Ahead half a block we can see the woman in her Hi-Top—an ancient Kia micro-camper with a pop-up top—swerving and careening through a sea of grief-seized Chasidim. Time is 2320. The Orthodox are pouring into the street in shirtsleeves, without umbrellas or rain gear. Many in their state of hysteria are hatless, covering their heads only with yarmulkes.

Manning hits the siren. Our unmarked unit has no exterior light bar, just white and red interior lamps forward, white and blue to the rear. The storm has broken. The volume of the downpour seems to double every thirty seconds. Through the beating wipers, we see nothing but beards and curls and black fedoras.

MANNING

Chase assist. Now.

Manning barks this to the dash sensors. All NYPD cruisers since ’31, including the unmarked units issued to detectives, are grid-integrated, meaning their systems are linked electronically to the network of 277,000 aerial, interior, and street-corner surveillance pods that blanket the five boroughs so totally that, as the claim goes, a rat couldn’t fart in a subway tunnel without someone at City Hall picking it up.

What that means for us now is that the photo I took sixty seconds ago is at this moment “in the pocket,” meaning every surveillance cam in the city is seeking/tracking its object via FaceRec technology, which is so good, it can ID a fugitive from a profile or a three-quarter rear view, through a windshield, or even from a reflection in a mirror or a storefront window. (Why is the market so bullish for burner phones? Because people hate this Big Brother, Eye-in-the-Sky shit and will do anything to get around it.)

Our mystery woman’s Hi-Top has hauled ass out of Fourteenth Avenue (the Rebbe’s residence/auditorium is between Fiftieth Street and forty-ninth) and turned east on Forty-Ninth, rocketing toward Maimonides Medical Center. We’re three blocks behind but we can see her big as life on three dash screens and two heads-up windshield displays.

MANNING

Where the hell is she going?

The woman blasts through the intersection at Forty-Eighth and Fort Hamilton Parkway. Her speed on the screen is fifty-four. In chase mode the system turns every light red in the path of a fleeing perp. Our girl either knows this or doesn’t give a shit. Manning’s tiller jacks us to sixty-six and accelerating.

The pursuit system has called in drones now. Our map display shows them as icons overhead, “pie plates” and “hummingbirds” that can follow a vehicle under the El, through a tunnel, even inside a multifloor parking garage. The system too has alerted the Six-Six and the Six-Eight. Precinct cars, under automated direction, are cutting off likely escape routes. DivSix is on the air now too. Area hospitals and paramedics are being alerted. All along the chase route, alarms are going off, red and yellow lights flashing to warn pedestrians to get the hell out of harm’s way.