"Sure. Thanks." The trooper with the shotgun turned and walked back. His partner sighed and moved on to the car at the head of the line. It was stretched out of sight again. * * * * * "You want me to stop for any of this?" The photographer said, "Nope. I'll wait until we get in the town. But jeez, it's pretty beat up, isn't it?" Jay Haggarty nodded and concentrated on his driving. One of the beat-up elements of the landscape was the road they were on. Water had scoured gravel out from under the surfacing in places, and there were potholes; water had rushed across the road in a flood in other places, and left mud and debris. A man in a leather windbreaker yelled at them to slow down, and Haggarty obediently put his foot on the brake. He followed the man's instructions and they crawled across what had recently been a four-million-dollar toll-bridge. It seemed to be vibrating as they crossed it, Haggarty had to remind himself that they wouldn't have been allowed on it if it weren't safe. The river was within two feet of the surface of the roadway, and there was an uneven thudding as flotsam rammed into the accumulated tangle on the upstream side. They passed between the empty toll booths and headed for Hebertown. Haggarty said, "I was here just before the war, Vince. Nice, quiet little town. It doesn't look as if it's been built up much since then." Ruffino said, "Who the hell would want to build a house around here? You wake up some morning and you're under water. Give me Passaic." There was a second roadblock just before the sign that said: ENTERING HEBERTOWN. Haggarty showed his card and leaned out of the window to ask where the emergency relief headquarters was. The directions turned out to be pretty complicated: It's straight down Center Street, only you can't get through there--trees across the road. So turn left on Maple, but you won't be able to take the bridge at White Street because it's blocked off; go three blocks further and cross on the highway bridge. Then you'll have to watch out for soft pavement on Locust.... Ruffino said, unbelievingly, "Jeez, Jay, it's worse here than it was down by the river. Do you mean that little creek had enough water in it to do all this?" He stared at the little gray stream that flowed under the highway bridge, and at the twisted, half-collapsed warehouses and storefronts that were easily five feet above water level. "It's the little streams that do the damage," Haggarty told him. "Once the water gets into the rivers it's all right. It can flow away. But you see how close these buildings are set to the creek here? As soon as the water came up a couple of feet it clobbered them." He stopped, because the photographer was opening the door of the parked car and no longer listening. It was as good a place to get started as any. Haggarty pulled over to the curb, locked the ignition and got out. CHAPTER TWELVE