Covenant (28 page)

            They traveled two blocks south down a wide, glistening sidewalk, and stopped at a towering condominium called, “The Summit.”  An awning protected against the rain.  Beyond the dual set of glass doors, there was a small vestibule; one needed a keycard to gain entry to the lobby, or you had to be buzzed in by a resident or doorman.

            As Lisa combed through her purse for the keys, Anthony looked around.  Most of the storefronts were dark.  A weekend athlete in an orange rain-licker jogged along the other side of the street, a black Labrador keeping pace with him. 

            Also across the street, fixed atop a lamp post, he noticed a camera.

            Midtown was under surveillance, too.

            “Shit.”  He spun away to hide his face.

            “What’s wrong?” She had the key and accompanying keycard in her fingers.

            “This neighborhood is being monitored by security cameras.”

            “Are you serious?”

            “They’re supposed to keep you safe from the bad guys.  Other cities have a similar set-up, I’ve read.  The problem is when the bad guys are the ones watching the cameras.”

            They stepped inside the vestibule, and she swiped the keycard through the reader.  They entered an air-conditioned lobby with polished stone tile, soft lighting, and potted ferns.  Ansel Adams prints, probably reproductions, hung on the walls. 

            A black man with jug-ears and snow-white hair sat behind a crescent-shaped granite desk, bifocals balanced on his nose, a book resting near a folded newspaper.

            “Morning, folks,” he said.  “It’s a mess out there, ain’t it?”

            “Sure is,” Anthony said, and Lisa muttered agreement.  They headed toward the bank of stainless steel elevators.

            “You look familiar, young lady,” the doorman said.  “You got kinfolk here?”

            “My baby sister lives on the ninth floor.”

            “Knew I wasn’t blind yet.”  He cackled.  “Y’all have a blessed day now.”

            As the elevator transported them to the upper floors, Anthony said, “Did you notice the old head’s book?”

            She shook her head.  “What was it?”

            “Another book by Bishop Prince.”

            “He’s everywhere, Tony, like I said earlier.  You’ve only lately begun to notice.”

            “The old head seemed like a sweet guy, sort of reminded me of my granddad.  I wonder if that’s what it’s like when dictators take over countries—ordinary people blindly following tyrants.”

            “That’s a disturbing thought.  And probably all-too accurate.”

            The elevator arrived at the ninth floor.  Lisa led him to the door of her sister’s unit and unlocked it.

            “Let’s make this quick,” he said, thinking about the camera that had spied them entering the high-rise.  “I don’t know how much time we’ve got before they track us here.”

48

            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.”  

49

            The apartment was a tidy one-bedroom decorated in warm, earthy colors, furniture with smooth lines, and lots of photos of family and friends.  A floor-to-ceiling window in the living room granted a jaw-dropping view of the Midtown skyline.

            “Car keys,” Lisa said from the kitchen, and tossed Anthony a set of keys.  “As soon as I powder my nose, we can go.”

            While she headed down the short hallway to the bathroom, he approached the living room window, and looked to the road below.

            Passing through a pool of light cast by a streetlamp, a large black SUV crawled south along the road at a deliberate pace, like a lurking spider.  It crept by the condominium, rolled to the corner, made a right, and disappeared from view.

            A charge of adrenaline leapt through his heart.  He ran to the bathroom and pounded the door. 

            “Lisa, we’ve gotta go
now. 
I think they’ve found us
.
”

            “I’m coming!”  The toilet flushed, and the water turned on.

            He raced to the coat closet in the foyer.  Inside, he found a red silk scarf, and snatched it out.

            He returned to the living-room window.  The SUV had doubled back and was drawing toward the condominium again. 

            This time, it would stop. 

            Lisa came out of the bathroom.  He handed her the scarf, and the car keys.

            “Wear this,” he said.  “You’re going to drive.”

50

            Cutty instructed Valdez to park in front of a high-rise condominium called The Summit.  A surveillance camera posted across the street had observed Thorne and his wife entering the building only ten minutes ago.  

            He didn’t know why they’d come there—perhaps an accomplice of theirs resided in the place—but it was irrelevant.  He would eliminate them, and anyone who dared to assist them.

            “Circle to the other side of the block and keep an eye on the parking garage exit,” he said.  “They try to run out, drive away, whatever, you stop them.”

            “Okay,” she said.  

            Holstering his gun, he climbed out of the truck, and Valdez pulled away. 

            In the vestibule, a keycard reader restricted entry.  He removed a laminated card with a special magnetic strip from his wallet, and slipped it through the device. 

            The system flashed a green light, and he was inside.

Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
  God rewarded his loyal servants with the keys to the Kingdom.

            “Good morning, mister,” an elderly doorman said from behind a desk.  His name tag read Jim.

            Cutty gave the guy and his desk a quick, appraising glance, and saw the book lying at the man’s elbow.             

            “Great book, isn’t it, Jim?” Cutty asked.  “I’ve read that one eight times, and all his others more than ten.”

            “Is that so?”  The man’s eyes danced.  “Bishop Prince is the prophet, he sure is.  I been serving the kingdom six years now, myself.  Best years of my life.”

            “I’ve been serving for twelve wonderful years.  Praise God.”

            “He’s worthy to be praised, ain’t he?  Deserves all the glory.”

            Cutty had been prepared to show his fake U.S. Marshall badge, but it would not be necessary here in the company of a fellow kingdom servant.

            “A young man and woman entered about ten minutes ago,” Cutty said.  “Did you see them?”

            “Sure did.  Didn’t catch their names, but the young lady, she’s a sister of one of our residents.”  He grinned.  “Pretty young thangs, both of ‘em is.”

            “Which unit does the sister occupy?”

            “Lemme look here.”  Jim pushed up his bifocals on his nose, licked his finger, and paged through a three-ring binder.  “All right, here it is.  Nine oh-seven.  Ninth floor, that is.”

            “God bless you, sir.”  Cutty hurried to the elevators and punched the button to summon a car.

            Jim shut the binder, dark eyes troubled.  “Mister, is you some kind of police officer?”

            “A police officer?  Yes, of a sort.”  Cutty smiled.  “Better to consider me a faithful servant like yourself, humbly doing the Lord’s work.”

            Leaving the old guy with a befuddled expression, Cutty boarded the elevator, and got off on the ninth floor.  He checked both ways along the corridor, and then stalked toward unit 907.

            He kicked in the door.  It flew away, smacked the wall.

            He charged inside, crouched low, sweeping the gun around the shadows, finger tingling on the trigger. 

            The unit was quiet, and felt empty.

            Nevertheless, he checked every area, switching on lights: kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, closets. 

            Thorne and his wife were gone.  They’d departed so recently that he could still
smell
them.

            “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he shouted.

            His cell phone vibrated.  He read the number: it was division headquarters.

Fuck.

            “Cutty speaking,” he said.

            The Director’s gravelly voice greeted him.

            “We need to talk.”

51

            The silver Volkswagen sedan that belonged to Lisa’s sister was stored in the parking garage on the building’s third level.  Lisa wrapped her head in the scarf Anthony had given her, put on a pair of sunglasses, and got behind the wheel. 

            In the back of the car, knees pressed to the floor, Anthony kept his torso as flat as a sheet of wood across the seats.  He’d covered himself with a windbreaker jacket that had been lying on the leather cushions. 

            “Does your sister have GPS, Lojack, satellite radio, or anything like that on this ride?” he asked.

            “Not to my knowledge.”  

            “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

            She pulled out of the parking spot and began to drive, tires humming across concrete.  He pressed his head against the seats, one hand clenching a Glock, the other gripping the .45. 

            If they were stopped, he was prepared to pop up like a jack-in-the-box and start firing.

            “The Suburban’s parked outside the garage,” she said in a soft voice, as if worried the fanatics had eavesdropping technology, too.  “I can’t tell who’s inside.  The windows are tinted.”

            Probably, the woman, Valdez, was in the SUV on watch.  Cutty would have gone inside the building to get them.  The guy would not have forfeited a chance to spill blood.

            “Keep driving,” he said.  “Don’t slow or deviate at all.  Act normal.”   

            “Okay.”

            Sweat drenched his brow, trickled onto the leather against which his face lay.

            Although he was well-hidden, he felt as vulnerable as if he were lying on the hood of the car.

            A few seconds later, he was jostled in the seat as the car kissed the street outside the garage.  The tires sang against the wet pavement.