A/N- Only two chapters left I think (excluding this one). I'm thinking there will be the wrap up, and then an epilogue. I'm really sorry about the wait. I'm just lazy and stupid for dragging this out so long. Thank you all for being so patient and sticking with the story!

Present Time:

Upon seeing the six Ring agents enter the Orange Orange, everyone in Castle drew there guns, with the obvious exception of Mozzie. If he had not felt uncomfortable enough before, he did now. Colonel Casey jumped right into organizing a tactical plan, and fluently gave directions to everyone in the room.

"Larkin, take Agent Burke and Agent Jones and head around back; you'll be going in through the side door. Walker, you know what to do. Carmichael and I are staying down here until everyone is in position, then, on my signal, we go in and take these SOB's down."

"We shouldn't have to use deadly force unless it's absolutely necessary, but all the same, we have to make sure at least one of them is well enough to lead us to the base." Bryce pointed out - more as a reminder to Casey than anything.

"I know this is all very sudden, and it's a lot to ask for you to endanger your lives like this..."

"Listen, Agent Walker, Neal is my friend. I know he would do the same for me, so lets quit the chitchat and find him before it's too late."

Peter didn't mean to come off sounding so rude, but he was sick of sitting on his hands. It was high time they got somewhere.

"I understand. Let's not waste any more time then."

"Don't worry, Peter," Jones said as they followed Bryce, "We're gonna get Neal back."

"Yeah," Peter replied firmly, "We sure as hell are."

A few minutes later, as they edged around the side of the building, Bryce broke the tense silence that had fallen over them.

"Have you known him long?"

"Huh?" Peter was a little taken aback at the sudden attempt at a conversation.

"Caffrey. How long have you known him? Everyone seems to care about him a lot."

Jones and Peter exchanged looks, both smiling slightly.

"We've known him a while. Spent the better part of three years chasing him, and even when he was in prison, Neal always sent out birthday cards."

"Yeah, and he managed to charm almost everyone in the White Collar Unit less than a week after he started consulting. He's a good guy."

By this time they had reached the side door of the Orange Orange. The men had closed the blinds on the windows, but there were still enough gaps for the three of them to see through.

"How will we get in? I thought I saw them lock the doors when they first entered."

"You underestimate the CIA. The doors can be locked and unlocked from Castle."

Of course they can. Peter thought to himself.

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"You stay put."

Back in Castle, Casey addressed Mozzie, who had been keeping what he designated as a safe distance as he watched the agents.

"Like I planned on doing otherwise..." Mozzie commented, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. He was growing increasingly anxious with each passing minute. Mozzie knew dangerous people when he saw them, and he did not like the idea of the two Suits getting in a shootout with the six men he was watching on the monitor. He shuddered and turned his attention to an interesting piece of lint on his coat sleeve.

Figuring Bryce, Peter, and Jones had been given enough time to get into position, Sarah stuck the gun in her waistband, nodded to Casey, and trotted up the stairs that led to the exit. Sarah hoped they could subdue the men and get information on where Caffrey was before it was too late. But if the Ring was sending agents to the Orange Orange, Bryce must have been spotted somewhere, and that would not be good for the man they mistook for him. She hoped the FBI agents were prepared for bad news, just in case.

Shaking the rest of the thoughts from her head, Sarah appeared from the behind the corner, acting the part of a cheerful employee.

"Hi there! Welcome to the Orange Orange, what can I get for you gentlemen?"

"We want Bryce Larkin." One of the men said, pointing his gun directly in her face.

From where they had been watching from the side door, Peter and Jones took a simultaneous step forward, their FBI training telling them to go to Sarah's aid, but Bryce stopped them.

"Not yet; Sarah knows what she's doing, believe me. We just have to wait for the signal."

"What is the signal, exactly?"

From where they were crouching, Bryce, Jones, and Peter could see Sarah tighten her grip on the gun in her waistband. She whipped it out and dropped behind the counter just as the man aiming at her fired his gun.

"That would be it." Bryce said just before they busted in through the side door.

Three Hours From Present Time:

"Damn it! Get that antidote in here, now!"

Mulligan shouted at the agent he had sent for the medicine. At last he heard the agent coming down the hall, far too slow for his opinion.

"Quickly! I'm loosing him!"

Mulligan snatched the bottle from the agent, knowing it would be his head that would roll if Bryce Larkin died. The boy had stopped breathing, his lips now tinged with blue, and was completely lifeless upon the gurney. Mulligan yanked the needle with the IV tube attached to it out of Neal's arm, speedily replacing it with a new one as he injected him with a syringe full of the antidote.

He congratulated himself for thinking to have the antidote for the poison prepared, but given the current state of the young man, it might do little good. There was only a very weak pulse, and Larkin still was not breathing. He had no idea how he was going to explain to Agent Kane that he had killed his subject without obtaining any information first.

Then, thankfully, Mulligan noticed the color coming back into the young man's face and lips, and he suddenly began to gasp for breath. He remained unconscious, but began to breath steadily, and that was good enough for Mulligan.

"Put him in with his girlfriend, I'm sure she's worried about him." Mulligan sneered, how stupid bonds like love were.

From all of the stories he had heard, he thought Agent Larkin would have handled the torture better... And in Mulligan's opinion, what had been done hardly qualified as torture. Nothing had been broken, burned, or cut, but he would have to change that if he wanted answers. And if he couldn't get Larkin to talk after the next session, he would most certainly get him to when the girl was brought along.

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As Neal swam in and out of consciousness, he became aware that he was moving, or more appropriately, being moved. He was slumped in between two agents, who were dragging him along a corridor of some sort. Neal tried desperately to stay alert, realizing this might be the only time he had the chance to escape, however, he must have blacked out, because when he finally managed to open his eyes again, he found that the agents were no longer there. Instead, Neal was on a mattress, looking into Kate's worried eyes.

"Hey," Neal whispered in a hoarse voice as tried to sit up, but Kate placed a hand on his chest to keep him from doing so.

"Don't, please, you need to rest."

Neal reluctantly complied, currently more concerned about Kate's injury than any of his own.

"I wasn't the one shot in the head," he murmured, grasping her hand, "I thought I was going to lose you."

"It's... just a graze, I'll be fine, I swear."

Kate had to look away a moment to regain her composure. It was her fault Neal was lying there, deathly pale after what he had been through, and yet he was more concerned about her!

"Oh, Neal, I'm so sorry! This is all my fault!"

She flung her arms around him, sobbing. Neal managed to push himself into a sitting position, and hugged her close.

"Kate..."

What could he say? That he didn't care that she had unwittingly brought this upon them? That even as unbearable as the torture was, he would gladly suffer through it as long as she was in his arms by the end of the day? Instead, he remained silent, and cradled her against his chest.

One Hour From Present Time:

Nicholas Tebeck froze outside of the monitoring room, having heard Agents Kane and Gordon conferring. He knew better than anyone not to listen in on private conversations, but he was already there, and his curiosity got the best of him. That, and he felt he needed to fill his head with something to keep him from replaying his conversation with Kate.

There was a crash from the room that would have made anyone else jump, but as a trained agent, this only caused Nicholas to listen in more closely.

"...how can you be sure? And if so, what do you suggest we do?" He could hear Agent Gordon ask, voice cautious.

"The Ring has been aware of CIA activity in the Burbank area. They must have a base set up there, and from the looks of it, the real Larkin just walked into it."

This puzzled Agent Tebeck, but he could not think on it long before Agent Gordon began to speak in reply to Kane.

"What if the man on the tape is the decoy? This could just be a trap."

"That's a chance we're going to have to take, but I think it will pay off. That man is Agent Larkin, I'm positive. Now, I am going to hand-pick six men to send to that yogurt shop. That footage is less than two hours old, and there is no sign of him leaving. I want you to listen very carefully to the instructions that I am about to give you: Take the lookalike, take the girl, and kill them! I don't care how, but it needs to be done. All I want is for you to get out any information you think they might have."

"I'm sorry sir, but the girl too? Isn't she Agent Moreau's d-"

Kane must have interrupted him, but Tebeck was no longer listening. His head buzzed as he took in what Agent Kane had just said. He was going to kill Kate? The only child of Robert Moreau, and Nicholas' own goddaughter?

Nicholas quickly turned back the way he had come from, before Kane and Gordon discovered his presence right outside the door. He had to save her; he could care less about Larkin, they could have hi- Wait. Hadn't they said something about the real Larkin being in Burbank? It now made sense as to why Kate had called him by a different name. That still did not change anything, he was thinking as he walked briskly down the hall to the room Kate was locked in. She was his first priority, and he would not risk her life taking the extra time to find the man mistaken for Larkin.

He glanced both ways down the hall once he got to the door, and when he could see no one in sight, Nicholas used his key to open the door.

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Neal and Kate looked up alarmed at the same time when they heard the key in the lock. They exchanged a quick glance before turning their eyes back to the door and steeling themselves against what might happen next. The door opened, and when Kate saw the man who stepped through, she let out a small sigh of relief.

"Nicholas."

"Kate, you have to get out of here, now!"

He stepped through the door, and Neal and Kate rose to their feet, the former cautiously studying the man. Neal was not likely to put Kate in danger by blindly following a possible Ring agent - even if it appeared he was there to free them.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

"Neal, it's okay," Kate said, her hand finding his, "Nicholas is my godfather, we can trust him."

However, Neal was not the only one who was distrustful. Tebeck was still not completely convinced that the man before him was not Bryce Larkin. Because of this, his worry for Kate's safety increased, and the urgency of the situation presented itself once more.

"We must leave. Kane has sent Agent Gordon to kill you, and he's on his way."

Neal felt he had no choice. At the moment, this was the best chance they had to escape.

"Fine," he consented, "Let's go."

Tebeck lead Neal and Kate down one hallway after other, each with the same, generic, concrete walls. Neal limped slightly from the bullet graze on his leg from the night Kate had tried to help him escape from her father. He still couldn't believe the man was alive and working for the same people who were trying to kill his daughter. What kind of father was he?

Time Unknown:

He was close now, very close. All Agent Moreau had to do was watch closely for the entrance to the base. It was under a rock processing plant, but the way in was a few miles past it. The Ring didn't want to attract attention to themselves by starting the tunnel too close. Robert scanned the uneven ground for the entrance, spotting it just in time.

He turned sharply off of the road; the truck bouncing over the rough terrain before it glided smoothly onto the paved road that sloped downward. Robert floored it as his truck disappeared beneath the earth onto the underground road that led to the base where his daughter was. It was only a matter of minutes before he pulled the vehicle to a stop just before reaching the opening into the base.

Moreau didn't want to be recognized by anyone who would alert Kane to his presence, so he left the truck out of sight and scanned the area for agents before making his way into the base. It was not a large facility, however, the hallways that fed into the main area were enough to confuse him somewhat. It would be easy to get turned around, but Robert had been there two or three times- enough to remember where most of the turns would take him.

Little did Robert know that one turn would soon bring him face to face with a scene that he would never forget.

Present Time:

Jones was not sure what to expect when he, Peter, and Bryce burst in through the side door at the same time as Casey and Chuck came in from the entrance to Castle. He knew that this was way over the FBI's head, but was still honored in being chosen to bring Neal home. He also knew that he was very much worried their lives. Perhaps not so much for the agents - Jones had a feeling they could easily take care of themselves - but for his life and Peter's and Neal's - wherever the poor kid was.

It had definitely not been as easy to subdue the Ring agents as they had suspected. Peter and Jones were used to suspects complying immediately as soon as they yelled "FBI, guns on the ground!" However, they got the opposite result, and were fired upon instead, and were forced to dive behind the counter. Luckily, no one was hit, and the assailants were distracted when Casey and Chuck ended up behind them.

Peter could only blink in surprise as he watched Carmichael single-handedly disarm the six men in a matter of seconds. He never would have thought the kid capable of that, and wondered what his secret was. At the same time, he was a little disappointed - it looked like the extra guns of the FBI would not be needed at this point.

While the others had their guns trained on the Ring agents, Casey and Sarah made sure they were all handcuffed and relieved of their weapons.

"Well, what is this? The FBI getting mixed up into CIA and NSA business? How careless of you."

The man who spoke was obviously the one in charge of the team, and he didn't seem to be threatened by his current situation.

"One of you is going to take us to the base you have just come from. We already know it's under a rock processing plant, but someone needs to show us the way"

"And what makes you think we're going to take you there, Agent Walker?"

"I wouldn't start that, if I were you," Bryce said before she could reply, "You'd be surprised what she can make you do."

Jones could have sworn that was pure Caffrey right there in that statement. How were they not related?

"Agent Walker isn't the only one you should worry about," Peter added, "You people have my friend, and if you don't take us to him, I swear, there will be hell to pay."

"I'd listen to them." Casey shrugged to the man.

"You've got to be kidding me," the agent laughed, "Having an FBI agent threaten me is really the best you can do?"

"I don't know, Agent Cole, I hear it's taken less for you to talk."

After remaining silent since the takedown, Chuck spoke up.

"What are you talking about?"

By the way Cole responded, he knew exactly what Chuck was getting at.

"The Ring wouldn't be too happy to find out you were selling information to the CIA, would they?"

This statement stirred up the five other Ring operatives, and they looked accusingly at Cole. He contemplated for a moment before responding.

"Fine, but the only thing you'll find when you get there is a body."

"You son of a-" Peter took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, "You will take us to him, now."

"If you insist, but it's too late. As soon as Kane found out he was a fake, he sent a man to kill him. That was at least one, two hours ago. Your friend is dead."

Peter felt his heart drop to his shoes. No, he refused to believe it! Neal could talk his way out of anything, he would be okay. But Peter could not shake that sinking feeling.

"Damnit!" Bryce swore, and everyone turned to look at him.

"Sarah, you remember Ernie Kane, don't you?"

"Who doesn't?" She said darkly.

"Can't say I do." Jones said, still a bit shaken from Cole's statement about Neal.

"Mind filling us in on what's going on here," Peter began, "This man has just told us Neal has been killed, and I would really like to prove him wrong."

Jones noticed Carmichael get a sort of glazed look on his face, and was surprised when the young man jumped right in with an answer.

"Agent Ernie Kane. Really bad guy. He's been after Bryce for some time-" here, Bryce gave a 'what can I say' look "-and has agents constantly on the lookout. He's killed a few people who have been mistaken for his target, so he became more cautious. Kane had Robert Moreau set his daughter up with the next man they came across. Apparently, he looked and acted enough like Bryce to be kidnapped and taken to the base."

"You're forgetting that I've had a run-in with Kane before. Caffrey must have done a good job convincing him he was me to have stayed alive this long, but why? Anyone else would have insisted they had the wrong man."

"Kate."

"I thought I told you to stay put." Casey growled.

No one had noticed Mozzie standing behind the counter.

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious? Kate must be with him. Why else would he lie, unless he knew she was in immediate danger."

"That actually makes sense," Peter turned to Cole, "Was there a girl there, too?"

"Kane wanted her killed as well."

Peter rubbed a weary hand over his face.

"So where does this leave us?"

"With Agent Moreau. We can get him on our side if cares at all about his daughter."

"Agent Burke, even if it's too late for Caffrey, we can still take down the men responsible."

"It won't be too late. Now, you," Peter pointed at Cole, "Take us to the base."

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"We're almost out. As soon as we get above ground, we'll get in contact with your father. He'll be glad to hear you're okay."

"Thank you, Nicholas, we'd be dead without you."

"Yeah, well we're not out yet... And I'd rather not run into more people with more guns."

Tebeck turned to Neal, who had not let go of Kate's hand since they left the room.

"Don't worry, Mr.-?"

"Caffrey."

"Mr. Caffrey. There are only about twelve to fifteen agents located here in all, including myself and the ones Agent Kane sent out to attempt to capture the real Agent Larkin. The chances of us being spotted by one of them before we make it out is slim to none."

He peered around a corner as he spoke, and it would hopefully be the last one they would have to round.

"Really? You wouldn't be willing to take a bet on that, would you?"

Tebeck wondered what Caffrey could possibly mean, but in the pit of his stomach, he knew. All of the twelve to fifteen Ring agents had miraculously gotten the drop on them without making a sound. Actually, there were only about ten in all, Ernie Kane included, but that made little difference when they were all armed.

"Damn. I really hate guns."

Neal pushed Kate behind him as the three of them were backed against the wall, and she let a few very unladylike words fly at Kane.

"My father will kill you Ernie!"

"I doubt he will ever get the chance. As soon as the other agents get back with Larkin, we're moving to another base that only I and a few close agents will know about. As for you, Agent Tebeck, I can't say I'm surprised. You were getting close to the end of your life as an agent anyway, so think of this as early retirement. I don't even know your real name," Kane said to Neal, "But no hard feelings, I hope."

Kane backed up, standing out of the way of the other agents.

"Kill them."

Neal and Kate tightened their grip on each other, finding some comfort in being together. Nicholas Tebeck only wished he could have saved his goddaughter. Caffrey seemed like a nice guy; if it were at all possible, he would have saved them both.

Down the hallway, Robert Moreau rounded the corner, the sight before him making his blood run cold. He saw his best friend, his daughter, and Larkin backed against a wall, guns pointed right at them by the other agents. Kane was off to the side, watching what was about to occur.

"KATE!" He yelled as he ran down the hall. Kane looked startled, and Neal, Kate, and Nicholas felt a small glimmer of hope in that split second.

Then, the first gunshot went off.