Half an hour later, Montoya was back in his car.
He took out his phone and dialed Sanders’s private number.
The call was answered after a single ring.
The stubborn old man had clearly been waiting for this call.
"Daniel, it’s ."
"We’ve reached an agreent."
"The data access for Pittsburgh will be fully restored by nine a.m. tomorrow. The chairman of the local committee will apologize to Wallace and admit it was an operational error."
A soft grunt ca from the other end of the line.
"Very well. And what’s our price?"
"The vote next Tuesday on the supplentary clauses to the Regional Economic Recovery Bill," Montoya said bluntly. "I want to see thirty green ’yea’ votes. No abstentions, no absences, no excuses."
"Done," Sanders replied crisply.
Montoya continued, "One last thing, Daniel, regarding Pittsburgh."
"Starting tomorrow, Washington will no longer interfere in the election there. The National Committee won’t provide any additional special funding for Carter Wright, nor will there be any more administrative interference targeting Wallace."
"In return, you and your caucus can no longer treat Pittsburgh as your political stage. You can’t use national resources to run a saturation campaign in that district anymore."
"We’re giving Pittsburgh back to the people of Pittsburgh."
"Let the two candidates win on their own rits."
The other end of the line went silent for a mont.
Sanders was obviously weighing the pros and cons of this condition.
Although he felt a tinge of dissatisfaction at not being able to completely purge the bureaucrats who had been pulling strings behind the scenes, he knew this was the best outco he could hope for.
He had secured Leo’s breathing room and taken the leash off him.
At the sa ti, he had demonstrated the Progressives’ power to all of Washington—’touch one of my people, and I can bring Congress to a grinding halt’.
Establishing that kind of deterrence was more valuable than a simple victory.
As for letting Leo and Carter Wright face off on a level playing field...
Sanders recalled the look in the young man’s eyes at the dinner in Philadelphia, and he rembered his promise over the phone about "holding up an umbrella."
He had faith in the young man.
"Fine," Sanders said. "We accept the deal."
"Excellent." Montoya breathed a sigh of relief. "That’s settled, then. Good night, Daniel."
"Good night, Kod."
The call ended.
A political crisis that had threatened to ignite a civil war within the Democratic Party leadership—one that could have even jeopardized the entire midterm election—was thus defused in the ti it took a few powerful n to share a phone call and a glass of whiskey.
In this smoke-filled room, there was no good or evil, only raw calculation and the balancing of scales.
This was the Washington way.
...
In the prefab office, Karen Miller sat at her computer, repeatedly refreshing the red login screen.
She knew full well that without the green light from Washington, that screen wouldn’t change between now and this ti next year.
The phone rang abruptly. It was the landline on the desk, the one used for official business.
Leo answered the phone.
"Pittsburgh City Revitalization Committee."
A sowhat elderly voice ca from the other end of the line, clearly tinged with embarrassnt and reluctance.
"This is Robert Hammond, Chairman of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee."
Leo raised an eyebrow. He gestured for the others in the office to be quiet.
"Chairman Hammond, good morning. What can I do for you?"
"Mr. Wallace," Hammond said, "I’m calling to inform you about the issue with your campaign team being unable to log into the VAN System. We... we’ve conducted a thorough internal investigation."
"And the conclusion?" Leo asked calmly.
"It was a deeply unfortunate technical malfunction," Hammond said. "Our back-end security algorithm made an error in judgnt, causing your account to be incorrectly flagged as high-risk. As you know, the cybersecurity landscape is complex these days, and systems can sotis be oversensitive."
"We have manually lifted the lock. You should be able to access the database normally from now on."
There was a pause on the line, followed by the words the big man clearly didn’t want to say.
"On behalf of the committee, I offer my sincere apologies for the inconvenience this has caused."
"Thank you for looking into it, Chairman Hammond," Leo said. "Technical glitches happen. As long as it’s fixed, we’re good. Have a pleasant day."
He hung up.
Everyone in the office was staring at him.
Leo turned to Karen and pointed at the computer screen.
"Try it again."
Karen took a deep breath, her fingers trembling slightly as she hit the Enter key.
The screen flickered.
The infuriating red warning box vanished, replaced by a familiar blue loading bar.
A few seconds later, dense data maps and voter lists filled the entire screen.
"We’re in!" Sarah couldn’t help but cheer. "We’re really in!"
Frank didn’t really understand computers, but he knew what this ant. He slamd his fist on the table with a loud THUD.
Just then, Leo’s personal cell phone vibrated.
It was an unknown number.
Leo walked to the window and answered the call.
"Sanders here. Is it resolved?"
"It is, Senator," Leo replied, looking out the window. "The VAN System is restored. Chairman Hammond just called to apologize personally."
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