The Investigation
Gearing up, Peter didn't want to think about what was going to happen when they arrived at the warehouse.
It was the end of the case, the location of the missing Nazi treasure, but it was also where the end of his working partnership with Neal Caffrey would come to a head because he was about to arrest his best friend.
Feeling betrayed, he didn't appreciate Neal's latest scam.
Based on what they'd found, Neal had left his place the evening after they'd been coerced to defuse the submarine, he'd taken Sara home, and then he'd gone back to his place, but he'd never arrived at the mansion.
That was where their witness statements ended and the tracking data became their source of information.
Following the signal's records, they'd traced Neal to a studio in his name but it was empty. After that, the signal had gone back to the shore and the warehouse where they'd been held.
The next morning when they were searching the shore, the warehouse blew up sending agents rushing to it.
Peter had been in the lead and he'd found Vincent Adler along with the three henchmen he'd been working with the day before trying to find a way to get into the warehouse.
They were panicking about the treasure being destroyed but were unable to do anything about it.
Fortunately, it made them easy to arrest.
While his agents were hauling the men away, Peter had been looking about for his consultant when a piece of a painting had drifted through the air to land at his feet.
Pursuing that piece of evidence, he learned that the painting was a modern copy of the piece, likely the same one that he'd seen Neal painting in the loft.
Closing his eyes and hoping it was just a bad dream, he'd begun to suspect what everything since then had built into a solid case.
Searching the remains, the investigative team had found pieces of the sub's original manifest so that they'd be able to track the art when it inevitably turned up.
But, the unexpected part was the melted tracking anklet. Neal's had been cut and tossed into the sub before it exploded.
There had been some concern that Neal might have died in the flames, but it wasn't seriously pursued, especially when no human remains could be found, not even in the cremated form.
He had nothing to track so he notified his old mentor Kramer and enlisted his team's help to monitor the underground for the art.
They'd gotten lucky when they caught a Degas being used in a weapons deal and a simple operation had confiscated it.
Back in the office, he'd worked with Kramer to authenticate the painting and check it over for any identification of who had been handling it recently.
Only one set of fingerprints had come up on the frame. Neal Caffrey's.
Combining the evidence with the disappearance of Mozzie, and Peter had nothing to fight against his inclination to believe Neal's guilt.
With their suspect in mind, they worked their way backward through the sale of the painting. They picked up a name and that led them to the warehouse.
It wasn't hard to get a warrant.
Having arrived at the warehouse, Peter had no means to avoid it, so he joined the rest of the agents and made entry into the facility.
No one was about as they spread out and began searching the premises.
Personally, Peter led the way to the office working for the most likely place that would have the evidence he was looking for. However, along the way, he found a second room with a locked door and no means to see what was inside.
Having worked with Neal, he was able to pull out his own lock pick set and unlock the door rather than wait for a battering ram.
When he was ready, he flagged Jones and Diana over as they'd been working along behind him. Signaling, he directed them to back him up while he made entry first.
Walking into the room, he swiveled his gun taking stock of what was there, but that didn't last long.
"Neal?" he couldn't believe his eyes!
Neal was hanging on the wall from chains with his clothes hanging in rags and blood stained everything around him. The kid had clearly been tortured based on the damage to his body.
"I... I think... you're... to... too... l... l," Neal's eyes were glassy and his voice was weak as he barely rasped out the words before losing consciousness.
Approaching on autopilot, Peter holstered his gun and reached up to check his friend for a pulse.
"Diana, Jones!" He raised his voice alerting them to the situation as he moved to figure out how to release Neal from his bonds.
"Is he... he isn't?" Diana hedged in concern while Jones ducked out into the main area to order someone to get an ambulance.
Unable to get the right leverage to give Neal CPR against the wall, Peter led them in trying to release Neal from the fetters. "He's trying to be, but we aren't going to let him!" Peter growled as he managed to release Neal's hand and showed Diana how to release the rest of his binds.
His friend had no pulse and he wasn't breathing so time was of the essence, but they couldn't just let him fall either so they had to be careful in how they released him.
"Careful, we need to lower him to the floor," Peter coached needlessly as he and Jones took Neal's weight onto their shoulders and gently sank him to the floor.
Moving in as soon as she had room, Diana tilted Neal's head back to clear his airway before she pinched his nose, locked lips with him, and blew air into his lungs.
Shifting into position, Peter put his hands over Neal's heart and moved his body so that he could get maximum leverage for the chest compressions. He hoped to restart Neal's heart, or at least keep his blood flowing until the EMTs could arrive with more equipment.
Hearing the cracks as Neal's sternum broke, Peter shivered knowing that he'd just done severe damage himself. He'd intentionally broken Neal in a way that would take weeks, months really, to heal, and then he'd never completely recover since the break would be a sore spot into the future.
Pushing him back, Jones took over from the other side to give him a reprieve as he did the compressions for a few minutes.
None of them spoke, they were too busy putting their energy into keeping Neal alive. Investigating what had happened to him and evaluating their reactions could wait until he was okay.
"The ambulance is out front, the EMTs will be here in a minute," Blake ducked into the room to update them, but even he gasped when he saw what they were dealing with. "What happened to him?"
Unable to answer, Peter knew that was a good question and one that he'd be thoroughly investigating!
Then the EMTs entered and took over shifting Diana and Jones out of the way since Peter still seemed to be frozen looking at Neal's body.
Not following the medical jargon, they could only grasp that Neal was in bad shape.
Fortunately, the EMTs managed to restart his heart and keep oxygen flowing into his system, but it was a small win since they were still fighting for his life.
Loading Neal onto the stretcher, they moved to put him into the ambulance.
Snapping out of it, Peter got up and flashed his badge, "I'm riding with you, he's my responsibility."
Then he turned to Jones and Diana, "I want you two to go over this room and the office to find whatever you can about what's going on here. Whatever happened..." he glanced around the bloodied room with a shiver before he had to turn and hurry to catch up to the ambulance.
Sliding onto the bench beside Neal, Peter curled up into the smallest space he could take despite how uncomfortable it was.
What was worse, was the look of Neal's body laid bare right under his nose.
The EMTs were cutting off the rags to assess Neal's injuries which only continued to reveal more and more damage.
Some of the injuries had occurred a while before, so it wasn't a last-minute decision, Neal had been being tortured most if not the entire time he'd been missing.
Gently reaching out to touch the arm nearest him, Peter whispered, "What have they been doing to you?"
For the first time, he seriously considered the fact that Neal hadn't run. He'd been abducted and coerced into aiding someone who wasn't above framing him and then leaving him for dead. Whether he'd known who they were or had been caught by surprise was something they'd need Neal to help them figure out.
Thank you, everyone, for reading, commenting/reviewing, and leaving kudos :D
Per the vote, I am posting "The Betrayal" and hope that you all enjoy it :D
Fortunately, work has gotten through the remodel, corporate, and audits rather well, I hear, so that aspect of life will hopefully be settling down. I know that my hours are dropping and hopefully there will be a better work-life balance as my manager was finally given control of the department's scheduling... at least for whatever duration that I'll be remaining there. I have another option in mind but am waiting for them to begin hiring before anything will be certain... so, hopefully in the next month or two, there will be changes there. In the meantime, I intend to work on playing catch up and continuing to work on building my buffer forward as I can.
