Smile for the camera

When Peter came to the office the next morning he saw a frustrated Jones hanging up the phone.

"What's the latest?" he asked his fellow agent.

"We got conflicting intel. I mean, we got reports of Caffrey sighted everywhere from Jersey to Geneva."

How did Neal do that? It was not the first time. When they chased the kid it happened from time to time that he was sighted all over the world. All that was missing was a long distance call from him in the middle of the night.

"He's covering his bases."

"He stole them right off the field."

Fowler, still hanging around, came up to him.

"You got a quick minute?"

"Yeah," Peter replied but remained where he was by Jones' desk, giving no hint that his office was a better place to talk.

Fowler glanced at Jones but had no other choice than take the initiative himself.

"I just wanted to apologize for the other day, you know?" he said. "We want what's best for the bureau, right?"

If Hughes had not been on his side and Fowler's words had had any vital effect, the apology would not reach far. As it were, no one had listened to his complaints.

"Of course," Peter agreed and turned to Jones.

"Let me ask you a question. Just hypothetically. If you had to guess right now, where's Caffrey?"

Peter gave it a second hard thought.

"Probably trying to leave the country, if he hasn't already."

"Oh, you don't think he'd stay in Manhattan?" Fowler seemed baffled.

"Would there be a reason to?" Oh, God, he had learned that way of answering from Neal alright.

"I don't know. Wanna make sure we're using our resources as wisely as possible."

"Like I said, roadblocks and wanted posters."

"That's how we catch him?"

"Good start. If you don't mind, I gotta work." Peter turned to Jones and leaned on his desk, but Fowler remained. Both of them turned to glare at him for hovering. Fowler got the hint and left.

"Do me a favor," he mumbled to Jones.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Keep an eye on this Fowler guy and his goons."

"I'm allowed to do that?"

"I'm authorizing you to. Something isn't right."

Jones nodded and Peter walked up to his office. Ten minutes later Jones knocked on his door-frame.

"Got a minute?"

"Sure, come in."

The man did and closed the door behind him. He gave Peter a straight-forward look.

"Before you accepted Caffrey's deal you said that if I had any concerns I should talk to you."

"I did. What is it?"

"We both know roadblocks and wanted posters are no way to catch Caffrey. Either you don't want OPR to interfere or you don't want Caffrey caught at all. I just want to know what's going on."

"Can it stay between us?"

"Sure." Jones sat down.

"Neal has shown me things that made me believe he was set up. By OPR."

"Shown when?"

"Yesterday night. At my house."

"And you didn't arrest him."

Peter noted it was not as much a question as a fact. It was obvious he had not taken him in. He leaned forward.

"You've every right to object and I don't blame you, but what he had was not proof of the kind that holds in court. If I take him in now, he'll go to prison for something he didn't do."

He watched for Jones' reaction.

"Guess the system doesn't always work, does it?" he said.

"No. I know it's supposed to, but…"

"I don't blame you. I'm not prepared to risk my job for a convicted felon. If you are, it's up to you. Thank you for telling me, Peter."

He rose and aimed for the door.

"Jones…"

"Yeah?"

"I don't blame you for not being prepared to do the same, but just keep in mind that it's because he's a convicted felon that he got framed and people don't believe him. Like it or not, but Neal is in an exposed and vulnerable position."

Jones let go of the door handle and considered what Peter just said. He nodded.

"I think you two have a solid friendship where you can trust each other, and that's a good thing and something to take pride in. I also believe Caffrey is a valuable asset to this team and I trust him when it comes to doing his job. But I don't think he's near as loyal to any of us, or to the Bureau for that matter, that he is to you, Peter. I think you can cuff him and bring him in if you have to, and your friendship would still hold. Me, I could not. So, I'm happy you're friends, but I prefer to see him as a colleague and a con-man."

"Okay," Peter nodded. "Thank you. For your faith in me."

"In the two of you," Jones grinned and left.

Peter smiled. That type of honest conversation was rare. He wished he had those with Neal a bit more often.

Minutes later he left his office and walked through the office towards the elevators. As he waited for it to arrive he saw Jones rise and start a conversation with one of the OPR goons that had his tabs on Peter. The goon turned to answer Jones and Peter took the opportunity to slip into one of the elevators on the other side. It was a simple trick, but it would be enough to keep the tail of his back.

The phone he had for Peter to contact him buzzed and he took the call.

"Still moving on the streets of New York?" Peter asked.

"I'm even within my radius." Now when he had the chance he still remained where he had been for months now.

"Good. Meet me at our jewelry store in twenty minutes."

What was Peter up to now?

"I didn't think I was supposed to return to the scene of the crime."

"Let's revisit it and figure out how you allegedly pulled this all off."

Neal grinned. Peter dared to be seen with him? It was a good sign. He walked there in less then fifteen and leaned against a tree reading the paper. Someone had thought it was a splendid idea to call out to the public about his escape. It attracted the vanity in him.

"Nice disguise, Jacko," Peter said.

Well, too many people knew him in this little area of New York and sunglasses and did not hurt. Neal flipped the paper open to the page where his mug shot filled the whole page.

"I never really liked this picture."

"Oh, it's pretty good for a mug shot."

"Better than my driver's license photo," Neal admitted.

"Which one? You have several." Neal just replied with a glance at Peter. "All right, one crime at a time. I wanna check out that vault."

"Yeah. Well, I can't exactly walk in." He had a habit of blending in, but walking into a crime scene where he was supposed to have commited the crime and have wanted posters all over town was way too bold for his taste.

"I'm gonna tell them you're in my custody, and you'll show me how you got in."

Neal grinned.

"Stealthy. Peter, I'm starting to like you again."

"Well, we're hanging out too much."

Peter walked to the door of the store and Neal tagged along.

"Off with the glasses, Neal."

Neal did. There was just a NYPD officer there and Peter just had to flash his badge and no further questions was asked. It was too easy. They ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and walked into the vault. Up in the corner over the door was the surveillance camera.

"We assumed the thief went through blind spots of the surveillance camera," Peter said. "But Forensics says that the alarm was never tampered with."

"Well, that's not possible unless he—"

"He never left the vault."

So he had entered as an ordinary customer and walked into the vault on the day when the alarm was not on? And hidden were? Peter and he searched the room, but there was not much to find. All there was, was white solid walls, and two panels with light.

"This wasn't flickering on the security tape," Neal noted when he watched the shining panel.

Peter turned to watch it.

"No, it wasn't." He brought out a keyring and with the help of a key he tried to loosen the frame with plastic covering the lights.

"Come on," Peter mumbled, impatiently. Then the frame came loose and he lifted it aside.

They both stared at the two strip lights on the other side, beside a white, spotless wall.

"Nothing."

"It could be a misdirect," Neal said and walked to the other panel. Peter throw him the keys and Neal pulled the frame away.

Peter grinned when he saw the wall between the two strip lights. Neal eased with his fingers along the seam that was not supposed to be there and the panel came loose, exposing a brick wall behind.

"How did the FBI miss this?"

"We didn't," Peter answered. "Fowler had OPR take over the investigation."

His handler tried the wall with his foot and then gave it a proper push. It crumbled and fell. They crawled through the hole and Neal found himself standing in some odd area between two house's basements.

"I'll be—" Peter mused. "This is an old Prohibition tunnel."

Neal had heard about them but had never had the chance to use one of them himself. They had never been where he needed them.

"Yeah, well, someone found a new use for it."

They followed it and soon it ended in a short ladder and a double metal hatch. Peter flung it open and they exited on a sidewalk as if they exited Alice in Wonderland.

"I'll call in a team," Peter said, bringing his phone out. "We'll start canvassing for witnesses."

Neal's eyes fell on something above his head, on the wall.

"We may not have to."

Peter followed his eyes and saw what he saw.

"Oh. Who said Big Brother's a bad thing?" he grinned. "Jones I'm gonna need you to pull a video off a surveillance camera."

Peter walked down the sidewalk to his house and walked inside. The police car was gone, but that was no reason to take any chances. He walked to the back door and let Neal inside.

"Hi, partner" the kid grinned.

"Don't call me that."

"Any milk and cookies left?"

"There's beer in the fridge if you want one," Peter replied and opened his laptop as he sat down on the sofa.

The front door opened and Elizabeth came home. She stared at the two men in his house who were both as frozen.

"Hi, hon," Peter greeted her.

"Hi, hon. Hi, Neal. I suppose I haven't seen this, right?"

"Yeah." Peter felt embarrassed somehow. But Elizabeth just smiled.

"Well, it's pretty late and I am way too tired to notice anything before I go to bed." She walked upstairs.

Neal pulled off his jacket and sneaked up to the window towards the street.

"Where's OPR?"

"I had Jones reassign them to Penn Station."

"Jones? How did he do that?"

"He does a pretty good Fowler," Peter replied, dead serious, but it was actually quite funny. He opened the file with the surveillance footage. The hatch he and Neal had walked out from was right there, as well as enough of the sidewalk to get a good view.

"All right, we're coming up to the place where our masked man enters the vault."

Neal turned from the window and leaned on the back of the sofa behind him.

"Add a minute for him to double back, cover his tracks," Neal said.

The hatch opened and a man climbed out.

"Wait, wait, wait." Neal slid around the sofa and sat down beside Peter. "Hold it right there. Is that Tulane?"

Impossible to tell since they saw no face. The man closed the hatches.

"All right, play it at half speed," the kid requested. Peter did.

The man walked away in slow motion. Soon he would be out of frame.

"That's gotta be Tulane," Peter said as if it helped. A woman walked in the opposite direction. "Come on, come on! Turn around!"

And if by magic the man on the footage did, to watch the passing beauty.

"Gotcha!" Neal grinned as Peter froze the image when Tulane's face was in view.

"Oh, I guess he never did go to Madrid."

"I knew his plane tickets were fakes," Neal said.

Peter glanced at Neal.

"No, you didn't."

The kid shrugged.

"Guy steals 3.2 million in diamonds," Peter mused, "and we get him because he can't resist a pretty face."

"Well, it happens to the best of us."

Well, you ran right into a trap because of a pretty face, kid, Peter thought. Neal caught him glancing at him.

"What?"

"You know what."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

Neal rose from the sofa.

"I need to go to the bathroom."

"Upstairs, first door on your left. Leave the seat down when you're done."

Neal walked upstairs and Peter took his phone and called Jones. It was late, but Jones was still awake.

"Take a bunch of agents and bring Tulane in, right now. Put him in one of our holding cells for the night."

That way they would not give OPR and Fowler time to react and interfere if that was their intention.

"Alright. Does that count for Caffrey too?" Jones asked.

"Yeah. I'll see to that." Peter ended the call. Neal came back down. This would be tough.

"Neal…"

"Yeah?"

"I have to take you in this time."

Neal seemed as if someone popped his balloon like he had not thought of these things at all. He probably had not. Consequences were not what this kid considered most.

"You don't trust I'll get back?"

Peter rose.

"This is not about trust, Neal. If I didn't trust you, I would've arrested you yesterday. And I wouldn't spend the day with you today the way I did. But we are on that surveillance tape too, together. If someone sees that, and I let you go… Neal, you have to trust me. I'll have to take you in. You won't go to prison for this. Now we have the proof we need."

"I trust you, Peter. It's just… I…"

"Neal, I'll take you to a holding cell in the FBI headquarters, just two floors down. Not back to prison and no orange jumpsuit."

Neal stopped arguing, nodded and held out his hands. But Peter saw something in those blue eyes. Neal surrendered to him because the kid trusted him, but that did not make him less scared.

He brought out his cuffs, thumbed them.

"Promise me not to run, and you can stay the night in our guest room and I take you in after breakfast."

The fear in the kid's eyes was gone and the charmer was back.

"Too tired to drive?"

"Yeah, and the paperwork at the intake, way too late for that."

"I promise you, Peter, I won't run."

"Neal…"

"Yeah?"

"I have to take you in this time."

Neal went cold. They had spent a day together, without him wearing an anklet. Somehow he knew it all had to end, that he was a fugitive but somehow he had figured he could just walk into the office tomorrow as any ordinary day.

"You don't trust I'll get back?"

"This is not about trust, Neal. If I didn't trust you, I would've arrested you yesterday. And I wouldn't spend the day with you today the way I did. But we are on that surveillance tape too, together. If someone sees that, and I let you go… Neal, you have to trust me. I'll have to take you in. You won't go to prison for this. Now we have the proof we need."

"I trust you, Peter. It's just… I…" How could he explain? He was an adult and felt like a five-year-old missing his dad.

"Neal, I'll take you to a holding cell in the FBI headquarters, just two floors down. Not back to prison and no orange jumpsuit."

Neal nodded and held out his hands. It was better than he had feared. And it was Peter. He just had to fight his fears. He trusted Peter alright, and he knew he had to return to FBI somehow and he did not want to smudge Peter's reputation. It was just the idea of a lonely night in an unknown cell the scared him.

Peter watched him with the cuffs in his hands.

"Promise me not to run, and you can stay the night in our guest room. And I take you in after breakfast."

Though Neal took pride in keeping up a smiling face and hide his emotions, he was glad at times when Peter could read him so well.

"Too tired to drive?" he joked back.

"Yeah, and the paperwork at the intake, way too late for that."

"I promise you, Peter, I won't run."

Peter nodded and put his cuffs back in his pocket. Neal lowered his hands. They walked upstairs and Peter showed him the guest room. He left and returned with sheets.

"You manage?" he asked.

Neal grinned.

"Peter, if there's one thing you excel in after a few years in prison, it's making your own bed."

Peter smiled, said good night, and sneaked into their own bedroom to not wake up his wife.

Neal stood a moment in pure surprise with the sheets in his hands. His handler, the FBI agent, had left him unguarded. No anklet, nothing. He had that much trust in him so he could leave a fugitive without supervision in his own home. Peter had not even locked the door to the guest room.

Neal made the bed, kicked off his shoes and decided to sleep in his jockeys. The bed felt almost as good as his own. And he was tired.