scorpion tail.”

Hank chuckled. “I thought she was an itty-bitty redhead.”

“Pretty much.”

It took Hank, Noah, and Jacen about thirty minutes to backtrack into the outside world. They emerged from the wreckage, and the three of them removed their helmets. Though he hated to do it, Hank gestured to their faces as he removed his mask. They were relatively far from the Pile, and he wanted to confirm their identities with his own eyes.

The men were not what he expected.

Noah stood around six-foot-two, and while he was slim like Abby, he was by no means skinny. Testosterone must have finally kicked in big time. His eyes were the exact same shade as Abby’s, and unlike Abby, he had thick stubble on his face.

Also, unlike Abby, he was bald.

Jacen was at least two inches taller than Noah but much more heavily built. While he did have a layer of flab around him, Hank could see the beginnings of muscle forming underneath his XXL Cleveland FD shirt. Not only did he lack the beard Soto had described, he too was bald.

“Captain Soto said you had hair.” Hank laughed weakly. “I spent this whole week looking for Wills with the giant hair.”

“Soto’s just jealous. God, I hope when I graduate from the academy next year, I don’t get stuck at Firehouse 15,” Jacen said.

“Now that you’ve seen us, mask back on,” Noah said shortly.

“Killjoy. No one else wears them,” Jacen said tartly, replacing his mask.

“Wait till you learn about protocol,” Noah said.

“Protocol sphrotocol. Rules are meant to be broken. Live dangerously,” Jacen said.

“Those twenty pounds you lost this week says eating empty carbs was pretty dangerous,” Noah warned him.

Hank stared. The shy boy Abby had described had been replaced by this man, who was a leader, not a follower.

“Why exactly are you here?” Noah asked Hank. “How do you know Abby?”

“Abby’s at Ground Zero looking for you.”