Grass Roots Read online

  A senator’s sudden illness …

  A trial that fans the flames of racism …

  A political future on the line …

  “Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  As a Georgia senator’s chief of staff, attorney Will Lee knows what it takes to run a successful political campaign. With his sights on his own senate run in two years’ time, he heads to Delano, Georgia—and back to his family’s law practice—hoping to establish a presence in his home state. But his first case, defending a white man accused of murdering a black woman, puts Will on shaky ground. And when his boss is struck down and Will decides to run for his vacant seat, he’s catapulted into the spotlight—and becomes a target for shadowy forces who will stop at nothing to keep him out of office… .

  “[Woods] tells a terrific yarn.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “A twisting, turning tide of action and circumstance … there isn’t a dead moment or a wasted scene.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Stuart Woods is a wonderful storyteller who could teach Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy a thing or two.”

  —The State (Columbia, SC)

  Praise for Stuart Woods and Grass Roots

  “A dandy story … sensational… . Woods keeps the pages turning briskly.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “Superbly plotted, its dramatic events coming at breakneck speed and its momentum hurling the reader toward the toe-curling conclusion.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Woods … is one of the best around at tense, fast-paced plotting.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  “Grabs you and jerks you forward at a rapid pace, making it hard to catch your breath … there are enough surprises along the way to keep you guessing until the very end… . A finely crafted novel that is full of enjoyment.”

  —The Chattanooga Times

  “An excellent piece of writing.”

  —Pasadena Star-News

  “The story holds magic.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Woods effectively mixes suspense, politics, and murder in the rural South.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel

  “This time he’s so good he cost me several sleepless nights… . A wonderful book, rich and full and fast-moving and horrifyingly timely.”

  —Anne Rivers Siddons

  “Woods is a world-class mystery writer. And he’s getting better and better… . I try to put Woods’s books down, and I can’t. The pace is terrific without being breathless. His prose style is fluid, his dialogue plentiful and excellent.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “[Woods] creates three-dimensional characters… . A breathtaking climax that will leave the reader limp yet grateful.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “A consummate storyteller … a most satisfying tale.”

  —Library Journal

  “Woods doesn’t disappoint the faithful.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “An honest, penetrating look at the South as it is, was, and (probably) always will be.”

  —Tulsa World

  “Powerful… . Woods handles it all skillfully … a very satisfying political thriller.”

  —The Kansas City Star

  “This is the kind of book that makes you wish the airplane flight would last longer so you’ll be able to finish it before you land!”

  —Andrew M. Greeley

  “A tautly drawn suspense novel.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[Woods] always delivers a good story, nail-biting action, and a mystery that needs to be unraveled.”

  —San Antonio Express-News

  “Gritty realism, convincing characterization, and the intricate planning of a true master of suspense.”

  —Newport This Week

  “You can feel the humidity dripping and taste the flavor of the South… . [Woods] has again brought the rural South to life with this tale of political intrigue.”

  —UPI

  “A tightly woven novel of power and perfidy in the rural South … [it] leaves the reader breathless.”

  —The Wichita Falls Times Record News

  Thank you for purchasing this Simon & Schuster eBook.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Book Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Book Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This book is for Dot, with love.

  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.”

  Perkerson 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 great
er in diameter than ten inches. Damn fine shooting, for automatic weapons, Perkerson thought.

  Automatically, his eyes shifted to the catwalk in the shadows above and behind the range. Perkerson 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.” Perkerson 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.” Perkerson looked up at the catwalk, waiting. The man moved his eyes from the four students to Perkerson and nodded.

  Perkerson 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.”

  Perkerson watched as the figure receded into the darkness. There was the sound of a door opening and softly closing. “All right,” Perkerson 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,” Perkerson 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,” Perkerson 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

  1

  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 tri
ed 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.