- Corporal Robert Perry, an Army reservist who fought in Iraq, was severely injured in an apparent error by Castleman Security, government contractors working in Iraq. The Army investigation clears Castleman of involvement, thus freeing them of any monetary obligation, and Perry lives too far from veteran's resources to allow him to receive government funded treatment that would allow him to work. He contacts Nathan Ford for help. What Nathan Ford and the rest of the Leverage team find is far more than a simple error.—Eideann
- Young Corp. Robert Perry contacts the crew when he is denied surgery and other assistance by the company guilty of his injury during his tour in Iraq, Castleman Security. When the crew learns Perry is due to be assassinated, they mix with dirty DC politicians and paramilitary contractors to keep Perry safe. A moving truck is just frosting on the cake for Perry and his pals at the rehab center.—LA-Lawyer
- A soldier records himself using a video camera outside Najaf, a message for his wife. Men unload something from a truck in the background. Then there are gunshots and he and his buddy are hit.
He talks to Nate at the hospital. He's in a wheelchair. He says the private contractors, from Castleman, hit him. The army said it was insurgents. He just wants his rehab paid for.
A doctor comes to throw Nate out, thinking he's running a scam. The soldier thinks it's fine, he found Nate on the Internet.
Sophie does a spectacularly bad audition for a soap commercial in Hollywood. She gets a phone call. In Berlin, a man points a gun at Eliot as a phone rings. Eliot disarms him and answers. Parker steals a painting from a museum as she gets her call. They meet up in Los Angeles. Parker put her money in a retirement account. She just likes money, not stuff. Sophie bought an island in Dubai. And Tokyo.
They enter an office. A sign on the wall says Leverage Consulting & Assoc.
Enter Alec. He presents their new cover story: it was founded by Harlan Leverage III. They have pension plans and dental matching their cover stories. The taxes have been paid since 1913. Nate paid for all of it with what he had left after he gave the rest away -- all of it. To a children's hospital. Alec shows them the conference room with a wall of flat screens with photo and video forensic programs, a facial recognition database tied to CIA and FBI. It also gets all NFL games on DirecTV.
Nate comes in. They watch Corporal Robert Perry's video. Eliot can tell from the sound of the gunshots that the contractors did shoot him because the insurgents have different weapons. But he's worried about taking on a private army. Nate suggests they'll go through all the paperwork it takes to keep Castleman's lies straight. They can blackmail just enough to pay for Perry's rehab.
They hit a Castleman function while Alec and Parker prepare to break into Castleman HQ, via the rope line down the outside. Sophie as Lillie, with a London-based defense contractor, schmoozes with a Castleman bigwig, Charles Duford, who extols the cheapness and value of buying a Congressman. In his office, Alec works on his computer while Parker attacks the safe. Nate dabs the Castleman guys's coat with bbq sauce and, as he wipes it off, Sophie lifts Duford's wallet, swiping the ID card and passing it to Eliot the waiter. It doesn't have a magnetic strip, but an electronic frequency which he holds to the phone for Alec to capture. For the safe's voice recognition, Parker needs a nonsensical string of sounds in Duford's voice. Eliot takes care of it by offering him an appetizer called "pate d'escargot avec buerre d'Argentine" and making him ask for it by name. Now all she needs is "ef," "uh" and "kuh." (Sound it out.) The man takes a bite. "It's shrimp, you stupid fu---" and cut to Parker, getting the sounds she needs. On the computer, Alec finds they've got Perry's psych evaluations and high school records. They're tapping his phones. The cover-up has nothing to do with the shooting, Ford figures--it's about the trucks in the background.
On a hunch, Sophie approaches Congressman Jenkins who votes on the contracts, mentioning all the problems Castleman had with the shooting in Najaf. He says he doesn't know what she's talking about.
Nate realizes Perry isn't a victim, he's a witness. And therefore in danger.
He and Sophie go to the hospital after hours and find Perry. Down the hall, Eliot sees two very large men dressed as doctors, wearing combat boots. Nate and Sophie get Perry to safety as Eliot takes on the two dudes. It ends when Perry rolls Nate a defibrilator and Nate zaps the guy still standing. Back at the office they go through the stuff henchmen had on them: a suicide note from Perry and a gun registered in his name.
The Leveragites are bothered that someone could have gotten killed. Nate, booze in hand, gives them an opportunity to leave. But they decide to finish that job, by turning the two sides, Jenkins and Duford, against one another.
Sophie says Congressman Jenkins is their way in. She goes to his office as the woman from the London security firm, Executive Orders. Nate visits Duford, as another Congressman's chief of staff, saying that his boss wanted Duford to know he could be their guy now that Jenkins is pulling out. This is news to Duford.
Both Sophie and Nate tell their marks how to look for the signs they're going to get dropped. They're also going to need to swap out a real bill from the House floor so that Duford will think Jenkins, who's supposed to be in his pocket, isn't coming through.
At the office, Alec finds records that Jenkins has been working on renovating his house for a long time, using shell companies. Eliot calls to cancel the work to yank Jenkins chain, holding up an order of mahogany flooring the Congressman hand-picked.
Nate and Alec settle in at the office over popcorn to watch CSPAN of Parker making her way through the halls of Congress, putting fake pages that cancel Castleman's contracts into a real bill that is kept in a wooden box on the floor of the House.
They all regroup at the office and watch surveillance of Jenkins reassuring Duford that the fake bill was a mistake and he'll fix it. They find that Castleman makes regular shipments, and one tied to the date of the shooting is sitting in the Port of Los Angeles among the tens of thousands of containers.
Alec, Parker and Eliot enter the shipyard. Alec suggests a complicated computer way of disabling a surveillance camera, but Eliot takes care of it with a well-thrown rock. They head to the container, wondering if it's filled with stolen Iraqi art. They throw open the doors and find it's stacked topped-to-bottom with money.
Back at the office, Parker nuzzles the bills. It's real, $200-$300 million in U.S. currency. Nate's company helped ship cash there at the beginning of the war, for bribes as needed. $9 billion went missing (that's true--someone's been reading their "Vanity Fair").
Nate supposes Castleman would want it because unmarked cash is hard to come by. Good for money laundering. Castleman uses it to pay Jenkins, who gets no-bid contracts to pay Castleman for jobs, which cleans the money.
Nate says they're not going to steal it. They're the good guys now.
Back at the Port. Castleman commandos patrol. Sophie and Nate wander through as tourists dressed in leis, lost with luggage, arguing as a distraction while Parker sneaks in with Alec. The Congressman pulls up to the security shack, wanting to know where the mahogany he ordered is. Eliot checks the files. Parker finds the lock has been changed on the container, but she brought a small, beeping device which should take care of it. Alec hustles for cover just as one of the commandos confronts the tourists and recognizes Nate from the hospital.
There's an explosion behind them and a truck drives out. The tourists disappear as the truck drives by. The Congressman, looking for his imported mahogany, wanders up to the container as Eliot opens the gate to let the truck out. Alec is stopped by commandos in a truck. Duford arrives, wanting to know what's happening. The commandos search Alec's truck as Duford confronts Jenkins at the container, thinking he had something to do with it now being empty and promising to take him down. As Congressman Jenkins finishes shouting that he wouldn't do anything because he helped smuggle the money and could go to jail, a team of news crews run up, asking the Congressman if that's the container he called about. Alec finally stops stalling and the commandos open his truck. It's empty.
A reporter notices the container is the wrong number. Jenkins is holding the right key. (Flash back to Eliot giving him a map and key.) He turns to open it as Duford tries to stop him. (Flashback to Parker putting the bomb on the container next to the one with the money and the commandos going to the blast, not noticing the number.) He throws open the door to reveal all the money, where it was supposed to be. Then Jenkins is tap dancing for the cameras, says he's uncovered corruption and saying that Duford discovered the massive theft. Jenkins', Duford's and the reporters' phones all ring with video footage from the nearby surveillance camera replaying Jenkins recent tirade, confessing. Busted.
Cut to Perry and his doctor who earlier complained about being short on cash being summoned by Nate and the crew. They show them the presumably empty truck. But it's an illusion: a screen painted to look like the inside of an empty truck covers up a couple massive blocks of cash, for Perry and other soldiers' rehab. Sophie says it's not stolen money any more.
Perry thanks them and Eliot thanks Perry in return as the doctor tries to absorb that sometimes good people do help.
As the team watches the thrilled doctor and soldiers, Nate says anyone who wants to walk away can do it right now.
"One more," Eliot says. "Maybe two," Alec says. Nate kept some of the money and bought a snazzy electric sports car. Just because they're the good guys doesn't mean they can't have a little fun.
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