A/N: Hey! So this is my first White Collar fanfic, I hope you'll like it! This story is finished, runs about 30k (long, I know), and I'll try to post the chapters regularly as I edit.

About this story: It's an AU following the third season finale. Though I loved the start of the fourth season, I wasn't 100% convinced about the portrayal of Cape Verde. I forgave all geographical inaccuracies because Most Wanted was so great, but it still got me thinking about where one could go to never be found. And so this story was born. I had fun playing with the setting (it might be one of the reasons this is so long). I've done my research. I've also taken a few things from Wanted and Most Wanted, but I believe I have sort of upped the stakes. I'll be changing View Point Character (between Peter and Neal) each chapter or so. I hope you'll enjoy this!

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There was no hunger any more. Light and darkness had blended together so that he was no longer aware of the passing of time. How many days now? Five? Six? He'd thought it silly to keep a tally at first, but now he was starting to understand its usefulness. The rocky opening, high above, provided weak rays of sunlight for a brief time during noon, but the rest of the day, when looking up, all he saw was the canopy of trees, branches and wide leaves intertwined. Down where he lay it was pitch black. He'd been filled with despair the first day, but now he was actually glad of the darkness. If he had been able to see the bugs and creatures that he knew were crawling around him, if he had been able to see the state his left leg was in, he knew it would have broken him. It was too dark even for shadows, which were the worst of all, since his imagination always made them out to be something worse than what they really were.

He was thankful there were no shadows. In the darkness, and in ignorance, he still had hope. Not hope like he'd had on the first day, when he thought that stone walls were nothing compared to a Maximum Security Prison, when he still believed it was possible for him to climb out on his own. Now his hope was placed on others. He would get out. Mozzie would find him, and if he didn't or couldn't then he'd call Peter and Peter would find him, like every other time before. Fool. You picked the one place where you would never be found - can't have it both ways. No, Peter would come. Mozzie would make sure. If he comes, it'll take him too long to find this place. He'll be too late. No, there was hope. There was still hope.

He made his promises again, like he'd been doing since day one. If I get out, I'll never steal again. I will never cheat and I will never lie, unless it's a case. If I get out, I'll help people, I'll give back to the world, I'll give back everything I ever took that did not belong to me. If I get out, I will apologise to everyone. I will make things right. As with every day before, after the promises, came the anger. He knew he couldn't ask for a ladder to roll down from the heavens, but it always disappointed him that everything stayed the same when he had just made a momentous decision with his life - a sacrifice. Only it was not a sacrifice to stop stealing or lying, very much like it wasn't a chore to make your own bed. It was an obligation, it was expected. A sacrifice would mean to go beyond. If I get out, I will forgive my mother and I will look for my father. And I will paint again, without copying. And I will teach others how to paint. Was that enough? He looked to the jagged opening. There was no ladder falling from the sky. There was no Peter coming to the rescue. He was alone.

He tried to turn in the soft mud, and when he felt pain he groaned, then screamed, and damned all his promises to hell. It wasn't fair. Yes, he'd been a fool. Yes, he'd been too proud, and he'd relied too much on a skill set that had proved useless in his current situation. White collar criminals, you could con, but murderers, they tire of talking and they just kill you. He should have known better, but still, it wasn't fair. He had not even wanted to run. If Peter had not looked at him the way he had on the steps to the building, he would never have fled. He would have stayed, and faced the hearing like a man. Because he was a man, not a con. He didn't deserve this, and now rage was coming in dark, hot waves and he was glad, because otherwise he'd go crazy.

Rage. He'd never been one to surrender to emotion, but it was familiar now, and he was relieved when he felt it coming. He felt it creeping within him, a tingling in his fingers, then a vibration going up. Almost like it were alive, a living thing running through him, making his eyes redden and his fists tighten. He felt every muscle like a spring coiled way beyond its limit, he felt there was life in him again.

He welcomed it, like an old friend. He did not fight it. He let it control him, because when it came over him it numbed fear and pain and sadness, it drowned guilt and shame and regret. He felt powerful, because for the brief time rage took hold, he forgot that he was deep in a dark place, a place where maybe fifty years from then a spelunking tourist would find him a crazy old man, or maybe just a pile of bones.

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The small Cessna banked hard and entered a v-shaped valley of dense rainforest, while far below the great river they had been following on a North-East course made a sharp, pointy bend to the South East. When Peter saw it, where he sat in the front seat, he felt his heart would burst right out of his chest, and he pressed his forehead against the glass and pointed down.

"This is it," he told the pilot. "That's the place. The bend of the river, that's what he said."

"They call that place the Elbow," said the pilot. "There's a landing strip close, and a settlement further inland."

"Great. Let's land."

The pilot manoeuvred the plane to face the red dirt of the landing strip, and Peter held on tight to the handles of his seat as they soared mere metres above the highest trees. They were so close he could see them in perfect detail, their thin trunks and the crown of their leaves on top, weaver-bird nests hanging from the highest branches. They were so different from the trees he knew. He was so far from home...

"Is someone waiting for you in the town?" the pilot asked, shouting above the roar of the engine as they hit the ground and they pulled to a stop. Peter shook his head.

"I hope so!" he replied. He didn't really know. He was sure he had the right town, now he needed to find the farm, but he'd seen hundreds of cattle stations all over the hills and the plains, they could be anywhere. He cursed them, both Neal and Mozzie. Neal, for disappearing, and Mozzie for not giving him proper directions.

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All he'd gotten, three days ago when he came out of the elevator and started walking towards his office, was a strange text message: N MIA MOO-F BEND RIV PROMISED LAND 1859 KOMM ASAP.

He had never had any doubt that it came from Mozzie - he knew no one else who would go to such measures to be inconspicuous. The first and the last parts had been easy enough to decipher. Neal's missing. Come as soon as possible. It took him far longer to crack Promised Land 1859. The text could not be traced, the phone seemed to be off-line, but he had Diana scour every book and webpage relating to a place founded in 1859 called the Promised Land. There was no viable town with that name and that founding date anywhere. They expanded their search to towns founded in 1859, period, but the results were endless. Peter's living room map became increasingly cluttered with pins and post-its and overhanging strings, but he had no breaks.

"I don't understand, why couldn't he just write the coordinates?" he muttered, while rubbing his eyes. They hurt from staring at the tiny town names of his world map. He had been searching for Neal and Mozzie long before the text message, but that had been his only break.

"Maybe he was afraid the information wasn't safe with you," said Diana. "And in this case, it was wise of him. Collins could have intercepted the message."

"Yeah, and if he has, I'm sure he hasn't cracked it yet either... I just don't see a way to solve this one."

"Let's try the other clues. KOMM ASAP," said Jones.

"Come as soon as possible, we got that one."

"Yes, but notice the spelling. He could've just said COME or COM, but he spelled it KOMM. That's German. This town, Promised Land, could be in Germany."

"Germany? They do have an extradition treaty. I thought we were looking for islands," said Diana.

"We can't scratch all non-extradition countries, most of them either don't have criminal laws against bond forgery or haven't extradited anyone in decades. Does Germany have a town called Promised Land that has anything to do with 1859?"

"I'm looking into it, Boss," said Diana, typing furiously in her laptop on the dining room table. Peter stared at the words of the text he'd printed in large blocks. BEND RIV. River. The bend of a river, yes, that made sense. But what river? MOO-F. Now, he had no idea about that one.

"Cows," said Elizabeth, materialising behind him. She placed a hand on his shoulder as she leaned over the letters. "Moo moo. You know, cows."

"And the F? Cows-F, what does that mean?" he asked, shaking his head.

"There's this brand of milk called Moo..." said Jones.

"Moo f... farm?" she said, tentatively, tilting her head to the side. Peter turned, smiling.

"A cattle farm. A cattle farm by the bend of a river, that's it!"

"That's a bit vague for a search," said Diana. "And I got nothing on a farm matching that description in Germany. I'm widening the search to Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, every German-speaking region of Europe."

"What if it's not in Europe?" said Elizabeth.

"Then why the use of German?"

"Maybe it was a promised land... for Germans?" Jones suggested. Peter sighed, shuffling the clues in his mind. Then he went next to Diana.

"A colony. Search German settlers, colony, cattle, farm, 1859. See what comes up."

The screen was filled with random results. Peter skimmed down the page as Diana scrolled, then his eyes stopped at suggested image, of a Tyrolese-style house in the middle of the rainforest.

"Click on that," he said. The picture belonged to the webpage of a jungle eco-lodge. "Click on Our History." Diana clicked. It showed a black and white picture of three very blond men standing on a hill lined with trees, looking down at a wide plain, a perfect grazing field. Diana read quickly.

"I think this is it," she said.

"I think so, too."

The next picture showed the wooden Willkommen sign of a town of cattle farmers, founded in 1859 by Austro-German settlers, in the South-Western edge of the Amazon rainforest. When Diana brought up the isolated town on Google Maps, they could see it was surrounded by farmland, and a great river dramatically changed its course after passing by the tiny settlement. There was no doubt now, this was where they had run off to, and Peter couldn't help it but wonder if he would've ever found them without the clues. They had not run to an island. This was no Caribbean no-extradition paradise like he would have expected, it was about as remote as it got. The sort of place where you could disappear forever, and deep down he felt proud of Neal, knowing he must have picked it carefully.

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Peter stepped down the ladder of the plane and into the burning hot pressed earth of the runway. The heat hit him like a slap, like he'd just stepped into a wet sauna room, and for a second he could not draw a breath. The pilot caught sight of him, and smiled.

"You'll get used to it," he said. Peter didn't believe him.

"Thank you," he said anyway. He had already paid the man in advance. He hoped to give the receipt to Mozzie once he found him - it had not come cheap.

"Do you have transportation?" the pilot asked. The runway was clear, there was no one around except for a clerk in a small control post at the very end of it. Peter shook his head.

"Is the town too far?" he asked.

"Not really. But you're not dressed for that. You need boots. It rained yesterday."

"Oh, I don't mind getting a little wet..." said Peter, looking down at his plain brown shoes. The man shook his head, as if he wasn't getting it.

"No. You need boots. Listen, I know a man here. He can be your guide. He's studied abroad, he speaks good English."

"No, it's all right, I don't need a guide," said Peter, with a smile, but then he looked around him. The runway was surrounded by rainforest. He didn't even know where the town was, and it wasn't even the town he needed to be in, from there he had to go look for the farm. He sighed, and turned back to the pilot.

"So, how fast can he get here?"

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Half an hour later, a run-down faded red Land Cruiser with deeply grooved tires roared into the runway from the opposite side of the control post, and a young man jumped out, waving. Peter walked towards him, and wondered if he'd made the right decision. His 'guide' was a kid who could not have been older than 23. He looked messy: he had a reddish beard stubble, his dark hair was a little too long and it stuck out at the corners while at the top it remained plastered to his head from the rim of a hat. He had a sunburn that seemed permanent, and he wore khaki shorts, black Wellington boots and a too-large short-sleeved shirt that looked dusty and old. On his hand he carried a worn broad-rimmed slouch hat that looked straight out of Indiana Jones. All he was missing was the whip.

He stretched his hand towards Peter and shook it firmly with a wide, honest smile.

"I'm Nicolas Schmidt. You can call me Nico," he said, and Peter forgot his apprehensions about his wardrobe and liked him anyway.

"Peter Burke. Nice to meet you."

"My pleasure." He turned to his truck. "This is our transport here, she doesn't look like much but I assure you she's faithful." His voice was grave and his English good, though he spoke it in an odd German accent. If he remembered the Tyrolese-style homesteads he'd seen from the air, though, it wasn't a surprise. And once he got on the kid's car and drove to town he noticed that though the people he saw walking around mostly looked local, the street-signs and street-names and the architecture were all decidedly Germanic.

"So, Daniel said you were looking for someone. Where do you need to go?" Nico asked - Daniel was the pilot.

"I'm looking for two friends, I think one of them might be in trouble. All I know is they are in a cattle farm somewhere in this district."

"That's vague. There are a lot of farms around here, and they are all far apart from each other. Rainy season's just started, some might be cut off."

"I was hoping you could help me locate the farm they were in. They've been living here for two months so someone must have seen them."

"If they've come to town, sure. We should ask around," said Nico. "But first, we should go to Bata. You need boots."

One step out of the car into the dirt road was enough to explain why boots seemed to be such a big deal. Peter set down his weight into the ground and sunk almost to his knees in the thick red mud. When he tried to take another step, it sucked him down and he would've fallen face-first if it had not been for the car parked behind him. Even after he'd gotten himself a pair of large, black rubber boots, he found it hard to walk, and he avoided the patches of mud whenever possible.

"So what do your friends look like?" said Nico. They were walking up to the town's only hotel.

"I've got pictures," said Peter, pulling out his wallet. He handed him a picture of Neal, where he stood besides Peter and Elizabeth, and one very low-def of Mozzie, which he had taken with his phone while he wasn't looking."That's Neal," he pointed. "And that's Mozzie. They might not know I'm looking, and they might not want to be found."

"I haven't seen them. But I'm not in town much, it was lucky for you I was here now. I'm usually further inside, up the mountains. I take people to see orchids and rare birds. They are harder to find than people, so don't worry. I have experience."

"I'm afraid my friends are not your average tourist. They're quite elusive. If they know someone's looking, they take off."

Nico smiled.

"So do birds."

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Peter called home before they left the town. He sat in the passenger seat of Nico's truck while he went off to buy some last supplies, as they'd spent most of the day readying the truck for the harsh road to the farms - seeing as they'd found out nothing in the town. Nico had everything they could possibly need, camping gear, gas stoves and lamps and a grill, tanks of water and gasoline, a large sling belt with a hook and a fitted winch between his truck's headlights. He even had cold beers in a cooler, and Peter thanked God he had listened to the pilot and hired him.

The phone rang on the other side of the hemisphere. He waited, then sighed with relief when he heard Elizabeth's voice on the other end.

"Peter? Thank God! Are you there yet? Did you find them?" she asked, her voice fast, and Peter smiled.

"I'm here, but I haven't found them yet. I've hired a guide and he's taking me to the nearest cattle farms, which is as good a place to start as any."

"You hired a guide?" Elizabeth seemed surprised.

"Believe it or not, I did, and I don't think I could've been able to leave the runway without one. This place is so remote, El. And he seems like a good kid. Has Diana called you? Any word on Collins?"

"She called, yes, but she's lost track of him. I'll let you know when I hear anything."

"That might be difficult. I may not have a signal later. I'll call you again when I can. Leave me a message if anything happens, and if Diana or Jones call you, tell them to do the same."

"Okay. I miss you hon. Please take care."

"I miss you too." Peter sighed, and looked around. "It's so hot here, but it's beautiful. It's getting dark and the sky is amazing, it's purple and pink and orange... I wish you were here."

Peter was so caught up with watching the sky he almost didn't notice when a salesman knocked on the car door. He was startled and almost dropped the phone when he looked up. The man pushed a bunch of things in front of his face. Native crafts, wooden animals, paintings of sunsets and river scenes in neon colours that he knew Elizabeth would have told him to buy had she been there with him. It was good art. The man was reciting their prices and Peter was just about to reach for his wallet to get one of the neon canvases when the man turned and he noticed a smaller canvas hanging among his things. It was neon coloured, like the rest, but it was a city skyline. Peter peered closer and he immediately recognised the view from Neal's flat. He pushed the door open and grabbed it.

"Where did you get this?" he asked.

"Peter? Is everything okay?" Elizabeth asked him over the phone. He pressed it against his ear, while the salesman stared at him, confused. He was an elderly man, wearing tyre-rubber sandals and rolled up pants.

"It's fine, El. I think I have a lead, I'll call you back."

He hung up, and turned to the man again, who seemed unsure whether he was going to buy from him or not.

"Where did you get this?" Peter asked his question again, but the man didn't answer, he didn't seem to understand him. Peter reached into his pocket, and showed him Neal's picture. The man smiled widely and nodded. Peter felt a rush of relief, and when he saw Nico coming back with full bags he called him over. "This painting was made by my friend. Ask him about it," he said. Nico came forwards and looked at the painting, then took the picture from Peter.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm sure! That's the view from his old window."

Nico showed the man the picture, asking him in a quick, hushed voice. The man answered animatedly.

"He says your friend sold him paintings really cheap. Most of them river scenes like these ones," he pointed to the bulk of the paintings. "He says the ones with buildings, he got them for free. They don't sell well. Not a lot of tourists in the rainy season..." Nico asked him another question, and the man answered. "He says he came here once a week to get ice and other supplies."

"From where? Ask him where he was staying."

"He doesn't know, but he always bought ice for himself and for Mr. Vogt... Vogt..." Nico turned. "I know Vogt. His land is South East of here, by the river. He breeds Cebú cattle for the meat business, raises fine horses, too."

Nico thanked the man, and gave him a few coins for his troubles. Peter bought the cityscape and the prettiest of the river scenes, feeling hopeful. The colours were incredibly bright, he had never thought that would fit Neal's style, but he wasn't at all surprised that he could pull them off so well. When he was sitting back in the truck he realised he felt such hope and excitement like he'd never thought he'd felt before. He was almost there. He was going to find him, for the third and hopefully the last time.

Thanks for reading, there's more to come! I'd love it if you left a review.

-And a word on extradition. Few countries don't allow it, but most countries have very specific regulations that make it very hard for it to happen. In my chosen setting (checks the Criminal Code) I'm pretty sure Neal and Mozzie could never be extradited. So extradition aside, where would you run off to if you had to disappear?