by Rick Raphael
Ahead, the last of the earlier accident debris had been cleaned up and traffic once again was moving along the blue. Car 911 rolled across the median and alongside Beulah. The senior trooper flicked the car-to-car radio.
"Real nice work, Ben," he said. "That could have been a mess if you hadn't corraled them before they hit the barrier."
The younger Mexican trooper cut in. "I think maybe you ride rodeo sometime, amigo," he said, "like, what you call it - bulldozering!"
Ben smiled. "More like calf-roping. Well, we've got our calf thrown and tied. Trouble is, that now this little calf is beginning to look more like a tiger cub."
"So I heard," 911's senior officer said. "Sorry it had to be one of those but if there's any question, we'll back you to the limit."
Ben waved. "Thanks. I think we'll roll it now. Will you take a look at that roadway where we stopped? I was serious when I told Frisco it might be torn up a bit. If it is, better get a surfacing crew on it tonight."
"Right," the other officer replied. "We'll handle it. And thanks again."
The other cruiser pulled away and rolled slowly to the scene of Beulah's gut-rending halt. As Clay put Beulah in motion he saw the side hatch open and one of the 911's officers start an inspection of the paving surface. Even light corrugations could cause serious problems to vehicles traveling in excess of three hundred miles an hour.
Clay angled Car 56 back to the center police lane and again headed south. Ben completed his report and laid his clipboard down. Clay had the cruiser rolling just over a hundred.
"Kick 'er in the pants, kid," Ben said, "but keep her in track speed."
Clay pressed the foot feed and Beulah lunged up to 190. He eased back on the acceleration and held the car at 195, just under the speed where the synchrosystem would cut in the fans and jets—and would require safety cocoon driving.
The copper-haired medical officer looked at Martin. "What happens now, Ben?"
Ben settled back and fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and passed them to her. When they had lighted up, he smoked thoughtfully for a couple of minutes before answering.
"We take our boy into L.A.," he said, "turn him over to the prosecutor and from then on it's out of our hands."
Kelly hunched forward on the jump seat, chin in hands and peered into the dark of the Thruway.
"I hope it's that easy," she murmured. "I just hope it's that easy."
They were out of the Bay area fog belt and traffic had reopened on all lanes. Beulah rumbled along at a steady 195, moving faster than the white and green lane flow but still under the thundering speeds of the blue and yellow lanes to the left. The radiometer clicked off better than three miles every minute and at fifty-mile intervals, the cruiser flashed under arching crossovers that carried traffic across the police lane from green to blue and back. The radio chattered with instructions for other patrol units along the Thruway. Just north of Bakersfield, Beulah rolled past another cruiser, idling along on patrol at a mere hundred miles an hour. Normally, one car never passed another without specific leap-frog orders from Control. But Car 56 was officially off the Patrol board, barring major emergency. Dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern skies and already densities were building up for the work day in the sprawling metropolis of the Southland. At mileage marker 3300 control shifted from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Controller came on the air at 0400 with the density reports for all Thruways leading into the nation's largest city.
Kelly went back to her dispensary for another couple of hours sleep, first stopping in the galley to put a fresh pot of coffee on the range for the two troopers.
Ben had taken over controls and Clay pored over the Patrol records, making final entries and notations for the engineering crews that would take Beulah for a checkup at the Los Angeles Barracks.
Suddenly the floor beneath their feet resounded to a pounding from the brig. Clay swung over and lifted the hatch that covered the grill in the ceiling of the detention cell. Kevin Shellwood peered up at them.
"Is the condemned prisoner allowed to have a final cigarette before the execution?" Shellwood asked.
Clay pulled out his pack and lighted a cigarette and then handed it down through the grill to the prisoner. "Comfy down there?" he asked.
Shellwood dragged gratefully on the cigarette. "Oh, it's delightful, just delightful," he said. "Although I can't say much for your taste in interior decorating. How about sending the hostess up to keep me company? Now that's one bit of decoration on this tub that I really approve of."
"Sorry," Clay quipped, "the hostess doesn't mingle with steerage passengers. Next time, travel first-class. Come to think of it, the only traveling you'll be doing from now on is as a passenger."
He started to close the hatch. "Wait," Shellwood cried. "You two still determined to take me in?"
Ben glanced down to the open hatch. "We have no choice, Shellwood. I'm sorry."
Shellwood shrugged. "Oh well, have your fun now. I'll have mine when we get to your headquarters. Thanks for the cigarette. I may be able to do the same for you in a day or so."
Clay slammed the hatch. "I'd like to put my foot right through his smug face," he growled. "That kid is due for a big surprise when he shows up in court."
"Don't let him get you," Ben said. "His kind have always existed. They think that money and influence is the answer to everything and that laws are made for everyone else but themselves.
"As far as traffic laws are concerned, I guess before the Thruways, a man with enough money and power could buy his way out of jams. Every state had different traffic laws and you had a thousand different enforcement agencies, from town constables to individual state troopers. The worst part though, wasn't in the enforcement of the law—it was in the administration."
"How so?" Clay inquired.
"Well, you get the same thing today off the thruways and on state highways where we have no jurisdiction,"
Ben replied. "No matter how diligent a cop is about enforcing the law, in the final analysis it's up to the judge to determine the degree of punishment. And with all kinds of pressures on local judges and each with his own interpretation of what the law means, a driver charged with reckless operation in one state could get off with a twenty-five dollar fine and suspended sentence and lose his license and get socked a couple of hundred bucks in the next state. And probably pull thirty days in j ail.
"The same thing applies depending on who the defendant might be. A judge who lives in a community and is either elected to office or appointed at the pleasure of the current administration sometimes thinks twice before he throws the book at the mayor's son. But he doesn't have a bit of compunction about throwing the same book for the same charge under identical conditions at some poor slob who hauls garbage for a living."
Even though Car 56 was officially off patrol, force of habit kept Clay's eyes flicking to the monitor screens in front of him. All lanes were filling fast in the early summer dawn and already it was light enough to make out the shapes of the speeding passenger cars and cargo carriers. Most of the traffic now was passenger vehicles heading into the heart of the city to places of work. The big rigs did their traveling at night to hit the early morning dock loadings and there was just a scattering of trucks in the green and blue lanes.
He made an adjustment on his blue monitor to throw it into the block ahead and sat back. "One thing I remember from the academy," he mused, "was that no NorCom judge shall sit in judgment if he has had less than ten years of actual Patrol duty. That makes real sense, when you think about it. A guy who has had to help scrape some citizen off the side of a cargo carrier, has no illusions about the safety of the road when an idiot gets turned loose behind a Control column."
"That was the main purpose in setting up the NorCom courts," Ben said. "We have no political allegiances to either state or country; our appointments are for life or unless we're fired for real cause, or resign.
"Also, it's kinda nice to think that when you get to
o old to wheel one of these tin buckets around, there's a chance to move up the ladder to a quieter and better paying slot. Not that I'll ever make it," he added with a rueful smile.
The radiometer clicked to 3510. They were inside the city limits of Los Angeles and Ben eased back and let Beulah drop to a hundred. Overhead, two heavy Thruway air survey jet 'copters lazed along a hundred feet above the jammed Thruway, watching the flow of traffic and sending a running report to Los Angeles. Amber lights began flashing alongside the blue lanes, indicating overcrowding ahead and signaling a fifty-mile an hour slowdown for all vehicles until the jam cleared. Barriers rose out of the crossovers to prevent more green speed cars from moving into the already congested lane.
Suddenly the radio came to life. "L.A. Control this is Chopper 77. There's a light-over-dark green sedan cutting back from the yellow at about Marker 3540. He's going too fast."
L.A. Control cut in. "Car 412, this is L.A. Control. What's your location?"
"This is Four Twelve. We're at 3568."
"Drop back and cut into the blue and stop that vehicle, Four Twelve," L.A. Control ordered. "Chopper 77 continue to monitor."
"That guy's gonna kill somebody," the officer in the aerial cruiser shouted. "Get back fast, Four Twelve. He's cutting through traffic like a maniac."
Ben reached down and opened the brig hatch. "Lie down on your bunk, Shellwood," he ordered. "Don't argue or you'll be pasted against the bulkhead in just two seconds."
The prisoner threw him one quick look and then leaped for the bunk.
Ben slammed the hatch and flicked his transmit switch. "L.A. Control this is Car 56. We are now at 3515. Shall we pursue?"
"Affirmative," Control snapped back.
The bullhorn blared throughout the car as Ben slammed all drives full forward. Safety cocoons snapped shut on both officers in the cab and around the reclining form of the prisoner in the brig bunk. Aft, in the dispensary, Kelly made a leap for a corner cocoon at the first note of the bullhorn. With a screaming roar, Beulah's lift fans and jets thundered into action and rocketed the 250-ton police cruiser down the emergency lane.
Overhead, the two police air cruisers were hanging over the dense mass of traffic in the blue lane. "Car 56, this is Chopper 42. Watch yourself when you come into the blue. There's no room for you at the crossover. Pick your own hole in the median."
"Affirmative," Ben replied. "Where is the subject vehicle now?"
"He's at about 3555."
"I have him on the monitor, Ben," Clay said.
"Five Six this is Car 412. We're coming north. Watch out for us."
"Affirmative," Ben called out.
"Watchout, you fool," the voice of the air patrolman screamed. "That does it."
Five miles ahead of the hurtling police cruisers, a billowing ball 'of black smoke and red flame blossomed into the early morning sunlight as the speeder slammed into a jam of other cars. One explosion followed another in rapid succession until the entire blue lane seemed to dissolve into a blanket of fire and smoke. Ben cut power and punched the retrojets and Beulah came slamming back down onto her tracks at two hundred miles an hour and then continued to lose speed.
A mile away, Car 412 came rushing into view, losing speed and turning at the same time that Ben began twisting Beulah towards the carnage on the highway up ahead. "L.A. Control this is Chopper 77. Get us everything you can. We've got a major fire and major injuries and fatalities. Divert all blue and yellow. Clear 'em fast."
The two ground cruisers eased their way through the mass of halted and burning vehicles, trying to reach the heart of the holocaust. In the dispensary, Kelly unshipped the three collapsible auto-litters racked beside the rear ramp, then slipped on her work helmet and rolled her mobile field kit to the door.
Thick, oily smoke covered the entire scene, blinding the officers as they tried to probe their big car into the lane. The quiet morning air held not a breath of breeze to dispel the smoke.
"Choppers this is Car 56," Ben called. "Can you get low enough for your fans to blow some of this smoke away?"
"We'll try," came the answer, "but it'll spread the flames, too."
"Foam it at the same time," Ben called. "We've got to see what we're doing,"
More explosions ripped the air and a huge chunk of metal came flying out of the smoke and slammed off the impervious hull of the police cruiser. Clay had already left his seat and was standing in a retractable fire control turret rising out of the engine room. The cruiser's foam nozzles were already out.
A smashed car blocked Beulah's way and Ben pivoted the huge cruiser to the left.
Subconsciously, he heard L.A. Control ordering cars, choppers, wreckers, fire equipment, ambulances and hospital units into the area. Three cruisers working NAT 99 north within a fifty-mile radius of the disaster already had crossed the half-mile wide divider and were racing to the scene.
Flames erupted from out of the smoke ahead of Beulah and before Ben could give the order, Clay had the fire turret up and was laying a blanket of foam on the fire. The smoke began to billow and suddenly there was a clear view through the wreckage as the two police jet choppers hovered and turned their big blades on the fire.
To his right, Ben saw the other police cruiser a hundred yards away, spewing foam over the burning cars and pools of jet fuel burning on the Thruway. The tiro choppers maneuvered into position above the ground cruisers and kept blowing the fire away from the slowing police cars.
A figure burst out of the wall of smoke and flame ahead and ran staggeringly towards the cruiser, clothing in flames.
"Clay," Ben yelled, "hit him."
In the fire control turret, Clay slammed a valve back to minimal pressure and aimed the nozzle at the flaming figure. A thin stream of foam struck the man, knocking him down. He lay on the ground, writhing in pain. Ben brought Beulah to a halt.
"Kelly," he roared, "open it up. I'm going out and bring one in."
The trooper jumped down the steps and out the side hatch of the cruiser to be met by a roaring wall of heat. Above him, the chopper pilot kept a steady air current blowing the flames away from the car as Ben waded through the oxygen-absorbing foam to the body of the fire victim. He reached down to grab the man's body and bumped into Kelly fighting her way to his side with an autolitter. Ben started to say something and then just heaved the body of the man onto the litter and shoved both Kelly and the litter back towards the cruiser. The motor-driven litter with its radio homing device, rolled through the muck to the rear ramp of the cruiser, with Kelly riding the rear bar. Ben fought his way back to Beulah under a covering canopy of foam from Clay's turret.
He slammed the door shut and scrambled back up the steps and into the control seat. Four more choppers arrived overhead and began dumping bentonite and foam on the shards of burning wreckage.
He moved Beulah ahead through the maze of smoldering and foam-covered vehicles.
"Car 56 to Chopper 77," he panted, "how close are we now to the center of this mess?"
"Hard to say, Five Six," the chopper officer answered. "Looks like you're about a hundred yards north and a couple of hundred west. But this thing spread over into the yellow after that first impact. We've got a lot of equipment in here now. Looks like the fires should be out in another minute or two."
"L.A. Control to Cars 56 and 412. Hold your positions and prepare to assist ambulance and wrecker rescue operations," came the next order. Ben acknowledged and brought Beulah to a halt again, another hundred yards closer to the heart of the disaster. The smoke had cleared considerably to a thin haze and a quarter of a mile south of Car 412, Ben could see two other cruisers working their way towards them, squirting foam on the last wisps of fire that flickered from burning cars.
"Secure your turret, Clay," the senior trooper ordered, "then let's see what we can do in this mess."
The fire turret retracted into the hull and Clay moved up to the cab. As he was donning his helmet, Shellwood pounded on the brig hatch. Ben lifted the cover.
"What's happening, officer?" The frightened face of the prisoner peered up at him. "I heard the explosions and then it got hot as hell down here. What's going on?"
Ben glanced at his partner. Clay nodded.
"There's been a major accident, Mr. Shellwood," Ben said. "We've got people hurt, dead and dying all over the thruway. Both Trooper Ferguson and myself will have to leave the car to assist. I don't like leaving you in there with no one to move the vehicle or protect you if anything else should happen, although I don't think it will. Now, I'll let you out of there temporarily, Mr. Shellwood, if I have your word that you will not try to escape from custody. I might point out that it would be a very foolish thing for you to attempt, in light of the other charges against you and that it would be very easy for us to find you again. Do I have your word?"
"You have it, I swear it," Shellwood answered earnestly. Ben nodded at the junior trooper. Ferguson slid down the steps and out the hatch. He opened the door of the brig and stood back. Shellwood stepped out and stopped dead, his face ashen as he surveyed what looked like a scene from Dante's "Inferno."
Clay took him gently by the arm and led him around to the cab entrance and helped him up the steps.
Ben was buckling his helmet chin strap. He indicated the jump seat between the two control seats. "Sit there, Mr. Shellwood and don't touch anything or attempt to leave this cab. The only exception to this order is in the event that there should be another explosion and fire would again come close to the car. In that case, you may go back through this door," he indicated the entrance to the galley, "and follow the passageway back to the dispensary where Officer Lightfoot will give you further instructions,"
Shellwood nodded and sat down, staring out through the canopy bubble at the terrible scene. Ben jumped down the steps and out the hatch. Clay hesitated and then tossed Shellwood a pack of cigarettes. "Here," he said, "the matches are on the arm of my seat." He followed Martin out the hatch.
The heat, along with the smoke, had abated. Underfoot was a thick scum of foam and oil. The two officers skidded and slipped around to the rear of the cruiser.
