White Collar: The Eye of Sita
Chapter Sixteen
After staring out the penthouse suite window for a while Peter decided that avoiding Neal wasn't going to solve anything. Getting in the elevator he headed down to the room. It didn't take more than a glance for Peter to realize that Neal hadn't returned to their room. He didn't need to look up Neal's tracking data, he knew exactly where he'd gone.
"I'm sure Sara can be more help that I can right now."
Looking around the empty room Peter tried to think of a reason to not go down to the Art Crimes office. Without a decent excuse in mind he resigned to his fate and left. Getting in his car he drove the short distance to the office. When he got up to the floor where the Art Crimes division was housed it was pure chaos. Peter looked around as everyone in the office was in 'full work panic mode'. Peter stopped one of the younger agents.
"What's going on?"
"I'm sorry, Agent Burke, it's classified."
Peter figured that the NSA must have finally told Art Crimes about the Hope Diamond. He hated to admit it, but he still had the black diamond and the sixteen white ones that had been part of the Hope setting. Peter still wasn't sure what the best way to turn them in was yet. Making his way to Walters' office he found the door open. Walters' normally clean desk had become a sea of background files and paperwork as he started his hunt for a suspect.
"Agent Walters." Peter greeted.
"Burke, what do you want?" Walters asked without looking up.
"You arrested my partner last night, remember?"
"I don't have time for you or Caffrey anymore," Walters said gruffly "go back to New York. Take your thief with you."
"Anything going on around here that I can help with?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"About those paintin..."
"You can take them if it means you'll leave me alone and let me get back to work."
"You have my number if you need anything."
"Get out."
Peter took a breath to tell Walters that he already knew about the missing diamond, but he decided against it. At this point the only thing that admitting to knowing about the Hope could get him would be an eighteen hour interrogation as to how he knew. Dragging Neal's name into it wouldn't help. Peter knew Neal didn't have the diamond and he didn't have enough information on Daniel to suspect him either.
Although Peter hated the idea of not being on the team looking for the Hope he couldn't think of a gracefully way to get involved. It was Walters' case and if he solved it his career would be set for life. It would probably be an even better way of getting Peter's job than all this nonsense with the forgeries. Giving in for now Peter went down to evidence to collect the Monet. He hadn't figured out how he was going to get that back to Paris without getting Neal extradited to France yet either.
"I have got to get out of D.C." Peter muttered to himself.
Peter had the Monet released into his custody. The evidence room didn't mind freeing up some space by handing it over and easily allowed him to sign them out. Rather than carry a Monet around Peter arranged to have them transported by evidence to New York.
Trying to figure out what his next move should be Peter felt that he couldn't just leave D.C with the Hope Diamond missing. Particularly when he had a good lead on a possible suspect. He gave Diana a quick call to see if she'd gotten the file unsealed, however Texas wasn't thrilled with sharing their information with New York when there currently wasn't an official case open.
Going back upstairs Peter asked one of his old friends if he could borrow his office for a moment. The Agent was heading out to do some interviews anyway and unlocked the door for Peter. Logging onto the computer Peter was able to remotely access his own computer files in New York.
Peter started the painstaking task of hunting down old archives of newspaper reports. Although the official web sites for the papers did have files dating back that far Peter had access to sites devoted to nothing more than scanned copies of periodicals. The trouble was the fact that they weren't searchable with keywords, they needed to be scanned. Having an exact date made finding the first few articles easy. Details on the case after that point simply could not be found.
Robert Caffrey had been a fairly large name in Houston at the time of his death. A wealthy eccentric businessman with several enterprises. His violent death had made headlines for days. The police had kept the media out of case for the most part. The media had responded with speculation and wild guesses, everything from a home invasion to a cartel hit. Nothing seemed to mention Daniel by name or even description.
Peter was surprised by how well the police had managed to protect their young suspect. Usually when the media sunk its teeth into something they found at least part of the truth. Hours of searching through various channels didn't yield much better results. He found the medical records sealed up even tighter than the criminal ones. There didn't seem to be any public record of Daniel White after that bloody night. If he had truly had survived he must have changed his identity and done it well.
Deciding to look to the past Peter was able to find a record of Daniel's birth. It wasn't much, just a simple registration for a Birth Certificate and a Social Security number. Scanning through the papers dated five years later he found the article on his parents.
"Fatal Crash Kills 2." Peter read the headline out loud. "Local artists Tom White, 32, and Rebecca White, 28, were killed in an auto accident..."
The article didn't mention the son they had left behind. Daniel didn't have any foster or adoption paperwork that Peter could find. There was no school record, it wasn't until he was sixteen that he showed up in the record again having applied for a driver's license. Peter looked at the address on the license and found that it didn't match with Robert Caffrey's address.
"A background almost as empty as Neal's."
Peter wondered if Daniel's past was so clean because Caffrey had intended on taking him in as true family one day, or if it was to hide the fact that he existed at all. If Daniel had gone to the police it would have been feasible for Caffrey to deny that he even knew Daniel. It would have been the word of a homeless teen against a well respected business mogul.
Feeling tired Peter looked at his watched and realized with surprise that it was nearly six thirty. With not much to show for the day spent digging into Daniel's past Peter got up to leave. The Art Crimes division was still busy with their new case and they would probably be burning the midnight oil on this one until it was solved.
"If it gets solved." Peter sighed. "If Daniel is just as good as Neal without the need to flaunt, he might just get away with it."
Something about the fact that the Hope Diamond was such a high profile theft made Peter realize that it really wouldn't fit in with Daniel's old MO of keeping below the radar. Peter went down stairs to the parking garage and got into his car still thinking about what could have motivated Daniel to suddenly pull off such a high risk job. Sitting in his car Peter put his keys in the ignition.
Before he could start the engine there was a sudden flurry of motion from the back seat. Peter quickly found a length of white silk around his throat that was pulled tight by his attacker. Instinct caused him to reach up with both hands to try and free the pressure that was threatening to choke him.
"Relax and put your hands on the wheel." A deep voice ordered calmly. "Move very slowly, go for your gun and I will break your neck."
Pinned to the seat and struggling to breathe Peter had no doubt that his attacker had the physical power to end this quickly if he decided to. It went against all instinct to let go of the binding around his throat to slowly reached out and put his hands on the wheel, but he did as he was told. As soon as his hands were on the wheel the man released some of the pressure on his throat.
A hand snaked around from the backseat and dove into Peter's jacket to steal his weapon from his shoulder holster. He fully expected the assailant to give up on the ligature in favor of the gun. However, he could hear the man skillfully dismantling the gun with one hand and dropping the parts on the floor in the back seat. Even without seeing the man Peter was fairly certain who it was.
"I see you don't like guns either."
"Start the car and drive." The man growled. "I installed a camera so I can see where we are going."
Peter looked over on the dashboard and saw that there was a small device stuck to it in the far corner. The intruder laid down in the back seat but kept hold of the long length of silk. When Peter didn't start the car his attacker reminded him that it would be best to follow orders by tightening his hold.
"Drive, Agent Burke, or I will kill you."
"I don't think you will."
"If you want any chance of getting the Hope Diamond back, you'll drive."
Despite his violent methods the man's voice suggested that he was far more interested in getting help than hurting anyone. Feeling reasonably sure that he wasn't going to get himself killed Peter started the car. The man had someway of viewing what the small camera was recording and gave Peter turn by turn directions through the twisted streets of D.C. It was already dark, which made getting a good look of the man in the rearview mirror difficult.
Peter was instructed onto one of the highways and they were quickly out of city limits. After about twenty minutes they came to a fairly lonely exit ramp. Driving through the suburbs Peter was eventually instructed to pull into a large school parking lot. Being just after seven o'clock the lot was empty.
When they came to a stop Peter turned off the car and looked over his shoulder. His attacker allowed him enough slack to face him however the man kept a hold of the silk as he sat up. As Peter suspected he was Neal's age, dark eyes, with blonde hair. The handsome young man's only noticeable flaw was a devastating scar that ran from the corner of his left eye back to above his ear where it left a bare mark in his shortly cut hair along its path. Peter could imagine a gun shot wound like that would have rendered him unconscious and there would have been enough blood to make anyone think he was dead.
"Daniel White."
"So you do know who I am." Daniel smiled sadly. "I'm surprised that Neal would talk about me, even to you. Although I haven't gone by 'White' in a long time, it's 'Caffrey' now."
"Certainly the last name anyone would think to look for you under."
"I didn't take the name to hide, I took it to help Neal."
"What?"
"Reputation is everything in our line of work. Do you really think someone as young as Neal could have been involved in all of the crimes he's attributed to?"
"I always assumed he took 'credit' for other people's work, I just didn't realize that it was another Caffr...wait a minute, you're the reason he was so hard to catch."
"Only part of it." Daniel corrected.
"I always wondered how he seemed to be in two places at once, some the 'Caffrey' leads we were following were you."
"It worked for years, but when he returned to New York the second time...well there really wasn't anything I could do to keep you from catching him."
"You could have killed me." Peter pointed out.
"That's not who I am." Daniel replied simply.
"So you're not going to kill me now?"
"It is not my intention to hurt you."
"Then let me go."
"I wish I could trust you the way Neal does," Daniel said honestly "but I'm not ready for that just yet."
"If you're not looking to kill me, what do you want from me?"
"I need your help."
"Assaulting me was not a good start."
"I know. I'm sorry." Daniel apologized sincerely.
"Did you steal the Hope Diamond?" Peter asked bluntly.
"I did." Daniel admitted freely. "I didn't have a choice. I retired from that life as soon as Neal was behind bars. I was forced back into the business to steal the Hope. I brought you and Neal to D.C. to get it back."
"You sent the paintings to Walters."
"He really hates you, he didn't ask any questions." Daniel chuckled exactly the same way Neal did. "I gave Neal the setting diamonds to let you both know it had been stolen since I knew Walters would never ask for your help on this. I was going to leave it at that, but there has been a complication."
"No complication, just give me the stone and leave."
"I don't have the diamond anymore. The man who hunted me down for the job has it...he also has my son."
"Your son?"
"He's only four." Daniel said fighting tears. "He is everything to me. They took him as 'insurance' that I would do the job, but I did it and they still won't give him back."
"Do you have a name?"
"No. Everything was done over the phone with a voice scrambler. They said I could have him back in a month, but I don't believe them. Please, Agent Burke, find the diamond and you'll find my son."
"Daniel...even if I could help you, I wouldn't know where to start."
"The only lead I have is that the man I talked to refused to refer to the stone as the Hope Diamond."
"What did he call it?"
"'The Eye of Sita'."
"Sita?"
"Ask Neal, he'll tell you the story."
"Come back with m..."
Peter was interrupted by Daniel pulling the silk around his neck tight again. Forced to face forward again Peter tried to keep calm. Daniel was becoming increasingly agitated the longer they stayed in the empty parking lot. Peter's cell phone suddenly rang startling them both.
"Just let it go to voice mail." Daniel said.
"It will be Neal, he's looking for me. This car has GPS, he'll be smart enough to find me."
"I'm counting on that."
"Dani..."
"I just want to thank you, Agent Burke."
"I haven't agreed to anything yet."
"Not for my son, but for what you've done for Neal." Daniel clarified. "Growing up I couldn't help him, four years in prison did nothing to change him, but some how you've managed to do both."
"You've been watching him all these years?"
"I haven't been stalking him or anything, but I've always kept tabs on what he's been up to, what he's doing with his life."
"But you've always kept your distance. You know he thinks he killed you, right?"
"It's complicated, I never meant to step into his life again...but I'm desperate now. Please, I don't have anyone to turn to."
"Daniel, this isn't the best way to help your son." Peter said gently. "Come back to the F.B.I with me, I promise we will do everything we can to get your son back. I can't use my channels and resources if I don't have an official case to work with. Right now I'm not even supposed to know the Hope Diamond is missing."
"You'll find a way." Daniel said confidently. "You won't just walk away from a child in danger and a missing national treasure. Forget the official channels, we both know that's what you have Neal for."
"Doesn't Neal deserve to see that you're alive?"
Watching Daniel in the rear view mirror Peter could see that he had struck a nerve. Fighting tears once more Daniel rested his forehead on the back of Peter's seat. He still had a tight grip on the silk around Peter's throat, but Peter was starting to think that if he just pulled away that Daniel wouldn't stop him. He was just about to test his theory when Daniel brought his head back up.
"Agent Burke, I'm really sorry for what I have to do next." Daniel said suddenly. "But you're the kind of Agent that I know I need a good head start against."
"Daniel, wai..."
Peter was cut off as Daniel suddenly tightened the cord that had been holding him hostage. Violently jerked back Peter managed a short cry, but all he'd accomplished was to release what little air was left in his chest. Unable to breath Peter struggled to free himself from the painful garrote. Trying to get his fingers under the tight ligature he started to black out as his lungs burned from the lack of oxygen. Still weakly clawing at the silk around his throat Peter felt Daniel's breath on the back of his neck as he put his lips against his ear.
"Tell Neal that I love him, but I don't expect his forgiveness."