ndred miles an
hour. Their car, a beat-up, fifteen-year-old veteran of less speedy
and much rockier local mountain roads, had been gimmicked by the kids
so that it bore no resemblance to its original manufacture.

From a junkyard they had obtained a battered air lift, smashed almost
beyond use in the crackup of a ten-thousand dollar sports cruiser. The
kids pried, pounded and bent the twisted impeller lift blades back
into some semblance of alignment. From another wreck of a cargo
carrier came a pair of 4000-pound thrust engines. They had jury-rigged
the entire mess so that it stuck together on the old heap. Then they
hit the thruway--nine of them packed into the jalopy--the oldest one
just seventeen years old. They were doing three hundred fifty when
they flashed past the patrol car and Ben had roared off in pursuit.
The senior officer whipped the big patrol car across the crowded high
speed blue lane, jockeyed into the ultra-high yellow and then turned
on the power.

[Illustration]

By this time the kids realized they had been spotted and they cranked
their makeshift power plant up to the last notch. The most they could
get out of it was four hundred and it was doing just that as Car 56,
clocking better than five hundred, pulled in behind them. The patrol
car was still three hundred yards astern when one of the bent and
re-bent impeller blades let go. The out-of-balance fan, turning at
close to 35,000 rpm, flew to pieces and the air cushion vanished. At
four hundred miles an hour, the body of the old jalopy fell the twelve
inches to the pavement and both front wheels caved under. There was a
momentary shower of sparks, then the entire vehicle snapped
cartwheeling more than eighty feet into the air and exploded. Pieces
of car and bodies were scattered for a mile down the thruway and the
only whole, identifiable human bodies were those of the three
youngsters thrown out and sent hurtling to their deaths more than two
hundred feet away.

Clay's mind snapped back to the present.

"Write 'em up," he said quietly to Martin. The senior officer gave a
Satisfied nod and turned back to his citation pad.

* * * * *

At marker 412, which was also the Columbus turnoff, a big patrol
wrecker was parked on the side strip, engines idling, service and
warning lights blinking. Clay pulled the patrol car alongside and
stopped. He disconnected the tow bar and the two officers climbed out
into the c