Chapter 5: Falling ( without doubts )
The weird little man who had arrived with Agent Berrigan edged around Casey, and towards Chuck, who barely looked up from his laptop, engrossed in whatever he was doing. The suspicious guy – Mozzie, right? – squinted at the screen, and pointed out something to the hacker, that only both of them – and perhaps Jones, but he would never admit to anything – understood. Nerd talk.
Casey watched as Berrigan observed the suspicious guy dubiously. A moment passed, and the woman finally asked what was on her mind. And, Casey had to admit, he could see why she looked doubtful, without it being particularly menacing.
The little man was squirrelly.
"You've got here quite fast for someone who's 'allergic' to federal buildings, Mozzie."
"Mozzie" squinted up from Chuck's screen.
"Federal buildings are bad for my general well-being, Lady Suit, but for Neal I have no fear. Do I need to remind you that the last time he almost died, it was because of you Suits?"
Diana Berrigan raised both eyebrows at the small man.
"So what? You thought we had chained him up in a dungeon or something? And don't forget, he was shot in the leg, not in the heart, crook. He wasn't going to die."
Casey almost commented that apparently, even a shot to the heart wouldn't to kill Larkin. The former CIA agent seemed to have nine lives. Which made an awful lot of sense, considering he was apparently a cat buglar, too – the colonel had taken a look at "Neal Caffrey"'s FBI file while the others were busy looking for Larkin. Unlike them, he wasn't forgetting that there was yet another investigation behind the recovery of the CI; what were the conman's true identity, and his goals?
"Mozzie", whatever the hell that was for a name, wasn't done, though.
"Neal was shot in the leg by an OIA agent! Who was alright with putting the equivalent of a price on his head, without specifying 'wanted alive!' My conclusion: alphabet agencies, not to be trusted."
Casey saw Sarah cringe as she heard that. Larkin – Caffrey – apparently made an habit of being shot by governmental agents. He already had the NSA and the OIA to his list, and that didn't say anything about the times he had been "shot at" without being "shot in". Hopefully they'd get to Riggs before the NSA score doubled... considering that Larkin hadn't been killed by something else beforehand. Like, gas. Mauling dogs. A bomb, perhaps.
Sarah turned to her husband, her worry apparent on her face. She was anxious, and she knew it. Now, she wasn't even bothering to pretend otherwise. Moreover, the other people in the room also cared for Bryce – Neal Caffrey... – it was visible. Why should she bother?
"Do you see anything?"
The hacker pulled a face, his eyes still on the laptop's screen.
"I'll get something, I swear. But the guy who did this work... It wasn't Riggs himself. This is a pro's work, and our rogue NSA guy only had the basics of hacking taught to him, judging from his file. Like pretty much every other agent. He couldn't have done this... labyrinth. If he had, I'd have Bryce's location by now. Or at least the place where the feed are sent from, if they're redirected."
Casey growled something incomprehensible, which had the black FBI agent look up from his files with a startled look, and a slightly suspicious frown. Like, why is there a lion in the office – Oh, wait, that's the NSA agent. Chuck knew that frown all too well.
"Don't care for your explanations, Nerd. Call us when you find something. I'm going to make a few calls to some colleagues, in case they knew Riggs. Don't bother me unless youve got a location – or an explanation as to how Larkin can also be Neal Caffrey."
Chuck thought to look up from his laptop to give the colonel an outraged glare, but decided the banter wasn't worth the time he'd probably lose doing that. There had to be something he had missed... No system was foolproof. And he was the Pirahna, damnit!
Sarah's eyes were on Chuck's grimace. She was remembering Morgan's words about Chuck in Nerd Mode – or whatever name they gave to it.
"I'll get you a coffee, alright?"
Her husband hummed something that sounded vaguely like an agreement. Diana Berrigan, the other woman in the room, offered to show her to the coffee machine – even if the coffee there wasn't exactly "good". It was alright; Sarah was used to it, and she wasn't sure Chuck'd even notice the taste while he was nerding out.
The two women passed through the office, and Sarah, out of habit, detailed the place. She had been a bit too preoccupied on the way in to look at it properly, and while she wasn't less anxious... she was doing better now that she had a few more answers as to Bryce's situation – and a lot more questions, but well, that was Bryce they were talking about.
No. It wasn't. It was Neal Caffrey.
Her eyes fell upon on desk, next to the entrance, which stood out because of a small bust of Socrates next to the computer. Sarah didn't think much of it, but it kind of surprised her to see it, there, without reason... without anyone behind the desk, to ask the reason for its presence.
Diana Berrigan caught her glance, and stopped.
"That's Neal's desk."
Sarah's throat constricted. She hadn't...
"I... I didn't realize. Bryce... I mean, Neal never had anything like this. I'm not sure I..."
The FBI agent seemed to understand what she meant, because she almost glared at the desk, and at its absent occupant. There wasn't any heat in the glare, though; as if she had expected it.
"You wonder if anything you knew about him was real."
Sarah nodded, ill-at-ease.
"I used to be in a relationship with him, before I met Chuck. And now, I see you and your team, I see this conman, Mozzie, and how you react to Bryce's... Neal's abduction, and I wonder if even our friendships, mine, Chuck's, with Bryce were real. If we ever knew anything real about him."
oOo
Neal tightened the bandage on his leg as he could one last time, and got up. One last look at the two dead – deadish? Who cared, when it got to this point? – attack dogs reminded him, again, of the loose screws in Daryl Riggs' head. He really had no idea of what what waiting for him next, but he didn't particularly want to find out. Unfortunately, it was either that or staying there until he died of... of whatever'd get him first. The lack of water, the lack of oxygen if Riggs had said the truth about the gas, the lack of care for his wound...
Walking on his injured leg made him wince badly. Neal kept himself standing, a hand against the wall, as he hissed to the earpiece.
"Is there an actual point, Riggs?"
Pushing on the wall, he took three careful steps before he started actually feeling his leg in an useful way; that is, not only in the pain of having had a large dog munching upon it, but also as an actual limb, with all its usual functions. A flash of... he couldn't actually describe it, besides pain. Funny how pain can't really be described. Bryce would know, Neal thought humorlessly.
It's painful, sure, but what does that mean? Not much, really. For a quick, lightning-fast pain... A change in sensations, perhaps. But aside from saying it was like this or similar to that one time you bumped against that one thing... What was pain? For a long, dull pain, that stays, and stays, and stays, until you can't say anymore how it is not to feel pain... it was just there, really.
You can do comparisons, but it stops there.
Neal was in pain, he knew that. And he needed to focus on something else. So he focused on walking a straight line to the door, at the end of the corridor. There was an elevator shaft, empty, next to it. A wonder there had even been a lift to begin with, in this neighborhood. A sign had been torn off the door, but Neal could guess it had to be the staircase, behind the door.
Or, he sure hoped it was, because he wasn't feeling like walking back in the direction of the other end of the corridor, not in the state he was in. Not that he was going to die from a bite wound – yet. But he thought it'd be better to keep his strength for something else. Like, Riggs' amusing little attractions.
Neal was pushing the door open, revealing, as he had thought, stairs, when he heard Riggs' voice.
"Sorry, you were saying something? I was busy admiring the look of pain on your face, and the blood on your ruined pants. Also, may I say you look good, Larkin, for someone who left the job for so long? Your revealing attire, and by that I mean that beautifully torn-off sleeve of yours, tells me you haven't exactly lost much muscle. Then again, I guess your activities for the FBI do ask for a little fitness, from time to time... I heard you've jumped off a tram, what, two years ago? Ah, no, that wasn't official business, my bad... Hum. I think I've got side-tracked. You were saying?"
Neal gritted his teeth, biting back a retort.
"Is there a point, Riggs?"
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the conversation, during which Neal started to go down the stairs. He spotted a camera in a corner, as if to tell him the game clearly wasn't finished yet. As if he'd believe otherwise.
"I told you already, Larkin. You know a lot about boredom and reckless choices, don't you? ...And, as I said, because I can. I wouldn't be here if not for you, you know. I kind of resent that, you see."
Walking down the stairs with an injured leg wasn't something Neal enjoyed very much. In fact, he totally hated it. So yes, his answer to the accusation wasn't completely diplomatic.
But, he figured with a dishonest smirk, it wasn't as if Riggs was really going to let him go anyway.
"Don't be so certain. Who knows what you'd have become had I not been there?"
The stairs finally ended. Neal took a moment to breathe, slowly, deeply, to ignore the pain, the left bracelet of his broken cuffs clinging against the wall as he leaned against it.
"You're the one who got me on their radar, Larkin. Don't pretend otherwise."
Neal walked past the door frame to the new floor – no door left, just a door frame, now, and a few ripped hinges. There was something off with the place, but he couldn't...
"I'm just saying you might have ended up being noticed anyway, Riggs. We'll never know."
There was no answer after that. The thing when someone got off the phone without actually stopping the call, was that you couldn't say whether or not they were still listening in.
And frankly, Neal didn't care right now. He took a tentative step inside, expecting, he didn't know what exactly, a hidden shooter, flying blades, honestly, he had no idea, but, something nonetheless. He couldn't tell what was wrong, but he could tell there was something not quite right on this floor. He just wasn't looking at the right thing... Or perhaps, he wasn't looking at it the right way.
No one tried to shoot him as he continued walking through the corridor. No one was hiding in an abandoned flat, no bengal tiger jumped for his throat – truly, at this stage, he wouldn't be surprised.
But, the floor did collapse under his feet.
Riggs had probably weakened the structure, he realized. Neal wondered, out of it, if there had been any small explosions reported to the police. If the feeds really were going to the FBI, then maybe Peter could figure out the neighborhood...
Neal blinked into the falling dust – he hadn't felt the fall, nor the landing. That was worrying.
He'd make sure to worry about it. Later. When the world would stop being so dark.
oOo
Peter barely avoided punching the computer's screen, as it showed the large hole in the floor, where Neal had been standing only a moment before. It was the table which suffered his anger instead. Mozzie started, though Peter wasn't sure if it was because of him or because of the sound of the floor falling down over the video. The conman rushed next to him, the video in full screen mode on the FBI computer, when it was no more than a small window on "Chuck"'s laptop.
The video switched to the level beneath the preceding. Neal was lying, his eyes fluttering a bit more closed each second, with bits of the floor – the ceiling, now – under him... and some on top of him. Nothing hard and big landed on him, thankfully, but the fall itself might have done enough damage on its own. Neal could have hit his head, and there was no way to know if he had broken anything from this camera's angle, not as long as he'd be unconscious.
And, of course, the fact that the CI was now unconscious was enough of a danger in itself.
The crash of the floor hadn't been that loud, truth to be told, and since this building looked absolutely abandoned, Peter wasn't sure anyone would have heard it clearly from outside – that is, considering anyone would even bother reporting it.
On the other hand...
"Jones! Get someone to see if there was any police report of someone using small explosive charges in an abandoned building lately, without any visible reason. The building's probably been declared dangerous, at that. Because this, I tell you, it wasn't a normal floor collapse!"
The way the floor had just broken down under Neal's feet... No, coincidences didn't exist here, especially not after Daryl Riggs' other attempts against his friend's life.
"On it already, Boss."
Peter turned to look at the NSA agent – Diana and Sarah Carmichael were still outside, apparently "getting coffee". Peter wasn't sure he believed that, but well, Neal had a gift to make things complicated for everyone. He just didn't look forward to telling them what had happened while they were away...
The two women, of course, chose that moment to come back – likely alerted by the sudden agitation, and the mutted sound of something collapsing on itself, in the room.
Peter didn't hesitate, and redirected their questions to Chuck Carmichael and Mozzie by making himself unavailable; it was time, he thought, to actually ask what exactly had started all this.
And, perhaps, he didn't want to put what had just happened into words.
"Now, Colonel, I think it's time for you to spill; why the hell is Daryl Riggs that eager to play cat and mouse with Neal? I'd get it if it was to force him to get him out of the country, because Neal's very good at that game, but this is completely different. This is the work of a man who wants his enemy's life to end, in every possible way! This is the work of a man with a grudge!"
John Casey stared at Peter for a moment.
"Some of the information you're asking for is classified."
"I don't care for the details! I only need the general situation, so that I can actually deduce things!"
The colonel exchanged a look with Sarah Carmichael, who looked pale as death after having seen the current state of things. The woman glanced back at the video, still as a picture, of Neal, white with plaster dust, unconscious. Then she walked to take the picture of Daryl Riggs, her hands trembling just a bit, as if she was stopping herself from ripping it into shreds.
"The CIA and the NSA had diverging goals on a case a few years ago. One case, two opposing missions, two agents. Bryce managed, Riggs did not. And from what we gathered, that's what brought the Ring's attention on Daryl Riggs. Had he not failed that mission, he might not have been recruited, and he wouldn't be on the run right now. Perhaps. What Riggs became after that, it's all on him. He might have broken anyway, at some point. But to him, I suppose Bryce's responsible."
There wasn't much more to say about it, really.
Had Neal been there, he'd make a joke about how everything was always blamed on him, as if he was the root of all evils. Or perhaps he wouldn't, because that was a bit too close to the truth, and Neal never gave anything important away, not willingly, especially not his discomfort. Which was one of the reasons everyone always seemed to think he didn't care for the consequences. That he felt no remorse, no regrets. That he didn't hurt like everyone else.
Peter had always had a hard time remembering it. Right now he did. But Neal wasn't here.
"We need to find him..."
"Uh... Boss?"
The ASAC almost spinned around to look at Jones, who was frowning at a piece of paper.
"You found something about explosions?"
"No, not yet, I'm waiting for the reports. But I was thinking... If the CIA never caught on the whole Caffrey / Larkin thing, I doubt Riggs simply went to look for Neal and was lucky to know someone who knew something. But he was living in NYC these last months, and perhaps he just saw him on the street? Perhaps they went to the same coffee shop or something? And if he really resents Neal that much, I doubt he'd have waited long to start his game. He must have seen Neal only a few days ago, just the time for him to prepare his playground."
Peter's eyes lit up, just a bit, just enough. It was a tiny thread, and it might not succeed, but...
"That's worth looking into. Take a picture of him, and ask around Neal's usual hangouts."
