You ask Gravenholtz, Crews didn't answer to God or man, but his approval ratings were over 70 percent and rising, which was a lot more than the president could say. It was just like Baby had predicted. The Old One was probably ready to buy her a solid gold island in the South Seas. Lot of good it did Gravenholtz. His job was to keep an eye on Crews, make sure he didn't go off track, and wait for the Old One to give him something important to do. Anything was better than this…sitting here night after night while the whole country went nuts for Malcolm Crews. The man in white. What a fucking joke.

The crowd finally sat down, let out a collective sigh. Crews wiped the sweat from his face with a white silk handkerchief, bent down and gave it to a little girl at the edge of the stage. You'd have thought he'd cured her cancer the way the crowd reacted.

Gravenholtz had to force himself not to look around again for Karla Jean. Man had to hang on to his pride. She said she'd be here tonight, but that was just a lie. Some excuse to get away from him. He felt his face blister up thinking about her. There had been some moments there when he actually thought she was interested in him. Not 'cause she wanted something from him, or because she was scared of him, but because she saw something in him…something nobody else did. Shit, something even he didn't really believe was there. Instead, she was just like the others. His hands twitched. Somebody was going to get hurt tonight. Somebody who had no idea what was coming his way.

A light touch on his shoulder. "Is this seat taken?"

Gravenholtz looked up into Karla Jean's eyes. "You're late."

"I…I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Are you going to scoot over, Lester? Or you want me to stand out here forever?"

Gravenholtz made room for her. Inhaled her perfume as she sat down, her long hair brushing against him. "Afraid of what? You got a problem with somebody, you let me-"

"You're the problem, Lester."

"Me?"

Karla Jean rested her hands in her lap, nestled among the folds of her pale yellow dress like a pair of white doves. She kept her eyes down. "I have feelings for you. First time…first time since my husband died. It's a little overwhelming."

Gravenholtz placed one of his hands over hers, covering it completely.

"I don't want to be hurt," said Karla Jean.

"I'd never hurt you," said Gravenholtz.

"Men always say that."

"I'm saying that. I won't ever hurt you, and I won't let anyone else hurt you either."

Karla Jean looked deep into his eyes. Leaned over, rested her cheek on his shoulder.

Gravenholtz felt a sense of peace that he had never felt before. There had never been a moment like that with Baby, not a moment that he wasn't boiling over. Karla Jean squeezed his hand and he could hardly breathe.

"If I agreed to stay silent, who would talk about the church burned to the ground in Corpus Christi?" asked Crews. "Would the president or the opposition leaders do more than pay lip service to this atrocity in the city named the body of Christ?"

"No!" shouted the crowd, as Crews's image loomed eighty feet high on the Jumbotron.

"Two hundred and forty-seven good Christians incinerated on a Sunday morning and yet the Aztlan ambassador is still invited to the White House for coffee and biscuits."

The United Nations had sent a peace envoy to Atlanta to try to work things out between the president and the Aztlan ambassador.

"Two hundred and forty-seven men, women and children roasted alive while they prayed to God, and now…now Aztlan says, hey, it's not our fault. It wasn't a sanctioned military action, even though a team of Aztlan commandos carried it out." Crews stalked the boards, hands flying. "Not our fault, says Aztlan, it was a single rogue officer. One bad apple."

People wept, shouted for vengeance, stamping their feet.

"Anyone here believe that? Anyone here believe Aztlan? Anyone?"

Karla Jean leaned close to Gravenholtz. "Lester…let's get out of here." She had a shy smile, like she hadn't shown it to anyone in a long time. "I want you to take me home."

Gravenholtz stood up, his ears burning.

John Moseby slipped back into the truck, shut the door. Sweat ran down his forehead, the faceplate of his radiation suit fogged over. He could see the Washington Monument through the windshield, the white limestone gleaming in the sunshine, but dangerously canted. Still standing, though. They built things strong back then.

He had tried talking with the zombies living on the outskirts of D.C. when he first arrived, tried to bribe them for maps that charted the hot spots, but they were wary, seeing him for what he was, an outsider looking for treasure they viewed as their own. Being black didn't help either; those who talked with him didn't shake his hand or invite him into their homes. Instead, they took his money and gave him bad information and bad maps. After only three days of stumbling into unmarked hot spots, he had exceeded his recommended roentgen count, was well into the danger zone. Every minute he stayed here now risked further radiation poisoning.

He wished he could talk to Annabelle. Just hear her voice…her laugh.

Moseby cleared his throat, tasted metal. He plugged his suit into the truck's electrical system, turned up the air-conditioning. The suit was fine, but the truck he had borrowed from the Colonel wasn't up to the job, its shielding stopgap and the air-filtration system inadequate. His own fault for cutting corners out of haste. Sarah had pleaded with him to wait to begin his search, but Moseby had been fired up when she told him what he would be looking for.

The cross…a piece of the cross where Jesus had been crucified, a piece of the cross upon which he had shed his blood. Moseby had been a devout Muslim once…he had become an even more devout Christian since falling in love with Annabelle. The chance to actually find a piece of the true cross in the dead city, to bring it forth into the sunlight…Sarah didn't have to convince him.

Moseby leaned back in his seat as the truck's electrical system boosted his suit's air-conditioning. A breeze blew scraps of paper down the street, tumbling end over end like ghosts. He was never going to get this place out of his mind.

Exploring the sunken city of New Orleans should have prepared him for anything. He had dived among the dead in the French Quarter and the surrounding districts for years, sometimes pushing them aside to gain entrance to a hotel or storefront, dead fingers waving…but this place…D.C. spooked him. The waters that had covered New Orleans on one dark night provided a screen for the emotions somehow; the soft green light, the brightly colored fish and sprouting sea grass gave a certain continuity. The dead of New Orleans rested among living things. Here…the grand buildings lay unchanged, frozen at the moment of destruction. There was no life in D.C. The dead were alone.

Last night Moseby had sat in his truck, exhausted, breathing in the stink of his self-contained suit. He had dozed off for a few minutes, awoke disoriented, the monuments gleaming in the moonlight, perfect as a tourist snapshot, and Moseby had wanted to tear off his suit and wander the empty boulevard, go wading in the Tidal Basin and wash himself clean. He had actually reached for the toggle switches on his suit before he caught himself, and the recognition of what he had almost done shook him, made him put the truck in gear and peel off down the street. He raced along for a dozen blocks, knocking smaller vehicles aside, before he regained control of himself.

Moseby sat up. Checked his gauges. Started the engine, the noise and vibration reassuring somehow. He needed to get out of here now. Get out of this suit. He'd have to contact Sarah, risky or not, and tell her he had rushed things. Maybe she could find some way to get him a better vehicle, fully shielded, maybe get him some better maps too. Knowing her, she was probably already working on it. The cross was worth dying for, definitely, but Moseby had to stay alive long enough to find it first.