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“Heard what?” David asked. With the door open, he was for the first time consciously aware of a
moderate uproar outside. People were talking in loud voices. Some were crying. The nurse who had
admitted them walked by, her face red and blotchy, her cheeks wet. She didn’t even glance at the
screaming infant.
“A passenger jet hit the World Trade Center,” Dalton said. “And no one thinks it was an accident.”
That was American Airlines Flight 11. United Airlines Flight 175 struck the Trade Center’s South
Tower seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m. At 9:03, Abra Stone abruptly stopped crying. By 9:04, she
was sound asleep.
On their ride back to Anniston, David and Lucy listened to the radio while Abra slept peacefully in
her car seat behind them. The news was unbearable, but turning it off was unthinkable . . . at least
until a newscaster announced the names of the airlines and the flight numbers of the aircraft: two in
New York, one near Washington, one cratered in rural Pennsylvania. Then David finally reached over
and silenced the flood of disaster.
“Lucy, I have to tell you something. I dreamed—”
“I know.” She spoke in the flat tone of one who has just suffered a shock. “So did I.”
By the time they crossed back into New Hampshire, David had begun to believe there might be
something to that caul business, after all.
10
In a New Jersey town, on the west bank of the Hudson River, there’s a park named for the town’s most
famous resident. On a clear day, it offers a perfect view of Lower Manhattan. The True Knot arrived in
Hoboken on September eighth, parking in a private lot which they had four-walled for ten days. Crow
Daddy did the deal. Handsome and gregarious, looking about forty, Crow’s favorite t-shirt read I’M A
PEOPLE PERSON! Not that he ever wore a tee when negotiating for the True Knot; then it was
strictly suit and tie. It was what the rubes expected. His straight name was Henry Rothman. He was a
Harvard-educated lawyer (class of ’38), and he always carried cash. The True had over a billion dollars
in various accounts across the world—some in gold, some in diamonds, some in rare books, stamps,
and paintings—but never paid by check or credit card. Everyone, even Pea and Pod, who looked like
kids, carried a roll of ten and twenties.
As Jimmy Numbers had once said, “We’re a cash-and-carry outfit. We pay cash and the rubes carry
us.” Jimmy was the True’s accountant. In his rube days he had once ridden with an outfit that became
known (long after their war was over) as Quantrill’s Raiders. Back then he had been a wild kid who
wore a buffalo coat and carried a Sharps, but in the years since, he had mellowed. These days he had a
framed, autographed picture of Ronald Reagan in his RV.
On the morning of September eleventh, the True watched the attacks on the Twin Towers from the
parking lot, passing around four pairs of binoculars. They would have had a better view from Sinatra
Park, but Rose didn’t need to tell them that gathering early might attract suspicion . . . and in the
months and years ahead, America was going to be a very suspicious nation: if you see something, say
something.
Around ten that morning—when crowds had gathered all along the riverbank and it was safe—
they made their way to the park. The Little twins, Pea and Pod, pushed Grampa Flick in his
wheelchair. Grampa wore his cap stating I AM A VET. His long, baby-fine white hair floated around
the cap’s edges like milkweed. There had been a time when he’d told folks he was a veteran of the
Spanish-American War. Then it was World War I. Nowadays it was World War II. In another twenty