The Art of it All: An NCIS/White Collar story

By Peppe1951

Summary: NCIS and FBI agent Peter Burke and his partner, Neal Caffrey, art consultant work together to recover stolen Iraqi artifacts. Warning: Disciplining of an adult. Don't like? Don't read! Disclaimer: NCIS belongs to CBS and Paramount and White Collar belongs to USA;I only write about them. Possible Spoiler: NCIS episode: Chained and White Collar episode: Flip of the Coin"

Prologue:

Iraqi artifacts had been stolen by two petty officers with the intention on selling them in the United States. The artifacts were smuggled into the country as personal items of wounded soldiers that would be picked up by Petty Officer Glenn Winters as soon as they arrived back in the States. NCIS was alerted after one of the Petty Officers, Petty Officer Michael Thomas was found dead in New York City with one of the artifacts on his person. When they did a backup check on him they learned about his friend Glenn Winters and the heist of the artifacts.

Since Winters was found in New York City with an artifact in his custody the case was turned over to Peter Burk and his partner Neal Caffrey, members of the NYC White Collar division. Peter Burke, the lead agent and his partner, Neal Caffrey, his art consultant and felon that was under his supervision. Neal was serving off the remainder of his sentence by working with the FBI and had been issued an ankle bracelet with an embedded GPS tracking mechanism.

Since both agencies had an interest in the case NCIS was to share joint supervision of the case and work together. Since the artifacts had been traced to New York City and that is where Gibbs and his team were headed to work alongside of Peter and Neal.

"What do we know about Caffrey? McGee?" asked Gibbs.

"He's a brilliant con artist, boss…he deals with just about anything, but mainly art and he's an accomplished artist in himself which is important in his given field," replied McGee as he read it off his laptop. "He is also looking for his girlfriend, Kate; who it seems was the reason for his last escape from a maximum security prison. He only had four months left in his original sentence and then he would have been free but because of this girl he escaped and was recaptured by Peter Burke and had an additional four years added to his original sentence."

"Then he is someone that we need to watch out for…he could be using this case as a means to escape the Burke…again. This had better not happen when he is in our custody!" ordered Gibbs and when he didn't hear any response from his team he roared,

"THIS HAD BETTER NOT HAPPEN WHEN HE'S IN OUR CUSTODY!"

"It won't boss…Gibbs," echoed Tony, Tim and Ziva.

"Now what else do we know?" asked Gibbs as they continued on to New York and the White Collar Unit.

Chapter 1

Gibbs and his team made great time and soon were being ushered into the office of Peter Burke where introductions were made. Soon the two veteran officers were openly discussing the case and how they would handle it. It was decided that McGee would work alongside of Caffrey and Burke in setting up a plan to get the artifacts turned back over to them…Caffrey would go in as an interested party wanting to purchase them with McGee as his accountant.

Gibbs, DiNozzo and David would work in locating Petty Officer Thomas as to the whereabouts of the artifacts and a reason for Petty Officer Winters' death.

The Caffrey/McGee team was able to make contact with the seller of the Iraqi artifacts and set up a meet within a couple of days due to the contacts of Caffrey and it was originally set for the following day, a Thursday but unknown to the team he discovered a possible place where Kate, Caffrey's girlfriend was being held and he had to discover the accuracy of the information. The information was leading him out of New York to Norfolk, VA and he knew that Peter would never agree to him going to search and saw his chance in moving the venue of the meet. He would have to get the buyers to agree to the move in a way that sounded like the idea was theirs.

Fortunately Neal was dealing with a very suspicious and nervous individual who wasn't as familiar with the big city of New York as he was Norfolk where he had been stationed before he had been deployed to Iraq. It was easy enough for Neal to lead him to make the decision to move the final meet to Norfolk where he would have the Iraqi artifacts ready for the half million he was asking.

This worked out great for everybody but Peter who was due to testify in court and couldn't make the journey.

"Don't worry, Burke; Caffrey will be in our custody…he'll be back in your custody just as soon as possible," Gibbs assured him just before leaving to return to Norfolk.

"Neal, you do everything this man ask of you or it is back to prison for the remainder of your sentence," Peter threatened Caffrey.

Neal nodded knowing that Peter was serious but also knowing that he was valuable to the While Collar division and certain transgressions would be overlooked. He left with the feeling that he knew he would be able to sniff out Kate and still stay out of prison…what he didn't know was how Gibbs handled his agents when they broke his rules or that he would be disciplined in the same manner.