Alicia stared at him. “What are you saying? How can you know that?”
“Please, Alicia. Don’t argue with me. I can’t explain it to you but they’re going to kill Senator Trelawny in Auburn today and you have to get him on the phone and stop him going there.”
Alicia hesitated only a few seconds more. Then she grabbed her cell phone and speed-dialled a number. Jamie waited as the number was connected. He saw her face fall.
“Senator…” she said, and he could tell she was leaving a message. “This is Alicia McGuire. I’ve been talking to Jamie and he says you’re in danger, that you mustn’t go to Auburn. Please call me back.”
She snapped the phone shut.
“He wasn’t there,” Jamie said.
“I only have his personal cell phone number,” Alicia explained. “He wanted me to be able to call him directly. But he may have left his own phone behind. He may have switched it off. I don’t know how to reach him.”
“How far is it to Auburn?”
“I don’t know. It’s the other side of Lake Tahoe.”
“How long would it take us to get there?”
Alicia’s face brightened. “Not that long. A couple of hours.”
“And when does the parade start?”
“Midday.” She looked at her watch. It was a few minutes after ten o’clock. She made a decision. “We can make it,” she said. “Get dressed. I’ll wake Daniel. It’s going to be tight, but we can get there…”
The crowds had started arriving early for the birthday parade and by eleven o’clock there must have been two thousand people lining the pavements, with more spilling out of their cars every minute. There were dozens of police officers on special duty. The secret service had gone in the night before and cordoned off the area where the parade would take place. While the local residents slept, they had discreetly swept the entire town, using dogs to sniff out any trace of high explosives, installing security cameras, identifying the rooftops and the second-floor windows that might provide a marksman with cover.
There were two quite separate parts of Auburn. The modern section was unremarkable, a couple of streets that met at an angle with the usual assortment of shops and offices. But the Old Town, as everyone called it, had been almost perfectly preserved, a living echo of the nineteenth century and the gold rush that had created it.
It stood – or nestled, rather – at the bottom of a hill. The main street swept down and then split into two, each side curving round like the two halves of a horseshoe with an open area, like a town square, in the middle. Shops and houses ran all the way along the edges, most of them brick or timber-framed. But it was the buildings in the middle of the square that were the town’s pride and joy. One was an old post office, the other a firehouse, which looked like an oversized toy with its pointed roof and red and white stripes.
Auburn had its own courthouse that stood high above the town, its great dome glinting in the sunlight. In the summer months, the heat could be almost too much to bear and the town would resemble not so much a horseshoe as a frying pan. But someone, a long time ago, had planted a cedar tree behind the firehouse and its branches had spread in every direction, the dark green leaves providing at least some shelter from the sun.
The statue of Claude Chana stood next to the cedar tree. This was where the Old Town came to an abrupt end, with Highway 80 carrying six lanes of traffic, roaring past east and west. There were two filling stations facing each other and a railway bridge behind. This was what Jamie had seen on the TV.
It was going to be a hot day.
The sky was almost cloudless and the sun dazzled as it bounced off the tarmac and the shop windows. The entire town had been dressed up for the parade, with a row of bleachers, six high, constructed in front of the post office and facing back up the hill. The parade would come this way. It would turn off past the main shopping parade and make a complete circle behind the cedar tree before stopping once again at the bleachers. There was a platform, a row of microphones, an area for the press. The mayor would make a speech welcoming John Trelawny. John Trelawny would make a speech thanking the mayor. Then everyone would have lunch.
There were flags everywhere. Hundreds of them. Flags on lampposts and street corners, attached to cars, bikes and prams, fluttering from the dome of the courthouse. A great banner had been erected above the bleachers so that everyone would see it as they came down the hill.
AUBURN WELCOMES SENATOR TRELAWNY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!
And although the shops had been closed for the day, their windows were filled with messages of support.
VAL’S LIQUOR SUPPORTS JOHN TRELAWNY FOR PRESIDENT PLACER COUNTY BANK WELCOMES JOHN TRELAWNY – NATIVE SON
The local dignitaries were already taking their places on the bleachers. The mayor’s wife was there, sitting next to Grace Trelawny and her two sons. The chief of police and the fire chief, both in uniform, had taken seats in the front row. The town’s founding families and its most prominent businessmen had been invited, as had many of the people who had known John Trelawny when he was growing up: his principal, his teachers, the local minister, the football coach. By quarter to twelve, every seat had been taken apart from two, right in the middle. They had both been marked with RESERVED signs.
Barriers had been erected for crowd control and by now people were lining the pavements, five or six rows deep. The local police were patrolling the edge of the street, occasionally barking out orders through their bullhorns – even though there was no need for it and nobody was listening. The atmosphere was light-hearted. It was obvious that everyone in Auburn supported John Trelawny and, if there were any protestors, they had been wise enough to stay away.
At midday exactly the parade began.
First up was the local high school marching band: the trumpets and trombones glinting brilliantly, the music blasting out. Among them was a tiny boy with a huge drum and a huge boy with a triangle. Two baton twirlers led the way and they were followed by a drill team: a dozen girls in sparkling silver, going through a series of tightly rehearsed steps. Someone threw a switch and a rap song burst out, fighting with the music from the band. But it didn’t matter. The jumble of noise and colour was what it was all about.
Then came the vehicles: open-top Cadillacs and sports cars. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, waving and looking pleased with himself. Miss Auburn and two other beauty queens with their sequins and sashes. A single fire truck with half a dozen firefighters (they got the biggest cheer from the crowd). War veterans, some of them in wheelchairs. Then dozens more children walking behind. Boy scouts, girl scouts, cub scouts. And flag bearers – all dressed identically in silver and blue – spinning flags over their heads and around their shoulders, perfectly in step.
As the procession made its way down the hill, two latecomers slipped through the seated dignitaries on the bleachers. One was a middle-aged woman with short grey hair, a thin neck and glasses that were slightly too big for her face. The other was a teenage boy, rather strangely dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, open at the collar. The clothes didn’t look right on him, as if someone had chosen them for him against his wishes. The boy was very pale. His eyes were empty. He had no expression on his face at all.
The woman muttered her apologies as the two of them took their places in their reserved seats. Susan Mortlake and Scott Tyler had arrived. Now they sat and waited for the man they had come to kill.
“We’re not going to make it,” Jamie said.
“This car won’t go any faster,” Alicia muttered. “I’m doing the best I can…”
But it was already twelve fifteen and although they had seen signs for Auburn along Highway 80, the town refused to come into sight. There were three of them in the car. Jamie was next to Alicia. Daniel was sitting in the back, leaning over them both.