by Rick Raphael
The moment the impellers of the Cadillaire fouled, Ben whipped Beulah to the left, angling for the outer railing of the lane. He fired all retrojets. Less than five miles ahead was the barrier that blocked the lane to allow traffic to be diverted around the cargo-passenger accident.
Ben. Clay and Kelly momentarily blacked out under the force of ten gees as Beulah lost speed. The cruiser dropped to her tracks and brakes added to the retrojet effect. Sliding like a mammoth on ice, Beulah shrieked to a stop less than a hundred feet from the barrier. The safety cocoons snapped open.
Before Ben could get the cruiser turned around and headed back to the stalled Cadillaire Clay was out of his bunk and in his seat in the cab. "What's up?" he asked.
"Speeder," Ben snapped, "probably drunk." He flicked to intercom.
"Kelly," he called, "you O.K.?"
"I'm fine," Kelly replied. "You need me, Ben?"
"Better be ready," he replied, "I think this one's a drunk and I want him tested right now if he is. Also, he might be off his rocker. Stand by, princess."
Ferguson was down the steps from the cab deck to the side hatch, waiting for Ben to bring the cruiser to a halt. His helmet was on and he had buckled a pistol belt around his blue uniform coveralls.
"Frisco Control, this is Car 56," Ben reported. "We got 'em but you better get a surfacing and vacuum cleanup crew out here. We had to 'stop cloud' him and we dug up a little road getting ourselves stopped."
"Madre de Dios," Car 911's patrolman broke in, "I theenk you never stop. I weel light candles to the Virgin for you, Five Seex."
Ben grinned at the Spanish accent. NorCom's officers were drawn from the three nations of the North American Thruway Compact, Mexico, the United States and Canada and the teams were intermingled from one end of the continent to the other.
"Gracias, amigo," he called back, "de nada."
Ben brought Beulah to a halt with her bow aimed at the Cadillaire. In the yellow glare of the headlight, a man was staggering around the front end of the vehicle, pawing at the soft mass of warm plastic molded to the front of the car. "Check the car, Clay," he called as he headed for the man on foot. One of the inviolate laws of the Thruway was that no one but a NorCom officer or worker ever stepped out of his or her vehicle on a Thruway without express permission of an officer, except in the case of fire or explosion. At speeds from one to five hundred miles an hour, a pedestrian's life expectancy could be measured in milliseconds.
Ferguson moved to the side of the car and flashed his light through the open driver's hatch. A woman sat in the front passenger seat and another couple were in the rear seat.
Ben approached the wavy-haired blond man at the front of the car.
"You the driver of this vehicle?" Ben asked.
The man spun around, a silly grin on his face. "In a manner of speaking, you might say that t' be more correct officer, I WAS the driver of this now-thoroughly fouled-up Caddy."
Ben eyed the man. The driver, dressed in a dinner jacket, pulled at his collar, knocking his tie askew. A jewel-studded watch flashed in the lights of the police cruiser as the man ran his hands through his hair.
"May I see your driver's permit, please?" Ben asked.
"Oh, come off it, officer," the man smiled and slumped against the front of the car. "We had a fine HP run there for a while and you won. Not fairly, but you won, nevertheless. Good show. But let's not get stuffy about it, eh?"
"I repeat," Ben said in a level tone, "show me your permit. This is a Thruway. I am a Patrol officer. You have violated the law. And this is no game."
The tall blond stared owlishly at Ben, a half-amused smile on his lips. "You really are going to try and be stuffy about this, aren't you?" he queried.
Ben's mouth tightened. "Kelly," he called over the helmet intercom.
"I've been listening, Ben," the medical-surgical officer replied. "Bring him in. I'm ready for him."
Ben reached for the man's arm. "If you'll just come with me, mister."
The man yanked his arm from Ben's grip. "I'll thank you to take your han's off me, officer. I'm no common criminal, nor do I intend to be treated like one. That's the trouble with you public servants. Give you a little authority and you think you can treat anyone like a public enemy." He straightened himself up with a dignified air that was marred by a sudden loss of balance that sent him stumbling into Ben's arms. "Sorry," he muttered. "Must be all this fresh air. Not used to it in such big doses."
Ben hauled the driver upright and turned him so that he was facing down the roadway in the direction of the harrier a mile away. He pointed towards the barrier and the traffic moving from the blue to the yellow lane.
"See that," Ben asked. The man nodded mutely. "Do you have any idea how fast you were traveling?"
The driver blinked and shrugged. "Oh, three fifty, may be four hundred. But I had perfect control, absolutely perfect control," he replied.
Ben snorted. "I don't know if you have any idea how long it takes for a vehicle to come to a complete stop from four hundred miles an hour. For your information, you were traveling much closer to six hundred than four hundred. In any case, five seconds more and you would have slammed through that barrier and killed yourself and everyone in your car. That's bad enough, but in all probability, you'd have taken along a half dozen innocent occupants in those other cars."
"This is the yellow lane," the driver cried indignantly. "They have no business moving slow as that in this lane."
"And if you had an iota of brains in your head," Ben retorted, "you'd have seen the signals ordering you off the yellow lane forty miles back and you'd have obeyed my orders to stop. Now come on."
He took the man by the arm and led him around to the rear of the cruiser where Kelly had lowered the ramp leading into the dispensary. Kelly was waiting beside the surgery table, hypo poised. Beside the table stood the cruiser's diagnostican. The compact device was capable of analyzing virtually all known human ailments and diagnosing every possible bodily injury. At the sight of the table and equipment, the blond man stopped and pulled back in Ben's grip.
"What's this ?" he demanded.
"We have to run a blood-alcohol test," Ben replied. "Now if you'll just lie down on —"
The young man began struggling. "Oh no you don't," he yelled. "I'm not going to be subject to this kind of treatment. You'll hear about —"
Kelly had moved to his side and with a deft movement, slipped his sleeve back. She pressed the hypogun briefly against the skin. The man slumped in Ben's arms.
"Get him on the table," Kelly ordered. Ben heaved the inert body onto the table and Kelly made the necessary attachments. A blood analyzer needle went into an arm vein and then Kelly punched a series of buttons. Inside the machine, muted clicks indicated the data was being punched onto tapes. One copy of the tape remained sealed in the machine until the end of patrol when it was opened by a reviewing board. Another copy spewed from the key-punch orifice.
Kelly read the tape. "Two point eight five seven," she said. "This guy's so drunk he should be dead." Ben nodded grimly. "Bring him around, Kelly."
She picked up another hypogun from a rack and sprayed it into the man's bared arm. In a moment his eyes flickered and then opened. He blinked and tried to sit up and then retched. Kelly slapped a pan under his chin a split second before he vomited.
When the spasm had passed, the man sat up. Ben looked at him with disgust.
"You want something for that hangover?" he asked. The man nodded. Kelly fired another hypo into his arm and seconds later his face brightened. He smiled at Kelly.
"Great stuff, that," he said. "Should keep Florence Nightingale with me on all parties."
"Now that you can think straight," Ben said, "let's get this on record. I'm Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin. You are in the dispensary of Thruway Patrol Car 56 and I now formally tell you that you are under arrest. I am charging you with driving while under the influence of alcohol, reckless driving, ignoring instructions of the Thruway-Authority
, ignoring the lawful orders of a Patrol officer and leaving the confines of your vehicle while on a Thruway. I further warn you that anything you say can be used in evidence against you in a court of law."
The man stared up at Ben in amazement. Suddenly he began to laugh.
"Why you really think you're going to arrest me," he said with a chuckle. He arose unsteadily from the table and grabbed for support. "This is quite ridiculous, you know, but I suppose it is my fault. You obviously don't know who I am."
"No, I don't," Ben admitted, "but that's what I've been asking you for the past ten minutes. Now may I see your driver's license, please?"
"By all means, officer," the blond man said with a pleasant and confident laugh, "by all means." He fished his wallet from a pocket and handed it to the patrolman.
"Please remove your license from the wallet. sir." Ben requested. The man stopped laughing and stared at Ben's craggy face for a moment, then slid the metallic driver tag from the wallet and handed it across.
"There you are, officer," he said. "Now you know. Kevin Shellwood. That's who I am."
Ben took the license and pulled his citation book from a pocket. He slipped the tag into a pocket of the citation book and unclipped a stylus from his top coverall pocket.
"Hey, wait a minute," the blond man protested. "Maybe you don't understand. I'm Kevin Shellwood." He peered at Ben's unmoved face. "Perhaps you've heard of my father. Quentin Shellwood? Shellwood Electronics? Chairman of the Continental Bank. President's right han' man? I'm his very own, lone and beloved son, tha's who I am."
Clay appeared at the door of the dispensary. "Ben, what do you want me to do with those other people in the car? They're pretty loaded."
"Be with you in a minute," Ben said, writing on the citation pad.
"Now hold on there, sergeant," Shellwood protested. "Perhaps I did get a little out of line, but there's no need for all this difficulty. Really there isn't." He fumbled with his wallet and withdrew a sheaf of bills and laid them on the surgery table.
"Now let's be reasonable about this little matter," he said. He pointed to the pile of bills. "There's at least six thousand there. Now I know you ladies and gentlemen are notoriously underpaid public servants. Risk your necks and all that sort of thing, very little to show for it. This would make better than two thousand apiece and if you'll just give me your names, when I get to L.A. I'll double it. In cash, of course."
The three crew members eyed Shellwood. The man moved forward with a confident smile. "I'll just pick up my things now and get out of your way, officer. The girls have enough cash to get us a cab to L.A. No hard feelings. old boy."
He stuck out his palm to shake Ben's hand. In the next instant a handcuff snapped on his wrist, he was spun around and the second cuff snapped on his other wrist behind his back.
Ben spun Shellwood back around. "Mr. Shellwood, I now further charge you with attempting to bribe three officers of the Thruway Patrol."
Sheliwood's face dissolved. "You're making a terrible mistake, officer," he cried. "You have no idea how bad a mistake you've made. You know you can't make this stick. And my father is a very vengeful man. This will mean your jobs, you know that, don't you?"
Ben ignored his protestations and frisked Shellwood, removing his belt, lighter, watch and necktie. In the presence of the other two crew members, he counted the cash, then put the entire contents of the wallet and Shell-wood's other possessions into a sealed plastic bag. He wrote a detailed receipt for the items and stuffed it into Shellwood coat pocket.
"Clay," Ben ordered, "take Mr. Shellwood forward and lock him up. Then meet me at the car and let's get this mess cleaned up."
Ferguson took the stunned Shellwood by the arm and led him out of the dispensary and around to the front of the cruiser. The trooper palmed a panel and a door opened in the bow. Inside were two fold-up bunks, a toilet and water tap. There was no handle on the inside of the door. A single light was recessed into the ceiling next to a small covered grill. Ferguson unlocked the cuffs and shoved Shellwood into the brig and slammed the door before the man could protest or turn around.
Clay walked back to the disabled Cadillaire where Ben was talking with the three occupants. "Now you just stay in there, Mr. Hawks, until we get this vehicle off the roadway. Then you and the ladies can leave. I'll see that you get transportation to the nearest 'phone. But don't get out of that car or I'll have to put you under arrest, too." "But what about Kevin?" the man in the back seat asked.
"Mr. Shellwood is under arrest," Ben replied, "and he'll have to remain in custody for the time being."
"Why that's utterly ridiculous, officer," the woman in the front seat protested. "You just don't arrest Kevin Shellwood like a common criminal. Why, he's a . . . a gntleman!"
Ben leaned down and looked intently at the woman. "M'am" he said quietly, "I have no doubt that Mr. Shell-wood's a gentleman. But Mr. Shellwood is also the gentle. man who in another five seconds would have killed you like a bug squashed against a windshield." He pointed to the barrier ahead.
The woman gasped and put her hand to her mouth, then lapsed into ashen-faced silence.
Ben walked around to the front of the car and jotted the license number on his citation pad. Before returning to the cruiser, he reached into the car and removed the car registration tab from its rack on the dash.
Back in Beulah's cab, he got on the radio.
"Frisco Control, this is Car 56. Send me one wrecker and permission for three passengers to ride wrecker to nearest off-road 'phone. Also, I have the driver in custody on `DWI' and assorted other goodies. Where shall I take him?"
"Car 56 this is Frisco Control. Wrecker on the way with O.K. for riders. Where does your driver reside?" Ben glanced at the license.
"1421 Claremont Drive, Malibu Beach, California," he replied.
"Have you checked for previous violations?" Frisco asked.
"Not yet."
"Check it out and then report back."
"Affirmative," Ben replied. He slipped the driver's license from his citation pad and inserted it into a slot in the cruiser's instrument panel. The vehicle registration tag went into an identical slot beside the first one. Then he pushed a button above each slot. A magnetic reader and auto-transmitter scanned the magnetic symbols implanted in the tags. The information was fed simultaneously to Continental Headquarters records division at Colorado Springs. There, computers compared the information on the driver permit with all previous citations ever issued by a NorCom unit. The vehicle regitration tag also was checked for validity.
A light above the registration slot flashed green, indicating the registration was in order. But the light above the permit slot turned amber, indicating a previous but minor violation.
Barring the current difficulties that Shellwood was in, had the registration light turned red, showing improper or illegal registration, he would have immediately been arrested. The driver permit light could only have been green or amber. Green would have meant no previous convictions. Had he had two such violations he would not have had a valid license. It would have been a forgery and brought equally quick arrest.
In this age of five-hundred-mile-an-hour speeds, leniency led only to death. NorCom courts, that acknowledged no state or national authority within the three nations of the compact, were absolute in their justice. One major violation and a driver was barred from the Thruways for life, possibly fined and jailed as well. Two minor violations brought the same result. If convicted, Kevin Shell-wood was through driving for life.
Ben called back to Frisco.
"He's got a previous minor," he reported.
"Take him on into L.A.," Frisco Control replied. "The fog's lifting now and you can make good time down the red lane. I'd take you off the board except for a really bad mess since you're almost at the end of your patrol anyway,"
"Thanks," Ben said with a touch of bitterness, "if we hurry, we might get him down there and through court before we have to pull out again. This shoots an
y rest period for us. By the way, this guy says he's a wheel and that we can't do this to him."
"They all say that," the Frisco controller laughed. "Who is he?"
"Kevin Shellwood," Ben replied.
"Shellwood Electronics?" the controller asked.
"The old man's son," Ben replied.
"He really IS somebody," Frisco replied. "You've bought yourself a bundle of trouble tonight. Lots o' luck." "Yeah," Ben replied thoughtfully, "thanks."
Ten minutes later the lights of a bulky NorCom wrecker cut down the police lane and swung to the left, guided by the flashing warning lights on Beulah. Clay watched with a grin as the two evening-gowned women and their well-lubricated escort gingerly stepped up into the hatchway of the wrecker. The wrecker's stern crane clamps swung out and locked onto the Cadillaire. The entire vehicle was lifted into the air and another magna-clamp slapped it tight against the rear of the wrecker. The vehicle swung around and headed back up the emergency lane.
Clay swung up into the cab and slid into his seat. Ben was still writing up his report. The galley door opened and Kelly came into the cab and plumped down on the jump seat between the two troopers.
