Leverage International

Leverage International is a collection of thieves & con men who have teamed up in order to punish the people who are profiting off the misfortune of others. Currently the head branch consists of three of the founding members while various splinters branches of the corporations exist, keeping the legacy alive.

The Warehouse came into contact with the team twice, once right before Agents Bering and Lattimer came to work for the Warehouse and once more recently when the team stumbled across the Warehouse

Chicago: The Nigerian Job
A few years before Pete or Myka came to the Warehouse, Artie was on a Ping trying to get the remains of the TWA Flight 800 before they got used by a aerospace company to build new planes. Didn't want planes randomly blowing up in the sky.

He used Paul Ekman's Nesting Dolls to get more work done over time, but he wasn't counting on the clone that manifested anger to actually become one of the heads of Bering Aerospace. When he found the company that would've used the artifact in their planes, Artie had the copy hire three thieves and a former insurance agent to steal the designs for their new plane. While they stole the designs, he managed to secure the artifact in an abandoned warehouse.

Things went south when the copy didn't pay them and used the artifact to attempt to kill the crew he hired. Artie didn't get a chance to neutralize the artifact since the copy had it on him when he was arrested. Three years Artie had to go without feeling anger, but when the copy was finally released from jail, Original Artie was able to steal it back and neutralize it.

Univille: The Warehouse Job
The Leverage crew was hired after Myka and Pete recovered a powerful artifact to recover it. Hardison was able to track the former Sercret Service Agents to the Warehouse, only to be stopped by software designed to lock him out. Despite this, Leverage International was able to track down the Warehouse.

Going into Univille as a documentary crew, the Leverage Crew began to snoop around Leena's B&B, knowing that it was somehow tied to the Warehouse. At the same time, warned ahead of time by his computer's security, Artie sent out everyone except for five employees: Aden, Bri, Matt, Claudia, and Felix, filling them in on who they are before fleeing himself, leaving the five to defend the Warehouse.

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Spokane: The Double-Down Job
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Nate Ford (Mastermind):
Nate Ford is the former leader and mastermind of the Leverage team. In The Nigerian Job, which takes place a couple of years after Sam's death, Victor Dubenich hires Nate and a team of thieves to steal airplane designs from a company insured by I.Y.S. Insurance. When Dubenich double-crosses and tries to kill them, Nate takes the team, enlists grifter Sophie Devereaux into the team and exacts his revenge on Dubenich, who used Sam's memory to talk Nate into taking the job.

Now, Nate leads the team to right injustices, funded by their unique take on "alternate revenue streams". He has a long catch-and-release history with Sophie, who is the only team member he selected himself as all the others were chosen beforehand. After years of flirting, they developed a strong working relationship which recently turned romantic.

The mastermind or brains of the team, Nate Ford is a very complicated man still struggling with his grief over his son's death. He is also an alcoholic, which has sometimes compromised a con and also jeopardized the relationships he has with his team. This is due to his need for control, his habit of changing plans at the last second, and even drinking on the job.

Sophie Deveraux (Grifter)
Sophie Devereaux is the Leverage team's grifter and also second-in-command whenever the team leader, Nathan Ford, is busy or in jail. She's an aspiring actress, capable of convincingly playing any character or nationality... as long as it's not on an actual theatrical stage. Sophie plays a variety of characters while on a job, and is as adept with aristocracy as she is with working class characters.

Sophie's role within the team are just as varied. She is the sympathetic, humane figure to Nate's practical, pragmatic one when dealing with clients. Sophie and Nate seem to have a complicated history dating back to when Nate was an insurance investigator pursuing Sophie for art theft. Even then, they had an attraction, but didn't act on it, and their relationship remains a complex one although they are now occasional lovers.

Alec Hardison (Hacker)
Growing up in a foster home, Alec Hardison only knows two things: computers and technology.

A geek of the first order, Hardison (as he is usually called) handles the team's electronics and monitors the team's communications through modified bone conduction earbuds.

He also modified the team's cellphones, which the team can use for a variety of uses. While not a grifter like Sophie, as a hacker (and through his foster grandmother), Hardison has developed excellent social engineering skills. Always quick with a joke or snide remark, his lack of maturity has caused the team problems, but he always comes through in the clutch. Hardison's natural charm allows him to get along easy with most people.

It is through Hardison's expertise that Leverage Consulting & Associatesgains the technologies around the earbuds and the cell phones. Hardison is also the handler of the various vans that the team has used.

Eliot Spencer (Hitter)
Eliot Spencer is a United States Black Ops soldier turned retrieval specialist who is now the protector of the Leverage team. A man of many talents, little is known about his past aside from his connections to the US military. His character serves as a gallowglass, an elite warrior who protects and aides an aristocratic leader, such as Nate.

Eliot's role on the team is to protect the individual members, and particularly, to get them out of trouble faster than they get into it. Many of his adversaries underestimate him, as Sterling discovers in The Zanzibar Marketplace Job. Eliot is a skilled fighter with a razor sharp mind and zen-like demeanor. He prefers hand-to-hand combat to guns, for which he has an active dislike, despite his skills as a marksman. This is likely due to the fact that Eliot prefers to disable his opponents rather than kill them. Eliot also has some surprising skills. He is a talented gourmet chef, and claims to grow his own food.

While not an actor like Sophie, Eliot can blend into his roles easily when called on to play the role of grifter. Although he worked alone for years, Eliot has slowly grown to trust being on a team. Eliot's relationships with the individual members of the team vary, and are still developing. He respects Nate as a leader, allies with Sophie to keep Nate in line, has a friendly rivalry with Hardison, and with Parker, while her behavior perplexes him, he trusts her to do the job.

Parker (Thief)
Parker is an expert thief, and a guide to the Leverage team. Put into a foster system at a young age, she is socially awkward, but is slowly overcoming that. In the meantime, she is an extremely important aid to the team.

Parker seems to be constantly testing her skills, as she can instinctively case any building she sees. She also has the skills to make herself appear and disappear from locked rooms at will. As a thief, Parker uses little equipment other than a self-modified harness, (this harness has resulted in excellent upper body strength), and a taser.

She has a soft spot for children and recognizes that her early life has changed her and doesn't want other children to be like her, but still can go out of her way to save children who she feels need her help. Parker's weakness is her social skills. Socially inept to a point, she either under- or over-compensates her emotional responses. But she has been working on this with Sophie.[15]

Since trust doesn't come easily to her, she has varied relationships with the team. While she trusts Eliot, Nate and Sophie, she is closest to Hardison, whom she is dating. She has stated that she's most afraid of letting down the people she cares about. Parker is the team's wild card, since no one knows what she'll do. She has proven at times to have a ruthless, sadistic streak or to be slightly psychopathic.

Parker's only motivation appears to be money. She steals, not for property, or assets, but for cash. She has a rather unconventional relationship with cash, and has the ability to tell the difference between counterfeit and legitimate money by scrutinizing, touching, and even smelling it.