Disclaimer: If I owned Burn Notice, I would be writing season six episodes for thousands to see, not a little FanFiction story that maybe three people are going to read. Therefore, I don't own Burn Notice, or anything worth owning that I have mentioned in this story. (Don't sue! I only have about twenty bucks!)
Michael took off his sunglasses as he walked into the dining room of the Chadwick. It didn't take Michael long to spot Barry's spiky head in the crowd, though how Barry had gotten by the dress code in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and khakis, Michael had no idea. Sitting next to him was a brown haired woman that Michael assumed was the infamous Melinda. The first thing Michael noticed about her was how much her face resembled that of a chimp.
"Mike!" Barry called out when he saw him, gesturing him over to their table. "I want you to meet my girlfriend, Melinda. Melinda, this is Mike- Michael." Barry corrected himself when he saw the look on Michael's face when he called him 'Mike.'
"Oh, so you're the jerk who interrupted us earlier? You call us when were in the middle of something again, and I'll knock your teeth out." Melinda said angrily.
"Nice to meet you too." Michael said with a smile before turning to Barry and pushing the piece of paper he got from Pearce across the table. "I need to know who this guy is. I was told he was some kind of money launderer."
Barry took the name and gave a small snort before turning to Melinda. "Hey babe, think you could you go get drinks? Have whatever you want, it's on Mike." Barry waited until she was out of earshot before speaking to Michael again. "Erin Peters, Mike? Really? Out of all the money launderers in the world, you had to get me involved with Erin Peters?"
Michael didn't like the sound of that. "Who is he?"
Barry laughed. "Not he, Mikey. She."
"Fine, who is she?"
"Ok, so chick waits until after we've hooked up to mention she had a boyfriend. And she only mentioned it when he came bursting through her bedroom door. Mike, I had to get six stitches in a place you don't even want to know about."
Michael wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Yeah, I really don't. Your personal life aside, what exactly is her… significance."
"Ok, so remember how I once referred to myself as the man who hides money from the tax man? Well, she's Miss. 'Get money from the acronyms with them knowing'. I'm not even sure if money launderer is even the right term for her. She once got $10,000,000 out of the account of a guy on the FBI most wanted list. So her friends and clients don't exactly work at the local day-care."
Michael sighed as he heard this, not that it was coming as much of a surprise. What he didn't understand was why Anson had made them jump through hoops to get his money out of the Caymans, when it was available to him with a simple call to Peters.
"You happen to know where she works?" Michael finally asked.
"She owns a dry cleaning business, which is really just her front to get clients. So unless you want to walk into a room full of scary guys with guns, I suggest you go to her house." Barry pulled a pen from a pocket and wrote something down on a napkin before pushing the embroidered piece of cloth over to Michael. "Provided she hasn't moved in the last year, that should be her address. But I warn you Mikey, chick doesn't only sleep with a gun under her pillow."
Michael smiled and stood up. "Well, neither do we." Michael got his sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, turning to leave. "Thanks Barry, I owe you one."
"Ahem. You do. Starting with lunch."
Michael rolled his eyes. He pulled a couple of twenties from his wallet and threw them across the table to Barry. "Enjoy your date."
Michael walked out the door of the restaurant with a small smile as he heard Melinda's angry "You made me get a drink for a guy that just leaves?"
Jesse sat at in his leather office chair, rubbing his eyes and staring up at a TV screen. He had been sitting at his security firm for the last 8 hours, watching the DVDs that Michael had sent over from the prison. The DVDs were high resolution, so he could see every arm hair or piece of cat fur on a person if he so desired. Of course, the FBI didn't want to make his job too easy, so decided that there was no need for their recordings to be time stamped. They had supposedly sent the last month of footage, in case Jesse saw the man he was looking for in the weeks leading up to their interaction, but right now, Jesse had no way of making a distinction between the current week, and three weeks ago. He had been watching the video at 8 times speed, but it didn't make the process any less tedious.
When there was a knock on Jesse's office door, he gave a start and quickly turned off the TV. He technically wasn't breaking any rules, since he had finished his paperwork for the day, and had no other things he was supposed to be working on. However, he didn't think his bosses would approve of how he was spending his time and equipment, nor did Jesse want them to see him watching security footage from a federal prison.
Jesse quickly pulled a couple of random files out of his desk, and made it look like he had been working before he invited whoever was outside into his office. To his relief though, it wasn't a firm employee or one of his superiors who walked through the door, but Michael and two cups of coffee.
"Oh, hey Mike." Jesse said, throwing the files back into his drawer and kicking his feet up on his desk.
Michael handed Jesse a cup of coffee and sat down in the chair across from Jesse. "You go through those tapes yet?"
"All afternoon." Jesse said, taking a slurp of his coffee. He pointed the remote at the TV again and turned it back on. "But would it kill them to at least put dates on it? For all I know, this is footage for last year they just happened to throw in"
Michael smiled slightly. "Yeah, the FBI isn't to… chummy with the CIA at the moment. You're lucky Pearce found a way to get the footage at all."
"Yeah, I get to watch a month's worth of monotonous footage with no clue what day or week I'm watching. Might as well paint me green and call me a shamrock."
"Least you get to sit and watch something monotonous in air conditioned comfort. Better than Sam has right now."
"Why, what's he doing?"
"Barry got us an address for the money launderer. We're keeping watch on it before we go in, in case Anson has any surprises there."
"Ah, I see. Let me guess, you're here because you want to borrow one of our RF Jammers. Can't you just borrow one from the CIA?"
"After I lied to them about all this Anson crap, they're not really too keen on lending me their toys"
"Mike, they don't just give out those jammers like candy bars."
"Come on Jess. I saw about 3 of them in storage."
Jesse narrowed his eyes. "How did you get into our high security storage room?"
Michael looked confused. "Easy. I just told the secretary you asked me to get something from there and I forgot my key. Straight out of the spy handbook. You seriously haven't forgotten all this already have you?"
Jesse chose to ignore Michael's last comment. "If you were in the room, why didn't you just steal one? Or… borrow without asking?"
"That was my plan, but that same secretary insisted on following me inside and started asking me questions about you. I think someone has a little crush on you."
"I'm not surprised. Incredibly good looks tend to run in the family. But these guns." Jesse flexed his biceps. "Just happened on their own."
"Yeah, you're a real Hulk Jess. So, jammer?" Michael gave him a hopeful look.
"Do you realize how much paperwork I have to go through to get one for an activity that's not directly related to my assignments? A lot. Plus, I have to give a reason for why I want one. What, am I supposed to tell them that I need one to block signals at a house of a money launderer?"
"You don't have to tell them what we want it for. Lie. Steal. Flirt. You can't be that out of practice."
Jesse gave him a look that showed he still wasn't convinced
"Do it for Fi? Do it to take down Anson?" Michael pleaded.
"Fine." Jess said with a sigh. "But you owe me one Westen."
Michael smiled. "Thanks Jess."
Both men stared at the TV screen in silence for about ten minutes before Michael spoke again.
"So… how was Fi?"
Jesse gave him a sideward glance. "She's spent the last month and a half in solitary Mike, how do you think she's doing. I walked in on her doing pull ups from the plumbing, and I'm pretty sure she's been using that mattress as a punching bag."
Michael gave a small smile. "Glad to see prison isn't turning her soft"
Jesse suddenly burst out laughing, almost doing a spit-take with the coffee he had just drank.
"I'm sorry." Jesse choked out when he had controlled himself. "I just find it hard to imagine a soft Fi. I mean, come on, it's like thinking of a Sam that hates alcohol, or a- a Maddy, that hates cigarettes."
"You should have seen how pissed she got when she had to act like a weakling on one of our ops in Ireland." Michael said with a grin. "It was pretty ironic. She ended up giving me this." Michael pulled aside the top of his shirt to reveal a long scar directly beneath his collar bone.
"That… looks like Fi's work. What'd you do? Steal her C-4?"
"Some guys were using a pet store as a front for their drug business. I told her I thought it would be a little suspicious if the kitten groomer she was undercover as was found with a Mac-10 in her bag. She disagreed, and chose to try to use a claw trimmer to change my mind."
"Guess I probably shouldn't give her a kitten for her birthday then. " Jesse chuckled "You know, provided we're not all de-" Jesse broke off suddenly and grabbed the remote. "Ok, there is it, there it is." He switch the DVD from fast forward to slow motion as the man that they had been looking for appeared on the screen.
"See." Jesse pointed uneccessarily at the screen to point out the mystery man.
They both watched intently as the man on the tape, who was wearing a prison guard uniform, bumped into Jesse and discreetly dropped something in his pocket.
"Come buddy, show us your face." Jesse muttered under his breath, despite the fact that there was no possible way for the man to hear him.
Michael and Jesse watched desperately as the man walked away, taking care to keep his face away from the camera. But when the man on the tape turned his head to watch Jesse walk away, his face was glimpsed by the camera.
"Aha!" Jesse said triumphantly, pausing the tape and zooming in on the guy's face. "I haven't seen this guy before. Do you know who he is?" he asked Michael.
Michael shook his head. "Print out his picture, and I'll give a copy to Pearce, see if she can run it through the data base."
Twenty minutes later, Michael was walking out of the security firm, picture in hand, RF Jammer under his arm. Michael dumped the jammer on the passenger seat and turned the key into the ignition. He checked his watch and saw that he was already ten minutes late for his shift change with Sam. After weighing his options, he decided Sam would just have to wait, and drove to Pearce's office.
Michael most likely drove far over the speed limit as he made his way to Pearce's office. When he got inside, he didn't hesitate to burst through her door.
Pearce jumped at the sudden sound and pointed her 9 mm at the intruder. She quickly realized though, that the "intruder" was Michael, who was standing across from her with his hands in the air, looking slightly surprised.
"Damn it Westen!" Pearce said angrily, shoving her gun back inside its holster. "There's a thing called knocking. Try it."
"Sorry, in a rush. I was supposed to switch with Sam a half hour ago. Just wanted to drop this off." Michael handed her the picture of the man they got off of the security tapes. When Pearce took the photo from him, Michael thought he saw a flash of panic and surprise in her eyes, but it passed so quickly that Michael just figured he must have imagined it.
"This is the guy who planted the phone on Jesse?" Pearce asked.
"Yup. We were hoping you could run his face through your data base, see if you could figure out who he was."
"I can do that." She said with a smile. "Find anything interesting at Peters'?"
"Other than a couple of security cameras aimed at the front door, not much. I got one of Jesse's RF jammers, so we're going to go in after she gets home."
"Sounds good. Need any backup?"
Michael shook his head. "We're trying to keep this quiet enough to keep Anson from finding out. A big black SUV full of armed guys would probably alert the neighbors."
"Suit yourself." She said with a shrug. "Call me when you get something."
Michael nodded and left the room. His relationship with Pearce seemed to go in circles. It had started with neither one of them truly trusting the other, an affiliation similar to one a criminal may have with their parole office. As time went along though, they developed a sense of mutual trust, a trust only to be broken when Pearce discovered he had been lying about his involvement in Max's murder. It had brought them back to the start, with Pearce liking Michael even less than before. The only difference this time around, was she seemed less surprised when she found out he had been hiding something else, even something as significant as Anson.
Despite the fact that she had for the most part forgiven him, Michael could tell that Pearce still suspected he was hiding something. But for the first time, this wasn't true. Michael had been keeping her in the loop on every aspect of their investigation, telling as much about the situation as he had told Sam and Jesse. They had reached the point where he considered her a friend, which was not something he considered a lot of people.
Michael parked the Charger a couple of blocks away from Peter's house, then walked until he found the car that Sam had "borrowed."
"Mike, you are late, and I am hungry." Sam growled when Michael sat himself in the passenger seat. Though his annoyed expression immediately cleared when Michael held up the six-pack he had brought with him. "Never mind, all is forgiven." Sam popped the top off of one of the beers and downed about a quarter of it in one gulp. "Secret CIA meeting?"
"We got the picture of the guy from the prison. Pearce is running it through the system now. Anything exciting happen here?"
"Yeah, I got to watch the neighborhood cat hiss at a dog, and that guy over there mow his lawn. It was simply riveting."
Michael had grabbed the pair of binoculars and looked over at Peters' house, only half listening to what Sam had said. "What time is she supposed to get home?
"4 hours, 27 minutes. Give or take." Sam replied with a glance at his phone. "So until then-"
"We wait."
"Correction Mikey, you wait. I got me a date! Elsa-"
"Go Sam." Michael cut him off before he could go into detail about what he planned to do with his girlfriend."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Sam had a huge grin on his face as his practically ran out and in the direction of his car.
Michael sighed and pressed the binoculars to his eyes, looking for anything unusual to occur. Normally, he would bring Fiona with him on stakeout jobs like this. Despite the fact that she would complain the majority of the time they were stuck in the car waiting, her presence always made the job more enjoyable. Sitting alone in the car just reminded Michael yet again of how badly he wished she wasn't in prison, and (despite the fact he would never say it out loud) how much he missed her; and the fact that the car they had borrowed was a Saab did nothing but reinforce these depressing thoughts in Michael's mind. Michael sighed yet again and grabbed a beer, wishing that Fiona was there to steal it away from him and make him open a new one.
Michael checked his watch impatiently before glancing back at the house. It was going on 6:30, and Erin normally returned home around 6:45. Sam promised to be back at 5:45, but so far was not holding up to his end of the deal. Michael had placed 12 calls to the ex-SEAL in the last 45 minutes, and was sent to Sam's cheesy voicemail each time. After spending the last week watching the house until they could recite Peters' schedule in their sleep, Michael was anxious to burst into her home and get the answers he needed. Michael was just taking out his phone to call Sam again, when the man himself came running up to the car, panting slightly.
"I know, I know, I'm really late." Sam said, trying to catch his breath
"Yeah, you are. She gets home in about eight minutes, maybe less. What took you so long?"
"Geez Mikey, you're starting to sound like Fi. Elsa also got us a hotel room and-"
"Never mind. That's her car." Michael pointed out as Peters' silver Audi turned and pulled into her driveway. Michael reached into the glove box and pulled out a gun. "You ready?"
Sam reached around to the back seat to grab Fiona's favorite shotgun, which was loaded with bean-bag rounds. "Always." he replied with a grin, cocking the gun dramatically.
Both men got out of the car and walked in the direction of Erin Peters' house, relying on the approaching darkness to hide their weapons from unwanted eyes. When they got to the end of the drive way, they exchanged nods, and Sam snuck around to the back, while Michael walked confidently up to the front door.
When you need answers, but don't have much muscle or firepower, sometimes a straight forward approach is best. Deep cover IDs work well to protect your identity, but can sometimes turn a three day op, into a six-week nightmare. In a lot of cases, they same results can be achieved with a fake name and a smile, as opposed to a file of false information and lots of background knowledge.
Michael knocked at Erin Peters' front door and put on his most charming smile. The door was opened almost immediately by a woman who looked to be in her mid thirties. Though her face and outfit could allow her to be mistaken as an innocent dry cleaner, possibly the mother of a young child, the look in her eyes showed that this woman definitely had no maternal instincts.
"Hi! I'm Joshua, and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions." Michael said cheerfully.
"You a cop?" Peters asked, her hand leaving the knob to reach for something on the other side of the door.
"No I-"
"Do you have an appointment?" There was a slight sneer to her voice with the question.
"No but I-"
"Then get lost." She started to close the door, but Michael held a hand out and prevented it from closing. The mysterious object behind the door was revealed as Peters pulled out a large pistol and pointed it at Michael's forehead. "I'm giving you one more chance to get lost buddy, before I'm forced to blow your brains out onto my porch."
"Hey!" Michael put his hands up in surrender, taking a step back. "I don't want any trouble; I just wanted to ask you about something."
Peters snorted, and then slammed her front door right into Michael's face.
Though of course, when a smile doesn't work, you have to resort to other alternatives.
Michael rolled his eyes at nobody in particular, before removing his own gun from his waistband and kicking open the front door, knocking an unsuspecting Erin Peters onto her stomach. Michael put his knee on her back to keep her immobile and promptly zip-tied her hands behind her back.
Sam, who had come bursting through the back door at the noise, walked into the room looking unsurprised as he observed the scene in front of him.
"Well that's unfortunate." He said simply. He glanced at her nose that was methodically dripping onto her clean, white carpet, before looking around the room. "Do you think she has any beer?"
SO! If you didn't get it, my fancy italic text was supposed to be Michael's famous voice-overs. Not really sure if they are appropriate, since I'm writing this in the third person (At least, I think I am...) but hey, I felt the need to throw it in anyways!
Thank you for reading! Please review! :D
