Shadow Empire

Chapter 735 Complaint
Senator Cleveland had just finished a meeting and when he came out of his room he saw Tom standing by his door waiting for him.

Logically, Tom should be waiting for him away from the conference room, together with the secretaries, staff and entourage of other big shots.

They are people from the same circle, and they don't stand here and look out of place.

However, Senator Cleveland knew very well that Tom was not a reckless person, and there must be a reason why he was standing here.

"What's wrong?" He just paused for a moment and continued to walk out, followed by Tom.

“Lance had some conflicts with the Holy Bell Party in Likalai State, and he mobilized some social resources.”

"The Holy Bell Party?" Senator Cleveland tugged at his tie to make it less tight. "I seem to have heard of this name somewhere."

Tom quickly explained, "They rely on religion and practice extreme racist behavior. It's hard to define whether they are a religious organization or a gang."

Senator Cleveland suddenly remembered, "Were they the ones who killed more than twenty dark-skinned people last time?"

He said that it had actually been several years since the "last time". Now that the environment has changed, Joshua is also seeking to whitewash himself. Although he is still extreme and has committed crimes, he has also begun to pay attention to some superficial things.

In the past two years, he has not made similar news known to everyone. Although they are still doing it, they are not as unscrupulous.

Tom nodded and ran a few steps to open a door for the senator. "Yes, these are the people."

Senator Cleveland said thank you and stepped through the door. "What happened to them?"

"There was some conflict." Tom closed the door and followed closely, standing behind the senator again. "The people from the Holy Bell Party attacked Lance and Mayor Williams before. They kidnapped Mayor Williams' son, and Lance had some disputes with them because of this."

"This time, Lance mobilized some state government resources. Attorney General Terry also helped mobilize some state police. He contacted the Prohibition Committee and placed one of his people in the State Prohibition Committee."

"We attacked the Holy Bell Party from many aspects and they suffered heavy losses."

Senator Cleveland smiled and said, "I hope you don't mean Lance and his people by 'they'."

Tom also laughed, "Of course not. The Saint Bell Party suffered heavy losses, lost face, lost territory, and many people were arrested."

"Many celebrities have claimed no connection to them, and some have accused them of crimes."

Senator Cleveland frowned and said, "Isn't this great?" Then he smiled again and nodded to the entourage of other bigwigs in the hall who had stood up and saluted him, as a response to their respect.

Tom also glanced at those people, "That's the problem."

"There are some interests between the Holy Bell Party and some people. You know, they kidnap and traffic people."

As he spoke, he trotted to the gate and opened it for the senator to go out. Then he chased after him as before and trotted down the stairs.

A car not far away saw Senator Cleave coming down the steps. The driver ended his chat with other car drivers, stepped on the accelerator and stopped the car at the foot of the steps.

Tom opened the car door and let the senator get in, while he sat in the passenger seat. "Let's go back to the manor."

Senator Cleland breathed a sigh of relief. He put the briefcase in his hand beside him. "Human trafficking, and then what?"

His tone didn't seem to show any emotional ups and downs about human trafficking, kidnapping and the like.

In fact, these "big guys", not to mention their ancestors, their fathers, and their grandfathers, basically kept a large number of slaves to work for them.

They were used to buying slaves, selling slaves, killing slaves, abusing slaves, or setting up slave-catching teams to capture slaves.

So from these people's point of view, the crimes of the Holy Bell Party are "nothing special". After all, what their family did was much more cruel than what the Holy Bell Party did.

For example, a group of slaves on the farm of a big shot's grandfather planned to escape, but they were discovered by the big shot's grandfather.

In order to prevent such things from happening again, he ordered the cowboys to break the limbs of all slaves who intended to escape, lasso them with ropes and hang them on saddles, and then let the horses drag the slaves to death.

From the place where the slaves lived to the gate of the farm, the entire crossroads was stained red with blood, and the minced meat seen everywhere was chilling!

If this kind of behavior happened today, it would probably have aroused heated discussions throughout society.

But in that era, this was normal behavior that people, including slaves themselves, accepted.

The fugitive slave deserved to be beaten to death.

Senator Cleveland was not young either. He was born at the end of the slave emancipation movement, but he was not unfamiliar with that era because his grandfather, his father, and his family often talked about these things and the scenery of the farm in the past.

In fact, after the slave emancipation movement, many slaves are still working on farms, even now!
He roughly understood what Tom wanted to express.

"You mean to say that someone is not happy with his behavior?" He finally understood. "You could have been more direct!"

After thinking for a while, he asked, "What did they say?"

Lance is still very valuable. Now they have started to make money. In just one month, millions have been transferred into the account, and it's so damn clean.

Although Lance has now submitted a qualified test paper, he believes that Lance will continue to surprise him in the future, and as an ambitious person, he certainly hopes that he can go further and climb higher.

Then he must have a group of outstanding talents around him to assist him. Lance may have some flaws in some aspects, but this is also his strength, so as long as it does not shake his core interests and foundation, he will protect Lance.

"They said Lance had overreached. That was the state government, the federal government, not him as a gangster."

Senator Cleveland couldn't help laughing. "It's funny. They are very humorous. They must be good at telling jokes."

He thought for a while and said, "But what they said does make sense. Go back and talk to Lance about it. Don't make it so exaggerated."

This has certainly touched upon the interests of some people. The current situation at home and abroad is very special and what is needed is stability rather than chaos.

He added, "Explain to Lance that the external war requires a stable and reliable internal environment."

After he finished speaking, he turned his head to look at the scenery outside the window. After a while, he seemed to have thought of something and asked, "Did Carter submit any proposal recently?"

Tom shook his head. "I haven't read into that."

The senator did not ask any further questions.

The "Carter" he was referring to was the director of the FBI, a "sycophant."

Because until now, the FBI's primary task has been to "collect dirty information on political enemies who have ill intentions toward the President." In other words, the job of this department is to provide ammunition for the President to suppress dissidents politically.

They are not popular. After all, who can like someone who wants to know your privacy all the time?
The previous director did a mediocre job, which led to a serious crisis for the President during the midterm elections and he almost failed.

He thought the previous director was a complete idiot, and of course he would not admit that he was not a smart man for putting such an idiot in this position.

Carter, the new director who succeeded the previous director, has a very impressive resume.

A graduate of the Elite Alliance University, he is still a "reserve crew member".

Speaking of this "reserve crew", we have to mention the disaster of destruction and the ship of salvation mentioned in the Bible.

In the last century, there were many legends about the "Millennium Catastrophe".

People believe that after a thousand years, it will be a reincarnation and the Lord will bring down disasters to punish greedy humans.

Whether out of a genuine desire to leave a spark of fire for the human world, or for some other purpose, the "Ark" organization came into being.

It brought together the world's top talents at that time, scientists, dignitaries, and wealthy people. In short, most of the top people in the world joined the Ark.

It also includes the royal families and kings of some small countries.

The influence of the Ark grew and reached its peak in the last century, because the Millennium Catastrophe was imminent and people were afraid of the impending calamity.

So anyone with a little ability would try to join the Ark. Later, it was proven that there was no world-destroying catastrophe, so logically, the Ark should be disbanded.

But after more than a hundred years of accumulation, Ark has become an organization with great influence all over the world.

Because it is not a strict secret organization now, but a loose organization, so as long as one is an outstanding person, is recommended, and passes the assessment, he will become the lowest-level member of the Ark and a reserve crew member.

This is also one of the reasons why the President took a fancy to Carter. The President is also a member of the Ark, and his rank is not low.

To him, Carter is a double subordinate, so he feels more at ease using him. Moreover, Carter is indeed capable at work. Two of the senators who stabbed the president in the midterm elections have already found a reason to resign.

Some people were also trembling in fear. If Carter had not considered that excessive action would trigger a backlash from Congress, he might have really been able to pull out all the nails.

The President trusts him very much.

He seems to have submitted a proposal to expand the FBI's powers, but Congress has been holding back on its passage.

They don't like fierce hunting dogs like Carter, who bite people at the slightest provocation.

But at this moment, he didn't know why, when he thought about these things, he felt a sense of uneasy feeling.

Mr. President, you won’t use your privilege to pass it directly, right?

He shook his head. It seemed that he would need to communicate these matters with other senators and the Socialist Party to avoid any uncontrollable situations.

After returning to the manor, Tom called Lance and the call was quickly connected.

"It's me, Tom." He greeted first, then thought about how to tell Lance about this.

Lance was a little surprised that Tom called him, but he also guessed why.

After all, the only thing that made Tom call recently was the action against the Holy Bell Party.

As for the rest, the wine had been delivered to the front line on time and in quantity. He had done everything he should have done and had not done anything he should not have done. The only thing that could be said to be outside the "plan" was the matter of the Holy Bell Party.

So he took the initiative to bring up this matter as soon as he opened his mouth, "Is it about the Saint Bell Party?"

Tom was surprised, "How did you know I was going to say that?"

Lance smiled and said, "Because I don't think there is anything else that would make you call me at this time."

Tom thought about it and it seemed to be true.

"Tell me, has anything changed?"

"Someone complained?"

"Or do you need me to be more ruthless and not give Joshua a chance to speak?"

Tom was also amused by him. "You always surprise people, but no one asked me to tell you to find a way to make Joshua shut up."

"But some people have complained to the senator. They didn't say it very clearly, but we all know that they are accusing you of using the senator's influence to get Attorney General Terry, the state police, and the state prohibition committee to eliminate dissidents for you."

"They think you've crossed the line. You shouldn't let the government do these things!"

Lance was not surprised by this answer.

If someone wants to cause trouble for you or doesn't like you, he will always find a way to blame you.

From which foot you walked in the door first, to whether you looked at him first or not, he can find a new excuse every second.

Lance's background was not clean, so they didn't need to spend too much effort to accuse Lance. They found a key point.

It’s not that Lance himself didn’t want a clean foundation, but if he didn’t take this path, he would still be in the bakery worrying about how to pay off the money he owed.

If you want to gain something, you will definitely lose something. There is no gain without loss.

If one day you find that you have gained but lost nothing, it only means that it is not the time for you to lose anything.

"I understand. I will handle the next thing myself. The situation is clear now. It doesn't matter whether they join or not."

Tom couldn't help but remind him when he heard this, "You have to be careful, Lance. We don't want anything to happen to you."

What he meant was that he didn't want Lance to personally participate in the gunfight. After all, bullets don't know who you are. If someone really shoots him, everything else will have nothing to do with human power and can only be decided by God.

Lance agreed, "I care about my life more than you do. Don't worry too much. Don't forget, this is how I got up in the first place."

They then chatted for a few more minutes before Lance hung up the phone.

He sat there for a while, thinking about what to do next, then called Attorney General Terry and told him what had happened.

Attorney General Terry did not seem surprised that this happened. "Joshua, like Bandy, was eager to clear his name in recent years, so he also got to know many people in the upper class."

"You know, some people have power, but power cannot make them defy federal laws. They still have to abide by the law, except for religion!"

Religion is always a useful tool for those in power, starting with the religion that allows one to marry four wives and four husbands.

These religions are mostly serving the powerful.

Whatever the powerful want, they will come up with new doctrines and rules, and combined with the clear religious freedom and respect for belief in federal law, it has become a kind of expensive toy.

Now that this toy has been smashed by Lance, even if they don't do anything themselves, they have to vent Joshua's anger and regain some face.

"Do you have a list of them?"

"I'll talk to them once I'm done with Joshua and some of the other stuff."

Listening to Lance's unabashed desire for revenge, Attorney General Terry smiled and said that he only knew a few names and would give them to him.

Then Lance told him to follow the normal process and not to chase after the people from the Holy Bell Party. He would handle the rest himself.

Attorney General Terry gave the same advice as Tom, telling him to be careful not to capsize the boat.

It took a long time to make all the calls. After hanging up the phone, Lance frowned.

He took out a cigarette and lit it. His original idea was to not do anything himself and let Attorney General Terry and the state police handle it directly.

There was no need for him to take action in a case of this magnitude, Joshua would have been pinned to death.

This is also the biggest difficulty for vicious criminal groups to whitewash themselves. They have done too many bad things, and they are very vicious cases. Once they are exposed and definite evidence is obtained, it is basically difficult for them to turn things around.

It will be difficult for Joshua and his men to turn the situation around this time, but they may be able to escape. Lance doesn't want such an organization that has a grudge against him to get away under his nose, so he has to do it himself.

He first asked Erwin to gather a group of people and be ready to go to the northern region at any time. At the same time, he left the company and drove to the naval base.

Most of the navy's warships were dispatched, but a small number remained here. When passing by the New Port Pier, you could still see those huge warships docked at the pier.

After arriving at the naval base, he was quickly led by the soldiers to Admiral Miles' office.

Because the naval military operation in the Eastern Ocean was not a large-scale military operation, Admiral Miles did not set out with the fleet. He stayed at the base.

When he saw Lance, his face was full of smiles. The first several million in revenue had already arrived. He was very satisfied and took the initiative to greet Lance downstairs of his office building.

(End of this chapter)