US police: Plane crashes started with Homelander.

Chapter 15

"Did you overhear?" Li Ang repeated her words, a hint of teasing in his tone. "How long have you been standing there?"

"That's long enough." Claire straightened her shirt cuffs.

"That Chinese girl, she's serious."

"I know she's serious," Li Ang said. "That's why it's troublesome."

Claire didn't reply. Leaning against the wall, she glanced at Li Ang with a complex look in her eyes, as if she were sizing him up, or looking through him at something else entirely. The emergency light in the corridor cast a shadow on half of her face, making her slanted eyes appear even sharper.

"You did the right thing," she suddenly said.

"Reject her?"

"Yes," Claire said quickly, as if the answer required no thought. "Homelanders can't be defeated by mere enthusiasm. I've seen too many people on the battlefield who wanted to be heroes, and they died the fastest."

Li Ang wanted to say something, but in the end he just hummed in response. Over the past few days, he had figured out Claire's personality; she always spoke directly and without beating around the bush.

"That concludes today's tasks. You can go back to sleep now."

Actually, I'm not sleepy anymore.

…………

After the press conference, Homelander emerged from the main entrance of the Barclays Hotel and took flight in full view of the crowd.

Back in the Twin Towers office.

The receptionist greeted him respectfully. "Miss Madeline has returned from Washington and said she's waiting for you in your office."

The man nodded in agreement, and his pace quickened abruptly.

Madeline has been away for the past few days, only sending him messages to start preparing for his presidential campaign, which led to today's press conference.

Upon entering, Madeline was already sitting on the sofa with a thick stack of reports in her hands.

"The speech was a great success. The CNN and Fox News live polls haven't come out yet, but the amount of real-time discussion online has already broken records. In the first fifteen minutes after you announced your candidacy, the hashtags on the topic grew three times faster than on the day Biden took office."

"Faster than I expected."

“Of course. Do you remember what you said when you announced your candidacy?” Madeline looked at him, her eyes shining. “You said you were their god, you just didn’t say the word directly. But they understood. Nothing needs a god more than a group of fearful people, and you gave them one.”

Madeline stood up, walked to the bar counter in the corner of the office, took a bottle from the refrigerator, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to Homelander.

That was a bottle he had just picked up when he got back. Instead of drinking it as usual, Mr. Homelander put the bottle back on the table.

"About killing Biden," Homelander said, placing the baby bottle on the coffee table. "Why didn't you tell me?"

His tone was calm, yet tinged with anger.

He waited to see Madeline's reaction.

Madeline looked Homelander into the eyes and said, "Would you believe me if I said I didn't do it?"

"Not you?" Homelander frowned.

"It wasn't me."

"You said last time that you wanted me to be president."

"Yes, I did say that. But what I meant was that next year is an election year, and we are still well prepared. I've never done things in this rushed manner."

"Besides us, what other organizations in this world have the capability and the guts to do something like this?"

Madeline opened her tablet. Inside were her recent activity logs, the financial statements of her several public relations firms, and her entire schedule for the past month. She spread them out on the coffee table and pushed them in front of Homelander, her movements swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

“John,” Madeline said, “all my plans are for your benefit. If I were to actually send someone to kill Biden, I would let you know.”

I am capable of doing that. But if I do, I'll let you know first. After all, I need you to have a plan in mind, not be stunned afterward.

Her tone was calm but earnest; it wasn't a command, a request, or a coaxing. Rather, it was something between teaching and persuasion.

"I didn't do this. Since I don't even know who killed Biden, and you don't believe me," she leaned back on the sofa and continued, "you can investigate yourself. Use your super hearing, or your still-active fan club, investigate however you like. But the fact I'm telling you is: it wasn't me."

The office was quiet for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

She closed the folder, put it back on the lower shelf of the coffee table, and then took two sheets of paper from her briefcase. Two blank sheets of paper, covered with densely packed names. Each line contained a name, followed by its title, party affiliation, influence rating, and a short note. She placed the A4 sheets on the coffee table, turning them so the text faced Homelander.

"Then why are you showing me these?"

"Biden is dead, and you've announced your candidacy; our plans have to be accelerated." Madeline resumed her usual businesslike tone.

"The first list consists of the people you need to win over. Every single person on the list holds real power in both houses of Congress: committee chairs, whips, and senators from key swing states. There are 113 in total. Of these, 62 have already hinted to me in some way that they are willing to side with you, provided you can offer them something. The remaining 51 are still fence-sitters, and you'll need to talk to them personally."

Homelander glanced down at the list. There were too many names; he didn't have the patience to look closely, but he noticed the names of the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the FBI Director. These were positions left over from the Biden era; the Vice President was still handling the transition, and a new president hadn't been elected yet. A power vacuum. The people on this list were the ones who truly controlled the country.

"What about the second one?"

"The second one," Madeline lowered her voice slightly, but her tone remained the same, "is the person you need to clean up."

She pushed another sheet of paper in front of him. This sheet had far fewer names than the first, only about thirty or forty lines. Homelander noticed that it included editors-in-chief of news media outlets, several independent investigative journalists, an internal inspector for the New York Police Department, and a retired former Department of Defense intelligence analyst.

“These people,” Madeline pointed to the names on the list, “some already know some of your ‘flaws,’ some are under investigation, and others I’ve discovered have made unusual information requests. These people haven’t joined forces yet, but if one of them leaks something, the others will follow up within forty-eight hours. That will be a difficult situation to handle.”

The man looked at the list, his eyes slowly moving from left to right.

"Is it a warning or removal?" Madeline said, her tone as if discussing a marketing plan. "The specifics are up to you. But whatever you decide, these people on the list won't get away scot-free until election month."

Madeline's preparations were impeccable.

When Homelander admitted that she hadn't even figured out how to handle the variable of Biden's assassination attempt, she had already laid out her next move.

He picked the bottle up from the coffee table again and drank it all in one gulp.

He pressed the encrypted communication channel of the seven-man group in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. Four holographic avatars popped up on the screen: Ice Man, Light Woman, and Supernova were all online, only Yellow Lightning's avatar was grayed out.

"Everyone, assemble at New York headquarters today. I have a task to assign."