Chapter 25: House of Cards

White Collar Division. Monday afternoon. July 12, 2004.

In the conference room with Peter, Tricia, Jones and an agent named Diana Berrigan who had flown in from D.C., Neal listened to Agent DeLay over the phone. It was apparent from the reactions of everyone in the room that expectations for this briefing from Public Affairs were low. It was frustrating being pulled away from the search for Robert Winslow today, when they were finally getting somewhere. Neal had all of his chess pieces in place and was ready to take control of the board, only to be pulled away from the game.

Neal had sketched Agent Diana Berrigan while she set up the conference call. She was a striking woman slightly younger than Jones. Her accent made Neal think that she'd spent time abroad, maybe in England. She was twisting a strand of hair around her finger, a nervous gesture incongruous with her otherwise confident, take-charge manner.

Agent DeLay had a soothing voice that was probably a virtue in his role of dealing with the public, but it was lulling Neal into a fog. He sketched Robert in handcuffs. Peter glanced over and grinned.

"You mean it's been less than twenty-four hours?" Tricia asked, and Peter straightened. Neal started paying attention. He thought people were supposed to be missing forty-eight hours before an investigation started unless it was a child or an obvious abduction.

"The report was filed this morning, but the last sighting was yesterday afternoon," DeLay said. A new slide was projected on the monitor, this one showing a timeline. Literally. The page showed a horizontal line with tick marks for the hours of the day. The page heading was Sunday's date. It was as if the FBI gave courses in how to make boring presentations. "Let me walk you through the timeline. On Sunday around noon, the victim we're calling Alpha boarded a plane in Toronto."

"Alpha?" Neal asked. "Why not call them by their name?"

"It's a Double Blind, isn't it?" Peter asked.

"That's right," DeLay confirmed. "We don't want to release the names to the media or to the public yet. It's sensitive enough that to make sure no one in my department slips up, we haven't been given the real names. We're using code designations. When the agents from Missing Persons join the briefing, I'll drop off the call before they share the names."

Neal caught Diana rolling her eyes. He wondered how she'd ended up working on a team that seemed so ill-suited to her personality.

"And Alpha, by the way, is a woman," DeLay added.

"At least they know something," Jones said under his breath. Peter shot him a sharp glance, and Jones shrugged. In a louder voice Jones asked, "Is she Canadian?"

"No," DeLay said, "she's a U.S. citizen. She'd been in Canada only a few days, on a vacation, according to her mother."

"How old is Alpha?" Tricia asked.

"Early twenties," DeLay said. "She was traveling alone, and as I said, boarded her flight at noon. She had a layover in New York, with two hours before her connecting flight. She should have gotten home early Sunday evening, but never arrived. Her mother was at the airport to pick her up, and when Alpha didn't show up at baggage claim, her mother tried calling and texting. She didn't get an answer, and when she called the airline they told her that Alpha hadn't boarded that connecting flight. Nor did they have any record of her booking a replacement flight."

Tricia frowned. "How do you justify making this a missing persons case? I haven't heard anything yet that would make me think there's been foul play. Most likely this girl decided to stay in New York and have some fun and forgot to tell her mother. Or maybe she felt she has some reason to rebel and deliberately left her mom in the dark."

Neal glanced at the timeline on the monitor. Events DeLay had mentioned were listed now, and it brought to mind his own schedule for Sunday. After talking to Mozzie, Neal had accompanied June to brunch at a restaurant that had been one of Byron's favorites. June said she hadn't been able to face going there since losing her husband and thought it was time to revisit the place and the memories it would bring. She had asked Neal along to make sure she didn't become overwhelmed with sadness.

They'd indulged in stories about Byron, with Neal doing his best to keep things upbeat. He'd enjoyed the meal – the food was excellent – but June had been mildly distressed that something Byron usually ordered was no longer on the menu. Then back at home he'd updated June on the Masterson con, giving her something else to think about. The rest of the day had been subdued, and he'd returned to work eager to be active. Sitting through this briefing was not what he'd had in mind.

If not for the need to keep making progress on the Robert and Masterson cases, he would loved to have taken his grandmother up on her invitation to go to Switzerland. Although he might have to check with Peter to make sure it was safe. Did his immunity from the FBI also extend to Interpol? Most of his time in Europe had been busy with less-than-legal pursuits.

What time had Noelle said their flight was? They might have been at JFK around the time this Alpha person went missing. Unlikely that Noelle would have noticed anything, of course. The airport was massive and filled with people.

Neal had missed the answer to Tricia's question, he realized. Peter wasn't going to be happy if he didn't remember the details of the briefing. Turning to an empty page, Neal started sketching his cousins. He drew them sitting together at the piano, as he remembered from his birthday party. With the creative side of his mind occupied, he focused his analytical side on the meeting.

"That brings us to Psi," DeLay was saying. "This is a relative slightly older than Alpha. While Alpha's travel arrangements had been in place for a couple of weeks, Psi booked his flights Sunday morning. He arrived in New York about half an hour before Alpha, and was supposed to be on the same connecting flight. He also failed to board that flight, and hasn't been seen or heard from since."

"Is he another victim, or a suspect?" Jones asked.

"At this point, we don't know. He'd texted Alpha in the morning telling her he planned to catch up with her in New York. Alpha had called her mother before boarding her flight to JFK to let her know Psi would be arriving with her. When neither arrived, Alpha's mother tried contacting some of Psi's relatives. Several are out of the country, and that's part of the reason for not releasing names yet. We haven't been able to contact his next of kin. There was one relative state-side she was able to contact, and who was quite concerned. When he couldn't get a response from Psi last evening he drove to D.C. to meet with Alpha's mother. Together they called the Bureau last night, explaining their reasons for wanting to treat their relatives as missing even though the people missing are adults who haven't been gone very long. Missing Persons agreed, and set up a team in Alpha's mother's home in case the perpetrator calls with demands."

"And what are those reasons for giving this case special treatment?" Peter asked.

"First and foremost, Alpha and Psi have a relative involved in a project described as politically sensitive, which could have been a motive. Snatch them, and then put pressure on this relative to drop out of the project, for instance. In fact, my superiors have told me that we're trying to keep a lid on news of the disappearance due to the risk of distracting their grandfather from his work."

Neal stopped sketching. He felt as if he'd stopped breathing, too.

DeLay continued, "The reason we're involving your team is that there's a third grandchild who lives in New York. We're calling him Nu. We've confirmed he hasn't disappeared, and we want your help to inform him of what's happened and to make sure he remains safe. Beyond that, we have reason to believe he might be able to shed some light on what's happened to his cousins. There's –"

"Stop!" ordered Peter. "Not another word." He looked across the table at Diana. "How do you know Nu isn't missing? It's because he works for the Bureau, isn't it? You knew his badge had been scanned here this morning."

"Yes, we knew he worked here." She looked at Neal uncertainly. "But not as an agent. There were only supposed to be agents in this briefing."

"He's a consultant," Peter said. "Neal, we're going to find them. You hear me?"

Neal noticed his hands were shaking, and he placed them flat on the table. Then he looked at Peter blankly. What had happened to the chess board he was ruling over, with all the pieces moving as he planned? Instead he'd been left with a house of cards, and it had collapsed without warning. What the hell was Henry up to? He had to believe that this was Henry's doing, not someone trying to derail the talks in Geneva, and not Robert one-upping them. He simply couldn't let his mind go there.

"Alpha and Psi," said Diana. Neal hadn't noticed her walk to his side of the table, but now she was leaning over his shoulder and looking at his latest sketch.

"I thought you didn't know who they were," Peter said.

"Not their names, but I caught a glimpse of their photos on the flight. Young and Silva were studying the file, and I didn't like being in the dark so I paid attention to what they were saying. Sitting across the aisle I couldn't read the names, but the photos were clear. Unfortunately their file didn't include a photo of you." She sat down beside Neal. "I am so sorry. We never intended for you to hear it like this. Agent Silva was going to talk to you and... Honestly I have no idea what he was going to say, but it wouldn't have been..." She gestured toward the speaker phone.

Neal felt a hand laid gently on his shoulder. He looked up to see Tricia. "Can we get you anything?" she asked. "Water?"

He nodded.

"Jones," Tricia said, "could you..."

"On it," said Jones, and he strode out of the conference room.

"Do you want to tell Hughes, or stay here?" Tricia asked.

Peter looked torn.

"It's okay," Neal told him. "I'm fine. Really."

Peter nodded. "I'll be right back."

"I'm so sorry," Diana repeated after Peter left. Neal looked at her and realized that at some point someone had ended the call. The light on the speaker phone wasn't lit anymore.

"It's okay," Neal repeated. "They're okay."

Jones returned with a bottle of water, and Hughes' voice carried through when the conference room door was opened. He was yelling, using language they didn't normally hear from him. Sure, Hughes dropped a swear word occasionally in a meeting, but not at this volume, and not so many strung together. It was impressive.

Diana winced and said, "I have to agree with him."

"How'd you end up working for Public Affairs?" Neal asked.

She shrugged. "Luck of the draw. I was hoping for Organized Crime, but they warned us going into Quantico that there's no guarantee of what assignment we'll get. My father was in the diplomatic corps, and Public Affairs deals with a lot of politicians and sensitive situations, especially in D.C. I started a week ago."

"Did they actually interview you?"

She flashed a grin at Neal's question. "Nope. They assumed a life among diplomats had rubbed off on me."

Following Neal's lead, Jones said, "A couple weeks ago Peter had me look through the resumes of the latest set of upcoming Quantico grads, to pick the ones we wanted to interview to be our probie. I don't remember seeing your name."

"I got the impression that a handful of us were picked in advance. We didn't get called for any interviews, but were the first to be told our assignments. Most of my classmates are in their second round of interviews right now."

"It isn't supposed to work like that," Tricia said. "Every team looking for probies is supposed to get a fair shot at all the candidates. But I've heard some teams in D.C. get around the rules and cherry pick the ones they want before interviews even start."

No one had much to say after that, and the room was silent when Peter entered. Diana stood. "Is Public Affairs off the case?" she asked.

"No," Peter said. "But they'll be handling public communications from here on, not Bureau briefings. My boss just got off the phone with DeLay's boss, and in the future the Double Blind policy won't be used when we know a member of the Bureau is affected. Neal -"

"She's a probie," Neal interrupted. "What's that mean?"

Peter looked sharply at Diana. "It means probationary agent. How long have you been out of Quantico?"

"A week. Should I head back to D.C.?"

"Honestly? It would probably cost more to buy a ticket to send you back today than to keep you here a few days. How would you feel about being on loan to White Collar? My team's overloaded at the moment."

"I'd like to help," Diana said. "My dad used to tell me you can say you're sorry a hundred times, and it still doesn't measure up to actually stepping forward to fix what you did. I regret being a part of this, and I'd feel a lot better if I could roll up my sleeves and help catch whoever's behind this disappearance."

"Fine," said Peter. "Tricia, can you let DeLay know, and then take the lead on directing Agent Berrigan's work?"

"I will. Follow me," she told Diana. "Let's talk to your boss."

"Jones," Peter said as the other agents were leaving, "Go back to your desk and keep watch for Agents Silva and Young. They should be here soon, and then we'll have a real briefing. We'll let them use Conference Room C as their office while they're here. Let me know when they arrive, show them to Room C, and then we'll give them a few minutes to get settled before we all converge on them."

"I'll take care of them," Jones promised as he left.

"It's just you and me, kid," Peter said. "You need anything?"

"Same as everyone else. Answers."

"Henry didn't give you any kind of heads up that he was gonna go off the radar? No, really think about it, Neal," Peter said when Neal automatically shook his head. "Is there anything that didn't register at the time but might have been an indication he planned something like this? Because I gotta tell you, as much as I hope this is just a play to manipulate Robert, Henry's gonna be in a lot of trouble if he caused us to kick off an investigation of this scale instead of simply telling us what he needed and letting us fake an investigation. If that's all it is, things will go much better for him if we find out now."

"I can't think of anything that Henry or Angela did or said that would indicate they were planning something like this. I assume it's Graham who contacted the Bureau with Paige – Angela's mom," he clarified when Peter looked confused. "You know Graham thinks Win-Win is superior to the FBI. He would have used all his resources to track Henry, and he would have called him and ordered him to stop fooling around if he'd been able to find him. Going to D.C. and asking the Bureau for help, you know that's only something he'd do as a last resort."

"When you talked to your cousin in Philly, did he seem off to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You'd mentioned a concern he might decide to use drugs. Did you see any signs of that?"

"No, he seemed perfectly clean. And he said... well, he said he knew I wouldn't approve and was avoiding that route."

"And since then?" Peter asked.

"What are you getting at?"

"After he met with you, he called me. He didn't sound like his usual, rational self, and by the end of the call I suspected he might be on something."

Neal ran his hands through his hair. "Probably because I mentioned the concern. He'd get a kick out of playing that up, making you think it was true." And if Henry had planned to disappear out of the blue like this, he might have been planting that seed of doubt that he was in his right mind, to keep the FBI concerned enough to take his disappearance seriously. But why do this? Why disappear on the East Coast when they wanted to send Robert to the West Coast? And why do it now, with the Ambassador on a mission overseas, when the news would be suppressed? What was the point? And why take Angela with him, unless she was in some kind of danger? But if that was the case, why hadn't he reached out to Win-Win or the FBI to protect them?

His mind was still swirling with questions when Jones popped in to say the agents had arrived and would be ready for a briefing in a few minutes.

Settled in Conference Room C with Hughes, Peter, Jones, Tricia, Diana and the two Missing Persons agents from D.C., Neal heard another round of apologies for how he'd learned of his cousins' disappearance. They confirmed it was Angela and Henry, and that they had disappeared with their carry-on luggage. Their checked bags had gone to D.C. on the flight they'd missed.

"Even Henry's guitar?" Neal asked.

"Yes, a guitar was one of the items we collected," Agent Young confirmed.

Agent Silva picked up the thread. "So far we haven't found any indication that they rented a car, used a credit card for a cab or other transportation, or checked into a hotel. There's also no trace of their cell phones starting shortly after Angela arrived at JFK. Agent Burke, we'll ask for your team's help in canvassing the rental agency desks and cab companies with photos, to see if they paid cash or used a fake ID."

"I can coordinate that," Tricia volunteered. "Agent Berrigan?"

"Please, call me Diana. And yes, I'll help."

"Agent Young will assist," Silva said. "I believe the earlier briefing touched on the possibility that these two people were targeted to influence their grandfather, Edmund Caffrey. Someone might ask him to pull out of the talks in Geneva, or to lend his support to one side over the other. The security team there is aware of the situation and monitoring all attempts to contact the Ambassador, his wife or their daughter."

"Do they know what's happened?" Neal asked.

"Not yet. There's nothing they can do at the moment, and it was deemed important to keep the Ambassador focused on the work he's in Geneva to do."

"You think they should be told?" asked Peter.

Neal shrugged. "They would want to know. They'll be upset that they weren't informed, but on the other hand, Silva's right. There's nothing they could do but worry. I'm glad to spare them that for now."

"In this scenario, where there's a political motivation behind this, you're also at risk," said Silva. "One of the main arguments against this scenario is that no one attempted to grab you, too. It would be even more devastating to tell the Ambassador that all of his grandchildren were taken, and you're right here in New York, where the others disappeared."

"It's more complicated than it seems," Neal said. Keeping to the marshals' official background story for him, he explained, "My mom was estranged from her parents since I was just a kid. We moved away and fell out of touch. It's just in the last few months I reconnected with my grandparents. Not a lot of people know I'm back in their life. It's very possible that someone trying to manipulate the Ambassador would think there are only two grandkids, or wouldn't know where the third one is."

Agent Silva finished scribbling some notes and then looked up. "That makes the political scenario move back up to the top of the list, especially given the timing. The next scenario involves Robert Winslow, Henry's father. I understand he's the subject of an investigation by your team, Burke, and is suspected of trying to kill both Neal and Henry."

"That's right," Peter said.

"I find it hard to believe this was Robert's doing," Neal added. "First, we've been making him think we're looking for something in Alaska, and that Henry's planning to head in that direction. He should be focused there, not New York. Robert's accomplice has access to a lot of data, but none of it's in the travel industry, right?"

Jones said, "Carlson-Berger doesn't have TSA or travel company data."

"So I don't see how Robert would have known Henry was here. And I don't see why he'd take Angela, too. How's he going to control two hostages? It doesn't add up for me, not unless he's really losing it."

"Or has another accomplice we weren't aware of," Jones suggested.

"Got it," said Silva. "That scenario stays on our list, but lower in likelihood. The next scenario is that one or both of them had a reason to disappear. If they both disappeared willingly, then there's no case. If one of them coerced the other into leaving the airport, then instead of two victims, we have a victim and a suspect."

"No," said Neal. "Neither of them would do that."

"We've discovered that Henry Winslow has a history of disappearances. A missing persons report was filed when he was twenty. Although our records show his family had us close the case after a few months, his aunt said he remained hidden from them for years and has never explained where he went or what he was doing. Recently this team was treating him as a missing person again. Is that right?"

"Yes," said Peter.

"But..." Neal paused. Yes, his cousin had been missing, and he'd pushed to have the Bureau take it seriously, but they'd always known that Henry's "disappearance" had been about finding and distracting Robert. The case had been opened more to appease and train Neal, than to find someone who'd willingly gone off the radar and didn't particularly want to be found. But could he say that to these agents? Did it make Peter look bad to admit he'd indulged Neal with a "case" that had really been an excuse to let Neal be on the periphery of the Robert Winslow search? "But we didn't uncover anything nefarious. Henry had gone looking for his dad, dropped out of touch, and his family was worried. When he realized just how worried we were, he apologized and agreed to go home. You could argue it was poor judgement on his part, but how do you turn that into suspicion that he abducted Angela?"

"I'm not making judgments at this point," Silva said. "I'm simply laying out the facts. Henry Winslow has a history of disappearing for months, even years at a time. To drop so completely out of sight, he must have one or more aliases and fake IDs. It seems that Angela has also dropped out of sight occasionally in the last couple of years. According to Graham Winslow, they aren't the only ones. Neal, he says you accompanied Henry during part of the time that he was seemingly untraceable. Therefore we assume you know the aliases he was using, and possibly the alias or aliases that Angela has used. If you can tell us those names, we may be able to locate them and close this case in a few hours as another instance of these individuals deciding to go on some kind of side trip."

Neal stared at them. This wasn't the same thing at all. Sure, they frequently disappeared into their Urban Legend personas, but they never called attention to it by telling their family they would meet them someplace and then failing to show. In fact, now that he thought about it, this disappearance meant his cousins had missed performances and events Mozzie had planned for Sunday night and Monday. Unless for some reason they wanted to be considered missing as their real identities while still continuing the con as Urban Legend? But then how did Henry perform without his guitar?

He had to call Mozzie. As Urban Legend's agent, he'd know if Shawn and Grace Legend had made their most recent scheduled appearances. That's how Neal would know they were all right. Mozzie would tell him they were safe, and fill him in on what the disappearance was all about.

Neal stood up. "I'll be right back."

Peter stood in his way. "Where do you think you're going?"

"It's okay, Peter. I just have to call someone. Then we can clear all this up."

"We've got a speaker phone in here," Silva said. "Give me the number."

"I can't..." How on earth was he supposed to explain that Mozz wouldn't answer a call from an FBI office line? And he couldn't mention Urban Legend in front of any of these people. Those Legend aliases were sacrosanct. "You don't understand. He won't talk to the FBI, but if I can just have a minute..."

"Yeah. Give us a minute?" Peter requested. "We could probably all use a break at this point." Everyone stood and started filing out of the room. "Tricia?" Peter said. "Maybe you should stay. I'm sure you can explain this better than I could."

"Explain what?" Neal said. "C'mon. Even prisoners get to make a phone call."

"Maybe you should sit down," Peter said, as Neal ran his hands through his hair and started to pace.

"Let him stand," Tricia said. "Sometimes moving helps a person work through the stress of this kind of thing, so they can start to think clearly." But Tricia sat down, and so did Peter. She waited a couple of minutes and when Neal's pacing slowed she said, "There are aspects of Missing Persons cases that are very different from what you're used to in White Collar. It tends to get more emotional. On the one hand we don't want to traumatize the family members beyond what they've already endured, but on the other hand those same people may themselves be targets or even suspects. Often they know something pertinent without realizing it, or maybe they know something they don't want made public. Sometimes they're tempted to go around us to make a deal with the abductors. The result of all of these factors is that family is watched constantly, and we recommend that they don't communicate with anyone outside the Bureau without one of us present. When it's a relative of someone in the Bureau who goes missing, we're supposed to set an example of being completely open with the agents working the case. The fact that you're a potential next victim makes it even more crucial to watch your every move. It's not that we don't trust you, but we've learned that people in your circumstances often act in ways that are..."

"Irrational?" Peter suggested.

"At least not in the best interest of solving the case and getting their loved ones home safely," Tricia said. "Believe me, I know how hard this is for you. I've watched many people go through this, and I've wanted to make exceptions for some of them. I've learned the hard way to follow the FBI guidelines. Those rules are in place for very good reasons. Remember, it's not just you going through this. Graham Winslow and Angela's mother... Paige? They're in the same situation in D.C. right now. The best thing you can do for your cousins is to tell us who you want to call, and then let at least one of us be part of that conversation."

"Please, Neal, let us help you. If you don't cooperate, you might be treated as a suspect," Peter warned.

"Yeah? Lucky I'm used to that."

"I was afraid of this," Peter said. "You claimed there was nothing more you needed to say about the monitoring, but you aren't really past it, are you?"

"Maybe I would be if it stayed in the past, but now you're saying it has to start up again."

"You know this isn't the same thing."

"It feels the same," Neal said.

"How about we do something to make it feel different, then?" Peter suggested. "This time you set some of the parameters. Name an agent here you'd feel comfortable with. One agent to keep watch over you until we find out what happened to your cousins. Think of this as picking a bodyguard, keeping in mind a bodyguard has to stick by your side to keep you safe."

"Not just who, but how long," Neal amended. "We try this for twenty-four hours. If I don't like how it's going, we renegotiate."

"It's a deal," said Peter. "Which agent am I sending home with you?"

"Diana Berrigan."

A/N: I'm glad to have Diana in the series at last. In canon she was a probie on Peter's team in 2009. I hope you'll forgive my messing with the timeline here. We missed Diana enough to bring her into the AU early.