Chapter 4

Standing in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express Hotel, shielding his eyes against the morning sun, Peter Burke watched his much loved wife, Elizabeth, drive away in the rented blue Prius with mixed feelings. On the one hand he hated to see her go alone to the maximum security Lompoc Federal Penitentiary packed full of murderers and rapists, in order to visit Neal Caffrey who had apparently been ferreted away there a few weeks ago, not yet been added to the general population, so was probably in solitary somewhere in the prison. He didn't have much hope they would allow her to give him the brownies she had baked. The FBI agent wanted badly to be at her side or better yet to go instead and spare her. But he was expressly forbidden from contacting Caffrey and it was just by chance that Elizabeth had met many of the wardens' wives at an event last year and had a connection which served her well. So here he was, left behind, totally useless. As soon as she pulled into traffic and out of sight, Burke picked up his cell phone and punched in Jones' cell number. He was relieved when his agent picked up immediately.

"Jones, are you alone?" asked Burke, sensitive to the fact he might get his agent in trouble with Hughes.

"Great timing," said Jones. "I am on a smoking break."

"Good," said Burke. "Have you found out anything more?"

"Whatever happened was put into play when Neal called his brother," answered Jones, his voice just above a whisper. "He used some sort of weird satellite phone that can't be traced. It totally sent the CIA into panic mode. Switching to Gaelic didn't help either," added Jones"

"Gaelic?" repeated Burke, confused. "Neal speaks Irish? How did you find this out?"

"If you really want to know," warned Jones. "My sister's boyfriend's roommate works for the CIA, in the encryption division and languages. Remember the guy at my birthday party who had the allergic reaction to the bee sting and we had to call the paramedics? That's Dave. He was tasked with finding an Irish language translator who told him Neal and his brother were speaking some kind of primitive Gaelic dialect which isn't usually spoken today. The CIA feels Neal was deliberately trying to communicate nefarious information to his brother who is apparently in Pakistan, or at least the call was picked up near the province of Sindu."

"Ouch," said Peter outloud. Could it get much worse?

"They're jumping to conclusions," speculated Jones. "Dave said that sometimes the translators they hire aren't all that great, especially with more obscure languages. A bad translator almost got a woman deported back to Indonesia recently until they discovered he barely knew the language."

"That's true," reflected Burke. He had had his own bad experiences with translators.

"Something fishy is going on," opined Jones. "I know Neal. He's many things - but he's no terrorist."

"Terrorist!" gasped Burke. "Who thinks he's a terrorist?"

"What else could it be?" asked Jones. "After you left yesterday, a couple of guys from the CIA were here. We were all questioned one-by-one about what we knew about Neal. That was definitely the drift their questions were going. If you ask me - he's being framed."

Good for Jones, thought Peter to himself. That man was level-headed to the core - and loyal.

"I better get back," Jones said. "Try to pick up a cold on the way home. Hughes isn't buying the sick days," advised Jones.

"Yeah, I'll do that" Peter said with a slight laugh. But he knew it was pointless to put one over on his boss. Hughes knew exactly where he was - and why. There would hell to pay when he returned to the office but he imagined it would pale in comparison to what Neal was going through.

Peter walked slowly back to the hotel, crossing the asphalt parking lot, nearly bumping into a palm tree, so deep in thought. As he entered his empty hotel room, Peter remembered all the things he learned about Neal Caffrey during the three years he had chased him, his likes and dislikes, his skills, his MOs; there was no doubt Burke knew his prey well. This knowledge paid off for Peter was finally able to catch him - and the charges stuck. But during all that time it never occurred to Peter to see Neal as a friend-worthy person. He had hardly given Neal a thought during the nearly four years he was incarcerated and it bothered him not at all. Now that he had worked with him for a year, Peter saw so much potential in Neal. That was why he had taken him to visit his brother Philip in Sing Sing. He wanted him to see what could happen if he didn't start taking his life seriously. Little could Peter have guessed how serious Neal's life would get.

Thinking on it, Peter could not quite tell when Neal had progressed from felon to friend to family, well almost. Elizabeth seemed to think of Neal as family - the way she had worried over him, even baked him the brownies she would never allow her own husband to eat. Peter wasn't sure what he was going to do with her had her plan not worked for coming out to California to visit Neal. And in many ways Peter felt closer to Neal than to his own brother. But wasn't blood supposed to be thicker than water?

Peter was reluctant to admit even to himself how desperately worried he was for Neal. He knew he wasn't a terrorist - someone had badly gotten their wires crossed. But once the CIA takes off with something - it could be almost impossible to stop them. He hoped Elizabeth's visit would provide some information he could use to get Neal home - working with him where he belonged. So he paced. Around and around the small hotel room.

After walking around in circles for a half hour, Peter decided to take his circling outside and began walking around the block. It took him nearly an hour to figure out there was no block, that he had been walking in a straight line, past the little local airport, over the bridge spanning the dry river bed, and was approaching a long steep grade when his dark thoughts broke and he looked up. Where the hell am I? he asked himself, looking around at empty meadows inhabited by eucalyptus trees and Manzanita bushes. Nothing looked familiar. He turned on his heel and retraced his steps. He couldn't believe he had walked so far. Where was his mind? Where was the town?

Peter broke into a trot when he finally saw the hotel's sign in the distance. He had wanted to have everything packed before El got back so they could leave right away. He was already dreading the trip home and the layers of security he would need to go through since he was carrying his gun. If they didn't get to the airport early they would miss the flight. Reaching the hotel, Peter ran to their room and started throwing things in suitcases. Elizabeth would yell at him later when she opened them in New York but he had wasted too much time to pack carefully now.

Just as he was closing the last bag, Peter spied Elizabeth's rented blue Prius pulling into the parking lot of the hotel. He grabbed their suitcases, ran down the stairs, greeted his excited wife with a "Hi, Honey!" and threw their luggage into the backseat of the car. He then dashed over to the hotel office, tossed the hotel card to the startled desk clerk with a "Send me the receipt!" and galloped back to the car where Elizabeth was standing with her mouth open.

"Are you sure you got everything, Peter?" Elizabeth asked dubiously, as her husband gently nudged her toward the passenger side of the Prius. "Did you look under the bed? In the bathroom? Did you get my hair dryer? Maybe I better go check."

"No time, honey," said Peter. "We have to get going, we can talk on the way." He reached down to fasten her seatbelt.

"I can do my own seatbelt!" exclaimed Elizabeth, swatting his hands away. "What's with you?"

"Nothing, nothing" answered Peter, closing her door and moving quickly to the other side of the car. "Just want to get on the road, that's all."

Elizabeth accepted that answer because like many men, Peter liked to get where he was going in the shortest time possible. Peter hated stopping the car until they reached their destination be it 10 miles or 1,000 miles. Through many years Elizabeth had patiently retrained Peter out of this annoying habit and to some extent she had succeeded - but today it reared it's ugly head but she decided to keep quiet as she knew the issue of Neal was weighing heavily on her husband's mind.

So thanks to Peter, they were on the road to Santa Barbara a scarce hour after Elizabeth last saw Neal in the visitors' room.

"Well, honey?" prompted Peter, settling back into his seat. "How is Neal doing? You saw him - right? What did you find out?"

"He's very…confused," said Elizabeth, uncertain. "No one has told him anything, he hasn't been questioned, he doesn't know why he is here. We barely had any time together. And they're being really mean to him."

"Mean?" asked Peter.

"Yes, they were yelling at him and pushing him around. They had him chained up so tight he could barely walk. And he…" she paused. It was hard seeing the images in her mind.

"He what?" prompted Peter, glancing over at her.

"He cried," she said, tears welling up in own eyes at the memory. "He looked so sad."

He cried? That isn't good, thought Peter to himself, worriedly. "Did he say anything about his brother?" asked Peter, deciding not to comment on the crying part. Neal had survived over four years in a maximum security prison, surely this can't be that much different. But why was he crying?

"No, not much. Just his name - Colin O'Mara," answered Elizabeth. "He was really surprised when I brought up his brother. Like he had no idea why I was asking."

Well, that's something, thought Peter. Maybe it was all a mistake. Could the CIA have gone this far adrift in their investigation? Or was this a vendetta spinning from the hand of a master revenger? Who had Neal offended, who was this highly placed where they could do this amount of damage?

Peter decided retracing their route back on Hwy. 246 to the 101 would probably be faster than traveling scenic Hwy. 1 to Gaviota which was actually shorter mileage-wise. As they looked out the car windows at mile after mile of rows of green grapevines striping every nook and cranny of hill and valley as far as their eyes could see, Elizabeth talked to Peter about her visit. She was worried that Neal had lost a lot of weight, that he was emotionally spent, even that he desperately needed a bath. Peter let her talk but part of his mind was taken up with keeping an eye on the grey Ford Focus that had been following them since leaving the hotel. He was trying not to lose the car because he was a firm believer in the enemy you see is far better than the enemy you don't. Burke watched the manner of the tailing and soon came to the conclusion it was classic CIA. They tended to follow much further back than was recommended by the FBI. It was not a great shock to Peter that the CIA was following them. Who else had the dubious authority to kidnap an American citizen and hold him without access to attorney nor judge, thanks to 911?

A scant forty-five minutes later, Peter pulled off the freeway at the Fairview exit after finally reaching the outskirts of Santa Barbara, a suburb called Goleta. Peter drove the last remaining miles quickly as there was little traffic and soon was pulling into the parking lot reserved for Enterprise rental cars at the small local airport. As he pushed the power button on the car's dashboard turning the car off, he turned to Elizabeth with a gentle smile. He didn't want to alarm her so he didn't tell her about the car following them nor that it had probably tailed her back from the penitentiary as well. Before he opened his door, he turned to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Honey," Peter said tenderly, "we can't talk about this anymore until we get home. We'll figure it out then. Okay?" He was proud of her that she didn't look alarmed but just nodded silently as though reading his thoughts. But she could not resist looking around her apprehensively and Peter hoped she would not see the Ford Focus pulling into the next lot over. Peter jumped out of the Prius and ran around to open Elizabeth's door. Ten years married and it was his pleasure to still open doors for her.

The two flights back to New York were as long as Peter had feared they would be and getting through security had been just as aggravating as on the trip out to California earlier that week. Because Peter insisted on taking his weapon with him on the plane instead of putting it into his checked baggage, they almost missed the flight out of Los Angeles International Airport.

Arriving home, their little house had never seemed so welcoming and Peter could barely wait to fall into bed. But there was something that needed to be done first and he picked up their phone and made the call.

"Mozzie?" he said when the connection was made. "Would you like to come over for dinner?" After exchanging a few pleasantries with Neal's friend, Peter put the phone down and began thumbing through restaurant menus for take-out that Elizabeth kept under the phone. Elizabeth certainly wasn't going to feel like cooking dinner. But it was imperative that Mozzie come over immediately and sweep the house for bugs or any other newly planted electrical devices.

While waiting for Mozzie to arrive at his doorstep, Peter made a cursory google search for the name Neal told Elizabeth and the only person he came up with was a politician in Delaware who he seriously doubted was connected to Neal but he would check it out when he got to work in the morning. He was eager to check the FBI databases but knew it would look very suspicious if he went in this evening.

Having placed his take-out order at their favorite pizzeria, Peter leaned back on the sofa and tried to sort out his thoughts. What was the CIA doing with Neal Caffrey?. An American held in a secret prison, i.e., the basement of Lompoc Penitentiary, without recourse to the legal system, probably not read his Miranda rights. There was only one scenario where the government had acted similarly in the past - where the constitution was ignored and civil rights trampled. But how in the world did Neal get branded a terrorist and how did Colin O'Mara factor into this? Was this truly his brother and was he living in Pakistan? And how soon would the CIA move Neal out of the country to a secret prison to do as they willed to him? That was the question that worried him most.

Meanwhile Neal spent another long and uneventful day in his basement cell. Back to being ignored by the guards, he practiced yoga, perfected several museum heists, stole the Mona Lisa and then returned it, and replayed his visit with Elizabeth in his mind while working out by running in place for what seemed like an hour but he suspected was probably more like five minutes. He tried to keep his mind off New York and his life at June's. It was too painful to think about. As he guessed evening was approaching as he could hear the changing of the guards from down the hall, he got ready for lights-out and his dinner. Why the guards waited until so late to bring him his final meal of the day, Neal could never figure out, perhaps it was just to torment him further. Now that he was convinced he had done nothing to earn this cruel treatment he found he was resenting it more by the hour and his anger was becoming harder to keep in check. His glimpse of Elizabeth had made everything all that more intolerable.

Promptly at 10:00 p.m. the curly white light bulb went out and total darkness engulfed Neal once again. Shortly after he heard the clang of steel on steel he slowly felt his way to his door and pulled his tray from the hatch. Making his way back to his bed, he begin to examine the items on the tray. One cheese sandwich - check. One carton of non-fat milk - check. One apple - check. Two cookies - check. Cookies? Carefully Neal picked the cookies up and ran his finger over them feeling the tiny bumps of chocolate chips (with walnuts!) and also something - else. His finger touched a small piece of paper folded over and then over again, hidden between the cookies. What did it mean? What was written on it? He would have to wait until morning to find out. Frustration welled up in him and the tray went flying, bouncing off the wall with a bang and scattering its contents over the small cell. It would take him awhile to find his dinner now but he didn't care. Someone had sent him a note that he would have to wait until morning to read - or perhaps it wasn't a note at all but only a blank piece of paper intended to torture him yet more. He told himself he didn't care, he wasn't going to waste time worrying about it. He placed the note in his left slipper and set about the task of crawling around his cell retrieving his dinner. He simply would not think about it until morning.

Five miles away, the CIA agent staying, coincidently, at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel was quite pleased with the night vision camera he had convinced his boss to buy for this case. Tax dollars well spent, he concluded with satisfaction. But where had that note come from and what did it say?