Nightrise

It's the other side of Lake Tahoe."
    "How long would it take us to get there?"
    Alicia's face brightened. "Not that long. Three or four hours."
    "And when does the parade start?"
    "Midday." She looked at her watch. It was a few minutes after eight 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 — and that was what 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 around 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 that were the town's pride and joy. One was an old post office, the other a firehouse which looked like an oversize 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 pavement 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 street 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 strollers, 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 a 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