shed Continental Commandos."

Ferguson flushed and Martin scowled at the dispatcher. "Very funny,
clown. I'll recommend you for trooper status one of these days."

"Not me," the dispatcher protested. "I'm a married man. You'll never
get me out on the road in one of those blood-and-gut factories."

"So quit sounding off to us heroes," Martin said, "and give us the
clearances."

The dispatcher opened a loose-leaf reference book on the counter and
then punched the first of a series of buttons on a panel. Behind him,
the wall lighted with a map of the eastern United States to the
Mississippi River. Ferguson and Martin had pencils out and poised over
their clipboards.

The dispatcher glanced at the order board across the room where patrol
car numbers and team names were displayed on an illuminated board.
"Car 56--Martin-Ferguson-Lightfoot," glowed with an amber light. In
the column to the right was the number "26-W." The dispatcher punched
another button. A broad belt of multi-colored lines representing the
eastern segment of North American Thruway 26 flashed onto the map in a
band extending from Philadelphia to St. Louis. The thruway went on to
Los Angeles in its western segment, not shown on the map. Ten bands of
color--each five separated by a narrow clear strip, detailed the
thruway. Martin and Ferguson were concerned with the northern five
bands; NAT 26-westbound. Other unlighted lines radiated out in
tangential spokes to the north and south along the length of the
multi-colored belt of NAT 26.

This was just one small segment of the Continental Thruway system that
spanned North America from coast to coast and crisscrossed north and
south under the Three Nation Road Compact from the southern tip of
Mexico into Canada and Alaska.

Each arterial cut a five-mile-wide path across the continent and from
one end to the other, the only structures along the roadways were the
turretlike NorCon Patrol check and relay stations--looming up at
one-hundred-mile intervals like the fire control islands of
earlier-day aircraft carriers.

Car 56 with Trooper Sergeant Ben Martin, Trooper Clay Ferguson and
Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot, would take their first
ten-day patrol on NAT 26-west. Barring major disaster, they would eat,
sleep and work the entire time from their car; out of sight of any but
distant cities until they had reached Los Angeles at the end of the
patrol. Then a five-day resupply and briefing period a