Chandler cringed inside, instinctively, but his body did not falter as
it stepped into the path of the car and raised its hand.
The police car jammed on its brakes. The policeman at the wheel,
Chandler thought inside himself, looked startled, but he also looked
resigned. "To de South Gate, qvickly," said Chandler's lips, and he
felt his legs carry him around to the door on the other side.
There was another policeman on the seat next to the driver. He leaped
like a hare to get the door open and get out before Chandler's body got
there. He made it with nothing to spare. "Jack, you go on, I'll tell
Headquarters," he said hurriedly. The driver nodded without speaking.
His lips were white. He reached over Chandler to close the door and
made a sharp U-turn.
As soon as the car was moving Chandler felt himself able to move his
lips again.
"I," he said. "I don't know--"
"Friend," said the policeman, "kindly keep your mouth shut. 'South
Gate,' the exec said, and South Gate is where I'm going."
Chandler shrugged and looked out the window ... just in time to see the
jet that had brought him to the islands once more lumbering into life.
It crept, wobbling its wingtips, over the ground, picked up speed,
roared across taxi strips and over rough ground and at last piled up
against an ungainly looking foreign airplane, a Russian jet by its
markings, in a thunderous crash and ball of flame as its fuel exploded.
No one got out.
It seemed that traffic to Hawaii was all one way.
VI
They roared through downtown Honolulu with the siren blaring and cars
scattering out of the way. At seventy miles an hour they raced down a
road by the sea. Chandler caught a glimpse of a sign that said "Hilo,"
but where or what "Hilo" might be he had no idea. Soon there were fewer
cars; then there were none but their own.
The road was a surburban highway lined with housing development,
shopping centers, palm groves and the occasional center of a small
municipality, scattering helterskelter together. There was a road like
this extending in every direction from every city in the United States,
Chandler thought; but this one was somewhat altered. Something had been
there before them. About a mile outside Honolulu's outer fringe, life
was cut off as with a knife. There were no people on foot, and the only
cars were rusted wrecks lining the roads. The lawns were ragged stands
of weeds in front of the ranch-type homes.
It was evidently not allowed to live here.
Chandler craned his neck. His curiosity was becoming almost unbearable.
He opened his mouth, but, "I said, 'Shut up.'" rumbled the cop without
looking at him. There was a note in the policeman's voice that
impressed Chandler. He did not quite know what it was, but it made him
obey. They drove for another fifteen minutes in silence, then drew up
before a barricade across the road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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