Chapter 54

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It had gone mid-morning by the time the mammals were briefed and ready.

In that time, the protest crowd that had swelled two days before and then receded the day after had returned, this time cresting larger than ever. There was no band this time, though a large number of wolves in biker gear were still present, acting as the unofficial muscle of the angry mammals staking out below.

If hearing the initial news about Kris' mistreatment had angered them, then learning that the DA had publicly endorsed a fake photo, conveniently released just in time to scupper the political solution to his release, had pushed them up to the next level. Judy couldn't help but feel that there was a real tension in the air, like the heaviness in the air and static in the fur that existed before a summer storm broke into a pounding downfall. If the previous protest had been peaceful, then this one felt like a spark away from something very ugly.

It made her very glad that she wasn't strapped up in riot gear right now, especially given the fact that Kurt's response to the photo's true origin had been one that was right up his alley. 'Well, the ZPD claims that this image was a fake. If you are so inclined to believe them, then by all means believe them.' For a mammal who believed in 'relative truth', he had certainly left that gate wide open.

Never mind, they would be gaining some firm truth very, very soon.

Turning down a service road, they pulled up next to city hall, a wire-thin tension held in the air. Bogo looked down. "Ready?"

Jack, maybe feeling the seriousness of the moment, simply nodded back. "Yes sir," he said, with absolute sincerity.

And, with that, the hare slipped out of the back doors. A professional version of their earlier camera glasses on his face, his fur was a regular grey all over, a minimum amount of fur dye used to hide his stripes in order to minimise the risk of a scent-trained mammal picking up the smell of fur dye. Standing up, he stretched slightly, the cleaners overalls he wore rustling in the breeze, before wandering off.

Bogo nodded to Oates, who stepped out and began going off in the opposite direction. A tense silence filled the van as the screens showed them getting into position, the background chants of the protest crowd always just about there.

For Jack, they were getting louder and louder as he strolled out onto the lawn, almost facing off against the chanting crowd. Instead, though, he turned slightly and joined a small other cluster of mammals in a small area. Some were dressed in overalls like him, others wore professional clothes, but all were there on account of the one thing they shared.

Jack pulled up a stage cigarette and lit it, joining the others in indulging their vice.

Or, in his case, appearing to.

It was slow going to start the mission but, as was the case in such things, the further back your cover went the safer it was. So, for the next ten minutes, Jack kept up the act before, finally, stubbing out his last fake cigarette as he joined another cleaner, an armadillo, in heading back to work.

Bogo nodded, before giving the signal to Oates. The horse began his more professional walk towards the lobby, a briefcase of papers held in hoof. The pair converged in the lobby, but paid each other no attention whatsoever.

As was intended.

Back in the support van, Judy had to wonder. Would they have been able to pull this off on their own, given how Finnick had managed to sneak past the gateline himself?

She didn't know, she wasn't going to ask. Besides, the ZPD happened to have a spare keycard for city hall so, for the first bit at least, no outside help would be needed. Instead, Jack, shoulders slouched and eyes dead to the world, parsed through the crowd of city hall, all while hanging just a bit back from the cleaner he was following. Nothing to pick up his attention, all while the hare followed the plan. Going up to a side entrance for such staff members, the armadillo flashed his card up to the reader and stepped through the secure door, glancing back at the following hare. Jack waved a paw up, the armadillo held it open for his fellow worker, and in the bunny scooted. "Gracias," he spoke, sounding the part. A tired cliche, yes, but given that he'd suggested it and it was his natural accent, there was no reason to begrudge him. As he'd said himself, if mammals were naturally non-inclined to talk to a cleaner, then they were doubly non-inclined to talk to one with a (seeingly) poor grasp of the language.

With that, he wandered off to wait for the next stage of the plan. Finding himself in a stock room, he put himself in front of shelves of cleaning material and began looking through it all. Pulling out a clipboard, he began scanning through it, idly flicking the sheets or jotting down notes. No one would think any wiser.

Bogo nodded slowly, while Judy smirked. His acting like he belonged got him through, not a certain key card.

Meanwhile, Oates passed through the regular security lines, both for the initial public access areas and the later restricted access zones. For the latter, he presented his invitation for the cover meeting and received his own access card.

As soon as he was in, Bogo gave the next signal to Jack, who put down his clipboard and quickly made his way over to a waiting line of cleaning trolleys. Pulling out one his size, he quickly began making his way towards the lifts, all while Oates came from the other direction. No need to rely on the kindness of strangers here, Oates would walk through and, seeing a lowly cleaner, hold the door open to let him in.

Again, not required given that Jack had his own keycard, but the lack of a papertrail would become increasingly useful later on.

Through the two screens, the two members of the operation came into sight, Oates taking the lead to get to the keycard-access area around the lift doors. He needn't have bothered though, given that Jack merged in behind a herd of antelope coming in the other way and, as they strolled through the doors, effortlessly trailed in behind them. He moved his cart around and prepared to push it into the next available lift.

Two doors opened at once, he and Oates filtering into one lift each, making sure they weren't too close together. Again, plausible deniability.

Eventually, many floors above, the two lifts opened once more. The first, Oates', also contained a goat in an IT uniform, currently holding a laptop. He and the horse silently got out, the latter slipping past and heading down the corridor, working as he went. Jack, meanwhile, got out and carried on with his cart. Oates held the door open, before taking the lead to his office. Jack, meanwhile, trailed behind, the various cleaning products he was pushing shaking about as he went to pass the goat, currently looking around.

He glanced down at the hare and his trolley. "Excuse me a second?"

Jack looked up, blinking. "Que?"

"Mind if I just use your table for a sec?"

"I… I am busy," Jack said, deliberately hesitant and wary with the words.

"Just a moment or two," he insisted, Jack relented.

"Un momento," he stressed, as the goat sat it down, accidentally knocking off a few bottles. Jack groaned and went down to pick them up, the goat thankfully helping along. Finishing with the last two items, the hare stood up, just as the goat finished whatever he was doing.

"Sorry for that. Just checking the wifi, needed a steady surface," the caprid waved off, before walking away.

Jack, glancing up to see Oates walking into the right office, narrowed his eyes and pushed on to his own destination.

Rattling on, he came up to the megafauna sized entrance, towering above him and his smaller cart as if it were the drawbridge to a castle. A wary glance around, no-one was looking. An ear to the door, he heard something in there, most likely the thuds of large fingers on a heavy duty keyboard.

Back in the van, the others looked on, their breath bated.

He didn't knock, he simply reached to the lower down small-mammal handle and turned it, stepping forward into the breach.

"Excuse me?" Came an indignant question from inside.

Jack didn't glance up at Wassermaim, instead turning around, pushing the door shut with one strong motion, then turning once more, on his own time, so that he faced the long walk up to the hippo's desk.

The hippo frowned. "Excuse me, there's this thing called knocking you know?"

Jack stood silent, instead marching forwards with hard, steady, purposeful steps. He looked up at the hippo and carried on doing so as he closed the gap, the larger mammal at first looking thoroughly angry but then going through a slight change. Was it curiosity at his audacity, fear at what he might be, or anticipation at the thorough screaming he could give out. Jack didn't know. Kurt certainly didn't know that he didn't know, seeing as the hare kept a straight, serious expression as he came up to the foot of the visitors chair on the other side of the desk. He momentarily broke his eye contact with the hippo to glance at the seat, before looking up once more. "Lift me up to your level."

The hippo blinked a bit from the bluntness of the command, before finally deciding to move back against whoever the cuss this hare thought he was. "Why don't you hop up yourself? We can wait until your manager gets here."

"I think you'll find I'm the one who does the managing," Jack said. "And while there may be a mammal you'd describe as my manager, you really do not want to face him."

And then Kurt blinked. "Him?" he asked, almost relaxing for a second, only to tense up again. "Hang on, who are you?"

Back in the van, Judy's ears had perked up. "He thought Jack was working for a her," she said, Bogo's eyebrows rising. "If he knows it's led by a her…"

Bogo's eyes widened and he turned to Wolford. "Warn Oates to be ready," he said, the wolf doing just that.

Meanwhile, Jack pushed on. "I'm sorry, where are my manners. Hello there."

Kurt stood, still for a second. "Hello... too?"

Jack's eyes narrowed with disappointment. "How pleasant to see you."

And then Kurt seemed to jump in his seat. "Oh… uh… Ewe or You?"

"Ram or Scram?"

"The… cloven hoof will… -rise to claim peace!"

Jack nodded. "And the claw and the paw shall be cut," he said, a hiss coming though. "To end their war."

Kurt looked on and smiled. "You know," he said, reaching for his phone, "I almost thought I was in trouble there." He let his hoof rest on the keypad, and the grin grew into a sneer. "Being such an important figure, my line has a direct link to the security desk," he said. "I'd love to see the faces of those stupid protestors labelling me as a member of Dawn's posse when I hand in one of their recruiting agents! Think very carefully about what you're going to say next…" He looked more pleased with himself than he'd ever before. "Go on, make my day."

"If that day involves explaining to the ZPD and the press why you put in place a fake call about a Prey-supremacist trying to recruit you, and then about how he magically vanished and slipped away before they got there, then be my guest," Jack opened. "Honestly, you should be honored to be in my presence."

For a second, it looked like he'd go through, only just holding himself back in the end as his face soured. "Honored? Ha. You and your pred hating idiots are nothing but an outdated bunch of dinosaurs. This is the twenty-first century you dumb bunny! Preds aren't submammals, your war is nothing to me. It's less than nothing, thanks to you ruining my fight for the real agenda!"

"Ruined?" Jack spoke, working hard to stop an eyebrow rising.

"Yes, you heard me!" the hippo said, furiously. "The good work I was doing when I first got this role, the bad influences on the good predators of this city I was able to deal with, the fifth columnist prey I was able to treat as such… -the ideology, choking this city, that I was able to start taking a sword to! And, then, I learn that it was you and Dawn and your little club of speciesist hood-lambs doing all this, and then all I had going for me was TAKEN! You ruined everything!"

"Ha," Jack laughed. "Ruined? Look at you. When people want to make fun of our master race, you're the one they mockingly behold. You are an insult to prey, and all your little pet projects could only be indulged in because you were idly convenient to our master plans. Weren't you?"

The hippo stared back. "You think you can play me? Let me tell you, I bite back. Bellwether learnt that, I bet she regrets messing with me. Was it her that sent you?"

"Her martyrdom is irrelevant here," Jack spoke. "Though what you actually hoped to achieve with her patronage isn't." He crossed his paws. "While a mere asset with severe delusions of grandeur, it seems your opinions are strong. Tell me, if the aim of your crusade wasn't the control and discreditation of the predatory elements of this society as it so appeared, then what was?"

He laughed just a little. "I'm sooo happy you asked, because it lets me give you the low down."

Back in the support vehicle, Bogo leant in. "This should be good," he said.

"-Predators are not mindless savages, you idiot," he scolded at the hare. "They are thinking, intelligent mammals, without which this society would not function. That was the fault with your stupid little idea, never mind the evil of turning them into physical weapons." He leant down, and pointed straight at the unphased Jack. "As I said," he said slowly. "This is the twenty-first century. Get it into your pea sized bigoted brain that the wars of today are fought over our culture, fought with ideas, and that's where I'm winning. Not you. Not you by a long shot…"

Jack gave a wave to the window. "The crowd out there is an interesting form of winning, I'd say."

Kurt froze, his teeth gritting, before he carried on. "This battle has been… trickier, than I imagined. But it still needed to be fought! You see, it isn't predators that are the problem, but the idea of their superiority. The culture of the predator, the religion of the predator, the superiority complex of the predator. Or, rather, the manufactured toxic versions of such, that they are being spoon fed and educated into believing! Good mammals, being infected with an evil idea, while others are prevented from saving them because mammals have been taught that opposing it is wrong and they are too cowardly to say no." And then he turned to Jack and yelled. "And that's where you screwed up! You gave them a victim card they can wave up whenever anyone dares do anything about it. Indeed, you succeeded where she, for all her skills, failed. In making holding the predator superiority complex to account socially unacceptable."

Back in the van, Judy blinked. "She… her…" she asked, motioning up to Bogo. He nodded, reaching for the microphone. He needn't have bothered.

"She? Who's she?"

"Oh come on," Kurt groaned, before pausing. He almost looked taken aback. "Seriously?" he asked to the room, even giving an aside glance. "Seriously? You don't…"

"Don't what?" Jack pressed.

"You really think you're the wise guys, huh," Kurt pressed, leaning in and pointing. "You really think you know what's going on? You really think you're so high and mighty, when you're just… so… blind!"

"Blind to what," Jack pressed.

"Ha! I… -It's too good to be true," Kurt carried on, hands up, taking glee in it. "I said you're a century behind, you know nothing! Praise Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps…"

Jacked snapped. "How dare you bring them up and…"

His finger swung straight to the phone again, hovering over it, forcing Jack to a stop. Kurt was trembling, but not with fear. "This is too good. This is just too good. Oh, how does it feel, your 'purity-ness'? I knew I was ahead of you lot, but by so much? Oh brother… Ha-ha… I really should just call them now. Get Wilde and Hopps in to cart you away. You and Dawn, you know nothing. It truly is an embarrassment to have you as the 'leaders of the master race' or whatever you thought you were. Nu-uh, you picked the wrong Bellwether to hire mate, though even Dominic didn't know the full truth. Shame he had his 'family commitments' which he'd pull on to back out wherever I invited him closer. In fact, scratch that, you should have put me in charge! Me, yours truly, and I wouldn't have wasted all the effort into turning random civilians into mindless weapons." He looked down, his eyes narrowing. "The one thing that pissed me off more than anything, more than having my victory built and torn away on your weak, lying foundations, was that out of all the mammals you chose to hit, you never thought… you never even considered… contemplated… hitting the one single mammal who counted."

"Who?" Jack demanded, as Kurt stood up and began marching across the room to a large stand-alone bookshelf.

"This was not an accident," he began, pausing to consider his words. "Predators are not born with a toxic superiority complex, they are not taught it in their early years, it didn't just pop-up one day like devil-facial-tumour did and spread due to bad fortune and bad luck and customs and…" He frowned, shaking his head before stepping up to the bookcase, pressing down on a book before pulling it out and down. A click was heard, the entire front of the massive piece of furniture swinging forward ever so slightly from a secret rear.

Jack, through all his acting force and might, couldn't stop his nose from twitching.

"-The point is," Kurt continued, hands resting in the crack. "It was created and spread with malicious intent. I am not fighting, and the fight is not against, predators… It's against a predator, who believes that ruthless force and merciless action are the only valid methods to rule and define this world, toxic predatity in its purest form, and believes it is her destiny to shape it into her vision."

Back in the surveillance vehicle, Wolford had half-left his station and was peering on with the others. "-Who the heck is he talking about? Is there a pred-wether out there or something?"

Kurt took in three deep breaths, hyping himself up, before throwing open the bookcase while calling out her name as if he were a king reading out the name of a traitor of the realm. "Murana cussing Wolford!"

With a bang, the bookcase opened to reveal its hidden treasure, two massive walls layered with a blanket of photos, notes, pins, string wires, newspaper clippings, reports, homemade memes, timelines and other assorted items. Jack felt like he was back in Honey's bunker again, only it was more than that. A hundred Honey's could work a hundred days on their own conspiracy board, and even it would be second to this one.

"The… the… tha… tha…" Officer Wolford began, the others turning to face him. He managed to raise a finger as he carried on stuttering before, finally, getting it out. "THAT'S MY WIFE!"

Bogo grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back into his seat. "In that case stay there!"

"BUT THAT'S MY WIFE! HE'S…"

"Not going to get away on a technicality as you interfered in this sting!" Bogo yelled.

Wolford swallowed it down and nodded, paw up in a salute. "Y-yes sir," he managed, firming up.

Jack, meanwhile, was still trying to put everything together. Kurt just glared at him. "You lot really are thick, you know?" He then turned and began pointing at a bunch of news reports. "North pier Muskmill. A vicious mammal trafficking gang abducting skunks and other stink producing species… -burnt down with all captives rescued. Official ruling by the ZPD, either an inside job by someone who developed a conscious or part of a gang war. Maybe honour among criminals by the established mobs."

Back in the van, Bogo scratched his head. "Come on, what else could it be?"

"After which," Kurt continued, beginning to jab a whole bunch of other documents. "Various enforcers and non-aligned criminals. Sex traffickers, rapists, enforcers who took glee in abusing women and children, all began suffering from the same fiery fate."

"Come on," Bogo grumbled, all as Judy's nose began to twitch. "Those were all copycat attacks. You can't be suggesting…"

"Written off as copycat attacks," Kurt announced, pounding the various printouts of police reports on his wall. "-but, had they looked deeper, they'd have found out that they were all preyed on by the same mammal!"

Bogo blinked. "He's not…"

Kurt carried on. "The same vigilante, known full well in the criminal circles but written off as nothing more than a rumour above…"

Bogo's groaned. "He is…"

"Murana Wolford! The Dark! Flame! Wolf!" He beckoned, and with that the hippo began pointing around at various autopsy pictures, reports, blurry camera footage and the odd recorded testimonies.

Jack, flinching down from whatever Bogo was yelling, repeated it verbatim. "That's just a myth! Like bigpaw, UFO's, mothmammal…"

"And the giant squid?" Kurt asked, eyes crazy and hands waving about. "What about the coelacanth? Those were myths, but those turned out to be true, didn't they? Ha! Where were those who were calling them myths then, huh? And all the evidence I've heard from down on the streets points to a masked vigilante meeting out their own justice to the underworld. Now they've all landed on it being the leader of those hooligan bikers, but that's obviously wrong. Look here." He slammed at a mix of colour coded reports. "She used skunk stink to fight off enemies." He then pointed right back at where he'd started. "SKUNK MUSK MILL! -And guess who adopted a young survivor of said mill after his parents couldn't be traced? Who just so incidentally is a skunk! Skunks, skunks, skunks and skunks and Murana cussing Wolford! Guess who probably milks him every night in a creepy routine to top up her supplies? Murana, goddamn, cussing, Wolford! Guess who…"

"-A wolf adopted a skunk," Jack interrupted, forcing himself to give an in-character sneer to mask his utter confusion. "That's it? That's all you're going on?"

"Ha! That's just the tip of the iceberg," Kurt boasted, moving over to a whole other section of assorted conspiracy stuff. "Look here, various genealogy reports I was able to run after picking up some of her shed fur. I had to lock myself in a toilet for two hours and pretend to be violently sick to get at the seat she'd been at in that fundraiser. -She traces to a rare native line from up in the wilderness, the bumcuss of bumcuss. They were half wiped out when she was just a pup, then suffered a bunch of other killings when she turned nineteen, so logically she should be double dead but she isn't. Strange that, hmmmm? Dead once is pushing it as it is, huh! And if you go over here…" He marched to the other side of the board. "Various reports into piracy on the air supply routes in the arctic wildernesses. I say piracy, but only one band arguably took on the mantle of true pirates, and they started not long before the first wiping out and not long before first attack on her pack, and vanished not long before the second. Coincidence!? I think not! And look at these reports here, here and here…"

On he went, explaining how there was clear evidence the canine crew had a female pup with them throughout, and how that lined up with Murana at first being taken from her village, and eventually murdering one 'Don Karnage' before returning to finish her parents off.

Jack just… watched at this point.

As did those in the van. Bogo gave an odd look back to Wolford, thinking for a second or two, before speaking. "Do you… know her family… so to speak?"

"No," he said, his teeth snarling. "She doesn't like talking about it, given that she was abused! She's infertile from a wound she received, I've seen the scar! You can't be suggesting you believe this madmammal?"

"Just looking for a slam dunk," Bogo defended, as Kurt carried on about Murana. How she'd picked up skills from an assassins guild led by an otter, faked her credentials and blackmailed mammals in order to take ahold of Lemming Brothers Bank, how she'd funnelled off money and run a shop floor rife with discrimination and safety violations against her lemming underlings, before somehow claiming she was all the intended victim of this! Even using her influence to give a lemming she fired five years for assault for biting her finger. A lemming, assaulting a wolf! LEMMING! ASSAULTING! WOLF! How she'd been pictured with a number of small time arms dealers, resupplying with gear and super suits!

"We have evidence of him…" Kurt said, pointing to a photograph of a boat in an underground cave. "This mammal has been seen before, dealing small arms, he's a specialist. Naturally the powers that be won't let me see the details, say that it's 'too confidential' even for me. Of course, I all know they're covering it. They're all in on it together!"

"But for what?" Jack asked.

"As I said before," he stressed, pointing back to a central picture. "She believes in a pure toxic predator superiority complex. Her ideology is that the true method to change the world is with force, with violence, with murder most charred, that those who do so are naturally superior. -Of course, she needs to legitimise said view in the public eye, so she can take ultimate control herself, or pass it along to those who follow in her sick ideology. Hence the news channel she effectively owns. She intends to get the public to a point where they view this toxic predation as the default. To the point where she can reveal herself for the mass murderer she is and will be seen as a hero!"

Jack paused, taking time to try and, futiling, trace between some of the points in his mad web. "I mean… Even if she did kill them all, from what I gathered it's the worst of the worst…"

"-It's the principle of it!" Kurt stressed, paws out as he marched over. "For cuss' sake hare! You go around imagining how all those predators out there are slovening monsters and evil, then I present evidence to you that there's one literally going out and literally predating, and your response is 'oh, they're bad guys getting what they deserve?' Of course they're bad guys, they probably did deserve it, but that's not the point! The point is no-one should be predated on ever! The whole purpose of society was to end the concept of predation, to end rule of the minority and give the prey the voice their majority commands, and here you have a wolf who literally wants to take us back to the savages ages!"

"I mean, of course..." Jack began, spotting what appeared to be a few files of the victims and making towards them. "They could have been reformable, they could have been innocent, they…"

He yelped as Kurt grabbed him and yanked him back. "That's not the point! This is the point here!" he said, gesturing at the centre of the board. "Murana Wolford is the Dark Flame Wolf! I mean look here, one of the few purported pictures." He slammed his hand into a grainy cctv image. "And look here." He pointed at an image of the banker wolf next to it. "Compare! Look at the tails. The floofiness is the same width!"

"The floofiness…"

"IS THE SAME WIDTH!" he exclaimed, turning around on the spot.

"So based on her… tail floofiness, you think she went around killing all these mammals. And in their memory…"

"-It's not about individuals or mammals," Kurt corrected, "it's about ideas. It's only ever about ideas! Ideas are all that matter! They make up the idea that predators are oppressed to cover themselves, I throw back the idea sheep have it bad to fight back. And right here, Murana Wolford is working on making the idea that the tooth and claw are the only valid way of shaping society, and it is my duty to oppose that! Whatever the cost! Wherever it comes in!"

…

"So," Jack began, buck teeth slipping over her bottom lip. "Why not just arrest her right now?"

"Because it's all circumstantial," he hissed, turning to pound on his board. "Well, apart from the floofiness of the tails being the same width, but I need more than that. I can point at skunk sons and pine-scent earrings and bits of uneaten chicken skin I pinched off her plate and gaps in records all I want. I haven't got the golden gun yet! And until I do, or until I can Al-Catpone her on taxes or something, that's not going to change. If I release it now, no-one will believe me, they'll throw me out of this job, I won't be able to touch her and she'll put one of her sycophants in this place, believe you me."

Jack nodded. "I do," he said. "But then why risk your great crusade all on one fox?"

"Because it's the principle!" he said again. "You know full well that after your lot royally cussed up with your little nighthowler plot, this city, or rather Murana Wolford, has worked out it can further their agenda even more by claiming there's a whole agenda against preds everyone must oppose or they're irredeemably evil. Well, I've got to make a stand, haven't I? You know who also goes to that school?"

"I do," Jack said, guessing he was referring to Maisy.

"Well, if it had been her, everyone would be damning me if I did this for not doing any more! Not that she would, given how her father was too much of a chicken to do anything other than discuss our ideas. But, as it was a fox that was caught and they're super oppressed, they say I have to let him off with a slap on the wrist. Well, no sir, not here! Not with that idea. Not with this hippo. Here I'm taking a stand."

He stood tall and defiant, Jack slowly taking turns at looking between him and his conspiracy board.

Kurt.

Board.

Kurt.

Board…

"Does Dominic Bellwether know about this?"

"Whenever I try and bring it up, he entertains me," Kurt said with a sneer."Is that what you're doing now?"

"Maybe," Jack asked. "But if not, what should we do?"

"Nothing," Kurt hissed, snapping Jack's attention. "She's mine, you here. Mine, mine, mine. You gave up your chance, I'm the one who put in the effort. I'm the one who found that Murana Wolford is the Dark Flame Wolf! I'm the one who gets to take her down! I'm the only one who's earned it! Understand?"

Jack for all intents and purposes could have gone on but, on hearing a withdrawal command from Bogo, said he did and he'd relay it to his superiors. If he fell in his crusade, they'd finish it for him.

He looked back, slowly. "Good," he said, moving to close shut his conspiracy board, pausing as he noticed some loose pins and began to carefully push them back in. "Now get out, before I do call security."

Jack nodded, and out he went. Pushing his cart, looking busy while waiting for someone to open the door for him, getting the lift down and slowly working his way out back onto the street.

All while, back in the van, the others stood in silence. Bogo, head in hooves, groaned. "That was… unexpected."

"He's mad," Wolford said. "He's a lunatic!"

"Agreed," Bogo said, his gaze hardening. "And, while we might not have gotten a golden gun for any specific crime…"

"-Harassing my wife?" The wolf barked, indignantly.

"-I'd say we have more than enough proof that he is entirely unsuitable for his role." The cape buffalo smiled. "We'll need to work on how to discreetly inform city hall onboard, and manage this delicately, but it seems we're going to be able to 'Al-Catpone' him in a roundabout way." A small but strong grin of victory hung on his face. "His career is over."

Judy, meanwhile, just looked on too, an observation stuck in her mind. For all he'd dragged Honey out on the news for who she'd been, she couldn't help but think how similar to him her old self had been.

And far away, another party let the news sink in, and wondered how best to use it for their own agenda.