The milestone posts beamed a coded
signal across all five lanes and as each vehicle passed the marker,
the radiodometer clicked up another number.

Car 56 had been at MM 23 when the call came. Now, at better than four
miles a minute, Beulah whipped past MM 45 with ten minutes yet to go
to reach the scene of the accident. Light flurries of wet snow bounced
off the canopy, leaving thin, fast-drying trails of moisture. Although
it was still a few minutes short of 1700 hours, the last of the winter
afternoon light was being lost behind the heavy snow clouds overhead.
Ben turned on the patrol car's dazzling headlight and to the left and
right, Clay could see streaks of white lights from the traffic on the
green and blue lanes on either side of the quarter-mile wide emergency
lane.

The radio filled them in on the movement of other patrol emergency
vehicles being routed to the accident site. Car 82, also assigned to
NAT 26-West, was more than one hundred fifty miles ahead of Beulah.
Pittsburgh Control ordered Eight Two to hold fast to cover anything
else that might come up while Five Six was handling the current
crisis. Eastbound Car 119 was ordered to cut across to the scene to
assist Beulah's crew, and another eastbound patrol vehicle was held in
place to cover for One One Nine.

At mile marker 80, yellow caution lights were flashing on all
westbound lanes, triggered by Philadelphia Control the instant the
word of the crash had been received. Traffic was slowing down and
piling up despite the half-mile wide lanes.

"Philly Control this is Car 56."

"Go ahead Five Six."

"It's piling up in the green and white," Ben said. "Let's divert to
blue on slowdown and seal the yellow."

"Philly Control acknowledged," came the reply.

* * * * *

The flashing amber caution lights on all lanes switched to red. As Ben
began de-acceleration, diagonal red flashing barriers rose out of the
roadway on the green and white lanes at the 85 mile marker and lane
crossing. This channelled all traffic from both lanes to the left and
into the blue lane where the flashing reds now prohibited speeds in
excess of fifty miles an hour around the emergency situation. At the
same time, all crossovers on the ultra high yellow lane were sealed by
barriers to prevent changing of lanes into the over-congested area.

As Car 56's speed dropped back below the two hundred mile an hour mark
the cocoon automatically slid o