Chapter 10

Peter thought that having CIA agents investigating would slow Kramer down. It hadn't. Kramer placed a file in front of him a little before lunch.

"I've managed to link Neal Caffrey to a number of different aliases and names," he announced. Peter noticed the smug tone in Kramer's voice. Showing his disapproval on his face, Peter skimmed the files. Arms dealing, terrorism, destruction of property, fraud;

"Assault and murder?" Peter read out in disbelief. He placed the file back on his desk. "How are you linking this to Neal? He's non-violent and anyone in my team could tell you that."

"I found a new alias Caffrey has been using," Kramer explained, "it seems he kept his worst aliases linked to this different name and not to Neal Caffrey. Now that I have his other alias, stuff like this keeps popping up." Kramer didn't mention the number of confidential and top secret files he had ignored during his investigation. "I've kept the aliases out of it." It was obvious that all the names had been blacked out. Peter resisted the urge to roll his eyes; he had been around Neal too long.

"I don't know why you're telling me this," he said bitterly. All this meant was that Kramer could say that Peter wasn't a good handler for Neal, since he had missed it. He could suggested that Peter and his team had been taken in by the non-violent façade Neal presented.

Kramer could become Neal's handler. And he wasn't telling Peter any of this.

"I thought you would like to know what kind of man you've been working with."

Peter stood up and grabbed his jacket.

"Petey?"

"I've got a lunch date with El," he said, "and I'm going to be late." It was a weak excuse and a lie but he didn't think he could stand being in the same room as Kramer right now. He wanted to punch the guy.

He called El as soon as he was in the elevator. Thankfully, she was okay with the short notice about the lunch date. It was spontaneous, in her words.

The smell of pizza wafted around the table as the food was placed down. Morgan was practically drooling, diving into the nearest box as soon as it was in reach.

Chuck was slightly more restrained. He had enough self-control to let the women go first.

"We had no luck chasing down dad," Alex reported as she sunk into the soft seats of the booth. She was regretting her choice of high top boots as she could almost smell her feet from the sweat they had worked up while searching the streets of New York.

"Have you thought about getting the FBI to help?" Morgan suggested around his second pizza slice.

Sarah gave Alex a 'how do you put up with that' look as she responded;

"It's not a good idea to tell the FBI that we're looking for someone who's gone AWOL."

"Technically, he had leave," Chuck pointed out, countering her use of the term 'AWOL', "its just that it's out of character for him to take it."

"And now he's missing," Sarah pointed out, "why else haven't Alex and Morgan found him?"

"So, the FBI?" Morgan questioned again.

"Are likely to blow the whole thing out of proportion."

"And it makes you guys look bad," Alex suggested confidently. Sarah glared at her and she shrugged. "It's true, isn't it?"

"What about what you two were up to?" Morgan asked, instantly jumping in as peacemaker. Or 'avoid fight breaking out' maker.

Chuck dug the file out of his bag and passed it to Morgan.

"Agent Burke didn't give us much," Chuck explained.

"Aren't fake IDs his area anyway?" Alex asked as she moved onto her second slice of pizza. She successfully managed to snatch it from the pizza box in front of Morgan. He tried to swat her hand away; gently because she was his wife and her father could break him in two, but she was too quick. She passed the pizza to her plate and then used her other hand to move it away from Morgan so that he couldn't recapture it.

"Yes. But I think we walked into some internal departmental chest pounding thing," Sarah explained.

"Actually, Agent Kramer; the guy who's investigating the case, is a visiting agent from DC," Chuck explained.

"DC?" Morgan questioned, "what's he doing here?"

"Something about a missing U-boat," Chuck ignored Morgan's, 'the one with the Hitler clones' comment. "And stolen Nazi treasure."

"So the treasure part was real?" Morgan questioned, turning to Alex, who was the only one willing in indulge his moment of whimsy.

Alex shrugged and Chuck added;

"I can't find much between when the U-boat was discovered and the arrest but, the guy confessed after being charged with kidnapping."

"How is this relevant?" Sarah asked.

"I think they're hiding something from us."

The last thing Peter expected at seven pm was a phone call from CIA agents. But, Agent Carmichael's hesitant voice responded to his short, 'Agent Burke,', with an invite to lunch the next day.

"Get him out of the office," Sarah had suggested to Chuck, "some people talk more when they don't think their superiors are listening."

"A lunch with the CIA?" Elizabeth questioned, "how interesting." She tucked her arms around her husband, in a position about to hear the person on the phone speak.

Peter noticed that Agent Carmichael didn't come across as a confident speaker. He was professional, or as professional as an agent asking another agent to lunch in order to discuss a case could be, but hesitant. And Peter could swear he could hear Agent Walker in the background, giving instructions. But, he had his own parrot on his shoulder to worry about.

"They're the CIA," he explained to his wife, muting the phone for a moment. "They don't do lunch for the sake of lunch."

"Isn't this all to help Neal?" Elizabeth asked with a raised eyebrow. There was an excited tone to her voice that made Peter think that this isn't all about Neal. After all, Agent Carmichael had extended his invitation to his wife. "Plus, it's a good restaurant, Peter. You know how I've been wanting to go."

"This is a bad idea," Peter commented before resuming the call.

He agreed in the end because that's what good husbands do.

Elizabeth dressed like this was a date. She left instructions with Yvonne so she didn't have to worry about her business and picked up a harried Peter from work.

The agents were already seated when they arrived. They introduced themselves using their first names.

"So, Sarah, how did you and Chuck met?" Elizabeth asked as Peter read through the menu. She could almost see his veins popping at the prices. They were mid-range but more than they usually spent on lunch.

Sarah and Chuck shared a look.

"Sarah brought her phone in," Chuck explained in a slightly strained voice, "for me to fix. I worked with the nerd herd. I was a herd herder."

"He seemed like a nice guy, so I asked him out," Sarah continued, fiddling a little in response to her husband's nervousness. Chuck never did learn how to tell white lies properly. Ironically enough, the closer to the truth, the harder it was for him to sell the lie.

"Nerd Herder?" Peter questioned. El slapped him under the table.

"They're those guys from the Buy More who install and fix computers," she told him, "I told you about the time I had to call them in when I was in California."

Peter vaguely remembered that story. El had said that a speaker broke down and she needed to get it replaced. One of the locals suggested calling the Buy More computer staff.

"How does a Nerd Herder end up in the CIA?" he mused.

"That's classified," Sarah said.

"It's a long story," Chuck said right after, "a really long and confusing story."

Elizabeth leant forward, wanting to know more.

"Oh, there's Morgan," Chuck changed the subject as he waved his friend over.

Elizabeth and Peter shared a look as Morgan walked over. Peter was slightly reminded of Moz, if he didn't have glasses and had hair. El hadn't been expecting anyone else to join them.

"Hey, Chuck!" Morgan said. He walked over and pulled up a chair, dropping into it with little grace. He acted like they were in a fast-food place rather than a mid-scale restaurant. "Sorry I'm late."

"We didn't know you were coming," Elizabeth said with a smile, "hi, I'm Elizabeth Burke, Peter's wife."

"Morgan," he responded with a nod. He turned to Peter. "And you're Peter Burke, FBI. Nice to meet you."

Peter nodded while Sarah looked like she wanted to slap Morgan.

"Anyway," Morgan kept talking, "I just came to give my report and then I'll be heading back to the hotel. Alex got food poisoning from something so I've gotta go look after her."

"Oh no," Elizabeth said, feeling a burst of sympathy for Alex; even though she had never met her. Elizabeth had food poisoning before and it wasn't pleasant. "You should hurry back to her." Hopefully, Morgan was better at bedside manner than Peter was.

Morgan nodded in agreement before turning back to Chuck.

"Yeah, so no luck today either. It's like Casey just," he made a bursting motion with his hands, "'poof', vanished."

"Casey?" The name hit a cord with Peter. It didn't take him long to remember why; Peter automatically remembered anything related to Neal Caffrey. "John Casey?" The NSA agent who had picked Neal up.

The other agents' eyes seemed to light up. Morgan practically jumped in his seat. Chuck flicked through his phone and passed Peter a photo.

"You've seen this man?" he asked.

The picture showed the man Peter had met; no question about it. It seemed the more he tried not to worry about Neal, the more the world plotted to show him how much he should.

"He's not a criminal, is he?" Elizabeth asked, feeling the same worry open up a hole in her stomach.

"No, no, he's not a criminal." Chuck responded. His assurances did little to help. Morgan muttering, "depends who you ask," didn't help either. "He's a member of our team," Chuck added.

"He went off-grid a few days ago," Sarah informed them, "we know he came to New York, we just don't know why. When your request came through," she nodded at Peter, "we were chosen to take it mainly because Casey was already here."

"We didn't know the two instances were connected though," Chuck said.

Elizabeth had a theory, which she wanted to share with Peter but didn't want to talk about in front of these agents. She hadn't been able to contact Mozzie the past few days, which would have been normal except Neal and now this 'Casey' had gone off-grid as well.

When she brought it up to Peter that night, he seemed to agree.