The report from Gates arrived not in an envelope, but in a hollowed-out Bible delivered by a solemn-faced boy who vanished the moment the book was in Jason's hands.
He took the heavy volume to his study. The irony was so thick he could almost taste it—receiving a dossier of sins hidden inside the word of God. He opened the cover. The pages had been meticulously carved out, creating a secret compartment.
Inside lay a sheaf of thin, typewritten pages, filled with names, dates, and numbers. It was the unholy bible of his brother-in-law's good works.
Jason sat down and read.
The report was brutally efficient. Gates's investigation confirmed what Jason had suspected: Junior's foundation was almost impeccably clean. The man was a true believer. Every dollar was accounted for, every donation publicly listed, every project managed with a Puritan's obsession for detail. This spotless record made him an incredibly difficult target.
But there was one thread. One single, dirty thread in the otherwise pristine tapestry.
Alistair Sterling.
Gates had uncovered proof. Bank statements, sworn affidavits from a disgruntled clerk. Sterling was using his position on the board to funnel foundation grants to a series of small manufacturing companies and educational suppliers. Companies that were, through a web of shell corporations, secretly owned by his own family.
It was subtle. It was clever. And it was corruption, rotting away the heart of Junior's purest creation. And Junior, blinded by his faith in Sterling's pious public persona, was completely unaware.
Jason stared at the report. The obvious move was to expose Sterling. Leak the documents to the press and ruin the man, embarrassing Junior in the process.
But that was a messy, brutish solution. A scandal in the foundation would still tarnish the Rockefeller name, splashing mud on everyone.
A colder, more ruthless, and far more brilliant plan began to form in his mind. He wouldn't just expose the corruption. He would seize control of it.
He closed the hollowed-out Bible. He now had the perfect weapon. He would turn his enemy's greatest virtue—his naive trust in the goodness of others—into a fatal, exploitable weakness.
While he waited for the right moment to spring his trap, Jason didn't stay idle. The Panic of 1907 would pass. The world would not stop turning. He had to be ready for what came next.
He had his brokers compile a dossier of every fledgling "motor car" company in America. Most were small, struggling workshops in places like Ohio and Michigan, run by mechanics and dreamers. The reports were filled with technical jargon and financial warnings.
He spent two days poring over them, his mind shifting from the intricacies of Wall Street to the mechanics of the internal combustion engine.
One name stood out from the rest: the Ford Motor Company in Detroit.
The financial reports were unremarkable, but the profile of its founder was fascinating. Henry Ford was described as a stubborn, difficult, almost fanatical mechanic. He was obsessed with an idea that Wall Street considered a joke: a cheap, reliable car for the common man. Not a toy for the rich, but a tool for the masses.
The bankers saw a crackpot. Jason saw the future. He saw a world filled with millions of these machines, all of them thirsty. All of them needing gasoline, the refined byproduct of Standard Oil's crude.
He picked up the telephone and called his primary broker.
"Finch," he said, his voice decisive. "I want you to begin acquiring a non-controlling, but significant, stake in the Ford Motor Company."
"Ford?" Finch asked, confused. "The one in Detroit? Prentice, they're a fly-by-night operation. They barely turn a profit."
"Do it quietly," Jason commanded, ignoring the protest. "Use proxies. Spread the purchases out. I don't want the Ford name associated with Rockefeller. Not yet."
He was planting an oak tree that would, in a decade, become a forest that covered the earth.
He closed the folder on Ford, his mind shifting back from the grand, sprawling future to the immediate, ugly war at home.
It was time to set the trap.
The key to a perfect trap is that the victim must walk into it willingly, believing it to be a sanctuary.
Jason requested a meeting with John D. Rockefeller Sr. He was shown into the vast, silent office at 26 Broadway. The old man was at his desk, a monolith of power.
Jason did not show him the photograph Junior had taken. That would be an act of open, suicidal war, an admission that the family was eating itself from the inside out. He played a much more subtle, insidious game.
His face was a mask of calculated, grave concern.
"Sir," he began, his voice low and serious. "I have uncovered a potential plot by our enemies. One that is designed to target the family's good name through its most public virtue: Junior's foundation."
He slid a carefully prepared file folder across the vast, polished desk. It contained a sanitized version of Gates's intel on the corrupt board member, Sterling. He had scrubbed any mention of his own spies, framing it as an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen.
"Sterling is a snake," Jason said, letting a note of quiet anger enter his voice. "He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I believe our competitors have placed him on that board for a single purpose: to let his corruption fester, and then expose it at the most politically damaging moment possible."
He leaned forward, his expression earnest. "They intend to smear Junior—and all of us—in the press. To turn his greatest good work into a symbol of Rockefeller hypocrisy."
Rockefeller Sr.'s eyes, normally cold and distant, narrowed into slits. He hated two things above all others: losing money, and public scandal that threatened the family name.
"What do you propose?" the old man asked, his voice a dry rasp.
"We can't just remove him," Jason said, shaking his head. "He would cry foul, claim he was being silenced. It would cause the very scandal we're trying to avoid."
He paused, letting the old man absorb the danger before presenting the solution.
"We must counter him from within. We need to get our own man on the board. Someone with unimpeachable integrity, who can watch Sterling, control the flow of information, and neutralize him before he can strike. Someone we can trust implicitly."
"Who?"
Jason offered the name: a respected retired judge, a man famous for his public piety and conservative values. A man Junior admired.
A man who, according to Gates's secret and complete file, was completely and secretly owned by one of Rockefeller's hidden corporate interests, a railroad he had saved from bankruptcy years ago. The judge owed his entire fortune, his very way of life, to the silent patronage of Standard Oil.
He was a perfect Trojan horse. A man who would do whatever Jason said, while appearing to be a saint.
Rockefeller Sr., seeing only a logical, pragmatic solution to a dangerous external threat, gave a slow, deliberate nod of agreement. He had no idea he was being manipulated, that this was not about an external enemy, but about Jason consolidating his power against the old man's own son.
He picked up the telephone on his desk. He asked the operator to connect him to his son's office at the foundation.
Jason watched, a silent victor, as the most powerful man in the world spoke into the receiver.
"Junior," Rockefeller Sr. said, his voice a quiet command that could not be refused. "We need to talk about a new appointment to your board..."