Peter paced nervously outside the federal office building where the hearing had been held. There wasn't much of a lobby inside – not even enough to allow for decent pacing – so he'd moved to the plaza.

Every time the door opened, he paused, looking to see who came out.

If he wasn't suspended, he probably could have stayed in the hearing room. And if he wasn't under suspicion of being a murderer, of course.

The door opened again and a woman walked out. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he wasn't watching for a woman, so he let the moment pass.

A few more minutes went by, a few more people left…

The door opened again, and Peter smiled, moving forward. "Well, either the hearing went well, or you've performed another daring escape."

"The windows in the hearing room didn't open," Neal pointed out.

"No bakery awnings underneath anyway," Peter added.

Neal shrugged and lifted the leg of his pants, revealing the green light on the tracker. "She's back."

"Feels good?"

"Well, better than winding up back at Hawthorne anyway."

"Good point. Must have been dull the last few days without my company."

"No one snoring or mumbling in the bunk underneath me, no one accusing me of cheating at cards – which I most definitely was not doing. No one eating up half of my canteen goods…"

"It might not be too late to change my testimony to the probation board," Peter muttered.

"Way too late," Neal said quickly.

"Well, we have other things to discuss anyway," Peter conceded. "Come on, the others are waiting at my house."

"News about James?"

Peter looked around at everyone milling in the open plaza. Mozzie's paranoia was rubbing off… though maybe not without cause. "We'll talk when we get to Brooklyn."

It reminded Neal a lot of the planning meetings when Burke's Seven gathered. And they had seven people again now – but with Hughes stepping in for Sara.

Seeing the older agent at the table when he walked in had been a little surprising. But then again, maybe it shouldn't be…

He got a quick hug from Elizabeth, a fist bump from Diana, a handshake from Jones, and a beer from Peter. But it was Mozzie's satisfied smile that kept Neal's attention.

"What do you have, Moz? Did you find James?"

Mozzie's smile grew as he pulled a photo out of an envelope and slid it across the table. "Confirmed sighting Friday night. And we know who he met."

"You didn't say anything about the meeting."

"We agreed you should just concentrate on the probation hearing," Peter supplied.

"Plus, we don't actually know where he is now," Diana added.

"We do, however, know where he'll be tomorrow night," Mozzie said.

Neal pulled out a chair and sat down. "Tell me."

"He's contacted Devlin about getting papers – Irish papers," Mozzie explained.

"Irish. That explains why it would take a few days," Neal said.

"Gives us time to set up surveillance," Diana said.

Hughes spoke up for the first time. "We need to make this operation airtight, with no chance that James Bennett tips to it ahead of time, or gets away at the end."

Peter clipped a diagram to the whiteboard set up at the end of the table. "The meet is set for this warehouse at nine o'clock tomorrow night."

Jones got to his feet, walking up to the board. "James Bennett was present for some discussions during the Flynn whiskey case, as well as prior to the search of the Empire State Building. It's possible that he knows about the municipal utilities van, so we need a new plan."

"There's an empty retail storefront across the street," Diana said, as Jones pointed out the location on the map. "We're making arrangements with the owner to use the space, and we'll move monitoring equipment in through the back alley after dark tonight."

"The warehouse itself has reputedly undergone extensive renovations since the last time official blueprints were filed with the city," Hughes added. "At least, that was the report from the DEA after a huge drug bust there a couple of months back."

"Hence the reason the building is currently empty and available for clandestine meetings," Peter supplied.

"I have a source working on that," Mozzie said, checking his laptop. "I'm expecting an update at any time now."

"Then we'll know where we might be able to hide agents inside the warehouse before the meet," Diana added.

"What about this Devlin?" Hughes asked. "Will we be able to get him to wear a wire?"

Mozzie shook his head. "Not a good idea."

"He caved pretty fast the one time I dealt with him," Jones noted.

Elizabeth spoke up for the first time, grasping her husband's hand. "But surely if he knows how important it is…"

"It has to be me," Neal said, very softly.

Everyone turned to look at him. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Peter asked.

"Let's just pick Bennett up when he shows tomorrow night," Diana insisted. "We can get a confession out of him."

"He used to be a cop," Neal pointed out. "I'm sure he knows the tricks." He got to his feet and walked to the back window, looking out. "Just finding him isn't enough. We need him to admit what happened, and get it recorded."

"You think he'll talk to you?" Hughes asked.

"I think I have a better chance of getting him to talk than anyone else." Neal looked around, waiting for someone to contradict him.

No one did.

"The backstop plan needs to be foolproof," Peter said, walking up next to Neal.

"We'll work on that as soon as we get the floor plan information," Diana replied.

Mozzie had been tapping at the laptop, and he looked up. "Just sent the diagrams to your printer, Suit."

"I'd like to go check the area myself," Neal said. "Scope it out personally."

Hughes nodded. "Jones, Berrigan, you should probably check out the neighborhood in person tonight. Take Caffrey with you, let him do what he needs to do to be ready."

"I'll come with you," Peter offered.

"No," Hughes said immediately. "Peter, you're suspended. You cannot be involved in this in any way. I probably shouldn't even be letting you in on this discussion. Now I know you have Neal's best interests in mind, but you have to stay out of this."

Peter obviously wasn't happy, though he finally nodded.

"It'll be fine, Peter," Neal insisted. "You know Jones and Diana will see to that."

"Technically, I shouldn't even be letting you go," Hughes said, with a sigh. "With Peter out, your status is a little up in the air."

"Well, since I'm not, technically, employed by the FBI, I'm not sure you can suspend me," Neal said. "As a confidential informant, I could just wind up in the neighborhood…"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I could suspend you." Hughes had his firm in-control tone in his voice. "But I want this resolved, and I have to agree that you're the best option to get James Bennett confessing on tape. You just need to be clear that it has to be done legally."

"I suppose that leaves out the blowgun with the darts tipped with Russian surplus truth serum…"

Everyone turned to look at Mozzie, most with an expression of disbelief. He held up his hands. "It was just an idea," he muttered, turning his attention back to the laptop.

Hughes got to his feet. "All right, I'll leave the specifics to you to plan. Let me know if I need to authorize anything, and how many agents you'll need to cover the area tomorrow night." He paused, shrugging into his suit coat. "I have a meeting with Legal about the documents from that evidence box. There's some question about what we can investigate given how they came into our possession."

Neal looked over his shoulder. "Well, they belong to me, don't they?" No one answered right away, so he turned and came back to the table. "We have a video of Ellen – well, Kathryn Hill, at the time – saying that she intended the box for me. And I'm the sole beneficiary listed in Ellen Parker's will. So if I gave them to you…"

Hughes gave that a half nod. "That's an interesting theory. I'll run it by Legal."

They watched as the older agent left, and then Elizabeth called their attention to the whiteboard. "That's the last of the floor plan printouts," she said, pointing at the pages she had posted.

Peter wasn't going to let anything as silly as a suspension keep him away from the planning. "All right, let's see what we have inside. Then you can take Neal on the field trip."

But as they started looking at the plans, Neal found that he wasn't actually paying much attention. He had every confidence that the agents would come up with a solid back-up plan; they always did.

He turned his thoughts to how to deal with James…

It was a mostly clear night, with a quarter moon high in the sky. It offered some bare illumination to the area, which was good, because most of the streetlights were out.

Actually, one light had been working the night before, but a call to Mozzie, and an additional call to have Kato bring his air gun, had taken care of that. Neal wanted it as dark as possible, the better to hide the FBI agents nearby.

He wasn't too worried about the actual command post. The storefront had windows that were boarded over, and they had hung blackout curtains on the inside. As a precaution, the agents were still working under low light conditions, but it was highly unlikely that the glow from all of the monitoring equipment could be seen from the outside.

The agents stationed on the surrounding streets, however, were a different matter. They had a variety of vehicles from the motor pool and an inter-agency selection of seized vehicles. There wasn't a Crown Vic – or a municipal van – among them. And even though some of the vehicles looked decrepit on the outside, under the hood they all sported well-tuned engines. Devlin had had no idea how James was planning to arrive at the meet, so they had to be ready for anything.

Inside the warehouse itself, Jones, Diana, and HRT agents were secreted in a back room. A definite plus from the previous drug running owners was the fact that the walls were insulated. That would have kept the heat from the meth lab from showing on a scan, and now it would hide the agents. Not that they expected James to show up with a heat signature scanner, but the room definitely offered privacy.

It also offered easy access to the main room, where the meeting would take place.

It was slightly disconcerting when he'd learned that hostage rescue agents were being placed there – he had no intention of becoming a hostage. But Hughes had explained that HRT was the most experienced group in quick, efficient takedowns.

Diana explained that HRT had the coolest toys.

Overall, Neal guess it was good they were there.

Half an hour before the appointed meeting time, Neal made his approach from the darkest side. A baseball cap hid most of his hair, which was definitely darker than Devlin's. But the jeans he wore would have looked right at home on the forger, and he wore one of the garish shirts the other man favored, with I DO ID in large lettering on the front. Neal paused for a moment on the corner with the best lighting – just enough light to reflect off of the words. If James had come to the area early to check out the meeting spot, it would have been hard to miss the figure slipping into the warehouse.

And if James hadn't come early, the exercise had at least given Neal an opportunity to see for himself that the boarded-up storefront across the way appeared totally abandoned, even with full dark settled in.

He'd refused the offer of a combat vest. Unless he could have gotten one of the Hudson vests, which really did fit with no bulges, it was too easy to see a regular vest under normal street clothing – especially under the t-shirt he was wearing.

Besides, if James was really intent on shooting him, and recognized a vest, he'd probably just go for a headshot anyway. It might be three decades since the man had been a cop, but he'd probably picked up some pointers during his years living under the radar.

The lock on the front door was laughably easy to pick, but Neal tarried over it a bit. Devlin was actually abysmal at picking locks – not that James would have reason to know that. But no sense letting anyone know of any special skills.

Once inside, he resisted the urge to check every inch of the main room. Devlin simply wasn't that paranoid, and James might have picked up on that.

Besides, Jones, Diana, and HRT had been in place for over two hours. They would have checked the whole building, and there had been none of the agreed-upon caution signs.

It would have been nice to have two-way communication on this one, but Neal hadn't wanted to take the chance of being distracted by a voice in his ear. Once James arrived, and found out who he was actually meeting, things could turn messy fast enough. So he was there with just the standard watch that doubled as a transmitter.

This time it wasn't one of the watches that faked an expensive Rolex; it was more similar to the workman-type timepiece he'd used on the DuBois case. But it did have hands that gave off a slight glow in the darkness, and so he settled in to wait, watching as the time ticked inexorably toward the top of the hour.