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Senseless Ch 12
The laws of the physical universe dictated that the echoes of the gunshot would die away, fading from the audible range of hearing and eventually from the annals of memory, but Neal could feel the reverberations bruising his internal organs like the clapper in a hollow bell - the relentless tolling of horror and grief. Hope and despair coexisted in eternal conflict. Peter was Schrodinger's cat, both dead and alive and, while dread loomed large, so did the possibility of relief.
Neal swallowed down the bitter, writhing panic, forcing it wholemeal down his clenched throat and into his roiling, rebellious stomach. Vaguely, he heard Diana whisper, "That wasn't Peter's Glock," but he couldn't have acknowledged the statement even if had registered, because his focus was absolute, fixed on the radio as if arc-welded there, the current supplied by the crackles and murmurs still audible, but impossible to decipher.
The first coherent words, however, did not prove encouraging. Jarvis' voice had lost its cool, contemptuous tone and reached a higher octave in panic. "What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?"
There was only a slim chance this comment was directed at Peter, but it was still a wrenching disappointment when the next voice wasn't his. This gut-churning despair was exacerbated by instant recognition of the speaker. Neal had the verification he was looking for that Petrovic was the man who had hunted him the day before.
The wind-snapped fury in the accented voice conjured instant memories of darkness and cold fear. "You think I'm just going to stand by while you sell me out to this Fed?"
"Don't be ridiculous, and don't forget who's paying you. Besides, he already knows everything. He knows you killed Fowler and that other agent. But we can use him."
It was the admission they'd been looking for, but it passed by unnoticed in the hospital room as every issue formerly of importance was rendered trivial by the addition of another voice.
"So who's going to take the credit for my shooting?" Relief thumped hot and liquid behind Neal's ribs even though the words were halting, Peter's breathing issuing in staccato gasps that sounded painful even through the crackly interference of the damaged line. "Your normal scapegoat isn't available, so please - go ahead and discuss it between yourselves."
How long did it take for back-up to arrive? Hadn't Jones been sitting right outside the house? Neal spared a glance in Diana's direction and found her on the phone, muscles tensed, her physical body mirroring the emotional strain of trying to will help to arrive faster.
It was a fairly transparent attempt to sow dissension in the ranks, but the concept was justified by their previous actions, so an uneasy silence fell, in which Neal could imagine the two men eyeing each other suspiciously. Neal's ears strained to hear the broken cadence of Peter's shallow, pained breaths.
"Just shut your mouth. You're right, I killed Fowler and that other guy, and I'd have no problems putting a bullet through your head to complete the hat trick if you say one more word. In fact I should..." There was the faint thud of footsteps then, with a final burst of static that sounded like a cackle of mechanical laughter, the transmitter went dead.
Neal waited a split second for the machine to relent and restore the life-affirming connection, but when it stubbornly refused to show even a flicker of life, he turned and once more headed for the door, the compulsion to act impossible to deny.
"Neal!" This time it was Diana who called him back. She was listening intently on the phone and waved an imperious finger as an order to wait before refocusing on whoever was speaking. After a minute, she placed a finger over the microphone and quickly hissed, "They're in Greenwich, Connecticut. It'll take us over an hour to get there. Just hold on. Jones is entering the building."
A sense of helplessness crashed over Neal like a cresting wave - dizzying and all-encompassing, freezing him in place. He was unaccustomed to the frustration of inaction. In his life, actively on a con or not, there was always room for one more charming smile, a strategically designed word, or the consideration of carefully formulated plans to improve any situation. Now, he stared at Diana, attempting to predict the news on the other end of the phone line from the expression on her face. He flinched when she let out an uncharacteristic imprecation.
"How?" she asked, adding, "And Peter?" after listening for a few moments. "We need to get a cordon round the area now. Found out what cars he has." As if suddenly remembering Neal's presence, she succinctly summarized the situation for him. "They managed to escape, going out the servants' entrance while Jones was coming in the front. They seem to have taken Peter with them."
Neal closed his eyes for a split second, allowing himself a quiet and brutally efficient freak out, before rolling up his worst fears in a warm, snuggly blanket of denial. "You n-need to go," he stated, He meant it to come out firmly, but instead he sounded hoarse and lost. In a slightly bitter tone, he added, "Clearly, I'm not the one who n-needs protection from Petrovic."
He could see the temptation in her eyes, the conflict between following Peter's last order and doing what was necessary to find him. Neal wanted to beg her to let him come, to allow him to help, but he was afraid to say anything that might adversely affect her decision to leave, because Peter's safety had to be the first priority. He tried to maintain a mask of calm, but urgent, encouragement, but he thought she saw past that to the caged look behind it, the claustrophobic set of his jaw.
Reaching an abrupt decision, she tipped up her chin in a familiar gesture of determination and gestured at his belongings. "Grab anything you'll need. We're getting out of here." Neal's stomach gave a violent swoop of relief, but he merely nodded and gathered up Peter's files and computer as she gave directions to the other agent outside the door. With an economy of words, she directed him to complete Neal's discharge, collect the remainder of his personal effects and to inform Detective Samuelson that they had conclusive proof of Neal's innocence and could find him at the FBI building.
Under any other circumstances, Neal would have been celebrating his return to fresh air and daylight, or at least taking a deeply invigorating lungful of non-antiseptic-soaked air and turning his face towards the sun like a heliotropic plant, but the cost was too high. His freedom, at present, was still on sufferance, but his long-term prospects finally looked promising; yet if the price to be paid were Peter's life, it wasn't worth it.
"I told him it was too d-dangerous," he muttered, mainly to himself, but Diana gave a snort of irritated agreement.
"When we find him, he can listen to the multiple renditions of our 'told you so' chorus, but for now, let's concentrate on getting him back." She threw him the car keys, before doing a double take and asking warily, "Can you drive?" At his offended look, she explained, "I mean, are you sure you're not seeing double or likely to confuse a red light for your personal hat rack?"
He answered her by slipping behind the wheel and revving the engine louder until she took her place in the passenger seat. As Neal drove, she coordinated the search for Peter on her phone, conferencing with both the FBI and local police. While Neal might not have technically met the legal definition of distracted driving, there was no doubt his mind was not on the road. He handled the car on auto-pilot while listening to Diana's side of the conversation. By the time they had arrived at the office, it seemed clear that Jarvis and Petrovic had successfully slipped through the cordon.
Fear corroded his insides. If Peter's life had any value to these men, it was as a hostage, and if they escaped, he would quickly become a liability, a potentially lethal change of status. Time was now their enemy, and Neal's desperation mounted, a roller coaster ticking its way closer to the top of the tracks with every passing minute.
The White Collar unit was humming with the chaotic but well-functioning intent of a hive of worker bees. Directing operations from the second floor, like an elongated Queen Bee, was Reese Hughes. He spotted them as they entered and stilled momentarily, watching them advance. He fixed Neal in a basilisk stare which the CI failed to interpret, but feared was censorious. Hughes took a dim view of his agents being kidnapped. His gaze shifted to Diana, and she received the double finger point. Either fearing his wrath, or frustrated by the waste of time, she did not look thrilled at the prospect.
"We need to figure out where they're heading," she instructed Neal unnecessarily.
His eyes followed her progress up the stairs before cutting over involuntarily to Peter's empty office, the sight emphasising the loss of his friend's stabilizing presence. A wave of despair engulfed him unexpectedly, sweeping him out of his depth and stranding him in uncharted waters. He was surprised to find he was shaking, and not just a fleeting quiver, but a full-body tremor that tried to remind him that he was less than an hour out of a prolonged hospital stay. The adrenaline coursing through his system was causing his fight or flight response to chase its own tail, leaving him confused in the middle. His instincts demanded immediate action and insisted he would be of more use to Peter out in the field, searching through his and Mozzie's extensive contacts, but he recognised that disappearing now would merely cause resources that should be dedicated to Peter to be shifted to find him, and that was unacceptable.
He slammed the Agroking files down on his dusty desk with unnecessary violence, forcing himself to concentrate on the contents. The paperwork emphasised just how many resources Jarvis controlled. As the owner of an import-export business, he possessed many forms of international transportation, which gave him a variety of locations and methods of leaving the country and the finances to make it happen secretly. However, it was unclear whether Jarvis was still in charge or if he was now acting under duress. His plan to remain untouched by the investigation into his company had clearly blown up in his face, so it was possible he'd regained control of his employee and was now attempting to leave the country. It was equally likely that he was listlessly following the assassin's lead in the hope that he'd escape being the next target.
Thinking back to the overheard conversation, Neal remembered another potential lead and quickly picked up the telephone to dial Mozzie, though he was fairly sure it was a futile effort. He bypassed a greeting to launch straight into the important question, "D-did you give Peter a phone?"
"Hi Neal. Yes, I am alive, Neal, thanks for asking. The bullets only whistled by an inch from my ear, but I laugh at danger - ha ha."
Neal winced, but his guilt was brief since not only was Mozzie clearly alive, but his sarcastic paranoia had also survived intact. "I'm sorry, M-mozz, I'm glad you're okay," he parroted dutifully.
As he expected, Mozzie was easily mollified and readily answered the original question. "Yes, I generously lent the Suit a phone in his hour of need."
"Can you use it to t-track his location?" He knew it was a forlorn hope, that Mozzie would already have done so if it were possible.
"I don't use traceable phones." The little man sounded offended. "GPS is for the transparent masses. There are those of us whose lives will remain an impenetrable mystery."
"M-mozz, it's me. You might not use conventional m-methods, but you have a way to t-track your own phones."
"I'm sorry, mon frere. They took it off him before they left. Not only that, they smashed it to pieces, the churls." The indignation was ironic coming from one whose concept of property rights was more fluid than most.
It was what Neal had expected, but disappointment still pushed in hot and sharp as it displaced hope. "Mozz..." Fear was a leaden weight in his chest, and his throat closed with an audible click stopping him from finishing the thought.
Pep talks were not Mozzie's forte, but he gave it his best shot. "Don't worry. We'll bring him home to Mrs. Suit. I've been in contact with my sources on Agroking. I have my ear to the ground, my nose to the grindstone and my eye..."
"Got it M-mozz, thanks." He was about to disconnect, when he heard his friend speaking.
"He did it, right?" The question was tentative.
"What?" Neal's mind was already back working on the logistics of finding Peter.
"The Suit. Did he get the evidence necessary to yank you out from under the oppression of the mini-suits?"
Neal's stomach dropped in a nauseating swoop. He'd shied away from the slightest contemplation of that concept, but it was lodged firmly and painfully in the back of his mind, and he didn't appreciate it being yanked to the front. It was impossible to contemplate Peter dying in an effort to win Neal's freedom and still retain his sanity. There was a long trail of loss in Neal's life, heartache dating back to his childhood. He refused to swell the list still further by adding Peter's name. His response was correspondingly terse. "I d-don't know for sure, but it's not important right now."
Accepting the implied reprimand, Mozz didn't push further, merely promising to contact Neal as soon as he heard anything useful from his sources. The conversation had added to the creeping anxiety that was causing Neal's stomach to cramp and his muscles to jitter in impatient anticipation of constructive action. He'd prefer to harness the more focusing emotion of raw anger, and there was a small part of him that was angry at Peter. He knew it was unfair, ungrateful and ultimately irrational, but it was easier to focus on that than on soul-sapping worry.
Neal firmly believed that their partnership worked at optimum efficiency when he went undercover and Peter came to the rescue and mopped up the bad guys with impeccable timing. He was sure that if their current positions were reversed, Peter would have found him by now. It's what he did - with unfailing consistency. In Neal's allegedly criminal past, it had been a threat, a danger that overshadowed every activity, but now it was a reassuring fact, a promise that lay between them. It was as if Neal were magnetic North and Peter was iron to the marrow in his bones.
In contrast, Neal felt like an amateur fisherman, casting his net into the immense ocean in the hopes of catching one very specific fish. Without a lead or a breakthrough from Mozzie's contacts, the best Neal could do was to hazard an educated guess as to the top three most likely points of departure based on the needs of the fugitives - accessibility and security.
He'd selected his top two choices and was narrowing on the third when Diana hurried up to his desk. He knew her well enough to recognise that her urgency was due more to excitement than anger at whatever Hughes had said. "We've caught a break and found the car. They used the butler's vehicle, which probably helped them elude pursuit." She pulled out a map, tracing a probable route. "An alert parking garage attendant reported it to police. Here."
"Peter?" Panic chewed on the edges of the name.
"He wasn't there. They must have taken him with them, so he still is of some use to them." She hesitated, but decided on full disclosure. "There was blood in the trunk and a bloody handprint on the back of the car. That's what alerted the parking attendant."
"Peter left it for us to find," Neal said with complete certainty. "I n-need to see the car. If he's alive, he'll have left a m-message."
"Jones said there was nothing. He might not have been conscious," Diana pointed out reluctantly.
"I n-need to see the car," Neal insisted. He wanted to make sure that all their bases were covered, so he also quickly extrapolated the nearest international exits from the trajectory of the car's journey. He frowned as he realised that none of them were even on his top ten list. "If I were them," he said slowly, "I would probably set up some m-misdirect and double b-back on m-myself."
"I'll put some people on..." Diana broke off. She was staring across Neal's desk towards the entrance. "Incoming," she warned softly.
Neal glanced up and saw Detective Samuelson barreling through the glass doors towards him, a line of sweat darkening his hairline and a look of righteous indignation on his face. For the first time, Neal had a focus for the anger that had swarmed haphazardly inside. Heat rushed through him, making his knees shake and his toes curl in his shoes. It wasn't the relentless, prejudiced persecution of Neal himself, but the fact that those actions had forced Peter into hasty, even rash behaviour. He welcomed the confrontation that was bearing down on him, but suddenly Diana slipped in front of him, intercepting the challenge. If he were denied a physical solution, he would have to content himself with mauling the policeman verbally. He tried to sidestep around Diana, but she shifted as if by accident, trapping him behind the desk, making it clear that she would handle the situation.
"Detective Samuelson," she greeted him coolly but politely. "I assume you got my message."
"Where's Burke?" he demanded. "I know he's behind this, and I'm lodging a formal complaint."
Diana's cool descended into frigid. "If you mean that he's responsible for discovering the evidence exonerating Mr. Caffrey, then you're correct, but..."
The detective interrupted, uninterested in the reasons behind the thwarting of his taking Neal into custody. "He can explain himself to the Justice Department. Meanwhile Caffrey's coming with me."
"I would have thought you'd be thanking Agent Burke for preventing you from making a fool of yourself, but clearly..."
"I see we have a visitor to our office. Please introduce us, Agent Barrigan."
It was a testament to the heat of the argument that no one had seen Hughes walk up - like missing the arrival of a tall gangly crane.
Diana complied begrudgingly. "This is Detective Samuelson, and this is Special Agent Hughes who is in charge of the New York office."
The seniority implicit in that position impressed the detective to the point of temporary silence, so Hughes, watching the other man with sharp appraising eyes seized the conversational initiative. "Good, glad to see you here. It takes a big man to apologize in person."
Samuelson spluttered, his skin darkening as he floundered for a diplomatic answer, clearly unwilling to spoil the good opinion this influential man held of him, but also horrified at the idea of apologizing. His quandary allowed Hughes to continue uninterrupted. "We are, of course, delighted to cooperate with your department. Here's a picture of your murderer." He held out a hand, and Diana promptly slapped a photograph of Petrovic into it.
"What evidence..?" the detective was able to fall back on professional instincts.
"Fairly incontrovertible, I would say," Hughes assured him. "Not only do we have eyewitness testimony, but we also have a recorded confession from his own lips. Agent Barrigan?"
Diana leaned over Neal's desk and clicked a couple of buttons on the computer. The sharp, hate-filled tones of the Serbian assassin boomed through the speakers. "You're right, I killed Fowler and that other agent." She cut it off before he could deliver the ultimate threat, but Neal could still hear it, the words gutting him from the inside. They robbed him of any enjoyment in Hughes' masterful manipulation of the situation.
Samuelson rallied enough for a final attempt at bolstering his cause. "I must protest at Agent Burke's unwarranted interference in this investigation."
Hughes' right eyebrow threatened to take up residence in his receding hairline. "Agent Burke had nothing to do with your investigation. He was investigating a fraud case which falls entirely within our purview and, it turns out, broke up a deadly gun-smuggling ring in the process. He was interrogating the CEO of that company when the murderer, whom you had not apprehended, burst in and kidnapped him. I would say that your incomplete and bungled investigation interfered with his. Now, we're extremely busy trying to recover our lost agent, and I need Caffrey for that. Please make sure all the charges against him are dropped. If that is completed expeditiously, I might be able to persuade Caffrey not to sue you and your department."
As the detective shot a glance in his direction, Neal met his eyes with a stony expression that indicated anything but forgiveness. Defeated, and scrambling to retain a scrap of dignity, Samuelson retreated.
Hughes appeared unmoved, as if he'd merely swatted away an annoying fly. Fixing his steely gaze on his two subordinates, he ordered, "Get my agent back."
"Let's go." Diana briskly grabbed the map and several files before heading for the door at a speed that put them in grave danger of sharing an elevator with the unhappy Samuelson.
Neal's gaze was repeatedly drawn to the clock on the dashboard as they drove along, every subtle morphing of a digit another minute an injured Peter was in the hands of a murderer. Fear building up and lodging in his throat choked him with every passing mile. By the time they arrived at their destination, an hour and a half had passed since their last communication with Peter.
It was a relief to see the stalwart figure of Jones at the scene. He greeted Neal warmly, "It's great to see you out of a hospital bed, but I wish the circumstances were different." Neal's return greeting was no less heartfelt, but considerably more perfunctory, his attention already having been grabbed by the pale green Taurus carelessly parked nearby. The light color only accentuated the smudged, but perfectly recognisable handprint which gruesomely decorated the trunk of the car. The fingertips were not pointed up as they would have been if the owner had been opening or closing the trunk, but they were pointed downwards.
"His hands were tied b-behind him," Neal recognised instantly. He reached out a finger as if to trace the boundaries of the shape, but dropped his hand at the last minute. "I n-need to look inside."
Jones paused. "Neal, you need to know, it's not good."
The warning was probably more traumatizing than the absence of one, reminiscent as it was of cautions at grisly murder scenes. Neal's heart slammed in his throat before he remembered that the car had been empty of all occupants when found. Realising to what the warning referred, he braced himself, but even still, as the sweet, coppery smell of blood - Peter's blood - hit his nostrils, his teeth bit savagely into his lower lip, leaving white indents, to quell the sudden nausea.
As he grimly surveyed the large, sticky stain, he reminded himself that Peter must have been able to walk away from the scene. Neal had always had a vivid imagination, and now it painted an all-too-clear picture of Peter locked inside, the air stale and damp as he tried to pull in thin, careful breaths, the bright taste of blood thick in the back of his throat.
Neal was familiar with the pain of being shot, remembering all too vividly that initial numbness of shock that quickly translated to increasing burning, the agony that pulsed outwards from the wound. They didn't know the severity of Peter's injury, but judging by the amount of blood loss, it wasn't trivial, and he couldn't imagine the pain that would have been caused by the jostling he'd have received in the trunk.
A hand came to rest on Neal's shoulder, and he realised that he'd been staring into the trunk for some minutes.
"He probably wasn't in any condition to leave a message," Jones said quietly, an understated kindness hidden in his words.
"N-no, this is Peter. He would have found a way. You know he's endlessly resourceful." With new determination, Neal turned a more assessing gaze on the trunk. It was remarkably empty, and cleaner than most cars. There was a small tool kit packed into one side and some emergency lights in another, but with his hands tied behind him, Peter had probably been unable to twist his tall frame around to access them. There didn't seem to be any blood on them, which indicated they'd been untouched. However, it was clear that Peter had tried to kick out one of the rear lights, but had either lacked the positioning and leverage, or possibly the strength, but he'd caused some damage inside the car. Neal felt carefully through the broken pieces for anything that might be construed as a clue, but there was nothing, so he ran questing fingers along the lip of the trunk, still without success.
As he peered into the dim recesses of the interior, it occurred to him that it was darker than it should be. Further inspection revealed that the plastic cover of the light had been broken, and the glass bulb inside smashed. He bit his lip thoughtfully as he considered possible explanations.
"Do you have anything waterproof in your car?" he asked abruptly.
"Sure, I'll get it." Jones turned away, but Neal reached out a hand to stop him.
"Something you don't m-mind getting..." He flicked his gaze back to the car.
Jones successfully picked up the implication and silently finished the sentence, "...covered in Peter's blood." He returned with an old rain jacket that Neal placed carefully over the sanguineous stain before crawling in on top of it. Lacing his hands behind him, he wriggled into the position a bound man would take, then nodded at the two agents staring down at him with barely concealed anxiety. "Close it."
He thought Diana would protest, but after an exchange of glances between the two agents, Jones pulled the door down and allowed it to click shut. The darkness and claustrophobic confines of the space were immediately oppressive, but it was the metallic tang that crammed inexorably down Neal's throat that brought his gorge rising up to meet it. He had to take several rapid gulps to prevent the unscheduled reappearance of his breakfast. He nearly abandoned the project, but he needed to know what Peter had experienced, to copy his movements, so he let urgency drive personal discomfort from his mind.
He levered his knees under him, moving around as if thrown by the car's maneuvers. He thought of asking Jones to hotwire the car and take it for a spin, but knew there was no way he would avoid 'contaminating the crime scene' under those circumstances. As his fingertips brushed on the hard plastic roof at the back of the trunk, he detected a strange roughness. Swinging onto his back, he broke free from the imaginary manacles, bringing his hands up to explore his find.
"Got it!" He thumped on the roof above him with a fist. "Open up!"
Instantly, there was a click, and bright light flooded in, silhouetting two heads against the sky. "I need paper and a pencil," he ordered, no one caring that he was giving orders to the agents. One of the heads disappeared, and while he waited, Neal ran his fingers repeatedly over the scratchy bumps and depressions he'd found. The requirement of a pencil rather than a pen caused a slight delay, but soon Neal was shading over the pattern and providing visual proof of what his sense of touch had discovered.
He clambered out of the trunk, triumphantly waving the sheet of paper. His weakened right side gave way, the knee collapsing, as he landed. Jones made a grab at him to assist, but Neal caught hold of the car and waved off the help. He refused to even acknowledge his own weaknesses now. Slamming the sheet down on the hood, he waved at it in invitation. They gathered around enthusiastically, but eagerness quickly changed to puzzlement. Jones tilted his head uncomfortably to one side in the hopes that a new perspective would help while Diana traced lines between the marks as if it were an elaborate connect-the-dots challenge.
"I don't see..." she began slowly at the same time as her colleague queried, "What does...?" They both broke off, looking at Neal expectantly.
Now it was his turn to level a look of incomprehension. "It's Braille. Well, technically it's reverse Braille since he was punching holes rather than raising m-marks."
Jones interest was renewed. "Oh. Peter knows Braille."
It wasn't really a question, but Neal answered it anyway. "Of course he does - and Morse Code and Semaphore and fingerspelling in ASL and pretty much every communication code out there. There was a t-time, back when..." he gestured vaguely behind him in a way that alluded to his murky past, "...I was using Braille in some communications that Peter intercepted. I think that's when he learnt it."
"So what does it say?" Diana prompted impatiently.
Neal hesitated. "I'm n-not entirely sure," he admitted. "It's not exactly t-textbook printing. He was shifting around a lot as the car accelerated, cornered and b-braked - not exactly ideal conditions for what is a p-precise system of writing." His fingers smoothed across the first clump of marks. "This is either a P or an L and an A close together. I'm voting for the latter, since the next is an N. Then there is a C or an E. It's impossible to tell which, since only the d-direction in which they're lined up d-differentiate them. The last is almost certainly an E."
"Lanee, Lanec, Lance," Diana tried out experimentally.
"Below we've p-probably got an A and an I, although...no I'm going with that."
"Artificial intelligence, Amnesty International," Jones hazarded a few guesses.
"He might not have had the chance to finish," Diana suggested. "They might have arrived, or ...well, he was already injured going into the operation."
"He cut himself on the glass he used to m-make the letters," Neal contributed. "It was a left hand print on the boot and he'd earlier injured his right hand."
They all silently contemplated the message that Peter had literally taken such pains to leave them. Neal's lips moved as he sounded out all the possible permutations in contained. One combination held a familiarity, and he rolled it around inside his mouth as if tasting a fine claret. He hoped it wasn't one of those pre-hole-in-the-head memories that proved so elusive. Limping over to Diana's car, he sorted through the files until he found the one he wanted, then leafed quickly through its pages.
Finally, he jabbed a triumphant finger. "Lance Air. He was trying to write Lance Air. Peter suspected, b-but couldn't prove it was connected to Agroking. It's based in a private air strip owned by a shell company. There was a pattern of flights coinciding with financial aggregation on the part of Agroking. They're b-based in Hilton Heights, and from there they could fly to anywhere in the country."
It was a tenuous connection, an almost transparent paper trail based on seemingly random pinpricks in an abandoned car, but both agents knew that Neal was always the first person to divine their boss's intentions. Peter was the only one who could keep up with the labyrinthian twists and turns of Neal's mind, but the converse was also true. Their brains were geared to the same puzzles and codes, thrived on the same type of challenges. So if Neal said that Peter had directed them to Lance Air, both agents were willing to stake their careers that that was where they would find their quarry.
As they once more took to the road, Diana called Hughes to update him on the investigation and ask for backup. Worry was still a tight squeeze in Neal's chest, but he felt better knowing they were on Peter's trail, closing in on his location. It was welcome progress.
This tentative optimism didn't last long, and the sight of the padlocked gates at the entrance to the airstrip didn't revive it. Diana didn't stop or make their interest too evident, but rolled on, coming to a stop further down the road in the shelter of some bushes where they were shortly joined by Jones.
"We need to do some reconnaissance while we wait for reinforcements," Diana stated. "We don't want to charge in blindly and get Peter killed." She glanced across at Neal, who was leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed. She didn't like the translucent papery appearance to his skin that signaled complete and utter exhaustion. "Caffrey, you stay here for a moment while we scout around. We're not leaving you out of the action. Just take a breather while we get a feel for what's happening."
"I can't just s-sit here," he protested, an edge of desperation in his voice, but he subsided when Diana reiterated that it was just a temporary measure. He resumed his recumbent position and closed his eyes again, the perfect picture of an invalid pried prematurely from his hospital bed, but the two agents missed the slits of blue that followed their progress until they were out of sight. As they disappeared, Neal sat up cautiously, slightly surprised by the success of his ruse. In fact, he was mildly insulted that his team mates could even entertain the idea that he was capable of sitting back and relaxing while Peter was in danger. However, he supposed they'd seen him
flat on his back for a long time, and had accepted his demoted status as a patient.
There was a small part of him that felt bad for deceiving them, but he knew they wouldn't allow him to explore by himself, and the urge to find Peter was a living thing riding the crests of his muscles. He slid out of the car, pushing the door gently shut behind him. While the two agents had crept off in opposite directions, investigating the periphery of the airstrip, Neal's instincts took him up and over, although instead of his usual blithe scramble it was a laborious climb, awkward and exhausting, his descent more of a controlled fall than a deliberate clamber down. He landed heavily, and it sent a flash of pain through his head so bright it stole his breath away.
He grabbed at the fence to prevent a collapse to both knees. His stealth mode had been compromised, so he had to employ alternate strategies to stay unnoticed. He slunk around the side of a hanger. A quick glance inside showed him no activity, so he had no qualms about pilfering a cap and a pair of overalls which he slipped on. Adopting an unassuming, almost bored air, he slouched openly out onto the airstrip, heading for the area of greatest activity. He heard Petrovic before he saw him, the killer's voice sharp and angry, although that may have been his normal tone, because Neal had never heard it any different. He grabbed a discarded pipe from the ground, partly to conceal the unevenness of his gait and partly to look gainfully employed, and followed a tangential course to their location.
The argument continued, the clash between Petrovic's desire for an immediate departure and the pilot's insistence that a plane was not like a car and could not pick up and leave on a whim. Neal sent up a mental prayer of thanks for all bureaucratic red tape with the pleaful addendum for said red tape to get twisted into a knot that would prove impossible to disentangle.
With his head down and the cap pulled low over his eyes, he trudged across the mouth of the hanger, risking one seemingly incurious glance inside. He'd learnt never to break character on an operation, yet at the sight that met his eyes, he almost stumbled, blood condensing to frozen sludge in his veins. Petrovic and Jarvis were both standing near the plane, the assassin gesticulating at the vehicle in an effort to emphasise his point, but of Peter, there was no sign.