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

Horowitz left the East Side and drove the beat-up Ford back to the bus stop on 15th Street in the North Side. It was already evening.

The cold wind blew up the discarded newspapers on the roadside and into the air.

Horowitz's assistant, Mike, was standing under the bus stop sign with his neck hunched over, hands in the pockets of his windproof jacket, stamping his feet incessantly.

He had originally planned to follow Horowitz's instructions and take the bus to apply for a short-term shop assistant job near the mosque in the western district, such as working the night shift.

The Ford pulled over, Horowitz rolled down the window, and honked the horn.

"Get in the car."

Mike looked puzzled, but he still opened the passenger door and got into the car, bringing in a gust of cold air.

"Boss, have you suddenly had a change of heart? Going undercover in the West End is too risky. You've decided to give me a raise?"

"No need to go." Horowitz shifted gears and drove the car back onto the main road.

Mike paused for a moment, then his tense shoulders immediately slumped.

"Thank God, I had already prepared my will."

"So what did you find out in the East District today? Were there limbs and severed bodies everywhere? Were the Mexicans and Eastern Europeans still exchanging heavy machine gun fire?" "The gunfight ended a long time ago." Horowitz stared at the road ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"Mike, you'll never guess what I saw in the East End—they were sweeping the streets."

"Huh?" Mike picked at his ear.

"Sweep the streets! Clean the sewers!" Horowitz suddenly turned his head and looked at Mike as if he had seen a ghost.

"The entire Ninth Street was spotless! There was a redneck veteran with a gun standing on the side of the road as a supervisor."

"I tested him by asking where I could find strippers and drugs, and guess what he said?"

Mike rubbed his frozen hands. "He said your old bones can't take it anymore, you can't enjoy life anymore?"

"He said, 'Labor creates value, and those who do not work do not eat!'" Horowitz slammed his hand on the steering wheel, and the horn emitted a short beep.

"He also told me that if I was starving, I should grab a broom and sweep the floor, then go to the library and get a bowl of potato porridge with meat!"

After Horowitz finished speaking, he stared intently at Mike's face, waiting for the young man to show the same shocking expression after hearing such subversive words.

The carriage was silent for a full five seconds.

But Mike just blinked. "Boss, is there a problem?" Horowitz's facial muscles stiffened.

"'No work, no food'—isn't that the kind of manipulative rhetoric that fat manager used to use to brainwash me every day when I was frying fries at KFC?" Mike scoffed.

"Work and you get paid; don't work and you're fired."

"Fast food restaurants don't employ idle people either."

"As for that potato puree, it doesn't even sound as good as KFC's near-expiry fried chicken nuggets. That's it? What's all the fuss about?"

Horowitz stared wide-eyed, feeling as if he had punched a cotton ball.

His proud Cold War experience and keen sense of organization were somehow misunderstood by this modern American youth, whose mind was only focused on minimum wage, as meaning it would be better to work at KFC.

"You illiterate idiot, what do you know!" Horowitz cursed irritably, reaching for his cigarette case in his pocket.

"This isn't a fast food restaurant, that guy Lyon's doing grassroots mobilization. Does he even know what grassroots mobilization is?!"

He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and decided to provoke his illiterate assistant in an exaggerated way that Americans could understand.

"Mike, use your marijuana-soaked brain to think straight."

Please visit [website address] to see the latest chapter! Address: dEqixs.oRg "What is a man who has a gun, a police background, and can organize a disorganized group of homeless people to sweep the streets, planning to do?"

Horowitz exhaled smoke, and his finger holding the cigarette drew a large circle in the air.

"If Lyon can spread this model all over Seattle, he can control all those who can't get welfare."

"Don't even mention a mere mayor; he could run for governor, and even have a chance to sit in the White House!"

Mike's eyes finally widened.

"Electing president?" Mike swallowed hard, the image of Leon standing on the White House lawn with a fully equipped HK416 flashing through his mind.

"A cop who shoots people in the head, running for president? If people like us run errands for him, does that mean we might have a chance to become Secretary of State someday?"

Looking at Mike's clueless and foolish expression, Horowitz suddenly felt incredibly tired.

He flicked his cigarette ash, completely losing interest in discussing grand narratives with young people.

"Forget it, talking to you about this is like chanting sutras to a stone."

Horowitz rolled down the car window a crack to let the smoke dissipate.

"I'm not going to take on Director Carl's commission." "Huh?" Mike had just woken up from his dream of being the Secretary of State.

"Why? He's the director of the FBI, he pays a lot of money."

"He's already a dead man," Horowitz sneered.

"That old guy has been sidelined by Washington; he doesn't even have as much power as a traffic cop."

"The little money he gave us wasn't even enough to buy a coffin after we found out the truth."

He stopped the car at a red light and turned to look at Mike.

"I plan to observe for the next few days, and once I'm completely certain, I'll confront them directly and have a talk with Lyon."

"What do you want to talk to him about? How about sweeping the streets?"

"Let's talk about how to help him with his work." Horowitz revealed a sly smile.

"Since he hasn't extended his reach to the North District yet, he definitely needs someone to help him handle the intelligence and dirty work in the North District that he can't personally deal with."

"If we can help him completely control the North District, and incidentally divert the attention of those corrupt officials from the Federation..."

The light turned green, and Horowitz slammed on the gas. "That's called 'serving the emperor,' you get it, kid?"

"Following a bureau chief who is about to fall—no, should be said to have already fallen—means you'll only be buried with him. But if you're following a warlord who's ready to overturn the table, that's a different story."

"Even if we can't enjoy wealth and luxury with him, at the very least we can see him overturn the table with the United States and then witness the largest fireworks explosion in American history at the closest possible distance."

……

Just as Horowitz was planning to make contact with Lyon, in a run-down alley on 18th Street in South Seattle.

The southern district is an area that Lyon has almost not yet officially explored.

Several days have passed since the outrageous riot in the West District, but this ominous trend has clearly made the South District police chief uneasy.

In preparation for the impending storm, Division Chief Jack Conrad has recently been frantically consolidating his control over the South District, as if he's on steroids.

He not only tightened his control within the precinct, but also ordered a high-intensity crackdown on the streets in an attempt to maintain his reputation by eliminating gangs and strengthening community security.

Conrad had a shrewd plan. He believed that as long as the South District was clean and safe enough, Lyon and Sterling would not have an excuse to interfere in the affairs there.

However, the bureau chief probably never imagined that his frantic efforts to clean up street litter were seen by Lyon as nothing more than free housekeeping services.

Once the troublemakers in the southern district have been mostly dealt with, when Lyon takes over the area with his men, he won't even need to bring a broom; he can just pack his bags and move in. Deep in the alley, a gangster's corpse, covered in tattoos, lies sprawled next to a trash can, several bullets in his chest, blood flowing down his coat into a puddle on the ground.

Two blocks ahead, intermittent sirens and sporadic gunfire could still be heard, as the main force of patrol officers from the South District continued their sweep.

Female Inspector Sarah held a plastic whiteboard, drew a checkmark on it with a pen, and then looked up at her surroundings.

She and her patrol officers were left behind by the main force to deal with the mess on the ground.

"The deceased's information has been registered. We've secured the scene and are waiting for the forensic team to arrive and take over..."

Sarah's words were abruptly cut off.

She turned her head and looked at the old patrolman Gary, who was squatting next to the body.

Gary was struggling to pull off the fake Rolex watch from the gangster's wrist when he also skillfully unbuckled the deceased's tactical belt and stuffed a nearly new Glock 19 rifle and two spare magazines into his own pocket.

After doing all that, Gary even rummaged through the deceased's shirt pockets and pulled out a few crumpled twenty-dollar bills and a handful of loose change.

"No, what the hell are you doing?" Sarah's eyes widened, and she almost dropped the clipboard.

"I'm protecting the evidence at the scene," Gary said without looking up, flattening the banknotes and stuffing them into the lining of his bulletproof vest.

Sarah walked over and kicked Gary's boot. "What kind of protection are you talking about! Putting a dead man's money in your own pocket and then selling his watch to a pawnbroker is considered protection?"

She pointed at Gary's bulging pockets and muttered in a low voice:

"I told you, it's one thing to be stingy normally, but can you please stop working part-time as a street cleaner and collecting corpses while you're at your regular job?"

"You're a police officer, not a vulture! If this happens again, I'll report you directly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs!"

Gary stood up, dusted off his knees, wiped the counterfeit Rolex on his clothes, and put it in his pocket.

"What else?" Gary rolled his eyes and retorted confidently.

"Are you expecting us to pay our salaries from the gangsters we kill on the street, or from our police union that only knows how to deduct monthly dues?"

He patted Sarah on the shoulder. "Alright, sir, I know what I'm doing. Making money off the dead is better than taking bribes, right? At least the dead won't complain to the city hall about me."

Sarah was so angry at his robber logic that she couldn't speak.

"Do you think I wanted to touch this blood on my hands?"

Gary ignored her glare, reached out and patted the pistol at his waist, his words full of resentment.

"Inspector, look at this gun of mine. I bought it myself from a gun shop. The crappy gun the station issues me with has such a high rate of jamming that it could kill me." He pointed to the corpse on the ground.

"It took me five bullets to shoot that bastard. Do you know how much a single 9mm bullet costs these days? I paid for the bullets, the fuel, and even the plates for my body armor—all out of my own pocket!"

He held up two fingers and waved them in front of Sarah.

"Fighting these henchmen doesn't bring any great merit or extra bonus. If I don't loot something, I won't even get my money back from the bullets. I'm basically working at my own expense, paying my own way to boost the bureau chief's performance!"

He leaned closer to Sarah, his tone shifting to one of ingratiation: "Sir, since you don't approve of me scavenging, could you talk to your superiors and ask for a raise? Or at least reimburse my ammunition costs?"

Sarah silently tucked the clipboard under her arm and looked at him like he was an idiot.

"What's the point of yelling at me?" Sarah spread her hands.

"Do you think I, a police inspector, am any better than you? We're about the same."

She pointed to the police uniform shirt she was wearing.

"I am a police inspector, that's true, but my credit card is going to be overdue next month, and even my application to get a new office chair was blocked by the logistics department. They said the budget needs to be reserved for the chief's public relations activities."

"I don't have the authority to give you a raise; at most, I can submit an application form to Chief Conrad."

Sarah sneered, "Then you can watch it get thrown into the shredder in the chief's office." Gary's fawning expression vanished instantly upon hearing this.

"Hold."

He kicked the empty shell casing hard, and the casing rolled into a puddle with a soft thud.

"Forget it, I'd rather hope for Jesus to come than rely on those stingy bureaucrats in the South District."

Gary leaned against the brick wall, took a crumpled cigarette out of his pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it.

"Speaking of which, I'm just waiting to see when Leon Vance will bring his men and take over the South Precinct as well."

Sarah paused for a moment, then quickly looked around.

"Are you crazy? Mentioning that name here?"

"Don't you know how chaotic the West End is right now? I heard Lyon turned the East and West Ends upside down, with private soldiers and homeless people everywhere."

"What are you afraid of? Conrad is busy putting on a show for the media right now, and he can't hear us anyway." Gary chewed on his cigarette, a longing in his eyes.

"I heard from my old buddies in the West End that Lyon's men have more money than they can spend right now."

"No matter what kind of work you're doing, patrolling or blocking roads, they give you stacks of cash, the latest bulletproof vests, and you can get any bullet you want." "No matter what weapon you use, or how many magazines you empty, they approve your expense reports without even looking at them!"

Gary took the cigarette down and pointed in the direction of the West End.

"I think I understand now. Although following a madman like Leon is definitely a life-risking job, and you could get caught in an RPG explosion at any time."

"But at least they actually paid!"

He patted his pocket, which was full of money from the dead.

"Unlike our lousy bureau chief, who only makes us do free labor on the streets for his political achievements, without even reimbursing us for a single bullet."

Sarah looked at Gary's serious expression, opened her mouth, and found that she couldn't find any reason to refute him.

She sighed, too lazy to argue with Gary, and simply took out her walkie-talkie and pressed the call button.

"Dispatch Center, this is 12-David. There is an injured person on the side road of 18th Street. Their vital signs are almost gone. The scene has been cleared. Requesting forensic support."