Chapter 3

"Peter!" Jones called from the conference room, Peter and Neal quickly rushed in. "We've had a silent alarm tripped at the Met."

"What it's just after 4 in the afternoon, why is she moving in this early?" Lauren asked shocked, while staring at the computer screen.

"That'll be one of the first questions I ask her. Now come on let's move." Peter ordered, rushing back out the door. It took 10 minutes for the convoy of F.B.I vehicles to make it to the museum. They all surrounded the building and waited for the order to storm in.

But before Peter gave the order a voice over the radio crackled. "We got her, Burke."

"Good, bring her around to the car." Peter relayed back with a smug smirk on his face. Then he turned towards Neal, "Guess I didn't need those extra 3 years after all." Peter then walked away with an extra bounce in his step.

Neal groaned, "Are we going to have to deal with him like that the entire ride back?"

"You should have seen him after we caught you." Jones said before also heading to the car. Neal sighed and then went after him. He wanted to see what Raven looked like, someone had to be pretty messed up to tattoo the word nark on someone's face.

It was a tad surprising then to see a teenager sitting in the car, next to Jones. She was scary calm, just sitting there staring out the window. She wasn't even fidgeting or shaking, just sitting there staring. The entire ride to the Bureau Peter tried to get her to talk, but the black haired girl just sat there not moving. She didn't even spare him a glance of annoyance.

Peter was very irritated by her silence and disappeared for a few moments after returning to the building. While he was gone Jones put the girl in an interview room. Jones also tried to her to talk for an hour, but he had about as much success as Peter did.

"3 hours! We've had that girl for 3 hours and she hasn't spoken a word!" Peter ranted, pacing around the conference room. "You find anything on her Jones?"

"No, nothing. Plus we can't even confirm that it is her, Snow was drugged out of his mind so he doesn't know who attacked him and she hasn't spoken, so we can't compare her voice to the voice from the call." Jones replied in a huff.

Lauren entered with a tired expression on her face. "An hour. I was in there an hour not even talking about the case, and she still didn't speak. She did glare at me for a second though, so I count that as a small victory."

Neal gave a loud, fake sigh and stood up. "Never send a fed to do a thief's job." He then walked out of the room and down the hall. Peter quickly followed after him.

Neal slipped into the seat across from the young girl. "Hello, I'm Neal Caffrey and you are?"

She smiled at his attempt to question her; she thought it was almost as amusing as the other's attempts. Except for the lady fed, that was hysterical to listen to her try to 'girl talk.' The girl had also heard stories about The Neal Caffrey. She opened her mouth to speak as Peter walked in. "What time is it?"

Peter wasn't all that shocked that Neal had gotten her to speak; he was use to him doing slightly impossible things. The girl's voice was quiet and shy, but also strong and calm all at the same time. Neal smiled victoriously and looked at his watch. "7:45." He announced.

The girl gave a small smile and held out her hand to Neal. "Nice to meet you Mr. Caffrey, I'm a big fan of your alleged works."

Neal shook her hand. "Call me Neal, and Miss Raven I have to admit that I admire your work." He said with a charming smile.

The girl covered her mouth with her hand and giggle. Both, Neal and Peter shot each other confused looks. "What's so funny, Raven?" Peter half-barked.

Her giggles died almost immediately, but a smile was still evident on the girl's face. "I'm not Raven, silly." She said, her voice full of admiration. "I have nowhere near her skill. She is a legend in my house. I was thrilled when she sought me out to help her with a job."

"What job?" Peter asked moving closer towards the door.

"It's quite brilliant actually. I was supposed to get caught this afternoon. She said not to say a word until after 7:30, then to tell you her master plan." The girl explained.

"Which is?" Peter asked anxiously, he had a bad feeling about all this.

"To lift some of the security measures from the egg. Because we'll think that we have Raven, but she'll just steal it while we're here with the decoy. Isn't that right?" Neal explained for her.

"Ding, ding we have a winner. Raven wanted you to know her plan, so you have no questions about how she did it later. My name is Mina by the way. Raven said I needed to keep you all distracted for a few hours. I guess it worked." Mina then sat back in her chair and watched with an amused smile as Peter and Neal ran out of the room.

Peter called Jones, "Jones, that's not Raven, she's just a decoy. The real one is still going after the egg and is most likely already at the Met."

"Meet you there, boss." He replied, before hanging up.

It took 15 minutes to reach the museum and have agents surrounding it. While the F.B.I was scrambling around outside Maureen was inside. She was crawling around in the air vents, trying to find the correct room. Sadly getting in had taken longer then she had originally thought it would.

The Winter Egg was supposed to be left in the exhibit room for the gala taking place that night. This was basically the only time that the egg was vulnerable and Maureen had to act quickly. She knew that at any moment the feds would be bursting in.

A minute later Maureen had the correct room and was lowering herself down. It was a good 20 feet down and she had to remain in the air to avoid setting off the pressure sensitive floors. Maureen stopped a moment to stare at this piece in front of her. The egg was made out of crystal, platinum, diamonds, and moonstone. It is a beautiful egg perched on top of what was carved to look like ice.

The next part of the plan was the tricky part. Maureen had to some how get through the 2-inch bullet proof, pressure sensitive glass. If she didn't do this exactly right the alarms would sound, and the egg would be lowered into the vault.

As Maureen began cutting Peter, Neal, and about 10 other agents breeched the museum. They quickly made their way down to the vault, thinking that the egg and Maureen were there. Half way down the stairs though Neal remembered about the gala tonight. Which meant that the egg wouldn't be in the vault, but in the show room.

Neal tried to get Peter's attention, but he was too far ahead of Neal. Knowing that Peter would soon be after him, Neal ran back up the stairs. He reached the doors to the showroom as the agents were getting the vault door open, and as Maureen was placing the perfectly cut glass circle on top of the glass box.

There was now a giant hole in the side of the glass box. With a smile Maureen reached in, to grab the egg. But as she had her gloved hand wrapped around it, BANG!

The doors to the showroom burst open and Neal calmly walked in. Although the second he took his first step in the alarm sounded. Maureen hurriedly withdrew her hand as a metal box closed around the egg. Any hesitation on her part and her hand would have joined the egg in the vault. "Damn it!" Maureen swore as stared at the door. The only thing she could make out in the sudden darkness of the room was a man's silhouette in the door.

Neal heard the quiet curse and tried to pin point where it had come from in the room. As he strained his eyes bars came crashing down behind him. They blocked the only exit out of the room, except for the vents.

Maureen stared at the bars for a moment, before starting to climb. She had barely moved, before the alarm sounded. It was a high ear-shattering whine. Both Neal and Maureen had to cover their ears.

Then the extremely bright lights came on, momentarily blinding the two. Neal was the first to get his bearings back. The first thing he noticed was a young woman hanging from a rope about two feet over the glass egg case. She was short, about 5'4 and had long black hair tied up in a ponytail. This thief looked vaguely familiar, but Neal couldn't place from where. That was until she opened her eyes. Ice green stared into ice blue, "Maureen?" Neal choked out.

Chapter 4

Maureen couldn't hear what he was saying, but she could read lips. She smiled and nodded shocked, which caused Neal to smile back. To Maureen he didn't look that different, a little older and he had grown into his height, but he was still her older brother. Neal started to move forward, but a new noise caused him to stop. That and the look on Maureen's face as she started to climb again.

Neal quickly spun around and saw Peter standing there pointing his gun at Maureen. The SWAT team was trying to lift the bars keeping them out of the room. Maureen was almost to the air duct when Peter shouted, "Freeze!"

Maureen just smiled, gave him the finger and kept climbing, Peter fired a warning shot that grazed Maureen's arm. She let out a short cry of pain; getting shot was not something Maureen was use to.

But by this time she was at the opening to the duct. Peter aimed again, but Neal stepped in front of him. Peter tried to get around him, but Neal kept moving. Peter let out a frustrated sigh as Maureen's shoes disappeared from view, inside the duct.

"Damn it, Neal! Raven got away, AGAIN! Will someone turn off that damn alarm?" Peter shouted extremely pissed. A couple seconds later the alarm was off and the bars had been raised enough for Neal to slip under.

The other people around avoided Peter like the plague. Rightfully so too, he was fuming and mumbling under his breathe. When Neal had gotten into the main hall, Peter grabbed his elbow and led him outside.

Down the street Maureen was also fuming. She had failed to get the egg, her employer would not be happy. Neal was not supposed to be there, and the feds weren't supposed to be there that early. If Maureen had known that Neal would be working the case she would have told Mina to be silent longer. Grr, her arm hurt, but the bleeding had gone down a bit. She couldn't believe that agent had actually shot her.

With a sigh Maureen pulled out her phone and started dialing. She was dreading having to report her failure. The phone rang and rang, but on the fifth ring someone picked up. "Do you have it?" The voice asked straight away.

Taking a deep breath Maureen answered. "No. The feds were there and one tripped the alarm. So…"

But the voice cut her off. "I don't want to hear excuses, I want results. We will discuss this in depth tonight, meet me at the docks at midnight."

Then the line went dead. "Great, just what I need. A late night meeting with a psycho." Maureen mumbled to herself as she walked into her hotel.

As Maureen was packing, Peter was lecturing Neal. "You do realize you could go back to prison for this right, Neal?" Neal shot a quick glance at him and then proceeded to stare out the window. Peter groaned at his lack of response and slumped into his chair. "We're just lucky she didn't make off with the egg. Then we really would've been screwed."

Neal nodded distractedly and continued staring out the window. Jones then came into the room with a folder in his hand. "Hey, there were no prints anywhere in that museum,"

"Didn't expect there to be." Peter cut in, looking at the folder in Jones's hands.

Jones gave a slight smile before passing the folder to Peter. "But we did get DNA from the blood we found. You'll never guess who it's a partial match to."

Peter looked in the folder and then up at Jones, and finally over to Neal, "Neal Caffrey."