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Briley came up to me as everybody was shuffling out, looking like he had bad news. I let him off easy.

"I already know," I told him. "Gordy didn't make the evening flight. He'll show up in the morning. I heard he held a press conference in Washington."

"That's what I was told."

"It must have been a cute one. I haven't talked with him, so I wonder what he told them?"

"That the situation was well in hand, I gather. Just like you're going to have to do in about twenty minutes."

I groaned, but I was already resigned to it. The press had been promised a conference. All it would really be, to my way of thinking, was what they call a "photo opportunity." They'd have footage of me to put on the late news. There was certainly damn little I could tell them.

I hate inefficiency. You'd have to look a long, long ways before you found a better example of it than the press conference.

The duplication of effort is enough to make you break down and cry. Is it really necessary for the evening Eyewash News in Kankakee, Illinois, to send a cameraman to cover an airline disaster in California? And it's not just television, though every major station in the seven surrounding states had a camera there. All the newspapers were there, too. Reporters from India and Japan and England and, for all I know, Bali, the Maldive Islands, and Kampuchea. There were the magazine reporters and the columnists. There must have been a hundred just from the aviation journals. There were scientists from every university in the state. There were the nonfiction authors who specialise in quickie news books, and concept people whose job it is to swarm around Patty Hearst or Gary Gilmore or anybody and anything that captures the country's attention for a few days and assign pimp writers and pimp producers to write cash-

in books and make cash-in television movies. They are the packagers of disaster. In a couple of months we'd be seeing the results of their efforts: "The Last Seconds of Flight 35" and "Collision!" and "Mount Diablo" and "Crash of the Jumbos."

I wondered who they'd get to play Bill Smith.

I'd have been tickled pink if all they wanted to do was stand in front of wreckage in the middle of the night in mud up to their knees, hold mikes up to their faces, and look solemn.

But they wanted to talk to me, and all I'd ever wanted to know was why? There was no story from me. They knew that as well as I did, but they had to have a circus, anyway.

So I stood up there in front of a forest of microphones and squinted into the lights and cursed C. Gordon Petcher, who should have had this job. If he wasn't good for this, what was he good for? I started out with the standard statement that there'd be no comment about facts still under investigation. Then I gave them the things we knew, which they all knew already. It was just a dry recital of where the planes came from, where they were bound, the time of impact, the location of the sites. I told them how many passengers and crew had been on each plane (we'd finally gotten those figures: 637 total), that there were ten missing and probably dead on the ground, and seven injuries on the ground, all hit by the DC-10. Names of the dead were being withheld pending notification ... Well, you fill it in. You've heard it on the evening news.

Causes of the crash were still under investigation.

Questions, anyone? Well, my God, don't everyone shout at once.

"Mr Smith, was everyone on the basketball team killed?"

That was the first I'd, heard of a basketball team. It turned out some collegiate team was on the 747. I told the reporter that if they were on the plane, they were certainly dead, as there had been no, repeat no, survivors. How many times would I have to say that? "What about Senator Gray?"

"Was he on one of the planes?"

"That's our information."

"I can't confirm or deny that. If he was on it, he's dead."

"I'm talking about State Senator Eleanor Gray."

"Okay. It's not my department. The list will be released when identities are confirmed.

Next question."

They asked me about ground control and about pilot error. No comment. They wanted to know about radar transponders. No comment. Are you talking to a man by the name of Donald Janz? No comment. Was there a computer failure? We don't know. No comment. I couldn't say. That's under investigation. We're looking into it. Not to my knowledge. The investigation is continuing.

What they did was turn me into one of those squirming public officials you see on the news or on "60 Minutes" who don't commit themselves on whether or not this is the month of December. I get as burned about them as you do, and I don't appreciate being made to look like that. But, you know, sometimes when Mike Wallace asks somebody a question and he says, "That's still in litigation" or words to that effect, he's not covering up anything. He can't talk. It wouldn't be proper. Any public pronouncements I made at that conference could damage innocent parties.

We waltzed around like that for almost an hour.

There was only one thing about the conference that was worth remembering. It came toward the end, when most of a serious organizations had given up and only the crackpots remained. The TV cameras, of course, had started leaving after they had five minutes of film.

This one fellow stood up and I could tell right off he thought he was Ralph Nader.

"Mister Smith, I represent the Air-Line Passengers Organization."

I couldn't resist it.

"A.L.P.O.? You're the man from ALPO?"

It got a good laugh. In fact, I think I was responsible for that group changing its name.

He asked his question, red-faced, and I brushed it off. Surely there had to be a few more people here I could insult without fearing reprisals. I looked around, hoping to pick out the man from the National Enquirer.

What I got instead was a dignified, white-haired gentleman, a little portly, a bit old-

fashioned in his dress. His hair was unruly, but it was the only thing about him that wasn't neat. He stood out in that audience.

"Mister Smith, I am Arnold Mayer. My question has nothing to do with overloaded computers or negligent air-traffic controllers."

"That would be a relief."

"I doubt it. I'd like to know what unusual facts you have developed so far in your investigation."

"I'm afraid I can't comment on ... " I stopped, thinking about all those watches. Not that I was about to tell him about them.

"That's about as broad a question as I've ever heard, Mr Mayer."

The old fellow gave me a wry smile, ducking his head quickly. I'd already decided this was going to be the last question of the night, and I wondered if I could finish with something that didn't make me out as such a bastard.

"If you could be a little more specific," I prompted.

Again he shrugged.

"If l knew how to describe the facts they wouldn't be unusual. Have you found any unusual item associated with the crash? Were there any unexplained observations? Is there any indication that this crash was caused by something less obvious than a computer overload?"

"Without in any way endorsing that computer overload hypothesis, I can say that, no, there has been nothing unexplained thus far." That's right. Lie, you wonderful public servant, you. "Of course, every crash is unique, and -- "

" -- yet they share common factors. There are things you expect to find, and things you don't. I've heard, for instance, that the cockpit voice recording -- or CVR as you people refer to it contains something a little out of the ordinary."

So something had leaked. I can't say I was surprised. Things always do. I was a little taken aback that the leak had come to this old guy and not the people from CBS or Time magazine.

"I can't comment on that until the CVR has been processed and analyzed. Since you seem to know so much about our workings, you know that will take about two weeks. Then the relevant portions will be released and you can listen yourself."