It was Sept. 10, 2001, and a guy named Chris Christie was elated to get a call from the White House telling him he had been named the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, the state's top federal prosecutor.

He had no prosecutorial experience and the highest elected office he'd held was at the county level — and he lost re-election. But he had made a name for himself as a top fundraiser for President George W. Bush and was rewarded with the plum appointment.

The next morning, the job would be dramatically different.

Yet that was the least of Chris Christie's worries on Sept. 11, 2001, as he waited for hours to hear the fate of his wife, Mary Pat, and brother Todd, who were among the masses working near the fallen towers on 9/11.

"When it first happened ... all I could think about was the job — what is this going to mean?" now-Gov. Chris Christie told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. "And then, once the second building was hit and I couldn't get her on the phone for hours, I had completely forgotten about the job. And I was like, 'What am I going to do as a father? What am I going to do if she doesn't come home?'"

'THEY WERE ALL IN A TRANCE'

Ultimately, becoming U.S. attorney for New Jersey thrust Christie into statewide politics, propelling his election seven years later as governor in a liberal-leaning state and star status within the Republican Party as party loyalists beg him to run for president in 2012.

His national career started in earnest with a call from White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales at 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2001. Christie, who was working as a securities attorney, left his law office soon after getting word and took the next day off, Sept. 11, to contemplate what seemed like a dream job.

That morning, he dropped off his son Andrew, then a second-grader, and daughter Sarah, who was in kindergarten, at school and returned home with his 13-month-old son, Patrick.

For Mary Pat Christie, Sept. 11 began like most days as she drove from her home in Mendham to the PATH station, headed to her job at a brokerage firm in lower Manhattan. Her brother-in-law, Todd, a Wall Street CEO who also lives in Mendham, had the same routine.

When Mary Pat felt her building shake as the first plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m., she called home. Like many other Americans, Christie was watching it unfold on television.

"What we were thinking is that we were being bombed," Mary Pat said. "You have to remember, there was so much misinformation."

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She was still in the office when the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., but by then the phone lines were jammed. She wouldn't speak to her husband again for more than four hours.

"The anxiety level continues to ratchet. So now I'm thinking to myself, 'What am I going to say to the kids when they get home at 2:15?'" Christie said.

Using a wet T-shirt to shield her face from the toxic air, Mary Pat left her office with co-workers and made her way to a bar in Union Square, where they stayed for hours as they tried to figure out a way off the island. Eventually, she was able to use a calling card at a pay phone to get through and call home just before school let out.

Using the internet, Christie found the ferry with the shortest lines and drove to pick her up from the dock.

As passengers left the boat, firefighters hosed down anyone coming from downtown to prevent them from bringing contaminants into New Jersey.

"I'm standing on the corner watching people walking down the street from the boat slip and every second person seemed to be soaking wet. They were all in a trance," Christie recalled.

He finally spotted Mary Pat, walking toward him wrapped in a blanket.

"I saw Chris and I just hugged him," Mary Pat said. "I was shaking."

Todd Christie was in his office when the first plane struck. He watched the second plane hit as he walked up the West Side Highway in search of a way home, his brother said.

Like Mary Pat, Todd made his way to a ferry and Christie returned to the dock to pick up his brother, who was also drenched.

Later that evening, the Christies headed over to see a friend awaiting any word from her husband, who worked at the World Trade Center. He never came home.

As the days passed, the Christies headed to funerals and waited to find out what would happen to the job offered before the nation experienced the worst act of terrorism on American soil.

"The job I accepted on the 10th had now become 180-degree different," Christie said. "You are now going to be U.S. attorney when terrorism is going to the main focus."

AFTERMATH OF 9/11

It would be two weeks before the White House called Christie back, this time to say his nomination would be delayed; there were no available FBI agents to do background checks.

But Christie soon found an ally in an unusual place — New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli, who summoned him to his office to talk about the nomination.

"He said, 'You wouldn't have been my first choice, but you are the President's choice, and we can't screw around with this.'" Christie recalled. "He was very serious about this. It was a very emotional thing for him."

The U.S. Attorney's Office played a prominent role in the investigation of the attacks. United Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with the hijackers, had departed from Newark, and several letters containing anthrax were mailed from a central New Jersey post office.

On Dec. 6, Christie's background check finally cleared. With only two week to go before Congress let out, Christie's nomination was fast-tracked with the help of Torricelli, who broke the news to him a Christmas party.

"He came over and shook my hand and said, 'You've been on the job for an hour and a half, what have you done?'" Christie remembered.

On the way out of the party, Torricelli put his hands on Christie's shoulders and added, "Don't ever disappoint me."

Torricelli would leave Capitol Hill about a year later amid a campaign finance scandal involving contributions from an imprisoned Korean businessman.

Christie also received a congratulatory call from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who didn't mince words about the importance of his new job.

"He called and said to me, 'Congratulations. Remember, over 700 people in your district were murdered. It's the single largest loss of life in any one district in the country. It's your job to make sure it never happens again.'"

"That was the entire conversation," Christie said.

NEW GUY ON THE JOB

Christie's first day on the job was Jan. 18, 2002, and he could count on one finger the number of staff attorneys there he knew prior.

"It was the first time that we had someone who didn't come from the fraternity of deputy U.S. attorneys," said Charles McKenna, then the acting head of the criminal division, who had been with the office since 1991.

McKenna, who watched from his office as the towers fell — what he called a "perfect view of disaster" — was among those leading the terrorism investigation for New Jersey and was among those initially skeptical about Christie.

Five days later after Christie started, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Pakistan. He was held hostage and ultimately beheaded by militants as he pursued the trail of would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid.

Because Pearl was lured to the place he was kidnapped by an e-mail, which came through the Wall Street Journal's computer server in South Brunswick, his kidnapping was technically in New Jersey's jurisdiction, unless Washington decided to bigfoot Christie.

"Everyone in the country wanted that case. I was a brand-new U.S. attorney with no criminal experience. I thought there was no way they were going to give us the case," Christie said.

He was summoned to D.C. to meet with Ashcroft, who let him keep the case but and again bluntly reminded him of its importance, speaking of Pearl's wife.

"He told me, 'This woman is counting on us to catch this guy before they kill her husband,'" Christie said. "We found out, obviously much later, that he was already dead."

McKenna said the Pearl case showed him Christie was a quick study and decisive.

Seven years later, McKenna would count himself among more than 20 federal prosecutors Christie took with him to work for his administration.

Those who witnessed Christie's first days as U.S. attorney said he brought no pretenses about his background.

"With the candor that has become his trademark, he told us he was not blind to the fact that he had no criminal experience but that he would be open to be taught and knew there were things to be learned," said Michele Brown, who also joined the U.S. attorney's office in 1991 and followed Christie to the governor's office. "What he did promise was leadership and decision-making."