By midafternoon, Izzy and Felicity had been through at least all the applications and work orders dealing with specifically Starling Underground.
Oliver returned from his lunch with Laurel with the knowledge that Madre Muerte's involvement was the result of some deals and loans that were defaulted. Even when presented with the evidence that DuPries was not present during the hiring of the gangbangers, he was still not ready to allow that Izzy might be right.
"As far as we know," he tried to argue, "it might have been someone else at first, but he managed to rope DuPries into his faulty schemes."
Izzy wouldn't budge. "He's innocent; he wouldn't be that stupid!"

Izzy's phone beeped softly. She glanced quickly at Felicity's computer.
"Can I use that?" she asked quickly.
Felicity scooted out of the way. "Of course," she muttered. "Go ahead."

Izzy tapped a few commands and pulled up a traffic camera on Harding Street. Felicity watched girls pour out of a building wearing matching uniforms: the Starling Girls' Academy.
Izzy watched carefully till the last student departed.
She frowned. "Hmmm," she muttered. Izzy pulled up a few more cameras at various points around the city. She entered Gerry's picture into the facial recognition system. The scanner reported no matches. Izzy entered a code into her phone—and frowned again.
"That's weird," she mumbled.
Returning to the computer, she brought up the security camera, but this time, she backed up the recording to about an hour previous. This time, the face-match located Geraldine right away.

Oliver was trying to figure out who among the DuPries staff might have access to company funds and a debt to Madre Muerte. He looked up when Izzy swore.
"Dammit!" she screamed, staring in alarm at the computer screen.
"What happened?" Felicity lunged to her side. "Did the feed crash? Did the computer fritz?"
"No!" Izzy moaned. "I'm doomed! We need to get out there now!"
"What happened?" Oliver demanded from the arsenal.
"Gerry was kidnapped!" Izzy cried. "Right after school!"

"Running the plates now," Felicity said before anyone asked her. "Okay—vehicle is registered to... Gordon DuPries?"

Izzy shook his head, "That may have been his car, but that wasn't his chauffeur! I don't get it," she began pacing. "Why would Gerry just jump into her dad's car? He never picks her up from school! She always either walks home or takes the bus!"
"Maybe he arranged it with her this morning," Diggle suggested, "in an attempt to prevent another mugging like the last one."
Izzy turned on him, "You mean it might actually be our fault that she is now in this mess?"
"I'm sorry," Oliver butted in, "What part of this scenario tells you that DuPries is not complicit in the whole setup?" He snapped his fingers mockingly, "Oh, that's right! You're convinced he's innocent of all of this."

"He is!" Izzy still maintained her stance. "Have you found any hard evidence that connects him to the Madre Muerte?"

"Hmm, applications from the members for both grants and employment with his signature on them, for starters!"

"Forged!" Izzy retorted. "He's being set up, I promise you!"

"Hey guys," Felicity remarked, "I found the town car parked outside the factory for about ten minutes before it returned to the house."
"What factory?"
"Starling Underground, DuPries' factory." Felicity pulled up the footage.

Everyone watched as a man emerged from the driver's seat and opened the rear door to allow a girl and another man out.
"Zoom in on his face," Oliver ordered.
Felicity selected the shot of the man's head and refined the image. Oliver saw a small, peaked face, thinning hair, and hungry eyes.
"I know that man," he mused.
Felicity was already searching the criminal database. "Here's a match," she announced, "and he's definitely got priors—all gang-related."
Oliver squinted at the name. "Good enough for me," he stated, grabbing his hood and bow.

"Yes!" Roy punched the air. He jumped off the stool and zipped his own hoodie. "Finally, some action!"
Oliver turned to him and opened his mouth to object, but changed his mind. "Just..." he warned the trio consisting of Diggle and the Harpers, "don't get in my way. Jeff—and whoever hired him—is mine."
"Sure thing," Izzy treated the impending attack casually. "We'll take care of the rest of them for you."
Oliver rolled his eyes as he took the stairs two at a time to put distance between himself and the others.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Glades, Jeff paced anxiously as his companions cleared a space on the floor of the factory.
"Hurry up!" he barked at them needlessly. "I don't want to be late for my last business conference!"
One of the men looked up from stringing an old tarp over a length of twine, like a backdrop.
"How do you know this will work?" he asked dimly.

"It has to!" Jeff snapped back. "Rumor says that the Hood is targeting DuPries already, and the hard-line attorney's going to find the nice airtight paper trail we left that will lead straight to him—" Jeff paused to chuckle. "With Starling City's Own doing all the work for me, what could go wrong?"
In answer, a green arrow pierced the black tarp and embedded itself in the wooden railing right next to Jeff's hand. He jumped back and tucked his arms against his chest.

"Jeffrey Wyeth!" The demonic voice echoed across the factory floor. No one could tell if it was coming from among the machinery or the rafters. "You have failed this city!"

Jeff crumbled instantly. He began trembling violently. "D-D-don't hurt me, please!" he begged in a thin squeal. His eyes darted around the factory, trying to locate the source of the voice. "I didn't mean any harm! DuPries put me up to it!" Under his breath he fumed at his men, "Don't let him get anywhere near me!"
The minute one of them moved to shield Jeff, another arrow sliced from the opposite direction and pinned the man's foot to the ground. He screamed as a shadowy figure materialized.

"The next person who tries to get between them gets an arrow to the knee!" a voice not quite as powerful as the Hood, but definitely firm, commanded. The figure dropped down from the rafters and strung the bow again. "Now where is the girl?"
"I will not be detained!" Jeff shrieked. He waved to the others (excluding the one with an arrow through his foot). "Get them!"
The first figure was joined by two others, and judging by the way they welcomed the challenge and ignored Jeff, none of them was the Hood.

Jeff waited a few moments, then decided that perhaps the Hood might be trying something else. A flashing light above the factory office told him that his guest was ready for their meeting. Jeff ducked inside.
"Thank you for coming to meet me here, sir," he said, his throat wobbling as he spoke. "Unfortunately, I could not find the right sort of opportunity to leave this factory in the right sort of hands to come to you myself. I hope that everything is in order on your end."
"Of course it is!" The man was no less agitated than Jeff himself. "It always has been; haven't I done everything you asked? What was it you wanted to show me?"
"It's, ah—" Jeff tried to keep talking in order to mask the ruckus outside. "It's being prepared as we speak."

"Prepared how? Are you sure that this will be the key to wiping Gordon's name off the company?"
Jeff recovered his nerve just in time. He straightened and leered at Madre Muerte's most influential patsy to date: Collin Jacobsen, the Associate of DuPries and Associates.
"Oh yes," he murmured, "It'll be Collins Pipeworks when we're finished, and you'll own the whole grid."
Jacobsen finally turned toward the shuttered window. "What is that racket?"

Just then, the lights in the office-in fact, the whole factory-went out.