Grass Roots

Grass Roots

Number IV of
Will Lee

Woods,

Avon (2011)

Will Lee has returned to his roots to kick off his campaign for the Senate. A prominent lawyer, he has come back to his hometown of Delano, Georgia, to plan his strategies, and to argue an explosively controversial case that could seriously damage his fledgling political career. For Delano is a town with a dark secret -- a smoldering hotbed of racial hatred and moral outrage, held in the thrall of a sinister group called The Elect. Its violent, evil forces will stop at nothing to keep the candidate out of office. But Will Lee isn't about to back down, even though it may cost him his career -- and his life.

Grass Roots by Stuart Woods

Other Avon Books by Stuart Woods chiefs deep lie run before THE wind

under THE lake white cargo

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GRASS ROOTS

AVON BOOKS NEW YORK

This book is for Dot, with love.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

AVON BOOKS, INC. 1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10019

Copyright 1989 by Stuart Woods Cover photograph copyright 1991 JBS Productions Inc.” a unit of Spelling Entertainment Inside cover author photograph copyright 1989 by Jerry Bauer Published by arrangement with Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Visit our website at http://www.AvonBooks.com Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 8932198

ISBN: 0380711699

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PROLOGUE

one full clip, lock and load.”

Four loud clicks sounded, as one.

“Arm your weapon.”

Four bolts slid back, as one.

“Ready on the right; ready on the left; ready on the firing line. In short bursts, fire at will.”

Ferkerson blinked involuntarily, as he always did when the weapons were fired without suppressors. The second burst came in unison, then the pattern broke up as his four students placed their bursts. When the firing was over, and the weapons were at port arms again, there was no need to bring the targets back. Each of them was shredded at the center of the chest of the figure drawn on the target.

No group was greater in diameter than ten inches. Damn fine shooting, for automatic weapons, Ferkerson thought.

Automatically, his eyes shifted to the catwalk in the shadows above and behind the range. Ferkerson jumped.

He was there. No one had known he was coming; he was just suddenly there.

“Blindfolds.”

The four men let their weapons hang and tied bandanas about their eyes.

“About-face. Kneel. Fieldstrip and reassemble your weapons.”

Ferkerson watched, a little anxiously, as four pairs of hands quickly dismantled the submachine pistols.

He tried not to look up at the catwalk as his students deftly did as they had been taught. The first finished in record time; none of the others was more than a few seconds behind.

“Atten-shun! At ease! Number four, nobody told you to remove your blindfold.” Ferkerson looked up at the catwalk, waiting. The man moved his eyes from the four students to Ferkerson and nodded.

Ferkerson found he had been holding his breath. He released it and turned toward the four trainees.

“Men,” he said, keeping his voice steady, “tonight, you have the honor to be addressed directly by the Archon.”

In spite of the blindfolds, surprise and pleasure showed on the men’s faces. When the voice came, they jerked as if experiencing an electric shock.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the Archon said. He did not need to raise his voice; it was rich and resonant.

“Tonight you are admitted.”

One of the students released a nervous giggle.

“Tonight, there are four fewer Americans wandering, lost, in their own land. Tonight, you join a company which, for a little while longer, must remain secret. You pledge with your blood, with your very life, to protect that secret.

There is no oath to take. The oath is in your hearts, in that place where every man knows the truth, where love and hate reside—love for your country as it should be;

hatred for those who would weaken it, the mongrel rabble that sucks its lifeblood while poisoning the minds of its children.”

The Archon paused for effect.

“Congratulations to you all. Tonight, you are… The Elect.”

Ferkerson watched as the figure receded into the darkness.

There was the sound of a door opening and softly closing.

“All right,” Ferkerson said to his charges.

“You may remove your blindfolds.”

The four men pulled away the bandanas and blinked in the bright lights of the shooting range.

“Jesus,” one of them said.

“That wasn’t no tape, was it?”

“That,” Ferkerson said, “was the real thing. You’ve met the Man, the Archon himself.” “Shit,” the man said.

“I never thought I’d meet him this soon.”

“It might be a long time before you meet him again,” Ferkerson said to all of them, “but meet him you will, on The Day.”

One of the men raised a fist.

“On The Day,” he said.

“On The Day,” the others repeated.

BOOK ONE.

will Lee flashed his identification at the guard and nodded toward the car.

“Can I park out front for just a few minutes? I’ve got to pick up some stuff from the office.”

The guard came down the steps and walked around the Porsche not new, not clean and carefully inspected the parking sticker on the windshield. Taking his time, he walked back to where Will shivered.

“Ten minutes,” the man said.

“No more.”

Everybody in Washington loved power. Will reflected as he got out of the car and slammed the door. Not least, Capitol guards. Seven-thirty on a Saturday morning in December Congress having recessed the day before, and the man was worried about traffic. Will raced into the Russell Building, under low, leaden skies, the cold nipping at his neck. He paused to sign in at the inside guard’s desk, then entered the building, his steps echoing off the marble floor as he headed toward the elevators. In a hurry and almost without thinking, he did something he had never done before: he pushed the members’ button, guaranteeing express service. He leaned against the paneling as the car rose, taking in a faint odor of varnish and cigars, and allowed himself a ten-second reverie: he was not an interloper in this car, but an elected member, leaving the press gathered at the elevator door as he rose to his suite of offices to take a phone call from a worried President. It made him laugh that he was no more immune to the lure of power than the building guard. The car eased to a stop, and Will walked quickly down the hallway to the office.

To his surprise, the door swung open before he could turn the key.

Will dismissed the thought of anything sinister; the cleaners must have forgotten to lock it. He strode quickly through the small reception area and past the staff desks that crowded the main room of the suite, then turned right past the Senator’s closed door to his own small office.

Even a senator’s chief of staff did not rate much space in the crowded Russell Building. He had got behind his desk and was opening a drawer before he noticed the light coming from under the other door, the one that opened into his boss’s room. Someone was in Benjamin Carr’s office.

Will hesitated, then put aside his caution. He walked to the door and opened it, prepared to accost an intruder with righteous indignation, at the very least. His eye fell first on the collection of photographs of Ben Carr with each of the last nine Presidents of the United States, starting with an ill-looking Franklin Roosevelt, on the front porch of the Little White House, in Warm Springs, Georgia. Then his attention went to the figure hunched over the Senator’s desk.

Ben Carr looked up, surprised.

“What’re you doing in here this time of day, boy?” he asked in his gravelly voice.

“Morning, Senator,” Will replied, surprised himself.

“I was on my way to the airport. I forgot something.” He frowned.

“What on earth are you doing in here at this hour on a Saturday?”

The Senator looked sly.

“How do you know I’m not here every Saturday morning?” He waved a hand.

“I know, I know, because you’re here yourself. Naw, I’m here for the same reason as you. I’ve got a nine-o’clock plane to Atlanta; Jasper’s waiting in the garage.”

“How’d the physical go?” Will asked. He had not seen his boss for two days, since the Senator had spent Friday at Walter Reed Hospital.

“Sound as a yen,” the Senator replied, chuckling at his own joke.

“They say I’m fighting fit.”

“Now is that a fact, sir?” Will asked.

“You know I’ll find out if it isn’t.” Ben Carr was seventy-eight, and he had been looking tired lately.

“Hell, you sure will,” Carr laughed.

“Can’t keep a secret anymore in this town. Used to be, a member of Congress could keep a girl in Georgetown or screw a colleague’s wife, and the press didn’t write about it. Not anymore, though.” He raised a calming hand.

“Don’t get worried, now; my blood pressure’s up a little, that’s all.

They gave me some pills; I might even take’em.”

“You’re sure that’s all?”

“That’s all. They tell me I’ll live through another term.

We’ll announce right after Christmas, I think. We don’t want the Republicans to have too much time to get excited, do we?”

Will grinned.

“No, sir. We’ll let’em down early.”

Ben Carr placed his palms on his desk and pushed himself to his feet.

Tall, bald, a little stooped, he walked around the desk.

“I’m glad you came by this morning, Will. Sit down for a minute; I want to talk to you.”

Will took a seat at one end of the leather sofa, and the Senator arranged his lanky frame at the other end, drawing a knee up beside him.

“Will, we’ve never really talked about this—I mean, right out in the open, but you want this job, don’t you?”

“Not your job, sir,” Will replied honestly.

“I know, I know,” Carr said.

“But you’d like Jim Barnett’s seat next time, wouldn’t you?” James J. Barnett was the lackluster Republican who had become the junior senator from Georgia two years before.

“Yes, sir, I think I would,” Will said, grinning.

“Good, good,” Carr said, slapping the back of the sofa.

“You’ll do it damned well, too.”

“Thank you, sir.” Will tried to meet the Senator’s gaze and failed.

“I thought I’d… after you’re reelected, of course, I thought I’d better go home and get some red mud on my shoes.” It was Ben Carr’s own phrase for moving among the Georgia electorate, and Will had chosen it deliberately.

“I’ve been in Washington nearly eight years now, and I’m a little out of touch.”

Carr nodded.

“You’re right to want to do that. Will. I don’t know about New York and California, but in Georgia you win elections at the grass roots.

Remember that and live by it, and you’re halfway to elected office.” He fell silent.

Will did not step into the breach; he knew what was coming. He didn’t want to do it, and he wasn’t going to volunteer.

Ben Carr gathered his considerable presence and directed it at Will.

“Will, son, I’ll come right out with this.

I don’t want you to leave me just yet. Stay with me for two more years after the election, and I’ll do everything I can to help you take Barnett’s seat. I’ll support you publicly from the day you announce; I’ll go on television for you; I’ll call in every debt owed me; every time I get a speaking request in the state, I’ll send you instead.” The Senator stopped and waited for a reply.

Will was staring at the carpet. This was astonishing.

Ben Carr was well known for not supporting candidates in primaries.