NEW YORK — An FBI informant wearing a wire to secretly record a conversation with a city tax assessor ended up making what is believed to be the only known uninterrupted audio recording of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Steven McArdle, a tax consultant, was at the Marriott World Trade Center hotel to meet with the assessor as part of a probe. The conversation was being taped by two FBI agents a few blocks away from the twin towers.
On the tape, obtained by the Daily News, the conversation about bribery turned into a record of chaos starting with the muffled boom of the first hijacked plane hitting the north tower.
"That was an explosion," McArdle says on the tape, according to the newspaper. "Let's get out of here!"
The tape continued as McArdle ran to West Street, capturing panicked voices and screams, the sounds of sirens and the rumble as the second plane approached and then crashed into the south tower.
"It's another one," a man on the street screams. "It's another one!"
A hysterical woman cries: "It's like a missile."
Another woman wails, and a man comforts her: "Please don't get upset."
The woman replies, "That's my husband inside."
McArdle, the tax assessor and the two agents monitoring the conversation weren't injured.
Authorities announced the arrest of 18 current and former city tax assessors in February.