Chapter 2 - Neal

RIING!

A dizzy and messy head rose up from the pillows, and four fingers ran through the short brown hair. The body turned around in his bed, dug its tired face into the pillows, and reached out a hand in a blind attempt to turn off the alarm clock. Fortunately, Neal Caffrey was an expert in waking up when he was supposed to, and even if he wanted to miss his alarm, he could easily sneak in the idea that he had overslept, or met with someone vital to the case they were working on instead of being at the office.

He wasn't one hundred percent they believed him whenever the last explanation came up. Peter never believed him, that was for sure. But Neal's "what if I said I was working the case" wasn't as convincing as real facts and progress brought to Peter in a nice smile and a cup of latte.

Neal rose from his bed, and blinked heavily. He had a slight head ache from last night (yes it was Wednesday today), but it wasn't that severe, so Neal managed very fine to ignore it. Mozzie had been raiding through his cabinet of fine, expensive, alcoholic drinks again and Neal knew that the only way to not let his whiskey go to waste was to join in on the drinking, although he regretted it this morning.

The alcohol had been necessary, though. Neal's last case had almost brought him back to the big house, again, and Peter seemed fairly exhausted by his CI after the suspect was put in cuffs. It had been one of those off-anklet undercover cons (or stings, if you were Peter), and Neal had managed to get three unplanned miles away from the very obvious surveillance van, along with the suspect, and a nice 20 grand of counterfeit bills, bills Neal had joined in on producing.

Neither did it help that Neal blew Peter's cover in front of the suspect, which caused Peter standing at gunpoint (Neal didn't know it would go that far, he had been sure there was no guns included when they set up the deal), nor that Neal had to double cross the FBI after he realized that Moz had ended up in one of the evidence the FBI was to get from a warrant the next day, nor that he openly tried to steal… Whatever. That wasn't going in the file anyways, so he'd just forget it, just like everyone else did. Or should do. Diana would probably find a way to use this on him someday.

He and Moz had both sat down in a mutual silence and exhaustion, Mozzie had poured, and Neal had emptied. They had known each other for so long, they knew when to talk and what to say. Moz had mentioned the "good old days", Neal had started the speech that would justify him and his actions, and neither of them had really paid attention to what the other said. If the award for most miserable bunch had been awarded right there and then…

Neal blinked heavily again and made his way all the way to the bathroom before he realized he forgot to put on the coffee. He got shampoo in his eyes in the shower, almost missed giving Bugsy breakfast, managed to burn his omelet, and was this close to going out of the apartment without a tie. A tie!

When he finally managed to get to work (he had put the Peter-are-probably-not-going-to-give-me-a-ride-today-part in the equation, and left for work half an hour early to make sure he was there in time by walking), the elevator was stuck, the coffee shop mixed up his delivery and got him one decaf, one latte (of course Neal took the decaf for himself, the latte was for Peter, and of course Neal couldn't stand decaf, what was the point of coffee if it wasn't coffee?), and Neal didn't even manage to con the barista into making him a new cup.

Nevertheless, Neal rode the elevator up to floor 21, managed to plaster his confident and positive smile on his face and walk into the White Collar division with no traces of this morning's happenings. They didn't call him one of the world's best con men for nothing.

Peter was waiting upstairs, in his office, and after flipping the fedora off his head and placing it on his desk, Neal walked straight through the bullpen, and up to Peter. He sent small smiles in every direction he could remember the names of, Jones and Diana, Ross (new female transfer from Chicago), Kane and Harrod.

"Good morning Peter," Neal started the conversation just like another day at work, slipped the coffee cup over to Peter, just like any other day. This was the progress he always followed after he had pulled something big, pretending like nothing happened worked the best, he had figured out. When things were like this, Peter didn't want to mention the previous case because of all the off-springs from the FBI handbook, and Neal easily respected that. A mad handler could give fatal results to the CI.

Peter mumbled something that probably was supposed to sound like "good morning," but instead resembled something like "Mrff." He didn't look up from the file in front of him, and Neal sat down in one of the plastic chairs in front of him. He knew that look. "Something interesting?"

Peter's hungry-for-slapping-cuffs-around-someone-look radiated the room when he finally looked up. "Yeah," he said, while giving Neal the open file he just had been studying. "I should probably give you a mortgage fraud after what you pulled last time, but this is too good to pass on."

So Peter did mention it. Neal took the file and absently started a conversation while reading. "We caught him, didn't we?"

"I was this close to not coming home to Elizabeth."

"And I talked them out of it, didn't I?"

"Not the point. You talked them into it too."

Neal cleared his throat, and changed subject, although he could have said very much more to defend himself. "Someone robbed the Burton Gallery?" He smiled greedily. This was home field. The ball was in his court, he had upper hand and so on.

"Two paintings were taken. A Matisse and a Rembrandt."

"I can see that." His smile grew to include some more teeth, while he waited for Peter to say something to him, like he always did, something along the lines of look at the avoidance of the security cameras or the exit strategy is so good. When it didn't, Neal looked up to see his partner's look at him. Neal knew that look. That look meant do-you-know-something-I-don't-? .

"What?"

Peter sighed, and his expression fell. "Nothing, just… the Burton Gallery, Rembrandt and Mattisse, pretty flawless job…" His words trailed out in a planned stop.

Neal understood where it was going. "Why do you even ask? I have a tracking anklet that can prove I didn't do it."

"An anklet you have been tampering with before."

"To take a Matisse and a Rembrandt? Peter there is a Van Gough there." Neal pretended to be offended. "Besides, I'm reformed, remember?" When his partner continued staring at him, Neal spoke again, "I didn't steal it."

"What about Mozzie?" Peter was not ready to let this go just yet.

"He was with me last night," Neal parried, before turning his attention back to the file. He didn't want to get into the topic that would explain the slight headache he had. "How did they avoid the lasers, though, they are tricky to get around."

Peter seemed fairly enjoyed by this question, so enjoyed that he forgot to bring the previous subject any further. "Take a look at this," he turned around his computer screen, and Neal leant over to see what "this" was. It was a security tape, the numbers in upper right corner told Neal that it was from the night before, and that it was around three am. The rest of the image showed a half lit room with paintings in rows. It was seemingly all quiet there.

Some kind of dust emerged from down in the right, and all the laser grids were suddenly fully visible, as red lines on a map. Seconds later, a person dressed in black followed the smoke. It was a remarkable view. Neal could maybe the names of three of the gymnastic moves he did in there, wheels, backflips, front flips, but there was so much more. A series of controlled jumps, handstands, flips and other almost inhumane things made that person, whoever he was, managed to get him all the way over to the other side, without even coming close to the lasers once.

"That is talent." Neal commented, while the thief, now fiddling with the security around the frame of the first painting. Some seconds later, the painting, with the frame and everything, was taken off the wall. The same procedure followed for the next. The thief pushed the canvas off the frames, rolled them together, and put them in a plastic tube, that could be popped back to take almost no space at all. When he was done, the thief turned around to face the exit, and the cams, and Neal saw something black covering the entire face, except from the mouth and eyes, which were impossible to make out in bad security camera resolution. For just a second, he believed the thief was going to take it off (it was mostly an impulse from Neal's curiosity), but then he did something unexpected. The thief raised his head to the camera and waved his hand at it. Then, he rolled right into the acrobatic show off he had started in, and not enough with that, when he was done with competing (and winning) with the lasers, he stuck out his hand, so the alarm went off, on purpose, before he ran away.

"Wow."

"Right?" Peter smiled at Neal. "You think we're dealing with a professional?"

Neal blinked, still impressed by the show-off he just had gotten. "Yeah. Everything seems perfectly planned, those lasers needed practicing. He has probably spent weeks casing the gallery for the lasers and to clock the guards, both day and night."

"He didn't need to clock the guards." Peter replied, while turning the screen around to face his side of the desk.

"Why not?" Neal asked, continuing to absently flip through the file, including more photos of the mystery thief.

"The entire security team was doped down during the heist. He poisoned their coffee."

Neal smiled a smile that could resemble pride. He had done that himself in order to get into the sultans palace in Morocco back in the day (although that had been easier, as the Sultan craved just one beverage being served in the palace), and not even Peter had followed him down there to find out how he had gone past the guard post. This thief had style. "Now we know why he set off the alarm on purpose."

"Who said it was on purpose?" Peter asked, leaning over to try to read what Neal had seen in the file.

"The thief drugged down the staff. He set of the alarm to make sure they would be okay. The guards would probably be sent to a hospital after they tried to wake them up and making it visible that the paintings were stolen wasn't necessary, because he hadn't switched it out with forgeries." Neal's smile increased. "This person has morals."

"Morals that let you steal two expensive paintings?" The tone was suspecting, a little bit mocking, Peter did not get it, as usual.

"Morals that let you put yourself at risk to make sure that some extras are okay."

Peter's face turned to something wondering. "You would have done that?"

"Depends on the drug."

Partially satisfied with the vague answer Neal had given him, Peter continued. "What more do you make of this person?"

"Young, inexperienced, but very talented. There isn't much hacking going on, so I wouldn't expect a team to be behind. The job is clean, but filled with small traces of a beginner. He could have used a more secure drug to make sure the guards were okay for example." Neal flipped another page. "And he is a she, very likely. Female gymnasts are more frequent than male, and last time I checked, breast implantation is not very common for our gender." Neal handed the file back to Peter, now turned to the page with a picture showing the figure in profile, with small bumps on the chest.

"It could be a man too. Maybe he hid equipment there, or used it to distract us." Peter encountered, while studying the picture close.

"You're willing to put a bet on that?" Neal smiled his most confident smile and angled his head a little bit to the right.

"Who's betting?" Diana stuck her head into the office, and smiled too. Peter rolled his eyes, and pushed the file over the desk again. Diana came inside, and picked it up.

"Neal thinks this is a female thief, I don't."

Diana studied the chest too, before looking up. "Oh, no, that is defiantly a woman. Don't bet against Caffrey, boss."

"Wasn't planning to." Peter encountered, and Neal had to agree that it was a bad idea for Peter's wallet. Out of the about twenty times they had bet against each other, Peter had won exactly once, that time they betted on Elizabeth's tardiness. "What've you got?"

Diana put the file back on the table, and handed Peter another file. "Forensics came in. Our thief is definitely throughout. She poisoned the water cooler, the coffee cart inside the museum, the guards brought-in mugs, coffee in the security room and the coffee they brought in from the shop across the street."

Peter took the file and looked over the details of what Diana already had said. "How did he manage the coffee from across the street? He would have to play barista to pull that off."

"She," Neal implanted quickly. "And I highly doubt it. There are cameras in the shop too, it's too much exposure."

"He," Peter opposed. "Diana, do we have traffic cams from outside the museum?"

"They came in five minutes ago."

"Great. Neal and I will look over it, while you look into the tapes to see when the thief managed to slip poison in the private cups." Peter said, and nodded for Diana to go. She left the office, and Neal went behind Peter's desk, and looked over his shoulder. Peter found the files, and together they looked through the tapes, to see if they could find out where she ("he," Peter protested) had snuck in the sedative.

They had to account for every single minute of that day, so it took them a long time to finally get around to the end of the day, where the guards started to go on coffee runs. The second round, Neal told Peter to freeze the image, something he also did, in the most inconvenient move he possibly could. The guard that they had kept their eyes on was halfway to bumping into a blonde teen as she was crossing the streets. The guard face had frozen into a surprised gasp that looked pretty funny from the security camera, and the stack of cups was about to fall off.

"There," Neal said with a triumphant glance. "That's her."

Peter murmured something (Neal believed it included a comment on the suspects gender), but zoomed in to the scene.

"Look, Peter, she smuggles that thing on the lids!" Neal pointed and Peter played it in half speed. The girl couldn't be much more than eighteen and she was already a professional pick pocket, by the looks of it. While her eyes and right hand was apologizing to the guard, lifting the cups back, one by one, the left made sure that every one of the cups had small doses of a pulverized drug in them before she let the man go, and left, all in an affair on twenty seconds, and all with her face away from the camera.

"Are you sure she isn't an accomplice?" Peter asked, looking closely at the kid, still in slow motion, turning around with a satisfied grin on her face. Neal froze the picture again, and they both got a nice look on her face. Sharp features, blue eyes, dark blonde hair; that was as much they could make out of the blurry camera.

"She looks too satisfied with herself to be." Neal replied, studying the face more closely, while smiling fondly. That girl's smile radiated everything Neal had thought that time he card-tricked himself to 500 bucks richer, or that time he made money of ruining the vending machine, and selling snack in front of it.

"I'll let Diana send the picture through facial recognition, see what comes up." Neal was pulled out of his high school memories by Peter's voice, and understood the small teaming up was finished for now. "Do you mind looking over these?" He handed Neal three other files. "Cases for the next week. But this is defiantly our priority."

"Of course," Neal replied, and pushed the files under his arm. "Just tell me what you get on her, okay?"

He exited the office not really minding the terrible taste the decaf had left in his mouth, because of the case he just had started. This smelled very much like another undercover operation in the near future, and Neal couldn't wait to go back into the field (but Neal did throw the half empty cup away in the closest trash bin when he entered the bullpen).

New chapter out next Wednesday! :D