Title: Chasing Shadows (Masque)
Word Count: 5659

Notes: I held up the works again, but I think we've finally hit some ideas. This is a White Collar AU, or a cop/criminal AU. So it might look a little familiar in places. It came out… odd compared to the other things I've written. Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking with us through some conflicting schedules! Comments/reviews are much appreciated. :)

Oliver yells at the FBI team to stop opening the safety deposit box a fraction of a second before it explodes, and it's followed by a stream of curses a moment later. Idiots, all of them—most of these boys and girls have graduated from Ivy League colleges, for God's sake, and yet they can't see a setup when it's right in front of them. The reason he wanted this team is because every damn one of them has proved they're smarter than him, but yet he's still the one to see it first.

"What happened?" one of the techs ask of him, completely stunned. It takes Oliver a moment to remember his name—Bert, Barty… no, Barry. Barry is it. He's young and the best safe technician he's ever worked with, but it still doesn't express Oliver's irritation about the fact that the kid couldn't find a clue if it walked by him with a neon sign over its head.

Oliver heaves a sigh as he brushes some of the debris off of his suit. "What happened," Oliver tries to explain carefully, "is that I said to wait. You didn't. And now I've spent ten thousand man hours to get this close to the Dutchman, only to have my evidence blown up." He sighs again, brushing something off of his coat that catches his attention. "The code was three-two-four. I know most of you have smartphones now, but on a numeric keypad, that spells FBI."

"He knew we were coming," Roy, one of the least useless members of the team states, putting two and two together nicely—but, as always, a little too late.

Oliver resists the urge to yell something along the lines of, No shit, Sherlock, at him, knowing that it won't help things. He'll still have to work with these people tomorrow, and yelling at them won't help foster any loyalty. "More importantly," Oliver cuts across Roy's comment, "we need to know what this is." He holds up the red fiber not much bigger than a hair stuck to his suit. "Can anyone tell me?" The room is silent, twenty agents standing around staring at him. "Nobody knows what this is? Great." He huffs his disapproval. "How many of you actually went to Harvard? And yet you don't know what the hell this thing is?" He shakes his head. "Unbelievable."

His probationary agent walks up to him then, stopping the rest of the rant before it starts. The blonde is smart and gorgeous in ways that might tempt him under different circumstances, but not when her girlfriend, Nyssa, is the daughter of a diplomat who is trained to use weapons Oliver has never heard of.

"Oliver, your friend is in the lobby waiting for you," she says to him quietly. With a smile, she adds, "And flirting with any woman who makes the mistake of walking too close." He frowns, having forgotten all about the fact that he and Tommy were supposed to get lunch together today—to catch up since Oliver has been absent ever since they started following the Dutchman.

"I'm going to lunch before he gets himself in trouble," Oliver answers. "Let me know if anything comes up."

"So this is what you do all the time, Ollie?" Tommy asks him suddenly in the Suburban that Oliver drives to and from crime scenes. "You just throw yourself into, what, catching art school dropouts?" He shakes his head mockingly, the smile taking the bite of the criticism. "Now I know why it's been so long since you got laid—too busy thinking about your man to even look at another woman." He tilts his head to the side. "Except Sara."

"Sara has a girlfriend," Oliver answers bluntly, causing Tommy's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise, "and she's my probationary agent." He flashes a frustrated frown. "This case I'm working on, this guy I'm trying to catch? He's trouble, and no one has any clue what this guy's next move is." He glances at Tommy, deciding that neither of them want to discuss Oliver's work. "How's the club business going?"

"Nothing new there," is his answer. "You know how it is—people throw money at you, you try to keep the drugs out, and the lost-and-found is filled with women's underwear." Tommy grins. "But there's this girl."

Knowing it's serious whenever Tommy talks about only one girl, Oliver replies, "She must be something special if you're even mentioning her. What's the story there?" One thing Oliver knows is that there's going to be a story—this is Tommy Merlyn, after all.

Tommy grins. "Her name is Laurel, and she's a lawyer." It strikes a chord with Oliver, thinking that Sara mentioned a lawyer sister of the same name. "I tried flashing the charm and the money, but you know what? She doesn't give a damn about any of that, Ollie." Tommy waves his hand. "When you have time, we should meet for dinner or something—you could bring a date. Like that McKenna girl—she was nice." Then he takes a deep breath, and Oliver knows the question before he hears it: "Have you talked to Thea recently?"

"You shouldn't ask questions you already know the answer to," Oliver answers, his good humor from earlier gone. "She's not talking to me." He scoffs. "But, according to the logs, she's not talking to Mom, either, so at least she's ignoring both of us." He runs a hand down the back of his neck. "And I'm not going to beg her forgiveness because I'm not the one who did something wrong."

Before Tommy can respond, a buzzing comes from Oliver's pocket, and he pulls it out, answering the call with, "What's wrong now, Sara?" There's a slight chuckle, but it's a little grim, which immediately makes his shoulders stiffen. "What happened?" he asks, this time his tone more serious.

"Felicity Smoak escaped from prison," is the answer, and Oliver feels like he's been sucker punched in the gut. "U.S. Marshals want your help on the case—and they say that time is of the essence. Apparently she already has a four-hour head-start."

Oliver immediately takes a turn in a different direction before saying to his passenger, "Something important has come up, Tommy, but I don't have time to drop you off. So you'll just have to ride with me through this." To Sara, he asks, "How the hell did she escape from a supermax? And why would she—she only has two months left on her three-year sentence." He watches Tommy's eyebrows shoot up again, but continues quickly. "And why would the U.S. Marshals be asking for my help?"

"You're the only one who ever caught her, Oliver," Sara answers. "Apparently, though, she walked right out the front door—some sort of slick, con artist maneuver. You know how she works. They won't give me any more details than that, but the Director has already pulled you off the Dutchman case until we figure this out."

The details from the Smoak case are still fresh on his mind, even years later, because she's the one nearly got away. "Do me a favor," he starts slowly, "and look up details on Cooper Seldon. Chances are he's the first one she'll go to. And that former roommate, Myron. I want to know where both of them are and if she contacts them."

His request is met with an easy, "You got it, Oliver. I'll call you as soon as I have details of it."

Oliver thanks her and hangs up, making the familiar drive back to Iron Heights—familiar both for personal and professional reasons. "One of my arrests just broke out of Iron Heights," Oliver tells Tommy for background information. "I need to get there immediately—she's a high-profile criminal."

"She?" Tommy asks, picking up on the pronoun usage. Then something dawns on him. "Two years ago," he notes. Then he points at Oliver as it dawns on him. "That was when you were running around all over the country after that art forger. We all gave you crap about that because you missed Christmas—you were in Michigan or something following up that lead."

Oliver doesn't want to get into this with Tommy, but he knows that he isn't going to stop asking any time soon. "That was her," he answers. "Her name is Felicity Smoak, and she's twenty-five years old now. I arrested her almost three years ago for hacking, but that's just what I caught her on. She also likes art—we think she committed a whole host of other crimes, including bond forgery, counterfeiting, securities fraud, art theft, racketeering." Tommy lets out a low whistle. "That doesn't include the fact that she has two Bachelor's degrees from MIT and ranked second in the National Informative Technology Competition at sixteen."

"So basically," Tommy summarizes, "she's a bored genius who likes art."

Shaking his head before Tommy even finishes, Oliver corrects him with, "No, she's a bored genius who likes art and has authority issues. It took me three years to catch her, Tommy—and the only reason I did is because her boyfriend slipped up and she surrendered herself for his crime." He chuckles dryly, no humor in the sound. "Three years chasing her, and I still didn't arrest her for any of her crimes. If she hadn't, I'd still be chasing her."

"Sounds like you're going to get your second chance to catch her," Tommy comments, clearly trying to see the glass half-full on this one. Oliver doesn't answer, though; there's no glass half-full on this one, not with a big player in the underground art world back on the streets—one who can easily hack into the FBI's criminal database without blinking.

The rest of the ride is passed in silence, though Tommy looks a little nervous when they pull the car into Iron Heights. He follows Oliver carefully into the building after stating that he does not want to sit outside, and all of the guards let him pass without too much of a fight when Oliver flashes his badge.

The man who walks up to him is older, looks over-worked and underpaid, with an air about him that says he hasn't slept in a few nights. He holds out his hand to Oliver. "Director Lance," Oliver greets before Lance has a chance to say anything. "It's good to finally meet you, sir." He turns toward Tommy. "This is my friend Tommy Merlyn. We were going to lunch when I got your call."

Lance nods once at Tommy before turning his attention back to Oliver. "Agent Queen," he answers as he shakes Oliver's hand. "I appreciate you coming here to help. It's an unusual situation, but you were the case agent and we figured no one would know better how to stop her." Oliver isn't about to tell him that he caught her on a technicality, but Lance waves over a tall, thin man in a nice suit. "This is Warden Palmer. Warden, this is Agent Queen, FBI. He's the man who caught Smoak the first time."

Oliver shakes Palmer's hand, irritation already welling up. "You're the guy who dropped the ball," he offers with a smile, surprising himself with how calm his voice is. After all, Oliver put in a hell of a lot of time catching this girl the first time, only to have some warden do a half-assed job of keeping her in check. "She walked out the front door under your watch, Warden." He tries to ignore the scoffing sound that Tommy makes in the background."

Palmer, like any good bureaucrat who likes his job, immediately turns defensive. "No one was expecting her to run with two months left on her sentence, Agent," he replies sharply. "You, of all people, should know what Felicity is capable of." He sighs before turning to the security camera on the wall. "She came out of one of the staff bathrooms dressed as a guard."

Oliver turns back toward the security cameras on the back wall, but Palmer motions him forward into another section of the prison. They follow, ignoring the yells and calls of the female prisoners. Oliver notices that Tommy stays near wall, away from the prisoners with a wide-eyed look on his face. "Where did she get the guard uniform?" Oliver asks. "I haven't seen many female guards around—Smoak wouldn't break out unless she knew there was going to be a uniform in place."

"She ordered it from a uniform supply company on the Internet," Palmer answers, and suddenly he looks a little nervous. Oliver studies him a moment, wondering how that one innocent question changes things.

He frowns. "She'd have to use a credit card for that," Oliver comments, and then he sees the look on Palmer's face. The answer is written there clear as day. "She stole your credit card, didn't she?" When Palmer doesn't answer, Oliver smirks. Smoak always did know how to pick a good mark. "That was your first mistake, Warden: Felicity Smoak only cares about one man, and that's Cooper Seldon. She used you to get out of prison—the same way she uses everyone."

They stop in front of a cell, the one Oliver presumes to be hers. There are a few drawings on the wall—a reproduction of a Monet, a DaVinci, and a Goya. Along with something uniquely Felicity, with a phrase underneath matching the title of one of the books sitting on the top bunk. A cassette tape player sits on one of the tables, and Oliver digs through her books to find a technical book on the exact model of truck they use for transports—probably the one she hotwired. "We're tracing the credit card in case she uses it again," Palmer interjects.

"She won't," Oliver answers. "Felicity is smarter than that. From here on out, she's only going to use cash so we can't trace her that way." He turns back to Palmer as another idea catches his attention. "How did she manage to get a keycard for the gate?"

Palmer frowns. "She must have palmed a utility card form a guard and re-striped it using the record head from the cassette player." He sighs. "We thought it would be better to give her outdated technology to use so she wouldn't be able to do something like that."

"You shouldn't have given her anything," Oliver answers. "Felicity Smoak has been wiring computers since she was seven years old. Re-striping a security keycard wasn't even a challenge." He picks up a pamphlet she has on the Starling City Airport, notices the yellow-jacketed valets standing around. "After she put on the uniform, where did she go?"

Lance answers him this time. "Apparently, she walked out the front door and hotwired a maintenance truck"—he points to the book Oliver had picked up earlier—"just like that one. It was found abandoned near the airport, so we picked up on security in case she tries to slip on a plane. It's going to be hard, though, since she dyed her hair blonde and started wearing glasses—we don't have any pictures of her like that."

Oliver looks Lance seriously. "You're not going to catch Smoak using roadblocks and wanted posters—she's smarter than that. You put up a roadblock, she hitches a ride with a stranger. You put up wanted posters, she finds a way to hide her identity. This isn't a crook off the streets—this is Felicity Smoak." Then he catches up to Lance's words. "Felicity isn't blonde, and she doesn't wear glasses." The last time Oliver saw her, she had black hair with purple streaks through it, dark eye makeup, and black lipstick and nail polish."

"She does now," Palmer answers a little snidely, before pulling out a tablet and a scene of one of the security tapes. Felicity is smart and doesn't look at the camera, but her hair is pulled into a bun and she's decidedly blonde and bespectacled.

"I hardly recognize her," Oliver breathes slowly, surprised by the drastic variation, "but I think that's the point." He studies the tablet, knowing better than to touch it with his poor technology skills. "I bet her last visitor was Seldon. Do you have video of that conversation?"

A few swipes across the tablet later, Oliver is looking at security footage. "This is from two days ago," Palmer says for background. "There isn't any sound, but we can get a lip-reader in a few minutes."

Oliver instead watches the scene for a moment. Seldon and Smoak seem to be arguing with one another, the latter making wild hand gestures. Seldon shakes his head angrily before turning away, Felicity pressing her hand to the glass, yelling after him until the guards physically pull her away from the booth. "I'll save your lip-reader the trouble," Oliver answers. "He's saying goodbye, and she's begging him to stay." It's obvious now why she broke out; the evidence is right in front of him. "We find Seldon, we find Smoak."

He's about to continue, but his phone buzzes. A brief look tells him it's a text message from a number he's never seen before, and, curious, he taps the icon. The message is brief and simple: I'll be waiting. It's so simple and banal that it's probably a reply to someone else, innocently sent to a wrong number. He's about to delete it when his phone starts ringing, this time the number identified as Sara's.

Without even waiting for him to answer, she says, "Oliver, we found Seldon, but you're not going to like it." He starts walking, motioning to Tommy to follow him back to the exit. He's seen all he needs to see here—there's nothing else that will help him find her now.

"What do you mean I'm not going to like it?" Oliver answers, charging back toward the security office. "He's the only lead we have on Smoak. So whatever you've got is better than what we have now."

"He's dead," Sara states firmly, and Oliver stops in his tracks. Tommy plows into him after the unexpected halt, nearly toppling him. "Detectives are in the process of filing the reports—it happened about two days ago." Right after he visited Felicity, Oliver notes with some interest. Did he tell her what he was planning, or is there something else to the story? "According to them, it looks like a suicide—single gunshot to the head with powder burns. He left a note and everything. The handwriting analysis hasn't come back, but his mother is pretty confident it's legit."

"So Smoak is in the wind," Oliver finishes for her. "I'll be back to the office soon to see what else can point us in the right direction. Thanks, Sara." With that, he hangs up, starting forward again.

"'Smoak is in the wind'?" Tommy repeats. "There has got to be a bad pun in there somewhere, my friend. Next thing I know, you'll be putting on sunglasses when you say crap like that."

Oliver ignores him, instead saying to the men behind him, "Cooper Seldon committed suicide two days ago, and he's the only one Smoak would go to. She's effectively gone, and we have no way of figuring out where she'll go next."

Running a hand across his neck, he passes through the exits, knowing they're never going to catch her now. Seldon was her one anchor, the one thing that tied her to predictability. Starting now, Felicity Smoak is going to be one hell of a lot harder to catch—and it wasn't that easy to begin with.

He's just about to pull out of his parking space when he gets another call. This time, though, he answers to find a woman with a security company on the other end, informing him of a break-in. At first he thinks it's another wrong number, since he doesn't have security at his apartment, but then he remembers: the mansion had state-of-the-art security. Even though he hasn't been there in some time, the Queen family home is still tied to security, and he'd still get the alerts.

Suddenly that text message from earlier makes a lot more sense.

He assures the woman that it's fine and that he simply forgot to enter the code, and apologizes once for good measure before hanging up. Then he scrolls back through his recent texts, calling the number that last texted him.

Unsurprisingly, she picks up on the first ring. "Took you long enough to figure it out, Oliver," she answers, her voice surprisingly stoic in light of recent circumstances. "You used to be a lot better than this."

"Well, in my defense, Felicity," he replies, and Tommy's eyebrows shoot up, "it was the security company's fault. They called me, I called you. Did you text to gloat, or did you have something else in mind?"

Her response is to chuckle, even if the sound is dark and humorless. "I don't gloat—you know that." He does, but, truthfully, he enjoys ruffling her feathers the same way she's ruffled his on and off for the past five years. "I wanted to let you know that, whenever you're ready to pick me up, you know where I am." There's a long pause before she adds quietly, "I don't have a reason to run anymore, and I'd rather you be the one to arrest me again." Louder, she continues, "You're not an asshole, and that has to be the finest compliment I've ever paid a cop."

"I'll be there shortly," he answers, "but you already knew that when you called." He hesitates before adding, "And I expect this to be a trap, but I'm going in anyway."

"Then you're going to be disappointed," she assures him. "It's not a trap. I'm going to be sitting in your dining room—lovely furniture, by the way—when you arrive." Against his better judgment, Oliver believes her; despite what has passed between them as cop and criminal, Felicity has never outright lied to him, and he doesn't expect her to start now. "Just do me a favor and don't drag all the U.S. Marshals. I can't stand those cowboys, and I'm going to come quietly anyway."

He's about to hang up when she says, "Oh, and feel free to take your friend to lunch first—I'm not going anywhere."

It's dark in the house when Oliver arrives, though he expects it to be. The Queen mansion hasn't had power to it in the better part of three years, ever since his mother was arrested. Thea had moved out promptly, not wanting to stay in the same house with him, and Oliver hadn't seen the need to live alone in such a large house.

Gun drawn, he walks into the foyer and into the dining hall, only to find her sitting at the head of the table, doing what looks like drinking herself into an alcoholic stupor, judging by the three bottles in front of her. It takes Oliver a moment to recognize the wine bottle she's wrapping her lips around, but then he realizes that it's from the cellar: Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon from 1992, which is easily the most expensive bottle of red they own. He's pretty sure that half-million dollar bottles of wine aren't for getting drunk on, but for impressing guests.

Even though he knows he could probably add a felony theft charge to her sentence for that, Oliver Queen doesn't kick a dog when it's down.

He opens his mouth to speak, but without even glancing his way, Smoak has somehow managed to sense his presence, continuing to stare out the window. "I saw the best mind of my generation run down by the taxicab of absolute reality," she says to him cryptically, her voice barely slurring in spite of all the wine. "That's Ginsberg, you know," she continues, then shrugs before taking another drink. "More or less." She holds up the bottle, appraising it. "This is every bit as good as you'd expect a bottle this expensive to be. I hope you don't mind—I was bored and needed something to do. Plus, you're the only FBI agent I know who comes with their own wine cellar."

"So this is how you deal with grief?" he asks her quietly, sitting down next to her at the table. Now that he's close enough to see her better, he's surprised that her eyes aren't red-rimmed, her mascara isn't smudged, but that spark of life from the last time is gone from her eyes. Even at her worst, though, she won't let anyone see her cry—even if she does look like she's taking Cooper's suicide particularly hard. "You just sit in the dark, drinking expensive red wine and misquoting Ginsberg?"

With a shrug, she responds, "The light is how they find you, Oliver. I like to stay in the shadows." She takes another swig from the bottle, and Oliver is starting to learn that Felicity Smoak is a conversational drunk. "Except, you know, when I'm drinking. I like to stay in the light for that." She laughs quietly. "You know, I was really hoping to be passed out at the table by the time you got here." A tear slides down her cheek. "That you'd cart me back to prison and I'd wake up back in Iron Heights so that I could pretend this whole thing was just a nightmare a while longer."

"I'm sorry, Felicity," he offers, then surprises himself by both meaning it and using only her first name. Something about the way she's acting tonight makes him forget that they're not friends, that's she's a criminal he's supposed to catch. He sighs. "I have to ask, but are you carrying?"

A sharp, cynical laugh leaves her. "Tacky, inappropriate question right after my boyfriend blew his brains out," she chides him, then corrects herself. "Well, would be, if we were friends. But you're a cop, I'm a criminal, and we're not friends. Thanks for reminding me of that." Before Oliver can speak and apologize, she answers his question. "You know I hate guns—even more so now." He holsters his gun at that point, seeing no reason to keep it in sight. He doesn't see any reason to rush her arrest, either; if she was going to run, she already would have.

The more he keeps her talking, the less likely it is for her to drown in that pain. "They asked me, you know," he starts casually, and she looks over at him, eyes narrowing in confusion. "They asked me what would make you, of all people, pull an escape attempt with two months left on your sentence."

"And you figured it out, being the bright little billionaire feeb that you are," Felicity answers dryly, reaching over to pat his arm. "Of course you did. That's why I chose you to surrender to three years ago—you're smart and you deserved the career boost."

Oliver shrugs slightly. "You didn't exactly make it a challenge," he answers. "Two days ago"—he knows better than to say Cooper's name and pour salt on old wounds—"he visited you in prison, says goodbye. You learn how to hotwire a car, re-stripe a utility key card, buy a guard uniform with a guard's credit card, dye your hair blonde." He shakes his head. "The amazing thing is that you escaped from a supermax prison with two days of planning."

"Thanks for the credit," she says with a small smile, "but actually, I've been planning that for three years. Figured it out within a few months, so I made sure to have the equipment on hand in case anything happened. I wasn't sure if I could live on the inside, so I made a contingency plan." She laughs, but her expression turns dark even as she does. "The reason I went to jail was to keep Cooper from having to survive in there. He wouldn't have lasted a day, and he wouldn't run." She bites her lip, looking off through the window. "His mom is sick—cancer."

"I met Cooper once," he offers hesitantly, and Felicity's eyebrows shoot up as she turns back to face him. "When I was trying to catch you three years ago, I went to him because I thought I could turn him. You were the one who introduced him to hacking, and I thought he would have a change of heart." He chuckles humorlessly. "I'm pretty sure I've cracked Bratva captains with less threats—and he still didn't cave." Finally, he adds, "I think he really loved you."

She doesn't smile, only sighs deeply. "I told him he needed to keep a clean nose until I was released," Felicity states abruptly, talking more to the bottle of wine in her hands than Oliver. "Cooper was"—her voice breaks slightly on the word, but she presses forward anyway—"an idealist. He wanted to do things for the greater good. Even that scam you caught us on—we were wiping out student loan debts. But his idealism made him careless, so I tried to teach him how to fly under the radar." She laughs lightly. "But his ideals didn't end when I was arrested, and he tried some other scams again. This time, though, there was no one to save him when he didn't cover his tracks." Her voice softens. "When he came to visit me, he told me he couldn't go to jail. I assumed that meant running, so I told him to give me a few days, but he wouldn't hear of it. Guess I know why now."

Felicity sighs deeply, then crosses her arms over the table and lays her head on them, closing her eyes as she pushes the bottle away from her. "So, enough about me and my sob stories. How are things with you and your sister?" A frown coats her features for a moment. "Her name is Thea, right? Can't be easy between you two since you had to arrest your mom for that thing in the Glades." Oliver starts at the information, but she shrugs. "I've been in prison, not isolation. I know what's been happening out there in the real world."

With a deep sigh, Oliver tells her the truth. "She's not talking to me—something about betraying my family, even after it's become smaller since Dad died. But when Mom tried to pull that stunt with Tommy's dad, she betrayed us." Trying to find any way at all to change the subject, he comments on her arrest. "You know they're going to give you at least five years for this, right? You made Palmer look like a fool—he's going to press for the biggest sentence he can get you."

"I don't care," Felicity says flatly. "In fact, I'm finding it very hard to care about anything, including any and all vendettas Ray Palmer might have now." She rises from the table in slow movements, staggering slightly. "I don't see any point in drawing this out now, Oliver. Just go ahead and arrest me—get this over with." She holds out her hands as though to let him cuff her, but then her expression changes

Suddenly her hands are reaching for his coat, plucking something off of it. With squinted eyes at odd angles, she studies the fiber he must have gotten at the bank earlier this morning, holding it up to the light. Then Felicity holds it up to his face. "Oliver, do you know what this is?" she asks, her voice taking on some of the humor he remembers from three years ago.

All he can do is scoff, because of course Felicity Smoak knows about the fibers when a room full of Ivy League graduates don't. "I spent the morning asking a room of Harvard grads that question. No one knew. It's from a case I was working before they pulled me off to find you."

Her smile is almost like the cat who has cornered a canary. "You're after that high-profile counterfeiter I've seen all over the news," she realizes. "The Dutchman, the on the FBI has been all over for two years." She smiles. "I can help you catch him, Oliver—he's sloppy. I've seen his work. You're not trained to understand him, but I can think like him because I am him." She pauses, tilting her head to the side. "Hypothetically speaking, of course. The statute of limitation has run out on any white collar crimes I might have committed." She holds up her index finger. "My help would be conditional, of course, depending on if you can do something for me in return. I don't want to live the next five years in a cell."

He sighs, knowing he's going to need help but reluctant to take it from a criminal—even one as genuinely likeable as Felicity. "I can't keep you from serving the rest of your sentence, Felicity," he answers slowly, "but I can have you released into FBI custody as a consultant." He just knows this is going to be trouble. "You tell me what that thing is"—he points to the fiber—"and I'll verify your information. If it checks out, I'll talk to my boss about your release."

She smiles. "This is a security fiber for the new Canadian hundred-dollar bill. The formulation is still classified, so you're looking for a guy who spent some time in Canada recently. That should shorten your suspect list a little."

It's only then that he stands up and slaps the handcuffs on her. "I'll let you know when I have confirmation. And if you're playing an angle here, it's not going to work. Not on my team."

She shrugs, a dark look coming over her features. "Oliver, I don't have anything to angle for anymore."