Chapter 1: The Disaster

Jenny Marie Jenkins was on her way to work. She worked for the stock brokerage firm of Sink, Bacon, and Finch, the same firm her husband had worked for. The office had been moved from the World Trade Center to the Chrysler Building after the terrorist attack.

She and her husband had both received MBA Degrees from the local university. She had met Joe during her internship with the firm during her freshman year. She had gotten pregnant a few months after and had to drop out to have Stephanie. They had not really married, but she moved in with him and he supported her until she could go back to school. Joe had been wary of marrying a young girl who had gotten pregnant so quickly; before they had really had time to get together.

Joe had been one of the Senior Executives in charge of a large number of stock brokers who traded daily on the internet. He was a former NFL quarterback who had retired from football after about ten years, and had saved up a substantial amount of money. He had gone back to school to finish his degrees in business; and with his famous name and sizeable savings, he had managed to accumulate a sizeable nest egg and many well known investors.

Joe had also formed some fierce rivalries with other brokers in the company who had similar backgrounds as his. He had played against Sam Cromwell in high school, college and in the pros. Both had done well and were competing with each other for new accounts.

On the fateful day of the World Trade Center collapse, Jenny had gone in to work on time, but Joe had missed the subway because he had been to another meeting before breakfast. There were several Iraqi diplomats who were trying to smuggle money out of the country that were dealing with him. That morning a man named Mohammed Al Bengalis had arrived with a brief case. He had managed to get the contents from the American Government and was supposed to get them to the Iraqi officials to beef up their army. Al could not be seen getting on the plane with a briefcase that would be inspected.

The briefcase had several million dollars worth of diamonds. He wanted Joe to take the contents to a local diamond dealer, sell them and deposit the money in a Swiss bank account. When Joe got out of the meeting with Al, he missed the next train and intersecting bus.

By the time he got to the WTC, the second plane had hit, and the firefighters had blocked access into the building. Since Joe had left the building first, Jenny assumed her husband was already in the building. When the second plane hit, Sam Cromwell had begun ushering people out of their office spaces.

Sam had a real crush on Jenny, and took special care to see that he left the building with her. When they got out, Sam told her to go home, and he would see that her husband got out. Sam didn't go back in, but started calling and texting everybody with his cell phone.

Jenny was in a cab and on the way home when she heard the news on the cab radio about the two buildings falling.

Joe was just getting to the office when he saw the first building collapse. He could not get in, and felt it likely that the other would fall too. Since he couldn't get in, he wandered around, trying to figure out what to do, when he heard about the second building falling.

In addition to the diamonds in his briefcase, Joe had several million dollars of life insurance that was provided by his employer. He had several other bank accounts because the FDIC will only insure accounts to a certain amount. Joe was a somewhat unscrupulous broker and recognized the unique circumstance he was in.

According to most accounts, he was seen heading to work that day, been involved in one meeting, and was going into the office when the WTC fell. Obviously, the surveillance tapes were destroyed, so there was no digital proof of whether he or several thousand others were in the building when it fell. Joe felt that he and his wife could make a sizeable amount of money if he just didn't go into work. There were few recognizable bodies in the rubble. Anybody missing would be assumed killed. The insurance benefits would go to Jenny. He could change his identity, and they could get back together and enjoy the insurance money.

Joe took a cab out of Manhattan and bought some different clothes. He hitchhiked to the interstate, and caught a ride with a trucker into the Midwest. He was able to get a number of passports and driver's licenses under different names by using the same sources that the undocumented illegal aliens use to get their legal papers. He had enough money in accounts in Switzerland and the Bahamas to get by comfortably.

Chapter 2 »