“Lieutenant, are you joking?” the dispatcher uttered quickly. “A few officers because of only two vehicles in a collision? Tomorrow evening, not before. I’ve got thousands of calls. By the way, where have you been?”
“Don’t you know? You’ve got coordinates of all the police cars!”
“No. The satellite system has gone mad. According to the map you are now in the ocean, twenty kilometers from the coast.”
“No, I’m on land, here at the accident.”
“Naturally. Captain wants you to respond to a fight on the Forty Eighth Street – ”
Andrew interrupted her. “I’ve got a dangerous criminal in custody. I’m taking her to the central department.”
“Okay. Let me know when you’re done.”
Barkov leaped out of the car and went around the crashed electromobile trying to peep inside. In vain. The metal was pressed so hard that it was impossible to see the car’s interior.
Andrew got back to his place at the steering wheel. He drove the car around the truck on the sidewalk with care and accelerated. Thousands of calls. What’s happened in the city?
The answer to this question became obvious as soon as his car got to Dixie Highway where there had always been busy traffic. Crooked, smoking electromobiles were standing here and there along the highway. People scurried about between vehicles; many of them were stained with blood. Policemen, firefighters and medical officers were assisting lightly wounded people; seriously injured people were being stretchered off to ambulances. Sobbing and shouts were heard from everywhere.
Gravitation. That’s the reason why the transport went out of control.
Andrew slowed down as he maneuvered carefully between people and electromobiles. A stadium appeared to the right at a distance of about two hundred meters from the highway. It was wrapped in a cloud of dust. People were running out all the three entrances and dispersing on the square before the stadium. Andrew had to stop again at the turn to the stadium to let a few ambulances pass by. At that moment two teenagers with faces covered with white and blue painted stripes – fans of a football team – came to the crossroads.
Looking out of the car window, Barkov shouted, “Hey, boys! What’s happened there?”
One of the guys, a short fellow with tousled hair, stopped on “zebra’ in front of Andrew’s car and laughed hysterically, his eyes wide, looking right through Andrew. “A piece of the roof crashed down. Half of the players died. The referee was killed, too! It serves him right, because he denied a goal!”
The other teenager returned to his fellow fan, seized his hand and pulled the trembling and wild-eyed friend along.
The guy is in a state of shock. He doesn’t understand what he’s saying.
There was dense smoke on the road ahead – probably the smoke that could be seen from Mortimer’s bedroom. At first, it seemed to Andrew that a metro station located high above the earth on concrete supports was burning. Having come closer, he discerned that the source of the smoke was closer to the highway. A number of shops – or rather what remained of them – was on fire. The first three buildings were unroofed, the next five or six were destroyed almost to the foundation, and on the place of the last two, a fuselage of an airplane without wings was burning. On the cockpit, there was inscription “Boeing H-17”. Some fire-fighting crews stood along the highway, flooding the fire with foam.
Barkov had seen a report on this newest passenger liner just a few days ago. The apparatus was designed for three hundred passengers and was actuated by four hydrogen engines. He even remembered an enthusiastic phrase of the reporter: “Before your eyes, there is a non-polluting and absolutely safe wonder of engineering. Probability of an accident is equal to zero!”
They had no chance. The plane fell from its own weight when the gravity increased.
A ringing signal sounded.
“Listening,” Barkov said.
A laser screen flashed up over the electromobile dashboard. In it, there was a face of a woman of about sixty with short curly chestnut hair and big, kind gray eyes.
“Hi, little boy!” she said in a quiet voice. “How are you? Did you get hurt in the catastrophe?”
Andrew felt guilty. He should have called her first, right after the asteroid flew by. “No, Mom. How are you?”
“Everything is okay, don’t worry. Tell me, please, do they have you very busy?”
“Yes, they have. I’m at work now. Why?”
Nellie Barkov hesitated. Andrew noticed that she was in the cellar of her garage – there was a shelf with tools in the background.
“Could you come around… when you have some free time?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, sonny. I am alive and kicking.”
“Mother, speak up! Why are you down there? And why are you whispering?”
“Well, I’ve just gone down. There are strangers up in the house. It seems, robbers. Don’t worry, I’ve locked myself up. They don’t even know that I’m here.”
“I’ll be there right away.”
It was just like his tactful mother to not want to give him trouble. Barkov instantly imagined big, strong rogues rushing into the cellar and beating her to find out where cash is hidden, even though she had none. She had some savings, but they were small and in a bank account. Would the bandits believe it? She had a good house in a prestigious area. Caches of diamonds are usually hidden in such places and somewhere behind a wardrobe there is a safe full of money – or so the robbers would assume.
I must hurry up.
Barkov made a U-turn and drove the electromobile back. The tires squealed as he drove around obstacles making zigzags, but it wasn’t possible to increase his speed enough for Barkov.
Emily knocked on the partition fiercely.
“It’s one-way traffic here! We’ll get smashed up!”
Andrew switched on the flashing lights and the audio alarm. The whole surface of the hood, roof and trunk began to sparkle like a New Year’s garland. Howling sounds floated from the loudspeakers.
The car careened about one and a half kilometers through the oncoming traffic lane. At the nearest intersection, Barkov turned to the road leading to the Pinecrest area where his mother lived.
Twenty-five minutes drive seemed to be like eternity. Terrible images flickered in his head. His mom pummeled mercilessly… covered with blood… dying trying to crawl out of the house…
At the turn to Montgomery Street, he switched off the alarm system. Robbers should be caught unawares instead of being warned about police arrival. Making two more turns, he saw the three coconut palm trees growing before his mother’s house. To the right and to the left of them, a narrow asphalted road formed a semicircle. As Andrew’s car approached one side, an old dark blue Cadillac turned out from the other side. It overturned a garbage can near the road, some black bags of garbage and a couple empty bottles of Coke fell out, and the car sped down the street.
Barkov made a mental snapshot of its number plate – “USW 116 F” – and turned to the house.
Nellie Barkov had a one-storied beautiful house with big windows, decorative columns on the facade and a tile roof. The garage adjoined the house at the left. Its door was closed, and before it, as always, there was a potted cactus. It meant