I Am Pilgrim(55)

Bradley shrugged. I remained silent. What was there to say, even if I could trust my voice not to falter? Sorrow floats was all I could think of.

‘They turned back, reached a door on to a mezzanine and got in to the lobby. A short time later, everything went to hell when the building crashed down. The wheelchair guy and two of the rescuers somehow made it to safety, but two of those who saved him didn’t.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You know what took their lives, Mr Campbell?’

‘Compassion?’ I said.

‘That’s right, like I told you – it wasn’t the falling masonry or the fire that killed them. It was their goddamned attempt to help somebody else. That was where my anger came from. Where was the justice in that?’

He caught his breath for a moment before saying softly, ‘I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a world like that.’

I knew then that Bradley had visited Ground Zero in more ways than one. I pictured him in the snow at dusk, a tiny figure in the acres of emptiness where the Twin Towers had once stood, doing his best to find a reason for living.

Thankfully, Marcie was with him, and he said they held hands as he told her about his despair. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ she wanted to know, totally matter-of-fact.

He told me he looked at her in confusion, no idea what she meant. ‘Yes, I got it, Ben, you don’t want to live in a world like that,’ she said. ‘Okay. But as people say – are you gonna curse the darkness or light a candle? So let me ask you again: what are you going to do about it?’

That was Marcie – she had become so tough, she wasn’t surrendering an inch any more.

‘She was right, of course,’ Ben continued. ‘And we talked about what to do all the way home.

‘Because of my injuries, I didn’t know much about the 9/11 investigation, and as we walked uptown I listened as she told me fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis, how bin Laden’s family were spirited out of the country in the aftermath, that most of the perpetrators were in America on expired visas and several of ’em had learned to fly planes but hadn’t shown any interest in landing them.

‘It became clear that, even though the hijackers had made scores of mistakes, they were still better than us – and if anyone doubted it, there were three thousand homicides on my turf that proved it. By the time we reached the Village I realized that an idea was taking shape.

‘I worked on it through the night, and the following day – a Monday – I went to New York University and lit my candle.’

He said that, in a large office facing Washington Square, he explained to the college executives that he wanted to start an event that would become as famous in its way as the World Economic Forum in Davos – an annual series of lectures, seminars and master classes for the world’s leading investigators. A place where new ideas would be exposed and cutting-edge science displayed. He said it would be moderated by the top experts in their field, crossing all disciplines and agency boundaries.

‘I pointed through the window,’ Bradley told me, ‘to where the Twin Towers had stood. ‘Men like that’ll come again,’ I said, ‘and next time they’ll be better, smarter, stronger. We have to be too – all of us who are investigators have got one clear objective: we’ve got to beat them next time.’

‘There were eleven people in the room and I figured I’d won over three of ’em, so I told the story of the guy in the wheelchair and I reminded them that they were the closest college to Ground Zero – they had a special responsibility. If they weren’t going to stage it, who would?

‘By the end, half of ’em were ashamed, a few were in tears and the vote in support was unanimous. Maybe next year I’ll run for mayor.’ He tried to laugh, but he couldn’t find it in his heart.

He said the arrangements for the World Investigative Forum were going better than he had expected, and he rattled off a list of names of those who had agreed to teach or attend.

I nodded, genuinely impressed. He said, ‘Yeah, it’s all the big ones,’ and then looked at me. ‘Except one.’

He didn’t give me a chance to reply. ‘Your book has had a huge effect,’ he continued. ‘Being over here, you probably don’t realize, but there’s hardly an A-list profess—’

‘That’s why you came to Paris,’ I said, ‘to recruit me?’

‘Partly. Of course, I came to finally solve the mystery of Jude Garrett but, now that I have, here’s a chance for you to make a contribution. I know we can’t say who you really are, so I thought you could be Garrett’s long-time researcher. Dr Watson to his Holmes. Someone who helped—’