By 9:02 the boomerang of alarm and assurance had driven Stanley Praimnath from the 81st floor to the lobby, then back again to his office. The phone was ringing as he returned, and he picked it up to hear the voice of a colleague from Chicago, urgently inquiring after his well-being. "Are you okay?" the woman asked Praimnath. "Yes, I'm fine," he assured her. "Stan, are you watching the monitor-are you watching the news to see what is going on?" she asked. "Yes," he assured her again. "I'm fine." As he spoke, Praimnath spun his seat around so he was facing in the direction of the window, though he was not staring out. His window looked south over New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty, the light trails of froth cut in the slate colored water by the stready traffic of ships and tugs and ferries. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed an unfamiliar shape on the horizon. Praimnath turned slightly, to look square out the window. An airplane. It was heading toward his office, toward his window, it seemed. He could see the red and blue marking and the letter U as it approached. He dived under his desk, screaming to God, as his colleague in Chicago listened on the phone and watched the television screen in horror. In the length of a drawn breath, the ceiling collapsed. The time was 9:02:59 A.M., and United Airlines Flight 175 now plunged through the south tower of the World Trade Center, including the room where Stanley Praimnath had jumped beneath his desk. The plane had banked slightly at the last second, its wingspan running diagonally across nine floors, from 77 to 85. The Mizuho/Fuji office was at the center of it. Praimnath's room was torn to bits. Wires and cubicles and drywall slumped into a tangle at once sinister and silent. The wing of the jet was jammed into a door; twenty feet from where Praimnath, still alive, huddled beneath his desk.