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park where, at the far end, the consulates were supposed to be. The asphalt was wet; leaflets were floating in the puddles. He kept walking.
    “Filthy pigs!” someone shouted from far away. The cry’s echo died away between the houses. N. didn’t see a soul. The park next door was dark and uninviting. He stayed on the sidewalk, but moved nearer to the street and the lights from the few windows on the other side. A block farther down, he passed a couple who looked Western. They were walking quickly.
    “Wishing that even more people had died,” the woman said indignantly as they passed.
    “Idiots,” replied the man. Their steps faded away.
    N. heard someone yell: “Death to America!” It came from the direction he was heading.
    He stopped for a moment, feeling watched. The park was quiet. When he heard a car, he started walking again, trying to figure out what was happening down the street. He saw lights and made out a group of figures on the move. The loud voices came from a demonstration outside one of the consulates, now over. He thought back to the police he’d passed in riot gear, and then a car came up the street. As it sped up, someone rolled down a window. An arm stuck out, and as the car passed N., out flew masses of leaflets. The car swerved across the wet pavement and disappeared up a side street. A leaflet fluttered past him, and N., sensing something vaguely familiar about it, followed a few steps. He caught it just as it landed upside down in a puddle. He shook off the drops, holding it by a corner, and then turned it over.
    It was the photograph of a dead man that he’d seen before, without really looking. Now he looked. A corpse, surrounded by dirt and grass, a gaping mouth and sunken eyes. Arms twisted unnaturally along the body. There were several similar images along the leaflet’s edge. “Thank God!” he read. The text that followed looked like a press release. He stumbled to grasp the context, but after a few lines, he understood. The leaflet was a copy of an Internet posting from the United States, reprinted by protesters. A group of religious fanatics in America had hailed the tsunami, seeing God’s punishment in the sea’s wrath. They found divine justice in the fact that thousands of people were rotting in unmarked graves. They described in rich detail how all the missing people would float awaywith bloated bellies and never be found. Their biblical quotes were carefully chosen. A picture of the minister they called “Beloved Father” smiled out at N. All the dead children particularly pleased him. God was sweeping the earth clean, punishing all sinners.
    N. looked out at the street again, toward the lights, the figures. His gaze returned to the flyer, the pastor’s world seen through his words: sodomites, bastards, and rapists. Everyone tainted by the devil’s sex. The world crawled and swarmed with sinners.
    The only memory N. had of anything was of his two girls. It was the only image he’d ever see, even if someone held a gun to his head. They were dead, and people were rejoicing?
    N. stood looking at the minister’s smile, trying to see something more than lips and teeth. Then he slowly crushed the flyer, as if he had lost all feeling in his hands.
    It came rolling over him, and he screamed. The first strong feeling since the Wave hit—burning hatred.

CHAPTER 5
    W HERE WILL I BE SLEEPING ?” asked Grip after shaking Shauna Friedman’s hand. “Have you—”
    “No,” she replied. “We haven’t booked a hotel. It’s not necessary, we won’t be staying in New York. We’ll leave”—she glanced at the clock—“as soon as we can.”
    Grip looked at her, questioning.
    She gazed back for a moment. “We need to make sure certain people end up where they belong—that is, on death row.” She lingered at some thought and added, “Yes, people who probably deserve it.” She got up from her desk. “Have you eaten?”
    “No.”
    “Good, then we’ll pick up something