Most of the people are on foot. A couple have signs, writing roughly scrawled on cardboard and skewered with a stick. A few are banging on pots and pans. A checkpoint has been set up at the entrance to the Pattullo Bridge, where it rises up over Front Street. She can see more of the unmarked soldiers there – not an insignia in sight – and now one of them has fired a shot over the heads of the crowd, the people who want to get across. No, who need to get across.
Dany doesn’t need binoculars to see the effect that gunshot has on the crowd. People duck down, covering their heads with their hands – as if that’ll help.
A riot, they’ll call it. A mob. But when Dany looks out, she sees families. Desperate. The ones at the front of the crowd are backing away. But the ones at the back, heedless
