"… onto Willims road, but not sure…" came blasting over the speaker. Sounded like Five's voice.

I waited a beat to make sure the radio traffic was clear, then picked up the mike and told the office that I was back at work. "Three's ten-eight. Comm," I said, "where you want me?" Hopefully I would be able to get ahead of the chase from here in Maitland, and not end up following the pack.

"Stand by, Three," crackled the voice.

She had no choice, but I was already at the main intersection leading out of Maitland, so I had to stop and wait to be told which way to turn. Frustrating, but not a lot could be done about it. I fastened my seat belt and shoulder harness.

"Five," she asked, "where do you want Three to go?"

As luck would have it, he was close enough for me to hear his transmissions, so Marsha wasn't going to have to rebroadcast everything we said.

"Tell him to head north, toward the Whiskey 6 Victor intersection, then west toward the County Line road…"

"Three's direct," I snapped, saving Marsha and the rest of us a little time.

"Three, Five, Ah've been behind this idiot for almost eight miles. New snow, can't see him anymore, but Ah'm following the tracks and the cloud of snow." Nine struggled.

"Ten-four." Been there. With new snow, the first thing you lose in a chase is the taillights of the vehicle you're chasing. Snow packs up on the rear of the suspect vehicle, and they just fade out. Quickly. Then, if the car you're chasing is moving fairly fast, they throw up a rooster tail of snow, and you don't even get to see the reflections from their headlights. The good news is that the tracks they leave make it virtually impossible to lose their direction of travel. It's just that you can't be sure how far ahead they actually are. So, to avoid running into the back of them at a high rate of speed, you tend to get a little cautious. Because of that, they tend to lengthen their lead.