Code Three | Page 2

up as much as possible of his sister's real cooking.
While the troopers and their med officer relaxed, a service crew moved their car down to
the Philadelphia motor pool for a full overhaul and refitting for the next torturous
eleven-month-tour of duty.
The two patrol troopers had reported into the Philadelphia Barracks five days ago--Martin
several pounds heavier courtesy of his sister's cooking; Ferguson several pounds lighter
courtesy of three assorted, starry-eyed, uniform-struck Alberta maidens.
They turned into the gate of the motor pool and nodded to the sentry at the gate. To their
left, the vast shop buildings echoed to the sound of body-banging equipment and roaring
jet engines. The darkening sky made the brilliant lights of the shop seem even brighter
and the hulls of a dozen patrol cars cast deep shadows around the work crews.
The troopers turned into the dispatcher's office and Clay carefully placed the bags on a
table beside the counter. Martin peered into one of the bags. "Seriously, kid, what do you
have in that grab bag?"
"Oh, just a few essentials," Clay replied "Pate de foie gras, sharp cheese, a smidgen of
cooking wine, a handful of spices. You know, stuff like that. Like I said--essentials."
"Essentials," Martin snorted, "you give your brains to one of those Alberta chicks of
yours for a souvenir?"
"Look, Ben," Ferguson said earnestly, "I suffered for eleven months in that tin

mausoleum on tracks because of what you fondly like to think is edible food. You've got
as much culinary imagination as Beulah. I take that back. Even Beulah turns out some
better smells when she's riding on high jet than you'll ever get out of her galley in the
next one hundred years. This tour, I intend to eat like a human being once again. And I'll
teach you how to boil water without burning it."
"Why you ungrateful young--" Martin yelped.
* * * * *
The patrol dispatcher, who had been listening with amused tolerance, leaned across the
counter.
"If Oscar Waldorf is through with his culinary lecture, gentlemen," he said, "perhaps you
two could be persuaded to take a little pleasure ride. It's a lovely night for a drive and it's
just twenty-six hundred miles to the next service station. If you two aren't cooking
anything at the moment, I know that NorCon would simply adore having the services of
two such distinguished 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 and