Chapter Nine
It took almost no effort to get the Sherwood family board to agree Cookie Jar needed to eat dirt. Halsey stood in the boardroom and presented his case, detailing the man’s misuse and outright theft of government assets, including property, military equipment, and an emerald mine. That, combined with the vast, outlandish palace he was building with public money, and the fact he jailed his political opponents and ran the United Heroes League exclusively to line his own pockets, meant that when he called for a vote, it was unanimous.
“I’d have voted we screw him over just for banning the color green,” said Mom. She held a photograph of Cookie Jar taken during his UN address. He wore a dark suit with an emerald green tie and pocket silk. “He’s really banned wearing green fabric by an act of parliament?”
“For everyone except the prime minister,” Halsey said.
“We’ll make it a priority,” Zeke said. And then he listed all the vigilante activities that were scheduled before taking Cookie Jar down.
Halsey jumped in when Zeke stopped talking. “This won’t wait. Cookie Jar is only here for the next six weeks. After that, he’ll disappear back to Ossovia and we lose our chance.”
Zeke frowned. “Without Cal, we’re already shorthanded and everyone is working overtime. I don’t see how we can get to it in the next six months, let alone six weeks.”
“We have to do something. If we can con Cookie Jar and then expose him, that’s all his party will need to oust him from the leadership and start cleaning up his mess.”
“Why can’t they do that now?” Sherin asked.
“Anyone who’s tried to oppose him has ended up jailed or dead from a mysterious accident.” One political opponent had a piano dropped on him. Another was poisoned when she opened her car door. “And he has control of the media. They only print good news he authorizes.”
“I still don’t get what we can do. This isn’t our usual thing,” Sherin said.
“This trip is a big deal for Ossovians. It’s supposed to be about the country taking its place on the world stage after finally emerging from the shadow of the Soviet Union ten years ago. Cookie Jar is courting international press. He wants to look like a god at home. If we can embroil him in a scandal, embarrass him, it will be an edge his enemies can use against him.”
“I get it,” Zeke said. “But we’re already committed up to our necks, and I don’t see how we can do this now.”
Halsey pressed both hands down on the table. Contact with the cool surface was soothing, given this discussion wasn’t. “That’s not good enough.”
Zeke’s eyes went back to the pile of paper in front of him. “It’s what we’ve got. There are millions of bad guys out there. We can’t take on everyone.”
“But he misused Cal’s money.”
Zeke shrugged. “Have the car stolen and sell it for a refund.”
That wasn’t near the appropriate amount of punishment. “He’s going to keep stealing from Ossovians for his own benefit and defrauding people out of money given to welfare projects. He owns property, art, and classic cars from all around the world bought from charity donations.”
Zeke yanked at his hair, making it stand up straight from his head. “Maybe Cal could work something out, but he’s not here, and I’m doing my best.”
A hand on his arm. Mom. “Honey, you could do this.”
Halsey shook his head. It would mean lots of social contact. It would mean making a new friend of Cookie Jar to lure him into his worst excesses. And it would definitely mean being clever enough to not get caught in the backwash of the scandal. “It’s not my skillset.”
“We’d all help,” said Sherin, and that got a round of agreement. Sherin had already helped put the intel together. “Zeke is right. No one else has time to front Operation Green with Envy,” she said, bestowing a code name on the job.
Zeke called the meeting to order, and it was another hour until Halsey got back to his office. He was calling the low-down growl in his stomach hunger because it was after midday, but it felt more like he’d drunk an overly large soup bowl full of disappointment spiced with nasty temper. It was difficult to fault Zeke’s decision, but it meant retribution for Lenny, and seeing a crook exposed and a dangerous politician deposed was a bust.
He could plot a sting, work out all the moving parts and the sleight of hand, but he didn’t have the personality to play the lead on it. There’d be no spreadsheets or emails, no carefully falsified reports. Pulling Cookie Jar down would require elaborate ego pandering and misdirection. It would mean hours of entertaining and endless chit chat with enormous doses of sincerity delivered with a kind of wit Halsey had been born without and couldn’t fake.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know how a sting like this would need to work; it’s that he was the worst possible person to run it.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t have the car stolen. One phone call to an Archer cousin who specialized in moving misappropriated goods, and Cookie Jar’s new purchase could be collected, have its provenance forged, and be back out on the auction circuit all in a day or two.
He put his hand to the phone to make that call and it rang. “Halsey Sherwood.”
“It’s Lenny.”
“Ah.” He slammed his hand over his eyes. You’d think he hadn’t had a good education, couldn’t string an effective greeting together, but Lenny was the last person he’d expected to call, despite their compatibility on the dance floor.
“Not who you were expecting.”