*****
Entering his tent, Corbett looked around at the general disarray. A field desk had been set up in the center with a cot to one side. Above, suspended on a hook, the LED lantern temporarily illuminated the tent casting shadows about the canvas walls. Since he would be living out of his suitcases, he had stacked them, one on top of the other, beside the desk. Opening the larger of the two, he unlocked its false bottom and removed his laptop. Placing it on the desk, he attempted to power it up but failed to get a signal. Frustrated, he re-secured it, returning it to the suitcase before shutting off the lantern. Then lying down on the cot in the darkness, he tried to organize his thoughts for the coming day.
First thing in the morning, he would drive down into the Basque town of Xeria with Gorka and the girl. Leaving Gorka to secure supplies and arrange for local laborers to help work the site, he would locate the medical clinic and hopefully make the initial contact with Tariq. Which of course meant he would have to deal with Amaia. Not something he was looking forward to. Although he had sent her a handwritten note following Jon’s death, he had not gone into detail and was not even certain that she’d received it. Had it really been almost three years?
Closing his eyes he felt a familiar sense of vertigo sweep over him as another older memory filled his mind. Some wounds never heal. And this one had remained as horrific and troubling as the day it had happened. A restless, implacable specter from his past.
Rising, he moved to the smaller of his cases and located the bottle of single malt he had packed before leaving the hotel. Foregoing a glass, he uncorked the bottle and placed it to his lips. Feeling the whiskey burn its way down, he stared into the darkness as it all came back in a rush.
Following his graduation from Penn, Michael Corbett had been preparing to move to the UK to begin graduate studies at Oxford. It was September 11th, 2001. With less than a month until the start of Michaelmas, he had shipped his luggage ahead and booked a seat on the redeye out of JFK for London Heathrow on British Air.
The plan had been to meet his sister Margaret and her husband, Jack Rawdon, along with his niece, their three-year old daughter Hallie, at 8:30 that morning for a farewell breakfast. Jack, a stockbroker with PaineWebber whose offices were in the North Tower, had reserved a table at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the World Trade Center.
Having taken the early train up from Philadelphia, Corbett was standing outside Penn Station attempting to hail a taxi when he phoned his sister to say he was running late. He was still talking to her when the first plane hit.
Reacting to what sounded like a freight train followed by his sister’s terrified scream, he glanced south toward Lower Manhattan just as the tail of American Airlines Flight 11 disappeared into the building above the 93rd floor. Stunned, he could hear the panic in his sister’s voice as she cried out to Jack to get the baby. Shouting into his cell, Corbett called her name but Margaret was no longer listening. The only sounds were chaos and death. Then nothing as the line went dead and black smoke began to boil out of the gaping scar in the North Tower.
Most of what followed had become lost in the fog of memory. What remained was a raw ache in the pit of his stomach. The overwhelming sense of nausea. A feeling of powerlessness and loss. In the end, their bodies were never recovered.
His parents were devastated as the days that followed became a blur of half remembered details. He notified Oxford as well as the Rhodes committee that he would be withdrawing from school. He organized a memorial service and attempted to comfort his parents. But nothing could erase the terrible reality of what they had been forced to endure.
It was war. But confronted with the reality, Michael Corbett had simply refused to surrender. All those unsuspecting people – men, women and children murdered in the name of God. For Corbett such a God either didn’t exist or didn’t care. Or if he did, he was a sadist. Attempting to cope, Corbett had turned his pain inward, cauterizing his emotions while silently promising never to forget. Two days later, he went down to his local Army recruiter and volunteered. When he told his parents, his mother rushed from the room refusing to speak to him. It would be more than two years before they could again have a civil conversation.
But even now, in the silence of the night, Margaret’s death still haunted the deepest recesses of his being. As did Jack Rawdon’s laughter or the open, trusting smile of three-year old Hallie, her tiny fingers wrapped firmly around his thumb. In the darkest places of his mind, these were the memories that drove him – to take action, to do whatever the situation required. It had become his self-imposed mission: to make the world a safer place, one act at a time.
Using the flat of his palm, he re-corked the bottle. Then stowing it in the case, he laid down once more. It was going to be a long night. He closed his eyes again. It would be after three before he finally drifted off only to be awakened by the first light of dawn.
TWELVE
B y six a.m., the sun had begun its day, climbing over the rim of the world and bathing the base camp in brilliant yellow light. At an elevation no more than a hundred feet below, however, a
