Two seconds passed between the catastrophic explosion and the rain of bodies and objects hitting the ground.
CHAPTER 22
I WAS COLLECTING the footage of Joe for Brady’s meeting when Brady blew through the door to the squad room.
“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.
“These roads have been closed, but One-Oh-One South is open and so is—maybe you know it—Mills-Peninsula. A health care facility just south of Trousdale.”
Vanderleest went on, “Highway Patrol will be shuttling the kids from the schools to this medical center. It’s close and it’s big. This is where you can help.”
Conklin asked, “Does anyone know what caused the crash?”
“All we know right now is that this flight from Beijing was coming in for a normal, on-schedule landing. The pilot was talking to the control tower, which had cleared them to land on runway Twenty-Eight L when the plane turned into a fireball at three thousand feet.
“As for what happened. I don’t know how, who, or why, and that goes for all of us. Right now, no one knows shit.”
CHAPTER 24
CONKLIN STARTED UP our car and we set course for the Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, a detour that would take us past ground zero, only a quarter of a mile away.
As soon as we cleared the barricade and rounded the turn onto the flat four-lane expanse of Millbrae Avenue, we could see the length and breadth of the disaster. I’ve driven along Millbrae Avenue any number of times, bought lunch, gased up, cashed checks on this broad stretch of suburban highway.
It was now completely unrecognizable.
Off to our left, the dry grass on the median of Rollins Road was blazing. Ahead, looking west toward the hills, a dense roiling bank of smoke nearly blocked out the sky.
The closer we got to the crash site, the more the smoke made us cough. Visibility became limited to about three car lengths on all sides. But what we could see was horrible.
Luggage was strewn loosely across the road, spilling clothing and personal articles: books, and a pink dress, as clean as if it had just been unpacked, hanging across the median strip.
Conklin jerked the wheel, cutting the car around a chunk of charred flesh, a decapitated passenger, his clothes torn off by the blast. I put my head between my knees, but it didn’t help.
“Linds. It’s OK. Hang on.”
He stopped the car and I opened the door and did what I never do. I barfed at a crime scene. Then we were rolling again.
Directly up ahead were red flashers, a lot of them. A half dozen fire trucks lined the street next to the Mills High School playing field. It was a sight out of a science-fiction movie crossed with a late-night horror film.
In place of kids jogging on the track and scrimmaging were several detached rows of seats with dead passengers still strapped in for landing. And in the center of this gruesome field were three misshapen sections of the airframe standing like grotesque sculptures, rising twenty feet into the murky air. NTSB agents in hazmat suits were taking pictures, putting down markers next to bodies and body parts.
Wind blew smoke across the field, sparking small fires and making my eyes water. Conklin crossed himself.
A team of airport cops came up to our car. We identified ourselves and reviewed the best and only route to the health care facility: straight ahead three blocks, left on Camino Real for three long blocks, then right on Trousdale.
“Mills-Peninsula. A big glass building,” the cop said.
“We know the place,” said Conklin.
“Drive safely.”
I was never going to forget seeing this. No matter how hard I tried.
CHAPTER 25
THE MILLS-PENINSULA Medical Center parking lot was jammed to a standstill with hundreds of cars driven here by the parents of the kids at the three crash-affected schools. They had left their cars and ganged up at the police line at the barricade en masse.
It was a big parking lot and we were still out on the street, but even from a hundred yards away, I could see and hear that the parents were freaking the hell out. And who could blame them? They wanted to get their children. They were getting roadblocks instead.
As Conklin and I watched, a school bus rounded Trousdale and entered the lot from the rear. The parents reversed their direction and stampeded toward the bus, coming to a stop at the blockade of police vehicles across the Trousdale entrance.
For the first time since Brady had yelled “Everyone, listen up!” I became furious at the horror, at the outrageous loss of life, at the trauma everyone in San Francisco would bear for the rest of their lives.
The same type of question I asked myself every day on the job came to me now.
What had happened to WW 888? Was the crash due to pilot error or a structural flaw? Or had some person or persons deliberately brought down this jet with four hundred passengers?
Was the downing of WW 888 an act of war?
The dispatcher’s voice came over the car radio.
“Boxer, Conklin, sit tight. San Mateo County Sheriff is going to escort you into the building.”
I copied that, and my partner got on his phone.
He waited out a ringing phone for a few seconds, then said, “Cin? Yeah, it’s me. I don’t know. It’s bad. Extremely, horribly bad. How are you?”
I watched the shifting mob in the parking lot and the caravan of school buses attempting to deliver young children safely to the health care facility. And I listened to my partner and my very dear friend Cindy sharing what they knew and consoling each other.
I checked my phone to see if Joe had called.
He had not.
CHAPTER 26
IT WAS RAINING softly when the taxi pulled up to the very romantic Hotel Andra in the center of the Belltown neighborhood in Seattle.
The doorman brought an umbrella out to the taxi and opened the door for the elegant woman in black who extended her stiletto-heeled shoes and stepped gracefully out onto the street. She slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and pulled her soft knitted cap down to her eyebrows. She was on the phone as she entered the Scandinavian-style lobby.
She put away her phone when she reached the front desk, which was really a piece of art. It was a beautiful walnut-and-maple construction with glass below the granite counter and above the floor, giving it the appearance of floating.
The attractive woman loved this place.
She exchanged words with the concierge, showed him her government-issue photo ID as required, and he handed her a white #2 envelope. She thanked him, then crossed the colorful hand-knotted rugs, passed the blazing fireplace flanked with bookshelves, and stopped at the elevator.
When the lift arrived at the ground floor, a young couple got out holding hands, going out to dinner, no doubt. The guy was laughing at his own joke, the girl saying, “Funny. Yah. Good one, Brad.”
The woman smiled at young love, then got into the elevator alone. She was twenty minutes late, but if a thing was worth doing—and it was—it was worth waiting for. She checked out her reflection in the mirror on the back wall and adjusted her cap, playing with the ends of her newly brown-and-gold-streaked hair. Her brown contact lenses completed the look.
She liked it. She hoped he would.
The elevator bumped upward for several floors, then opened into a thickly carpeted hallway with watery light. There were only twelve rooms per floor, and she walked all the way to the end.
She scratched at the door with her nails, as if she were a cat; then she tore open the envelope she’d been given by the concierge and removed the key card.
She swiped the door lock with the card; the light turned green and the handle turned easily in her hand. She lingered in the open doorway for a moment, just watching him amid this lovely setting of woodsy colors and satisfying architectural lines. Then she closed the door.
He knew she was there, but he didn’t look up. He was sitting on a sofa in front of a coffee table, naked with a towel across his lap, and he was cleaning his gun.
Ali entered the room unbuttoning her swingy leather coat, dropping it on the half-moon-shaped ottoman at the foot of the bed. Then she took off everything else.
When she was wearing nothing but her heels, the man put the gun down. He stood up and took her into his arms.
He pulled her to him, swayed with her, kissed her neck, then took her by her shoulders and shook her.
“Why do you make me wait?” he said. “Why do you want me to worry?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll never do it again.”
PART TWO
CHAPTER 27
THAT EVENING, I parked the squad car next to my Explorer on Harriet Street under the overpass and headed out of the shadows. Claire had called, saying she had to see me right away. I was hungry, depressed, and worried sick on about six levels, but when Claire said she had to see me, I had to go.
I didn’t get far.
A BMW came squealing out of the dusk and braked in front of me. I had a thought that that BMW had been on my tail since I’d left the Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, but I couldn’t be sure. A man got out of the black car and walked directly toward me. He was Asian, thirties, had a wide face with a thin scar on his chin. He was wearing a black shirt and jeans.
“You police,” he said to me. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. How can I help you?”
“My son inside there.”
Relatives of WW 888 passengers had heard that the deceased would be brought here, but that was only partly right.
The ME’s office was the first port of call. But after it had filled to capacity, bodies were distributed to hospital morgues all over the city. When the hospitals ran out of room, the deceased had been stored in refrigerated vans parked inside a hangar at SFO.
There was no way the man standing this close to me with bunched fists could know the location of his son’s body.
I said, “I’m very sorry, sir. But the ME’s office is off-limits now. Please call this number,” I added, taking a card out of my jacket pocket and handing it to him. “Someone will let you know where to find your son and when you may claim his body.”
“You lie. This number all bullshit. I need to go inside and see him now,” he said.
I could see the four cops stationed along the breezeway that runs from the rear exit of the Hall of Justice past the ME’s office and out to the street. Could they see me?
I told the Asian man again that I was sorry and to please call the central number I had given him, but he was radiating fury, cursing me in his own language. I thought he was going to take a swing at me.
I was prepared to throw him to the ground and cuff him if he got physical, when Inspector Monty McAllister broke from the breezeway detail and came toward me. He was big. Very fit.
“You need assistance, Sergeant?” he asked as he let me pass through the cordon.
“Thanks, McAllister.”
“No problem.”
Three more men got out of the BMW and came toward us.
I kept walking. Claire was waiting for me at the ambulance bay. As I reached her, I heard shouts at my back: McAllister’s crew threatening to put the Asian men under arrest.
Claire reached out her arms to me and brought me inside. We held on to each other.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. “And I never want to see anything like this again.”
CHAPTER 28
IT WAS ABOUT 6 p.m. when I followed my best friend into the morgue and saw the double row of sheet-covered gurneys lining the stainless steel–clad room.
“I’ve got sixteen decedents here, all crash victims,” Claire said. “We’re officially full up, but we took on some overflow. Got six people in there,” she said, lifting her chin toward the autopsy suite.
“How are you holding up?”
“OK, considering that this is the most exhausting night of my life. Most of these victims don’t have ID. I’ve got a three-year-old with no name. Hope I can tag him tonight.”
Dr. Germaniuk, the seasoned on-call pathologist and Claire’s backup doc, was sliding a body into a drawer and three sweaty techs were cleaning up, setting up a body for her next autopsy.
Claire called out, “Dr. G. I’m gonna take a fifteen-minute break, OK?”
“Take twenty,” he said.
I followed Claire along the hallway to her office and she shut the door behind us. She took her desk chair and I dropped down hard into the seat across from her. Claire had made this room as homey as possible, meaning only passably.
A gardenia floated in a bowl of water on her desk, a few finger paintings were under the glass desktop, and framed photos hung on the wall behind Claire: her friends in the Women’s Murder Club and snapshots of her family. Her husband, Edmund. Her two grown-up sons. Her little girl, Rosie.
My eyes got stuck on the baby.
Claire’s eyes were on me. “Talk to me,” she said.
“Richie and I were tasked with escorting kids off school buses today,” I said. “The buses came up to a side entrance to Mills-Peninsula Medical. The parents were behind police lines and crazy with fear. They couldn’t do what they wanted to do, you know? They wanted to rush the buses.
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