Chapter Text
I'm thinking this is flashback style, with the old!Leverage team laying out the con from their perspective and Harry/Breanna/Sophie (who was retired during the period where this story takes place) interjecting.
- Our setting: like five years ago, New Orleans
- Harry is a baby jerkass lawyer, and our mark of the week is his current employer.
- I am mildly surprised one of Harry's clients hasn't been a Leverage mark before, tbh.
- They're waging a lawsuit (may or may not be related to the client), Harry's job includes e-discovery for it, and the team thinks this will be the easiest way into the employer's servers.
- Actually I think the lawsuit being a "bite each other's dicks off" case between Harry's bosses and a separate Leverage mark is funnier than it being related to why Leverage is on the case, even if the "we're on you because of a SLAPP suit -> we're getting our intel from your lawyer" has a certain karmic throughline to it.
- Possibly this is after we've cycled through a couple other plans like getting a worm into the system via email? (Or in conjunction with it - easiest way to send out malware and get through the company firewall is via an internal contractor like Harry's firm.)
- Breanna interjecting to take a swipe at Hardison's hacking skills and him protesting why this was the best option?
- Harry is a baby jerkass lawyer, and our mark of the week is his current employer.
- So, while the rest of the team is setting up a con, Maggie needs to get her grift on w/Harry.
- Tara's on the grift with the other company, so can't do it or will else blow her cover? Or is on her own thing entirely (Sophie reminisces on whatever Tara's job was enviously).
- What is she grifting as?
- Not under her real name, so Harry doesn't remember later, and thus not under her real credentials.
- Maybe imply while the crew is setting this up that Maggie got called in by Leverage International primarily for reasons connected to her day job - either they needed her creds to get in or they needed her to help lay background. (This is what she just did, after all.)
- It's not a romantic grift - Harry's still happily married at this point - and Harry seems unlikely to bring his work home, so probably not posing as like a new piano teacher in town or something to gain access to the house. (Also, if that was viable, Parker could just do it in and out.)
- Ooooh, random cybersec audit. The firm needs to show they're compliant with whatever standards are relevant here or they'll lose their larger clients (bc pre-established conceit that through the law firm is a way to vacuum data). Maggie uses the Power of the Lanyard and Clipboard and no one questions why she's here.
- Not under her real name, so Harry doesn't remember later, and thus not under her real credentials.
- Harry's relatively junior in the law firm at this point, so it becomes his job to shepherd Maggie around.
- Hardison is feeding Maggie what she should be looking for over earbud/the clipboard does have a legit inspection checklist on it, and she's interspersing this with whatever Leverage needs for future access ("verifying software" via a USB that actually contains malware, getting badge and door codes, etc.) and blustering through anyone who thinks what she's doing isn't right/that she's not a real inspector.
- Harry's not questioning her stuff at all! (He may have been picked by the Leverage team as the ideal person to follow around for this because he's never seen an audit done before.) Maggie's being charming, and so is he, and he probably lets some clue for later slip out. (Maybe about specific law codes that apply to his employer, which the team hasn't encountered elsewhere?)
- Harry, groaning: I wondered why a securities auditor was so well-informed about antiquities importation policy!
- Maggie gets the access the team needs and gets out, and the team decides to use the same shtick to get access to the company Harry works for.
- Except Harry sees her here, too, and tries to pick up their conversation! Except she's switched what she's meant to be auditing between the two, which sets off alarm bells for our would-be mark.
- Too late, tho.
- Maybe Maggie's shepherding a legit inspector to violations the Leverage team has set up in advance?
- Except Harry sees her here, too, and tries to pick up their conversation! Except she's switched what she's meant to be auditing between the two, which sets off alarm bells for our would-be mark.
- The way Harry's employers (and their competitor) go down in flames doesn't flame back onto Harry/his firm (possibly he gets the management off on some of the charges?), and he goes on none the wiser about it to a series of even more morally objectionable clients.
- Ends with someone (one of the employers, or just a fellow bystander) voicing the idea that there was a conspiracy involved to take the company down, and Harry dismissing it!
- Possibly also imply this isn't the only time one of Harry's clients was a Leverage mark.