This story falls after ALL IN.
Neal and Peter came back from lunch in Chinatown. Neal was feeling happy and proud of the takedown of Lao Shen. He managed to con Lao into wearing the watch yet still do what the beautiful Interpol agent Mei Ling wanted, using the Interpol account and then losing that money to Lao. Neal loved to do a sting with in a sting. Peter was happy, the FBI did not lose any money since Neal used the Interpol account and the FBI got the audio that allowed FBI to arrest Lao for the murder of Mark Costa before Lao left the country.
"What's next partner?" Neal laughingly asked Peter. Peter growled, "Don't call me that." Neal loved to tweak Peter.
Then his cell rang and Neal's mood came crashing down." How do you know?" he demanded. Mei Ling hung up. Distrust bloomed in his heart. He had got used to thinking the FBI was at his back and he could trust them. Now he looked at all his colleagues in the White Collar Division with suspicion.
Hughes, Peter, Lauren, Jones? Could it be one of them? Hughes was not clever enough and too old. Peter was clever enough but Peter's honesty was so quintessential Peter. Lauren? She was sharp enough and she had done her thesis on him, and was jealous of Neal's position with Peter, but she did not have that ability to con Neal. She had messed up on the Aime's case being too quick to offer the money when a price had not been agreed.
Jones? He liked Jones, and Jones liked him. Jones was too slow to plan this elaborate set up. Jones would no problem arresting Neal but he did not have that ruthless streak needed for this type of blackmail. He just lacked the imagination.
Jones and Lauren were too junior for this. This needed an older agent who had access to Neal's files and that was easy enough. Someone who knew the importance of Kate before he had escaped from prison and knew that Neal had squirreled away a fortune of art, bonds, stocks and money in safekeeping. Kate had said the man with the ring wanted a specific something from Neal's cache but she did not know what it was. It may not be anything specific.
So lets think this through, thought Neal. Who was working with Peter when Peter was chasing him? Those agents would have known about Kate. Well that should be easy to find out. Just read his case file. He did not want to ask Peter, because Peter would start to wonder and then obstruct him.
Neal got up and went into Peter's office and said that he was going down to files for those hated mortgage frauds. Peter said fine, he was busy writing up the report of the Costa case. He hated it when Neal embellished the reports.
Neal went down to files and started looking for his case. It was not a folder but several boxes. This would take a while. Peter sure did dig up a lot of information on him. Well he did not need his background data.
He pulled out the folder that Peter had started on the stock forgeries swindle that was the first item that Peter started to investigate eight years ago. Ahh! Neal remembered that it was a beautiful stock certificate for TYCO. He had no sense of guilt for those, since the CEO of TYCO was robbing the company blind at the time.
Of course it could have been any of the agents involved in the investigation for the three years. Well, he could narrow that down to the time period when they knew about Kate. That was not until the last year before he was caught. He pulled out that box and started to read.
Whew! There were a lot of FBI offices involved, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami to name a few, and then the overseas travel to Canary Islands, Paris, Berlin, and Venice.
Neal started to focus on the agents' reports and noting the names. He would have Mozzie check on these agents later. He did not write anything down, better to keep it in his mind and not on paper.
Neal looked at his watch; He had been down in the file room long enough and put away the boxes. He could come down again later to continue the research. This would take time and speed could ruin it. He knew that Peter thought he was impulsive but that was just an act to disarm, he could be very deliberate and analytic when planning and executing a con. One always had to think of the contingencies and plan accordingly.
He went upstairs with the mortgage fraud cases and settled down to the appearance of work. Figuring out the fraud in the mortgage cases took little effort and he was busy planning while pretending to review the records.
That evening when Mozzie came by he gave Moz the names and requested profiles and background on the agents. Mozzie sources could pull the financial records and get the basic background. Other sources would give the personality so behavior profiles could be assembled.
Next week Mozzie and Neal were walking down the street for breakfast and Neal asked,
"Any progress?"
"Time, Neal, time, it takes a while without leaving traces." Mozzie replied.
"Ok. Be careful we don't want to tip our hand."
Neal's cell rang; it was Peter with new case. " Well back to the grindstone." And Neal walked off.
