Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 396: Chapter 185: Moses (2)

"The total for the first batch of payments is over eighty million US dollars." Ethan’s voice trembled. "If we sign this, we’ll have to immediately pay a forty-eight-million-dollar cash advance."

"Leo, this is a power play. They’re using their excess capacity to hold our cash flow hostage."

Leo sat in his chair, looking at the invoices, his face devoid of expression.

He knew what Smith was doing.

’Those old foxes. Once they realized they couldn’t jump ship, they decided to pile all its cargo right in the captain’s cabin. Either the captain deals with it, or everyone goes down together.’

"Sign."

Leo uttered a single word.

"What?" Ethan thought he had misheard. "Can you even use this much steel? Our warehouses are already full. Are we supposed to stack the steel in the hallways of City Hall?"

"We’ll use it all."

Leo stood up.

"I’m going to build a second elevated highway. I’m going to tear down and rebuild all the old warehouses in the South District."

"Leo!" Ethan said, alarmed. "This is a waste! This is pointless, redundant construction!"

"It’s fuel."

Leo turned around, his eyes cold.

"Ethan, don’t you see? Once these orders are signed, the factories in Erie will roar to life, the cement kilns in Scranton will be fired up, and the workers in Johnston will get overtime."

"As long as they’re still producing, the trucks are still on the road, and the smokestacks are still spouting smoke, the workers will feel they have a future. They’ll feel that Murphy is delivering on his promises."

"Get things moving."

Leo walked back to his desk, picked up a pen, and signed his name on the first invoice.

"Don’t let the furnace go out. Even if we’re just burning money to stay warm, we can’t let this fire die."

He handed the signed document to Ethan, then picked up the next one.

"I understand, boss," Ethan said in a low voice, taking the documents. "I’ll have them expedited."

"No, don’t expedite them," Leo said.

Ethan was stunned for a moment. "What?"

"Don’t just not expedite them." Leo paused, pen in hand, and looked up at Ethan. "I want you to tell the city council to slow the process down."

"Have them hold a hearing and a public debate for every single procurement fund."

"I need time, Ethan," Leo said. "I need to stall until the new Federation funding comes through. Until then, we have to conserve our cash flow."

"We’re signing the contracts to give our external allies and voters something to see, to maintain our momentum. But we can’t pay them too quickly."

"I want those suppliers to see the orders but not get the full payment. I want them to be like a pack of donkeys with carrots dangled in front of them, running desperately forward but never getting their fill."

"That... that’s despicable," Ethan muttered to himself.

"This is politics, Ethan." Leo picked up his pen again. "Those people on the city council will be more than happy to play along. Creating bottlenecks is their favorite pastime. Tell Moretti to make it convincing."

Ethan left the office, holding the signed documents.

It was a delirious carnival, one where they drank poison to quench their thirst.

Leo had to push the machine into overdrive while simultaneously pinching its fuel line, keeping it roaring on the very edge of an explosion.

...

The highways of Pennsylvania were congested once again.

This time, there were no police roadblocks, no protest signs.

Countless heavy trucks, bumper to bumper, roared southwards.

They were laden with rebar, concrete pipes, prefabricated panels, and all sorts of construction materials, their weight making the pavement tremble.

It was an almost pathological scene of frantic activity.

Under the stimulus of Leo Wallace’s insane orders, the entire Rust Belt’s overcapacity was roaring to life.

Pittsburgh had become a monster that devoured construction materials.

At the South District’s Inland Port construction site, the pace of construction had tripled.

Searchlights turned night into day, and thousands of workers were on three-shift rotations.

Giant pile drivers hammered the ground day and night. The shockwaves radiated for kilometers, reaching residential areas where they made glasses of water tremble on tables.

In the past, the EPA and resident complaint hotlines would have been ringing off the hook.

But now, no one complained.

Because every strike of the hammer was the sound of money in the bank.

Foundations for new skyscrapers were excavated. The enormous pits looked like wounds on the city, only to be quickly filled with concrete.

Old neighborhoods were covered in dense scaffolding; entire streets were under renovation.

Citizens walking on the street had to shout to be heard over the construction noise.

In a crowded breakfast diner, two workers were wolfing down fried eggs.

"More overtime this week," a young worker complained, but his face showed no pain, only a kind of boastful exhaustion. "The foreman says there’s no room for that shipment of steel from Erie. We have to get the shelving up in Warehouse Two within two days."

"Be grateful," the older worker across from him said, taking a sip of strong coffee. "This time last year, we were at home counting our relief checks to get by. Now? My only worry is not having enough time to spend my money."

Unemployment?

That word belonged to last year.

The people of Pittsburgh now only complained about traffic jams, noise, and too much overtime.

A prosperity that was both illusory and feverish descended upon the city.

「Night fell.」

Leo stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Mayor’s Office.

Outside the window, both banks of the Monongahela River were brilliantly lit.

Countless welding torches flashed on the construction sites, blue arcs rising and falling, more densely packed than the stars in the sky.

The steel frame of the Inland Port logistics center, still under construction, had begun to take shape. It stood majestically by the river, like a modern industrial Tower of Babel.

"It’s magnificent, isn’t it?"

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his mind.

The old man, who had lived through the Great Depression and the World Wars, spoke with a tone of deep concern.

"Leo, you are mortgaging the future."

"You’ve compressed Pittsburgh’s infrastructure needs for the next five years and released them all in this one year, or even just these few months."

"You’ve traded high-interest notes and a fiscal deficit for this fireworks show."

"This has indeed created prosperity, but it has also created a massive bubble."

Roosevelt sighed.

"If Murphy loses, if the Federation funding doesn’t come through, if the subsequent industrial chains don’t follow..."

"That mountain of construction materials will become scrap iron, those newly hired workers will be unemployed again, and the fiscal deficit will become a bottomless pit."

"When that time comes, this tower will collapse and crush us all."

Leo took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.

The flame lit up his slightly gaunt face, his eyes gleaming alarmingly through the smoke.

"Then don’t let it collapse."

Leo blew a smoke ring and pointed at the brightly lit steel frame outside the window.

"It has to be so tall that everyone in Pennsylvania can see it."

"So tall that when John Murphy stands on top, he looks like Moses performing a miracle."

Leo turned his back on the prosperous illusion.

"As long as we can win the election, as long as we can get our ticket to Washington."

"Even if the deluge comes after."

"We can just build another ark."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

Sarah entered, holding the latest polling report.

"Leo, the data is in." Sarah’s voice trembled slightly. "In Erie and Scranton, Murphy’s approval rating has broken fifty-five percent. Around Pittsburgh, he’s leading Warren by eight percentage points."

"We... we might actually win."

Leo stubbed out his cigarette.

"It’s not enough."

"Contact Karen."

"Tell her to ramp up the publicity. Dump the entire budget into it."

"I want to make Murphy look like a prophet emerging from a jungle of steel, the Moses who will lead Pennsylvania across the Red Sea."

"I want everyone who sees him to believe that he can part the sea of despair and lead them to a promised land flowing with milk and honey."