Alicia Teagen

When Peter stepped over the threshold of his own home he felt like a burglar sneaking inside. He saw the two ladies by the dining room table.

"Hey, honey," he smiled at his wife.

"Hey, honey."

"Hey, Dana," he walked into the living room, dropping his briefcase on a chair. "How you holding up?"

Oh God, she had not even get dressed, he noted. She sat in pajamas and nightgown.

"It's hard, you know," Dana replied. "It's the not knowing that's killing me."

She appeared to be near crying.

"Any news?" El asked.

Peter bent down to pet Satchmo.

"Well, which do you want first?" he asked. "The good news or the bad news?"

It was an attempt to be normal, but Dana straightened up at once and gave him a look as if he was to blame for what had happened to her husband.

"There is bad news?"

"Not more than there has been," he assured her and sat down beside her. "He's still charged. It still looks pretty bad."

He saw El giving him a look. Gee, he could not make this right no matter what he did, could he?

"Here is good news," he switched the subject. "There are some evidence anomalies. Someone may have planted his prints on the gold."

"So you mean he really was framed?" she asked in return.

"It's possible," Peter confirmed, but could not stretch further than that. "I'm curious. Did he have drinks with anyone recently? The prints are crisp. Which would indicate a glass or a bottle. So it was probably for a beer."

Peter stared in amazement when Dana turned away and began to cry. El seemed as puzzled as he at least, but it did not make him feel less helpless.

"It's not okay, really," she sobbed.

"Yes, it is," he insisted. "This is the good-news part."

"Can I talk to you for a second?" El interrupted. "I'll be right back," she ensured Dana and they walk to the front door, out of sight from Dana and as far away as possible on the floor plan.

"What did I do?" Peter wanted to know.

"I don't know. See, she's crying."

"Yeah. I see that she's crying," he replied, frustrated and El hushed him. "I need to know if John met someone for a drink." A thought crossed his mind. "Maybe he didn't tell her. She suspects him of cheating?"

"Now I'll let you talk to her?" El asked dripping with irony.

"This is important!"

"Go upstairs," El told him. "Up. Stairs," she insisted when Peter did not move. He gave in and headed for the stairs. "Thank you."

Though Peter tried, he could not hear what they were saying. He walked back and forth in their bedroom, annoyed. Even more so when she saw Dana's clothes in on the floor instead of his.

At last, El came up the stairs.

"John had a drink with a journalist for a follow-up on an article she wrote earlier when they were in Iraq," she told him.

"Does he know her name?"

"No, but he lost his cap, too."

"A journalist who wrote about the soldiers in Iraq? Shouldn't be that hard to find," Peter figured. And if it was, John surely remembered her name. It would just take a longer time.

When Neal arrived the next morning Peter was already there. He said hello to Jones on the way out of their boss' office and Neal stuck his head inside.

"Any news or should I keep on working with the Venus case?" Neal found it utterly boring. Peter waved for him to come in. He smiled and sat down.

"Mitchell went for a beer with a woman," Peter told him. "Forgot his cap in the bar."

"The hat would explain the hair fibers," Neal noted and Peter agreed. "You had Elizabeth talk to her?"

"Well, I thought some female intuition would be helpful."

"Dana started crying, didn't she?"

"I didn't even do anything," his handler defended himself. "I had no idea what went wrong."

Neal laughed. Peter and women was always a fun mix.

"So who's this other woman?" he asked.

"This is Alisha Teagen," Peter threw a file into his lap. Jones had been busy this morning. "Segment producer. She was a reporter embedded with Mitchell's unit."

Peter put his feet on the desk and leaned back.

"All right, so she invites Mitchell out for a beer. Let's say she takes that opportunity to lift the prints off of the bottle. She grabs the baseball hat as an added bonus."

"Toss in a little DNA evidence to really lock the case."

"Right. How do we connect her to Aimes?"

"Do they know each other?" It would be too good to be true if they did.

"Other than the fact that they were in Iraq, there's nothing. If Aimes stole the gold, he isn't gonna ship it himself. He's gonna get someone else so that his hands stay clean in case they get intercepted."

"You know, press credentials aren't a bad way to get by customs." Neal had tried it once and it worked like clockwork. Journalists had a special kind of power over authorities. Peter did not notice Neal's possible experience in the area or did not care.

"Let's go talk to her."

Peter and Neal walked into the lobby of a modern, luxury office building.

"Wait here. I'll check in," Peter waved for Neal and continued to the security guard at the staff entrance.

"I'm here to see Alisha Teagen."

"She's not in yet," the guard answered without blinking. So Alisha Teagen was a woman you noted well enough to know if she among hundreds had arrived for the day.

Peter held up his badge.

"Agent Burke, FBI."

"Sorry, sir. Would you care to wait upstairs? She should be in any minute."

Peter smiled and turned to call for Neal. He saw his stretched out legs close to a woman's high-heeled. A plan took shape in his head. Neal would hate it. He turned towards the guard who had watched the conversation between the pairs of legs, too.

"Yeah, why don't I do that?"

The guard buzzed him through.

"Be sure to let her know Agent Burke with the FBI is here to talk to her," he instructed the guard.

"I'll be sure to do that."

Peter thanked the guard and moved inside the office where he got direction to get the elevator to the third floor.

"Wait here. I'll check in," Peter waved for him to take a seat on the bench. Neal sighed and sat down beside a beautiful brunette occupied by her phone. He glanced at it and her badge hanging from a clip.

"So, what's it like to be on camera?" he asked with his cutest puppy face.

"Oh, I'm not on camera," she smiled, flattered.

"Really?" Neal was honestly baffled. "But your badge here says, 'studio access.'"

"I'm a publicist, actually."

What did a 'publicist' do Neal wondered, and decided to remember the title and check it up later.

"Wow," he replied with admiration. "How is it up there?"

"Cutthroat. Looks like they just moved my meeting to 12:30. Excuse me."

She rose and left and Neal had no time to feel bored before his phone rang. Peter?

"Hello?"

"Hey," Peter greeted him at the other end of the line. Neal glanced around. Peter was not to be found.

"Peter, where are you?"

"Upstairs, on my way to Alisha's office."

What?

"You left me in the lobby."

"Well, you looked busy. Listen, Alisha's on her way in. I want you to watch how she reacts when the guard tells her there's an FBI agent waiting for her."

"No—" Neal began but Peter had hung up. His handler used him and it was nothing he could do about it. Peter had every right to. Neal was just not so keen on being reminded about it.

A blond woman in her forties marched by him towards the staff's entrance.

"Hi, Phil," she said to the guard.

"Morning, Miss Teagen. There's an FBI agent here to see you."

"Sorry? An FBI agent?"

"Said his name was Burke."

She appeared to be stressed, nervous, Neal noted as requested. On the other hand, who would not be nervous when the feds turned up unexpectedly?

"Tell him today's not a good day," she shook it off.

"He's already upstairs."

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"To let you know he's here."

"Oh, thanks." And she was gone.

So now he had observed. What now? Neal watched a few employees arrive. They greeted the guard and he knew them all by name. And of course, you needed a badge to beep to get through. Neal rose and hurried out. If Peter had been gracious enough to remind him he was a felon on an anklet, he could just as much use the opportunity. Just to make sure Peter got the message, Neal turned his phone off.

Minutes later he returned with eight cups of coffee in two paper trays in a pile and a bag of buns, making his hands full, holding the piles of coffee with his chin.

"Hey, Phil," Neal greeted the guard as the other had.

"Morning."

Neal moved as if he tried to free a hand to get his card.

"I ran out of hands. My card's in my pocket if you just wanna grab that there. Just get that for me?"

Phil glanced at him.

"Don't worry about it," he assured him and buzzed him through.

"All right, thanks, bud."

He had been just as keen to search someone's pockets as Neal had hoped for.

Next step was to find which floor Alisha Teagen had the studio she usually worked in.

Peter walked back and forth along a balcony with a nice view over the staircase. Two women crossed their ways on a balcony on the floor below and one addressed the other as Alicia. He smiled. She signed something in the other's hands and then moved on, away from the staircase. She was in no hurry to get to her office and her visitor.

Then he saw something that took his smile away. He saw Neal on the same balcony with a pile of coffee cups. What was he doing? It was trespassing! Why could he not leave that kid alone for ten minutes?! Peter picked up his phone and got to Neal's voice mail. He cursed to himself but he left a message anyway.

"Neal, I don't know what you're up to. But whatever it is, stop."

Not so much because he thought it would work, as he was covering his own back.

Neal had found Alisha Teagen and followed her into a tv-studio. He recognized the design and knew the news-program sent from this place. It was not without he felt a wave of awe. He saw Teagen talk to someone at the other end of the studio. A guy suspiciously looking like security in a suit glanced in his direction. Neal walked into the studio with his coffee and his bag. In best of cases, he could walk right through.

"Hi. I don't think I've seen you around here before." A woman's voice.

A news anchor he had seen many times stood with her male counterpart. And she was even more charming off camera, when she smiled at him.

"Oh, I'm Gary. The new sports anchor."

The real sports anchor, Leonard Stewart, stood just fifteen feet away signing a football for a young woman who seemed to adore the man. Neal never liked him.

"New sports anchor?" the woman repeated but though this was news to her, she did not seem to mind.

"New guy brings the coffee, right?" Neal grinned and walked up to them and placed the coffee on the desk he had seen on TV numerous times.

"Thanks, Gary."

"Hey, no problem."

People in the studio grabbed the mugs and returned to their jobs.

"What about Leonard?" the male news anchor — quite a legend — wanted to know.

"Oh, you didn't hear? Yeah, that's why the meeting got moved to 12:30."

Alisha Teagen left the studio and Neal moved to follow her.

"Don't say anything to Leonard," he told the baffled news anchors.

"Great work, champ," he pattered Leonard on the shoulder on his way out.

He just walked through a well-known TV-studio and said hello to his favorite news anchors and they accepted him as one of their own. It pained him to know that they would hate him soon enough when the new sports anchor never turned up again and they realized they had been fooled. On the other hand, they would not likely remember what he looked like. Neal knew he was charming but he also knew his face had ordinary features with nothing special that made it memorable.

The modern office had the advantage of lots of glass. He slumped down in a chair outside Teagen's office area and still had a clear view of her. She put something in a locked drawer at her desk, and kept the key in her purse. Well, those kinds of drawers had locks that could easily be picked with a paper-clip. And the office was just about empty.

"Alisha Teagen?" Peter held out his hand to the blond woman who had taken a detour to avoid him.

"Oh, you must be Agent Burke." She shook his hand. "I hope this won't take long. I'm on deadline."

Peter gestured for a conference room nearby.

"Have a seat." He pulled out a chair for her, making sure she had her back to the glass wall and the view over the office. Neal was somewhere around and whatever he was up to, Alisha better not see him.

"I'm curious about the piece that you did on Captain Jonathan Mitchell," he explained his errand as he sat down opposite her. The second he did it he saw Neal walking across the office with a rose in his hand.

"Oh, Mitchell. Of course."

"What was your impression of him?" Peter asked, focusing on his own job.

"He seemed like a good soldier."

"That's it?"

"To be honest, I didn't find him memorable."

"Then why did you have a follow-up on him?"

"I was doing a series of segments on vets returning home. How they're readjusting to life after the military."

She did give an honest impression. Relaxed, cooperative.

"How did he seem to you?"

"He seemed to be doing fine. Eager to get back home."

Neal rose from the desk and walked passed the conference room. The kid did even send him a smile. Peter realized he had followed Neal with his eyes and had to cover up for his. He kept his awkward position for a second, as if he was thinking and then rose from the chair, rolling his shoulders as if they were stiff.

"So you took Captain Mitchell out for a beer?"

Yeah. He was one of several soldiers I was considering."

Peter tried to get a view of Neal in vain.

"Mm. When you say 'considering,' what exactly do you mean by that?" What a silly question. He was a federal agent, trained to interview people and that was all he could come up with. Damn Neal.

"We wanted to get a sense of what they were going through. If the reality lived up to their expectations. What exactly are you investigating, Agent Burke?"

"Captain Mitchell was arrested yesterday for the theft of Iraqi antiquities."

"Sorry to hear that."

Neal passed the conference room again, in the other direction and sat down again by her desk.

"So there was nothing particularly special about Mitchell?"

"No. In fact, I'm really sorry I couldn't help you further." She collected her bunch of papers and rose.

"Why the rush?" Peter asked. Not only did she suddenly behave as if she did not want to discuss it further, she would also run into Neal rumbling through her drawers.

"I told you I'm on deadline. Now, if you have no other questions, I'd like to get back to work."

"Wait," Peter halted her. He moved so he more or less blocked her exit. She gazed at him, waiting for a question that never popped up in his mind. Neal sent him one more of his charming smiles and left the area.

"My card," Peter offered. "When you think of something else."

She accepted the card.

"If I think of something else."

Peter nodded his goodbye and left, not sure what he had asked her all the questions he had had in his mind before Neal popped up.