Hy guys I'm here again!
Thanks to all the people that posted a comment or added the story to theirs alert or favourites list.
I'm really happy that the people who did that are more that chapter 2!!!
Thanks to ImAGiver that correct the chapter and I hope I'll find some other nice person for the other six chapters....we'll see....
Enjoy the reading......REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!
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CHAPTER 4 – The Plan
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Neal persuasion skills probably needed some work. After several days doing the same thing, the work in the laboratory became very boring. In a last ditch effort, Neal started praying to see some sort of prison fight, if only to distract himself from his new, mundane existence.
The young man looked around and huffed at his surroundings. He was currently surrounded by middle-aged bankers, who were too frightened to breathe. Definitely dull.
At one point, Neal thought to dedicate some time to painting, but the guards weren't too happy about the Monet he painted last year and refused to provide him any other pigment besides brown for the wood varnish.
They'd never give him another tape or a CD player after he rewrote the guard's badge using a radio.
They'd never let him work on a computer after he ordered a guard uniform on eBay.
They'd never trust him enough to do anything remotely out of the ordinary.
'Crap,' he thought. Neal couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he was stuck in this boring life.
Absently, he touched the note that Mozzie gave him that morning. Neal couldn't help the smirk from tugging on his lips at the thought of Moz in his plastic hair bonnet.
'Hurry up! I can't stay here anymore!' said the note in an impatient scrawl, and Neal smiled again about the situation in which his friend had gotten himself involved.
The boy looked around until his eyes found those of Mr. Davis'. The young man stood up, abandoning his wood work, and winked charmingly at the plump guard as he passed near him. The guard just shook his head at the con, sighing at his sheer and blatant confidence.
"Heya, Davis," Neal greeted, situating himself on the bench across from the man.
The man made a face at Neal, obviously not pleased to see him. "What do you want?" he asked, voice full of patronizing attitude.
"Oh, I think you know," Neal said, but the man snubbed the other con's bait. The young man decided to continue, his voice serious as he lent closer to David. "Look, I know there's something here, and I want to be a part this."
Josh Davis stared at him for a moment. "Sorry, but you should probably stop looking. I told you there's nothing here, little one."
Neal smiled. "And I told you that I have work to do."
"I'm happy for you, boy." John replied, seemingly uninterested.
"This work could be interesting for your friend Ramirez." Neal enjoyed the look Davis gave him in reply, confirming his suspicions.
Schooling his features once again, Davis observed Neal carefully before crossed his arms. "What makes you think that I have any connection with Ramirez?"
"Ah, but that's not the right question," Neal pointed out with a sly smile. "The right question is 'Could Caffrey's proposal affect Ramirez?'" Davis' eyes shifted uncomfortably. "John, I have some art work I need to make disappear. I know for a fact there are some vacancies in that auction house of his."
The man puffed. "You worked with the FBI no one will take you seriously. At least they'll kick your ass!" he grinned.
"Put me to the test," he provoked him.
Davis looked at him and smiled maniacally.
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******
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Neal breathed deeply. The young conartist was sure he was about to do one of the stupidest things he had ever done. –Something that would cost him another four years if he got caught. Such high stakes did nothing to calm his nerves.
Suddenly, Neal heard something far off and hid himself behind a column. He saw the light of the guard's torch coming near him, and Neal silently prayed that the guard didn't decide to walk in his direction. No luck. The guard was already marching his way!
Neal bit his lip and pressed himself closer to the wall behind him, closing his eyes, wishing it would grant him some form of invisibility.
"Hey! Where are you going, idiot?" shouted another guard a few feet farther. Neal saw the guard turn towards his partner. "We already controlled that division! 'Member?"
The man hit himself in his head, berating his ignorance, "Crap, sorry, I forgot." he replied with the shake of his head. "Cut me some slack. I worked all day." he said, trying to clear himself.
"Yeah, yeah, we all did." The other patrolman cajoled, laughing.
Neal walked in the dark, squashing his back against the wall, until he found a door handle by blindly swiping his hand around. The kid took out his work tools from his pocket, one of the only things he was able to get past the guards, and after a minute, the lock opened with a successful "click!" Neal crept into the room, trying to make out objects and solid forms with only the minimal light from outside seeping through.
In the gray room, Neal could vaguely make out shelves full of strange objects in baskets. He cautiously touched the shelves, counting the number of baskets and the items inside. His fingers felt many things: watches, quality clothing, jewelry and other various objects he couldn't distinguish without sight.
He was in the evidence lock up.
Neal knew he had to at least make it across the room, but the walk seemed almost endless as his hands slid over dozens of larger and larger baskets. He wondered if he had gotten lost. A sudden, startling thought invaded his mind of the guards finding him the next morning, out of his cell and in the most damning place possible.
He'd end up being put in isolation for the majority of… Forever.
He shuddered, shaking the thought from his head and beginning to curse himself for putting himself in this situation. A shred of hope was returned when he finally found the basket's number he was looking for. In the darkness, Neal could make out that he was at the end of the room.
This definitely had to be the right basket. He reached inside the container until he came up with a cheap watch, shirt, and a little paper, about the size of a picture. Neal took the photograph in his hands. He attempted to see who was pictured, but the figure was unrecognizable in such dim lighting.
He put the paper into a hidden lining of his pocket and started his trek back towards the door. The dark hallways protected him enough so he could walk in relative peace of not being seen. That is, until he arrived at the guards' break room.
Great. Neal was faced with the daunting task of crossing an open door of a room filled with guards playing poker. Yep, things didn't get any better than this.
Fortunately, the group was too busy playing to notice an orange flash outside of their quarters. Neal stealthily and quickly strode across the entrance, praying the entire time to any god that would listen for the guards not to notice. With a quiet sigh of relief that he had survived the worst of his mission, Neal walked on tiptoe back to his cell, taking care not to awaken any of the sleeping prisoners. Upon arriving back to his cage, he tried opening the deactivated, sliding bars.
"Dammit!" He cursed to himself, discovering that the bars had jammed themselves shut. Some chattering at the end of the hall started when news of an escape was made evident to the watchmen. Neal heard the heavy steps of the guards coming near him while he was trying to open the cell.
After a terribly tense moment of struggle, the door suddenly opened and Neal threw himself onto the bed. The kid heard the guards walking with the torches near his cell. They stood for a moment outside his cage while Neal's heartbeat hammered in his ears.
"Neal!" someone called to him.
The boy lifted his head with his eyes half-lidded, pretending to have been slumbering.
"I hope you were asleep," said the plump guard, trying to seem intimidating and succeeding.
"I was," said Neal, with a faint grin, hoping they didn't have a polygraph handy.
"Well, we heard some noises… Thought we'd check it out." The guard began suspiciously, leaning against the bars that moved at his weight.
The man froze and took a better look.
The bars were open a span of at least 10 cm. When Neal noticed the anomaly as well, he could swear his heart stopped. The others guards came over at the patrolman's insistence to survey the crime. After a few moments passed, Neal found himself the target of five very angry people.
One of the guards took the courtesy of easily sliding the bars opened, slowly marching towards Neal's bed and grabbing the kid by the scruff of his shirt. "Well, well, Caffrey. Yet another flee attempt?" The man two-times Neal's size commented with a sadistic grin.
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When Neal opened his eyes, he was met with the same images he had seen some minutes ago: a few chairs and two guards standing near him.
His arms ached as he sat with his hands cuffed behind his back, waiting outside the director's office. Every time the director saw Neal in his office, he naturally became very angry with the guards and very surprised by the kid's trick.
But not this time. This time he was simply very angry with Neal. Not even the kid's patented blue-eyed stare could get him out of the director's tight-fisted grasp or his strict mind for punishment.
After the argument ended between the director and the head guard, the sentry exited the office, looking severe, and nodded towards the two guards on either side of Neal. The guards returned the nod and easily lifted Neal by his biceps, without further comment.
A sinking feeling invaded Neal's weak stomach as he found himself being lead to the underground sanction of the prison. It was the fist time he was seeing this part of the prison. Not that there was much to see. Armored doors with tiny, barred windows lined the dank and dirty hallway.
The guards stopped in front of one of the doors and opened the heavy, metal gate, which emitted a strident creak. Neal surveyed the small cell with unease. It was much too small and unearthly dark with the exception of a slim light that came from a narrow grid on the side of the door.
One of the patrolmen twisted his arms harshly to free his hands from the biting handcuffs, pushing Neal unceremoniously onto the rough, concrete floor of the room.
Once Neal recovered from the harsh treatment, he looked up from the floor to see the door locking shut with a clamorous clank. Sliding backwards, Neal rested his sore back against the wall, slamming his head against it with a sigh.
How did he get himself in these situations?
After some minutes, Neal started feeling out of breath and as if the small trail of light was actually thinning into nothingness. In this room, the freedom wasn't the only thing taken but the light, the air, the space and the hopes of a better life were eradicated as well.
It told him: This is the only life a prisoner deserves, and you, Neal, are a prisoner.
Isolation was made to punish and psychologically destroy a criminal -to lead them to confess. But he was Neal Caffrey.
He'd never confess…