Disclaimer:same as Chapter 1

Author's notes:

- Horace Pippin (1888–1946) was an African-American painter, whose WWI illustrated journal is kept at the Smithsonian Institute. The sketch mentioned is of my own creation.

- Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695) is one of France's most famous poets and fabulists.

- The characters' knowledge of French comes from my imagination.

Chapter 4: The obsidian-eyed soldier

(Thursday afternoon)

A week had passed since Stone's unsuccessful attempt to get Neal out of the way, and the agent had remained in the foulest temper ever. At the office, he had managed to hide his anger under a mask of impassibility (or so he thought), keeping his conversations with his annoying co-workers to the minimum and working without complains on the Anderson paperwork, trying not to let nothing of his disappointment show on his behavior. He had even avoided looking at Caffrey, out of fear the mere sight of the little thief would made Stone accidentally blown a fuse. But at home, he had been in such an execrable mood that Linda was seriously considering filing for divorce and taking the kids away from him. Not that Stone would have minded; his wife was a fool who had birthed a couple of little idiots unworthy of his time so watching them hitting the road would be a relief. There would be the matter of alimony and all that stuff, but his career was more important than anything. Who cared about visiting rights after he had become Burke's partner? The judge would be so impressed by Stone's professional accomplishments that he would grant a pittance at Linda, tell her to get a job like everybody else and stop bothering such a great FBI agent as her ex-husband with her ridiculous claims.

Stone let out a sigh of relief after the last form concerning the Anderson case had been laboriously filed up. Following Burke's orders, a new examination of the medieval painting had been done and the results were to be announced anytime soon. Stone had tried to make these scientific lazybones moving quicker by yelling at them on the phone but Guy Thompson – the Head expert in paintings – had told him in no uncertain terms to leave his guys alone, otherwise he would report to Hughes and that wouldn't have served Stone's plans at all.

Today was Thursday, and while some people were already considering how to spend the weekend, the office was also buzzing from the upcoming arrival of a bigwig for the next day. Hughes and Burke had been working hard all week to prepare for a meeting with Phyllis Baker, the Director of the White Collar Crime Unit in D.C. who wanted their opinion about a sketch done by Horace Pippin while in France during World War I; this sketch was currently held in the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institute but there was a doubt about its authenticity. Alas, the drawing's paper was too frail to be taken out of the museum so a way to prove its genuineness had to be found by working only from photocopies of the sketch.

Caffrey had to show his nose in, as usual; on Tuesday, he had climbed up the stairs four steps at a time to submit his idea to Burke…

(Tuesday morning)

"It's easy, Peter. Look, Horace Pippin fought in the Somme during World War I and he sketched the town of Château-Thierry just before the German offensive of March 27, 1918. I have found some photographs of this town in the archives; generally they come from old black-and-white postcards taken during the "Belle Epoque". See?" said the young man while displaying a huge collection of postcard replicas out of a file to place them on Peter's desk.

"Okay, and what does it prove?"

"Look, this is a postcard taken in 1913 of square Jean de la Fontaine, named after the French poet who was born in Château-Thierry in 1621; right in the middle of the square is a statue of de la Fontaine. He's the local celebrity so during WWI the population refused to have the sculpture removed to protect it from damages or to avoid having it stolen by the Germans. And, on Horace Pippin's sketch, the statue of Jean de la Fontaine appears."

"Where?"

"Right here," said the young man, pointing his finger on a figure half-hidden by a tree, and yet it was possible to see it was the silhouette of a man with long curly hair standing on a pedestal, wearing a cloak over short-sleeved pants in the style of the 17th century. Peter also noticed at the feet of the pedestal a bush cut into a long-eared animal standing next to a round one.

"What are these?" asked the FBI agent, pointing at the strange shapes.

"They are the heroes of one of de la Fontaine's most famous stories, "The hare and the turtle". The turtle bets she will arrive first at a race and the hare mocks her, as she is notoriously slow. So he loafs around all day, and then the turtle is reaching the finishing line. The hare runs like crazy, but to no avail: his opponent has won. The morale is that success depends on endurance and not overconfidence."

Peter lifted amused eyes towards his consultant.

"You've read de la Fontaine's stories, haven't you?"

"Well, yes…"

"And in French in the text?"

Neal looked down a bit embarrassed, but he nodded his head affirmatively. Peter's "Proud Papa" grin lit his face again. Damn it, this kid was good; so unbelievably good!

"That's great, Neal. The fact that Pippin had sketched the de la Fontaine statue is what we need to prove the drawing is genuine. We should contact the mayor of Château-Thierry to ask him for a copy of the town's archives – photographs of the statue, written testimonies during WWI, if possible a copy of the contract made between Château-Thierry and the sculptor who made the artwork. What was his name?"

"Laitié," answered Neal immediately. "He made it in 1824 and it has been restored two years ago, so there's a good chance the archives have been reopened for the occasion."

"Good. Could you please ask Jones to call France and speak to the mayor of Château-Thierry about the statue? Maybe he'll have some information about Horace Pippin's presence in his town in March 1918."

"Peter!" exclaimed Neal, looking surprised. "I speak French, I can do the job!"

"I know you can but you are a C.I., not an FBI Agent allowed to contact foreign authorities about a case involving a priceless drawing," said Peter firmly. "Director Baker will come here at the end of the week to ask us for our expertise and I don't want anyone to contest our conclusions during the Friday meeting."

"But how my interview with the French mayor would interfere with…" started to say Neal, and then realization made his blue eyes shine a bit brighter.

"Oh, let me guess. Baker isn't one of my fans, is she?"

Peter sighed, and then he leaned against his office chair's back, his usual position when dealing with a problem concerning his favorite conman.

"Neal…"

"Look Peter, it's okay. I'll get out of your hair and…"

"Will you kindly let me finish?" growled the older man. If there was one thing Peter hated, it was being interrupted. "Baker is all right, she's not a Kim Rice-lookalike who would do anything to have her picture in the papers. No, Baker's a straight arrow; she may have some reserves about you working with the White Collar Unit but she won't let it cloud her judgment if we present her with the irrefutable proof that the Horace Pippin drawing is genuine. But Baker won't come alone, there will also be her head investigator tagging along; his name is Richard Moore and he's the one who isn't a fan of you. In fact, after Fowler arrested you for the pink diamond heist, Moore sent him a message of congratulations… something he is kicking himself about now."

"Because you have proven my innocence and everybody knows now that Fowler was dirty," completed Neal. "So, in order to save face, Moore will sift through everything you and Hughes will present on Friday about the Horace Pippin's sketch, and the mere mention of me interfering in this file even in the littlest way will give him ammunition to express doubts about the thoroughness of your investigation."

"Exactly."

"Politics," said the young man in disgust. "Sometimes, I could actually understand Mozzie's philosophy about government agencies making us dance like marionettes on strings if I didn't know this kind of things goes back from the Roman Empire."

"Ask Jones to call France, will you?"

"Okay, Peter, morituri te salutant," said Neal with a grimace and a flourish of his postcard-saturated file, making Peter rolling his eyes towards the ceiling but he knew this theatrical exit was only a facade. His partner was too intelligent to be offended by being asked to remain in the shadows concerning the Horace Pippin drawing. After all, Neal liked to work with Burke and his Harvard Squad and he knew that for this situation to continue, he had to make himself invisible at times to make Peter's life easier – he had learned his lesson well with Fowler. After all, he was the auto-proclaimed world's best conman and lurking in the shadows had become a second nature to him.

Whistling softly, Neal approached Jones' desk and tapped gently on the man's strong shoulder.

"Hey, Jones."

"What's up, my man?" asked the dark-skinned agent, and the young man couldn't help but smile. Jones was a good man and he had accepted Neal's world without batting an eyelid, including his strange friendship with Mozzie, his expensive wardrobe and extravagant guest room at June's. Many people would resent Neal for his outstanding living accommodations but Jones didn't give a damn about that. All what mattered to him was doing the job right and he trusted Peter for giving Caffrey the opportunity to help them solve cases.

"Il paraît que tu parles français, mon ami? (It is said you speak French, my friend?)," asked Neal, making Jones' white teeth flash in amusement.

"En effet, j'ai suivi des cours de français à l'université avant de m'engager chez les SEALs ! (That's right, I followed French courses at the university before joining the SEALs!)," answered Jones.

"Très bien, tu es donc l'homme de la situation pour… (Very well, you are the perfect man for the job…)," but Neal's fluency in French was abruptly cut off by Stone's voice, who barked:

"Cut off that lingo!"

Jones turned his obsidian-colored eyes towards the grumpy agent, his calm features betraying nothing. He was quite aware Stone thought nothing but trash about his SEAL past and, in a normal situation, Jones would have given the man a piece of his mind until nothing was left apart from a few bloodied remains. However, this kind of behavior was against FBI's policies and besides, Burke had told him to ignore Stone's contempt towards his military records. Jones, a soldier to the core, had obeyed his immediate superior's orders and he was resolute in not letting the pompous airbag of the office to get at him with his hostility. Neal, however, hadn't had military training and he wasn't the kind to let blatant contempt towards culture go unnoticed.

"This isn't 'lingo', this is French!"

"Whatever," growled Stone.

"What, you have something against foreign languages, too?" asked Neal with an exasperated sigh. He had promised Peter to avoid a confrontation with Stone but the man made everything all grist to his mill and it was getting tedious. However, a discreet touch of Jones' fingertips on his wrist made the young man renounce to pursue an unwanted conversation with a hostile party. More urgent matters required their full attention and no time could be wasted arguing with an idiot. Good ol' Jones, steady as a rock!

"Well, mon ami cultivé (my cultured friend), Peter wants you to call France about the case involving a Horace Pippin sketch. He'd like you to contact the mayor of Château-Thierry and ask about any record of this artist's presence in this town on March 1918 – to be precise, just before a German offensive which happened in the 27th. You could even ask for the testimony of a "poilu", provided there is still one alive around Château-Thierry…"

"A what?" asked Jones.

""Poilu" is French for "hairy", which was the nickname given to French WWI soldiers. There are very few left and they are over than a hundred years old, but it's worth a try to see if someone remembers seeing an African-American soldier sketching Château-Thierry between two bombings. Anyway, here's the file about Horace Pippin and his drawing so it's time to put your French to good use. There is about a seven-hour difference between France and the United States so it'll give you the time to get accustomed with the case."

"You got it," said the agent, eager to work on a case where his talents in foreign languages would be helpful. Neal smiled once again at the ex-soldier and turned about to reach his own desk but Stone let out a spiteful comment, loud enough to be heard by the former convict:

"Show-off…"

Neal sighed and then he answered, without bothering to turn his head towards Stone:

"Whatever."

Stone's mouth twisted in disgust just before returning to his mess of paperwork, unaware that Jones' gaze was fixed on him. He affixed his signature at the bottom of a page, but he was holding his pen too tightly and the movement ripped the paper. The agent cursed loudly as the ballpoint broke in two in the palm of his hand, leaking ink all over the ruined form and on his desk as well. His long string of complains was cut short, however, when Peter's voice rang across the Pit:

"Stone! Have you finished with the paperwork about the Anderson case?"

Neal lifted his eyes to see his friend leaning against the platform's rail, looking sternly at the sullen agent. Apparently, Peter wasn't happy for Stone's lateness and the fact that the pigment analysis' results haven't been sent to the Unit yet.

Stone grabbed a handful of paper handkerchiefs out of a box on Diana's desk – without asking for the woman's permission first – to wipe his palm clean from the ballpoint's ink, and then he had replied:

"No Sir, not my fault, Sir, had an accident with my pen, Sir."

Peter let out a sigh, and the people working down the Pit could all see their head investigator was getting fed up. The man liked intelligence in every way so he didn't suffered fools easily – and Stone was digging up his own grave with his less-than-professional attitude and barely-contained anger. Some agents had even been joking since the beginning of the week about him being late one time too many and how it had made him missed Caffrey's delicious muffins, but others were quietly talking about Stone being shown the door one day or another if he didn't mind his attitude.

"I want that report on my desk on Thursday, Stone, do you hear me?"

"Yessir," grumbled the man and Neal made it a point to concentrate on his computer screen. Peter had probably witnessed Stone's contempt towards him but the young man refused to add more fuel to an already "warmed-up" atmosphere. The best way to defuse a heated situation was to play super cool so he calmly typed on his keyboards and started searching information about the artist Laitié, the sculptor of the Jean de la Fontaine's statue. It might be helpful for Jones and thus, for Peter in regards of the Friday meeting with Director Phyllis Baker.

Peter glared one last time at Stone, looked at Neal with concern, and then went back to his glass-walled office.

(Thursday evening)

It was late again when Stone finally put the final mark on the dreaded Anderson case' paperwork. The lab's results had arrived two hours ago and it had corroborated Caffrey's theory: the surface paints' pigments were recent and were actually covering more ancient ones, proving that the painting had indeed been falsified in order to make it look worthless. Hearing that, Burke had immediately requested for an interrogation of Jerome Long, the expert hired by Jack Anderson who had assured the medieval painting was nothing but a copy – no doubts the man had been paid by Anderson to make a false statement, provided getting a taste of the profit. Diana and Jones had immediately volunteered to question Long, and Caffrey had laughed about he would almost pity the suspect: being interrogated by Super-Soldier Jones and Die-Hard Diana would quite an experience!

Stone got up on his feet and looked about; like last time, the office was deserted – even Old Fossil Hughes had called it a day to return to his tasteless hovel. There was no one around except for the cleaning guy (a Hispanic man in a blue jumpsuit with the name "José" embroidered on the front) who was waxing the floors while listening to music coming from his MP3 earplugs. Burke and Caffrey had gone home as well, all was quiet and calm. Good!

Grabbing his Anderson file, Stone climbed up the stairs with the intention to deposit it on Burke's desk as ordered. But the agent had a hidden agenda as well: during the week, he had come up with another plan to get rid of Caffrey but also to teach Peter a lesson!

Because Burke – as much as Stone admired and needed him – had been too harsh on him during the week; he had to be reminded that Buck Stone was neither a green-as-grass rookie that could be pushed around nor the low man of the totem pole. No, he was a full-fledged FBI agent and thus, he deserved respect, which was something Burke granted too many times to a dirty little thief full of hot air. The White Collar Crime Unit's head investigator needed to be seen the errors of his ways, and Stone was the man for the job.

Reaching Peter's office, the agent placed the Anderson file right in the middle of the writing table to make sure his superior would see it first thing in the morning – as if a torn, battered and coffee-strained cardboard would be hard to miss. But something caught Stone's attention: it was another file with the name "Horace Pippin" written in bold letters on the cover. Reaching out, Stone opened it and indeed, it was all the information gathered by Jones, Burke and Caffrey during the week about the sketch from the Smithsonian Institute. It was full of evidences and documentation about the presence of Pippin at Château-Thierry during WWI and there was also a statement from the town's mayor (translated in English by Jones) which clarified the reasons why the artist had drawn this particular part of town before the German offensive of March 1918. Peter's report was impeccable and well-written, the kind of presentation that would assure him to make a good impression not only in front of Hughes, but also Director Baker for the meeting scheduled at 9:00 a.m. the next morning.

A nasty smile lightened Stone's features when he spotted the paper shredder located just under Peter's desk. Yes, that would do just fine…

Snatching the Pippin file, Stone gathered a handful of papers and, crouching behind the desk, he stuffed them on the device's openings. He pressed the "On" button and the shredder's hummed back into life and its blades grabbed mercilessly at the pages, turning them into ribbons of paper falling inside the machine's transparent plastic wastebasket. Stone took out everything – photos, reports, reproduction of old postcards, notes – and destroyed them with the shredder, which worked silently and efficiently. In less than two minutes, nothing was left of the Pippin file but long paper streamers inextricably mixed inside the wastebasket. All of Jones and Caffrey's hard work had been reduced to nothing, and Burke would have only an empty file to present to Hughes and Baker!

"I'm sorry you have to take the blunt of this, Burke," whispered Stone as the shredder swallowed the last piece of paper. "But you have been blinded for too long by Caffrey and his know-it-all attitude. It's high time you realize you should work with me and not with the little twerp, you are a FBI agent and you should act accordingly to your status. This will teach you a lesson in humility you'll never forget and you will treat me with more respect in the future. Boy, I'd almost wish I were a fly on the wall when Baker will call you an incompetent in front of the Old Fossil… who will send Caffrey back to jail, since his presence isn't helpful!"

Nonchalantly throwing the empty Pippin file's cardboard on Peter's desk, Stone got out of the office and went down the stairs to gather his coat and car keys. One look at José confirmed him the guy was done with the floors and would soon empty the wastebaskets as part of his cleaning routine. Stone had a hard time not to laugh out loud thinking José was his involuntary accomplice in his new, marvelous and failure-proof plan to get rid of Caffrey and put Burke down a few notches!

TBC…