Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 106 - 72: Sacrifice

The night deepened and the crowd of onlookers began to thin, but the atmosphere in City Hall Plaza was stretched to its breaking point.

Police Chief Dave Miller stood on the command platform of an armored riot control vehicle, his hand gripping a walkie-talkie.

His eyes were bloodshot. The roars of Mayor Carter Wright from the Mayor’s Office still echoed in his ears.

"I want them gone from my sight before the sun rises tomorrow."

Those words were an order.

For a crude man like Miller, who had climbed the ranks by doing his superiors’ dirty work, the Mayor’s meaning was crystal clear: forget the law, forget procedure, just get results.

He glanced at his watch.

One in the morning.

Leo Wallace and his people were still sitting on the lawn.

They were even brewing coffee.

To Miller, the hum of that damn generator sounded like a form of provocation.

"Director, are we really going to do this?" his deputy captain asked hesitantly. "That’s a public area, and besides..."

"Shut up," Miller cut his subordinate off gruffly. "The Mayor gave the order. Clear the area. Now."

He picked up a megaphone, and his voice boomed across the plaza.

"Listen up, you people on the lawn! You are participating in an illegal assembly and severely disrupting public order! I order you to disperse immediately within five minutes! Otherwise, we will take coercive measures!"

Leo, sitting behind his desk, looked up at the line of fully armed police officers.

Black helmets, riot shields, batons, and even tear gas launchers.

Using such force against a group of unarmed campaign staff and volunteers was absolute overkill.

"Sarah, point the camera at them," Leo said calmly.

Sarah adjusted the camera’s angle.

The number of viewers in the livestream began to skyrocket.

Five minutes passed quickly.

Leo didn’t move.

Frank and a few of his Union brothers linked arms and stood at the outer edge of the desk area, forming a human wall.

"Time’s up."

A corner of Director Miller’s mouth twitched. He swung his hand down.

"Move in! Clear them out!"

Two rows of riot police, shields raised, advanced in lockstep.

Their black leather boots made a dull thudding sound on the lawn.

The conflict erupted in an instant.

The police shields slammed violently into the workers.

Frank was a tough man. He withstood the first wave of the assault and roared, "We haven’t broken any laws! This is our right!"

"To hell with your rights!"

At a nod from his captain, a young officer raised his baton and brought it down hard on Frank’s arm.

Frank grunted but didn’t back down.

The scene descended into chaos.

More workers surged in from all directions, trying to protect Leo and the campaign headquarters.

They began shoving back and forth with the police.

"Use non-lethal force!" Miller yelled from the command platform.

Several officers raised their spray cans.

Orange-red pepper spray shot toward the crowd.

Screams of pain immediately filled the air.

The workers in the front row clutched their eyes, collapsing to the ground and writhing in agony.

Just then, a small, thin figure tried to rush into the encirclement.

It was Margaret.

She was carrying two baskets filled with freshly baked meat pies she had prepared as a late-night meal for Leo and the others.

Seeing the police beating people, she instinctively tried to rush in and stop them.

"Stop fighting! Stop fighting! What are you children doing!"

She tried to push away a riot shield blocking her path.

The officer holding the shield had clearly lost control in the heat of the moment, or perhaps he’d received a direct order to show "no mercy."

He didn’t even see who was in front of him.

He was just mechanically executing his tactical maneuvers—a shield bash, a shove.

The heavy shield slammed hard into Margaret’s chest.

The old woman didn’t even have time to cry out.

Her entire body flew backward, and she fell heavily to the ground.

The baskets flew from her grasp. Meat pies scattered across the ground, only to be trampled into mush by black police boots.

Margaret lay on the ground, curled into a ball in pain, and then stopped moving.

In that instant, a deathly silence fell over the entire plaza.

Even the officers who had been swinging their batons froze.

They stared at the white-haired old woman on the ground.

Then, a heart-wrenching roar shattered the silence.

"Bastards! You killed her!"

Frank went insane.

He ignored the batons and spray cans aimed at him and charged like a wounded bull at the officer who had pushed Margaret down.

The scene spun completely out of control.

It was a one-sided atrocity.

A few meters away, Sarah’s camera recorded everything.

The officer pushing down the old woman.

The moment Margaret fell to the ground.

The trampled meat pies on the ground.

These images, via the internet, spread throughout Pittsburgh, throughout all of Pennsylvania.

「Ten minutes later.」

City Hall, third floor, the Mayor’s Office.

Martin Carter Wright stood before the floor-to-ceiling window.

He didn’t need to watch television.

He only needed to look down to see everything happening below.

He saw the old woman on the ground, the clouds of pepper spray, and the furious crowd that was now assembling.

His face was ashen. The cigar in his hand had been crushed to bits.

"Idiot..."

Carter Wright hissed the word through his clenched teeth.

"Dave Miller, you absolute, unmitigated idiot!"

He had told Miller to solve the problem.

He had hinted that Miller should be firm.

But he never told the idiot to beat up a seventy-year-old woman in front of the entire city!

This was political suicide.

Carter Wright looked down at the crowd below.

More and more people were swarming toward City Hall.

These weren’t protesters organized by Leo; they were ordinary citizens who had come of their own accord.

Their faces were etched with incredulous fury.

The police line was collapsing.

’If I don’t put out this fire, it will burn through the doors of City Hall and straight into my office.’

Carter Wright turned and walked toward his desk.

In that moment, his expression changed.

The panic and anger vanished, replaced by a chilling coldness.

He was the jackal of this jungle.

When a jackal gets its leg caught in a trap, what does it do?

It bites off its own leg without hesitation to survive.

Carter Wright picked up the phone and dialed an internal line.

"Notify all media outlets. In five minutes, I will be making a speech at the entrance of City Hall."

"Also, have the legal department prepare a document."

"A notice of termination of employment."

After hanging up, Carter Wright straightened his suit.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror.

His expression was stern, grief-stricken, and filled with a sense of justice.

A flawless performance.

「Five minutes later.」

The main doors of City Hall slowly opened.

Martin Carter Wright walked out, flanked by several bodyguards.

When the crowd in the plaza saw him, a deafening wave of boos erupted.

"Murderer!"

"Tyrant!"

"Get out of Pittsburgh!"

Some people even threw water bottles and rocks.

The bodyguards nervously raised their briefcases to shield him, but Carter Wright pushed them aside.

He didn’t flinch, striding purposefully straight toward the riot police command platform.

Director Dave Miller was standing there, his face a mask of confusion and terror.

He saw the Mayor.

He thought his savior had arrived.

He thought his boss was here to back him up. After all, he was just following his boss’s orders.

"Mayor, the situation’s a little out of control. These thugs..."

Miller hurried forward, trying to explain.

SLAP!

A resounding slap landed squarely across Miller’s face.

The blow was so vicious that it sent Miller’s police cap flying.

The entire crowd fell silent in an instant.

Even Leo was stunned.

"Director Miller!"

Carter Wright roared, the veins on his neck bulging as spit flew onto Miller’s face.

"Who gave you the authority?!"

"Who gave you the authority to use such savage violence against our citizens?!"

"Look what you’ve done! Look at that old woman lying on the ground!"

Carter Wright’s finger trembled as he pointed at Margaret not far away.

"She is our mother! She is the conscience of this city! And you... you actually let your men lay a hand on her?!"

Miller, clutching his face, was completely dumbfounded.

"Mayor... but... you were the one who said..."

"Shut up!"

Carter Wright didn’t give him a chance to speak.

He turned to face the angry citizens, Sarah’s camera, and the lenses of all the media outlets that had rushed to the scene.

His expression instantly shifted from furious rage to one of profound grief and disappointment.

He took a deep bow.

A full ninety degrees.

"Citizens, my brothers and sisters of Pittsburgh."

"As your Mayor, I am utterly ashamed."

"I entrusted the police director with the power to maintain order, but I never imagined he would abuse that power so flagrantly, trampling on the most precious values of our city."

"This is a crime! This is a desecration of the spirit of Pittsburgh! This is absolutely intolerable!"

He straightened up, his gaze becoming as sharp as a blade.

"I stand here, on behalf of the Pittsburgh City Government, to offer my sincerest apologies to all citizens injured in today’s conflict! The city government will cover all medical expenses and all damages in full!"

"Furthermore, I officially announce!"

He glanced back at the still-dazed Miller.

"Effective immediately, Dave Miller is relieved of all his duties!"

"Moreover, I will personally sign an order requesting the state prosecutor’s office to intervene and conduct an independent criminal investigation into Dave Miller and all other responsible parties who were commanding on-site!"

"If any illegal or improper conduct is found, no matter who is involved, even if it is someone I once trusted, I will show no mercy! I will see to it that he rots in jail!"

His words were forceful and resonant.

Director Miller’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.

He finally understood.

He’d been sold out.

He had become the sacrificial lamb to appease the public’s anger.

"Take him away!"

Carter Wright barked the order at two inspectors standing nearby.

They were his own men, whom he had brought with him.

The two inspectors immediately stepped forward, stripped Miller of his badge, confiscated his sidearm, and dragged him toward a police car.

Miller didn’t resist.

His eyes were filled with the despair of betrayal.

He wanted to proclaim his innocence, but he knew it was useless.

If he dared to say the wrong thing, his life in prison would be a living hell, and even his family would suffer.

This was how Carter Wright operated.

The Mayor personally slapped the Director, the Mayor personally fired the Director, and the Mayor was going to send the Director to prison.

He had cut himself off from the situation completely.

In a flash, he had transformed himself into a defender of justice, a "good Mayor" who had been deceived by his subordinate.

Carter Wright watched the crowd gradually quiet down and breathed a sigh of relief internally.

’I won the gamble.’

’I traded my own confidant to save my own skin.’

He looked over at Leo, who was standing behind the desk on the lawn.

Their gazes met in mid-air.

Leo stood there, watching the performance.

He felt a wave of disgust.

"Is this really going to work? Everyone knows he’s the one who gave the order."

Roosevelt’s voice was cold.

"That is the cruel nature of politics, Leo."

"Everyone might know he’s behind it, but procedurally, legally, he has made a perfect cut."

"He’s given the angry mob an outlet for their rage."

"When the masses see someone being punished, more than half of their anger will dissipate."

"Carter Wright is a truly ruthless man. He knows when to cut off his own tail to survive."

"In this round, although he suffered heavy losses, he survived."

Leo looked at Miller being taken to the police car, then at Margaret being lifted onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.

His fists clenched tightly.

’He survived,’ Leo said to himself. ’But the blood he shed today will only attract more sharks.’

’And I’m not going to let him get away with this either.’

Leo walked out from behind his desk and strode toward Carter Wright, who was still being interviewed by reporters.

The battle wasn’t over.

This was just a new beginning.