Shadow Empire

Chapter 1179 Missed
As Mr. Potter watched his son walk away, his mind was filled with thoughts he had never considered before.

He thought this period would pass very quickly and easily because people would surround him, say nice things, and then he would be sworn in as the new president of the Union.

He thought.

But in fact, even at this point, he felt a heavy and immense pressure coming his way.

He didn't know if previous presidents had experienced these things, but he sensed it.

The embodiment of that struggle.

Just one minor character's wrong choice put him in a very passive position in this matter, and he was well aware of what Roland's death would bring.

Some troublesome favors, some incriminating evidence that might fall into the hands of certain people, and even some covetousness from the Socialist Party.

But he had no choice but to do it. As his son said, they could optimistically expect an acceptable outcome for them, but the Socialist Party would definitely make a fuss about it and try to dig deeper into some important details.

From the moment Roland decided to plead guilty, his value to Mr. Potter dropped to zero.

If he can continue to delay, perhaps there will be a relatively not-too-bad ending in the future. Although he will be abandoned, a discarded pawn, at least he can still live.

He made a wrong choice. When a smart person makes a wrong choice, it's either because he's lost his mind or because he intends to turn the mistake into an advantage for himself.

So in the end, he granted his son's request.

It was a terrible feeling; everything was starting to feel unfamiliar to him. These uncontrollable changes made him unconsciously tug at his collar, the only way he could breathe more easily.

Although the Liberal Party does not have a relationship with the Attorney General in the Prosecutor's Office, the relationship between the Attorney General and the prosecutors still exists, and they are still considered to be on the same side.

After pleading guilty, Roland has confessed to most of the charges. The next step for the prosecutor's office is to compile this evidence and his confession into a file, and then combine them together for use in court.

Therefore, Roland no longer needed to appear before them, and he was sent back to the room where he was imprisoned.

This is the U.S. Attorney's Office, the highest-level federal prosecutor's office.

Those who are interrogated here are often very special people, so each of them is held in a standard single room with some common furniture, all of which is fixed to the floor and cannot be moved.

The mattress is a single piece, so it cannot be easily removed or torn apart, and there is no place to hang oneself.

Roland sat on the bed rubbing his cheeks. He didn't know what the future held, but he knew for sure that he had made the choice that was best for him.

Next, all he needs to do is try to live as long as possible.

He lay in bed, his mind a jumble of thoughts, unable to fully concentrate.

He thought of his parents, who must be somewhat disappointed in him, after all, he had once been... such an upright person.

He also thought of his wife and children, hoping that Lance would keep his promise. Two hundred thousand was a very suitable amount, enough to ensure they would have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of their lives.

He also thought of his nominal wife and the father of that bastard child; he would definitely pay the price for his stupidity!

Finally, Mr. Porter came to mind. He sighed silently, certain that Lance, and Senator Cleveland behind him, were probably using him as bait.

Politics is too dirty. Lance's appearance this time made him even more certain of this. Compared to them, the gangsters can be considered "clean"!
Roland didn't eat dinner that night. He summoned the prosecutor and had a brief talk with him. He would only eat food brought by the prosecutor, in order to ensure that he would survive before the trial.

He wanted to live, as everyone does, so the chief prosecutor did not refuse his request. In fact, the food he sent was not from the prosecutor's office restaurant, but was specially prepared from outside.

Food, water, everything.

Roland felt quite safe eating the food, which was already a little cold.

The prosecutor stood by, watching him eat. "Do you think someone will come to silence you?"

He didn't say who it was, but he knew who it was.

Only that person would be so eager to silence them, since the impact of such a matter could be small or large.

Roland smiled, but his grimacing was not a pleasant look. He didn't give a direct answer, but his attitude spoke volumes.

After he finished eating, the chief prosecutor left him two bottles of water for the night before leaving.

Roland lay down on the mattress, ready to drift off to sleep.

It was so boring and tedious here, but it also gave him more time.

It seems like he hasn't "stopped" to think quietly for a long time. He doesn't know when it started, but he hasn't been "idle" like this before.

The quiet space provided him with a better atmosphere for thinking, and as he pondered, his eyelids gradually became heavy and he drifted off to sleep.

He didn't know how long he had slept, but he seemed to vaguely sense that someone was standing next to him.

The next second, he suddenly opened his eyes. The two guys in front of him made him pause. Just as he was about to shout, one of them punched him in the face, and the other put a lasso around his neck.

He gripped the rope tightly around his neck with all his might!
But the guy behind him was pulling too tight, and he couldn't pry it open at all. Even his fingernails were pulled up and flipped over, but he still couldn't insert his fingers!

His face turned visibly red. He tried to roll over to regain the dominant position, but as he was pinned down by the other person, it seemed that survival had become a luxury!
The more he struggled, the faster he consumed oxygen. His face grew increasingly red, almost purplish, and his eyes bulged out.

Just as he felt he was about to leave this world and return to God's embrace, a group of people suddenly rushed in from outside. When he saw the prosecutor's ambiguous smile, he finally felt relieved.

In the end, Roland did not die, but due to prolonged lack of oxygen, he fainted the moment he relaxed, and the two assassins were also subdued.

Senator Cleveland learned about it early the next morning.

After a brief moment of thought, he asked, "Besides you, me, and those people from last night, who else knows about this?"

This situation is actually quite difficult to handle. The difficulty lies in the fact that if these two assassins know something, it will force Senator Cleveland and his group to confront Mr. Porter prematurely. Although they are already confronting each other, the current confrontation is more like a mutual dislike, limited to glaring at each other without any substantial contact or harm.

But once the two assassins they've subdued have direct evidence pointing to Mr. Potter, it means their confrontation will escalate from this harmless, long-range eye-harassment to close-quarters combat.

Because they possess the means to remove Mr. Porter from office. Although Mr. Porter won the election, he is not yet president, has not yet established his own interest group, nor has he formed layers of barriers to protect him. He doesn't even have the authority to sign presidential decrees to pardon himself!
So whether it's for the power he already has but hasn't yet assumed, or to avoid being impeached and brought to court, he has to fight them hand-to-hand, the kind of fight that goes down hard.

Senators in Cleveland devised a strategy to leave Mr. Porter alone for the time being, and then launch an offensive to remove him from office after his first term ended, followed by a general election.

Removing him prematurely would only allow the vice president, whom they are not familiar with and who doesn't have many fatal weaknesses in their hands, to take office, and their plan might not be able to succeed.

Therefore, catching these two assassins is actually more troublesome than not catching them. In fact, at this point, it would have been more appropriate for Senator Cleveland to have Roland killed by them.

This led Mr. Potter to believe that his assassination attempt had succeeded, causing him to lower his guard.

The chief prosecutor recalled, "Only we know that the people on my side are people I trust, so there shouldn't be any problems."

"Was it a mistake for us to arrest these two people?" He realized, after all, he was the chief prosecutor.

When the Attorney General is not involved in the work, the main people in charge of the Federal Prosecutor's Office are these Attorney Generals.

He also has some experience in political struggles, both professionally and in politics.

He immediately understood Senator Cleveland's meaning: these two assassins would not be a "trump card" against Mr. Porter; on the contrary, having them under his control would become a hot potato.

"What should we do now?"

Senator Cleveland thought for a moment, “Let’s put them in solitary confinement first, and then leak the information. We can’t do anything about it, but they’ll probably be in a lot of trouble. Let’s see if they’ll take the initiative first.”

"If they take the initiative to communicate with us first, then we will return these two people to them."

“If they don’t take the initiative…” Senator Cleveland paused for a moment, “the assassination of a former FBI director is clearly a case more suited to be handled by the FBI.”

"What do you think?"

The chief prosecutor considered it for a while and concluded that there were no problems. "Then I'll arrange it this way."

He then ordered his men to keep a close watch on the two assassins to prevent any accidents from happening to them, and at the same time, he began to spread the news within the prosecutor's office.

He said he planned to begin interrogating the two killers to see if he could extract any useful information from them.

In the morning, Mr. Potter, who hadn't slept well the night before, was a bit grumpy and seemed quite irritable.

This should have been the happiest time of his life, but now his mind is filled with unexpected events.

The issue with Porter Jr. has just been resolved, and now we need to deal with Roland's situation. I don't know if it's been resolved yet.

While it might seem horrifying to arrange for someone to assassinate a key suspect in the prosecutor's office, this is the federal government, where even presidents have been assassinated or killed. So, assassinating a suspect in the prosecutor's office might be acceptable.

He had just come out of his bedroom when he saw Mr. Middleport sitting in the living room. Although they lived on the same estate, they did not live in the same house.

"Didn't you do it well?" Looking at the worried look on his son's face, he knew in his heart that the matter had most likely not been handled well.

Mr. Porter stood up. "They made their move in the middle of the night yesterday and almost succeeded, but it seems the people over there anticipated that we might make a move, and the assassination failed."

“I originally planned to have them use some highly toxic substances to deal with Roland, but Roland’s food and water were prepared by the chief prosecutor himself, so we had no chance to interfere.”

"I sent two men in to take care of him in the middle of the night, but they were ambushed."

"The bad news is that Roland is not dead, but two of us have fallen into the hands of the prosecutor's office."

"The good news is that these two hitmen were unaware of our situation; they were hired by me through a third party."

After frowning and thinking for a moment, Mr. Potter said, "It looks like good news, but it's actually not good news."

“They must know that we were the ones who did it. At this point, we are probably the only ones who could arrange for someone to kill Roland.”

He walked to the dining table, where the servants had already prepared breakfast, but now only he and his son were there; everyone else had left.

He sat there, quietly enjoying his breakfast.

Mr. Porter frowned, unable to comprehend how his father could sit there and eat breakfast alone at such an important time.

Is breakfast more important than those two idiotic assassins falling into the hands of political enemies?
However, he didn't disturb Mr. Potter's meal. Since Mr. Potter had already started eating and it wouldn't take much time, it was best not to bother him.

After he had finished eating and put down his knife and fork, he said, "We are going further and further down the wrong path."

"On the issue of Porter Jr.'s shitty affairs, and how to deal with Roland."

"There may be some things that we haven't even noticed ourselves, and we haven't dealt with them properly."

"Looking back now, everything seems to have happened so coincidentally, as if... there was an unseen force pushing us forward."

"You don't need to get involved in this matter for now. It's best to hide the middleman you found, or..."

"I'll take care of the rest."

As long as the two assassins weren't their own people, and the middleman disappeared, no one could accuse them of the crime.

Arresting Lance requires evidence, so arresting a presidential candidate who has already won the election requires even more evidence.

Without evidence, no accusation can stand.

(End of this chapter)