Chapter 6 - The Intercept at Mile 72
6:45 PM.
The rain was no longer a mist; it was an apocalyptic downpour that turned the four lanes of Route 41 into a churning river of black spray and reflected brake lights.
The wind shrieked through the roadside pines, howling like a chorus of dying animals as the northern cold front collided violently with the humid valley air.
On the center console of my SUV, the digital clock blinked in harsh crimson: 6:48 PM.
Fifty-four minutes until the crash.
"All units, this is Lead Intercept One!" Captain Miller’s voice crackled through the tactical radio receiver on my dashboard, competing with the roar of my engine running at four thousand RPM. "Target vehicle is visual! Mile marker 72, approaching the northern descent into Blackwood! Speed is sixty-one miles per hour and climbing!"
Through the sweeping arc of my windshield wipers, I saw it.
A colossal, terrifying silhouette of darkness and diesel smoke tearing through the sheets of rain.
Truck Unit 42.
The Peterbilt flatbed was a nightmare of roaring iron. Her twin chrome exhaust stacks were belching thick plumes of black soot into the storm; her massive eighteen wheels were throwing up thirty-foot rooster tails of blinding water; and the thirty tons of bundled structural rebar chained to her bed were rattling with a deafening, metallic shriek that echoed off the highway guardrails.
Inside the cab, illuminated by the dim green glow of the instrument panel, I could see Thomas Burke. The sixty-year-old driver was hauling back on the steering wheel with both hands, his face bathed in sweat and terror, his mouth open in a continuous, unheard scream as he fought to keep the swaying, jackknifing behemoth from careening into the oncoming lanes.
Whoop-whoop!
Two state police cruisers surged forward, their blue and red emergency lights piercing the gloom, falling into formation fifty yards ahead of the Peterbilt’s massive chrome grille, clearing the commuter traffic with their sirens screaming at maximum decibels.
"Leo! Move into position!" Miller’s voice barked through the speaker. "The descent starts in two miles! If she crests the ridge, gravity will push her past eighty! You have three minutes to make the connection!"
"Moving in!" I yelled back, slamming my foot down on the accelerator.
My SUV surged forward, the twin-turbo engine roaring as I pulled out of the slipstream, pulling alongside the deafening, earth-shaking wall of rolling steel.
The noise was absolute. The roar of the Peterbilt’s Caterpillar diesel engine vibrated straight through my door panels, rattling the fillings in my teeth. The massive tires—spinning three feet from my passenger door—threw gallons of road grime against my glass, blinding me for terrifying seconds at a time.
I rolled down the passenger window.
The freezing rain and the sulfurous reek of burning brake pads blasted into the cabin like a physical blow.
I reached across the console, grabbing the four-foot fiberglass grounding rod I had rigged with heavy-gauge copper welding cable, its brass contact hook gleaming in the strobe of the police lights.
"Hold her steady, Miller!" I shouted into the hands-free mic.
I steered with my left hand, bracing my knees against the underside of the dashboard, leaning my entire upper body across the center console toward the open passenger window.
The Peterbilt swayed.
The flatbed lurched two feet to the left, its steel bumper missing my SUV’s front fender by less than six inches, throwing up a shower of blinding orange sparks as its hubcap grazed the concrete median barrier.
"Easy! Easy!" I muttered through gritted teeth, fighting the violent turbulence of the air displacement.
Ten feet ahead, bolted along the truck’s black chassis rail just behind the diesel tank, the blue wiring harness of the electromagnetic retarder was whipping in the gale.
I thrust the fiberglass rod out into the freezing deluge.
The wind caught the rod, nearly wrenching it from my grip. Rain blinded my right eye; my fingers were numb with frost; but my eyes remained locked onto the blue conduit like a laser sight.
Seven-forty-two, my mind screamed. Seven-forty-two!
I lunged forward, extending the rod to its absolute limit.
CLACK.
The brass hook caught the exposed copper terminal of the retarder harness.
"NOW!" I screamed into the storm.
I drove the secondary grounding clamp on the other end of the cable hard against the bare steel frame of my own vehicle’s chassis mount.
BOOM!
A blinding, sapphire-blue arc of electrical current erupted from beneath the Peterbilt’s undercarriage, illuminating the entire highway in a strobe of raw, crackling lightning.
The electromagnetic retarder engaged with the concussive violence of an anchor catching bedrock.
A horrific, high-pitched mechanical howl tore through the air as the magnetic coils clamped down on the spinning driveshaft with twelve hundred foot-pounds of counter-rotational torque.
The Peterbilt shuddered violently.
The massive forty-ton rig didn't roll; it squatted.
Her rear tires began to smoke, spitting chunks of shredded vulcanized rubber across the asphalt as her forward velocity collapsed from sixty miles per hour to forty... thirty-five... twenty-five... in less than six hundred yards.
Inside the cab, Thomas Burke saw the miracle.
With the speed manageable, the veteran driver slammed the transmission into low gear, threw his weight against the manual steering box, and steered the decelerating monster off the highway and onto the wide, gravel runaway truck ramp at Mile Marker 70.
The Peterbilt plowed into three feet of loose gravel, throwing up a sixty-foot geyser of crushed limestone before coming to a complete, shuddering, beautiful dead-stop.
Steam hissed from her cooling drums into the freezing rain.
Silence fell over the ridge.
I slammed on my brakes, sliding my SUV onto the gravel beside the steaming beast, my chest heaving, my hands shaking so violently I couldn't unbuckle my seatbelt.
I looked down at my watch.
7:14 PM.
Twenty-eight minutes before the collision.
The truck was dead. The road was clear.
The crash at the intersection of Main and 5th was never going to happen.
Then, my smartphone buzzed on the passenger seat.
A single, incoming call from our home landline: CLARA VANCE.
I grabbed the phone with trembling, numb fingers, hitting the speaker button.
"Clara! Clara, I'm okay! The truck is stopped—"
"Leo?"
The voice that answered wasn't Clara.
It was smooth. It was velvet. It was thick with the chilling, mocking arrogance of a monster who had just realized his primary trap had failed, and had immediately sprung the secondary snare.
Julian Cross.
"Leo, buddy," Julian purred through the line, the sound of classical piano music playing softly in the background. "I'm so glad you're safe out there on the highway. But Clara was getting so terribly anxious waiting for you... that I decided to come over to Elmwood Avenue and keep her company."
May you like
The air evacuated my lungs entirely.
"She just poured me a cup of tea, Leo," Julian whispered into the receiver, his voice dropping into a lethal, venomous chuckle. "And we’re having the most fascinating conversation about the ownership of your patents."
