Thirty minutes was a too short a time to get to the airstrip. The drive alone took more than that. It was not just he and Diana either. It was a whole team at the docks that had to be organized to a new place.

What had happened to Jones, Peter wondered. And why the change of location? The most likely reason was that the docks had been compromised. And the reason for that, together with Jones' absence, was most likely that he had been discovered.

Never before had he put a tail on the kid when he went undercover. It had not felt necessary because he trusted Neal to do his job. If he did not trust his pet convict to do his job, he would have ended the agreement, would he not? Had he put Jones in danger now?

They reached the airstrip with their sirens on. He saw Neal and his friend disappear inside the small aircraft. The engines were turned on! If the kid could not stall any longer, someone must be in danger. Lawrence must be pretty desperate by now.

"Get around the front of that plane," he told Diana beside him.

"Team one, flank left. Team three, flank right. Box him in!"

"We cannot let Caffrey get airborne!" Peter yelled. He did not dare to think what would happen if it got that far if there was a hostage situation. He pressed that gas pedal further down.

Then the plane made a lurch to the left, and a crate came tumbling out. It crashed into the tarmac, and money sprayed out of it.

"Watch out!" Diana warned him.

A hundred-dollar bill landed smack on Peter's windshield.

He pushed it away with a wiper. It was something very satisfactory to do that.

One of the cars got in front of the plane, and it stopped. It was surrounded in seconds.

"FBI!" Peter heard an agent call when he got out of the car. He pulled his gun.

"Come out now with your hands up!" Diana yelled as she approached the plane.

There were movements inside.

"Let me see your hands!"

Then Neal was in the open door, showing his hands with a sheepish grin on his face.

"We're secure!" Jones called from inside. "Lawrence is on the plane!"

Peter put his gun away, and Neal jumped out and arranged for a crate to step on for Jones.

"You okay?" Diana asked Jones.

"I'm good."

"You all right, Jones?" Peter wanted to know as well.

"Yeah. Caffrey had my back." Did he now? He glanced at Neal, who shrugged. And he who had told the kid that Jones would have his back if things went south. It seemed that he could trust him to do his job after all that had happened. That was comforting.

"Neal, we got to hurry," Mozzie said as Neal carried a crate full of money from Lawrence's van. Why? They were not carrying their art about to flee the country. And he had used the wrong name. He glanced him up and down where he stood as a pilot from world war two, in a brown leather jacket, leather helmet, and goggles.

"I said, 'suit,'" Neal whispered to him, "not 'costume.'" What if Peter was not on the way here?

"Don't worry. The Suit got the message."

Neal pulled the pin with the wings from Moz's jacket. He blinked, not getting it until:

"Load the fed up front," Lawrence said as they pulled Jones from the van, cuffed on the back.

"Jones?" Mozzie whispered.

"Why aren't we flying?" Lawrence asked, not bothering to carry a crate himself. Neal slipped the pin into Jones' hand as he passed.

"You sure you can fly this thing?" he mumbled to Moz. He shrugged and pulled his goggles down on top of his glasses.

At the end of the airstrip came a row of cars and vans with their sirens on. Inside the plane was a man with a gun, ready to kill to leave with his millions, together with Jones and Mozzie.

As the last man, Neal entered the plane, and Mozzie got the engines started. Then they got rolling. Neal's intention was not for them to get airborne, but as long as they had Jones a captive and Lawrence was armed, it might be needed.

"Lolana, it wasn't supposed to be like this," Neal heard Mozzie say to their common mascot. He looked out and counted six black FBI cars following them.

"Get us out of here," Lawrence told Moz.

"We're not gonna make it."

"We don't have a choice, Moz," Neal said. "We have to make it."

"Climb," Lawrence commanded, now pointing a gun.

"We need more speed!"

Neal glanced at Jones, who nodded. He had freed himself from the cuffs.

"Climb now!"

Mozzie glanced back at Neal, who gave him a nod. Mozzie made a sharp turn, startling everybody except Neal and possibly Jones. Neal gave a nearby crate an extra push, hitting one of the goons, and then it tumbled out of the open door.

Jones was the pro Neal would never be. He had dived at Lawrence and taken his gun.

"Hands in the air!" he commanded, and Lawrence saw little he could do but obey. "You! Move over here!" he yelled at the goon, about to escape the same way as the crate.

Mozzie stopped the plane, and the FBI car caught up with them. Neal saw Diana and Peter jump out of their vehicle, both with their guns. What if it had been he and Mozzie trying to escape? It would have been no different.

"FBI!"

"Come out now with your hands up!" Diana yelled.

"Let me see your hands!"

Neal stepped up to the door with a smile and a wave. They lowered their guns.

"We're secure!" Jones yelled from behind him. "Lawrence is on the plane!"

Now the guns were put away, and Neal jumped out. He grabbed one of the crates and placed it as a block to step on to get out. Jones got out, and so did Mozzie.

"You okay?" Diana asked.

"I'm good."

"You all right, Jones?" Peter asked.

"Yeah. Caffrey had my back." Jones sent Neal a smile of thank you. Peter glanced at him. Was he surprised? Neal could not believe what he saw.

"Your timing is far from impeccable, J. Edgar," Mozzie complained.

"Sorry," Peter said. "Amelia."

"Luckily, I was here to save the day once again."

"You're a hero, Moz. I'll sew you a cape."

"Do that. I look good in aubergine." Moz left them. Lawrence and his goon were guided out of the plane of agents in windbreakers bossed by Diana.

"Thank you." Jones extended his hand to Neal, and he shook it. It was nice with acknowledgment, but was Jones too surprised that Neal was on his side? He got a pat on the back before he left him alone with Peter.

Peter slung his arm around his shoulders.

"Step three, huh?"

"The part where you arrest him."

"Nice work."

"Thanks," Neal smiled at Peter, and Peter smiled back. It felt like before, when they were still friends.

Peter handed him something.

"Ah, the anklet," Neal sighed and took it. It was just like when they were friends. He knew he had chosen to stay at least a bit longer when he used their escape plan for Lawrence. Holding the anklet, he found himself happy that he did.

He put his foot on the car and put it on. Peter sighed, of course, and mumbled:

"Not on the car, Neal."

Neal smiled.

Peter dropped his coat on the railing when he got home. He found his lovely wife in the kitchen.

"Hey, hon."

"Hey. Good day?"

"Uh, we caught a bad guy, so it wasn't a bad day."

They kissed.

"This should make you feel even better," she said, holding a paper. "Authentication from the gallery. The canvas is mid-1930s."

Peter stopped breathing. He was not prepared for that. He scanned the report.

"So, it wasn't Neal's painting."

"Well, unless he painted it seventy-five years ago."

Had he been so blind? Or had Neal made a switch somehow on the day Jones lost him? El was happy Neal was not involved.

"I'd better go over to Neal's" he mumbled.

"You do that," she said and kissed him. "And when you get home I'll have a glass of wine, and you can have a beer, and then we just relax."

"Mmm, can't wait."

He drove over to Neal's. He checked his anklet, and it said he was out. The dot was moving towards home. He got out of the car and hurried up the stairs. He knocked, just in case, and opened the door.

He felt ashamed for snooping, though he knew he had every right to search the home of his pet convict. But where to start? He lingered a few steps inside.

Then he saw a bunch of paintings leaning towards the wall to the patio.

He sat down on his heels beside them and browsed through the canvases. And there it was. He pulled it out and held it in his hands. The painting of the Chrysler building. He glanced out the window. Neal had painted the view.

"Hi, Peter."

Peter looked behind him and saw Neal looking at him from the doorway. His face told him an explanation for his presence was in place.

"I let myself in," he said, stating the obvious, rising with the painting in his hands.

"Yeah," Neal agreed, and he was not happy about it. "Yeah, you did." The smile was stiff as cardboard. " Just clearing out some space for storage. You like that one?"

Peter was not sure what to believe any longer. The man standing before him was the world's most incredible con man. He was also a man with the heart in the right place and someone with a conscience.

A man that he liked.

"Yeah…"

"You can have it," the kid offered. Oh? "I've already got the view."

The view… Neal was where he wanted to be. And where Peter wanted him to be. Peter placed the painting in the aisle. The kid had saved Jones from a situation that would not have happened if Peter had trusted him to do his job. He studied Neal.

"I'm calling a truce," he said. "I may have rushed to judgment."

"Oh, you had judgment on speed dial." The kid was right about that statement.

"I'm trying to be gracious." That was as far as he dared to go. Neal might be innocent in all this, but knowing the man, he could very well be fooling him too.

"You kept my severed tie," the kid pointed out. Peter stared. Had that meant so much to him? He did not even remember where he had put the tie.

"I was pretty pissed off."

"And now?" There was so much hope in the kid's eyes. Guilty or not, Neal still wanted his friendship and wanted to live the life he now lived. And Peter had to admit that they both wanted the same thing. It had been fantastic years.

"Look at this," Peter said, "I'm smiling again."

"I like it." Neal's face was a pallet of all joy. Peter wanted back to before the sub when they had some strange form of trust for each other. He wanted to talk to the kid, turn back time, and set things right. Start over.

His phone beeped. He glanced at it. It was a text message from Diana, who asked him to come at once. The timing was spooky. He glanced at the con man in front of him like he had something to do with the message. El waited for him at home. But it would not take long.

"I got to go."

"Sure." He felt the kid's eyes on his back as he walked to the door. "Peter..." He stopped and looked back. "Door's open anytime." Peter smiled. Guess that was Neal's version of returning the grace shown him.

"Thanks."

He drove to the office.

"What do you have?" he asked Diana in the conference room.

"E.R.T.'s still doing a cleanup of the warehouse and the U-boat burn. They found this about an hour ago."

She pushed an evidence bag with a paper across the table.

"What is it?"

"Part of the original German U-boat manifest. We can make out twenty-two of the paintings that were on board."

"Who else knows about this?"

"Uhm, two people on the evidence recovery team, Jones, and me."

"Keep it that way."

"You still think Caffrey has the art?" Diana asked.

"I don't know."

"He did have that getaway plane ready awfully fast."

"Yeah. Yeah," Peter nodded. Had the kid been about to leave and had a change of heart? Had he burned an escape route for staying in New York, staying with him even? "But you know what? That doesn't matter. Patience is our best asset right now. Whoever stole it, if a single item on this list shows up anywhere—"

"We got 'em."

"Yeah," Peter nodded. "We got 'em."

And if it turned out to be Neal and his friend, well, then they had had their chance.

When Neal walked down the sidewalk, he saw Peter's car parked outside June's. Had Peter learned that the piece of canvas that caused it all was from before the war, or was he waiting upstairs to cuff him?

Neal took the stairs slowly and quietly. He saw Peter from the doorway, saw him holding the painting, the duplicate he had made. So he was safe for now. Still, he had gone inside snooping instead of asking, as a friend would do. And officially, he had no clue why Peter should have needed to go snooping he reminded himself.

"Hi, Peter."

Peter turned and seemed embarrassed to be caught red-handed.

"I let myself in."

"Yeah. Yeah, you did." No need to say anything about it. Peter had every right. He was just a convict with no right to privacy. "Just clearing out some space for storage. You like that one?"

Peter gave him a peculiar look. Well, if he had been sure he had stolen the art, the analysis must have come as a shock. The question was, did he believe the art had burned or not?

"Yeah," his handler said at last.

"You can have it." Peter's eyebrows went up. "I've already got the view."

Something changed in the agent's face when he said that. Neal panicked for a second. Had he said something that incriminated himself? He could not think of anything. His features and posture remained calm.

Peter placed the painting on the easel. They watched each other. Peter jammed his hands in his pockets.

"I'm calling a truce," his handler said. "I may have rushed to judgment."

Neal was no fool. He heard that he was not off the hook. The irony was that Peter had rushed into judgment then, at the docks, by the fire. Neal had had no clue what Mozzie had done. And that had hurt. It always would.

"Oh, you had judgment on speed dial."

"I'm trying to be gracious," Peter said. He wondered if the agent, too, wanted to go back to the time before the sub.

"You kept my severed tie." It was such a low move.

"I was pretty pissed off."

"And now?" Neal asked.

"Look at this. I'm smiling again." Peter chuckled.

"I like it." If they could work together as friends again, then it was worth the compromised escape route. And he could live with Peter suspecting something. Now, at least, he had a reason.

Peter's phone beeped, and he looked at its screen.

"I got to go."

"Sure." Neal watched him go to the door. His handler had reached out, but what had he got in return? Neal asked himself. Did he want Peter around, now? "Peter..." he called out to him. He stopped and looked back. "Door's open anytime."

Peter looked baffled but pleased.

"Thanks."

And he was gone.

The treasure was safe. He would not go near it. There were no more ties that could link him to it. Peter could search as much as he wanted. He and Mozzie would be patient. Their time would come. If not before, so when he had served his time.

After an hour, Mozzie turned up.

"I get it; you screwed up our plans to save Jones. You're forgiven."

"Thanks. Peter was here. He's called a truce."

"Good. Then he'll not breathe down your neck for our next escape."

"But we take our time and do it right this time," Neal said again.

"You never said you didn't like the first plan."

"I didn't say I didn't like it."

"Indirectly, you did," Mozzie pointed out correctly. "Communicate your thoughts with me this time, mon frère."

"I will." But some things were not that easy to say, especially when he was unsure what he felt.

"We have to sell something."

"Why?"

"Well, our first escape was compromised. We have to fund the second. Simple question: What do we sell first?"