"This is why you’ve all been shouting slogans for decades but can’t even pass a single decent healthcare bill."

"You’re always begging."

"You’re always begging the Establishment figures who hold real power to show mercy and toss you a few table scraps. You’re always searching the cracks in the rules for so-called sympathizers, hoping to leverage some meager personal connection to bring about massive change."

Leo’s voice rose, the anger he’d been suppressing the entire way here finally finding an outlet.

"Pittsburgh is our showcase! You said it yourself—it’s the hope for the Progressives’ ideals in the Rust Belt!"

"Now, that showcase is being torn to shreds by those bastards in Harrisburg and Philadelphia. They want to raze it to the ground! They want to make a fool out of me, and they want to make an even bigger fool out of you!"

"And you? As our standard-bearer, as the leader of the entire American progressive movement, what’s your plan for fighting back when we’re being throttled like this?"

Leo pointed at the list.

"A list of people to beg from?"

"You want me to go have coffee with a few undersecretaries? To cry to them about my problems? Then wait for them to go back and write some toothless memo, only to wait another three months?"

"This is your counterattack?"

"If this is the best the Progressives can do, then we’ll only ever be fit to govern from behind a keyboard! We’ll only ever be fit to pat ourselves on the back in university lecture halls!"

"Enough!"

Sanders slammed his hand on the table and shot to his feet.

Coffee splashed out of the cup and onto the documents.

"Watch your tone, young man!" Sanders’s face was beet-red, his finger trembling as he pointed at Leo. "Who the hell do you think you are? Do you think you’re on some street corner in Pittsburgh? Do you have any idea how thick the walls are here? Do you have any idea how complicated the rules are?"

"I’ve already pissed off half of Congress for you! And now you come here and accuse me of being weak?"

"I’m not calling you weak. I’m saying this strategy is useless!"

Leo didn’t back down an inch. His gaze was fiercer than Sanders’s, more resolute.

"Fuck the rules."

"I don’t care how thick the walls are here."

"All I know is that three hundred thousand citizens are counting on me. Workers are waiting for their paychecks, and seniors are waiting for their heat to be fixed."

"They elected me Mayor, not to come to Washington to fill out forms, and not to be some polite, well-behaved kid."

"I want results."

"I need that $500 million bond to be successfully issued within eleven days."

"Anything that stands in my way—be it rules, precedent, or so-called political decorum—I will kick it aside."

Sanders stared at the young man before him, who was practically roaring.

He suddenly saw a certain quality in Leo.

A quality that was both unfamiliar and dangerous.

Sanders took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

He sat back down in his chair, took out a handkerchief, and wiped the coffee stain from the table.

"Alright." Sanders’s voice turned cold. "Since my list isn’t good enough for you, what do you want?"

"You think those undersecretaries aren’t good enough, so who are you planning on going to? Are you going to just storm the Treasury Department and snatch the Secretary’s seal?"

"No."

Leo straightened his back and adjusted his collar.

"I want to see the White House Chief of Staff."

A dead silence fell over the office.

Sanders looked as if he’d just heard the biggest joke in the world. He stared at Leo, the corner of his mouth twitching, before he finally let out a laugh born of sheer anger.

"The White House Chief of Staff?"

Sanders shook his head, a look of utter absurdity in his eyes.

"Leo, has a fever fried your brain?"

"What gives you the right? The fact that you’re the Mayor of Pittsburgh? Or that Inland Port of yours that’s still just a drawing on paper?"

"Do you have any idea how many mayors want to see him every day? Even the mayors of New York and Los Angeles wouldn’t dare just barge into the White House and demand a meeting."

"What leverage do you possibly have that would make him spare even five minutes for you?"

Leo looked at Sanders.

’He knew a conventional request was doomed to fail.’

’In Washington’s hierarchy of power, he, Leo Wallace, was an ant, and the White House Chief of Staff was the elephant at the top of the food chain.’

’And the only way for an ant to get an elephant’s attention was to crawl into its ear and bite down. Hard.’

"My leverage is the one thing I’m going to tell him. In person."

Leo leaned forward, staring into Sanders’s eyes.

"If my bonds can’t be issued, if Pittsburgh goes bankrupt because of the State Government’s obstruction..."

"Then, next Monday, Leo Wallace, the Mayor of Pittsburgh, will hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall."

"I will formally announce that I am leaving the Democratic Party."

Sanders’s pupils contracted to pinpricks.

"Furthermore," Leo continued.

"I will seek re-election as a Republican."

"I will publicly endorse Senator Russell Warren."

"I will tell every blue-collar worker in Pennsylvania that the Democratic Party has abandoned us, and that only the Republican Party is willing to give us a path forward."

"I will take that $500 million infrastructure project, the thousands of jobs it creates, and all of Pittsburgh’s votes... and I will cross the aisle."

"That is my leverage."

Sanders froze solid.

With the midterms just a few months away, in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania...

For a star Democratic mayor with immense popularity, hailed as the "Hope of the Rust Belt," to suddenly announce his defection to the other side...

It would be a political nuclear bomb.