"Are we going to our deaths?"

"No."

Roosevelt countered Leo’s pessimism, his tone still carrying a reassuring quality.

"The facade of politics has changed, the rules have changed, and even the players have been swapped out several times."

"But one thing will never change."

"What?" Leo asked subconsciously.

"Human nature."

"Greed, fear, vanity, ambition. These fundamental drivers of human behavior have never changed, from the days of the Ancient Roman Senate to now."

"I may not be able to name those people, and I may not know what their current titles are."

"But."

Roosevelt’s voice dropped low.

"I know the smell of power."

"Power has a scent, child."

"That scent is the same whether you’re in the White House of 1945 or on Capitol Hill in the twenty-first century."

"It gathers in certain places and flows toward certain people."

"Only by going there, only by truly stepping into that swamp, by letting me smell the air, see the look in their eyes, and hear the tone of their voices, can I tell you who is the pompous fool, and who is the one truly holding the knife."

"Only then, in that labyrinth, can I rely on my instincts to help you find the exit that will break this deadlock."

Roosevelt looked at Leo.

"Politics is never a journey you take by following a map."

"If anyone could win with a map, then what’s the point of a leader?"

"True politics is navigating through a fog."

"You can’t see the reefs ahead or the lighthouse in the distance. You can only rely on the sound of the wind, the smell of the seawater, and the kind of intuition honed on the edge of life and death to gamble on a direction."

"This is the destiny of a leader."

"You must forge a path where there is none."

Roosevelt stretched out his hand and pointed forward.

"Now, I’m throwing the question back to you, Leo."

"I don’t have a list of names, no phone numbers, and no guaranteed silver bullet."

"I only have these eyes that have seen through the hearts of men, and this brain that has fought in the arena of power for a lifetime."

"Do you dare to take this gamble with me?"

"Do you dare to bring me, an old politician almost a century out of date, to brave the most dangerous labyrinth in the world?"

Leo sat in the dark car. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

He listened to these words, listened as this once-dominant giant admitted his own limitations.

Strangely, his sense of despair vanished.

’This is what’s real.’

’No one is a god.’

’Roosevelt isn’t, and neither am I.’

They were both just people fumbling in the dark; it was just that Roosevelt’s senses were sharper than his.

’This isn’t a game with cheats enabled.’

’This is a real adventure.’

Leo looked toward Ethan, who was driving in the front seat.

The line of Ethan’s jaw was tight; clearly, the long silence from the back seat was making him uneasy.

"Ethan."

Leo spoke.

"Boss?" Ethan responded immediately, his voice tinged with tension. "Your orders? Should I contact our people in Washington now to arrange for pickup? Or book a hotel first?"

"Drive faster. I’m getting impatient."

Leo said.

「Twenty minutes later.」

The black Lincoln sedan pulled up to the departures level of Pittsburgh International Airport.

Leo pushed open the car door and stepped out into the cold, rainy night.

He carried a briefcase, which held the shelved bond proposal.

He strode into the terminal, weaving through the bustling crowd.

All around him were travelers rushing about their lives—some on the phone, some eating fast food, some dozing in their chairs.

No one knew what this young Mayor was about to do.

No one knew he was about to undertake an enormous gamble, with the fate of his city as the stake.

He passed through security and boarded the plane.

Leo sat down in a cramped economy-class seat.

The plane began to taxi. The roar of the engines grew louder, and the vibrations traveled up from the seat and through his entire body.

With a powerful lurch that pressed him back into his seat, the plane tilted its nose upward and shot into the pitch-black night sky.

The lights on the ground rapidly receded, becoming like scattered diamonds on black velvet.

That was Pittsburgh.

His city, his battlefield, his weakness.

Now, he was leaving it all behind.

Ahead lay the darkness at ten thousand meters, the unknown clouds.

"Go, child."

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his ear, seeming vast and open, accompanied by the drone of the plane’s engines.

"Go and meet your destiny."

...

In the beginning, there was only malaria, mosquitoes, and a foul-smelling swamp that reeked of decay.

The Potomac River meandered through here, leaving behind vast deposits of silt and shallows that were difficult to navigate.

This land was by no means born for trade.

It lacked New York’s natural deep-water harbor at the Hudson River Estuary, capable of accommodating massive ships, nor did it have Manhattan Island’s hard granite bedrock to support the ambitions of skyscrapers.

Merchants disdained its mud, which would slow the circulation of their gold coins, and captains loathed its shallows, which would run their cargo aground.

Nor was this land born for faith.

It lacked the Puritanical rigor of Boston, honed in the biting cold winds, nor did it have the loftiness of Beacon Hill, which seemed to reach for God amidst the ice and snow.

There was only humidity, miasma, and a soporific, oppressive heat. This climate was suitable for breeding mold, fevers, and conspiracies, but it was uniquely unsuitable for nurturing a reverence for God.

It was born of compromise.

Thomas Jefferson wanted a pastoral capital. He distrusted the northern bankers and industrial magnates, hoping the nation’s center of power would forever retain the earthy scent of a plantation.