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He absorbed the public sense of fear, anger and bewilderment from looks and glances; from snippets of conversation overheard; from standing in line at the market watching fellow consumers; from talking with families of the criminals he represented. The general sense of loathing that had settled on people since 9/11 was a narrative that had been spelled out on the evening news and on cable television. It was a narrative played out on network shows, rushed to production, with plots focused on policemen, firemen and CIA agents fervently protecting the security of the homeland.

The entire community was gripped with fear – fear that the world had changed and was now unpredictable. Fear that, at any moment, a bomb might explode in the very center of Milton. Fear that a bacteriological agent might run rampant through the county. Fear that the food and water supply might be contaminated by radiation. A xenophobic fear that made a suspect of anyone whose skin shaded to the color of caramel or olive. A nationalistic fear that saw flags fly, not just on the Fourth of July, but on every day of the year, in a futile effort to make life seem normal again.

Jeremy’s own sense of unease was the polar opposite of what he had observed in the public at large. His unrest was caused not by the downing of the Twin Towers, but by the American reaction to the event; by people being warned to watch what they said in times of terror; by the xenophobia and nationalism that was not only rampant, but fashionable; by a first war in Afghanistan that was loved like a child, and a second in Iraq that was approved by a mass suspension of disbelief; by detentions of citizens at foreign prisons without charges or lawyers or even access to courts; and by the willingness of those around him to sacrifice their own liberties to be saved from a threat level of red, orange or amber.