"They did find some misfired ammo. Apparently they were shooting caseless, but sometimes you get a misfire and the whole thing is kicked out. The ammo type fits several of the concealable fully automatics-Skorpion, Glock, Beretta, S&W.

All of them are illegal out here but cheap enough to jettison." He shrugged. "That's the trouble with violent crimes out here. If you drop a gun in the water, it's gone."

He waved a hand. "We'll look around in the morning for more evidence. Maybe we'll get some DNA where they climbed into the boat." He looked from Thomas to Patricia. "So, what else can you tell me about this?"

Thomas looked at Patricia and she nodded. "Take it away. You know a lot more about this than I do." She leaned back and rested her head against the wall. She'd finished her coffee on the boat and either wanted another one or to go to bed.

Preferably, not alone.

Thomas said, "First of all, I need this to stay secure. As I said, we're probably looking at some form of rogue INS operation and I don't want to spook them before they're identified."

Major Paine spread his hands. "Anyone who has seen one of the newscasts knows that INS personnel are possible suspects. It's not exactly a secret."

"True, but I need to make sure the other evidence we've gathered does not make it on to the nightly news. Not unless we choose to release it to aid the investigation."

Paine nodded. "All right. It won't go past me unless it becomes pertinent to local investigations. Then it will be distributed strictly on a need-to-know basis."

"That's good enough for me, Barney. Here's what we have so far."

There were a few surprises for Patricia. The South American connection. TheDNA evidence. As the two men talked, she was fascinated by their interactions, the way each knew what the other meant before sentences had been finished. Her interactions with Paine had been more formal than this, though she'd always gotten along with him. Paine was concentrated-in his person, in his speech, and especially in his attention. When he looked at you, the intensity of his gaze was palpable.

When Thomas paused, Paine asked, "Is this a Nat-Al matter?"

Patricia frowned. The name ticked a synapse, but she couldn't recall it. She looked at Thomas, who was also frowning.

"God, I hope not, but it's one of the things we'll be checking. It's not always easy to know-they don't carry membership cards and the raid on their known headquarters netted blatantly phony records."

Patricia blinked. "What's Nat-Al? Sounds Arabic."

Major Paine laughed. "Boy, that would piss them off. Nat-Al is a splinter group of the National Alliance, a white supremacist movement before the Deluge. Arabs are one of the many groups they're against. Nat-Al split off after the Deluge when the refugee situation started. National Alliance was always anti-immigration, legal or illegal, but Nat-Al takes matters into its own hands."

Thomas pinched his nose. "It's an ugly fact, but you find them everywhere. On mainland police forces, in government administration, and the armed forces."

Paine added, "Especially the INS."

Patricia remembered now. Her mother had mentioned them as part of her work on the Joint Immigration Oversight Committee in one of Patricia's brief visits to Austin.

"They've been a long-term project of mine," Thomas said. "It's the main reason Rylant sent me out on this job. And speaking of Rylant-I need a scrambled line, Barney. I need to bring my people up to date on this."

"Why don't you use my aide's line? He won't be in until morning."

"Got it." He stood and waved Patricia back into her seat. "Won't take a moment." He closed the door behind him.

Major Paine looked at her. "Well, Assemblywoman, is there anything else you'd like to add?" He took off his glasses again, and began polishing them with the same handkerchief.

Is that unconscious or do you do it to make me relax? The degree of correction in the lens didn't seem that great to her. I bet you can see me just fine. "I'll trade you Patricia for Barney," she said, smiling slightly.

He nodded. "Anything to add, Patricia?"

"Do you think they really want to kill me, too, or was I just with Thomas at thewrong time?" She was surprised at how cool she sounded.

Paine shrugged. "I don't see why they'd want to kill you. Any evidence you had you gave to the world. Your video did what you wanted it to. The INS evidence onsite now supersedes that, so killing you doesn't change things that way. If they do want you dead, it's because you know something else. Perhaps even something you don't realize you know." He narrowed his eyes. "Why were you with Thomas tonight?"

She blushed. Christ, it's like being asked about your love life by your dad. "We were going to dinner. We had drinks at Puerta del Sol, and I was going to take him to the sushi bar at the Playa del Mar Marriott."

"How long have you known him?"

And what business is that of yours? "Are you asking as a policeman, Barney?"

He tilted his head to one side. "I don't think so. I guess I'm asking as Thomas's friend."

Are my intentions honorable? "Two days." Patricia looked at her watch and blinked. "Make that twenty-seven hours." Oh my god.

"Ah. And you don't find him difficult to be with?"

She shook her head. "What on earth do you mean?"

Paine made an embarrassed motion toward the right side of his face. "There are many who find his scarring... troubling."

"Idiots."

Paine's eyes crinkled. "For what it's worth, I have a very high opinion of him."

"Well, duh! Why do you think I-?" Was naked with him. She stopped. "Do you know why he won't take the time to get his face fixed?"

Paine frowned. "I thought you didn't care about his scarring."

She flipped her hand. "Of course not. But I wonder about motivations. Is he punishing himself?"

Paine glanced at the door to the reception area. "Ummm. Thomas is a driven man and at least part of it is that he won't take the time. Last time I worked with him, he had over six months of personal leave accrued. A man who won't take vacations has little patience for lengthy and painful elective medical procedures. I know he blames himself for his ensign's death. I don't know what he could've done about it. Christ, he wouldn't even be burned if he hadn't gone into the boat after the explosion."

Patricia sat up, shocked. "He went into the boat? I thought he was caught in the initial blast."Paine shook his head. "No. He was clear, but immediately after the blast, Thomas jumped into the flames, grabbed Eugene, and went over the side into the water.

There was fuel burning on the water, too." He licked his lips. "Eugene was already dead, though. Inhaled flame."

Patricia was beyond words, eyes wide, mouth open.

Paine reacted to her expression. "Yeah. I don't think I could've done it. They gave him the Navy Cross for Gallantry, but you won't see the ribbon on his uniform.

He skipped the presentation, so they tracked him down in his office, without warning."

"You sound like you were there."

Paine nodded. "I was-Admiral Rylant invited me because I was also there when the boat went up. But you didn't catch me jumping into that inferno."

"And Admiral Rylant is-?"

"Thomas's boss."

The door opened and Thomas came back in. His face was drawn, but he'd apparently heard the last sentence. Patricia immediately blushed and Thomas looked at her, smiling slightly.

"Should my ears be burning?"

She looked at Major Paine. Major Paine looked at the ceiling.

Thomas shook his head and snorted a smothered chuckle. "I see. Well, the man in question has just sent me to BBINS. I've got forty-five minutes to retrieve my satphone and workstation from Patricia's apartment and get over to the airport."

Patricia stared at him and saw mingled frustration and anger that matched her own. "They could be waiting there," she said. "They followed you from your hotel to there and then followed us from there."

Thomas nodded. "So they could."

Barney coughed. "I'll send a unit; no, make that two. One to stay with the assemblywo-with Patricia-and the other to take you on to the airport."

"What about your hotel room?" Patricia asked. Are you keeping it? Will you be back that soon?

Thomas exhaled. "Seaman Guterson is checking us out. He'll be meeting me at the airport."

Goddammit! She clenched her hands into fists and pounded the arms of her chair, once, before forcing her expression back to calm neutrality. "Why? Why now?""They finished towing Open Lotus to BBINS. They've found two more bodies aboard. One seems to have been engine-room crew, but the other one-"

"Yeah?" Patricia asked.

"He was INS."

Patricia felt awkward in the back of the boat under the watchful gaze of three NGPD officers, but it didn't stop her from leaning against Thomas on the ride to Matagorda. It added one more weight to the load of misery that was accumulating in her chest. Don't you guys have something better to do?

There was a little cabin forward, but she didn't quite have the nerve to drag Thomas in there and shut the door. But she wanted to.

Both units, eight police officers in all, came up from the landing. Perito stuck his head out of his loft window over the sub pen, and there was a bad moment as officers drew their weapons.

"Whoa-he works for me!" she shouted.

The sergeant in charge said, "Calm down, boys."

Patricia called up to Perito. "It's okay. Has visto algun extrano?"

"Uh, no. No strangers. I've been a bit ocupado." A giggle came from the interior of the loft and Perito turned his head slightly, before looking back at them. "Is everything okay, Patreecia?"

Toni? She took a quick glance at Thomas. At least someone is more successful at this than me.

Patricia turned to the sergeant and said, "How about I just tell you if I see someone who doesn't belong here?"

The sergeant, a stern Sikh, nodded. "Of course. And perhaps the rest of us can avoid terrorizing the innocent inhabitants of the building." He added this last with a glare toward the three officers who'd overreacted to Perito's appearance. "Sanders.

Jamal. Check with the concierge about suspicious characters."

The two officers peeled off toward the Elephant Arms water-level entrance.

"Things are all right," she called up to Perito. "Manana." Perito pulled his head back inside and Patricia felt another stab of envy.

The group went up the exterior stairs to the school and courtyard. Patricia walked close to Thomas, but her eyes were scanning the area, half because she was afraid the kill squad was here and half because she was afraid her "protectors" would shoot one of her tenants. They reached her front door without further incident."Good lock," the sergeant in charge said when she opened it. "Who has the combination?"

Patricia stood aside with Thomas as three of the officers moved inside. "My housekeeper and the concierge and myself. I had some trouble with an ex-boyfriend, so we changed it and limited it to us three."

The sergeant nodded. "Any chance they could be bribed to let someone in?"

"No. Threatened, perhaps. My housekeeper has a daughter. But that's a bit extreme."

"So is murder," said the sergeant. "And that's what they've already tried, I understand."

One of the NGPD officers stuck his head out. "Nobody inside. No windows or entrances forced."

"Very good."

Thomas reached inside and grabbed his workstation case. He looked at his watch and back at Patricia.

She shook her head, close to tears, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard. She tried to memorize the feel of his lips, his body, his arms, then, as abruptly, pushed him away from her. "Go. You'll miss the flight."

His face was a study in frustration. "Yo te llamare por telefono."

The corners of her mouth turned down. She didn't know if the officers spoke Spanish, but she didn't care. "You better!" She crossed her arms across her chest to keep from grabbing him again.

He left, walking fast. By the time he was halfway across the courtyard, he was talking into his satphone. He turned once at the top of the stairwell to wave; then the group passed out of sight.

The NGPD sergeant said something and she turned to him, face blank. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

He repeated himself slowly. "I'm going to leave two men here. One downstairs and one up here in the courtyard. If you need to go somewhere, please tell the man here, and he'll arrange an escort. If you see something that's suspicious, let him know or call in."

She nodded slightly. "Understood. Thank you for your help." And for not shooting any of my tenants.

He nodded, smiled slightly. "It's our job. I'll wait until you've locked the door, if you don't mind."

"Ah. Good night."She went inside and locked the door, clicking the manual deadbolt extra hard so they would hear it from without. She heard a hand try the knob and then the faint sound of receding footsteps.

She turned and put her back to the door, her hands going to her face. The intensity and variety of her feelings threatened to overwhelm her: delight in Thomas, grief at the separation, anger and fear at the attempted murder. What was it Thomas had said? Living through a thick layer of cotton wadding? There was something to be said for that.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

She showered off the dried salt water, drank two glasses of water, and tried to sleep, but her dreams were disturbed as the two recent influences in her life, desire and terror, manifested themselves in disturbing combinations. She finally dropped into a deep sleep near dawn, only to have her satphone wake her.

She scrambled across the bed to grab it, hoping it was Thomas. "Huwo?"

It was Major Paine. "I'm sorry to wake you, Patricia." He didn't sound sorry.

She focused on the clock. It was after ten.