Chapter 2: Fall Guy
Sara scanned the train tracks eagerly. "The train should arrive any minute."
Neal smiled at her enthusiasm. "I can't wait to see Mozzie's face." After a morning of shopping, they'd arrived at Paddington Station with plenty of time to spare. He didn't have many purchases to show for the outing since their plans for Saturday night plus the paintings he'd purchased had put a dent in his cash reserves.
Neal tried not to think about what life would be like if his mystery Madonna turned out to be authentic. The news so far was encouraging. Late yesterday afternoon, Edi had determined that the initial drawing had been done in silverpoint, an encouraging sign. Raphael was known for using the technique, but he was by no means the only Renaissance artist to employ silverpoint.
"I see the train coming!" Sara exclaimed, breaking into his thoughts. "You're sure he'll be on it?"
"Absolutely. I told him you'd arranged for a tour of the Gherkin on the way back to your flat. He promised me he wouldn't miss the train." Sterling-Bosch rented floors in the towering skyscraper in the financial district. Neal was looking forward to the tour as well. Sara's tiny furnished flat was in nearby Cornhill.
She frowned. "I'm not so confident. He'd earmarked the morning to work on a new script for Doctor Who." She bit her lower lip. "He could have been so distracted that he lost track of time."
"Nothing will interfere with our surprise," Neal said firmly.
Sara tugged on his arm to move closer to the platform. As soon as the doors opened, she began scanning faces.
"You don't have to worry about him noticing us," Neal pointed out. "Not with the balloon you're holding."
She took a breath. "I hope he likes it."
"He'll love it. Are you this nervous before all surprise parties?"
"This is the first one I've ever given," she confided. "I have a new appreciation for the stress involved with El's job . . . and there he is!"
Mozzie stopped in his tracks, flummoxed speechless for a moment. "Happy Birthday? Whose birthday?"
Sara's foil balloon was emblazoned with a space alien extending greetings. "Yours, of course!" she said, giving him a kiss on his cheek.
He snickered. "I appreciate the gesture, but this isn't my birthday."
"Close enough," she said stubbornly. "You've adopted my last name. You're my uncle, and I've decided this is your day."
"Confess, Mozz, when was the last time you celebrated your birthday?" Neal asked.
"I can't remember," he said. "Probably at the orphanage."
Sara took his arm. "Then it's way past time, Uncle Water. You're family now." This was just as important for Sara as it was for Mozzie. Aside from her father whom she hadn't seen for over a decade, Sara's only living relative was an aunt in Baltimore.
"When Neal said he didn't know when you were born, I picked today," she continued. "I think Allen would like sharing his with you."
Mozzie's brow furrowed as he thought for a moment. He snapped his fingers. "Allen Ginsberg, of course! He would have been eighty years old today. Shall we make him an honorary member of our growing family?"
"He'd love the idea, I'm sure!"
Neal picked up Mozzie's bag. "And don't think that you're going to sleep on the couch tonight. None of us will."
Sara linked arms with her adopted uncle. "We have reservations at Brown's. We were able to reserve the Arthur Conan Doyle Suite." The hotel, a Mayfair institution since the 1830s, had been a favorite of many writers. In addition to Doyle, the hotel guest list often included Agatha Christie, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker.
Mozzie's eyes widened. "Tell me you were able to get a discount."
Neal nodded. "A friend of a friend helped, but don't think about the cost. After the magnificent New Year's Eve party you planned for us, we wanted to do something special."
#
Their two-bedroom suite was furnished with Victorian antiques reminiscent of Sherlock's lodgings on Baker Street. Neal kicked off the festivities by ordering a bottle of champagne for them to drink in the parlor. In the privacy afforded by their suite, he told his friend about his mystery woman.
Mozzie's reaction was predictable. "I gladly volunteer my services as your agent," he said gleefully. "The producers have already asked me to stay around for a few more days to discuss scripts."
"Unless the painting is determined to be by a lesser artist, the authentication process could take months," Neal warned.
"Have they tested the paint pigments?" Mozzie asked.
"That will be next week's challenge." Neal turned to Sara. "The presence of bismuth, for instance, would prove conclusively that the painting is from the era of Raphael, but it might have been painted by another artist of the period or someone in his workshop."
"I wish I could help with the provenance," Mozzie said, stroking his chin as he settled back into a maroon leather wingback chair.
"I've been thinking about that," Sara said. "What if the painting had been plundered during the English Civil War?"
Mozzie nodded slowly. "An intriguing thought. Continue."
"The area around Bath was a Royalist stronghold. Many of the great houses in the area were besieged and looted. A soldier could have carried off the painting. It would have been passed down through the generations, getting grimier every year. Eventually it was one of those forgotten items stored in the attic that no one bothers to get rid of."
"If it is a genuine Raphael, that's a reasonable sequence of events," Neal agreed. "Historians may be able to find a paper trail."
Mozzie helped himself to more champagne. "The English Civil War would be an excellent subject for a Doctor Who plot."
"Wasn't there an episode about it back in the '80s?" Sara asked.
Mozzie nodded appreciatively. "A fellow connoisseur! I've made a study of all the past episodes as part of my research. The episode featured an alien war machine called the Malus. It may need to be reawakened."
"Speaking of reawakening, Cthulhu could also be rising from the ocean." Neal explained the events surrounding the stolen Turner painting.
"Fascinating," Mozzie murmured. "I wonder how much of a role the Ood played. The producers mentioned I should consider a script featuring the species. They believe the episode being shown tonight will be a popular one, perhaps even a classic. Not of course that it can compare to my script."
"Isn't it time you told us about it?" Sara wheedled. "Please, Uncle Walt?"
"How can I resist my favorite niece!" Mozzie leaned forward conspiratorially as if paparazzi were hiding in the walls. "The story is centered around Dante. It's a little known fact that the Divine Comedy is based on an experience the poet had with hostile space aliens. Trust me, the nine circles of Hell will acquire a new significance after you've seen my creation."
Sara exchanged a smile with Neal. "Before you go into the details, you need to be properly attired."
"What's wrong with what I have on?" he asked, glancing down at his paisley shirt and olive-green corduroy jacket.
"Nothing," she said, "but you're not wearing your present."
Mozzie's eyes widened behind his glasses. "You got me something else?"
"Of course, we did," Neal said. "You can't have a birthday party without presents." He went into the bedroom and returned with a large box wrapped in sci-fi gift wrap. "This is from both of us."
From the way Mozzie tore into the package, you would have thought he'd never received a birthday gift before. It was an unsettling thought that any such gifts had been few and far between. Neal was more than ever grateful to Sara for suggesting the celebration.
Mozzie beamed as he pulled out the Donegal tweed vest Sara had located at a specialty shop.
"This writing vest is guaranteed to bring you good luck in your scripts," she said. "We took it with us to Cornwall where it was blessed by Merlin's spirit in his cave below Tintagel Castle. The wizard only made one stipulation. You'll need to write a script featuring him for Doctor Who."
"You may think Sara's joking but I can attest to what happened," Neal added. "Well, maybe not the spirit part. Only Sara spoke with him."
"I can sense his aura," Mozzie said, readily going along with the fantasy. "With Merlin as an actual ghostwriter, I sense a BAFTA award in our future."
The buzzing of Neal's cell phone was an unwelcome intrusion. When he saw John's name on the display, he excused himself to take the call in his bedroom.
"That link to Doctor Who just became stronger," John said. "During my discussion with the producers, I asked them about the Ood. The man who'd invented them was none other than Alistair Chapman, aka Rolf Mansfeld."
Neal dropped onto the bed in disbelief. "I remember Peter and I discussed the Ood with Chapman when we visited his office. That was a few hours before Peter was abducted. Chapman brought them up but he didn't mention he'd created them."
"And none of us thought to ask," John said. "The idea was first discussed during a brainstorming session among the creative directors. There's no paper trail but I interviewed two of the directors who attended the meeting. As for the business card of the TARDIS, it's not an item produced by Scima."
White Collar's theory that the events were tied to the earlier incident looked stronger than ever, but the answers to their questions only became murkier. The first appearance of an Ood-type mask had been at the house where Neal and Peter were held prisoner in New Jersey. That was close to two years ago. They'd assumed all along that Rolf was behind the kidnapping. Could it have been Klaus or the silent partner instead? By staging the theft of the Turner, was Rolf attempting to make it appear that he'd been framed? His lawyer would argue that it would have been impossible for Rolf to commit the crime from prison even though Rolf could have set the wheels in motion long ago and was now sitting back while the silent partner carried out his instructions.
Was Klaus up to his neck in the crime or being kept unaware? It was tempting to compare the Doctor's business card with the Leopard cards Klaus used to leave behind. Or was this another instance of Rolf churning up the seas?
#
When Neal related John's discovery, Sara had the distinct impression that Mozzie was treating the crime's connection to the Ood as another birthday gift. They had dinner in the restaurant associated with the hotel. The leather booths separated by antique paneling appeared tailor-made for story plotting. Mozzie darted from ideas for Doctor Who to speculation over how to incorporate the Ood into Arkham Files. By the time they returned to their suite to watch the Doctor Who episode on TV, the layers of meaning the Ood had acquired rivaled any Sherlock Holmes whodunit.
Sara knew that Mozzie only slept a few hours at night. She'd assumed he would enjoy watching movies for further inspiration and had planned accordingly, but choosing appropriate movies had turned into a treasure hunt of sorts.
Neal had nixed Tiles of Fire, a series of movies Mozzie often mentioned which featured the Chinese game of pai gow. Instead, he suggested an assortment of Godzilla movies. Neal, along with Richard and Keiko, had outlined designs for a pairing of their bee superhero with the Japanese classic monster during a trip to Boston. For pure fantasy, it was hard to beat, so Sara had scrounged for Mothra vs. Godzilla, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, and other classics. Most of them were in Japanese. Not a problem for Neal and Mozzie who both spoke the language fluently, but Sara's knowledge was much more limited.
Frankly, she would have preferred a retrospective of Jane Austen movies, but she wasn't the birthday girl. Even so, she managed to insert a suggestion for a Doctor Who script featuring the Regency author and had great hopes that for Mozzie's next birthday she could request historical attire.
By the time they retired to their bedroom, it was well past midnight. Mozzie was so engrossed in the movie, he barely acknowledged their departure. This would be Sara's last chance to sleep in since she'd return to work on Monday. But first, she and Neal took full advantage of their luxurious room.
It was already midmorning when she awoke. The sky was an overcast gray outside. Neal was still asleep. From the other bedroom came the faint sounds of screams, signaling that Mozzie was awake and watching one of the movies. Sara closed her eyes. Neal had slung his arm over her waist. She pressed her back closer to his chest. She could easily stay like this all day.
She was just nodding off when his cell phone buzzed. She sat up to reach over for it. If it was no one important, she'd mute it. But the sound had awakened Neal and he flung out an arm, inadvertently smacking her hand.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "What time is it?"
She glanced at the bedside clock. "Nine thirty."
"Then I better take it." His words were slurred. He sounded like he was still asleep, but when he looked at the phone, his eyes popped open. "It's John," he told her and placed it to his ear.
It was difficult to hear much from the conversation. Neal was restricted to a few murmurs of agreement, but his closing remark of "I'll be right over" left no doubt about the subject. When he ended the call, he told her, "I've got to go in. There's been a break in the case."
"What happened?"
"John wanted to tell me in person. I hope it won't take long." He rubbed his forehead and yawned. "I'll grab some coffee on the way out."
"I wish you could sleep in."
"Me too." He stood up and headed for the bathroom. Sara followed him in, not liking the worried look on his face.
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, it's . . ." He stopped himself and winced. "Remind me not to watch horror movies late at night."
"I hope you didn't have nightmares about sea monsters."
He shot her a sharp look. "Did I say something in my sleep?"
"No, it was just a guess from those paintings. Neal, is something wrong?"
"We'll talk when I get back," he promised, splashing water on his face.
#
On his way out of the suite, Neal waved at Mozzie through the open door. The birthday boy was too engrossed in a Godzilla movie to acknowledge it. That was for the best. If Mozzie had asked him where he was going, Neal wouldn't have known how to respond. John had urged him to not talk with anyone before meeting with him.
Glugging the coffee he'd picked up in the coffee bar on the way out of the hotel, Neal tried to erase the scenes still playing out in his mind from the nightmare. Giant squids squeezing the life out of everyone he loved were a horror movie he had absolutely no desire to revisit. The monsters were nothing like the sympathetic Ood. And, okay, he probably had watched too many Godzilla movies, but he thought he'd developed cozy relations with cephalopods.
Was the Turner painting to blame? The sea monsters were so diffuse in the work that many didn't think that's what they were. It was frustrating to admit he was having the opposite problem— inventing monsters that didn't exist.
He'd gotten a bad start to the morning when the phone call woke him up, and now he felt out of sync—like he'd awakened from one nightmare only to tumble into another one. When the hotel doorman hailed a taxi for Neal, he half-expected to see an Ood driving it.
What was John so concerned about that he'd warned Neal not to talk to anyone? Neal had left his contact information with him on Friday. He hadn't mentioned Mozzie but simply said he and Sara were treating themselves to a night at Brown's. Surely Sara wasn't involved, but nothing about this was normal. John didn't work weekends at Scotland Yard, especially not on a Sunday morning. The previous afternoon he'd called from his townhouse.
On Friday, John had given Neal a temporary badge that was valid for a week. When Neal arrived at Scotland Yard, he headed straight for John's office on the fifteenth floor. The Art and Antiques Unit had a small cluster of offices within the Metropolitan Police's equivalent to White Collar—the Economic and Specialist Crime Command. Only a couple of officers were working in the open area. John was alone in his office.
"Thank you for coming in," John said. Despite it being Sunday, he was wearing a suit and tie. Neal was glad he was also in a suit. "Please take a seat." He gestured to a chair next to his desk. His computer monitor had been swiveled so that Neal would be able to see it, leading him to suspect new evidence had surfaced. "As I mentioned to you on the phone, I received an anonymous tip early this morning."
Neal nodded. John hadn't revealed any details but said the news was urgent. The seriousness of his demeanor confirmed it.
"The tip was a copy of surveillance camera footage. The email message claimed that it was taken on Friday night and shows the thief who stole the Turner painting. The feed is from a warehouse in Iver Heath, not far from Scima Workshop. Agents are presently at the location, searching the storage cube."
"Was the image of the thief identifiable?" Neal asked, his instincts already blaring a warning. Evidence sent in anonymously could be a frame attempt. If so, on whom?
"I'd rather you see for yourself," John answered cryptically, and started the tape as Neal's stomach gave an unsettled lurch. Instinctively, he knew he wasn't going to like it.
The camera captured a brightly lit modern storage interior with a line of numbered modules along one wall. The timestamp indicated that the feed had been recorded on Friday at 2:15 in the morning. Two figures approached, wearing jeans and hoodies. Their faces weren't visible. They were carrying a crate stamped with the Tate logo. The storage module they approached was near the end of the field of view of the camera. They set the crate on the floor next to the door, and the shorter of the two reached a hand into the pocket of their hoodie.
"Are those tentacles?" Neal asked incredulously, squinting at worm-like appendages protruding from the hoodies.
"I'll zoom in." When John adjusted the view Neal could see they were wearing masks of the Ood similar to the one that had been placed on Peter when he was dumped into the TARDIS. The feed didn't have audio, but the figures appeared to be arguing. The shorter thief crossed their arms in front of their chest. A shoving match quickly ensued. Their hoodies fell back during the altercation, and the taller, skinnier fellow ripped off the Ood mask of the other and stalked off.
Neal gazed at the monitor in shock. The shorter thief looked exactly like Mozzie. The doppelganger scowled at the retreating figure and retrieved his mask, slipping it over his head. He didn't have glasses, but Mozzie sometimes used contacts when he was in disguise. Mozzie opened the door and shoved the crate into the module, closing the door behind him. Neal waited impatiently to see what happened next. "Is there more to the feed?" he asked.
"Yes. For now, hold off on your comments."
Neal kept his eyes glued to the monitor. A minute later, the taller figure could be seen close to the camera. He'd brought a short ladder and used it to climb next to the camera. Neal could see the Ood mask only inches from the camera then the screen went blank.
"The clear assumption is that this was a falling out among thieves," John said. "The taller thief stole the camera and sent us the feed as payback. I recognized the shorter person and you must have as well."
Neal nodded. "He called himself Leonard Urskwith when you met him at the Ydrus fortress." Mozzie had adopted the persona of an ornithologist when he and Sara had flown to Hungary to help rescue Neal from his captors. "He's an FBI informant, and one of my best friends. He couldn't have committed the crime. This is clearly an attempt to frame him."
"It's premature to leap to any conclusions," John warned. "How long have you known him?"
"For over three years."
"That's longer than the length of time you've worked at the Bureau."
Neal nodded. He was the reason Mozzie had been helping on cases but how much could he divulge to John? The man was aware Neal had been a thief but he knew nothing about Mozzie, not even his nickname.
"Do you know if Leonard is currently in England?" John asked.
Neal hesitated for a brief moment. Mozzie prized his anonymity above all else. But if Neal concealed his presence, John would still be able to uncover the truth. Eventually he'd show Mozzie's photo to the Doctor Who producers. Mozzie's only chance was for Neal to be upfront, even if his friend did view it as a betrayal.
"Call him Mozzie," Neal said. "That's his nickname and the name he uses with his friends. He's staying with Sara and me at our suite at Brown's. Mozzie entered the country under an alias. He wrote a script for Doctor Who which was filmed last week. His pen name is Walter Ellis."
John raised his eyebrows. "As in Sara Ellis?"
Neal nodded, clearing his throat. "Sara is as fond of him as I am. She considers him her honorary uncle."
"I'm sorry, Neal, but you know I have to bring him in for questioning." John's cell buzzed and he stopped to answer it. Neal could only hear one side of the conversation and waited impatiently for the call to end.
"The Turner painting was in the module as we expected," John reported after he rang off. "It was the only item in the container. I have no choice but to arrest Mozzie for the crime." He raised a hand to stop Neal's protest. "If this is a frame, he'll be much safer in a holding facility."
"There has to be another way," Neal pleaded. "Could the processing be delayed? How about if he was held in a safe house instead? Mozzie's contacts and insider information have been invaluable to the Bureau. If he's exposed, his usefulness will be severely limited. I bet that's what Rolf wants. He must be behind the frame. He's taking his revenge on those who facilitated his capture."
John didn't try to interrupt but his expression didn't change one iota. "You're asking me to conceal a crime."
"No, I'm not. Simply delay the announcement." Neal scrambled to find a way to persuade him. "We've done it before. When Vermeer's painting of the astronomer was stolen last summer, we delayed releasing the information in order to expose the Mansfelds, and the technique worked. That time I was being framed. This is the same sort of scheme. If you bring Mozzie in, you'll be playing into the enemy's hands."
John frowned as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"You took a gamble on me," Neal continued, sensing a wavering. "That worked out. I'm asking you to do the same now for Mozzie."
"It's too early to call Peter," John said, "but I want to hear his opinion. In the meantime, I'll agree to hold off for at least a few hours, but Mozzie will have to be monitored. For the moment, he'll be treated as a witness and won't be processed. He'll be held in one of our secure locations, but I warn you that at the most he can only be held in limbo for a few days."
#
Mozzie crossed his arms defiantly. "I won't go."
"This is your best chance," Neal argued. "John's agreed to not tell the Doctor Who producers about you. He's not entering you into the Metropolitan Police's database. John's climbed so far out on a limb, the branch could easily break. Don't take a chainsaw to it. You'll injure yourself and him."
Neal had returned to the hotel with two police officers in tow. They were waiting outside the suite to escort Mozzie to the safe house, but convincing him to leave with them was as difficult as Neal had anticipated. An even more arduous task would be to persuade him to not escape confinement.
"Neal's right," Sara said, sitting down on the couch next to Mozzie. "John's giving you a chance to keep your secrets. If you resist, or worse, escape, we won't be able to help you. This is one time you'll have to let us do the work. You know that as soon as the team in New York hears about the frame, they'll also help. So far, no one except John and Neal has seen the feed. You haven't been exposed."
"But that will quickly change, if you don't go along," Neal continued relentlessly. "Don't play into Rolf's hands."
"And Cthulhu's," Mozzie added absently. "Is Cthulhu in London right now, stalking our every move?" He stroked his chin, gazing off into space.
"Consider this an opportunity to analyze the problem," Neal said. "You'll have the freedom to conduct thought experiments just like Einstein."
"Or you can work on your scripts," Sara said, building on his idea. "You could consider it a writing retreat. The producers wanted you to stay on. You could tell them you came down with a stomach bug and will work remotely for a few days."
"I'll need to have special food," he warned. "They better not try to foist ordinary claret on me."
"I'm sure we can make appropriate arrangements," Neal said in his most soothing voice while calculating how much balance was left on his credit card. "Just promise me, you won't run."
Mozzie hesitated, his expression still filled with storm clouds.
"Please listen to Neal," Sara pleaded. "If you escape, your days of being a shadow-lurker will be over."
Notes: Brown's Hotel is real, but I invented the Sherlock Holmes suite. The Doctor Who episode about the English Civil War is called "The Awakening" and featured the fifth doctor.
