She poured him a cup and set it in the rack beside his seat.
"Thanks," Clay said. "Good night, Hiawatha."
"Good night, Babe," she replied.
"You mean 'Paul Bunyon,' don't you?" Clay asked. "'Babe' was his blue
ox."
"I know what I said," Kelly retorted and strolled back to the
dispensary. As she passed through the crew cubby, she glanced at Ben
sleeping on the bunk recently vacated by Ferguson. She paused and
carefully and gently pulled a blanket up over his sleeping form. She
smiled down at the trooper and then went softly to her compartment.
In the cab, Clay sipped at his coffee and kept watchful eyes on the
video monitors. Beulah was back on auto drive and Clay had dropped her
speed to a slow fifty as the traffic thinned.
At 0200 hours he left the cab long enough to go back and shake Ben
awake and was himself re-awakened at 0400 to take back control. He let
Ben sleep an extra hour before routing him out of the bunk again at
0700. The thin, gray light of the winter morning was just taking hold
when Ben came back into the cab. Clay had pulled Beulah off to the
service strip and was stopped while he finished transcribing his
scribbled notes from the 0700 Washington Criminal Control broadcast.
Ben ran his hand sleepily over his close-cropped head. "Anything
exciting?" he asked with a yawn. Clay shook his head. "Same old thing.
'All cars exercise special vigilance over illegal crossovers. Keep all
lanes within legal speed limits.' Same old noise."
"Anything new on our hit-runner?"
"Nope."
"Good morning, knights of the open road," Kelly said from the galley
door. "Obviously you both went to sleep after I left and allowed our
helpless citizens to slaughter each other."
"How do you figure that one?" Ben laughed.
"Oh, it's very simple," she replied. "I managed to get in a full seven
hours of sleep. When you sleep, I sleep. I slept. Ergo, you did
likewise."
"Nope," Clay said, "for once we had a really quiet night. Let's hope
the day is of like disposition."
Kelly began laying out the breakfast things. "You guys want eggs this
morning?"
"You gonna cook again today?" Clay inquired.
"Only breakfast," Kelly said. "You have the honors for the rest of the
day. The diner is now open and we're taking orders."
"I'll have mine over easy," Ben said. "Make mine sunny-up," Clay
called.
Kelly began breaking eggs into the pan, muttering to herself. "Over
easy, sunny-up, I like 'em scrambled. Next tour I take I'm going to
get on a team where everyone likes scrambled eggs."
A few minutes later, Beulah's crew sat down to breakfast. Ben had just
dipped into his egg yolk when the radio blared. "Attention all cars.
Special attention Cars 207, 56 and 82."
"Just once," Ben said, "just once, I want to sit down to a meal and
get it all down my gullet before that radio gives me indigestion." He
laid down his fork and reached for the message pad.
The radio broadcast continued. "A late model, white over green
Travelaire, containing two men and believed to be the subjects wanted
in earlier broadcast on murder, robbery and hit-run murder, was
involved in a service station robbery and murder at Vandalia,
Illinois, at approximately 0710 this date. NorCon Criminal Division
believes this subject car escaped filter check and left NAT 26-West
sometime during the night.
"Owner of this stolen vehicle states it had only half tanks of fuel at
the time it was taken. This would indicate wanted subjects stopped for
fuel. It is further believed they were recognized by the station
attendant from video bulletins sent out by this department last date
and that he was shot and killed to prevent giving alarm.
"The shots alerted residents of the area and the subject car was last
seen headed south. This vehicle may attempt to regain access to
NAT-26-West or it may take another thruway. All units are warned once
again to approach this vehicle with extreme caution and only with the
assistance of another unit where possible. Acknowledge. Washington
Criminal Control out."
Ben looked at the chrono. "They hit Vandalia at 0710, eh. Even in the
yellow they couldn't get this far for another half hour. Let's finish
breakfast. It may be a long time until lunch."
The crew returned to their meal. While Kelly was cleaning up after
breakfast, Clay ran the quick morning engine room check. In the cab,
Ben opened the arms rack and brought out two machine pistols and
belts. He checked them for loads and laid one on Clay's control seat.
He strapped the other around his waist. Then he flipped up a cover in
the front panel of the cab. It exposed the breech mechanisms of a
pair of twin-mounted 25 mm auto-cannon. The ammunition loads were
full. Satisfied, Ben shut the inspection port and climbed into his
seat. Clay came forward, saw the machine pistol on his seat and
strapped it on without a word. He settled himself in his seat. "Engine
room check is all green. Let's go rabbit hunting."
Car 56 moved slowly out into the police lane. Both troopers had their
individual sets of video monitors on in front of their seats and were
watching them intently. In the growing light of day, a white-topped
car was going to be easy to spot.
* * * * *
It had all the earmarks of being another wintery, overcast day. The
outside temperature at 0800 was right on the twenty-nine-degree mark
and the threat of more snow remained in the air. The 0800 density
reports from St. Louis Control were below the 14,000 mark in all lanes
in the one-hundred-mile block west of the city. That was to be
expected. They listened to the eastbound densities peaking at
twenty-six thousand vehicles in the same block, all heading into the
metropolis and their jobs. The 0800, 1200 and 1600 hours density
reports also carried the weather forecasts for a five-hundred-mile
radius from the broadcasting control point. Decreasing temperatures
with light to moderate snow was in the works for Car 56 for the first
couple of hundred miles west of St. Louis, turning to almost blizzard
conditions in central Kansas. Extra units had already been put into
service on all thruways through the midwest and snow-burners were
waging a losing battle from Wichita west to the Rockies around
Alamosa, Colorado.
Outside the temperature was below freezing; inside the patrol car it
was a comfortable sixty-eight degrees. Kelly had cleared the galley
and taken her place on the jump seat between the two troopers. With
all three of them in the cab, Ben cut from the intercom to commercial
broadcast to catch the early morning newscasts and some pleasant
music. The patrol vehicle glided along at a leisurely sixty miles an
hour. An hour out of St. Louis, a big liquid cargo carrier was stopped
on the inner edge of the green lane against the divider to the police
lane. The trucker had dropped both warning barriers and lights a half
mile back. Ben brought Beulah to a halt across the divider from the
stopped carrier. "Dropped a track pin," the driver called out to the
officers.
Ben backed Beulah across the divider behind the stalled carrier to
give them protection while they tried to assist the stalled vehicle.
Donning work helmets to maintain contact with the patrol car, and its
remote radio system, the two troopers dismounted and went to see what
needed fixing. Kelly drifted back to the dispensary and stretched out
on one of the hospital bunks and picked up a new novel.
Beulah's well-equipped machine shop stock room produced a matching
pin and it was merely a matter of lifting the stalled carrier and
driving it into place in the track assembly. Ben brought the patrol
car alongside the carrier and unshipped the crane. Twenty minutes
later, Clay and the carrier driver had the new part installed and the
tanker was on his way once again.
Clay climbed into the cab and surveyed his grease-stained uniform
coveralls and filthy hands. "Your nose is smudged, too, dearie,"
Martin observed.
Clay grinned, "I'm going to shower and change clothes. Try and see if
you can drive this thing until I get back without increasing the
pedestrian fatality rate." He ducked back into the crew cubby and
stripped his coveralls.
Bored with her book, Kelly wandered back to the cab and took Clay's
vacant control seat. The snow had started falling again and in the
mid-morning light it tended to soften the harsh, utilitarian landscape
of the broad thruway stretching ahead to infinity and spreading out in
a mile of speeding traffic on either hand.
"Attention all cars on NAT 26-West and east," Washington Criminal
Control radio blared. "Special attention Cars 56 and 82. Suspect
vehicle, white over green Travelaire reported re-entered NAT 26-West
on St. Louis interchange 179. St. Louis Control reports communications
difficulty in delayed report. Vehicle now believed...."
"Car 56, Car 56," St. Louis Control broke in. "Our pigeon is in your
zone. Commercial carrier reports near miss sideswipe three minutes ago
in blue lane approximately three miles west of mile Marker 957.
"Repeating. Car 56, suspect car...."
Ben glanced at the radiodometer. It read 969, then clicked to 970.
"This is Five Six, St. Louis," he broke in, "acknowledged. Our
position is mile marker 970...."
Kelly had been glued to the video monitors since the first of the
bulletin. Suddenly she screamed and banged Ben on the shoulder. "There
they are. There they are," she cried, pointing at the blue lane
monitor.
Martin took one look at the white-topped car cutting through traffic
in the blue lane and slammed Beulah into high. The safety cocoons
slammed shut almost on the first notes of the bull horn. Trapped in
the shower, Clay was locked into the stall dripping wet as the water
automatically shut off with the movement of the cocoon.
* * * * *
"I have them in sight," Ben reported, as the patrol car lifted on its
air pad and leaped forward. "They're in the blue five miles ahead of
me and cutting over to the yellow. I estimate their speed at two
twenty-five. I am in pursuit."
Traffic gave way as Car 56 hurtled the divider into the blue.
The radio continued to snap orders.
"Cars 112, 206, 76 and 93 establish roadblocks at mile marker
crossover 1032. Car 82 divert all blue and yellow to green and
white."
Eight Two was one hundred fifty miles ahead but at
three-hundred-mile-an-hour speeds, 82's team was very much a part of
the operation. This would clear the two high-speed lanes if the
suspect car hadn't been caught sooner.
"Cars 414, 227 and 290 in NAT-26-East, move into the yellow to cover
in case our pigeon decides to fly the median." The controller
continued to move cars into covering positions in the area on all
crossovers and turnoffs. The sweating dispatcher looked at his lighted
map board and mentally cursed the lack of enough units to cover every
exit. State and local authorities already had been notified in the
event the fugitives left the thruways and tried to escape on a state
freeway.
In Car 56, Ben kept the patrol car roaring down the blue lane through
the speeding westbound traffic. The standard emergency signal was
doing a partial job of clearing the path, but at those speeds, driver
reaction times weren't always fast enough. Ahead, the fleeing suspect
car brushed against a light sedan, sending it careening and rocking
across the lane. The driver fought for control as it swerved and
screeched on its tilting frame. He brought it to a halt amid a haze of
blue smoke from burning brakes and bent metal. The white over green
Travelaire never slowed, fighting its way out of the blue into the
ultra-high yellow and lighter traffic. Ben kept Beulah in bulldog
pursuit.
The sideswipe ahead had sent other cars veering in panic and a cluster
inadvertently bunched up in the path of the roaring patrol car. Like a
flock of hawk-frightened chickens, they tried to scatter as they saw
and heard the massive police vehicle bearing down on them. But like
chickens, they couldn't decide which way to run. It was a matter of
five or six seconds before they parted enough to let the patrol car
through. Ben had no choice but to cut the throttle and punch once on
the retrojets to brake the hurtling patrol car. The momentary drops in
speed unlocked the safety cocoons and in an instant, Clay had leaped
from the shower stall and sped to the cab. Hearing, rather than seeing
his partner, Martin snapped over his shoulder, "Unrack the rifles.
That's the car." Clay reached for the gun rack at the rear of the cab.
Kelly took one look at the young trooper and jumped for the doorway to
the galley. A second later she was back. Without a word, she handed
the nude Ferguson a dangling pair of uniform coveralls. Clay gasped,
dropped the rifles and grabbed the coveralls from her hand and
clutched them to his figure. His face was beet-red. Still without
speaking, Kelly turned and ran back to her dispensary to be ready for
the next acceleration.
Clay was into the coveralls and in his seat almost at the instant
Martin whipped the patrol car through the hole in the blue traffic and
shoved her into high once more.
There was no question about the fact that the occupants of the
fugitive car knew they were being pursued. They shot through the
crossover into the yellow lane and now were hurtling down the thruway
close to the four-hundred-mile-an-hour mark.
Martin had Beulah riding just under three hundred to make the
crossover, still ten miles behind the suspect car and following on
video monitor. The air still crackled with commands as St. Louis and
Washington Control maneuvered other cars into position as the pursuit
went westward past other units blocking exit routes.
Clay read aloud the radiodometer numerals as they clicked off a mile
every nine seconds. Car 56 roared into the yellow and the instant Ben
had it straightened out, he slammed all finger throttles to full
power. Beulah snapped forward and even at three hundred miles an hour,
the sudden acceleration pasted the car's crew against the back of
their cushioned seats. The patrol car shot forward at more than five
hundred miles an hour.
The image of the Travelaire grew on the video monitor and then the two
troopers had it in actual sight, a white, racing dot on the broad
avenue of the thruway six miles ahead.
Clay triggered the controls for the forward bow cannon and a panel box
flashed to "ready fire" signal.
"Negative," Martin ordered. "We're coming up on the roadblock. You
might miss and hit one of our cars."
"Car 56 to Control," the senior trooper called. "Watch out at the
roadblock. He's doing at least five hundred in the yellow and he'll
never be able to stop."
Two hundred miles east, the St. Louis controller made a snap decision.
"Abandon roadblock. Roadblock cars start west. Maintain two hundred
until subject comes into monitor view. Car 56, continue speed
estimates of subject car. Maybe we can box him in."
At the roadblock forty-five miles ahead of the speeding fugitives and
their relentless pursuer, the four patrol cars pivoted and spread out
across the roadway some five hundred feet apart. They lunged forward
and lifted up to air-cushion jet drive at just over two hundred miles
an hour. Eight pairs of eyes were fixed on video monitors set for the
ten-mile block to the rear of the four vehicles.
Beulah's indicated ground speed now edged towards the five hundred
fifty mark, close to the maximum speeds the vehicles could attain.
The gap continued to close, but more slowly. "He's firing hotter," Ben
called out. "Estimating five thirty on subject vehicle."
Now Car 56 was about three miles astern and still the gap closed. The
fugitive car flashed past the site of the abandoned roadblock and
fifteen seconds later all four patrol cars racing ahead of the
Travelaire broke into almost simultaneous reports of "Here he comes."
A second later, Clay Ferguson yelled out, "There he goes. He's
boondocking, he's boondocking."
"He has you spotted," Martin broke in. "He's heading for the median.
Cut, cut, cut. Get out in there ahead of him."
The driver of the fugitive car had seen the bulk of the four big
patrol cruisers outlined against the slight rise in the thruway almost
at the instant he flashed onto their screens ten miles behind them. He
broke speed, rocked wildly from side to side, fighting for control and
then cut diagonally to the left, heading for the outer edge of the
thruway and the unpaved, half-mile-wide strip of landscaped earth that
separated the east and westbound segments of NAT-26.
The white and green car was still riding on its airpad when it hit the
low, rounded curbing at the edge of the thruway. It hurtled into the
air and sailed for a hundred feet across the gently-sloping
snow-covered grass, came smashing down in a thick hedgerow of
bushes--and kept going.
Car 56 slowed and headed for the curbing. "Watch it, kids," Ben
snapped over the intercom, "we may be buying a plot in a second."
Still traveling more than five hundred miles an hour, the huge patrol
car hit the curbing and bounced into the air like a rocket boosted
elephant. It tilted and smashed its nose in a slanting blow into the
snow-covered ground. The sound of smashing and breaking equipment
mingled with the roar of the thundering jets, tracks and air drives as
the car fought its way back to level travel. It surged forward and
smashed through the hedgerow and plunged down the sloping snowbank
after the fleeing car.
"Clay," Ben called in a strained voice, "take 'er."
Ferguson's fingers were already in position. "You all right, Ben?" he
asked anxiously.
"Think I dislocated a neck vertebra," Ben replied. "I can't move my
head. Go get 'em, kid."
"Try not to move your head at all, Ben," Kelly called from her cocoon
in the dispensary. "I'll be there the minute we slow down."
A half mile ahead, the fugitive car plowed along the bottom of the
gentle draw in a cloud of snow, trying to fight its way up the
opposite slope and onto the eastbound thruway.
But the Travelaire was never designed for driving on anything but a
modern superhighway. Car 56 slammed through the snow and down to the
bottom of the draw. A quarter of a mile ahead of the fugitives, the
first of the four roadblock units came plowing over the rise.
The car speed dropped quickly to under a hundred and the cocoons were
again retracted. Ben slumped forward in his seat and caught himself.
He eased back with a gasp of pain, his head held rigidly straight.
Almost the instant he started to straighten up, Kelly flung herself
through the cab door. She clasped his forehead and held his head
against the back of the control seat.
Suddenly, the fugitive car spun sideways, bogged in the wet snow and
muddy ground beneath and stopped. Clay bore down on it and was about
two hundred yards away when the canopy of the other vehicle popped
open and a sheet of automatic weapons fire raked the patrol car. Only
the low angle of the sedan and the nearness of the bulky patrol car
saved the troopers. Explosive bullets smashed into the patrol car
canopy and sent shards of plastiglass showering down on the trio.
An instant later, the bow cannon on the first of the cut-off patrol
units opened fire. An ugly, yellow-red blossom of smoke and fire
erupted from the front of the Travelaire and it burst into flames. A
second later, the figure of a man staggered out of the burning car,
clothes and hair aflame. He took four plunging steps and then fell
face down in the snow. The car burning and crackled and a thick
funereal pyre of oily, black smoke billowed into the gray sky. It was
snowing heavily now, and before the troopers could dismount and plow
to the fallen man, a thin layer of snow covered his burned body.
* * * * *
An hour later, Car 56 was again on NAT 26-West, this time heading for
Wichita barracks and needed repairs. In the dispensary, Ben Martin was
stretched out on a hospital bunk with a traction brace around his neck
and a copper-haired medical-surgical patrolwoman fussing over him.
In the cab, Clay peered through the now almost-blinding blizzard that
whirled and skirled thick snow across the thruway. Traffic densities
were virtually zero despite the efforts of the dragonlike snow-burners
trying to keep the roadways clear. The young trooper shivered despite
the heavy jacket over his coveralls. Wind whistled through the shell
holes in Beulah's canopy and snow sifted and drifted against the back
bulkhead.
The cab communications system had been smashed by the gunfire and Clay
wore his work helmet both for communications and warmth.
The door to the galley cracked open and Kelly stuck her head in. "How
much farther, Clay?" she asked.
"We should be in the barracks in about twenty minutes," the shivering
trooper replied.
"I'll fix you a cup of hot coffee," Kelly said. "You look like you
need it."
Over the helmet intercom Clay heard her shoving things around in the
galley. "My heavens, but this place is a mess," she exclaimed. "I
can't even find the coffee bin. That steeplechase driving has got to
stop." She paused.
"Clay," she called out, "Have you been drinking in here? It smells
like a brewery."
Clay raised mournful eyes to the shattered canopy above him. "My
cooking wine" he sighed.
[Illustration]