The last coffee that evening tasted slightly bitter. But then, what do you expect from cheap office coffee that was kept on the burner for hours?

Neal woke up with a vicious headache, feeling drowsy and dizzy, cuffed to an uncomfortable chair. It didn't take him long to realize someone had spiked his coffee and he was in trouble.

He was locked in a cold windowless room, bare concrete walls, tiled floor, steel door. The ceiling was quite low, probably a room in the basement of an industrial building. There was neon light and a webcam pointed at him.

It didn't take long until his captors turned up. Apparently, they wanted to use him to get hold of the gemstones. The janitor, Stoyan, was one of them. They started interrogating him right away. Neal noticed an Eastern-European accent. Among each other, they talked in a foreign language.

Neal knew enough Romanian to understand the three men were planning to kill him as soon as they got the necessary information and burn his corpse in an industrial oven next door to destroy any evidence thereafter. Actually, he wouldn't be the first human being going down that route. Needless to say, he didn't give away that he was aware of their plans.

Josh Gardener answered evasively to the questions, acting like an Australian GAA delegate who's unwilling to cooperate. After two hours of interrogation, they stopped playing nice but turned rough instead.

One guy, the others called him Stani, grabbed Neal's hair and banged his head down on the table top – twice, with full force. The sudden pain shooting through his nose was excruciating.

Stani also thrust his fist into Neal's face once. Marek, obviously their leader, commanded to stop the beating. He didn't want to risk breaking Neal's jaw so that their captive wouldn't be able to talk anymore.

They suspended the interrogation, leaving him alone in the cold, neon-lit room. Neal spent the night shackled to the uncomfortable chair, no food, no toilet break. He tried to get out of the cuffs but failed. Even dislocating his thumb didn't help to slip out of the rigid cuffs and he had absolutely nothing to use as a key.

In the absence of any means of escape, Caffrey worked out a contingency plan. It was impossible to get out of this dire situation on his own, he needed help. He needed his team.

With all the pain as well as the after-effect of the drugs Neal was dozing off eventually. The morning found him semi-conscious, sore all over from the night spent tied on the chair, the broken nose hurting.

Actually, he was in a pretty bad shape when his captivators returned. He assumed it was the next morning because they looked wrell ested. Apart from that observation, he has lost track of time completely.

The con man tried to stick to his former behavior of refusing cooperation. However, when they started to stub out cigarettes on his lower arm, he decided it was about time to put plan B into action. "Stop it! I tell you everything I know!"

Josh Gardener shared some innocuous facts; nothing that really put the exhibition at risk. Because they had already spied out some details, he couldn't tell them a complete bogus story. The relevant part of his story was made-up, though. "At night when the exhibition is closed, there will be a two-component security system in place. One component is a multimodal biometric security system. You need a valid combination of a fingerprint, iris scan, and voice recognition. I am one of five people having the necessary access rights."

Marek cursed in English as well as Romanian. He told his cronies in Romanian that they mustn't kill the consultant because they needed him alive. Modern biometric security systems were too smart to be fooled by the image of an iris or a recorded voice.

That conclusion was, of course, what Neal has aimed for. His life was safe as long as Marek was convinced Josh Gardener was key to stealing the Virgin Rainbow.

Stani told him in no uncertain terms, "The exhibition opens in 3 days. You will gain us access to the exhibits!"

Neal put on a frightened face. "Okay, okay. But there is another security measure in place. The access is blocked by an RSA secure passcode. No-one who is added to the biometric access list has access to the passcode. It is the two-man rule: No single person can access the vault."

When they started to vent their frustration on him, kicking and punching, he stopped them, "Wait, maybe I know someone who can get us the decoder."

The Australian gem expert obviously struggled to share any further details. Finally, he succumbed. "My girlfriend, Sara, she works for Sterling Bosch. She knows the executives from the Australian Gem Trading Association. She might be able to get the decoding app. Please, you have to promise to leave her alone! You must not hurt her!"

The latter sounded like a plea, yet Neal had no worries that he'd put Sara in any danger. Marek needed Sara on the outside to cooperate. Therefore, it was unlikely that these thugs would cause harm to her. On the other hand, the redhead was no damsel in distress but rather wielding her baton and usually carrying a gun as well.

When Sara Ellis came home from work that evening, she found an envelope with a photo in her mailbox. There was a piece of paper with a short message. 'We will call you. No police!'

Sara was more than shocked looking at the picture, showing Neal as a captive, beaten to pulp. Her stomach turned and she didn't know what to do.

She received a call around 8 pm. Even though the photos has been unsettling, Sara Ellis was still her rational self. She had set up a professional recording device and connected her phone to a sniffer software.

"Your boyfriend needs your help, Miss Ellis. You have to co-operate – if you want to get him back alive!"

Sara showed the expected level of distress, sobbing into the phone. "Where is he? Is he alright? I need to talk to him."

Marek put the phone on loudspeaker and held it out to his captive. "Tell her what to do! This is your only chance, make it count! No funny ideas, Aussie. Otherwise..." He threw a meaningful look to the gun on the table.

The con man chose his words carefully. "Sara? It's me, Josh. I'm alright, well sort of. I'm sorry to put you through this, Cupcake."

Sara smiled. Caffrey wouldn't dare to call her Cupcake if they'd be in the same room. He referred to himself as Josh, his Australian identity. At least, there were no strings to Neal Caffrey's former criminal lifestyle. Moreover, she was relieved to hear him talking coherently.

"Listen, Cupcake. It is quite inconvenient but I need your help to give these mates access to the Virgin Rainbow. We require the RSA decoding device. I remember you talked once about these blokes from the executive board. You mentioned that guy wearing cheap, ill-fitting suits. I don't recall his name right now; you said he was handling everything. You have to contact that handler and get the device from him."

Obviously, Marek thought this was enough talk time. "That's enough, Aussie." The next sound Sara heard was a dull sound, followed by Neal groaning with pain.

Marek demanded that Sara should hand over the device at noon the next day. However, Sara succeeded in buying more time. She convinced him that it would take more time because she wasn't on familiar terms with the guy who possessed the device.

"36 hours is all you get. You will put the device in a waste bin on Friday morning at the Consulate, complete with instructions how to use it. We'll pick it up and you'll better make sure it works."

*** Back at the FBI ***

After listening to the recorded call, Peter Burke was in genuine concern. "I'm wondering in what sort of mess Caffrey got entangled this time. It sounds serious. Sara, I don't assume this is one of Neal's cons to get hold of the gem. He wouldn't put you through this because that's not how he's wired. Do you agree?"

Sara nodded. "Plus, he wouldn't have sent me to you if he was about to commit a crime. He's cheeky but not dumb!"

Peter raised his eyebrows wryly. "You think he talked about me? What gave me away? The cheap, ill-fitting suit or the handler allusion?"

They had a day left to find Neal and save him. The FBI agent was aware that this was a tight schedule. He needed a team to work on this rather than trying to solve the case single-handedly. His friend's life was at stake; so he couldn't take any risks.