Chapter 10

It had taken no time at all for Peter's FBI team to be cleared for a mission to Boston to get Neal back. With everything going to plan, they would arrive at the airport three hours before Neal's plane from Phoenix, arrest him before he was able to escape and be back in New York before sundown. No need to even sped the night.

There was as easy quiet in the administration room the FBI had commandeered within the airport, everyone knew their role and there was nothing that could or would go wrong.

Except a plane arriving half an hour early for the first time in the company's history.

Peter and his FBI team made a mad dash to the gate and their hopes lifted when they saw people still filing out.

"Have business class gotten off yet?" Peter panted from the run, posing his question to an airport hostess pointing people toward baggage claim.

"Yes, sir," she replied, her tone annoyingly cheery given the situation. "Business class disembarked from the plane twenty minutes ago."

Peter barely turned away from the hostess before cursing. Neal could be absolutely anywhere in the godforsaken airport or be on his way out the doors that moment.

Turning his attention to Diana he asked her to go back to the administration room and print out copies of Neal's mug shot so that they could ask people leaving if they'd seen him. It was a long shot but it was one they had to take if they didn't want to have to sit through hours of airport security footage looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack called Neal Caffrey.

Some of the junior agents knew the task was futile but they trusted Peter Burke's insight and were showing tired and frustrated travellers a mug shot of a man who you would think was a good choice to bring home to your mother. The answer they always received was a no or a slight shake of the head but Peter's enthusiasm that they'd catch a break gave them the motivation to move on to the next person.

Peter spotted a middle aged woman with three children under ten hanging off of her with a large t-shirt advertising Phoenix, Arizona and approached her hoping she'd been on the same plane as Neal.

"Ma'am, have you seen this man?" he asked, holding the mug shot up at her head height so that she had no option but to stop.

She inspected the mug shot carefully. "No, I can't say I have. What could this charming-looking man have possibly done that the FBI is after him?" she asked, her tone challenging.

"Well, uh," Peter stammered, his attention drawn to a man dressed in grey slacks and a polo shirt, with a Boston Red Sox cap pulled over his sunglasses covered eyes.

"Well, what?" the woman pressed.

Peter had to let the man go but took some solace in the fact that Jones had stopped him. "Ma'am, this man is a known conman convicted of forgery but suspected of a whole lot of other things. We're trying to catch him before he steals something like that pretty little necklace you have on."

The woman's hand flew to her neck before she hurried her children along. Peter hadn't meant to scare her but he wanted another look at that man in the baseball cap only to find that Jones had already moved on from him and he'd disappeared.

Frustrated, Peter put his hands on his hips and felt something poking out of his jacket pocket. Removing it he noticed it was a postcard with the sentiment of wishing he was there and a picture of Fenway Park. Turning it over in his hands, Peter saw the note scrawled on the back in handwriting he knew well.

'Peter, sorry I missed you. Have fun in Boston. I'll be in touch soon. Neal.'

Scrunching the postcard in his hand, Peter searched for a Boston Red Sox cap bobbing along in the crowd knowing that it would most likely be the conman under it.

"NEAL!" he shouted, hoping to see a hat clad figure turn around at the name but while many people turned around none of them were the man he was looking for.

"What is it, boss?" Diana asked at Peter's side, her eyes also scanning the faces in the crowd.

Peter handed her the postcard and jabbed his finger at it. "He was right here," he said, frustration edging into his voice. How could they have missed him again? "He put that in my pocket and I missed him."

"Did anyone see Caffrey?" Diana called to all the other agents.

They all responded the same way the travellers they were asking did, with a no or shake of the head. Neal had managed to slip right past them, leaving a little note in the process, without anyone seeing him.

"Jones," Peter turned to the agent. "You spoke to a man in a Red Sox cap and sunglasses, right?"

"Yeah, he spoke in a Southern accent and said he'd not seen Caffrey so I let him go."

Peter tried to keep his cool so as not to shout at Jones. "I think that was Neal," he sighed.

Jones wasn't as calm as Peter and cursed loudly. "I'm sorry, Peter, I should have asked him to remove his hat."

Peter waved off the apology, it didn't matter now. Neal was probably long gone from the airport by now. "We need to check the airport security footage," he said and wasn't surprised when Jones volunteered to go through it himself.

In only five minutes the agents were back in their borrowed administration room going over the security footage. Jones was going over the most recent footage and watched as a grainy video of himself spoke with the man they hoped was Neal. He rewound the tape slowly, watching the hat clad man approached the FBI team slowly and pause long enough next to Peter to slip the postcard in his jacket pocket.

"I've got Caffrey on the CCTV at one of those gift shops," one of the junior agents practically cheered. Peter and Diana looked over his shoulder as Neal chatted with the woman at the register as he wrote a note and she put through a Red Sox cap and sunglasses.

"It was him," Peter sighed. "Jones, bring up the cameras from the exterior of the airport. I want to see what he left in and see if we can't do a trace on it."

"Sure thing, Peter," Jones replied and in only a few clicks he was watching Neal climb into a cab. "I'll zoom in on the cab number."

Peter watched silently as the grainy picture became slightly pixelated but the poor quality didn't stop him getting the feeling that he knew the driver of the cap.

"Jones, zoom in on the driver," he said slowly, hoping his eyes were deceiving him.

His suspicion was only confirmed as he cursed at how complicated this man hunt had just become. He pointed at the screen. "Diana, could you tell me who our driver is?"

At only a glace she understood Peter's reaction. "Matthew Keller."

This is just a filler chapter really, to bring to light what Neal wrote on the postcard and so the FBI knew what they were dealing with. Next chapter we find out why Neal ran in the first place! I may post it later today. Leave me lovely reviews and I will :)