Grass Roots (50 page)

When he emerged onto the roof, Barran introduced himself and walked him over to the airplane, where Will’s mechanic was draining the fuel bladders through a filter into jerry cans.

“Nice piece of flying, Mr. Lee,” the mechanic said.

“I paced off the roof; I make it about six hundred feet.”

“I was lucky,” Will replied, “and the gravel slowed me down.”

“These bladders are in very good shape,” the mechanic said.

“No wrinkles at all.”

“In that case,” Will said, “any water in the tanks should have shown up in the fuel when I checked them during my preflight.”

“Should have,” Barran said. He bent over and picked something out of the fuel filter.

“What’s this?”

“It looks like the top of one of those plastic bags that zip shut,” the mechanic said.

“I’ve found two of them in each tank.”

“That’s very odd,” Barran said.

“Unless…”

“Unless what?” Will said.”

“These things dissolve in gasoline,” Barran said.

“Almost, anyway. You could fill them with water, put them in the tank, and they would slowly dissolve. Then, even if you’d checked thoroughly for water, as you say you did, as soon as the bag dissolved, you’d have water in your fuel again.”

“Funny,” Will said.

“When I arrived at the airport in Meriwether County this morning, there was a station wagon leaving. This was at dawn. One man in the car. He apparently had not just landed, either.”

“Mr. Lee,” Barran said.

“I’m not going to cite you;

but I’m sure as hell going to call the FBI. It’s a federal crime to tamper with an airplane.” will and Tom were watching the six-o’clock news coverage of his campaign day, most of which was devoted to his forced landing that morning.

There was no mention of the possibility of sabotage.

Kitty Conroy brought a man into the room.

“Will, this is Special Agent Davidson, of the FBI.”

Will shook the man’s hand.

“You heard from the FAA, did you?”

“Yes,” Davidson replied, “Barran seemed convinced that the airplane had been tampered with, and we agree.

It’s hard to think of any other reason for finding the remains of two plastic bags in each fuel tank.”

“It’s funny,” Will said, “if the bladders hadn’t been so recently overhauled, then I would have attributed the water Barran found in the tanks to wrinkled fuel bladders and figured it was my own fault for not checking more thoroughly.”

“Can you think of anybody who might want to kill you?” the agent asked.

“No one person,” Will replied, “but I’ve just finished a pretty controversial trial, and it may have had something to do with that.

There were some members of a white supremacist organization at the trial all week. They were pretty unhappy with the verdict.”

“We’re familiar with them,” Davidson said.

Will glanced at the television set and froze. A photograph of a man in dark glasses filled the screen.

“This man, Harold Ferkerson, is the subject of an all points bulletin issued this afternoon by the Atlanta Police Department,” a reporter was saying.

“Ferkerson is wanted in connection with the murder of three adult-bookstore employees and the attempted murder of the store’s owner, Manfred Pearl.”

An old photograph of Ferkerson came on screen side by side with the new one.

“Ferkerson is said to have undergone plastic surgery to change his appearance. The photograph on the left is how he originally looked, and the more recent photograph, on the right, shows how he probably looks today. The police caution that Ferkerson is armed and very dangerous.”

“Pretty big difference in appearance, isn’t it?” the FBI man said.

“Mr. Davidson,” Will said, “I saw that man leaving Roosevelt Memorial Field in a station wagon about a quarter to seven this morning, just as I was arriving.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. His face was in my headlights for a second or two. I’m sure it’s the same man.”

“What kind of station wagon?”

“Dark—black or dark blue, something foreign, I think.

Name some foreign station wagons.”

“Peugeot?”

“No.”

“Volvo?”

“Yes! I’m sure it was a Volvo station wagon.”

“May I use your phone?” Davidson asked.

harold Ferkerson was sitting at the Varsity Restaurant in downtown Atlanta, enjoying a chili dog and watching the news on television. The Archon’s plan had worked perfectly, but Lee had survived anyway. No matter, he thought. I’ll get him. Then Ferkerson’s picture appeared on the screen. He listened for only a moment, then abandoned his meal and left the restaurant, hoping that nobody would recognize him before he could get to his car. On the way out, he stopped and bought the afternoon Atlanta Journal from a dispensing machine. His picture adorned the front page. How the hell had they gotten that photograph?

He sat quietly in the Varsity’s parking garage, trying to think what to do next. The first thing was the mustache.

He reached into his bag in the back seat and got an electric razor. It was hard going, but soon he was clean-shaven again. A big difference, he hoped.

He read the newspaper story carefully. There was no mention of his connection with Will Lee’s engine failure, nor of his newly assumed identity, nor of the Volvo. Then, at the bottom of the front page, he saw another story.

“Candidates’ Plans for Election Day,” the headline read. Ferkerson read the story carefully. Don Beverly Calhoun would be celebrating in the grand ballroom of the Atlanta Hilton, while Will Lee’s base for the day would be a suite at the Omni Hotel, next door to the World Congress Center. An election-evening party would be held for Lee’s campaign workers at the Omni on the mezzanine level. The candidate would make an appearance at six o’clock, then return to his suite until the results were known.

Ferkerson knew the mezzanine level at the Omni. He had once visited there when the level had been an amusement park, some years before. The Omni boasted a huge atrium, many stories high; the mezzanine level was under that, and many of the hotel’s rooms overlooked it.

Ferkerson thought hard. He could no longer be absolutely sure of being safe on the streets, and that made a hunt for Lee a bad idea; the Archon had told him not to hit the man at the church on Sunday.

Ferkerson started the car and drove out of the parking lot; he found a pay phone and called the Omni Hotel.

“I’d like to book a room, please.”

“When for, sir?”

“I’ll be checking in shortly, and checking out on Wednesday morning.”

“That’s five nights, sir. What sort of accommodation would you like?”

“I’d like something comfortable overlooking the atrium,” Ferkerson said.

“Not too high up.”

“Let’s see, I have a very nice suite on the fifth floor, right in the middle of the atrium, sir. The rate is two hundred fifty dollars a day.”

“That sounds ideal,” Ferkerson said.

“I’ll give you a credit-card number to hold the room. I should be there in less than half an hour.”

Ferkerson got back into the Volvo and drove to International Boulevard, then straight to the Omni. He turned into the garage and gave his bags, except the briefcase containing the sniper’s rifle, to a bellboy.

“I’ll park it myself,” he said to the garage attendant, handing him a couple of dollars.

“It’s new.”

He drove up the ramp to the very top of the garage and found a half-concealed spot in a corner. If they knew about the car, they wouldn’t be looking for it in the Omni garage, he reckoned.

He found a drugstore in the building and bought a pair of non-prescription glasses with heavy horn-rims. Good camouflage. At the front desk he registered as Howard James, gave them one of his new credit cards, and signed a chit. When they checked it with the credit-card company, it would be good. He followed a bellboy to the fifth floor and was let into the suite; it was roomy, well furnished, and the view was outstanding.

Ferkerson held up a fifty-dollar bill.

“Do you think you could arrange for me to have some female companionship this evening?”

“I think so,” the bellboy said, smiling.

“What time?”

“Around nine, I think. I’ll want her for the rest of the evening. If she’s really nice, there’s another fifty in it for you.”

“You leave it to me, sir,” the bellboy said, backing out the door.

Ferkerson crossed the room, opened a window and looked out into the atrium, down onto the mezzanine level, which was less than fifty yards away. Just perfect, he thought. And I’m off the street. The last place they’d look for me would be a suite at the Omni.

He glanced at his watch. He’d better phone the Archon and check in. will sat at the front of the Holy Hill Pentecostal Baptist Church and listened to a man with a bouffant hairdo sing a “sacred” song Will had never heard before. Behind him a choir of a hundred voices swelled in song, and a seven-piece orchestra accompanied them. Will had never before seen a set of spangled drums in a church.

The place was a riot of color, from the gold robes of the choir to the electric blue of the carpet, which ran, from where he sat, right up both aisles. The place was only slightly smaller than the Fox Theater, the 1920s movie palace in downtown Atlanta, and the decor was nearly as flamboyant.

Will found it disconcerting, too, that half a dozen television cameras were dotted around the auditorium, and a floor manager in a headset was giving everybody cues from off-camera. The electronic church. Will thought.

The singer ended his song with a flourish, and the congregation burst into applause. Will’s experience with church was mostly confined to the First Baptist Church of Delano and the Church of Ireland outpost near his grandfather’s house in County Cork; neither tolerated applause from its worshipers, let alone a set of spangled drums.

The Reverend Ralph Beverly Calhoun, Don’s pimply son, stepped to the pulpit and talked for ten minutes about the importance of giving, while the collection plate was passed. He did not exclude the television audience, exhorting them to keep those little envelopes coming in, and offering a toll-free telephone number for those who preferred to give by credit card. Then he introduced his father.

The Reverend Don Beverly Calhoun stepped into his former pulpit as if slipping into an old glove.

“My friends, as you know, I have resigned the pulpit of this church, because God has told me to pursue, for the time being, a secular goal.

But today, I return to introduce you to a young man who is pursuing that same goal.” He half-turned toward where Will sat.

“And I think I may say he is pursuing it with considerable zeal.”

Will smiled slightly, and nodded.

“During this campaign,” Doctor Don continued, “Will Lee has often complained that I keep bringing religion into my politics.” He smiled broadly.

“Well, friends, I have been bringing my religion into everything I do for so long that I cannot and will not keep my faith out of anything.” There was warm applause, and Calhoun basked in it for a moment.

“Mr. Lee has not been quite so willing to share his own faith with the people whose support he asks, and I have so often taken him to task for it that he has complained of not having a pulpit from which to do so.

And that is why, today, with your indulgence, I have offered him this pulpit, so that he may tell the world what he believes.” Calhoun turned toward Will and offered his hand, and when Will took it, he was propelled into the pulpit.

Will laid his grandfather’s Bible on the podium, placed his watch next to it, and smiled at the congregation.

“Good morning,” he said. To his surprise, they answered him.

“Good morning,” they said in unison, all three thousand of them.

“I would like to express my gratitude to Don Calhoun, as he likes to be known these days, for the opportunity to address you and all those who are watching and listening from their homes this morning.

“I bring you greetings from the members of the First Baptist Church of Delano, my home church. And if my Meriwether County ancestors—a long line of Baptist preachers, lay preachers, and public servants—are looking down on us today, I am sure they send you their greetings, too.

“I have been asked, this morning, to tell you what I believe. I believe, above anything else, in a just God. I believe that at the end of our lives, or perhaps before, each of us will be dealt with justly.

“I believe, as you do, that the Holy Bible is God’s law.

But I believe that God’s law may also be written in other books—in the Talmud, in the Koran, and in others. I believe that God’s law is also written in the stars, and in the stones of the earth, and in the hearts of men.

“I believe that God gave each of us a mind, and that he expects us to use it. When I was growing up as a Baptist I was taught that each human being has a right to interpret the Scriptures according to his own conscience, but that he could expect to be judged on his interpretation.

“I believe that God expects us to question each of the teachings of the Bible, and to decide for ourselves how they apply to us. And that, perhaps, is where we differ, for if I am to believe your former pastor, you are all fundamentalists, bound to take every word of the Bible literally, without question.

“That is a position that puzzles me, especially when I look around and see that so many of those who describe themselves as fundamentalists are very selective about which passages of the Bible they take literally. The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill.” And yet large numbers of fundamentalists profess their strong support for capital punishment.

Even more puzzling is that when a man takes literally the Bible’s injunction not to kill he is often called godless; or a pacifist; or a coward; or, sometimes, a liberal.

God help the political candidate who takes that injunction literally.

“I find it difficult to reconcile the fundamentalist’s support of capital punishment with his opposition to abortion.

Can it be true, as someone has said, that the fundamentalist’s concern for human life begins with conception and ends with birth’?