A/N: So this chapter goes a little DaVinci Code, but I did throw in a cheat sheet, and with Peter, Neal, and Diana steering the boat, I figured they could totally break down messages like these.
They'd barely made it to the street when the agent's phone began to ring.
"Burke," came Rice's urgent voice. "We need you back here—now."
Neither man needed to ask what they'd found, but upon entering the building Peter still found himself exhaling in relief that the stressed look of agents searching was still on everyone's face; not the desolate expression of what the option he couldn't even bring himself to imagine…
Up in the conference room, Rice headed the table. "Some kid said a guy not matching Keller's description paid him fifty bucks to deliver this to the Bureau," she held up a flash drive.
"The kid?" Peter asked.
"We've got him sitting with a sketch artist," Jones told him.
Peter nodded, trying to ignore the fact everyone was watching him, and not because he was in charge. Rice finally nodded, saying, "Okay, then," before inserting the drive into the computer and clicking it open. Everyone sat in silence as El's voice came through the speakers.
"Peter, Neal...I'm okay," she said, breathing heavily. "Keller wants…" a distinct shove, and the sound of metal scraping across the ground. "Keller wants the treasure and he knows Neal has it…He wants to meet Neal at 2 pm…where this whole thing started…without the anklet…." Another shove, and El's voice yelped just a little, in fear or surprise, Peter couldn't tell. "If Keller sees any Feds, he'll kill me…I love you hun, please hurry—"
The tape cut out, with Peter still staring at the back of the computer. He took a deep breath, then looked up at Rice. "Play it again."
As the recording played a second time, Peter actually found himself smiling. Of course Diana was next to pick up on it.
"In the background—is that a train?"
"A train or maybe the subway—El's stalling to give us time to listen. Jones—pull out the speech audio, see if you can isolate the background noise."
Jones input the new feedback, and there was no doubt about it: a distinct whoosh, followed by a squeal of brakes seconds later.
"So they're near tracks," Rice said. "That still could put them anywhere."
"Not if we put it next to what Brooke's sent us," Neal spoke up, pulling out the hollowed out book. Along with surveillance tapes were several slips of paper.
"Trifecta: three point or rooftop? Ophelia's clowns: graveyard?," Rice read, staring at the con incredulously. "Do we have any idea what any of this means?"
"It's a breakdown of the code she's been sending in the recording," he explained, rounding the table to where Jones sat in front of the computer. "This probably isn't the first time she's been in trouble."
"You think we can use this to break down her gibberish in the two messages?" Diana guessed.
"And use it to pin down where she and El are," Peter finished. "Jones, play back the first message."
"In what you will, oh Malvolio, your treatment lies. I miss Illyria, though the synthetics comfort me, as well as the men against the steward. Plus egg salad sucks."
Jones quickly posted the transcribed words onto the screen, followed by the copy of the second message they'd already seen.
"Okay, 'What You Will' is the subtitle for Twelfth Night—that's got to be the play she's referring to," Neal began, pacing beside the table.
"So what was Malvolio's treatment?" Rice asked.
"Olivia thought he was insane because of a trick—" the con began.
"Here—Malvolio's treatment: basement, underground," Diana supplied, looking up from the papers in front of her.
Peter came up behind her and pointed, "Illyria is water—so a fake could mean a modern water source?"
Rice picked up the pictures from Gavrikov's folder. "Or she knows that waters dripping from above. There are water spots on the newspaper and her clothes. Implies the place is poorly constructed."
"Construction…" Peter stared at the picture, then back to the papers. "Constructing acts prior of pent—pent is five, so constructing before act V. Act V in Richard III was—"
"The battle," Diana supplied. "She's in a building with pre-war construction."
"What about the men against the steward?" Jones asked.
Peter looked through the papers. "Here—grouped characters imply numbers. How many men were acting against Molvolio in Twelfth Night?"
"Three," Neal supplied, tapping the screen. "She knows there are three guards, and since the guy who gave the kid Elizabeth's recording wasn't Keller, I'll bet he's not hanging out there."
"What about the egg salad comment?" Rice spoke up again. "I mean, that's not exactly Shakespearean."
"No," Peter pondered, staring at the sentence. "It's just a random opinion in an encoded message."
"Not random, Boss," Diana replied, pointing to a small piece of paper, tattered and creased. "Check this out: My Bookworm; for the long haul, never forget that the way to you is through your stomach. Mom"
"More riddles?" Rice said.
"The way to you is through your stomach," Peter murmured, looking from the page to the screen. Suddenly his eyes lit up. "She's been there a week, I'll bet they're feeding her. Wherever they have her they're getting egg salad."
"They serve those at thousands of vendors," Rice reminded him.
"But combine it with a pre-war building with a basement near a subway station and a water structure and the list gets shorter really fast," Diana said, standing.
"Add in that Keller will want to make a quick getaway, and we can take out all of the heavy traffic areas," Neal added, the two smiling like old times as they followed each other's train of thought.
"Good," Rice stated, taking back the meeting. "Barrigan, you follow up on whatever you can find about location. Jones, see if you can't break down any more of those recordings. Peter, you're with me."
"What about me?" Neal asked, looking to the agent as his partner walked out of the office.
Rice met his gaze. "Agents are going to escort you home."
Neal's jaw dropped. "What? But the meeting—"
"We're not sending you into the lion's den again Caffrey. Especially when there is no treasure to deliver. We'll figure out our own move, catch Keller when he doesn't expect it."
"Keller will be expecting—"
"Keller will be expecting you to pull a stupid move like meeting somewhere alone so he can have you and the treasure without the Russians or the Bureau to catch him. Unless you somehow actually have the treasure Caffrey," she eyed him, and Neal's eyes shifted away. Peter had decided for now to stand next to the story that the treasure was destroyed, and Keller was just a rival of Neal's with an axe to grind. "We're not going to let that happen, so just help us out by staying away from this." She gave him a hard look. "Just go, Neal."
And just like that, Neal realized the familiar feeling of teamwork and camaraderie had been an illusion, because all of the sudden he was flanked by two random agents and escorted to the door without a second look by the others.
He was going to lose everything, and so was Peter, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
With the spiral he was on, the last thing he expected was Sara waiting for him at the front door of the Bureau.