Jacobi Hospital. Friday morning. February 27, 2004.

In a generic janitorial uniform, Mozzie passed unnoticed through the hospital halls. Inwardly he shuddered at the thought of the accumulated germs he was being exposed to, but he was determined to do this. He timed his entrance into the ICU during the morning shift change, when visitors were temporarily banished. But he faced a dilemma when he reached Neal's room.

Neal was asleep, and not inclined to wake up. Shaking him only elicited a sleepy, "'nry?" When Mozzie didn't answer Neal's eyes partially opened and he repeated, "Henry?"

"No, it's me," said Mozzie. "Listen, do you –"

"Where's Henry?" Neal interrupted. "Said he'd keep her away."

Mozzie didn't need to hear the beeping of the machine monitoring Neal's heartbeat to tell that the young man was distressed. And if that beeping didn't slow down, someone would be here soon to investigate. "He sent me to help."

"Mmm," replied Neal, conveying a great deal of doubt in a single syllable. "Where'd he go?"

"I'll find him, okay? Just calm down."

According to the beeping, Neal was partially satisfied with this answer. Mozzie departed, following the arrows to the waiting room. Clearly Neal wasn't able to answer his questions. Hopefully Henry could fill in the blanks, because there wasn't a lot of time.

The tricky part would be making the contact without making the suits suspicious. Mozzie snuck into a storage area to slip off his blue coveralls. In his street clothes he would blend more easily among the denizens of the waiting area.

Standing next to a potted plant, he spied Special Agent Peter Burke with several people Mozzie didn't recognize. Probably more government lackeys. Then he heard a voice from behind him. "Mozz?"

He turned to see Neal. But that wasn't possible. He had seen Neal in the ICU, barely able to keep his eyes open much less walk around. Now Mozzie saw Neal standing in a signature vintage suit, fedora in hand, blue eyes wide in surprise. There was only one explanation. His fears regarding Western, industrialized medicine had been proven correct. "Neal, they cloned you!"

Neal started to laugh. But it wasn't Neal's laugh. It sounded like Henry. And a closer look revealed Henry's jaw and broader shoulders, and shorter hair styled to look like Neal's.

He considered the possibility that some of Henry's DNA had been added to the clone, but reluctantly discarded that theory. "Contact lenses?" Mozzie asked.

Henry nodded. "I'm supposed to impersonate Neal when they question Churchill. Peter thinks it will rattle the guy enough to reveal more information. I just put in the contacts and was on my way back to see if I pass inspection. Neal's doing better but he's still in ICU."

"I saw him. Listen, we don't have much time. Take this." Mozzie handed Henry an Atlantic bond. "In the confusion after the Feds swarmed the place yesterday, I grabbed Neal's things from the laundry. This was in his jacket pocket."

"The bond Kate gave him." Henry slipped the bond into his jacket.

"I checked it under polarized light to see if it was an original, or one of Neal's forgeries. I saw where Neal had signed it, and I saw something else. It was a code. Or from the looks of it, an encryption key."

"Do you think it was a message from Kate?" Henry asked.

"No, Kate loves the classics. Encryption is more Adler's style."

"Why –" Henry started, but Mozzie didn't have time to hang around and chat.

"The Suit's coming this way. You have to decide if Neal would want to keep the bond, give it to Kate, or hand it over to his government overlords." Mozzie scurried away, disappearing behind the door to the ICU before he could be intercepted by the Feds.

###

Henry left Jacobi with mixed feelings. He wanted to help the FBI prove that Frank Churchill had tried to murder Neal, but at the same time he hated to leave him. Even though Henry knew his mother and grandparents would look after Neal, guarding him with their lives if need be, it wasn't the same. He'd felt responsible for Neal for years, and it was hard to trust anyone else to do the job right.

This was his third visit to the Federal Building, and he knew his way around. He sauntered into the White Collar division behind Peter and casually slid into the chair of Neal's desk. Agents paused what they were doing, and silence fell over the bullpen. Tricia Wiese walked up to ask, "Can you pull it off without the hat?"

Henry took off the fedora, giving it a flip that landed it on the middle of the desk. He grinned and put his feet up, and Peter automatically shoved them off the desk. "C'mon, Peter," he protested. "Cut me a little slack here."

Tricia nodded. "You've got the mannerisms and voice, and even the interaction with Peter. Any weaknesses we should be aware of?"

Thinking back to his encounter with Mozzie, Henry admitted, "I don't have Neal's laugh down yet. I'll get close if I have a chance to think about it, but if I'm surprised into a laugh I'll sound like me. But it's not like they were joking around in Churchill's office, and I doubt you have comedy in mind today."

"Right," Tricia said. "Not likely to be an issue. We have Churchill in an interrogation room upstairs. He's certain Neal is dead or at death's door. As far as he's concerned he succeeded in killing Neal and in making it look like an accident. He knows we have him recorded and that we can bring charges of illegal possession of a controlled substance, but he also knows he didn't explicitly say that he knew there was anything different about the drug in the blue box. What I'm counting on is that Churchill had a partner who supplied the drug, and whoever his partner is, it's someone Churchill is afraid of. He's willing to face the charges for having and using Flashback on Highbury clients rather than name his partner. If he sees Neal alive and well, he'll know his partner will be unhappy, and this is a partner who's willing to kill people. I think in that scenario Churchill may turn on his partner if we promise protection."

"He knows Nick Halden is really Neal Caffrey, so we won't bother with any subterfuge along those lines," Peter added. "We'll call you Neal and treat you like a member of the team. If we do this right, it will only take a few minutes."

"Mr. Winslow," Tricia said to Graham, "It's possible Churchill saw you at Enscombe yesterday, but is there any chance that he heard your voice?"

Graham shook his head. "I didn't say a word inside the estate. I have to admit, keeping up with Henry while he rushed through the building may have stolen my breath for a while there."

"I want to have someone acting the role of a therapist. We can make sure Churchill hears your voice but doesn't see you. I assume given your experience employing psychologists at Win-Win, you can play one yourself?"

"I've been doing undercover work since before you were born, young lady," Graham answered. "I could do this in my sleep."

"Good to know," Tricia said. "To keep this simple, we're going to call you Dr. Graham. We need to get you in place. Follow me."

After a quick overview of what Tricia wanted Churchill to see and overhear, her plan was put into motion. They had been giving Churchill plenty of coffee and water, and as soon as she returned to his room he demanded a restroom break. She called an agent to escort their suspect to the men's room. On the way, they made sure Churchill passed by the hallway that led to the conference room where they had ensconced Graham. Peter and Henry stood in the hall just outside that room, and their voices could be heard before Churchill could see them.

"Neal, I don't care what kind of super drug they gave you at the hospital to counteract that shot of Flashback. The fact is, you don't remember much of what happened yesterday, and your testimony could be crucial. Just talk to Dr. Graham. He's an expert at this kind of thing."

"Do I have to do this now? They said those memories may come back on their own in a few days. Why don't we give it a little time?"

Churchill walked past the hall, able to see both men, but they pretended to be too absorbed in their argument to notice him. Once the suspect was out of sight they signaled Graham to come to the door of the conference room where he said, "There's also a chance those memories will be irretrievably lost if we wait. I'm a good therapist, Neal. Let me do my job."

"Fine," said Henry, channeling an exasperated and sarcastic Neal. "Let's get this over with."

Tricia popped around the corner. "Perfect. He's out of earshot now. Give him a few minutes to worry, and then we move on to the next stage."

When Churchill was back in the interrogation room, they brought Henry and Graham to the mirrored wall. They could see into the room, but Churchill couldn't see them. Tricia was in the room with Churchill. She instructed him to state his name again for the record, and to look at the mirror. Then she turned on an audio channel, and asked, "Anything?"

"I'm sorry," came Neal's voice. "I just don't remember."

"Take a deep breath," said Graham. "You're tensing up. If this is going to work you need to relax. Try... Neal, wait!"

Henry walked around the room to open the door and poke his head inside. "Couldn't I talk to him face to face? The whole mirror thing is a distraction."

Tricia rose and pushed him outside. She left the door ajar so that Churchill could see a glimpse of Henry's face. "You don't just barge into an interrogation room, Neal. And no, you aren't talking to him. Only agents are allowed in interrogations. Get out of here."

"But I just want..." Henry stared into the room, meeting Churchill's eyes. "Was he wearing a blue suit yesterday, with a striped tie?" He blinked and pinched the bridge of his nose, to give the impression that he was fighting a headache. "I think it's coming back to me."

"Dr. Graham!" Tricia called out.

"This way, Neal," came Graham's voice, and Henry walked out of view of the interrogation room.

###

Shortly after Tricia wrapped up her conversation with Churchill, she joined Hughes, Peter, Henry and Graham in a conference room to discuss the case. Peter was glad that Henry had removed the blue contacts and stopped impersonating Neal. Seeing Henry as Neal had been almost as disconcerting as seeing Neal disappear into the role of Henry. Jones was conferenced in from the Bureau offices in Boston.

"Bickerton didn't show at the meet," Jones told them, "and no sign of him at his residence. The assumption is that he learned Neal was hospitalized. He may think the contents of the safe are at the hospital with him, in which case he might be on his way to New York to try to grab those passports. Or he could be laying low for a while."

"Can you get a search warrant for his home?" Hughes asked.

"Working on it. I think it'll come through this afternoon. Problem is, he probably took anything incriminating with him. I think we're more likely to learn something from the warrant for his phone records. Chances are good that someone called or texted him with a warning. If we can find out who tipped him off, we'll start to see how he fits into the puzzle."

"Thanks, Jones," said Peter. "Sounds like the local guys can handle that. Let's get you back to New York. Tricia, I saw from your report that Kate Moreau got away?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm sorry, Peter. I should have stayed to guard the suite. It looks like she picked the lock on the handcuffs. But the worst part is that someone stole what Neal got out of the safe. My best guess is that Kate followed me back to the B&B, saw me put the evidence in the trunk of my car, and then popped it after I left. I take full responsibility."

"As evidenced by your working night and day ever since," said Peter. "It's unfortunate, but don't beat yourself up."

"Why passports?" asked Hughes, echoing a question that had been on Peter's mind. "I realize quality passports can be expensive, but it seems Adler had ways of getting funds to Moreau. Why not commission passports when they needed them? And you said it was two passports per person?"

Tricia nodded. "I looked them over before I left them in my car. If the intent is for people to join Adler in his hiding spot, then it could be he wants them to use one set of passports to get out of the country, and the second set to further obscure their trail on their way to meet him. But I believe it's more than that. These passports were designed to look a few years old, with stamps to show they had been used."

"Do you remember what countries the stamps were from? Could it be Adler's way of telling them where he's hiding?" Peter asked.

"The locations seemed random, but those stamps stayed in the back of my mind. It felt like there was a pattern. I think if someone were to write down information from all of them, they would form a code. What I've been thinking is that Adler has been extremely careful not to let us find out where he is. I don't see him sending that information to someone in an email, or sharing it in a phone call. In his place, I might encode the location, and then lead my partners to the code after they proved they were trustworthy." She looked around the table. "And here's where things get even more interesting. There were six passports. Two each for Moreau and Goddard, and the last two for Neal."

"Not for Bickerton?" Jones asked, still on the phone.

"That's right," Tricia confirmed. "I have to assume the cash he got last year is considered his entire reward. But somehow he knew about the safe. What he has in mind for the contents is anyone's guess."

"Why were there passports for Neal?" Henry asked. "He wasn't in on the scheme like Kate and Gil Goddard were."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Hughes.

"Well of course I'm sure," said Henry. "He would have told me, and he wouldn't have gone to work for the FBI."

"I don't know," Graham said. "Inside the FBI would be the best place to find out what's known about Adler and to obscure any new evidence that comes to light."

"Pops!" protested Henry. He seemed unable to think of the appropriate words for his grandfather. He shook his head and turned to Peter. "Tell me you aren't considering Neal a suspect. He put his life on the line to help you on this case."

Before Peter could reply, Graham said, "It's his job to consider every possibility. Even the ones he doesn't like. Let him be and learn from him. You'll need to think like this someday when you're running Win-Win."

Henry gave his grandfather a look of disdain. Before the young man could say something he might regret, Peter said, "Let's look at this from Adler's perspective. What makes Kate, Gil and Neal valuable to him?"

"I have some thoughts on that front," Tricia said. "You asked me to research Kate. I learned her parents filed for divorce when she was thirteen. There was a bitter battle, with allegations on each side that were so serious the courts put her into foster care for a few months rather than grant either parent temporary custody. At fourteen she ran away. There may have been an abusive situation in the foster home; hard to say, but reading between the lines I think that's what Child Protective Services suspected. About a month later seems to be when she met Adler. She'd made her way to a coastal town. Not a tourist spot, but more of an industrial and military area. Among other things, submarines are designed and manufactured there."

"Wilhelm Adler worked for a submarine manufacturer," Peter remembered.

"Right. From what I can tell, Kate was pretending to be sixteen, working as a waitress in a bar. One weekend Vincent Adler stopped by for a drink after visiting his father. As he was leaving he saw some patrons hassling an underage waitress in the parking lot. He offered her a ride, and she left with him. One of those frustrated patrons called the cops with Adler's license plate, saying Adler had abducted a girl. It didn't take long for the cops to sort out what had actually happened, and they sent Kate home to her father, who'd won custody."

"That explains why Kate feels she owes Adler," Peter said. "How did they connect again?"

"Based on everything we've heard, I'd guess she developed a serious crush on Adler and that she was the one who found a way to keep in touch," Tricia said. "Then in 2000, when Kate was in college, her father got into some trouble at work. He was a senior accountant at a medium-sized company in New Jersey, and he discovered irregularities in their books. He became a whistle-blower, and it essentially ruined his life. He lost his job and it took the better part of a year for investigators to prove that he'd been right. He poured most of his savings into a lawsuit to clear his name when the company claimed he'd been in on the scheme. He couldn't find another job, and in 2001 Robert Moreau died of what appeared to be a massive heart attack, although there were rumors of suicide. Supposedly he's buried in a family plot here in New York."

"Supposedly?" Graham said. "What do you think really happened?"

"Based on the photos on those passports and the photos in the news coverage about Moreau, I think he changed his name to Gilbert Goddard, possibly with Adler's help. And I think that Adler, who was starting up an investment firm, wanted someone with knowledge of how financial fraud could be covered up in corporate books so that auditors and the IRS wouldn't catch it. Moreau as Goddard would have been desperate or disillusioned enough to go along with that. If I'm right, he and Kate both felt they owed Adler, and Adler trusted them enough to promise them a piece of the prize if they remained loyal."

Henry crossed his arms and glared at Tricia and Peter. "I don't hear any connection to Neal."

"That's where Jones comes in," Tricia said. "Take it away."

From the speaker phone Jones said, "I looked into the shell corporation Adler is suspected of owning. One of the holdings was Wilhelm Salvage. We believe they're looking for a U-boat sunken off the east coast of the U.S. Wilhelm Adler may have served on that boat, or had some knowledge about it he shared with his son. If Vincent Adler's interested in it, it must be valuable. Rumor has it the Nazis shipped gold and art and other assets out of Germany in U-boats at the end of the war. If a boat had to be abandoned off our coast, the crew would have tried to secure it somehow, possibly with explosives. That means a brute-force approach to entry could blow the works. If Wilhelm Salvage succeeds in finding the boat, Adler still needs someone who can break in with enough finesse to avoid setting off an explosion."

Tricia cocked her head and met Henry's eyes. "He'd need someone skilled at breaking in, someone creative and foolhardy enough to try it."

Henry narrowed his eyes. "Neal isn't the only person who meets that description."

"But he is the one Adler would find easiest to control," Tricia said. She softened her tone and added, "He knew Neal had fallen for Kate. We all know that people will do some boneheaded things when they think they're in love. My take on this is that Adler is testing Kate right now. If I'm right, her main value to Adler is being able to deliver Neal. I wouldn't be surprised if she has to convince Adler that Neal is onboard with the plan before she gets the key to the code in those passports."

"Kate told Neal that he's the key," Peter remembered.

"Right. Getting him to open the safe was simply the first test. It proved that he had the skills, and that Kate could talk him into doing something like that." Tricia shrugged. "But if my theory is correct, that doesn't explain the attempt to kill Neal. Someone else would have to be behind that, someone who may or may not be aware of what's going on with Adler right now."

"Any theories on who that might be?" asked Graham.

Peter and Tricia exchanged an uncomfortable look. "You're the boss," Tricia told him. "It's up to you how much you think we should tell them."

Henry leapt to his feet with enough force that his chair almost toppled. "If you think you know who tried to kill my brother, you're damn well going to tell me!"

Peter refrained from reminding Henry that Neal wasn't his brother. "I'm aware that you're operating on about four hours of sleep right now, so I'm not going to kick you out of the briefing. But remember I'm as tired as you, and I'm not as patient as I would normally be. If you can control yourself, we'll get this wrapped up quickly and go back to the hospital to check on Neal. If not, you need to get out of here, and Graham can bring you up to speed after you calm down."

Henry sat down, but couldn't disguise the trembling in his hands. He saw Peter's sympathetic glance and hid his hands under the table. The poor kid was approaching the limit of what he could take, and Peter could identify with the feeling. Peter wished he'd used the excuse of Henry's outburst to exclude him from this portion of the briefing. He sighed and turned his attention to Graham. "Mr. Winslow, I'd like to remind you that you're officially consulting with the FBI on this case, and no longer employed by Winston-Winslow."

Graham's eyes widened. "Full disclosure: I am still a member of the Win-Win board. But I'll be as objective as I can."

Reese Hughes stood up, much more calmly and deliberately than Henry had a moment ago. "As you reminded us, Peter, you're somewhat impaired by sleep deprivation. If you don't mind my intruding on your case, I'll take this."

"Be my guest," said Peter, not hiding the gratitude in his voice.

Hughes moved to stand directly opposite Graham. "As Agent Wiese expected, Frank Churchill was willing to talk after he thought he saw Neal. He told us that his supplier of Flashback provided the drug so that it could be used to gather intel from people who had a connection with Vincent Adler. The source's goal is to find Adler. Churchill didn't know or care why. Using the drug for blackmail was something Churchill and Dixon started after they came to understand what the drug could do. Their supplier was aware of the blackmail, as it meant Highbury went through more of the drug. He didn't ask for a cut of the blackmail. The only time he asked for anything other than information about Adler was when he sent the concentrated version of the drug and told them to use it on Neal. Churchill hasn't met the supplier in person, and doesn't know his name, but said he'd recognize his voice. The supplier goes by the pseudonym of Mr. Hyde and works at Win-Win."

Henry took in a sharp breath, and Graham looked pained. "Do you believe him?" Graham asked.

Hughes nodded. "He showed us his cell phone call log. He was getting calls during business hours from a landline number registered to Win-Win. We called it, and it went to voicemail with a message that it was a conference room."

Graham closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he stood, facing Hughes across the table. "I'll guarantee full cooperation from Win-Win on this. If you'll give me a moment to make a call, I'll get someone working on finding out who might have gotten access to Flashback."

"Not Dad," said Henry softly. "He hates the FBI and Neal. He'll obstruct the investigation if he can."

Graham put a hand on his grandson's shoulder. "I'll go to Allen Winston on this. As CEO he has access to all files, and he was a great investigator in his day. He'll be as disturbed by this as I am. He'll make sure we get answers and that we clean house."