Airstrip near the Hudson. Monday afternoon. March 8, 2004.

A limo picked them up in front of the Federal Building. Mozzie drove as Henry outlined what to expect. The passports Neal had liberated from the safe at Enscombe contained a code suspected to reveal Adler's location. Kate had the passports now, but she'd given Neal the bond that held the key to cracking the code. That bond had been in his jacket pocket when Jane Fairfax had spilled potpourri all over him. That jacket had gone to the Enscombe laundry. When the FBI came in and made their arrest, they found the jacket, but not before Mozzie took the bond. With Neal still out of it in the hospital, Mozz had given the bond to Henry, who had made a deal with Kate.

Now Kate and her father were ready to leave New York and join Adler. They had a plane and pilot, and only needed the passports to be decoded before they could leave. That's where Mozzie came in. He had a laptop and supplies in the trunk of the limo, and when they arrived at the hangar he set up an impromptu office. Kate gave Mozzie the passports, and Henry handed over the bond. Mozzie soon had headphones on, lost in his own world as he listened to Don Giovanni and studied the code.

The pilot was walking around the plane, going through a pre-flight checklist. Kate's father stood outside the hangar, keeping watch. Kate spoke to him, and then walked over to Neal and Henry.

"We keep the passports Adler made for Neal," Henry said. "That's the deal. Neal never asked for them, and their existence is only going to make trouble for him. The minute Mozzie is done with them, we burn those passports and the bond. There will be no evidence they ever existed."

Kate nodded. "They're yours. What you do with them is up to you."

"I'm going to check on Mozzie," Henry said. But Neal knew it was too soon for Mozzie to have made any progress. He was giving Neal a chance to say goodbye to Kate.

Over the last few weeks, Neal had started to make his peace with the fact that he and Kate were going in opposite directions. It hurt, and it would probably take a long time for the pain to fade. Talking to her, getting some answers, would help. Trust Henry to understand, and to make sure Neal got that chance. It was hard to jump into the questions he really wanted to ask, and instead he started with, "Were you always in on Adler's plan?"

Kate shook her head. "Vincent doesn't let anyone that close. We knew about the Ponzi scheme, and that he had a plan to get out before anyone caught on, but he didn't tell anyone when or how he'd escape. He's waited the better part of a year for us to prove that we wouldn't turn on him, and even now he's making us show we're clever and determined enough to join him. He won't tolerate freeloaders. If we want in on his next job, we have to be worthy."

"You admire him."

"He's brilliant."

"Yeah, I won't argue that," Neal said, "but is that a good reason to drop your whole life here to join him, wherever he is? You said you weren't the Daisy to his Gatsby. What do you get out of following him?"

"He came to my rescue at a time when I'd lost all hope. And then when I thought Dad had given up hope, he gave us a second chance. Suddenly we had a purpose, an opportunity to be part of something big, bright and exciting."

"He was using you," Neal countered.

"That doesn't make it any less intriguing. You never know what he's planning. Just imagine it, Neal. After everything he's done, he isn't sitting around resting on his laurels. He has something else planned, something bigger. And he's going to let me be part of it. How can I turn that down?"

"I get it," said Neal. And he did. Byron had described the life of a con as an addiction, and what Kate was saying wasn't that different.

Henry had returned, standing silently off to the side. Kate hadn't noticed him, and Neal ignored him.

"Then come with us," Kate said. "Vincent knew right away that Nick Halden wasn't your real name, and the more he uncovered, the more he thought you could prove useful. The only reason he didn't let you in on the Ponzi scheme was that he didn't know what your angle was."

"That's why he asked you to study me."

Kate shrugged. "It wasn't exactly a hardship. You'd made it clear you were interested, and I liked you. At first you were content to admire me but to stay politely out of the way while I was dating someone else. Vincent said the allure of an unrequited romance would get to you. But we pushed it too far. You gave up on me and went after Alex, instead. That's when Vincent had me change my approach, and actually get involved with you."

"I was an assignment," Neal said. She'd said as much before, but it still was bitter.

"An assignment I enjoyed very much. In another life, it might have been real."

"But in this life you're hung up on Adler. He's your unrequited romance that you haven't given up on yet."

"It's complicated. Who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll finally give up on him, the way you stopped chasing me to go after Alex. I think that's what Vincent is hoping for, actually. He hinted more than once that I should fall for someone like you. And he could have made those extra passports for anyone, you know, but he picked you. He appreciates your talents, and he still says you would be a great asset. Imagine what it would be like, being an insider this time. I have no idea what he has planned, but he calls it the score of a lifetime. How can you turn that down?"

Easily, Neal thought. He didn't trust Adler, and didn't want to put himself through watching Kate fawning over the man. She'd put him on a pedestal for years, and even now her main interest in Neal was in using him to please Adler. Shortly before he disappeared, Adler had made a comment about Neal being like a son. Neal hadn't trusted the sentiment then, and now with Peter he knew what it really was like to have someone think of him as a son. He wasn't about to give that up. "I've got everything I need here in New York."

"If you ever change your mind –"

"Enough," said Henry. "I already told you. The deal is you say your goodbyes and leave Neal alone. No getting in touch later to see if you can lure him over to Adler's side."

Before Kate could respond to that, Mozzie cried out "Eureka!" He stood up, and pulled off the headphones. "It isn't a location. It's a frequency."

"What good is that if you don't know where you're going?" Henry asked.

"We know where we're going," Kate said. "Vincent supplied the plane and a pilot who knows the destination. We have to tune into the right frequency when we're at the location where we're supposed to join him, and then provide the code phrase. That will prove we passed his test. He said if we don't pass the test, he'll shoot us on sight."

Neal refrained from saying anything about how little Kate's idol trusted her. He took the slip of paper Mozzie was holding. "You said a frequency and a code phrase? But Mozz said this is just a frequency."

"There's another code?" Mozzie asked. He returned to his work area muttering, "Of course. I thought it was a double blind to obscure the first code, but it's really a second set of data."

"Last chance, Neal," said Kate. "Will you come with us?"

"No. I have a life here."

Kate's father, the man Neal knew as Gil Goddard, had returned to the hangar. He held a gun and pointed it in Neal's direction. "With the FBI. I heard. We're supposed to assure Adler the Feds aren't on our tail. How do we keep you from telling your bosses what you've learned here?"

Good question, thought Neal. Peter would want to know this information, and Neal wasn't going to lie to him.

"I'll make sure of it," Henry said. "C'mon, Neal. Promise not to tell anyone, and let's help Mozzie wrap this up. Time's wasting." He tapped his watch, and Neal recognized it. Suddenly he put it all together. The time Henry had spent with Jones this morning must have involved a demo of the FBI's surveillance tools. Neal had worn that same watch when he went undercover. It would record and broadcast a conversation to FBI equipment.

"I promise I won't say a word about it," Neal said. He wouldn't have to. All he had to do was play the recording and Peter would know the truth. The FBI would also hear Kate confirming that making passports for Neal had been all Adler's idea, and that Neal hadn't been in on it. That would repair Neal's reputation with the members of Peter's team who had suspected Neal of colluding with Adler.

"And I'm supposed to believe you?" asked Gil.

###

Questioning Hitchum didn't take long after Noelle left him in the right state of mind. The disgraced agent filled in the blanks, clearly naming Robert Winslow as the Mr. Hyde who had tried to have Neal murdered. As OPR led Hitchum away, Jones made his way to Peter. He looked like he had a question, but he wasn't talking. "Something up?" Peter asked.

"That's what I wanted to ask you," Jones said. "I mean, I get that there's a lot going on, and I'm not the most senior member of your staff. But I thought I was part of the team on this Adler investigation."

"You were. I mean, you are. We'll update the files with what we've learned, but I don't anticipate that we'll make much progress on that case right away."

Jones looked confused. "What about the lead you assigned to Henry and Neal? The one Henry needed the surveillance equipment for?"

Peter shook his head. "I didn't assign any leads to them. Henry said they were taking the afternoon off. Graham, do you know anything about this?"

"They didn't say anything to me." Graham frowned. "Can we listen to them?"

"Not unless they're nearby," said Jones. "But the equipment Henry took includes GPS. We can find them, and when we're close enough we can pick up the feed from the watch. I still have the receiver at my desk. I can get a fix on their location from here and then complete the setup while we drive."

###

Neal, Henry and Mozzie were locked in the plane while Mozzie worked on cracking the second code. Mozz had insisted he couldn't work while people were pointing guns around, and that he wouldn't share what he had learned unless he and his friends were guaranteed safe passage.

Outside, Kate was arguing with her father and the pilot about what to do with the trio on the plane. As the argument grew more intense they moved away from the plane, and now Neal couldn't make out the words. Mozzie had put the passports aside and checked out the instrumentation and paperwork at the front of the plane. "Shouldn't you be working on the code?" Neal asked.

"Child's play. I solved it already. I was holding back in case of a double-cross. You know, if this flight plan is correct, they're going to the Cayman Islands, and then to Argentina."

"Maybe we should go with them," Henry said. He was prowling the plane. "We could beat Robert at his own game and find Adler first."

"What are you doing?" asked Neal.

He held up a small device. "This thing has GPS. I'm going to stash it someplace, and then Peter can track the plane."

"How about you fill us in on the rest of the plan? Does Peter know where we are?"

"I'm sure he's figured it out by now," said Henry with complete nonchalance. "I made some comments to Jones that will bother him, and when he asks Peter about it, they'll put it all together."

"And that's the plan? The FBI rushes in with guns blazing, arrest Kate and Gil and the pilot, and we go free? Then why bother with stashing the GPS device in here?"

"Contingency plan," said Henry.

"We really need to avoid the guns blazing piece of that plan," Mozzie said. "This plane is filled with explosives. We're sitting inside a bomb. See these wires?" He pulled down a piece of trim that ran the length of the plane's ceiling. Neal had assumed they were for emergency lighting, but when Mozzie slid a ceiling panel out of place, the wires led to explosives. Mozzie slid the panel and trim back in place.

"Why?" Neal asked.

Henry opened an overhead baggage compartment. "Parachutes. Fly to a deserted area, jump out and blow up the plane. If anyone is tracking the plane, they'll assume everyone died."

"Adler either hears the correct code and waits for them to jump first, or blows it up with them inside if they get it wrong," Mozzie said. "It certainly gives them an incentive to get it right."

"Definitely not going with them," said Henry. "Only three parachutes."

"We need to avoid the FBI arresting them part, too," said Neal. "What we really need right now is Robert Winslow."

###

Peter, Graham and Jones had arrived in time to hear Mozzie describe the plane as a bomb. That had been bad enough. Peter grew even more grim as he listened to Neal's plan. Finally he called Neal's cell phone, hoping that it hadn't been confiscated, and was relieved when Neal answered. "Put us on speaker," Peter ordered. "We've been listening for a few minutes, but fill us on your situation. Why are you in that plane?"

Neal caught them up and then asked, "Can you get what we need?"

"Jones is on it. He's estimating forty minutes for the supplies to get here. Can you hold out that long?"

"Yeah, Mozzie has that covered. He's talking to them now, telling them he has low blood sugar and can't finish the second code until he gets a very specific lunch. There's a place near here that will deliver what he's asking for, but we're looking at thirty minutes for his order to arrive."

"We'll stay out of sight. But Neal, when this is over we are having a long talk."

"Don't blame him. It's my fault," Henry said.

"Glad to hear you admit it," said Graham. "We'll be having a talk, too."

"Oh." Henry sounded surprised to hear his grandfather. "Sure thing, Pops."

They hung up and continued preparing for a nightmare impromptu undercover op. Mozzie was apparently waiting outside the plane for his food to arrive. Neal and Henry were quiet at first, but then Peter heard them again over the feed from the watch.

"You really want to catch Adler?" Neal asked.

Henry huffed out a laugh that didn't sound particularly amused. "Wouldn't Robert hate that?" He was silent a moment and then said, "I get that letting Kate and her dad escape is to give them and Adler a false sense of security. They don't know Mozzie knows how to read a flight plan, or that I'm leaving the GPS tracker in here. Letting them get away actually gets us closer to Adler than if we arrested them. What happens next?"

"Nothing," said Neal. "You heard what Hughes said this morning. There are more people in the FBI under Adler's thumb. They're going to let him know that Bickerton and Hitchum were arrested. They also need to tell him that the Bureau believes Kate and Gil got away, and that the case is closed. He needs to hear weeks, even months, of no activity. At least not from the Bureau. The only way to catch him is to turn the case over to Win-Win. He doesn't have an insider there."

"Hughes and Peter aren't going to like that," Henry warned.

"I know, but in the end they'll agree it's the only option. And they can still be involved. If you and Graham can consult for the Bureau, then Peter and some of his team can consult for Win-Win."

"The consulting agreement can't explicitly mention Adler."

"Right. But after firing Robert, Win-Win has to acknowledge that they need an outside agency to help them uncover everything he was up to, and to confirm whether or not he was working alone. That's what the agreement will officially cover."

"Graham and Allen and the board won't like that."

"It's essentially a family company. They need to admit they have a bias and work with someone without that bias to clean things up. Especially if they want a chance to work the Adler case."

There was another pause, and then Henry said, "We'll make a good team."

"Yeah, but not on this case. Peter's not going to want me anywhere near it after he gets us out of here. Same thing with Graham. He's going to make you take that leave of absence you've been talking about."

"True." Henry sighed. "He's going to say Mom's right, and he finally agrees I'm too young to be the CEO."

"Too immature," Neal corrected.

"Right back at you."

"If Peter has his way there are going to be a lot of boring, safe mortgage fraud cases in my near future."

There was a tapping sound, probably Henry tapping a finger on the watch. "You think they'll be impressed by how sensible we're being now and have pity on us?"

"Not really."

"He's got that right," said Peter.

"Good thinking about the Adler case, though," said Graham. "If you really want to catch that guy, it can't be through standard Bureau channels."

Peter grunted a non-committal response.

"I know exactly how you feel. But better get used to it. If Henry decides to stay with Win-Win and you keep Neal around, that's going to be the new normal. The FBI and Win-Win actually getting along and collaborating. Making the best use of each side's strengths."

Peter was surprised to hear Graham so accepting of that change in direction. "I thought you'd be fighting it."

"Plenty of people will," Graham acknowledged. "I have a fight ahead of me on the board. But I've been doing a lot of thinking the last few days. I keep coming back to what happened in 2000. If Robert had contacted your Agent Hitchum with an offer of partnership instead of a bribe, both of them would be in very different places now. A lot of that stems from the Win-Win culture of competing with the FBI, and I've perpetuated that. I don't want that to be my final legacy."