John Varley: Millennium

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Bill."

"That's okay, Gordy." He wanted us to call him Gordy.

"I was just talking to Roger. We have a very bad one in California. Since it's so late and the accident is so big, we've decided not to wait for available transport. The JetStar is waiting for the go-team to assemble. I'm hoping it can take off within an hour. If you -- "

"How big, Gordy? Chicago? Everglades? San Diego?"

He sounded apologetic. That can happen. Breaking really bad news, you can feel that somehow you're responsible for it.

"It could be bigger than Canary Islands," he said.

Part of me resented this new guy speaking to me in agency shorthand, while the rest of me was trying to digest an accident bigger than Tenerife.

Outsiders might think we're talking about places when we mention Chicago, Paris, Everglades, and so forth. We're not. Chicago is a DC-10 losing an engine on take-off, killing all aboard. Everglades was an L-1011, a survivor crash, bellying into the swamp while the crew was troubleshooting a nose-gear light. San Diego was a big, grinning PSA 727 getting tangled up with a Cessna in Indian Country -- the low elevations swarming with Navajos, Cherokees, and Piper Cubs. And Canary Islands ...

In 1978, at the Tenerife Airport, Canary islands, an unthinkable thing happened. A fully-

fueled, loaded Boeing 747 began its take-off while another 747 was still on the runway ahead of it, invisible in thick fog. The two planes collided and burned on the ground, as if they'd been lumbering city buses in rush-hour traffic instead of sleek, lovely, sophisticated flying machines.

It was, or had been until I got the phone call, the worst disaster in the history of aviation.

"Where in California, Gordy?"

"Oakland, east of Oakland, in the hills."

"Who was involved?"

"A Pan Am 747 and a United DC-10."

"Mid-air?"

"Yes. Both planes fully loaded. I don't have any definite numbers yet -- "

"Don't worry about it. I think I've got all I need right now. I'll meet you at the airport in about -- "

"I'll be taking a morning flight out of Dulles," he said. "Mr Ryan suggested I remain here a few more hours to coordinate the public affairs side of things while -- "

"Sure, sure. Okay. See you around noon."

I was out of the house no more than twenty minutes after I hung up. In that time I had shaved, dressed, packed, and had a cup of coffee and a Swanson's breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage. It was a source of some pride to me that I had never done it faster, even before the divorce.

The secret is preparation, establishing habits and never varying from them. You plan your moves, do what you can beforehand, and when the call comes in you're ready.

So I showered in the downstairs bath instead of the one by the master bedroom, because that took me through the kitchen where I could punch the pre-programmed button on the microwave and flip the switch on the Mr Coffee, both of which had been loaded the night before, drunk or sober. Out of the shower, electric razor in hand, I ate standing up while I shaved, then carried the razor upstairs and tossed it into the suitcase, which already was full of underwear, shirts, pants, and toiletries. It was only at that point I had to make my first decisions of the day, based on where I was going. I have been sent on short notice to the Mojave Desert and to Mount Erebus, in Antarctica. Obviously you bring different clothes.

The big yellow poncho was already packed; you always prepare for rain at a crash site. The Oakland hills in December presented no big challenges.

Close and lock the suitcase, pick up the stack of papers on the desk and shove them in the smaller case which held the items I always had ready for a go-team call: camera, lots of film, notebook, magnifying glass, flashlight and fresh batteries, tape recorder, cassettes, calculator, compass. Then down the stairs again, pour a second cup of coffee and carry everything through the door to the garage -- left open the night before -- hit the garage-door button with my elbow on the way out, kick the door shut and locked behind me, toss the suitcase and briefcase into the open trunk, hop in the car, back out, hit the button on the Genie garage-door picker-upper and watch to make sure it closes all the way.

Aside from picking a few items of clothes, it was all automatic. I didn't have to think again until I was on Connecticut Avenue, driving south. The house was all battened down because I kept it that way. Thank God I didn't have a dog. Anyway, Sam Horowitz next door would keep an eye on the place for me when he read about the crash in tomorrow's Post.

All in all, I felt I had adjusted pretty well to bachelor living.

I live out in Kensington, Maryland. The house is way too big for me, since the divorce, and it costs a lot to heat, but I can't seem to leave it. I could have moved into the city, but I hate apartment living.

I took the Beltway in to National. That time of night Connecticut Avenue is almost deserted, but the lights slow you down. You'd think the Investigator In Charge of a National Transportation Safety Board Go-Team on his way to the biggest aviation disaster in history would have a red light he could mount on top of his car and just zip through the intersections.

Sad to say, the D.C. police would take a dim view of that.

Most of the team lived in Virginia and would get to the airport before me, whatever route I took. But the plane wouldn't leave without me.

I hate National Airport. It's an affront to everything the NTSB stands for. A few years back, when the news of the Air Florida hitting the 14th Street bridge first came in, a couple of us hoped (but not out loud) we might finally be able to shut it down It didn't turn out that way, but I still hoped.

As it was, National was just too damn convenient. To most Washingtonians, Dulles International might as well be in Dakota. As for Baltimore ...

Even the Board bases its planes at National. We have a few, the biggest being a Lockheed JetStar that can take us anywhere in the continental U.S. without refueling. Normally we take commercial flights, but that doesn't always work. This time it was too early in the morning to find enough seats going west. There was also the possibility, if this really was as big as Gordy said, that a second team would follow us as soon as the sun came up. We might have to treat this as two crashes.

Everybody but George Sheppard was already there by the time I boarded the JetStar. Tom Stanley had been in contact with Gordy Petcher. While I stowed my gear Tom filled me in on the things Petcher either had not known or could not bring himself to tell me when we talked.

No survivors. We didn't have an exact count yet from either airline, but it was sure to be over six hundred dead.

It had happened at five thousand feet. The DC-10 had gone almost straight down. The 747 flew a little, but the end result was the same. The Ten was not far from a major highway; local police and fire units were at the scene. The Pan Am Boeing was up in the hills somewhere. Rescue workers had reached it, but the only word back was that there were no survivors.

Roger Keane, the head of the NTSB field office in Los Angeles, was still on his way to the Bay Area and should be landing soon. Roger had been in contact with the Contra Costa and Alameda County Sheriff's offices, advising them on crash site procedures.

"Who's running the show at LAX?" I asked.

"His name's Kevin Briley," said Tom. "I don't know him. Do you?"

"I think I shook his hand once. I'll feel better when Rog Keane gets to the site."

"Briley said he was told to grab the next flight to Oakland and meet us there. He'll be in L.A. a little bit longer, if you want to talk to him."

I glanced at my watch.

"In a minute. Where's George?"