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            Cutty had lost his visual on Thorne and his wife on board the train—they had entered another compartment and cleverly painted over the camera lens—but it was not going to save them.  Traveling into the thick of the city, there was no way Thorne could avoid the Kingdom’s omnipresent eyes. 

            Valdez pushed the SUV down GA 400 South at eighty-five miles an hour, the tires churning up rain from the pavement.  Based on the camera images transmitted to his MDT, Cutty knew the train had a lead on them.  It had already passed down the highway and pulled into the Buckhead station, near Lenox Square Mall.   

            They sped through a toll plaza without slowing, the Cruise Card scanners reading the transponder mounted on the windshield.  Ahead, there were exits for Peachtree and Piedmont roads, major arteries that ran through the heart of Buckhead, one of the biggest commercial and residential districts in the city.

            “Get off on Peachtree here,” he said, “and stay on it.  We’ll keep pace with the train and catch them when they leave the station.”

            Nodding, she veered off the highway. 

            He watched the screen, following the action at the Buckhead station.  The range of vision shifted as the surveillance camera pivoted.  A handful of passengers disembarked from the train, but not Thorne. 

            “Keep going south,” he said. 

            They rumbled down Peachtree, the typically busy thoroughfare virtually deserted at that early morning hour.  They blasted past Lenox Square Mall, and a row of swanky restaurants and hotels. 

            The train stopped next at the Lindberg Center.  On the camera, he watched one person disembark, and it was neither Thorne, nor his wife.

            Next, the Arts Center station.  Two young men left the train.

            He toggled to the Midtown station.  The train had about a five-minute lead on them, but Valdez was closing the gap, skillfully navigating the wet roads and cautiously running through red traffic lights. 

            At Midtown Station, three passengers disembarked.  But he saw something that sent him bolting upright in the seat.

            Two shadowy shapes waited inside a passenger car, staring out the window.  The camera continued its revolution to the right, and the figures slid out of view.  But when the camera panned to the left again, the silhouettes had vanished.

Son-of-a-bitch.

            “They got off at the Midtown station,” he said.  “Peachtree and Tenth Street.  Go!”

            Mashing the accelerator, Valdez ran a red light at Seventeenth Street. 

            Cutty shoved the keyboard off his lap.  He withdrew the Glock from the holster, and chambered a round. 

            They bumped and swerved along Peachtree.  The road was not a straight thoroughfare—it had a series of curves that prevented Valdez from reaching a high speed, lest she throw the big SUV into a tailspin.

            He rolled down the passenger-side window.  Cold raindrops trickled down his face, but he was so focused on his intent that he barely registered the wetness. 

            He was thinking about cutting Thorne down, drive-by style.  

            They swung onto Tenth Street and thundered toward the Midtown station.  He didn’t see Thorne or his woman in the vicinity, but if they had gotten off the train only five minutes ago, they could not have traveled far.  

            Valdez braked at a light.  “Where go now?”

            “Circle the area.  A hunch tells me they’re on foot.  They’ve got to be within a six-block radius of the station.”

            “Si.”

            “Meanwhile, I’ll check surveillance video.  This entire section of town is saturated with cameras.”