“Listen, I don't know what you expect me to do. I was appointed mayor after the crew you are from got caught on tape doing silly things, and since your crew won't tell me the truth everybody is finding out at the same time that there is corruption and leaks a plenty. Remember how you said I was just the caretaker and prize idiot? You enjoy the fact.”
Somehow, against all odds, Donald Lee Garner Jr. was holding Big Loft, VA together through the pandemic despite all the trouble there had been since the circumstances of his appointment, despite the opposition of his ex-wife's own family in addition to other city bigwigs trying to protect their own necks.
But Mayor Garner had proved to be a skilled caretaker for the city, and had kept essential services going without a hitch.
He also was willing to be considered the prize idiot for the time being. Misdirection had been a part of his grandmother's family's warfare since 1776, and quietly, the mayor had been spending a lot of time with his Lee great-uncle Sgt. Horace Fitzhugh Lee. Not that anyone understood the significance of that particular white-haired relative any more than they understood 16-year-old Tom Stepforth III and his bicycle, thinking he was just a hardworking pizza delivery boy with stout pizza warmers around his delicious cargo, not knowing that he was hauling documents out of City Hall, documents given him by leakers.
But the leakers, too, had gotten more organized, because the screws on their positions were being subtly, carefully tightened, and that was Mayor Garner's doing. As he learned, he made arrangements to ratchet up the pressure – so, everything was actually going according to plan.
Meanwhile, the pizza had actually been delivered.
“Well, this is just great journalism that feeds the people!” Tom's little brother nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth was saying to his cousins Velma, Milton, and Gracie Trent while they and their Ludlow peers Eleanor, Andrew, George, Edwina, Amanda, Grayson, and Lil' Robert all waited patiently for the pizza they got to eat so Tom Stepforth could haul documents!
Col. H.F. Lee, cousin to the mayor, was just cracking up about all this … another Special Forces-adapted Psy Op taught to his mayor cousin through Sgt. Lee his grandfather was going well, and this meant Mrs. Lee didn't need to make lunch for their Ludlow cousins that day!
“Don't you love bonus objectives?” the colonel said to his mayor cousin with a laugh about their little cousins and their friends eating up all that pizza.
“Yeah, we prize idiots love this kind of stuff,” the mayor said, with a laugh.