Sidelined Ch 6
Holding one's hands up in surrender in the middle of a blizzard was a sure recipe for instant frostbite and ensuing gangrene, so, despite the fact that his long-term prospects was precarious at best anyway, Neal lowered his arms while still keeping them circumspectly open by his sides.
He didn't expect his charming smile to get him out of this one, but it wouldn't hurt to lay the groundwork. "I'm glad I found you guys. It's too cold to be racing around trying..."
"Shut up!" The muzzle of a gun was pushed hard against the back of his head, rocking it forward. Neal could tell that his continued survival was balanced precariously on the knife edge of this man's whim.
His mouth was dry and tendrils of fear raced through his veins, invading his chest and squeezing, igniting a flood of adrenaline. Yet, accompanying this dread was a sense of inevitability - he had been courting this fate since he started his illustrious career. It had been a flirtation marked by death-defying stunts, reckless choices, and the blatant disregard of convention and precaution - a criminal parkour of style and daring.
Yet, balancing this fatalism was an equal and opposite belief that his frequent companion, Lady Luck, wouldn't desert him. She might be fickle, but she'd always been there in times of crisis. It was this conviction that allowed him to smother panic at the prospect of imminent death, that imbued him with a relentless spark of hope, preventing him from freezing and allowing him to control the raging adrenaline rush, channeling it productively. His muscles were tensed in what would be a futile effort to dodge a bullet, so he forced himself to relax and project a confidence that would unsettle his aggressors.
His mind was clear - prioritizing, assessing, processing possible strategies, while simultaneously collating contributory data from his senses that appeared to be working in overdrive, taking in the slickness underfoot, the dissolution of a snowflake on his nose, the sour breath of the gunman beside him that stung his nostrils in alternating waves with the crystalline purity of the snow.
He was also hyperaware that Peter's container was only a few yards away. A few steps forward and he could probably see a sliver of its dull red side. He had been seconds away from betraying Peter's location. That thought was even more chilling than the surrounding temperature. Neal had no doubts that the gang would have summarily executed the FBI agent, not wanting to be slowed down by an injured man or to leave a witness behind to identify them.
He hoped that Peter, if he was, by some remote chance, still conscious, couldn't hear the nearby activity, because there was no chance the agent would remain passively concealed if he realised his partner was in danger.
"Come on, guys," he urged them cajolingly, "I'm almost frozen solid already, and I have some important information for your boss." The latter comment, while true, was mainly added to remind them that they were just hired hands, and someone in authority would be better making important decisions such as potentially ordering the murder of a valuable asset.
He saw indecision in the face of the man in front of him, and there was a quick exchange of glances between the thugs, while Neal tried to look as useful, but as unthreatening, as possible. It was a convoluted image to project, but apparently he succeeded in his goal, as suddenly the leading gunman gestured with his weapon.
"All right. This way, but if you try to run, I'll gutshoot you."
"No running," Neal assured him fervently. "At the moment, all I can think of is getting warm." He was fairly sure his blue-tinged lips and violent tremors would attest to the truth of that statement.
They shepherded him carefully through the metal canyons, flanking him whenever possible. Knowing this wasn't the time to effect an escape, Neal followed meekly, an inchoate plan forming in his fertile mind.
A truck rumbled away from the entrance to the warehouse as they approached and, guessing the stolen art was probably on board, Neal took a quick, but surreptitious note of its license plate and markings. He was ushered into the comparative warmth of the building, where he was the cynosure of a few curious and hostile eyes, but most of the people working there earlier seemed to have vanished, bolting for cover at the suggestion that their illicit activities had been compromised.
A rough hand on his shoulder steered him into an office where two men were quickly, but competently, throwing some files into boxes. They both had dark, oiled hair and beetling black brows over sharp cheekbones. Matching sets of cold, murky eyes marked them as brothers or at least close family.
The younger of the two, judging by the lack of the gray that streaked the other man's temples, addressed the gunmen sharply in what Neal recognised as Russian, and a quick exchange followed. Neal might have been unable to follow the details, but it was obvious that his fate was being determined, and he decided he needed to be proactive in diverting adverse resolutions.
"I can triple the money you make on that artwork," he announced, masochistically satisfied when all attention switched to him. "We can help each other in a working partnership. I can make you exponentially rich if you..."
"Enough!" Neal's sales pitch was cut short by the older man, whom he mentally labeled as 'the Boss.' He was more unnerved than he wanted to show by the abrupt interruption and the flat eyes that scrutinized him closely. Had he misjudged the man? The vast majority of criminals responded positively to the lure of additional money dangled enticingly in front of them. However, there were always exceptions, and this was clearly a man who would not let greed override his good judgment. Maybe the Boss sensed that Neal was playing for time, or perhaps he believed that the profit he stood to make was sufficient without accepting additional risk.
"We are leaving now, and you will accompany us." The Boss's accent was thick, but his English was fluent. "If you attempt to escape, we will tie a block to your feet and throw you into the river."
Neal had no difficulty believing the threat, but before he could offer a promise to forgo any actions that might lead to swimming lessons, the Boss had turned his attention to his foot soldiers, throwing them a roll of duct tape from the top of the desk. "Take him to the boat and tie him up. We'll be right there."
His scalp crawled at the thought of being thrown overboard in such a helpless condition. His body composition wasn't favourable for floating at the best of times, and with his arms bound, he wouldn't stand a chance of survival. He didn't want to die in the polluted waters of the East River or the slightly more salubrious waters of the Atlantic for that matter.
Even if the immediate crisis seemed to have been averted, Neal was under no illusion that he had done more than postpone his possible demise. He pulled his borrowed, flimsy jacket more tightly around himself as they emerged once more into the swirling blizzard. Apart from the soft crunch of their footsteps, the snow muffled all other noise, creating a curious sense of isolation.
Neal yearned for the friendly sound of a siren, a sentiment it was hard to imagine himself uttering even in the privacy of his own mind. He'd got soft, accustomed to having back up he could trust. That was one of the benefits to being, temporarily maybe, half-heartedly perhaps, on the virtuous side of the law. Right now, the announcement of an FBI presence would provide the distraction he needed to escape from his captors, negate the necessity of getting on the boat, and provide Peter with the help he so desperately needed – a trifecta of perfection as far as Neal was concerned. In fact, he'd never let Mozzie speak badly of 'the man' again if they could coordinate such excellence.
He slowed his footsteps to allow the FBI as much time as possible to achieve that miracle, faking a coughing fit and slipping and sliding more than necessary as they headed down toward the dock. His delaying tactics garnered him a bruised shin and a clip over the head with a closed fist. Trying not to let his trepidation show, he climbed over the gunwale of a well-equipped, but dirty, trawler.
He knew his way around boats, having once crewed a millionaire's yacht in the Mediterranean – a story that he wouldn't be mentioning to Peter. However, he was much happier on land where his fleet legs could carry him away from trouble. He was an excellent swimmer, but he knew that the water around the boat would sap his remaining warmth in seconds and his strength in minutes. Any attempt to escape now would be tantamount to suicide.
His captors, however, were taking no chances. They restrained his arms behind him, wrapping them securely with duct tape, then, pushing him to the floor, they repeated the procedure with his feet. One of them went back up through the hatch, but the other sat down to guard him, an annoying precaution. Neal thought longingly of handcuffs and padlocks, while testing the sticky, tensile strength of the tape. It wasn't entirely impossible to escape from duct tape restraints, but it required considerable squirming, so it wasn't something that could be attempted in front of a hostile jailer.
Accepting the fact that he had to run this con for real, Neal forced himself to relax, the rocking motion of the boat reminding him how long it had been since he'd slept. The wooden floor would feel cold later, but since it was still twenty degrees warmer than the temperature outside, he was glad of that comparative warmth. He periodically flexed his fingers and feet to keep blood flowing to his extremities. His situation was miserable, but not desperate, since he could make a strong case for his continued survival until a genuine opportunity for escape arose.
The boat dipped twice as more people stepped on board, then the engine roared to life, and the sickly odor of gasoline fumes filtered up to him. There was nothing to brace himself against, so he went sprawling as acceleration tilted the boat to an unnatural angle.
The journey soon ranked as the most uncomfortable trip he'd ever taken, and that included the time he'd smuggled himself across a border in a truck full of rutabagas. Tightly wound muscles sent pain shooting through his shoulder blades, protesting angrily the lengthy time they'd been forced back into an unnatural position, and it wasn't long before his body, inactive and damp from snow, insisted that the previously acceptable temperature was now chilly, and he started to shiver relentlessly.
He was actually grateful for the distraction when, half an hour later, the Boss and his brother, whom for convenience's sake he nicknamed 'Blackbeard,' came to interrogate him. It was the perfect time for such a session, since if they didn't get the answers they wanted, they were in the perfect place for easy disposal of his body.
Neal felt at a considerable disadvantage on the floor, so he was relieved when the larger thug reached down and yanked him to his feet, pushing him down in a seat opposite the padded bench where the two Russians had seated themselves. He tried to sit up a little straighter and flexed his shoulders hoping for some relief from the aching there.
There were no threats uttered; none were needed. Everyone understood the consequences of noncompliance. However, even with that threat looming, Neal wasn't overly intimidated, still secure in his value to such men. His plan wasn't complex – he was going to tell the truth, with just a few tweaks to make his recent resume more palatable. While Neal Caffrey on paper might not appeal to a prospective girlfriend, there was a lot to recommend him to a group of art thieves.
"Name?" Blackbeard took the lead again in the interrogation.
"Neal Caffrey," he recited obediently
"You said you could make us three times as much money. Explain." Clearly preliminaries weren't necessary. There would be time enough to go through such niceties if they decided to keep Neal around.
"I'm a counterfeiter and an art forger, and I'm the best in the business." Modesty had no place here. "Many museums have my pieces up in them without being any the wiser. I can give you a list if you want to check it out. Try 'Girl with Locket,' a Haustenberg, in the Channing Museum."
"So?" Neither man looked too impressed, and Neal wondered how such obvious Philistines had ended up in the world of art theft. He kept his disdain camouflaged by an eager smile.
"So, you have some fantastic stolen art work. I can forge copies - two or three for each piece – and you make double or triple the price that just selling the original would make."
The two brothers exchanged glances, and with a slight nod and a shrug of one shoulder, Neal knew he'd passed the first portion of the employment process. It was, after all, a sound plan and one he'd used several times before. However, the second part – the vetting process – could be trickier. He didn't volunteer any more information, but waited for them to ask the questions.
"Who do you work for?"
"I don't work for anyone." It held the indignation of the truth. In Neal's mind, he worked with Peter, not for him.
As black brows were drawn down in displeasure, he continued hastily. "I know what you mean, though. Let me explain." He would have raised his hands placatingly, but that luxury was denied him. "Six years ago, I...I put my trust in the wrong person, and he sold me out to the Feds. The only thing they actually could prove was bond forgery, but that was enough for a four-year prison sentence. Look, this is all a matter of public record, so you can check it out. I was near the end of my term when a Fed came to see me. Said he had enough information to put me away for four more years, but that he'd let me out on a tracking anklet if I'd agree to help him in key cases. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't stay in the lock-up any longer, I was going stir crazy. I've been trying to get out of my tracker ever since. This is the first time it's been taken it off. Take a look under the duct tape and you can see the marks it's left on my leg. They're unbreakable now, electronic, couldn't pick it or break it."
"So, you work for the Feds." Clearly, this wasn't a selling point for the art thieves, but he had known it would be impossible to conceal that fact and that it was better to have it out in the open under his own terms.
"I was forced to work for the Feds," he ground out with appropriate bitterness.
"That guy you were with – he was a Fed?"
"Yeah, he's the guy who caught me and put me away, then blackmailed me. I didn't think I'd ever be able to shake him off my tail, so I guess I owe you thanks for that."
"Then why did you come back for him?" The question was quiet but deadly, aimed with precision, and the atmosphere of the cabin suddenly crackled with tension.
"What?" Neal's surprise was genuine, because this accusation was the last thing he expected. "Look, I managed to get away from him, although I tried to make it look as if we were separated by accident. Then, I headed back here, because this was the best opportunity I've seen in a long time to put my skills to work." Unease lodged like a hard cube in the pit of his stomach turning to icy foreboding.
The Boss leaned forward, watching him intently as if he were a strange bug that had wandered under his microscope. "Then you won't be disturbed to learn that the agent is dead. We found him in a container and shot him."
The universe slithered sideways. As experienced a conman as he was, Neal was unable to keep his reaction to that off his face. Sour bile burnt in his throat as disbelief warred with horror and grief. The Boss had to be bluffing. The man was smart. He had to have realised that Peter, shot in the leg, would have had no other recourse but to hide in one of the metal boxes. Neal's mind couldn't help pushing that logic one step further. Having figured out that much, it wouldn't have been hard for the Boss to have isolated Peter's approximate location and conducted a container to container search until...
Neal could feel his hands shaking and clenched them into fists automatically, his mind supplying him with the image of Peter, unarmed and helpless on the floor, unable to do more than glare in defiance as the gunman fired. His eyes burned as the magnitude of his loss filled his chest until he could scarcely breathe, the corners of his vision wavering darkly.
"You don't look happy, Mr. Caffrey." The Boss's sharp voice cut through his frantic thoughts.
Neal was barely capable of rational intent, but some survival instinct, born of years of living by his wits with his livelihood depending on the right thing to say, found an appropriate explanation for his reaction. "Of course I'm not happy. This isn't what I wanted. My God, they'll think I'm responsible. How could you be so stupid as to kill an..."
His words sped up, spitting out of his lips as if impelled by the violence of his fragmenting thoughts. The force of a blow across the mouth snapped his head back, the heavy, gold ring on his assailant's hand splitting his lip in a bright red splatter of blood.
Neal dropped his chin, trying to wipe the blood off on his shirt while he gathered himself together, his teeth clenched hard enough to make his jaw muscles quiver. His voice was shot through with metal shavings though he steeled himself against the emotions that threatened his composure. "If they catch me again, I'll be on the hook for murder."
The look of suspicion faded, but didn't entirely disappear. "Then I suggest you don't let them catch you." They had little to lose by keeping him around on a trial basis, so mistrust didn't necessarily equate to a death sentence. There was, however, no doubt that Neal had miscalculated in his first attempt to win their confidence and a measure of autonomy, but he was too heartsick to really care.
The brothers were distracted from their analysis of his reliability by the arrival at their destination. The tape around Neal's legs was cut, and he was escorted off the boat by the two thugs who had originally captured him – Hans, who seemed to have the overwhelming preponderance of the brain power between the two, and Milo, the large muscular thug who had hit Neal before and who, judging by his actions, believed it was now open season on all captives.
Neal cast an incurious glance around, knowing it was necessary to pinpoint his location, but it was too dark to see much, and it merely earned him a blow to the ribs from Milo who was as eager as a puppy to show off the new trick he'd learned. It was still snowing, although not as heavily as before, but the clouds and general haze of precipitation concealed all familiar landmarks. His best guess was that they'd moved up the East River and were now in the Long Island Sound.
From the dock, it was only a matter of yards to another warehouse complex. They seemed to be the only ones inhabiting the frigid night, all law-abiding citizens having retreated to the warmth of their homes. Neal stumbled wearily as his two new coworkers ushered him downstairs to a small basement that was clearly used as a storage room, although it was currently empty of everything except a strong stench of fuel and other chemicals. There were no windows to provide an easy exit this time, and it was lit only by a solitary naked lightbulb that hung vaguely askew from the concrete ceiling.
Neal managed to keep to his feet as he was shoved inside with a stern warning. "There'll be a guard outside at all times. If you show as much as a nose outside without being invited, we'll shoot it off."
"Wait!" He called them back urgently just as they were about to leave. "Your bosses want me to do some delicate artwork for them. Leave me like this, and I'll be useless in the morning. My hands are already numb. Just check with them."
With an impatient glare, Hans went out into the corridor, presumably to follow this advice. Milo stayed, watching Neal longingly as if he were a soft punching bag hung up enticingly in front of him. At another time, Neal might have enjoyed subtly baiting him, with little verbal nips and pecks of annoyance, but now he just remained slumped against a wall, eyes fixed unwavering, but unseeing, on the floor.
Hans returned, a sour look corroding his face, probably at the prospect of Neal as a fellow employee. He grabbed Neal's shoulder, turning him and slamming him face first into the wall. Neal didn't react to the snick of a knife opening behind him, numb to external threats. He also ignored the uncomfortable tug on his skin as the knife pressed down on the tape. It was only as Hans ripped the tape off his prisoner's forearms, reopening the wounds left by the barbed wire that Neal uttered a surprised cry of pain.
The two men slammed the door shut, bolting it from the outside and, as a final act of cruelty, turned off the light at the switch in the corridor, leaving him in total darkness. However, the dark had always meant concealment to Neal, and now he welcomed the cover.
He swayed as tension, the exhaustion of strained emotions and too many hours without sleep caught up with him. His knees buckled, and he sank to the ground, back against the wall, then curled forward, his arms wrapped around his knees as he shook with sorrow and loss, grief and guilt wrapping round his heart like a lead blanket.
Peter was dead. His mind bypassed its usual agile productivity, stuck on that anguished Mobius strip of thought. He had become all too familiar with that dragging weight of grief, worn deep ruts on that strip of highway. With Adler's death, he had received some closure for Kate's murder although, deep inside, her loss would always ache as a broken bone signals the approach of bad weather.
Mozz's shooting had been horrific, shocking in its unexpectedness and in the responsibility that he felt. Throughout it all, Peter had been a constant, supportive presence, reining him in when Neal's desire for revenge overcame common sense, even then protecting him from the consequences of his own actions. He knew how much he owed the agent for covering for him – goodness knows how Peter had managed that and how many favours he'd called in – when Neal's despair had fueled his gun-toting, Tarzan-swinging, all-round parole-breaking rampage.
He knew that no other FBI agent would have displayed the same patience, understanding, and forbearance, but Peter wasn't just his keeper, he was his friend, his partner and, as Mozzie had pointed out, something of a father-figure. In the last few weeks, as Mozzie had urged him more forcefully to grasp the future he'd always thought he'd wanted – ultimate freedom represented by almost limitless wealth – Neal had used almost any excuse to drag his feet, to postpone a decision. He had realised that Peter was holding out a competing vision of the future. It contained elements he'd previously considered extremely undesirable – early mornings, bad coffee, hard work, and legal restrictions. The compensations were complicated, nowhere near as straightforward as billions of dollars, but they were real. They involved teamwork, service and sacrifice. He was accustomed to being the best at what he did, but he'd never before received appreciation and plaudits for it. Now he knew he was making a real difference, saving lives and livelihoods. What he did mattered, and with Peter, it was never boring - except for the mortgage fraud cases.
It wasn't just the intangibles that Peter offered. He also offered permanence, a home and, most of all, a family. Elizabeth had once told him that Peter was the best thing that ever happened to him, and it was true. As he stared into the darkness, Neal blinked hard to clear the glaze of moisture from his eyes that no one would ever see. In that moment, he knew he'd hit rock bottom. He had finally made his choice, figured out what he wanted, and it was too late. He wanted his partner back, to bicker with, solve crimes with, match wits with.
He'd been told many times in his life that there were things he couldn't have, but he had never accepted that - stealing, charming or otherwise acquiring any desired objects. But now, he had to accept the fact that the thing he wanted most was forever out of his reach. All around him, skull-crushing silence forced itself down on his ears. He kept breathing fast, panic a hard vice around his chest. Peter had grounded him, provided him with a security he'd never known he wanted. Now, he felt untethered, a kite with its string cut, left to tumble and dive at the whim of the wind.
He couldn't bring Peter back, but he could take down the animals who'd killed him. Fury pounded through him, and he grasped it greedily, as it allowed him a few minutes reprieve from the hollowness of raw loss. He started to plan, weighing up different scenarios for destroying not only the Boss but his whole gang. It was hard to concentrate, and his mind kept falling back to its default setting of reckless grief until eventually, beyond exhaustion, he fell into a fitful sleep.