The agents, bristling with guns and urgency, had maneuvered Cheney into the tunnel beneath the White House by 9:37 a.m., just as the plane smashed into the Pentagon instead. Some concluded later that the hijackers tried to find the White House but from the air could not see it amid taller nearby buildings and struck at the military headquarters instead. If so, it saved Cheney’s life because the plane would have hit the White House before the agents got him into the tunnel.
