Buying gold

Neal sat on a chair in the studio waiting for Alisha Teagen. He had told them he had a huge scope about a cover-up in Iraq and everyone seemed eager to get Alisha there as soon as possible. Finally, she walked in, just as stressed and unprepared as Neal and Peter had hoped for.

"We're rolling?" she asked the crew. Oh, yes, they were rolling. She saw Neal. "Oh, hi. Hi. Alisha Teagen."

They shook hands, and he gave her a nervous grin.

"Good to meet you. I'm a huge fan."

"Thank you."

"You look better in person," Neal added to appear to adore her.

"Well, thank you. Okay, you're all miked up," she noted. Neal had given her no chance to come prepared. "All right. Let's get started." She sat down. "Your name?"

"Oh, we'll get to that."

"Just relax. Take a deep breath," Alisha advised him. He was after all supposed to reveal something sensitive. "So why don't we… Why don't we start at the beginning?"

"Okay. Yeah," Neal agreed. "Once upon a time in Iraq, there were two people. One was greedy and a thief. The other was pretty and opportunistic. Together they found a great deal of treasure."

Alisha understood where this was going.

"This is something we should be discussing off-camera," she smiled at him. She probably thought he wanted to blackmail her.

"Wait, no. That's the prologue. I'm getting to the setup. They smuggled that treasure here, went off without a hitch. But they needed a fall guy. Somebody to take the heat off them so they could sell the treasure without interference. That fall guy is a soldier you know. John Mitchell."

If eyes could kill, Neal would be dead. But they could not and he met Alisha's blue steel blue eyes without fear.

"Well. Unfortunately, your story is missing something very important. Proof."

"Oh, I got proof," he claimed and took the coin out of his pocket. "Here. Recognize this?"

She did. No camera could miss that.

"What this story is missing is an ending," Neal continued. "I'm not sure what happens to Mitchell. The outcome of his life it may as well be decided on the toss of a coin."

Neal flipped the coin up in the air and caught it on its way down and put it on the top of his other hand, covering it. "You wanna call it for me?"

"Turn off the cameras," Alisha hissed. Nothing happened. "Turn off the cameras!"

Peter turned up beside Neal and held up his badge.

"Alisha Teagen, you're under arrest," Peter declared. Neal saw Jones and Lauren behind him. Alisha became pale as a ghost. Her eyes darted around the studio. All eyes were on her. Neal felt no pity for someone who framed an innocent man. If her career were over, Neal would not feel ashamed to be the one exposing the reason.

Peter wandered around in the conference room, passing behind Alisha Teagan's back, while he pretended to read from a file. He wanted to make sure she knew she had no power, no cards to play but information. Her hands fiddled nervously.

"I want immunity," she declared, with a surprisingly steady voice. Peter looked up from the file and stared at her as if he became aware of her presence. He grinned all over his face.

"You're funny."

Her pose shrunk and her eyes when to the table. Peter closed the file and sat down.

"What you get depends on what you give me."

"Aimes looted Saddam's museum. He set the whole thing up. All I did was help him transport it back to the States."

"You were his mule. What was your cut?"

"Well, it doesn't matter. I haven't seen a dime."

"Not even this really old dime?" Peter asked as he pushed the coin across the table. "Prosecution hasn't taken immunity off the table."

"I needed the money," she said in a pitiful voice.

"Oh, I bet. I looked at your portfolio. You lost a lot when the market crashed." She had gone from wealthy to less wealthy, but far from poor.

"Yeah. I lost enough."

Peter waited. She still not had explained how she got the coin.

"Look, I still had access to the gold. So I took some of the smaller pieces and turned them over."

"And when you got scared that you were leaving a paper trail you set up Mitchell as a fall guy."

"I didn't wanna set him up," she claimed. "Aimes did."

"All you did was get the prints and the hat," Peter replied with a stern look. That alone was bad enough, and he wanted her to know it. "What I wanna know is why you melted some of the pieces down."

"He thought if we made it look like most of the gold was gone you wouldn't spend much time searching for it, even after Mitchell was locked up."

What an insane idea.

"Where's the gold now?"

"I don't know."

"He moved it on you?"

"Yeah! I swear, I don't know where it is!"

Perhaps it was true. He browsed the file. Alisha Teagen was an opportunist, which meant she had likely little idea what she was doing and who she was dealing with. Naive enough to be fooled? Maybe. He slammed the file shut.

"Then you're gonna help us find it. You're gonna tell Aimes that the FBI has been poking around. We've been talking to him so he'll believe you."

"He won't trust me."

"He will if you tell him the case against Mitchell is falling apart. And that he needs to unload the gold immediately."

"What if he gets spooked, and wants to wait?"

"You'll have to convince him that you found a private buyer," Peter emphasized every word. "A very rich, very discreet buyer."

Alisha looked terrified, but Peter kept his firm pose. If she was afraid of Aimes, she had to be more afraid of what the FBI could do.

"Will I get immunity if I do?" she whispered.

"We'll see. What is certain, is what will happen if you don't. Then you'll take the fall. And you alone."

Her hands fiddled, and she stared down on the desk.

"Alright, I'll do it. Who's the buyer?"

Neal grinned all over his face as he swung his jacket on and left the conference room. He loved playing rich.

"So Aimes is willing to meet you at a private gallery later today?" Cruz asked.

"Apparently, I'm a wealthy buyer."

"And this is your car for the day," Jones met up and held up a file with a photo of a small car.

Neal laughed and turned grinning to his colleague to get the real car. He saw Jones' face.

"You… you're not kidding?"

"It's a Mercedes!" Cruz told him as if the brand was enough.

"This isn't even an S-Class," Neal pointed out. "I need to look like I can drop a few million on antiquities. This says, 'Look what I kept in the divorce.'" He handed the file to Cruz.

"You can't make this work? What kind of a con-man are you?" She handed the file back to him. "The Neal Caffrey I did my thesis on could make this work."

Jones looked like he was about to burst out laughing at this. The guy patted him on his back and left. Did they think of it as some form of an ongoing joke to make him work with less than needed just because they knew he was used to better stuff? With this little Mercedes, the whole thing would blow up in their faces. He had to fix something else. As the charming Lauren pointed out, he was a con-man.

He hurried home and shook the shoulder of the sleeping Mozzie on his couch.

"Moz, wake up!"

"Leave me alone!" Mozzie protested, half asleep.

"Come on. Come on, Moz," Neal insisted. "Come on."

He rushed to his wardrobe and brought out clothes that would match the role needed for achieving better transportation.

"Did you draw on my face?" his friend asked, sitting up, still not fully awake.

"What? No! Aimes is meeting with me today. Gotta go in as a serious high roller. Need a car."

"I'll get my Slim Jim."

"No. Can't steal it."

"Yeah. We 'can't steal it.'"

"No. We can't steal it, Moz. Not when it's for work."

"Semantics."

"Perhaps. But one can put me back in prison and the other not. Get in a suit, Moz."

To all luck, there was a limo-cleaning-service just two blocks from June's. Neal and Mozzie walked up to it, very FBI-looking.

"Excuse me," Neal addressed a car cleaner working on a perfect limo for the job. "Could you step away from this car?"

The man shrugged and stepped away.

"Thank you."

A big guy, probably the manager, pinpointed them.

"Yo, you need something?"

"Yeah," Neal nodded and held up his consultant ID. The first time he had used it, and the first time he had used a real ID, too. "Captain told you I was coming, right? Says FBI."

"What're you talking about?" the manager asked.

"Your limo was involved in a 4 18 last night. I'm to bring it to the forensic motor pool," Neal explained, and then yelled to Mozzie who walked to the back of the car. "What's the plate on that?"

"XC7-32W."

"We're cleaning it now," the manager said as if they could not take it before they were done. Neal saw there was a man inside the car polishing the seats.

"Griggs, get this guy out of there."

"I didn't get a call about any of this," the manager protested.

"Beat it," Mozzie ordered the guy inside who took off.

"Is that our vehicle?" Neal asked 'Griggs' who pulled his finger along the inside of the door.

"Whoa," Moz sniffed at his finger. "We've got gunshot residue. Looks like she's been snowing back here."

"How many of your guys touched this?" Neal gave the manager a stern gaze.

"We're a cleaning company."

"Oh, really? Okay. There's two ways we can do this. One, I take this car back with me. No one gets asked any questions. The second way, we assume whatever's in the back seat belongs to one of you."

"Pssh. It's above my pay grade, pal. Take it."

Neal felt sorry for the guy. But he would get the car back.

"Griggs, give him a receipt."

Mozzie stuffed a paper in his hand.

"Say no to drugs, chief."

"Yeah, whatever," the manager muttered.

Moz swung the door open to the driver's seat while Neal got in the back. Now they just had to pick up the others.

Peter sat in the van with Jones and a few agents in vests.

"Oh, we got a high roller coming through," Jones told them.

A limo stopped, and the driver stepped out. Peter gazed. He knew that little man who walked around the door and opened for the passengers. They stared as Lauren, Alisha Teagen and Neal stepped out of the more than fancy vehicle.

"I thought we gave him a Mercedes," Peter glanced at Jones.

His colleague grinned and shrugged.

"I guess he made it work."

Peter hoped Neal knew better than gain access to that car illegally.

"God, that driver looks familiar," Jones frowned. "Is he one of ours?"

Peter smiled. Of course. Jones had tailed the guy, even seen him up close.

"That's Haversham. A good man."

"Relax," Neal assured Alisha as they walk towards the entrance of Aimes' gallery. "You're gonna be fine."

"Yeah? You have no idea how dangerous Aimes can be."

"It's just a game." It was. Dangerous as it might be, it helped to think of it as something you did for the fun of it. He did.

"Never let them see you sweat, right?" Alisha hissed as she regretted a million times over that she had agreed to this instead of taking the fall.

The revolving doors to the entrance rotated, and a strong man Neal guessed was Aimes' bodyguard walked out followed by Aimes himself. Neal recognized him from the photos.

"Alisha you look lovely," the man said with a trace of a smile and exchanged kisses with Alisha. She turned towards Neal and introduced him.

"This is the gentleman I was telling you about."

Neal greeted him with a nod.

"This is my business manager," Neal presented Lauren.

"Charmed." Aimes kissed her had without any charm at all in Neal's opinion.

Lauren smiled as if the man was Adonis himself.

"Likewise."

"Come in." He waved for them to follow him inside.

His gallery turned out to be no less than a minor museum except that it was a museum of reproductions mostly since the actual pieces were the valuable treasure of the countries of their origin.

"Enjoy," Aimes gestured proudly for them to inspect his treasures.

Neal took a look at a figure of a bird.

"How long have you been collecting antiquities?" Aimes asked.

"Years," Neal replied. "I also admire the occasional reproduction."

"So you're familiar with the Ptolemaic period, then?"

"I am."

"Shame the Greeks put an end to it," Aimes said as of he would have more to collect if it continued.

"Shame you didn't have a better history teacher." Neal strolled among the display-cases. Focusing on one after another. "Soter's reign over Egypt ended after the death of Cleopatra in the Roman conquest of 30 B.C., not the Greek." He looked up to the group. "Or so I've been told."

"Would you like to see the actual pieces then?"

"I think I already have," Neal smiled and gave Lauren a look. "These aren't reproductions."

"Good eye."

"They've been here all along?" Alisha was baffled.

"I've always believed the best place to hide something is in plain sight," Aimes replied and gave Alisha a concerned look. "Is everything all right?"

"Of course."

Though Neal figured she was far from all right.

"Smile, Alisha. It's almost over," Aimes told her.

His words left an awkward silence in the room.

"Yes," Lauren continued. "Can we move this along?"

She sat down on a bench and opened her briefcase. It was full of money. Aimes stared. Then he took a step back while his bodyguard went forward and pulled a gun. It was trailed on Neal in a second. He hated guns.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on?" he said and backed away.

"Don't play games with me. You're with the FBI," Aimes hissed.

Lauren lifted the fake money and pulled out a gun, trailing it at the bodyguard.

"Technically, I'm just a consultant," Neal tried. "She's with the FBI."

She was trained for this and had a weapon. He was unarmed and just a conman.

"Regardless, no need for a fifth wheel," Aimes said, turned and ran out.

"Looks like we have a standoff," Neal noted.

"No, we don't," Lauren disagreed. "Shoot him. Then I'll have you on murder too."

What?! This was not fair. He was supposed to have the same protection as she, though he was not allowed a gun. And she knew he hated guns.

"Go on," Lauren encouraged the bodyguard

"FBI! Gun on the ground!" Jones yelled as he and two other agents burst into the room. "Gun on the ground right now! Hands on your head!"

Oh God, how he loved Jones sometimes. At least when he did not yell that at him but at the one pointing a gun at him.

"Nice bluff," Neal told Lauren who just gave him a stern glare. "I know you were bluffing. Because that's what I would've done." One thing was certain: Lauren Cruz would never see him as anything but an untrustworthy criminal.

In the meantime, Peter chased Aimes as he exited at the back of the gallery.

"You- Hey! Hey, don't make me shoot you."

Of course, the guy continued to run. As Peter turned the corner, he had to dodge back to cover because Aimes had taken the opportunity the pull his gun and shoot.

"Drop the gun!" he called from his cover. "Jones, I need immediate backup."

Then Peter heard the sound of a car and a crash. He blinked. What happened? He peeked around the corner and saw Neal's limo which Peter vaguely remembered parked a bit further away than it was now. In front of the car, Aimes lay on his back.

Peter hurried up and kicked the gun away and picked it up. Aimes was alive but did not seem interested in moving anywhere. Peter walked to the driver's side, and the window slid down. Moz was drinking sparkling wine, listening to classical music.

"I was never here," he said and let the window slide back up. Peter pattered the car. Good work, Mr. Haversham. The limo backed away.

Peter met Neal by his car when all the crooks, including Alisha, were in cuffs and placed in the backseat of FBI cars.

"Looks like you can go home again," Neal said with a grin.

So true. He grinned.

"Come, I'll drive you home," he offered Neal. "We'll just stop by and get Mitchell out on the way, okay?"

"Sure thing, Peter."

Peter walked through the front door with John close behind.

"Hi, baby," the young man greeted his wife who flew into his arms.

Peter left the happy couple and went to his wife. She put her arms around him.

"I'm really proud of you," she smiled, glancing at John and Dana.

"Oh, John's free because of you, El," Peter returned the hug. "Yeah, if you hadn't given me that push."

"Well, it was more like a nudge."

"Nudge?"

"Maybe a little love tap," El suggested.

"More like a left hook." At least that was as Peter remembered it.

"Oh, he must be really happy he's going home," Elisabeth said and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"He's not the only one."