Peter jogged up the stairs to their suspect's apartment in his FBI windbreaker jacket with three agents behind him as he briefed the kid.
"This guy's a skilled forger, safecracker, a lots of panache, and he's only twenty years old. Think we might be looking at the next Neal Caffrey."
"Mm-hmm," muttered the kid. "He's a hacker. I don't hack." So he had read the file in the car.
"You're right. A Neal Caffrey for the new millennia, then."
Peter grinned at how stingy Neal was about the subject. The kid wanted to be the best and remain that way into history.
"When I was twenty, I didn't get caught."
True. Neal was almost twenty-five when they caught him. Peter suddenly realized that Neal must have turned thirty. Thirty-one even. Why had they not celebrated when the kid turned thirty? Because Neal was back in prison then after the plane exploded, where Kate died. It seemed so long ago now.
They walked down a long corridor. At the end Diana waited with the armed vanguard.
"We traced him to this apartment," she said in a low voice.
"Is he in there?" Neal asked.
"There's movement inside."
There was light coming out under the door, and a shadow moved in there.
"Yeah, I see it," Peter confirmed.
"Please tell me I get to break down the door," Diana whispered to him.
"Why, when you ask so nicely..."
Diana was handed the heavy cylinder with handles used to break doors open. She marched up to the door and smashed the battering ram right at the lock and the door flung open with a bang.
The two vanguards rushed in, and then came Peter and Diana with their guns drawn.
"FBI!" Peter yelled. "Hands in the—" He stared at an empty room. Except for a robot vacuum with a vase or something on it for the shadow effect. He chuckled. "Oh-ho! Cute."
"You want me to cuff it?" Diana asked, holstering her gun. He pressed the stop button with his foot.
"Yeah, we should hold it for questioning," Peter agreed.
Neal took in the situation. Diana could not stop grinning.
"Why are you smiling?" the kid asked.
"He's clever," Peter said, holstering his gun too. "It casts a shadow on the door and doesn't move in a fixed pattern."
"He realized we were sitting on him and bolted," Diana said, not smiling any longer.
"Looks like that," Peter nodded. "They didn't have robot vacuums in your day?" he asked the kid.
"Nope. They didn't." The kid continued inside the flat.
"Look around. He's got to have an escape route somewhere."
"You're enjoying this," Neal noted and sounded offended.
"I love tracking the smart ones. Now that you're on my side, I miss the challenge."
Neal watched a cartoon projected on one of the walls.
"Oh, come on, all he's done are a few mildly impressive forgeries, allegedly cracked a safe, and stuck a vase on a Roomba." Neal gestured to the vacuum. Peter could not help but smile. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Boss, you need to see this," Diana called from another room. They both walked over to her.
On the wall were three gigantic letters built up at least a hundred photos.
"What do you think?" Peter asked the kid as they watched the 'FBI' on the wall. "Completely random arrangement of photographs?"
And the photos all seemed to be of their suspect in hoodie and sunshades.
"All right..." his pet convict admitted. "Maybe he is good."
Neal sat by his dinner table the next morning, where he was sadly alone when there was an odd knock on the door.
"Entrez, Moz." He put the federal papers back into its file.
"Ah," Moz walked inside with a robust camera in his hands. "I've come to steal your soul. Or at least part of it. You know, I've always found that superstition annoyingly inconsistent."
"Yeah, I got to get to the office."
"This will only take a moment," his friend said, not taking no for an answer. "Now, while I am disappointed we haven't been able to recover Peter's partial list of our treasures," he said, lifting up the largest of Neal's blank canvases and putting it on the aisle, "there is a silver lining. Gives us time to perfectly prepare for our escape."
"Starting with passports?"
Moz guided him in front of the white background of his canvas.
"How long do our aliases usually last?"
"Peter caught on to 'Nick Halden' in two months. 'Steve' survived for a year."
"Say 'Gouda.'"
"No."
Moz took the photo anyway.
"Imagine not having to look over our shoulders, not having to memorize a new date of birth every few months."
"I know where you're going with this, Moz. A permanent identity that the FBI can never crack requires the birth certificate for a dead infant. I'm not doing it." It was just too morbid, too much finding happiness in someone else's utter tragedy. Not to mention if the parents, for some reason, would find out that their 'son' is alive and well thirty years after his passing.
"Say 'brie de meaux.'"
Neal did not bother, and another photo was taken.
"What if there was a way to do it that wasn't so... horrifying?"
"How's it work?"
"You'll be stepping into someone else's shoes, even though they or their shoes never existed."
"Riddles, Moz?" Neal sighed and walked to the door.
"Neal... trust me."
He paused by the door, thinking it over. It was too tempting and a good thing to have, no matter what.
"If there is a way, I'm in." It would be costly, but Moz knew he had no more funds to tap from. If they could sell their treasure, it would cover the costs.
"Excellent," Moz grinned. "I'll set it up."