“I don’t care, Jake. He killed Arlan. I can’t just sit here and let him get away with that.”

Meaning that I can, Jake understood her unspoken accusation.

“For god’s sake, be careful,” he pleaded.

Glynis hung up.

Jake tried to concentrate on his university work and Tomlinson’s campaign, but he kept worrying about Glynis. He thought about calling Tim Younger and telling him about the situation, but couldn’t make up his mind to do it.

Meanwhile the election campaign was swinging into high gear. Senator Leeds had a twelve-point edge in the statewide polls, but Tomlinson was inching up. In his campaign speeches, Leeds hammered away at how well the state’s economy was doing: Employment was holding steady, thanks mainly to new construction jobs that depended heavily on federal funding.

Tomlinson pointed out that outside of the construction and gaming industries, employment in the state was actually in decline.

“And what kind of an economy do we want?” Tomlinson asked in his typical stump speech. “Full employment for card dealers from Las Vegas while honest, hard-working men and women in local industries are being laid off?”

As June turned into July the gap between incumbent and challenger narrowed slightly, but only slightly, and slowly, very slowly.

Tomlinson’s father complained to Jake, “This stunt of yours up in Lignite had better give my boy a big bump in the polls. Otherwise he’ll never catch up.”

Amy Wexler helped to arrange a convoy of buses to take VIPs and news teams on the nearly two-hour drive from the capital city to Lignite on the Fourth. Newspapers and TV broadcasts showed the preparations for the big patriotic celebration. Veterans of wars from Iraq and Afghanistan down to the elderly men from World War Two were invited to Lignite for the big day. Amy even located the state’s last living veteran of World War One and made arrangements to bring the centenarian up to Lignite in a paramedic van.

Tomlinson’s campaign people enlisted all sorts of civic and service organizations in their preparations: the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Elks and Moose, Boy and Girl Scouts, statewide police and firefighters groups. All promised to send delegations to Lignite on the Fourth of July.

Jake grew more antsy with each day. He drove to the big rig regularly, where Younger seemed strangely confident.

“Soon as Tomlinson presses the button, we’ll fire up the rig and the town will light up,” the engineer said as he stood by the silent generator.

“Don’t you have to warm it up first?” Jake asked.

“Nope. The plasma equilibrates in five, ten seconds. She’ll put out full power before you can blink an eye.”

“But if something goes wrong…”