“Everyone, listen up!” he shouted.
He grabbed the remote from Brenda’s desk and flicked on the TV that was suspended from the ceiling. A reporter was yelling into her microphone that Worldwide Airlines Flight 888 from Beijing had been landing at SFO when the Boeing Triple 7 had crashed somewhere west of 101.
The reporter was set up with her back to the highway. At some distance behind her was a screen of fire capped by a thick, coiling column of smoke. Her voice was nearly overwhelmed by the sirens of the emergency vehicles that were streaming out to the downed aircraft.
There were eleven of us in the squad room, and we all stared up at the images as one, cursing, gasping, stunned by what we saw.
Brady muted the sound and said, “Here’s what I know. Ten minutes ago that plane crashed and likely killed everyone on board. The point of impact was the athletic fields at Mills High along Millbrae Avenue. The kids were inside, thank God, but the buildings were hit with debris and whatever. There may be injuries. Gotta be.”
As we watched the silent TV, Brady continued, saying that the airport was closed, a no-fly zone had been imposed, and the governor had declared a state of emergency. NTSB was on the scene and the National Guard was on the way.
Brady paused for breath and shook his head, and then he was talking again.
“We don’t know what happened to this plane. We don’t have a passenger list, and Worldwide is just stalling until they can say this was not their fault. Best guess is that there were more than four hundred people on that flight.
“This whole deal is under investigation by the NTSB, and beyond that, just about every government agency is en route. All cops are being drafted to help.
“Effective immediately, everyone here is assigned to assist wherever we’re needed until y’all are relieved. I don’t know when that’s gonna be. Boxer, you’re point man for our squad until I can get to the scene.”
I was given contact info for the NTSB command post at the Millbrae Avenue exit off Route 101.
And then we were dismissed.
Conklin and I joined the flight to the stairs. Once we were in a car, I dialed up the news on my phone. The smoke-veiled visuals from SFPD’s eye-in-the-sky looked like nothing I’d ever seen before.
A half mile of highways, airport on-and off-ramps, the Burlingame Plaza Shopping Center, a couple of blocks of small business and light industry, and oh, my God, not one, but three schools were within range of the crash site.
Conklin had thrown on the siren, and as we sped through the traffic on Bryant, he said, “Let me see, Linds.”
I said, “Richie. Watch the road.”
My fight-flight reflexes were all on high alert; my heart pounded, sweat sheeted down my body, and my thoughts sparked along multiple neural pathways before coming up against an impenetrable fact: I had no experience that could prepare me for catastrophic, wholesale human destruction.
CHAPTER 23
A WHITE RV with blue lettering and the logo of the National Transportation Safety Board was parked in the right lane of Millbrae Avenue after the Millbrae exit from 101. A line of trailers from ATF, FBI, Homeland Security, and the Sheriff’s Department formed a roadblock, leaving a small break in the barricade to admit emergency vehicles.
Conklin parked our car behind the RV. We got out and stepped into the eerily silent roadway.
A man wearing an NTSB Windbreaker met us at the door to the RV. Captain Jan Vanderleest was in his midforties and had a heavily lined face and a strong handshake. We followed him into his command center, a small space with very little headroom that was banked with NTSB techs working crouched over their computers.
We stood behind them, and Vanderleest gave us the live-streaming virtual tour of the crash site and surrounding debris field. He put his big forefinger on a monitor, nailing the point of impact: the playing field at Mills High, only a hundred yards or so from the classrooms.
Vanderleest drew a circle around the inner perimeter, an area about a quarter of a mile across with the crash site at dead center. Then he circled the outer perimeter, a half mile in diameter across the bull’s-eye, which included the two elementary schools.
My mind reeled as I thought about the children: Had they seen fiery plane parts falling onto the playing fields right outside their schoolrooms? Had they seen any casualties? Vanderleest said, “We can’t let anyone into the school buildings. There’s every kind of hazard: fire, toxic fumes, falling objects.”
He ran his finger along the images of the congested roads, pausing at the car pileups, and I knew we were looking at an agonized crush of frantic parents trying to get to their kids.