Neal stared at the text message. Lawrence was ready. Some part of him wanted to erase that message. He had never felt like this before. A place and the people there had never meant that much to him that it was hard leaving.
But leave, he had to.
The friendship with Peter was gone, and he could go to prison for stealing the art that could give him and Mozzie a safe life somewhere in the world.
He cleaned his brushes.
Mozzie walked in as a pot brimming with excitement.
"So, I'm getting everything in place at the warehouse. The plane is fueled and ready." He rubbed his hands as if he could not wait to take off. "You know Jones is outside, right?"
"Yeah. Once I get Lawrence and his money to the docks, I can slip him again."
Mozzie chuckled.
"By the time Lawrence is being hauled downtown, we'll be sipping champagne at cruising altitude. So, when's 'go' time?"
Neal sighed and put the brushes away.
"Lawrence's text came in two minutes ago."
Moz stared at him, baffled.
"Why didn't you tell me? This is it!"
Was it? Neal was not convinced.
"We take our time. We do it right."
"Look, you know, everything good must one day come to an end," Mozzie returned, not getting his hesitation at all. "Just think, we're never gonna see anything in this apartment again. Except you," he added, going for the wine bottle on the table. "You can come with me." Neal packed his brushes and returned them to the secret compartment where he had hidden Sara's package, and everybody had known of since then. "Hey. What are you doing? This is our final curtain call, our big au revoir."
Neal knew Moz was right, but he did not want to leave. He knew he had to, but that did not mean he wanted to.
"I should say something to June."
His friend stopped him.
"Hey. You know the rules. No goodbyes." Moz was right about that too. Both their faces were solemn. "Yeah. I'm gonna miss her, too. I'm... gonna miss all of it." It felt better knowing they were two in this. In all of it. Neal gazed at his friend. His best friend. He was not alone and not abandoned. He smiled.
"Come on."
"I'll see you downstairs."
"Okay."
Neal walked to a small painting beside his bed and opened it like a door. Behind it was a cupboard, big enough for a bag he had kept ready for any quick departure.
He grabbed the coat that was part of Gary's outfit and walked to the door.
He stopped and looked around. No matter where he ended up, he would never find a place like this.
Then he remembered something he had to leave, too. His FBI consultant ID. His biggest treasure before the sub. It had a name on it he also had to leave behind.
He left it on the table.
"Goodbye, Caffrey."
Peter's phone rang. It was the kid.
"Time to make contact?" he asked when he took the call. Jones had already called him and told him that Neal was on the move.
"I'm on my way to the fencing club to meet him now."
"Update me when you have the money. Jones will back your play if anything goes wrong. I'm heading to the harbor now."
"All right."
Peter hung up to call Diana. It was not until afterward that he puzzled over the kid's answer. Just an 'all right', and with a damped tone. It had not been a nervous Neal at the other end; it had been a sad one.
He shrugged it off. He probably imagined things, looking for clues that were not there.
Neal walked into the fencing club. Neal counted to four goons. Two more than he had expected, but it was nothing crucial.
"Everything in place?" Lawrence asked.
"Only thing left is the money."
Lawrence chuckled.
"The Federal Reserve job, it was flawless. Probably the most secure vault in the world, and I walked out with sixty million." The man strolled across the room and opened a box on the wall. "It was Prometheus. Stealing fire from the gods."
Neal glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was an electrical box.
"Prometheus got caught," he said.
"Yes, he did," Lawrence grinned and unscrewed a wire. "Yes, he did. And the FBI closed in, fast. Every account, P.O. box, storage locker, friends, relatives, apartments. They were all over me. I needed to get out fast, stash the money. I thought I'd be back in 48 hours to collect it, but the feds were there, waiting." He moved the wire from one place to another and screwed it in place. Neal could not figure out what he was doing and why. "Instead, I was on a plane headed south of the border. Every morning, I'd check the news, waiting to hear the report: 'sixty million found in Gramercy Fencing Club.'"
"It's here?" Neal asked, baffled. If Lawrence had successfully hidden that volume of money in here, he was impressed.
"There are five ducts to this room," he said, nodding towards a row of ventilation ducts. "I diverted air to two of them." He did the final work on the electrics, and Neal heard fans starting. The grids barring the ducts fell off on three of them, and out came money. "There it is! Sixty million dollars! You know how many times I pictured this in my head?"
Neal stood with Lawrence in a rain of greenbacks.
"Is this how you thought it'd feel?"
"No. Better." He laughed. Neal could not join. Why did he not feel the same? He was about to leave undetected with his white whale. Just as Lawrence thought he was about to do.
"How do you plan on transporting them?" he asked, gesturing towards the money spread over the floor, more still coming.
"Always this practical?" Lawrence gestured to the three men who were not by the door. There was a bill counting machine, and the men began to collect the money and put packs into the machine.
It was a fast process but lots of greenbacks. Slowly the pile of neatly bundled franklins grew.
A man Neal had not seen before walked in, whispered to Lawrance, handed him a pair of binoculars, and left. Lawrance marched to the vast window looking.
"What's going on?"
"Someone knows we're here." He handed the binoculars to Neal, who had time to see Jones pulled away by two men. This was not good.
A minute later, Jones was pushed down into a chair.
"Agent Jones," Lawrence read from the badge and handed it to Neal.
"FBI," Neal noted.
"What are you doing here?" Lawrence asked, cocking his gun. "Talk, or I shoot. You tailing my friend here?"
"Answer him," Neal said and snuck past the man and placed himself, so Lawrence had to lower the gun. "Were you following me?"
"I don't know who you are. I'm on Lawrence."
"How many of your friends you got out there?" Neal asked, not quite sure what would be the right answer, and hoped for Jones.
"I followed a hunch. I'm by myself."
Lawrence placed a fist right at Jones' cheek.
"Pack of wolves! They probably know about the dock. The whole thing is blown," he basked at Neal and turned to one of his goons. "Kill him. Dump the body."
No, he would not end his time at the FBI with a dead colleague.
"W-w-wait a second," he objected. "This guy is useless dead. Alive, he's leverage."
"For what?"
"You forgot step three. Attaque composée, feint left, thrust right."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about a backup plan. When it all goes to hell, this is why you hire me." Neal paused for barely a second. He knew he was doing the right thing. "I've got a plane."
"You've got a plane."
"I've got a plane, fueled and ready, waiting with a pilot." He stood with his back to Jones, but he must be pretty surprised to hear this. "All that is needed is a phone call, and the engines will start."
"Call him."
Neal took his phone and called Mozzie, who was probably in the warehouse packing.
"Now boarding, Freedom Airlines, Flight number one and only," his friend answered.
"I'm here with the client. We're putting step three into effect."
"Step three? Neal, what are you talking about?"
"The client and I are moving the cargo to the airstrip," Neal said.
"Client? Don't tell me you're talking about Lawrence."
"That's right."
"No. No, no, no," Moz protested. "Don't do this to us."
"Make sure it's gassed up and good to go. All right?" Neal said, sad for Mozzie's sake. "Grab your suit and meet me there."
"What? No suits. No suits on the island! Neal—" Neal hung up.
Peter stood by a window in the old industrial building by the docks. The last he had heard from Jones was that they were still at the fencing club. But that was an hour ago. And now he was not answering his phone.
"No sign of Caffrey and Lawrence," he said to Diana, who came from her viewpoint.
"Still no answer from Jones."
"This is taking way too long." A million thoughts were going through his head about what could have happened. His phone rang. But it was not Neal nor Jones, but the short guy. "You better have a good reason for calling. I'm in the middle of something very important, Mozzie."
"Yeah, you and me both, Suit," Mozzie snapped back, not sounding to eager to be on the line. "I'm passing on a message from Neal. He's made a request for our presence, without the slightest regard for the monumental inconvenience it causes us, primarily me. Van Buren airstrip. Thirty minutes."
Too short of a time to get there. Peter ended the call and was on the move at the same time.
"Moving out."