Chapter 471 - 217: Fire Seed
But Frank had changed.
Or perhaps, in this game of power, no one could stay the same forever.
Frank was no longer just the Union leader who only knew how to chant slogans and lead workers into the fray.
He had also learned to build his own network, to plant his own informants, and to keep his own secrets.
He had his own deep state.
Leo had always thought he was in control of the big picture, that he was the one playing the game.
But now he was discovering that the pieces on the board had minds of their own.
"Answer me, Frank."
Leo broke the silence.
"Who told you?"
Frank still didn’t say the name.
He would never sell out one of his brothers, not even to Leo.
He just reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes, took one out, and stuck it in his mouth.
"That’s not important, Leo."
"What’s important is, where is the kid now? What do you plan to do with him?"
"Hand him over to the Federation in exchange for your medal for being the law-and-order mayor?"
"Or use him as a bargaining chip to make another dirty deal with Washington?"
Leo looked at Frank.
He didn’t directly answer the barrage of questions.
Instead, he stood up and walked over to the large map in his office.
His finger traced a line across the map, moving upstream along the winding river.
"The Allegheny River."
Leo’s finger stopped at a point on the northern part of the map.
"The report says the patrol car found him in the abandoned factory district near Riverside Drive."
Leo turned and looked at Frank.
"That area is remote. No bus routes, no residential areas."
"There are only a few old highways leading north, and that river."
Leo’s gaze sharpened.
"In that direction, if you go north, past Erie, you reach the Lake District."
"Once you’re on a cargo ship, you can go straight into Canada."
"That’s a favorite route for snakeheads."
Leo walked back to his desk, leaned on it with both hands, and stared intently at Frank.
"He wasn’t just wandering around, Frank."
"He was on the run."
"And it was a carefully planned route."
"Luigi isn’t from Pittsburgh. He doesn’t know the first thing about the city’s geography."
"He couldn’t have found that route on his own."
"Someone was helping him."
Leo’s voice rose slightly.
"Someone arranged a vehicle for him, someone planned his route, someone wanted to get him out of the country."
"This wasn’t you, was it?"
Leo stared at Frank.
"You’re not that far gone, are you, Frank?"
"Do you know what crime that is? It’s aiding and abetting a fugitive, harboring a terrorist."
"What’s more."
Leo pointed to himself, then gestured to the office around them.
"Because of your relationship with me, because you’re now a core member of the Revitalization Plan, if you get into trouble, I’ll be attacked too unless I cut ties with you immediately."
"The media watching us, the opposition who wants to bring us down, they’ll all say: ’Look, the Mayor of Pittsburgh and his Union ally are in it together. They’re funding terrorists. They’re undermining the rule of law.’"
"Everything we’ve worked so hard to build—the Revitalization Plan, the workers’ cooperatives, the community benefits—it will all be smeared, completely disfigured by this filth."
"Tell me, Frank."
"Were you the one who took him there?"
Frank bit down on the cigarette in his mouth, crushing the filter.
He looked at Leo.
He saw the anger in Leo’s eyes.
Frank shook his head.
"It wasn’t me."
Frank spat out the mangled cigarette.
"I’m not that stupid, Leo."
"I know where the line is."
Leo let out a breath, but his tense nerves didn’t fully relax.
"Then who was it?"
"A friend of mine."
Frank said vaguely, waving his hand as if to dismiss the topic.
"The plan failed. The kid got caught."
"Now, he’s in your hands."
"What the hell do you want to do?"
Leo ignored Frank’s question.
He seized on the most critical point of logic.
"So you knew all along."
Leo’s voice turned icy.
"You knew where Luigi was hiding."
"You knew when he was leaving."
Leo walked around the desk and stood in front of Frank.
"You knew about it."
"But you didn’t stop it."
"And you didn’t tell me."
Leo stared into Frank’s eyes.
"Right?"
"We’re allies, Frank."
"We’re in the same boat."
"You went behind my back to do something that could have sunk the boat at any moment."
"Is this what you call trusting me?"
Frank fell silent. He couldn’t argue.
He had indeed kept a secret. He had indeed taken a risk.
But he didn’t regret it.
"Leo, you’re still young. You don’t know what health insurance means to old folks like us."
Frank pointed to his own chest.
"Do you know how much we have to spend on premiums every month?"
Frank extended a rough finger, pointing out the window into the night.
"But when we actually get sick, when our lives are on the line, those insurance companies take out a magnifying glass to scrutinize every single claim. They’ll dig up your physical from twenty years ago, check if your grandfather had high blood pressure."
"As long as they can find the tiniest little flaw, they’ll deny the claim."
Frank’s voice began to tremble.
"That CEO who was killed, that bastard named Arthur Vance."
"He’d sit in his spacious, brightly lit office, wearing a suit that cost thousands, holding a golden pen."