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goes away.”
    Alonzo shook her head, her expression a mix of resentment and disbelief. “You alone?”
    â€œThat’s right. Just give me a chance. What have you got to lose, Deputy Chief?”
    â€œHow about this city?”
    Caitlin turned her gaze in the direction of the rioting. “Seems to me it’s already lost. Thing at this point is to get it back.”
    Alonzo’s lower lip crawled over her upper one, her cheeks puckering, until she blew out some breath that hit Caitlin like a blast from a just-opened oven. “We’ve got five hundred personnel on scene who haven’t been able to manage that.”
    â€œWould it really hurt to listen to what I’ve got to say?”
    â€œIt hurts me, standing here right now instead of commanding the front line. The governor just approved an assault. We move inside the next hour, if the crowd doesn’t disperse as ordered.”
    â€œJust give me a chance.”
    Alonzo shook her head again. “You know the saying ‘stone cold dead,’ Ranger?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œMaybe you haven’t heard that among Texas law enforcement types it’s called ‘ strong cold dead’ now.”
    Caitlin smiled slightly. “Is that a fact?”
    Alonzo was left shaking her head. “Tell me, when you look in the mirror, how big’s the army that looks back?”
    â€œWell, you know how the saying goes, Deputy Chief,” Caitlin said, backpedaling toward her SUV. “‘One riot, one Ranger.’”

 
    3
    E AST S AN A NTONIO, T EXAS
    Caitlin skulked about the outskirts of the neighborhoods just outside the riot zone. Through windows not boarded up or covered in grates, she spied more than one family following the simmering violence just a few blocks away on their televisions while they huddled against a wall.
    According to the information she’d obtained from a trio of informants, Diablo Alcantara was running the show from his sister’s home, near J Street, two blocks from the brewing riot’s front lines. The cartels had trained Alcantara well, had taught him the tricks of their own trade, to inspire everyday people to turn to violence to the point that it came to define them. By the time a person found himself on this road, he was too far down it to turn back. So here, in east San Antonio, closing the schools for the day had turned hundreds of teenagers into virtual anarchists, looting and destroying for its own sake. Right now, Caitlin could still smell the smoke from a Laundromat that had burned to the ground after local firefighters and their trucks had been chased back by crowds hurling bottles and rocks. Three firefighters had been hospitalized, and one of the engines had been abandoned at the head of the street, where it too had been set ablaze.
    The chemicals and detergents stored in a back room of the Laundromat had turned the air noxious for a time, the strange combination of lavender soap powder mixing with the corrosive bleaches to form the perfect metaphor for the city of San Antonio. Watching those white curtains of mist wafting through the flames to chase the rioters away—more effective than any efforts the authorities had mounted—had given Caitlin the idea to which Deputy Chief Alonzo had refused to listen.
    Holding her position against a house, in view of the main drag, Caitlin checked her watch, then the sky, and finally her cell phone, to make sure she had a strong signal. Because word was the gangs were communicating via text message, there had been talk of shutting down the grid, but nobody could figure out a way to do it quickly—something Caitlin was glad for now.
    Above the fire smoke and tear gas residue staining the air in patches, the night sky was clear, and she made out a collection of news choppers, their navigation lights flashing like the stars millions of miles beyond them. Creeping closer to J Street and the home of Diablo Alcantara’s