The next night, Brazil was out on the street again, and reality seemed different and odd, and at first, he thought it was his imagination. From the moment he left the Observer in his BMW, he saw cops everywhere in spotless white patrol cars. They were watching and following him, and he told himself this could not be true, that he was tired and full of fantasy. The evening was slow, with no good reports in the press basket, unless Webb had already stolen them. There were no good calls over the scanner until a fire broke out. Brazil didn’t waste time. The blaze was huge and he could see it against the night sky in Adam One, close to where Nations Ford and York Roads met. Brazil’s adrenaline flooded him with nervous energy. He was focused on getting to the scene and not getting lost, when suddenly a siren sounded behind him, and he checked his rearview mirror.

“Shit,” he said.

Moments later, he was in the passenger’s seat of a police cruiser, getting a ticket as the distant fire burned without him.

“My speedometer is broken.” Brazil tried that shopworn line.

“Get it fixed.” The officer was unfriendly and taking her time.

“Could you please hurry with that, ma’am?” Brazil then politely said. “I’ve got to get to my story.”

“You should have thought about that before you broke the law.” She was not nice about it.

A half hour later, Brazil was talking on the two-way radio, and leaving the fire scene, where an abandoned building was still fully involved. Flames danced from the roof, as fire fighters on cranes blasted water through broken windows. News helicopters hovered nearby. Brazil was telling a metro editor what he’d found.

“Unoccupied, an old warehouse. No injuries,” he said into the mike.

In the rearview mirror, a patrol car was following him. He couldn’t believe it. Another cop was staring right at him.

“Just do a couple graphs,” the editor told him over the air.

He would get to it. Right now, Brazil had more important concerns. This was not an imagined threat, and he could afford no more tickets or points on his record. He started driving the way he played tennis, serving up this and that, slicing, sending a ball top-spinning over his opponent’s head. Asshole, he thought, as the same car bird-dogged him. Like anybody else, Brazil could and would take but so much.

“That’s it,” he snapped.

The patrol car was behind him in the right lane. Brazil continued at a steady speed and took a left on Runnymede Lane. The cop stayed on Brazil’s bumper, and they slowed to a stop at a red light. Brazil did not look over or acknowledge in any way that he was aware of the problem. He was cool in his saddle-leather seat, preoccupied with adjusting the radio, which had been silent for years. At the last second, he swerved into the left lane, and the officer pulled up beside him, with an icy smile that Brazil returned. The ruse was up. They were squared off. This was war. There was no turning back. Brazil thought fast. Officer Martin, with his .40 caliber pistol, shotgun, and 350 V8, didn’t need to think.