The rest of Thursday passed quickly, a flurry of activity.
Neal's sketches identified two more suspects, one a current police officer, and one a former marshal. The final sketch remained unidentified, and Blake was running it against an expanded database that included international sources.
Carolyn Hanish returned just after noon. She liked Neal's plan to draw out Donnelly, but wasn't sure how soon her office could be set up to run it; she'd have to do some checking and get back to them. She did, however, have the grand jury convening on Friday, and Neal was scheduled to testify in the morning. If they could work out security arrangements to get her there safely, Hanish wanted Sara to testify in the afternoon.
Leaving Peter and Diana to work out the arrangements to bring Sara back to town the next day, Jones and Hanish headed for the Hamptons. They had a photo lineup for Sara to review, as well as a couple of high tech toys that Diana had arranged – a laptop with a secured channel, and an encrypted satellite phone.
By mid-afternoon, even coffee from Neal's favorite shop down the block wasn't doing much to keep him awake after the week he'd endured. Hughes finally took pity and sent Neal up to his office, and the couch it contained. Peter's office took over as the site of continued security discussions with his boss.
By the time Peter was ready to call it a day, Jones had called back with the news that Sara had identified the same suspects as Neal. He and Hanish had recorded her full statement and, pending the security arrangements, she was prepared to give her testimony the next day. Hughes and Peter worked with Dave Shattuck until all parties were satisfied that it was safe to bring Sara in to testify.
With the office quieting down for the night, Peter finally woke Neal with the offer of food and a ride home.
And he, somewhat reluctantly, attached the new anklet to Neal's leg.
Peter pulled up along the curb in front of June's, but just as Neal reached for the handle to open his door, the agent clicked the lock button.
Neal considered simply using the UN-lock button on his side of the car, but curiosity won out. "I've really had enough of being kidnapped and held against my will for this week, if you don't mind."
"I think we should just pack a bag for you, and then you should come home with me."
"Peter, we've been through this. June has a great security system."
"And we know the nearest precinct to respond to any alarm has been infiltrated. One of the drivers…"
"I know, Peter. I identified him."
"Where there's one, there could be more."
"Well, I'm not going to be bait to bring them to Brooklyn. And if they do come here, you know where the security recordings are."
Neal unlocked his door and got out, closing the door again without looking back. It was easier to put on the air of bravado if he didn't look Peter in the eye. He was fitting his key into the lock when he heard Peter get out of the car and come up behind him. "Are you planning to babysit me? You put the tracking anklet back on," he said, pulling up the leg of his pants to demonstrate. "You'll know where I am."
"Yeah, and the other side can find you that way too," Peter pointed out. He unsnapped his holster and drew his pistol, holding it by his side. "I intend to make sure no one's waiting inside."
Neal opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it. After all of the recent trouble between them, there was something comforting about knowing that Peter… cared.
And hopefully it was more than just not wanting to do all of the paperwork that would ensue if a criminal consultant in the FBI's custody were to meet an untimely end.
He opened the door, and then stepped aside as Peter pushed past, gun leading the way. Neal closed and locked the door, and then fell into step behind him.
They made a methodical search but, just like that morning, there was no one in the house, and no sign that anyone had been there. Neal's apartment was the final stop, and both men seemed to breathe easier when it was also empty.
Peter re-holstered his gun as he came out of the back hall. "Well, you seem to be alone."
"Under the circumstances, I guess that's good."
"Yeah, it is. And hopefully Hughes can get a protection detail approved tomorrow."
"I think he'll get the same answer as today – it's too much expense for an ex-con."
"That's not exactly how they put it."
Neal just smiled. "Close enough." He set a bottle of wine on the counter and opened the cupboard, making a deliberate show of pulling out a goblet – just one. "Go home, Peter. I'll be fine."
"You're sure you have everything you need?"
"Positive."
"All right. Come down and lock up after me, and I'll see you in the morning."
Quiet reigned for the next couple of days, though no one was ready to let his or her guard down.
Thursday night saw no attempts by anyone to get into June's house. That didn't mean that Neal got much sleep – way too many things to think about – but at least it wasn't because he was fighting off intruders.
His grand jury testimony on Friday morning went off without a hitch. Even though there was no defense attorney to do a cross-examination, Carolyn Hanish wanted to make sure that the jurors were aware of all of the facts before making a decision on an indictment. After discussing it with Neal before going into the room, she led him through questions about his previous career, his arrest and prison time, as well as his current involvement with the FBI. Then she called Peter as a witness in a brief appearance to validate Neal's testimony.
Sara was brought back to town under heavy secrecy to testify in the afternoon. Neal was already gone, and they didn't have a chance to meet due to security concerns. But they did have a chance to talk briefly on the phone while Jones and Shattuck were confirming the details of her return trip to the Hamptons. It wasn't much, but it was at least a chance to verify for each other that they were really fine after their ordeal.
Hughes was willing to approve a team to watch Neal's apartment, but the request was blocked at a higher level. It didn't take too much digging to find out that the roadblock was from OPR, which brought back Boone's threat to commandeer Tuesday's hearing. Shattuck was trying to get some officers tasked, but they had to move carefully on that end too so as not to alert anyone who might be working for Donnelly.
Neal spent Saturday cooped up in his apartment, on Peter's orders. He'd tried to argue, but Peter had simply threatened to call the marshals and officially restrict his radius to the house. That, somehow, seemed even more restrictive than just agreeing to stay home, so Neal promised.
He was marginally surprised when there was a knock on his door just before noon, and he opened it to find Peter there. Claiming to have just been in the neighborhood, Peter unloaded a bag of takeout Chinese food onto the table, and opened another bag to reveal a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine – even with a cork, as Peter took pains to point out. And honestly, the wine wasn't bad – which was good, because it helped take his thoughts off of the mind-numbing boredom he felt at the baseball game Peter insisted on watching.
Peter's feigned surprise when Diana showed up later in the afternoon was much greater than Neal's actual surprise. She had some cold case art theft files that she had just happened to chance upon and needed to discuss. She also had Greek takeout with her and they dined on gyros and spanakopita and baklava over a bottle of wine.
They never quite got around to looking at more than one file. Fortunately, Diana preferred a good action flick to baseball, so they passed a couple of pleasant hours dissecting The Bourne Identity.
By the time Jones showed up later in the evening, a bottle of Scotch in hand, Neal wasn't surprised at all. He thought about protesting that he shouldn't combine wine and hard liquor… but it had, honestly, never been a problem before. He did try the protest that he didn't need a babysitter, but it was half-hearted, and Jones had just smiled and asked where the glasses were.
Most of the bottle of whiskey later, Jones was sacked out on the couch, claiming to be too drunk to even take a cab home. Neal had a few suspicions about that – Jones was sober enough to make a security sweep before going to sleep, he refused Neal's offer to show him to one of the guest rooms June always kept ready, and the agent made sure to place his service weapon just so in order to have it readily at hand, should the need arise.
Truthfully, it made Neal feel good to know that Diana and Jones would give up their time off to make sure he was safe. After the tension of the last couple of months, he wasn't sure he'd ever experience that again.
Something else he'd miss after Tuesday, if…
But he couldn't let himself think about that now. They were still hoping that Hanish might get the sting approved and set up for Monday.
So he went to bed, finally falling asleep to the sound of Jones' snoring.
On Sunday morning, Neal cooked breakfast – ham and mushroom omelet, hash browns, bacon, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. After they ate, Jones offered to stay a while, ostensibly to go over the other files Diana had left behind, but Neal pointed out that he could review the files all by himself. He virtually pushed Jones out the door, promising to call if anything seemed out of the ordinary. In return, he tried to get Jones to promise to call off anyone who might just happen to be planning to stop by that day. The agent refused to commit to that, but admitted no one else was expected soon.
In retrospect, that turned out to be a mistake.
It was less than an hour after Jones left when they showed up…
With the apartment to himself again, Neal cleaned up. He washed and dried the dishes from the day before and put them away. If he really never came back again after Tuesday, he wouldn't leave a mess for June.
He considered calling Peter and repeating his request for no surprise visitors that day, but that probably wouldn't do any good. Maybe he'd pull up the security feeds on the television and at least have some warning. But that could wait, and in the end, he just headed for the shower.
The water was hot, the pressure wonderful, and even though he knew it wasn't really the case, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was still dried sea salt on his skin and in his hair. So he took his time, lathering an extra round or two, and finally emerged feeling much better. Dressing casually in khakis and a polo, he made his way out to the front room, still toweling his hair.
And found that he wasn't alone.
Gavin was there, standing near the balcony doors. Two other men were standing near the open door into the apartment, and there were footsteps coming up the stairs.
For a moment, Neal considered simply turning around and racing back into the hallway. Having used the space as a speakeasy, Byron and Ford had designed a couple of escape routes into the top floor. But it was a reasonable assumption that Gavin could have more people watching the house. And, realistically, he was barefoot, with no money or phone or anything else in his empty pockets.
He opted for the confidence route.
Striding into the room with as much self-assurance as he could muster, Neal stopped by the counter in the kitchenette. He dropped his towel over the sink, using the action to cover his movement as he picked something up and slipped it into his pocket. "I'd be lying if I said it was good to see you again," he said, turning to face Gavin.
The grin on the other man's face was anything but friendly. "Well, we hadn't finished our little chat. Wasn't nice of you to leave early."
"It was such a nice night for a swim. We just couldn't resist." Neal pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
Gavin started to reply, but paused as another man came into the room. "Found it," the new man said, holding up a disk. "I stopped the surveillance recorder, and this has everything showing us. Everything else is wiped."
"Excellent. Take it down to Jeri, have her get rid of it." Gavin turned back to Neal, the same sickly sweet smile on his face. "We don't need cameras recording our little visit, do we, Neal?"
Neal had rarely been so appreciative of Mozzie's paranoia – knowing that the 'little visit' was, in fact, still recorded was at least a small comfort. "I didn't dress for the cameras anyway. But there's really nothing more I can tell you – I still don't know where the original documents or the micro-SD are."
Gavin grabbed a chair across the table from Neal, spun it around, and straddled it. "Maybe we can start with some new questions, like how much you've told your Fed friends."
"I told them everything," Neal admitted, and then he leaned forward over the table. "But here's the thing, Gavin – they don't trust me much. The word of a con artist doesn't count for much without corroboration, especially when I'm trying to tell them that New York's finest are the bad guys."
"Your girlfriend won't back you up?"
"Well, Sara was smart, and she cleared out." Neal kicked his left foot up onto the table, the anklet obvious. "I don't have that option."
"Too bad for you. If you can't tell me anything, I guess you're of no use to me."
It was Neal's turn to smile. "I may not be able to tell you anything. But let me clue you in to what I can do for you…"
The federal building was quiet, the lobby area dark as Jones entered the building. That was normal for a Sunday morning, unless there was some high security alert. There were certainly agents in the building, monitoring cases. And the evidence team had people on premises around the clock. But for the most part, weekend access was employees only, and few would choose to be there if it wasn't necessary.
He wouldn't be there… if he hadn't left the tickets to that afternoon's Mets game in his desk. After making another long round-trip drive to get Sara Ellis back to the Hamptons on Friday, he'd forgotten to stop and get them.
It would be good to get out to the stadium, spend the afternoon in the fresh air. Afterward, he could see if Peter needed him to cover another shift with Neal.
Though maybe not with a bottle of Scotch again… He was getting too old for back-to-back hangovers.
There was no one else on the twenty-first floor. White Collar crime didn't take days off, but only major cases got round the clock coverage.
It was sheer force of habit that made him switch on his computer monitor when he got to his desk.
Jones shook his head, smiling at the ingrained action. He retrieved the tickets, went to turn the monitor off again… and stopped, his attention caught by the activity shown on one of the programs.
It was a monitoring program, specifically tied to the eagle recording and GPS pen that they had used on several cases. But there were no active cases…
He clicked on the program and turned up the volume.
"Look, I have skills your boss, Donnelly can use."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Crack a safe, forge some documents, retrieve things from impenetrable places."
"And why should we believe you'd want to do that?"
"Why don't you call him…"
Jones turned the volume down, verified that the recording feature was working, and dialed the phone. It was answered on the second ring. "Peter, this is Jones. It's about Neal."
"I'm heading over there in about an hour or so."
"No, Peter, we need to go now. Donnelly's men are there."
"What?"
"I'm at the office. Neal must have picked up the eagle pen. It's transmitting right now."
"Damn!" Jones could hear some banging in the background before Peter came back on the line. "All right, I'm leaving the house in three minutes. Call Diana, see if she's available. And get the hostage rescue team moving. I'll call Dave Shattuck from the car and see if he can send some backup."
"Got it." Jones was already scrolling for the HRT contact information. "I'll meet you there."
"Damn!" Peter swore loudly, then muttered a few more choice words after banging his toe against the bed frame. He sat down, forcing his shoe onto his sore foot anyway.
"Peter?" Elizabeth 's voice came from the doorway and he looked up. "What is it?"
He took a deep breath and stood up. "They've gone after Neal."
"The people who kidnapped him and Sara before?"
"Yes."
"Then stop them, Peter. End this."
"We will."
"And make sure Neal is all right."
He smiled and paused, just for a moment, kissing her forehead. "That's the plan, El. That's the plan."