You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 246 ICE: The Reliberation of Americans Themselves (12k)

The yard of Lin's Waste Recycling Station is located at the corner of Sixth Street and Jackson Street, surrounded by a two-meter-high wire fence with the mesh stuffed with plastic bags and dead leaves blown in by the wind.

The door is always open, and a wooden sign with the words "Lin Ji Metal Recycling" written in red paint hangs on the door frame. The red paint is cracked, and some of the strokes have peeled off, revealing the gray wood underneath.

The courtyard was divided into three areas.

To the east, there was a pile of scrap metal: rusty car door panels, dismantled radiators, and I-beams dug up from some construction site, all haphazardly stacked together.

To the west were cardboard boxes and plastic bottles, bundled up to a person's height and tied with nylon rope.

A lane was left in the middle, just big enough for a small truck to back in and unload.

A forklift was parked in the corner, with a pallet of scrap iron pipes stuck in its forks.

Lin Jianping's office is at the very back of the scrap yard, a simple house built with steel plates.

The steel-plate exterior wall was covered with mud splattered from the rain. The outdoor unit of the air conditioner hung outside the wall, humming loudly. Its cooling effect was not very good, but Lin Jianping did not replace it because the noise of this broken air conditioner was just enough to cover up some sounds in the office that he did not want others to hear.

He sat behind his desk with an account book spread out in front of him.

The ledger is problematic.

He knew the true monthly turnover of the scrap yard. The extra figures in this ledger were the monthly subsidies from the organization, which were broken down into dozens of fake scrap metal transactions. Behind each transaction was a non-existent homeless person selling scrap.

Lin Jianping is not worried about the IRS audit, because waste recycling is a cash-intensive industry, and the IRS's audit of cash flow is about as difficult as investigating drug dealers on the street.

Lin Jianping is in his early fifties. He has an honest face, a round face, three deep forehead wrinkles, drooping eyes, and an unlit cigarette always dangling from his lips. He has sunspots on his face, on his forehead and around his eyes, which he got from inspecting goods in the yard all year round.

He was wearing dark blue overalls, covered in dried oil stains and rust spots, with frayed cuffs revealing gray sweater sleeves underneath.

If you were to leave this face on any street corner in any Chinese neighborhood, no one would give it a second glance.

He reached into the drawer and pulled out a metal box.

The tin box was an old box that had held almond cookies. When you opened it, it was full of random things: screws, rubber bands, several lighters, a driver's license, and a stack of cash held together with rubber bands.

He took out the cash and then pulled a cell phone from the bottom of the box.

The phone is very old; the keys are worn and the paint is chipped off.

He turned the phone over, pried open the cover, and pulled a SIM card out of the box.

Lin Jianping inserted the SIM card into the phone, pressed the power button, and his expression changed after the screen lit up.

He took the cigarette from his lips and placed it on the table, then closed the ledger and carefully put on his reading glasses.

After the phone started up, an unread text message popped up; the sender was a string of garbled numbers.

He skillfully pulled up the translation, which was pre-arranged by the organization with a transposed encryption. Each set of numbers represented a combination of radicals from a commonly used business term.

Lin Jianping grabbed the blank ledger beside him, opened it, and wrote down line after line of radicals on the edge of the first page, quickly combining them into complete sentences, reading the specific meaning of the passage in his mind as he wrote.

The organization has decided to activate Linji Recycling Station as an external support for the "Returning Goose" gay community. Starting immediately, it will cooperate with the homeless shelter to carry out waste collection business, and the funds will flow from the waste collection project to the recipients.

Given that a clear handover will take place soon, you are hereby informed that the person in charge is currently identified as "RayFong," who runs a homeless community.

The target is a deeply infiltrated comrade, codenamed "Returning Goose".

Lin Jianping stared at the two characters "Returning Geese" on the paper, then took out the SIM card and threw it back into the metal box.

As he checked the information, he ran his right hand across the paper, moving from "returning geese" to the earlier section about RayFong.

The intelligence record, which he wrote himself last week.

He opened the record, which read: "A homeless recruitment station using mutton soup as bait has appeared outside the mosque. The person in charge is suspected to be white or Latino and has an abnormal cooperation with SPD patrol officers. It is suspected to be an armed group acting as a proxy for corrupt police."

Lin Jianping read the record of the situation twice.

Then I looked at the organizational tasks that I had just copied down again.

Then he put down his pen, took off his reading glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Holy crap.

Lin Jianping has been working at the scrap yard for over a decade. Since leaving Fuzhou, he has handled so much peripheral intelligence that he can't even count it all.

Some were for surveillance, some for transporting supplies, and some for providing cover during emergency evacuations.

RayFong, in his eyes, had always been a dangerous and uncertain factor. This man recruited members, transformed strongholds, and expelled detectives at the mosque. These actions had been marked in his previous records as "suspected armed group, continued observation recommended."

He even wrote in a supplementary note: "It is speculated that this person may have controlled some police officers through bribery or coercion."

The organization now tells him that this person is a comrade who has been deeply undercover.

So this white guy was one of us all along?

Boss Lin leaned back in his chair, which creaked.

He could doubt the authenticity of the information; after all, encrypted channels are not immune to exploitation by the enemy, and intelligence released by superiors is not 100% infallible. However, he should not make such arbitrary guesses.

Then he picked up the translated text message and checked it carefully again, confirming that the code and distribution channel were all familiar to him, without any doubts.

He remained silent for a long time, then gently exhaled, turned to the last page of the intelligence record about the mosque, drew a line next to the inference of "suspected agent of corrupt police" with a ballpoint pen, pulled an arrow outward, and wrote the word: Verified.

The sound of a forklift starting up came from outside. The engine idled for a few seconds, sputtering and chugging.

Boss Lin reached out and tore off the blank page from the ledger used for cipher translation, folded it twice skillfully, and stuffed it into his drawer, intending to burn it later.

The metal box was returned to the drawer, and the drawer was locked again.

Just as I finished locking the drawer, there was a knock on the door, and a timid, hesitant voice came from outside: "Boss, um—"

The immigration officer is here again.

Lin Jianping stood up and opened the office door.

Standing outside the door was one of his workers.

The man's surname was Wang. He was a hauler at the scrap yard, not yet thirty years old, and as thin as a bamboo pole. He wore dirty work clothes, but the clothes swayed around on him and couldn't hold up at all. He squinted, hunched his neck, and clasped his hands in front of his stomach, looking as if he was ready to be scolded at any moment.

This man from Runren was smuggled in from a fishing village in Fujian. He still hasn't paid back the money he borrowed from the gang through connections, and getting a green card is even more distant and practically impossible.

Lin Jianping certainly didn't like these people who were good at making money.

He brought people into his scrap yard simply because his scrap yard needed to be disguised. As a Chinese owner, he needed people to do hard labor, and it would seem strange to Americans not to use such cheap illegal workers.

Moreover, this young man surnamed Wang has no status or connections, so he can control wages, and he's timid. He answers whatever you ask him and never dares to ask another question.

This approach essentially enhances the depth of his identity; a perfect, unblemished junkyard owner is unrealistic in the American context.

A "real" junkyard owner should be someone who is greedy for small gains, hires cheap unlicensed workers, and colludes with local bullies.

"Which foreigner?" Lin Jianping asked as he walked out.

"It's that immigration office, the same one as last time."

The skinny worker followed behind Lin Jianping, his voice trailing off, "He also brought a new guy with him, he looks really fierce, he's telling you to go outside."

"Shut up, you motherfucker," Lin Jianping said.

He walked through the pile of junk and outwards, stepping on a ground covered with flattened aluminum cans.

A black Ford Explorer was parked outside the gate.

The car windows were covered with dark anti-explosion film, and there was a palm-sized scratch on the right front bumper, which looked like it was caused when it was chasing another car.

Two ICE agents stood at the main entrance.

The one in front is a familiar face, named Oliver, a white man in his forties with a beer belly, wearing a dark blue standard law enforcement jacket with a shiny ICE badge on his chest, but the jacket zipper is not fully zipped up, revealing the wrinkled collar of the plaid shirt underneath.

Oliver always wore that perfunctory, routine expression.

He wasn't holding any documents; he simply had his hands in his jacket pockets, his heels grinding against a flattened aluminum can on the ground, and his gaze sweeping across the pile of scrap metal in the yard.

The new guy behind him was very young, probably a recent graduate. He stood to the side and behind Oliver, holding a folder in his hand, handcuffs hanging from his waist, and a nervous expression mixed with a kind of idealistic look that came from someone who had just started working and hadn't yet been awakened by reality.

As Lin Jianping walked over, Oliver took his hand out of his pocket and greeted him.

"Mr. Lin, may your business prosper!"

Lin Jianping stopped and said, "Mr. Oliver, he's already been here once this month."

His English had a heavy accent, and he deliberately swallowed half of each word's sound, making him sound like a clumsy immigrant who had been in America for twenty years but still hadn't straightened his tongue.

"That's different. Last time it was a routine check."

Oliver gestured towards the yard, "We received a complaint from the community today saying that the noise from your place is a bit loud, and someone also saw an unidentified Chinese person in your garbage dump."

"You know the city hall is cracking down hard on environmental protection and illegal immigration these days."

Lin Jianping glanced at the pile of discarded appliance casings in the yard, then looked back at him, a standard smile plastered on his face.

"Sir, you've worked hard. Shall I go turn off the forklift?"

"No rush."

Oliver took half a step forward, so close that Lin Jianping could smell the cologne on him—cheap stuff, but it couldn't mask the smell of smoke on his clothes.

"Worker records?"

Boss Lin turned around, took a folder out of the house, and handed it to the beer-bellied detective with both hands.

The beer-bellied detective took the folder, casually flipped through a couple of pages, and then looked up at Boss Lin.

"Still these same people?"

Yes, yes.

Boss Lin bent down again, glancing at Old Wang at the same time.

Old Wang was still standing there, his lips a little pale, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the hem of his work clothes.

"I see at least five or six workers in your yard."

The beer-bellied detective placed the folder on the table to the side and tapped the folder cover twice with his right hand.

"But none of the people you reported have legal status except for yourself."

He paused, then knocked again.

"You know what this means, right?"

Boss Lin nodded, his smile widening.

"Well—sir, look, we're all from the same hometown, just trying to make a living."

"I only run a small business, so I'll help them—"

The beer-bellied detective waved his hand.

"Alright, that's enough."

His tone was not harsh at all, even a bit casual. It seemed like he had repeated this matter hundreds of times and had long since grown tired of it.

"Mr. Lin, if you hand this over, you'll have to pay a fine according to the rules. I've already covered for you a lot of trouble."

"If I hadn't checked your address during last month's routine check, your site might have been blocked by now."

""

"But I don't want to go through the formalities today. That damn pile of forms alone will take me an hour."

He looked up at Boss Lin and said, "Just give us the fine directly. It'll save you trouble, and it'll save us trouble too."

As he said this, the rookie detective behind him turned his head away and looked into the distance.

Boss Lin knew perfectly well that whether or not the ban was implemented was just talk, nothing more than routine formalities.

Every now and then, these ICE agents come over, using the issue of illegal immigration as a pretext to extort a few hundred dollars and leave.

"Thank you, thank you, sir."

This time, Boss Lin reached into the pocket of his work jacket and pulled out an envelope.

The envelope was brown, not thick, and contained five hundred US dollars.

The beer-bellied detective took the envelope, didn't even look at it, stuffed it directly into the inside pocket of his uniform, and then turned to his partner at the door.

"It would be best to have even more next month. The authorities are cracking down on illegal workers lately, and if something happens to you, I won't be able to cover it up."

He waved to the young detective behind him, "Let's go, this place is fine."

The beer-bellied detective took two steps, then turned back and pointed at Boss Lin with his pen.

"And then there are your fellow villagers," he said.

"Don't let them cause trouble on the streets. Last time we caught someone from another area stealing from a supermarket, and it made a huge scene."

"No, no, we are all honest people."

The young detective glanced at Lin Jianping, then at the workers huddled behind a pile of cardboard in the yard, his lips moved, but he said nothing. He then followed Oliver into the black Ford Explorer.

The engine started, crushed a pile of broken glass, turned onto Jackson Avenue, and disappeared.

Lin Jianping stood still and lit another cigarette.

The group of people from Runren were still peeking around in the courtyard. Little Wang, hunched over, ran up to him and stammered, "Boss, will that foreigner come again next time?"

"Whether I come or not is none of your business?" Lin Jianping glanced at him.

"If you leave me, will any other boss hire you? Or do you think you can go find a decent job with white people?"

""

The man surnamed Wang shrank back, not daring to reply. He turned and gave a look to the other workers hiding behind the cardboard: The boss is in a bad mood, don't mess with him.

Lin Jianping ignored him and turned back to his office.

He locked the door from the inside, and stood by the window for a moment to make sure everyone in the yard had gone back to work before returning to his desk and sitting down.

The fan hummed, and the corrugated steel wall was getting hot from the afternoon sun.

Then Lin Jianping sighed.

He started to remember the important matter at hand.

Starting a new waste recycling project is not difficult.

He could set up the dismantling of old home appliances and the sorting of scrap metal as a new business category, specifically targeting the homeless people in RayFong area to collect their scrap metal at market prices.

Then the money was deposited into Lin's recycling station's accounts, and this money was used as a cover to inject funds allocated by the organization into Ray.

Fong's place blends in with the dozens of scrap transactions every day, so much so that even the IRS can't discern any pattern.

RayFong's job was to arrange for homeless people to sell their recyclables, and then Lin Jianping would arrange for people to collect them, with the cash being counted in person.

As long as RayFong's accounts are kept clean, even if someone cuts off this lead, no evidence can be found.

Thinking of this, Boss Lin glanced in the direction where the two ICE guys had gone, turned around, and suddenly sighed.

Logically, ICE officers shouldn't be involved with America's homeless population, as they aren't illegal immigrants. However, given the current state of ICE's behavior—like that of the Gestapo—

It's hard to say they wouldn't meddle in other people's business just to make more money.

Boss Lin made two strokes on the ledger.

The ICE guys come at least once a month, sometimes twice.

Oliver, that old fox, is no match for us. Even if he really wanted to meddle, we could just give him a little more money and that would be the end of it.

But today he brought a newcomer.

Newcomers are always a hassle.

They had just graduated and thought they were enforcing the law, carrying around a recorder to film everywhere, and sooner or later they would notice the sudden increase in homeless people at the scrap yard.

Where do these homeless people go after they sell their scrap?

Who ultimately receives the recovered money?

If even one iCE agent followed a homeless person for half a block, they would see that the homeless person had returned to the community under Ray Fong's control.

However, I seem to be overthinking it; ICE normally has no say in this matter.

Lin Jianping took off his reading glasses, lit a cigarette, and took a puff.

His fingers tapped lightly on the edges of the ledgers, his mood somewhat heavy.

The transaction process should be short, the time frame should be flexible, and the amount of each transaction should not be too large.

Lin Jianping placed his cigarette on the ashtray, turned to a new page in his ledger, and began writing a draft budget for the scrap metal collection project.

The loudspeakers on the minaret of the mosque sounded precisely at dusk, and the imam's chanting was drawn out, spreading down from above and covering half a block.

The light bulbs strung along the wall were already lit, their yellowish light casting patches of light and shadow on the tents and canvases.

Lei stood next to the food cart, holding a register in his hand, watching the last homeless man in line scoop up the mutton fat residue from the bottom of his bowl with a plastic spoon.

Lyon turned out from the street corner. Ray looked up at him, then handed the ledger in his hand to the assistant next to him and took a few steps forward.

"Boss."

Lei's voice was very low.

-

"That old man did it."

"Which old man?"

"MacArthur".

Lei tilted his chin at the very edge of the tent cluster. "Three days, and not a single mention of Incheon, not a single mention of Bataan, not a single mention of the Pacific War."

He paused, then added, "He was really holding it in; I saw him swallow back the words several times he was about to say them."

MacArthur stood there, hands behind his back, chest puffed out, chin slightly raised. Seeing this, he leaned closer.

"General," Lyon turned to him, "three days, and not a single word?"

"A soldier's duty is to obey orders, sir," MacArthur said loudly, then tilted his head.

"Although I still believe that the scope of the secrecy regulations does not include discussing declassified World War II historical archives, I have carried out your orders."

Lyon gestured to Ray.

Ray took a step back, turned around and went back towards the dining car. After taking two steps, he stopped and looked back at MacArthur.

MacArthur saluted him.

Lyon watched Ray walk away, then looked back at MacArthur. "He practically rolled his eyes to the back of his head when he was reporting to me."

""

"He's an excellent soldier," MacArthur said. "He needs a commander."

"He has it now."

Leon turned and walked forward, MacArthur following beside him. "Come on, I'll take you somewhere."

He led MacArthur east along 10th Street, where the streetlights were sparse.

Several tents were crammed into the roadside weeds, and a few homeless people wrapped in blankets squatted on cardboard to warm themselves by the fire. The firelight cast their shadows long and short.

"You still remember our agreement, right?" Leon walked ahead, his voice muffled through his mask.

"If you don't mention Incheon, Bataan, or the Pacific War to anyone for three days, I'll remove you from the temporary list and give you official status."

"I remember," MacArthur said.

"Your wording at the time was to change 'you' to a different category."

"I guess that means better supplies and a more formal organization."

"More or less," Lyon said.

"The benefits for this group of personnel include a fixed bed, three meals a day, a daily wage, and, more importantly, work."

"I am not a vagrant, sir," MacArthur said. "I am a five-star general."

"I know," Lyon said, "so I'm taking you to my command post now."

MacArthur paused, the beer caps and medals clinking together with a series of soft, crisp sounds.

"Command center?"

"right."

The two continued walking forward, and a piece of broken glass was crushed by the soles of their shoes with a cracking sound.

"General," Lyon broke the brief silence.

"Why do you insist on saying you're MacArthur? Don't you know he's long dead, and even if he were, you don't look like him at all?"

MacArthur did not answer immediately.

He kept walking forward, the light from the streetlights flickering across his face and then back.

Several seconds passed before he spoke, and his voice suddenly changed. The loud, commanding tone he had given earlier faded, replaced by a slower rhythm.

"MacArthur was a top student at West Point," he said, without stopping.

"He was promoted to brigadier general during World War I and became the youngest superintendent of West Point in 1919."

He stopped at the end of the row of streetlights, turned around and looked at Lyon, the beer cap badge on his chest flashing in the dim light.

"He rebuilt West Point's honor system, trained a whole generation of American officers, and then in World War II, he lost the Philippines and Bataan."

With each word he spoke, the light in his eyes grew brighter, and his hand unconsciously reached out from behind his back, gesturing in the air.

"He withdrew, leaving behind 78,000 Americans and Filipinos. His men called him a coward, and soldiers cursed his name in the prisoner-of-war camps. But he came back later."

He stood under the streetlight and began to speak, using more and more gestures, starting with just his fingers and later incorporating his entire arm.

"He emerged from the mangroves of Leyte Bay, the water up to his knees, and without even drying his shoes, he gave a speech on the beach: 'I'm back, I kept my promise.'"

He swung his hand harder, almost hitting the utility pole next to him. "In the end, he lost in North Korea, but it wouldn't have mattered who played in it. There's nothing shameful about it."

Then he suddenly fell silent.

His hands hung down at his sides, his shoulders slumped slightly, and the beer cap badge swayed back and forth on his chest.

"I am MacArthur."

He repeated it again, but this time in a low voice, "I am—a great figure remembered by history, a great figure has—medals, memoirs, and a bronze statue in the square."

"No one would sweep a big shot into the trash heap."

"Nobody's here."

His fingers touched the row of beer caps on his collar, rubbed them with his fingertips, and then pressed them hard.

Then he shook his head vigorously, as if trying to shake something out of his head.

"What am I talking about?" he said, looking up at Leon, his eyes regaining their previous sharpness.

"I am MacArthur, that needs no explanation."

Lyon did not ask any further questions.

"Let's go," Lyon said. "The road ahead is long."

They continued east along 10th Street, past two intersections.

The streets were mostly deserted, with only one or two homeless people occasionally huddled under doorways, quickly turning their faces away when they saw Lyon walk by.

"General," Lyon spoke again, "you mentioned the refugees in Bataan to me before."

"I said it," MacArthur said.

"The greatest disaster in war is never the defeat at the front. The refugees on the Bataan Peninsula followed the army, trading a bag of rice for a life and a can of food for a child."

"Look at all these homeless people in America right now," Leon gestured with his chin towards both sides of the street. "Do you consider them refugees or deserters?"

MacArthur remained silent for a few seconds.

What you are seeing now is nothing more than the result of politicians giving misguided instructions from behind the scenes.

He raised his hand and pointed with his index finger to an abandoned camp in the distance, "They dumped the whole state's population into Seattle like garbage dumps, and then everyone went down together."

"My lesson from North Korea is that you can't fight a war while politicians in Washington are sipping coffee and telling you what to do."

.

"I hate fucking politicians!"

MacArthur looked up sharply. "Roosevelt never kept his promise regarding the Bataan supply, and that Truman kid shook my hand on Wake Island and then broadcast me off the air!"

He put his hands back behind his back.

"When I commanded thousands of troops, the United States had a mobilization system that had been in operation for decades."

"Back then, factories could build bombers that blotted out the sky, farms could feed refugees across half of Europe, and when a worker finished tightening screws and went home, his house was warm, and his children had lunch at school."

"America back then wasn't like it is now."

He pointed to the figure huddled in a garbage bag by the roadside.

"This country now, Congress, the Pentagon, and those suit-wearing White House bastards."

"They fired all their ammunition at their own men."

"Those vampires on Wall Street have drained the middle class dry, dumped them on the streets, and then politicians stand on the podium in Washington and say, 'This is freedom.'"

His finger chopped heavily in mid-air.

"Freedom? I've seen poison gas in the trenches of World War I, concentration camps in World War II, and sub-zero frozen ground in Korea. Let me tell you, the politicians in the United States today are more shameless than any of America's enemies."

"They cut welfare, corrupted unions, sold factories to foreigners, and then pointed to these people freezing to death on the street and said, 'Look, they didn't work hard enough.'"

"I taught at West Point what responsibility, honor, and country mean, but that country no longer exists."

His fingers jabbed heavily into the concrete pavement beneath his feet.

"What's standing here now is just a giant bureaucratic dumping ground that uses charitable organizations as a fig leaf, police as thugs, and cleans up Wall Street's messes."

He finished speaking, his chest still heaving, then abruptly stopped and put his hands back behind his back.

"These are my informal comments."

Lyon nodded slowly.

"So what's your opinion of North Korea's adversary?"

"Over there, the person opposite me at the time, Peng, his army was completely different from ours."

"Our army at the time only knew how to provide firepower, how to fight a war and how to fight a war with money. Do you know what Peng's soldiers could do?"

MacArthur's tone suddenly changed, no longer the furious roar from before. "I know them."

"The first time I saw soldiers from the East on the battlefield, my intelligence officer told me that these people were farmers, had no air superiority, no armored units, their supply lines were destroyed by bombing, and their logistics relied solely on mules and human backs. They didn't even have enough cotton-padded clothes, and more people froze to death than died in battle."

"I thought such an army wouldn't last a winter."

He paused for a moment, then spoke slowly.

"Later, my staff described them as human wave tactics in the battle reports."

"7

"This argument is popular in Washington. Politicians like to hear it because it makes our failures look like we've encountered an uncontrollable natural disaster. After all, there are many people in the East, so it sounds reasonable."

"However, the reality at the time was that their soldiers, when completely surrounded and out of ammunition and food, chose to perish with us, or, hungry at night, would charge forward as soon as the bugle sounded."

"When they didn't have enough tanks, they ran on foot, faster than our mechanized troops, and they wouldn't retreat a single step."

""

He continued, "I've spent more time on the battlefield than anywhere else. In our troops, when an order is given, some will retreat, some will stand still and watch, and some will advance."

"The U.S. Marine Corps used the world's most advanced equipment, the best warships, and the best aircraft, and in the end?

"In the mountains where temperatures drop to minus thirty or forty degrees Celsius, they couldn't defeat a group of infantrymen dressed in thin clothing and carrying old-fashioned rifles."

"A spectacle, isn't it?"

"I didn't understand it at the time, but later I spent a long time thinking about it, and do you know what I discovered?"

"What?"

"Each of them knew why they were sacrificing themselves, and their organization at the time didn't even have a supervisory team."

"Most of them had never left their village before joining the army and didn't understand any ideology, although I would say their heads were filled with some kind of belief."

He paused for half a second.

"But that belief is their own."

"It wasn't something politicians forced on them, nor did they hear it in church; it's what they themselves chose to believe."

He took his hand out from behind his back and held up one finger.

"I saw in North Korea their defenses burned to ashes by napalm bombs. The next morning they crawled out of their tunnels, their rifles even blown to pieces, but they just picked up knives and kept fighting."

"Tell me, which other army in the world can do that?"

"The guys here, after the war, just want to go home, drink Coke, and buy a Ford. The people over there are different, you know what I mean?"

Lyon walked beside him without saying a word.

"And what are they doing now?" Lyon said. "Now that there's no war, they're building schools, hospitals, and poverty alleviation projects."

"Poverty alleviation?" MacArthur glanced at him sideways.

"It's about pulling the poor out of the mud," Lyon said.

"Find them jobs, build roads, provide electricity, and construct schools."

MacArthur took two steps.

"You mean using that level of mobilization capacity for economic development?"

"almost."

MacArthur stopped, tilted his head, and thought for about three seconds.

"If their army can accomplish what I just described, then the same discipline and conviction applied to domestic governance—"

He pressed his finger down, "Poverty alleviation is something that is entirely achievable for them, and I have no doubt that they can do it very well."

Lyon didn't say anything.

MacArthur took another dozen steps, then suddenly raised his arm, "But don't expect America to ever have that day."

Why?

"Because there are no factories left in America!"

MacArthur raised his voice again, startling the homeless man who was passing by and making him shrink back.

"Detroit's car factories are now using the factory buildings to raise goldfish, Pittsburgh's steel mills have all been demolished, and Seattle is just full of airplane shells, software, and coffee shops. What's the use of coffee shops?"

"Industry is the real productive force; the service industry is merely a parasite of industry. How will a country without factories support its homeless population? Through apps?"

"Moreover, liberalism and collectivism are inherently mutually exclusive; in the United States, the end result of any relationship is a bill."

"You can't expect someone who was taught from birth to have nothing to do with others to suddenly sacrifice themselves for a community."

"Have you ever thought about changing America?" Leon suddenly asked.

MacArthur suddenly fell silent.

The old man, wrapped in a dirty military overcoat, stood under a tree, fallen leaves drifting onto his shoulders.

After a moment, he shook his head, making a large gesture.

"I told you it's unrealistic," he said in a low voice.

"Because I've already retired, and once you're retired, you're retired. My army was disbanded in 1951, and it's gone now. I can't even gather a whole company of new recruits."

Lyon didn't speak, but he slowed his pace a little.

The old man in front of me clearly had been harboring resentment towards the American system for a long time.

Leon felt he must have been a soldier, or at least a commander.

Otherwise, even if this old man was insane, he couldn't have imagined so many of MacArthur's experiences, nor could he have helped him catch the three investigators sent by the mayor, or even figured out their identities.

He is a man abandoned by the American military and political system. His specific identity remains unclear to Leon, but his knowledge and judgment are still intact, even more so than most clear-headed people.

He had just been planning to put this old man into the Psychedelic Cats.

The outpost needs someone to handle emergencies when RayFong is not around.

Ray can only carry out orders and maintain order, but he cannot handle sudden internal conflicts.

The old welder can manage the project, but that's all he manages; plus, there are a few people in that group who aren't fully developed mentally —

The man in the hoodie is still debating whether or not the steel pipes in the dance floor that day can be removed.

Lyon suddenly spoke up.

"General," Leon said, pushing up the brim of his baseball cap, "I have a suggestion."

"Go ahead," MacArthur said, his hands behind his back, his steps still long.

"I can't be stationed at that location all the time," Leon said.

"I need someone to manage two things for me: keep outsiders out and prevent the people inside from collapsing."

He pointed his thumb to his chest and said, "After you arrested those three detectives outside the mosque as enemy agents and kept quiet about Incheon for three days, I knew you were capable of doing it."

"If anything goes wrong, keep things stable for me."

MacArthur did not answer immediately.

He looked at Lyon for a long time before slowly speaking.

"You're going to appoint me as the outpost commander?"

"He's the chief of staff," Lyon said. "You'll be the chief of staff first."

MacArthur stood ramrod straight, and the beer cap medal gleamed under the streetlight.

"Scope of authority?"

"Daily management," Lyon said.

"There are already more than a dozen workers inside the building. Someone has to keep an eye on the renovation, their food and lodging, and the distribution of supplies."

Before MacArthur could reply, Leon stopped in his tracks.

They had reached the street where the Psychedelic Cat nightclub was located.

He had visited this sealed-off building several times.

The last time I came here, all the windows were dark, the roller shutters were rusty, and the back alley was filled with rats and broken bottles.

Now, a strip of light shines through the gap under the roller shutter door.

Leon pulled his baseball cap down further and stared at the crack in the door for several seconds.

Holy crap.

MacArthur stood beside him, his hands behind his back, also looking at the roller shutter.

"Your command post has a power supply," MacArthur said.

"I thought the stronghold you mentioned earlier would be more dilapidated."

"The last time I came here, not even a single light bulb in this building could be turned on," Lyon said, taking a step forward, his pace quickening slightly.

"The municipal government cut off the electricity, shut off the gas, and even removed the water meters."

He went around to the back alley.

The situation in the back alley was even more outrageous.

The access panel of the municipal streetlight pole at the alley entrance had been pried open. An iron plate leaned against the pole, and a black cable, about the thickness of a thumb, was pulled out, running along the wall all the way to the crack in the back door of the Psychedelic Cat.

The cable joint was wrapped with several layers of black electrical tape, and it was wrapped quite neatly.

There is also a fire hydrant nearby.

The top cover of the fire hydrant was unscrewed, and a water pipe was connected to it. The water pipe also ran along the base of the wall and went in through the ventilation window above the back door.

Lyon stared at the fire hydrant for a moment, then turned to look at the lamppost, and took a deep breath.

MacArthur walked over to him and looked down at the fire hydrant connector.

"These weren't here when you came last time?"

"right."

Lyon pushed open the back door.

All the steel pipes in the dance floor on the first floor had been removed, and the removed steel pipes were neatly stacked in the corner.

A huge waterproof tarpaulin was laid out in the center of the dance floor, and dozens of plasterboards were piled on the tarpaulin.

An aluminum alloy A-frame ladder was placed next to a cement pillar, and a middle-aged man wearing an orange reflective vest was lying on the ladder, lifting plasterboard upwards with his hands.

A young man in a gray hooded sweatshirt stood at the bottom of the ladder, holding up the other end of the plasterboard with both hands, his face flushed red.

"If you move it just one centimeter to the left, this board will fucking crack! Are you going to pay for it? Do you even have the guts to pay for it? Don't you know how many drywall boards you can buy with your weekly salary?!"

The reflective vest was yelling down the ladder.

"I veered to the left! I've already veered! Can you please stop yelling at me every time? I start shaking when you yell!"

"Of course I yelled! You fucking smashed a whole plank last time, why didn't I yell then? That plank is still lying in the trash can outside!"

"That was last time, it's different this time!"

"What's the difference!"

"Last time I ate two chicken drumsticks and got diarrhea! This time I haven't eaten anything yet!"

A roar came from the direction of the kitchen.

"Try bringing up my chicken legs again! When you eat my fried chicken legs, you all act like you're starving, then you turn around and say the chicken legs made your hands shake! Don't you have any conscience?!"

A homeless man wearing a dirty apron is frying chicken legs in front of an induction cooker. Next to him squats a short, fat black man with a crumpled ledger spread out in front of him, covered with numbers.

The entire dance floor was filled with the aroma of fried chicken legs, the dry smell of plaster powder, and the musty smell emanating from the cement pillars.

Lyon stood at the back door, his face half-covered by a mask, but he was clearly going through some kind of complex mental process.

MacArthur stood behind him, his hands behind his back, slowly scanning the entire dance floor.

"You said this is a base," MacArthur said. "You said there are a dozen or so workers who are renovating this place."

"right."

"You didn't mention there were fried chicken legs here."

"I just found out too," Leon said.

The reflective vest on the ladder was the first thing to spot Lyon.

He stopped what he was doing, opened his mouth halfway and then closed it again, then nudged the man in the hoodie below with his foot.

"It's the boss."

The man in the hoodie loosened his grip on the tray, took a step back, and kicked an empty paint bucket on the ground with a loud thud.

Lyon took a step forward and stood in the center of the dance floor, his gaze sweeping from the incandescent light overhead to the electrical box temporarily fixed on the wall, and then to an electric heater running in the corner.

"When was this electricity connected?" he asked.

Lyon turned to the old welder.

The old welder stood next to the ladder, clutching a measuring tape in his hand.

"Uh... Boss... back alley streetlights."

The old welder placed the measuring tape on the tool table next to him. "It's connected to the municipal lighting circuit. It doesn't go through a meter, so the current is sufficient and the voltage is stable."

"The lighting circuit itself is normally powered and will not trip automatically, and we have installed a residual current device (RCD), so there will be no accident."

"Did you install the fire hydrant too?"

"That was Jarvis's idea."

The old welder gestured with his chin toward the cement mixer, saying, "He said that since the fire hydrants are connected to the municipal main pipeline, the water pressure is more stable than that of ordinary tap water pipes. Besides, the fire department people say they will inspect them, but they don't really care at all."

"So we connected a 1/4-inch pipe and installed a shut-off valve, and the kitchen, toilet, and sink were all unclogged."

Leon took off his baseball cap, ran a hand through his hair, and put it back on.

Jarvis squatted beside the cement mixing tank, clutching a cement-stirring stick in his hand. He glanced up at Leon, then quickly looked down again.

"How do you know the fire department won't come to check on this?"

"I used to work for a municipal outsourcing company."

Jarvis stared at the ground and said, "The Seattle Fire Department's outsourced water pressure testing contract has been with our company for three consecutive years."

"I'm the unlucky guy who carries a water pressure gauge and screws on the caps of each fire hydrant in the West District every month, so the fire department doesn't actually come. It's all outsourced. When the outsourced people come, they just temporarily disconnect the pipes."

MacArthur stood behind Lyon, arms still behind his back, sweeping from the stepladder to the pile of drywall in the corner.

Then he cleared his throat.

All eyes turned to him.

"So," MacArthur began, his voice booming, "this is your army?"

He took his right hand out from behind his back and slowly pointed it at the dozen or so people on the dance floor.

"No naval fleet, no infantry divisions, no air support, not even a decent field gun." He paused.

"There were only a dozen or so displaced stragglers and a half-destroyed abandoned bunker."

Half of his body peeked out from under his reflective vest.

"Who is this old man?"

MacArthur ignored him.

"I accept your assignment," he said to Lyon.