Ramsey waited a few seconds and then followed in the unmarked Charger, holding back a block, sunk in the darkness, counting on the storm to obscure him.

Up ahead, the New Yorker turned the corner. The Charger reached the intersection a few seconds afterward. It was only then, only when he turned to look down the street, that Ramsey understood what had spooked Patterson.

The throbbing red-white glow gave sudden depth to the strangely flat skyline. The City of Hope. The City of Equality. The City of Justice. It was burning.

The brothers, Ramsey thought, with another gout of disgust and self-disgust.

He brought the Charger around the corner and kept after his man.

Peter Patterson felt strangely safe once he was inside his car. His sudden surge of fear subsided. He felt as if no one could touch him there.

He drove north through the empty city. He drove slowly, careful of the storm. The pavement was slick where it was level and there were troughs and hollows where deep puddles gathered, where the water thundered against the undercarriage and gripped the tires of the old car as they passed through.

As he got away from downtown, the streets grew even darker around him. It took him a while to notice it: the electricity here was out. He looked past the laboring wipers. He saw rain-swept boulevards empty as alleyways, storefronts boarded against the tempest. He was glad to be inside and warm with the heater on. The unreasoning urgency in him-the anxious conviction that he had just been in some kind of danger-was already beginning to recede. Maybe he'd just spooked himself. Maybe he'd just let his nerves get the better of him.