“But I do.” Alicia sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. “A lot has happened in the last few days,” she explained. “Starting with the fact that the Feds took over Silent Creek while you and Danny were hiding out in the mountains.”
“They went in…?”
“It was John Trelawny. He’s been desperately worried about you. He called the authorities.”
“I thought he couldn’t do that.”
“Something changed. He wants to speak to you urgently. I’d have called him yesterday only he was travelling from the East Coast – and anyway you were out of it.”
“So what happened to Silent Creek? Did they find the Block?”
Alicia nodded. “All the prisoners – the ones they called the Specials – have been released and the other kids are going to be transferred to state facilities. I spoke to Patrick. Do you remember him?”
Jamie thought back to the silver-haired man they had met at the hotel in Los Angeles. He had been the senator’s California campaign chairman.
“He told me as much as he could, which actually wasn’t very much. For the moment, nobody’s talking. Of course, Nightrise is denying any knowledge of the kidnappings or anything to do with them. They’re trying to claim that it was all down to Colton Banes, that he was running some sort of independent operation – and since he’s dead, he’s not going to argue.”
“Has there been anything in the newspapers?”
“Not yet. The story is so huge and nobody quite understands what’s been going on. For the time being, they’re keeping it quiet.”
Jamie understood. He knew there would be a cover-up. There were too many questions that were not only unanswered but unanswerable. He didn’t care. He was just glad that Daniel’s friend – Billy – and the other kids would be returned to their families. And it was good news for Baltimore, Green Eyes and the other prisoners too. They’d be better off with the Nevada authorities looking after them. Maybe they’d even earn an early release.
“It’s all good news,” Alicia said, and Jamie could tell that she wasn’t just trying to cheer him up. “The Feds are in control. They arrested a man called Max Koring and they seized all the paperwork in the administration block. They’re going through it now. There must be some record of what happened to Scott. Someone must know where he is. They’ll find something. I’m sure of it.”
Jamie wanted to share her optimism. But he wasn’t so sure. It seemed to him that Nightrise was bigger and more powerful than any of them suspected. But then he had seen the Old Ones. The shape-changers. The fire riders. The mutilated humans. So much death, delivered without a second thought. Sitting here in this trailer on the edge of Reno airport, Alicia thought the world was safe. Jamie knew how wrong she might be.
“Why does Senator Trelawny want to see me?” he asked.
“He didn’t say. He just said that he had new information and there was someone you had to meet. He thought they’d find you at the prison. The people who went in… their first job was to get you out and bring you to him. We’ll see him tomorrow.”
“Where is he now?”
“Not all that far from here. He’s just over the state line in California… in the High Sierra. Have you heard of a place called Auburn?”
Jamie shook his head.
“It’s an old mining town. It got big in the gold rush days. John was born there and today it’s his fiftieth birthday, so they’re giving him a parade.” There was a television in the room, on the kitchen counter, and a remote control next to the bed. Alicia reached out and picked it up. “There should be something on the news,” she said.
She switched on the TV.
It was already tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel. The anchor man was talking about the result of a trial following some big financial scandal. Then there were advertisements. Then a story about a basketball player charged with murder.
“We’ll meet the senator in Los Angeles,” Alicia said.
“Are the police still looking for me?” Jamie asked. It suddenly dawned on him how ridiculous his situation had become. He had committed no crime but he was still wanted for the murders of Don White and Marcie Kelsey. And as Jeremy Rabb, he was presumably wanted for various drug offences and for escaping from Silent Creek. How had he got himself into this mess?
But Alicia never got a chance to answer the question.
“… and in Auburn, California, last-minute preparations for a very special birthday party. John Trelawny, the man most people believe will win the November election, is returning to his home town, where he was born fifty years ago. These are the streets where, in just a few hours’ time, five thousand people are expected to gather to welcome the senator…”
The story they had been waiting for came onto the screen. Glancing at the picture, Jamie froze. It was as if a chasm had opened up underneath him and he had been sucked into it. He found himself grabbing hold of the bed as if to steady himself. His eyes were fixed on the TV.
He had seen a face he recognized. Not John Trelawny. It was the last face he had expected to see. It wasn’t anyone he had met in the real world. It wasn’t a real person at all.
It was a statue.
A grey stone face. Skin like putty. Hollowed-out eyes. The figure was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a cowboy hat. It was resting on one knee, holding a bowl. There was some sort of metal bridge in the background and a few pieces of old mine works around.
“What is it?” Alicia demanded. She had seen the look on his face.
The camera had only lingered on it for a moment but Jamie had heard the words of the commentary, “… looking for gold, the town was first founded in the nineteenth century…” And suddenly he understood what this man was… the man he had first seen kneeling by the water in his dreams.
Not a cowboy. A gold prospector.
Why?
“Jamie…?” Alicia was becoming alarmed.
“Did you see? Just now…”
“What?”
“On the screen!”
It was too late. The picture had changed. Now it was showing old footage of John Trelawny waving to the crowd at another rally.
“There was a man on the screen just now. Not a man. A statue. I’ve seen it before and. I don’t know why, but it means something. It’s important.”
“In Auburn?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Alicia slid off the bed. She had a laptop with her and she opened it, powering it up and connecting it to the Internet. Meanwhile, Jamie was thinking furiously. He knew he had been sent a sign and that it was up to him, and him alone, to make sense of it.
The statue of a gold prospector in Auburn. A grey giant kneeling on a beach. They were one and the same – Jamie was sure of it. He remembered what Matt had told him. The dream world was there to help them. But sometimes it sent them messages in strange ways. What had the grey man told him?
“He’s gonna kill him. And it’s your job to stop him.”
Was Scott going to be killed in Auburn? Was that what he had meant?
“His name is Claude Chana,” Alicia said. She had accessed an Auburn website on her computer and was looking at a picture of the statue now. “He found gold in the Auburn ravine in 1848 and that led to the establishment of a mining camp which later became the town. There’s a statue of him down by the old firehouse.”
“ He’s gonna kill him.”
“You mean… Scott?”
“No, boy. You don’t understand-”
But suddenly, with horrible clarity, Jamie did understand. There were two men fighting to become president: John Trelawny and Charles Baker. Nightrise supported Baker. But Trelawny was winning.
So Nightrise were going to assassinate him.
And they were going to use Scott.
“He’s gonna kill him.” The “he” was Scott. The “him” was Trelawny. It was as simple as that.
“You have to call the senator,” Jamie said, and it almost sounded to him as if it was someone else who was talking. “You have to warn him.”
“What…?”
“They’re going to try to kill him.”