Chapter 678 - 317: Oswald
"Everyone, let’s calm down for a moment." The old director’s voice carried a sense of composure. "Are we getting something wrong here? What kind of power does this Wallace have? He’s just a local mayor."
"The ones who are really attacking us are Sterling and the energy giants behind him. Wallace is just a target they’ve pushed to the forefront."
The old director’s gaze swept over the room.
"The energy giants want to win Wallace over, to make him one of them. We, on the other hand, want him dead."
"That is the core of the conflict."
"We should be going to Houston, to Dallas, to find the energy tycoons who can actually call the shots."
"We need to tell them that Wallace is too dangerous, too uncontrollable as a pawn. We can offer them a better deal, if only they’re willing to side with us."
"So, we’re still not going to communicate with Wallace?"
"He’s a terrorist."
Kane made his assessment.
"With politicians, we can negotiate, we can make deals, we can compromise."
"But with a terrorist..."
"we can’t negotiate."
"We can only eliminate him."
The word exploded in the stuffy air.
Eliminate.
Everyone present understood the weight of that word.
In the world of business competition, that usually meant an acquisition, a merger, or a bankruptcy liquidation.
But in the current context, Kane’s meaning was clearly something more.
"Are you saying..." The representative from Merck hesitated. "We should use... that?"
"That’s not what I’m talking about."
Kane cut him off, his tone growing impatient.
"When I say ’eliminate,’ I mean a political elimination."
He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and picked up a red marker.
"Leo Wallace seems unassailable right now because he’s packaged himself as a saint. He fights corruption, speaks for the poor, and he doesn’t even have a decent scandal to his name."
"That kind of persona plays well in the media, but in reality, if you dig deep enough, you can always find some dirt."
Kane drew a circle on the whiteboard and wrote Leo’s name inside it.
"Why do you think we pay hundreds of millions of US Dollars in consulting fees every year to those security firms, private investigators, and the agencies that handle our dirty work?"
"It’s for moments exactly like this."
"Leo Wallace thinks he’s invincible because he has the support of the energy companies. He thinks he’s safe because he has the Union."
"But he’s forgotten."
"He’s just one man."
"He has weaknesses, vulnerabilities, secrets that can’t see the light of day."
Kane said in a low voice.
"Use every connection we have. I want every piece of dirt on him."
"The weakness of every single person around him."
"I want to make it impossible for him to stay in the United States."
"I want him to be politically, utterly dead."
"That plan is too slow."
𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦
The director from Antai Insurance, sitting in the corner, suddenly spoke up.
"Digging up dirt? Manufacturing a scandal? Those are tactics for dealing with ordinary politicians."
The old man’s cloudy eyes shifted, scanning every person in the room.
"Leo Wallace is not an ordinary politician. I’ve looked into him before. He has no family, no mistresses, and probably not even much in savings. He lives like an ascetic in the Mayor’s office."
"Furthermore, his approval ratings are built on a kind of fanatical idealism. Even if you proved he was a fraud, his followers would just think we were slandering him."
The old man’s withered fingers tapped on the tabletop.
"To deal with someone like him, conventional methods are ineffective."
"We need a more direct, more thorough, and also more... traditional... method."
A brief silence fell over the conference room.
Everyone could hear the implication in the old man’s words, but no one wanted to be the one to address it.
Not until the old man lowered his voice and spoke the name that everyone understood but dared not mention in polite company.
"Lee Harvey Oswald."
As soon as the name was spoken, the temperature in the room seemed to drop by several degrees.
November 22, 1963. That sunny afternoon in Dallas. The gunshots that changed the course of the world.
"If this were a few decades ago."
The old man’s gaze grew distant, as if he were looking back to a more... efficient... era.
"Someone like this, who tried to subvert the order, would have disappeared long ago."
"Kennedy meddled where he shouldn’t have. He wanted to go after the Federal Reserve, the CIA, the Vietnam war machine. And for that, his brains were splattered all over Dallas."
"His death put everything back on track."
The old man looked up, a chilling light glinting in his eyes.
"Leo Wallace."
"He’s meddled with the entire healthcare system, the foundations of financial capital, and even the class structure of American society."
"He’s a variable."
"A variable that, if not physically eliminated, will spread like a cancer cell."
"Gentlemen, do you really think a few smear articles can stop him? As long as he’s alive and able to speak, he’s the one holding the torch. He’ll keep lighting fires until we’re all burned to death."
The old man’s voice echoed in the stuffy room.
"So, why not make him quiet down?"
"Pittsburgh."
The old man’s finger drew a circle in the air.
"That place is a mess. It’s full of radical workers, gun-toting rednecks, and mentally unstable addicts."
"If..."
The old man gave a meaningful smile.
"If some deranged lone wolf—unhappy with the Mayor’s policies, maybe thinking Pittsburgh stole his business, or that the Mayor betrayed the workers—"
"decided, on a crowded morning, on the steps of the Mayor’s office..."
"to fire a shot."
The old man made a gesture as if pulling a trigger.
"BANG."
"No one would suspect us."
"It would just be another American tragedy. Like Lincoln, like Martin Luther King Jr."
"People will mourn, they’ll march, they’ll light candles."
"But the problem will be solved."
"The world will return to its proper course."
A dead silence filled the conference room.
But no one objected.
In fact, no one even showed any obvious shock.
Because deep down, they all knew it was indeed the most effective solution.
Kane looked at the old man.
He knew this old timer had lived through that era, and might have even been involved in some of its decisions.
"The risk is too great."
Vance wiped away his sweat, his voice a little unsteady.
"The technology we have now is too advanced. There are cameras everywhere, data trails everywhere. If the FBI finds out..."
"The FBI?"
The old man let out a contemptuous laugh.
"Do you really think Director Hoover’s successors actually want to get to the bottom of it?"
"Washington hates him, the Democratic Party hates him, everyone wishes he were dead."
"If he dies, everyone will just breathe a sigh of relief."
"The investigation will be closed as a lone wolf attack. The killer will commit suicide on the spot, or die while being apprehended."
"Those are the rules."
The old man looked at Kane.
"Robert, you’re the chairman. You decide."
Kane sat there, his fingers unconsciously stroking the shattered screen of the tablet.
He was weighing his options.
"I need to understand this proposal better, lest we make the wrong decision."
"So, how are we going to do that?"
"Bring in the consultants."