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
someti