by Stuart Woods
Rutledge faced the cameras for only a moment. “I’m here,” he said, “because I was impressed with Senator Lee’s insistence on running a clean campaign, and I’m happy to help him do it. I expect I’ll decide sometime before the first Tuesday in November whether I’ll vote for him.” He stepped back.
Will came back to the microphones. “Now we’re going to invite you all to join us on a brief tour of our new national headquarters. There are buses here for those of you who need a ride, and the rest can follow. We won’t keep you long. And the next time I see all you folks watching on TV, I’ll be asking you for money.” Loud laughter.
Preceded by two Secret Service agents, Will boarded a bus with his campaign workers and chatted with them while they were driven to the downtown office building that housed the headquarters.
Will, Kate, Sam, Tom, Kitty, and Judge Rutledge sat in the Lee kitchen and ate hamburgers while they watched the evening news and Will’s performance before the cameras. They made the top, or near the top, of every newscast.
“It went beautifully, Will,” Tom Black said. “I can cut at least three good commercials out of the footage we got.”
“I was very impressed,” said Judge Rutledge, who was staying the night. “It was a good announcement, not too long.”
“I hope I can make ‘not too long’ the hallmark of my campaign,” Will said.
Kate spoke up. “And I’m grateful, sir, for having been publicly let off the hook so early in the campaign.”
“I promised, and I meant it,” Will said. “Tom, what’s next?”
“Buy some long underwear,” Tom said. “We’re going to New Hampshire.”
20
Zeke Tennant woke habitually at dawn, and Sundays were no exception. He left the bed gently, so as not to wake his sleeping wife, Bonnie. He got out of his flannel pajamas and into long underwear, jeans, a flannel lumberjack shirt, and heavy socks and boots, then tiptoed out of the room.
Zeke’s sixteen-year-old son, Danny, was leaning against the inside of the front door, peering out of a narrow slat at the world outside. “Morning, Daddy,” he said.
“Morning, Danny. What kind of night did we have?”
“I thought I heard a noise, but I couldn’t spot anything with the night goggles. Heard a helicopter, though; I’m sure of that. Must have been two, three miles off, to the west.”
“Yeah, they come around with their heat-detection systems, trying to catch one of us out of the house at night.”
“We had a couple of inches of snow, but it’s stopped.”
“You keep watch, and I’ll get you some breakfast, then you can go to bed.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
Zeke threw some homemade sausage in the pan and got some eggs from the gas-operated refrigerator, then sliced some of Bonnie’s bread. A few minutes later, he set two plates on the table by the front window, and they sat down to eat.
“That mirror plastic stuff on the outside of the windows was an ace idea,” Danny said. “Nobody can see in.”
“Yeah, there was a time when we wouldn’t dare sit down in front of the window like this.” The window was made of steel, and the panes of armored glass. As the sun came up, the scenery outside took on a gray cast from the mirrored material. They could see down the mountain road, some five miles, to the highway. Zeke had chosen the site to provide an early warning.
“You going to church?” Danny asked.
“You know we can’t do that right now. I’m going over to Harv Shelton’s place for a little meeting, though. You’ll be okay here; the younger kids can keep a lookout, and I don’t think they’re going to try anything in broad daylight. And if they do, they’ll have to deal with the land mines. You feed the dogs, then let them in.”
“Daddy,” Danny said hesitantly, “is anybody for sure looking for you right now?”
“You never can tell,” Zeke said. “I’ve got a failure-to-appear warrant out on me in Georgia; they can always use that for an excuse.”
“But that’s ten years old, isn’t it?” the boy asked.
“All they need is an excuse to come up here legal, and if they want to, they’ll do it.”
“How long you reckon we could hold out against them?” Danny asked.
Zeke looked at him sharply. “As long as we have to, boy; you remember that.”
“Yessir,” Danny said.
Zeke finished his breakfast and took a turn around the house. There were three bedrooms and two baths, a little office for himself, a kitchen, and a large family room. He and his family and co-militiamen had built the log cabin themselves, and not from a kit. It had taken them two years, but they had done it. They were completely self-sufficient. The well had been drilled first, then the house built over it, so nobody could poison them; the cellar was stocked with dried and canned food, a year’s worth. There were two huge propane tanks sunk into the earth—enough for two, maybe three years—and, if worse came to worst, there was the escape tunnel that ran two hundred yards under the woods, connecting with an old mine. On top of the house, reached by a ladder from the family room, was an eight-foot turret. Like the rest of the house, it had been built of two layers of logs and was lined with sandbags. The roof was six inches of poured concrete on top of logs, lined with cedar shingles and, on the southern exposures, an array of solar panels that kept a large bank of batteries in the cellar charged and ready. The whole exterior house had been repeatedly sprayed with a fire retardant. The place had been built so that no small arms could ever penetrate; it would take heavy military weapons to breach the walls, and the feds couldn’t do that, for fear the media would find out. And if they did anyway, he had two M60 machine guns, with mounts in the turret.
Zeke got into a shoulder holster and jammed in his 9mm automatic, with two extra clips. He put a smaller automatic in his coat pocket, then strapped another to his ankle. He put on the sheepskin coat Bonnie had made for him and walked into the connecting utility building. He took the three-wheeler—not enough snow for the Sno-Cat, and too much for the pickup. He popped the steel garage door, started the engine, and drove out. The door closed automatically behind him. The two German shepherds on the front porch lifted their heads and watched him go. Keeping a sharp eye out, he roared down a well-beaten trail, scattering powder snow in his wake, and plunged into the woods. He drove for nearly two miles along the trail, then stopped at a heavy fence topped with razor wire and whistled loudly. A moment later, he heard another whistle, and a section of the fence swung open. He gunned the engine and continued toward the cabin ahead of him.
The garage door was open; he parked inside and pressed the button to close it. He walked into the house, hung his coat on a hook in the mudroom, and went into the living room. Half a dozen men greeted him.
“Hey, Zeke,” Harv said. “You had breakfast?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said.
“We just finished some eggs Benedict and champagne,” Harv said. “Too bad you’re late.”
Everybody laughed.
Zeke lowered himself into a chair by the fireplace. “I could use a second cup,” he said.
“Mary!” Harv shouted. “Get Zeke some black coffee, will you?”
“Coming,” a female voice said from the kitchen. A plump, pretty woman in her late thirties brought in the coffee. “Morning, Zeke,” she said.
“Morning, Mary, and thanks.”
“Mary,” Harv said, “if you’ll excuse us, now, we’ve got some business to discuss.”
“Bye, gentlemen,” Mary said, closing the door behind her.
“Well,” Zeke said, “what did it come to?”
Harv grinned. “A little over a million eight,” he said. “I guess you want yours now.”
“I reckon I do,” Zeke said. “I reckon everybody does. Did you have to launder it?”
Harv shook his head. “Nah, it was all fresh out of three or four banks, a good mix of denominations, old and new bills. I put away some bundles of sequential serial numbers, nearly half a milli
on.”
“Why didn’t you fence it?”
“Too soon. Everybody in the Northwest has heard that an armored car got hit. The feds are everywhere. We’ll keep it a year or two, then sell it to somebody who can get it out of the country.”
“Makes sense,” Zeke said.
Harv went to the woodbox beside the fireplace and removed six bundles, tossing one to each man. “A quarter of a million each,” he said. “I took my organizational fee and some expenses off the top.”
“Fair enough,” Zeke said, examining the bundle. The money was tightly packed and shrink-wrapped, then wrapped in brown paper.
“Don’t go splashing out that stuff,” Harv said. “The feds will be sniffing around, and we don’t want some citizen reporting that he took a lot of cash in payment for something. Let it cool off for a while.”
The other men nodded.
Harv glanced at his watch and picked up a remote control. The satellite TV came on. They were on mountain time, and the Sunday morning political shows were coming on. “Take a look at this guy,” Harv said. “Any of you know him?”
“I know him,” Zeke said.
“That’s right, you’re from Georgia. What do you think about him?”
“I think he’s everything that’s wrong with this country, all wrapped up in one man.”
“Maybe we should turn our attention to him; it’s been a while.”
“You better believe it,” Zeke growled. “Some friends of mine tried to take him out nine years ago, when he was first running for the Senate, but it all blew up in their faces.”
“Was this Willingham and The Elect?” Harv asked.
“Yeah; he and another guy bought it, and the rest scattered, including me. That guy has been too hot to touch since then.”
“What do you think about now?”
“I think if he got elected president, things would get worse for us. Christ knows I don’t have any use for Republicans, but I’ll be goddamned if I want another Democrat running things, especially this one.”
“Well, we’re refinanced now,” Harv said. “You want to take this on?”
“It would be my privilege,” Zeke said. “I’ll take ten thousand from each of you for expenses.”
The others nodded and began breaking open their packets of bills.
Zeke watched the image on the screen. “He’s got it coming,” he said.
21
It was Will’s third Sunday-morning television program. He sat behind a desk and stared into the hot eyes of Barnabas Pauling, a right-wing political commentator known inside the Beltway as the Prince of Fucking Darkness, or Pod, for short.
“Senator Lee,” Pod was saying, “your past is riddled with incidents of your placing expensive social programs ahead of fiscal responsibility…”
“Name three,” Will said.
“Let’s take welfare reform,” Pod said.
“I voted for welfare reform,” Will said.
“You also voted for a number of amendments designed to destroy welfare reform, before you finally gave in and cast your vote.”
“There were gaping holes in the welfare-reform bill and there were a lot of children in those holes. I and some other sensible people tried to make the blow fall less harshly on them.”
“Whatever,” Pod said. “Now, your love for these liberal programs…”
“What programs are those?” Will asked.
“You know very well which programs I mean,” Pod replied hotly.
Do you mean bills designed to improve public education? To fortify the Head Start program? To subsidize school lunches for kids whose parents can’t afford them? Those are programs that the vast majority of Americans think are very important to the kind of country we live in.” Will was glad it was color television, because Pod was turning red, now.
Sir,” Pod said, his voice rising, “this country cannot afford a lot of new social programs.”
“They’re hardly new,” Will replied. “Our people have been relying on them for a long time.”
Pod turned to the moderator, who was suppressing a smile. “Ben, it’s clear I’m not going to get any straight answers out of Senator Lee.”
“Come on, Barney,” Will said, “ask me some straight questions.”
All right, Senator,” Pod spat, “where do you stand on the balanced-budget amendment?”
“I’m all for a balanced budget and against the amendment. I think we ought to have the guts to balance the budget without mangling the Constitution.”
“I thought so. How about gun control?”
“I’ve hunted all my life, and I don’t want to make it more difficult for legitimate sportsmen to own hunting rifles and shotguns, but guns ought to be licensed so we know who owns them.”
“So they can be confiscated by the government?”
“I don’t know of any law that allows the government to go around confiscating lawfully owned weapons, do you?”
“That’s what people of your political stripe want, isn’t it?”
“Nonsense. What I want is to keep as many guns as possible out of the hands of criminals and crazy people.”
“The criminals are going to get handguns, anyway,” Pod said.
“Not if we stop them.”
With that, the moderator called on another commentator for questions, and Will greeted them with a smile.
Will walked quickly toward the car, with Tim Coleman hurrying to keep up. “Senator, I don’t think you ought to get nose-to-nose with guys like Pauling this early in the campaign.”
“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it,” Will said. “Besides, Moss is telling us that I need name recognition out there in the country. I wouldn’t mind being remembered by the voters as the guy who didn’t take any shit from the Prince of Fucking Darkness.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Tim said. “I hope so.”
“Moss is doing another poll tomorrow, to see if the announcement and the Sunday-morning shows have had any effect.”
“I wouldn’t count on too much.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get. Until we can qualify for public campaign financing we’re going to be chronically short of money. I had to pay all the rent on the new headquarters in advance, and that wasn’t much fun.” They got into a car driven by a volunteer. A man Will didn’t know was sitting in the front passenger seat.
“Morning,” Will said, sticking out his hand. “We haven’t met; I’m Will Lee.”
“Agent Williams,” the man said. “Secret Service. We had trouble catching up with you this morning, Senator.”
“I didn’t mean to be evasive, but we’ve been moving fast.”
“There’s another agent behind us in the car. With your permission, I’d like one of our people to do the driving from now on. This young lady wouldn’t give up the wheel.”
“Kathy,” Will said, laughing, “next stop, let the man drive.”
“I want to see his license,” the girl said. Everybody laughed, including the agent.
“It’s just that we’re trained in evasive-action techniques,” the agent said.
“I could have used you in the television studio a minute ago,” Will said.
They drove to the new headquarters, and Will mingled with the Georgia volunteers, accepting a slice of pizza along the way. There were two television crews in the building, and he was giving running interviews.
“We hear Kiel is announcing tomorrow,” a reporter said to Will.
“Be nice to have somebody to argue with besides Barnabas Pauling,” Will said.
“Looks like you had the morning shows all to yourself,” the reporter said.
“I’m sure Mr. Kiel will be all over them next week.”
“Nevertheless, you got the jump.”
“I’m going to need all the jumps I can get.”
Will sat at the kitchen table with Kate, eating pasta and shrimp and watching a videotape of his performance on the Sunday shows.
“You stopped Pod in hi
s tracks,” Kate said.
“That’s no real victory,” Will replied. “The hardcore right wing will see it as Pod’s win, not mine.”
“The rest of the country would have enjoyed it, though.”
“I hope so.”
“What’s on for tomorrow?”
“Didn’t I tell you? First trip to New Hampshire. The primary is only seven weeks away.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Sweets; it’s going to be like that for a while.”
“I suppose so. You better take your long underwear.”
“I don’t have any long underwear. Anyway, Tim says they’re having their mildest winter in years.”
Kate put her hand on his cheek. “Just don’t freeze your ass off. It’s mine, remember?”
22
Will stood at the factory gate, freezing his ass off in eight inches of fresh snow, his chest racked with coughing and his nose streaming, and wondered why he had ever wanted to do this. His shoes were soaking wet, his overcoat was not heavy enough for a New Hampshire winter, and his new long underwear clung damply to his body, making him colder instead of warmer. All he could think of was bourbon and a roaring fire. It was five o’clock and already dark. This was his eighth appearance of the day, and he still had two to go. Two Secret Service agents lurked a few feet away; Will had demanded that they back off.