Chapter 7

Peter wanted to catch Villiers in the act of robbing the St. Louis Art Museum, but he was still undercover. As Philip Townsend he had to ask, "If the FBI knows who we are and what we plan to do, shouldn't we cancel?"

That's when he learned Red was more than a security expert. If Villiers had a genius for planning crimes, Red had a genius for keeping Villiers' plans on track. While Villiers ranted about not letting any Fed stop him, Red called Miles back to the bar and quietly explained to Peter why the job should go on as scheduled. "That kid's no more a Fed than I am."

"But I saw him with the FBI in New York," Peter protested. "And today, even when he tried to claim he wasn't a Fed, he still acted like one."

"I'm sure he did. I looked into him when Roland told me we had a last-minute replacement, and I found he's a phenomenal con artist. If you think he's a Fed, it's because that's what he wants you to think. But there's no way someone his age is a field agent on this kind of job."

"Why would he want us to think he's an agent?"

"Because someone wants us to bail on this job. That was your first reaction, right? That the Feds are onto us, so we have to cancel. All it means is that we have competition." Before Peter could ask what she meant, Red continued, "You saw our faux-agent at your office when a client was being investigated. I'd say that client wasn't happy with how things went that day. Maybe he thinks you were a little too helpful with the FBI. He looked for a way to get even, and making you think the FBI is after you makes it all the sweeter. Somehow, he convinced our first guy to back out, and arranged for his own guy to replace him. Roland has a certain reputation for not trusting new guys anyway. It all fell neatly into place. Now, are you going to let this old client of yours win, or are you going to get what you came here for?"

Finally, Villiers laid out the plan. Peter recorded every word of it. He knew exactly when the crew and the forged art would arrive at the museum. No need to have cops stake out the place in advance and risk spooking Villiers. Let Villiers get there first, with the evidence, and then surround him. Perfect.

Villiers was going to take the role he'd originally had in mind for Caffrey. All Peter had to do was to volunteer to be the wheelman. He'd meet the crew at Villiers' RV at midnight and would drive the crew and forged art pieces to the museum in the SUV. He'd stay in the vehicle as the look out, and then get the crew back to the RV once they completed their job.

In reality, once everyone was assembled at the museum, Peter would turn off the GPS tracker on his phone. That would be the take down signal. He'd stay out of the way and let the police make the arrest. They'd have a great example of coordination between law enforcement agencies, etc. The bureaucrats would be happy, Hughes would be happy, and Peter would be happy.

No. That wasn't right. Peter would be happy-ish. He'd be happier if he could arrest Caffrey, too. But there was negligible evidence against him, and he wouldn't be at the scene of the crime.

As Peter located Caffrey's beige rental in the parking lot, he couldn't quite convince himself that he wanted to arrest Caffrey. Not today, anyway. The kid had helped, even putting himself in danger to ensure Peter's cover held up. There had been times when it actually felt like they were partners, double-teaming Villiers.

Burke & Caffrey. They would make a great team. But he had to admit the whole Caffrey Conversation idea was looking unlikely. If Caffrey was always as wired as he seemed this evening, it would be impossible to make him sit still long enough for a serious conversation. Peter had to chuckle about the choirboy bit. But Choirboy Caffrey had stolen a car and impersonated an agent. Sort of. If you could impersonate an agent by denying you were an agent in such a way that everyone thought you were lying. Peter could imagine running that by El. And she would say, "Yeah, I don't see you getting a conviction on that one."

So he wouldn't try to arrest Caffrey today. But he could at least find where Caffrey had left Peter's car. There were four and a half hours until midnight. Plenty of time for a trained agent to comb through the clues left in Caffrey's rental.

Glove compartment, first. Rental agreement. The car was rented to a Henry Winslow, age twenty-seven. Smart. No rental company wanted to hand their cars over to twenty-four-year-old boys. They either refused or charged astronomical rates.

Peter added Henry Winslow to a growing list of Caffrey aliases.

Under the rental agreement was the standard city map everyone got from the local rental agencies. Nothing circled, no notes to decipher. Peter didn't find any other paperwork in the front seat area. There was a soft drink in a cup holder, from a major fast food chain that would have dozens of locations scattered across the city.

He activated the GPS. "Please tell me Caffrey's the type who will ask for directions." And there it was. Last trip ended here at the Shirts and Skins bar, and it originated downtown. Now he had a direction that led away from the airport and the museum, meaning something else in St. Louis had Caffrey's attention.

"If I were Caffrey, I'd want a hotel away from the main action. And of course he'd want something ridiculously expensive."

GPS wasn't going to find the most expensive hotels for him. Sadly, neither was Peter's "smart" phone up to the task.

The Bureau received advance demos of upcoming technology. By 2007, experts predicted, there would be true smart phones, and the killer apps he'd heard about since 2001 would finally make an appearance. And to think Apple was considered a leader in this revolution. Who even remembered Apple anymore? Except for iPod owners, of course. Peter was willing to bet his last paycheck that Caffrey had an iPod.

Knowing about advances expected years from now simply made his current phone more depressing. But all he needed was to make a plain old phone call to the Bureau. They had clerks for this kind of thing. Armed with the information they provided, Peter headed to the most expensive hotels in the area Caffrey had been driving through.

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Fortunately, Roland's rage hindered his aim. None of his bullets hit Neal or the car Neal had borrowed from Peter. At one point, Neal thought he saw Miles' SUV in the rear-view mirror and he was worried, because this rental car was seriously lacking in power. And it was a little claustrophobic. Peter was a couple of inches taller. Neal wanted to return the car to Peter just so he could watch Peter try to drive this thing. That would be soooo funny.

In fact, many things seemed soooo funny right now, and that was a concern. It was good he'd gotten away from Shirts and Skins when he did, because clear-headed was becoming a distant memory. He was pretty sure he'd said and done some things that he'd rather not have in his FBI file. Showing off in front of Peter had been a mistake. The goal should be for the FBI to remain ignorant of his full skill set, so that they would underestimate him.

Neal had learned some things about Peter, at least. The agent had adjusted quickly to Neal's plan, and played the indignant client to perfection. Undercover work wasn't much different from running a con, and in another life Neal could imagine partnering with Peter on a job. He looks like a freaking choirboy. That was brilliant.

If Neal ever saw a wanted poster calling him "The Choirboy" he'd have to give up crime and take up a life of... well, whatever adult choirboys did. Maybe they moved on to solos. Neal noted the Christmas lights in the shopping center to his left and started singing "The Little Drummer Boy." When he realized he had been stuck on the pa-rum-pa-pum-pums for a while without finding the transition back to the next verse, he tried "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." He had more success with that song, but by the end of the first verse he was coughing uncomfortably hard and decided to be quiet for a while.

With the menacing SUV gone, Neal drove downtown on autopilot. He knew these streets like the back of his hand. Sometimes he had come here after school to wait for his mom to get off work, because hanging out at the house alone had been boring. He met an interesting set of people, learning skills that ranged from playing pool to speaking different languages. In his teens he'd gotten jobs downtown, earning the money for his car and for art supplies.

Tonight, he made his way toward the best hotels. He entered one of the hotel parking garages and parked on the mostly-empty top floor, so the car wouldn't be a needle in a haystack. He was fairly certain there was a newer hotel nearby, but this one was still nice. He wouldn't mind staying here. He'd bet their rooms had tissues and he'd really like that, because his nose was running something awful and wiping it on his sweatshirt sleeve didn't seem very sanitary at all, but what choice did he have because Peter didn't have any tissues in his car and that was really thoughtless of him.

The medicine was wearing off fast now, much faster than it had last time. And now that his cold was making itself known again it was even worse than he remembered. He was sure he hadn't been shivering like this before, or felt so achy.

He'd feel better in the hotel, in a nice room with a nice bed. But the hotel entrance was soooo far away. He needed to park here, because of Peter. That was important. But once Peter tracked down the car, maybe he could drive Neal to the hotel entrance. Because it was soooo far away.

Maybe he could move to the back seat. And maybe Peter had water back there. Neal's throat was really dry from all the coughing and there was no water at all in the front seat. With more effort than it should have taken, Neal settled in the back seat. It was more comfortable, but there was no water there, either. If Peter didn't start stocking his car better, Neal might decide to hate him. And the Fed was taking forever to get there. It wasn't as if... It wasn't... Neal squinted as he tried to make the memories clearer. He had forgotten to tell Peter where he was going. Oops. Well, he could fix that. He was a smart guy. He could figure something out. He just needed a minute to rest first.

Author's Note: The first iPhone launched in 2007. The big cell phone carriers in the U.S. were just starting to roll out their "3G" networks when this story was set.