"What's the plan if Brauer doesn't show up at the P.O. box?" the kid asked him as they got to the office.
"You spent $90 million in 36 hours," Peter pointed out. "He'll show. How are you and Sara doing?"
"Well, you know, there are always… growing pains." Considering what he had pulled her into and her reflecting on the consequences, Peter figured there could be a lot of them.
"She's taken over the closet?" he asked.
"Are you in a full-fledged garment war with Elizabeth?" the kid asked. "I mean, first, she wants you to iron your own shirts, and now she's taking over the closet?"
"We're not talking about El and me." Though, that was exactly what El had been doing for a short time in the beginning.
"Sara did complain about my anklet."
"Ooh." Peter waited for the rest.
"I toss in my sleep, and she bruises easily."
"How about if I take off your anklet?" Peter asked.
Neal stared at him, looking for the hook, probably.
"That'd be great..."
"Then we'll see if Sara prefers conjugal visits." Peter grinned. Not Neal, though. "'Cause you'd be in prison."
"As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't have to explain your jokes."
Peter could do nothing but nod. His joke had fallen flat.
"Brauer didn't come to the P.O. box," Diana told them, bursting into his office.
"Evidently," the kid said, "ninety million isn't as compelling as one might think."
"He did send a delivery service," Diana continued.
"A delivery service?"
"What was the delivery?" Peter asked.
"A flash drive."
"Did it go through security?" He was not about to fall into that easy trap and spread a virus within the FBI.
"Cyber crimes scanned it. It's just a video file on it."
Peter got hold of Jones and a laptop. Jones pushed the thumb drive into the USB socket.
The same mask appeared.
"To the bourgeois swine responsible for squandering the capital with which our freedom was to be purchased —" Peter turned it off.
"More B.S. political rhetoric. Doesn't make sense."
"Last time, he put a .40-caliber round an inch from Vulture's head," Diana said.
"And now he's leveling idle threats." The kid frowned. No, it didn't make sense.
"What's he up to?"
"Guys, we got a problem," Jones said.
"What is it?" the kid asked.
"Brauer got behind the firewall. Get everybody offline now!"
Diana flew out of her chair and ran out of the conference room.
"Everybody! Network cables out now!"
"Unplug your computers!" Peter yelled. "Unplug them!"
People in the office yanked out their network cables without questioning.
"I need a full system reboot," Diana told someone on the phone.
"What the hell happened?" Peter wanted to know. "I thought cyber crimes scanned that drive."
"They did," Jones said. "They did. This is something new."
"A virus hidden between lines of code on the video file?" the kid asked.
"If Brauer got in our network," Peter sighed, "who knows what he has." For once, he would be in trouble by his own doings.
"We're back up," Diana told them.
"Good."
"This machine was inactive when we got hacked," Jones said, arriving with a new laptop. "So it should be clean." He sat down and opened it. "He went straight for the Duponte account, but he just got the personal information Caffrey changed."
Peter looked at the kid.
"He's restoring the identity you stole from him."
"Well, he'd have to go into the bank to access the money," Neal said. "After that, I'm betting he splits town as fast as possible."
He loved how fast the kid was thinking under stress.
"If Brauer was at the bank, he'd be on their security footage."
"The Swiss still won't play ball."
"Without Brauer's photo, we're not catching him." That was the facts. He needed a photo.
"Technically, we don't need permission to pull the security tapes," the kid said. Peter liked that he did his best to learn those things. "Don't we have a new friend who hacks into banks?"
Peter smiled.
"Get a speaker-phone in here."
"Isn't it better I call him from my own phone?" Neal asked.
"Not that I don't trust you, Neal," Peter said, "and I might stretch a bit of that trust to your funny friend, but Sally is not near my trust yet. I need to hear, and we need witnesses. This is an official call."
Fair enough. Neal dialed Mozzie's latest number.
"Uh, hello?" a sleepy voice answered.
"Moz?"
"Neal, this isn't a great time."
"Yeah, well, you've got the FBI on the line," Neal made it clear.
"We need to talk to your new client," Peter said. Good, now he knew he was officially on speaker.
"Please call my office during normal business hours to set an appointment." Mozzie did not play ball this time.
"Can you find Sally or not?" Neal stressed. There was a pause and a sigh.
"Hang on." There were some noises on the phone. Neal guessed he put the phone down. "Do you see my glasses?"
"They're right in front of you," a woman's voice answered. Sally's voice.
"Wait…" Jones frowned.
"Are they..." Neal glanced at Peter
"I think... they are." He nodded. They listened to zippers and straps and moving feet.
"Are these your socks?" Mozzie asked at the other end.
"That one is mine."
"I will never unhear that," Diana muttered.
There was another pause.
"Okay, she's here now," Mozzie said, putting the phone on speaker.
"Yeah, we got that," Diana said.
"We think Brauer has recaptured the Duponte account," Neal said. "He's got to be on surveillance, but the bank is stonewalling."
"For obvious reasons, the FBI can't violate their security," Peter added.
"But if someone else did..." Neal smiled.
"Ah, way ahead of you," Mozzie returned. "We'll send over the footage as soon as we have it. Bye."
They looked at each other.
"We don't have much time," Neal said. "He'll skip the country."
Peter just nodded.
"We got video," Jones reported. "It's cued up to just before the account was reinstated."
He started the film and a man opened the glass door to the bank and walked inside.
"That's got to be Brauer," Neal said.
"Stop there," Peter said. "Back him up to the door. Blow it up on his face." Jones did that. "All right, Logan," Peter said to an agent who had joined them, "get that picture to NYPD. Tell them to put out an all-points." The man nodded at left. "All right, let's get to the end. I want to see what he did when he left."
"Do we have the exterior camera?" Diana asked, and Jones switched to another file. Brauer walked out and caught a cab.
"Freeze it. Right there. Can we bring it closer?" Peter asked, and Jones zoomed in. They could see the cab number. "I know where that cab dropped him off."
Peter was already out the door.
They drove to Whitehall Terminal in the south of Manhattan. A significant and crowded ferry terminal.
"Spread out," Peter said. "I need an agent on every jetty, car park, and subway terminal."
"Let's get into position!" Jones called out. "Red team!"
"Blue team's with me," Diana countered.
"Diana, get someone in the CCTV room," Peter ordered as he jogged up the main staircase. "Let terminal security know we're here."
"Got it."
He got to the top of the stairs and stared at the crowd. Neal did the same beside him.
"I told Hughes we need more agents," Peter said. "This is one of the biggest ports in the eastern seaboard."
"We could definitely use more manpower. This is..." Yeah, impossible to find anyone. Peter did not want to let this guy go! Not like this. Then he got an idea.
"Neal?"
"Yeah?"
"Get Sally back on the line."
The kid looked at him but did not argue. He brought out his phone, speed-dialed, and gave him the phone.
"What are you thinking?" he asked. Peter looked at the many signs with departures that most visitors were looking it frequently.
"Hello?"
"Mozzie, it's agent Burke. I need your help."
"I'm thrilled and all ears, Suit." Peter was not sure if he meant that or not, but right now, he did not care.
"We're gonna deputize every single person in this terminal."
"Could you be a little more specific?"
And Peter was. He smiled at the kid, who seemed impressed by the idea.
"You think they can pull it off?" Peter asked.
"Well, you picked the right two misfits to try." They looked around, waiting. "And there's your answer."
On every monitor was now an 'FBI Alert - Wanted'- sign looking official with the photo of Bauer with a little attention signal to it.
"Wow. That was fast."
"21st century's a house of cards, Peter." Neal's phone beeped, and the sign was there as well. Soon, everyone went to their pockets. Sally had managed to get the message to people's phones as well.
"Now, the fun part."
People started to take notice, to look around, to react.
Soon:
"Hey! That's the guy! That - that's him!"
"We got him!"
Peter ran towards where people pointed, and they made way for him and Neal.
"T-that's him! That's him!"
And there he was, beige and anonymous and utterly baffled to be in everyone's attention. When he saw Peter, he started to run.
"Brauer! Freeze!" Diana yelled, meeting him with a drawn gun. He turned and ran the other way. But he soon found himself surrounded.
Brauer halted and let his shoulder bag slide down on the floor before he raised his hands in surrender.
Peter grabbed him by the collar and shoved him up against a pillar, cuffing him.
"You're under arrest."
"Man, he looks familiar," the kid said. "Have I seen your picture somewhere?"
"Yeah, you're somebody. Isn't he?"
"Yeah, he's definitely somebody."
"This won't stick," Brauer barked. "I'm a hero."
"You're a thief."
"Not underground. Not to my people."
Peter turned him around, facing him.
"I've actually spent a lot of time with your people," he told the cuffed man.
"More than he'd like," the kid added.
"You robbed a bank, and you tried to kill Vulture. You don't have any friends left, above or below ground."
Jones joined them, holding a laptop from Brauer's bag.
"And I bet this has everything we need to prove you built the virus."
"Just don't plug it in at the office," Peter grinned.
