The lanky Canadian eased out of the window and the two troopers moved
back to the patrol car. Kelly was already in her dispensary, working
on the injured woman.
Martin slid into his control seat. "Shut your ramp, Kelly," he called
over the intercom, "I'm going to move around to the other side."
The radio broke in. "Car 119 to Car 56, we're just turning into the
divider. Be there in a minute."
"Snap it up," Ben replied. "We need you in a hurry."
As he maneuvered Beulah around the wreckage he snapped orders to
Ferguson.
"Get the foam nozzles up, just in case, and then stand by on the
crane."
A mile away, they saw the flashing emergency lights of Car 119 as it
raced diagonally across the yellow and blue lanes, whipping with
ponderous ease through the moving traffic.
"Take the south side, 119," Martin called out. "We'll try and pull
this mess apart."
"Affirmative," came the reply. Even before the other patrol vehicle
came to a halt, its crane was swinging out from the side, and the
ganged magnalocks were dangling from their cables.
"O.K., kid," Ben ordered, "hook it."
At the interior crane controls, Clay swung Beulah's crane and cable
mags towards the wreckage. The magnalocks slammed into the metallic
mess with a bang almost at the same instant the locks hit the other
side from Car 119.
Clay eased up the cable slack. "Good," Ben called to both Clay and the
operating trooper in the other car, "now let's pull it ... LOOK OUT!
FOAM ... FOAM ... FOAM," he yelled.
The ugly, deep red fireball from the exploding wreckage was still
growing as Clay slammed down on the fire-control panel. A curtain of
thick chemical foam burst from the poised nozzles atop Beulah's hull
and a split-second later, another stream of foam erupted from the
other patrol car. The dense, oxygen-absorbing retardant blanket
snuffed the fire out in three seconds. The cranes were still secured
to the foam-covered heap of metal. "Never mind the caution," Ben
called out, "get it apart. Fast."
Both crane operators slammed their controls into reverse and with an
ear-splitting screech, the twisted frames of the two vehicles ripped
apart into tumbled heaps of broken metal and plastics. Martin and
Ferguson jumped down the hatch steps and into ankle-deep foam and oil.
They waded and slipped around the front of the car to join the
troopers from the other car.
Ferguson was pawing at the scum-covered foam near the mangled section
of one of the cars. "He should be right about," Clay paused and bent
over, "here." He straightened up as the others gathered around the
scorched and ripped body of a man, half-submerged in the thick foam.
"Kelly," he called over the helmet transmitter, "open your door. We'll
need a couple of sacks."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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