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her.”
    “Well, times like these make us grow up fast.”
    “Yes, sir. They do indeed.”
    He excused himself and went over to his desk. In days gone by he had always kept a clean, orderly desk—once a Marine, always a Marine—but like the city outside his command post, his desk was now a wreck. He had to push reports and maps aside just to find his BlackBerry.
    And because he hadn’t had enough misery today he checked the missed calls screen and saw the number had climbed to three hundred twenty-four.
    Fucking wonderful , he thought.
    He dialed his youngest son’s number and Anthony Shaw answered on the second ring.
    “Hey, Dad, what’s up?”
    “I’m up to my ass in headaches. Where are you?”
    “We’re bringing the boat in now. It was rough out there tonight. There’s a lot of bodies floating around. A lot of people in shock.”
    “Never mind that. I need to talk to you. How soon can you be here?”
    “What, you mean at the EOC? I don’t know. We got a lot of gear to offload. And these survivors we found, we need to get them to the infirmary. I guess I can be there in about an hour, maybe.”
    “That’s not gonna work. I want to talk to you now. Let Brent and Jesse take care of the boat and the survivors. Get here in ten minutes.” He paused for a moment, then added, “It’s about the Santa Fe .”
    Anthony was silent for a long time.
    Shaw could almost see his son’s lips pinch together, his brow crease. The boy was the very picture of his mother when he concentrated on something.
    “Ten minutes,” Anthony said. “We finally gonna move on that?”
    “Just get here, okay? I’ll talk to you about it in person.”
    “Sure, Dad. On the way.”
    Shaw hung up, then fished into his shirt pocket for his pack of smokes. Like everything else, Marlboros were in short supply these days, but he had been smart and stocked up before Gabriella. He had three unopened cartons underneath his cot.
    He went out the front door of the library, lit a smoke, and turned to the south to watch the oil rig fires burning along the horizon. They lit the sky a dusty shade of orange. In the heat of the day the smell of the burning oil was so strong it made his eyes water, but at night it wasn’t so bad. He inhaled deeply and let the smoke out through his nose, savoring the cigarette and the slight head rush that came with his first bullet after waking up.
    It was a good night, cool, no clouds, and a mild breeze out of the west was carrying the smell of the dead bodies away from him.
    Thank God , he thought, for small favors .

    When he came back inside his city-issued cell phone was ringing. He stood there, watching it, knowing exactly who was on the other end of the line.
    Shaw looked up; Eleanor Norton was watching him, a half smile on her face.
    “Evan Robinson?” she asked.
    “Yep, I’m afraid so.”
    He let out a groan. Trouble , he thought, is like a magnet. All it does is attract more trouble.
    He picked up the phone and hit TALK. “This is Shaw.”
    “Captain. This is Evan Robinson. I’ve been trying to reach you since last night.”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “You don’t return your phone calls?”
    Shaw sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to imagine how nice another cigarette would taste.
    “Well?”
    “Councilman Robinson, my cell phone has not stopped ringing for ten days now. I have no idea how many calls I’ve missed, but I’m sure it’s a bunch. So tell me, what can I do for you?”
    Robinson huffed indignantly. “Look, I’m sure you people are real busy down there. . . .”
    “You have no idea,” Shaw said.
    “Yes, well, things are rough all over the city. Do you know what we’re dealing with out here?”
    Maids who can’t make it to work, probably , Shaw thought, and smiled for the first time in ten days. Councilman Evan Robinson lived in the River Oaks subdivision, Texas’s answer to Beverly Hills. It was, Shaw had heard, the wealthiest zip code in Texas, and the second