Federal Building, Manhattan.

As soon as Neal arrived in the office, he caught Peter Burke's eye and gestured toward Henry. Both young men looked worried, and that had Peter's gut churning. He always trusted his gut, but there wasn't time for Neal to fill him in. Hughes was already calling them up to the conference room.

Peter believed he was a decent manager, but after a year in the role he had to admit he still had plenty to learn. The touchy-feely aspects of management weren't his strong suit. When his boss told him a few weeks ago that they needed a team-building event with the visitors currently sitting in the conference room, he'd been underwhelmed at the idea. Who had time for team building? Why not just tell everyone they needed to get along?

But now as he stood at the front of the conference room and looked at his audience, he had to admit they didn't look even slightly unified. All the participants from the FBI were seated on one side of the conference table, staring at the representatives from Winston-Winslow. The folks from Win-Win were staring right back from the opposite side. Win-Win had a culture of distrusting and demeaning the FBI, and likewise FBI agents weren't big fans of private investigators.

Apparently collaborating over the phone and via email had not melded this group into a high-functioning team. Maybe the game of laser tag planned for this afternoon really would serve as more than an excuse to goof off on Neal's birthday.

Peter called the meeting to order and after introductions he explained the need to iron out a more formal arrangement between the FBI and Win-Win. Graham Winslow rolled his eyes. It was only a matter of time before he said something disparaging about the bureaucracy of government agencies. Peter decided to put him on the spot. "My boss and I learned about your exploits when we went through our training at Quantico, but I understand you're not part of the curriculum anymore. Graham, would you fill my younger team members in on your company's history?"

As Peter took a seat, Graham gave him a wry smile that indicated he knew he was being called on to speak before he could start heckling. The oldest person in the room, he was officially retired but remained an active member of the board of directors. "My father was one of the founders of Win-Win, and before that he was an FBI agent who got fired for making a nuisance of himself. He kept pushing the Bureau to adopt more modern methods, like psychological profiles. He believed that psychology could be applied not only to suspects, but also to victims and witnesses. Around the same time, another agent quit. Martin Winston was a proponent of using more computer-based tools in solving cases, but he walked when he couldn't get the budget. Both of them had worked in the D.C. offices and knew each other casually. They met for drinks to commiserate and ended up deciding to pool their ideas and resources to open an elite private investigation and security company in Baltimore. Without government restrictions, they were free to work any way they wanted."

His eyes twinkled. "And what they wanted was to do things that would shock their former bosses. They took big risks, and it paid off." His expression sobered. "Eventually we took things too far, and that contributed to my son's death. It's time we adjust our attitude. Neal, can you pick up the story? Several of the Win-Win team members here don't know how you roped Henry into some of your cases last year."

Neal looked surprised, but he had the confidence and humor to follow Graham's lead. "All of you know Henry's my cousin on his mother's side, right?" People nodded and Neal continued, "In January of last year, just a few weeks after I started working for Peter, I took a quick trip to the emergency room after a minor mishap on a case. Henry got wind of it and decided to visit. You know Henry," he said to the Win-Win side of the room. "Didn't matter how many times I told him I was fine. He wasn't going to be satisfied until he saw for himself."

That brought smiles from Henry's colleagues. Neal continued, "Well, it wasn't enough to see that I was healthy. He thought he should also check out my new boss and make sure the FBI was treating me well. Using his psychological mind games, he invited himself along to the office and wound up joining us in taking down some criminals. It all went like clockwork until after the arrests."

Peter gave him a stern look. The case had not gone like clockwork that day. Far from it.

Neal ignored the look. "As we were leaving the crime scene, Henry slipped on a patch of ice and broke his arm, and then it was his turn for a trip to the hospital."

Smart, Peter thought, to address that incident. Henry had been concerned at the time that Win-Win would blame the FBI for his injury. Most of these people had probably seen Henry in a cast when he'd returned to Baltimore. Making them laugh about it now reduced the resentment about the company's golden boy being hurt on his first collaboration with the FBI.

"I waited until the cast was removed," Neal continued, "and then invited him back for an encore. Usually for surveillance we set up in a fake municipal van, but that wasn't going to work for the location we needed to monitor. It was an estate on the edge of Long Island, and what we needed was a boat. I knew Henry had access to a sailboat. Little did I know that he'd invite his grandfather along to help us with the case."

"It was my boat," Graham pointed out.

"I assumed Henry would hot-wire it, or whatever you do to take a sailboat. It never occurred to me that he'd actually ask the owner's permission. I mean, we're talking about Henry."

Neal was obviously goading his cousin, who finally spoke up. "Thanks so much for that endorsement of my character," Henry said. "Pops and I had no idea when we were sailing up here that the case involved a lead on Vincent Adler. Talk about a big prize. It didn't pan out then, but we've made progress. We have new leads, and new tools." Henry was referring to the revolutionary new facial recognition software Win-Win had developed, and which the White Collar team would soon start using.

Peter's boss raised a hand. "If I might interject here," said Reese Hughes in his usual dry tones.

"Take it away," said Henry. He looked grateful not to be the center of attention, which seemed out of character. Peter glanced at Neal, who simply shrugged.

Hughes walked to the front of the room. "Both of our organizations hit low points in the last year. On the Win-Win side, you had Robert Winslow bribing FBI agents. On our side, we uncovered two agents who seem to have been in Vincent Adler's pocket."

With everyone's attention on Hughes, Peter took a chance at tapping out a message on the table in Morse code, knowing Neal would understand: What is up with H?

Meanwhile Hughes continued, "Everyone in this room is aware of the need to keep all discussions about the Adler case limited to this group, and not to send any information about the case in unencrypted email."

Neal responded: Hiding something.

Hughes added, "While we believe Adler has no more accomplices in the Bureau, we can't be certain. He may have other resources we aren't aware of. I'm going to err on the side of caution until we arrest him."

"As will we," added Allen Winston, the CEO of Win-Win. He joined Hughes at the front of the room, and explained that he had found a group of Adler's victims willing to pay for Win-Win's services. These clients wanted to find the money Adler had stolen from them. That meant finding Adler. "We're going to collaborate with the Bureau to bring Mr. Adler to justice." He paused. "When I say collaborate, I mean working the case together as a team. Recently, Radha warned me that we aren't achieving that. Radha, would you explain?"

The young man who had introduced himself as Radha Prasad leaned forward in his chair. "At Winston-Winslow, we have many brilliant people — strong individuals with strong personalities — and they often prefer to work alone when we first hire them. The challenge is to build trust and to appreciate what each person brings. I believe those of us from Win-Win have learned to function as a team." But he cast a quick, uncertain glance toward his side of the table, and Peter wondered who Radha was looking at. Henry? Or the woman sitting beside him? "From what I have observed, those from the White Collar team work together well, also. But we are currently two separate teams with sporadic, sometimes reluctant, interactions." He nodded to a woman on the opposite side of the table. "I have spoken with your behavioral analyst about this. Agent Wiese?"

Tricia returned his nod and said, "I've noted that Adler keeps his accomplices compartmentalized. Thus he ensures that nothing significant can happen without him, as no one else knows his full plan. It means that if we capture a single member of his team, we'll learn only a small part of what he's doing. It also means he doesn't get the full benefit and synergies of a true team. That's where we can beat him. If we bring our two unique groups together to act as a single unit when we're working on this case, we will out-think him."

"Thank you, everyone, for summarizing why we're here and what we hope to accomplish today. I appreciate that both sides provided input, and I hope by the end of this day we'll all feel and act like we're on the same side," said Hughes. He divided them into smaller groups for the rest of the morning. Hughes, Peter, Allen, and Graham discussed the exact terms and wording of the contract amendments so that it would pass government scrutiny without tipping their hand to anyone who was monitoring FBI activity on Adler's behalf.

Clinton Jones and Travis Miller met with Win-Win's Anna Hsu and Vernon Heinemann about the facial recognition software. All of them were technical experts who shared a love of computers, and they brainstormed how they might use the software to look for Adler's accomplices. Tracking their movements could uncover a trail back to Adler himself.

Tricia and Diana met with Win-Win's Sofia Winston and Radha to discuss methods for profiling and outwitting suspects. They combined what they knew to create enhanced profiles of Adler and his crew.

Henry and Neal started out in that group, but later moved to another room to discuss Henry's upcoming trip to Paris, where he would follow up on a lead on the Adler case. Peter knew that Henry had a personal motivation to stop the renegade billionaire. Adler seemed determined to recruit Neal for a project that was rumored to be as big as the Ponzi scheme, and his efforts a few months ago had nearly landed Neal in prison.

Peter still hadn't found a chance to talk to Neal alone, and now he walked by the cousins on his way to get coffee. It sounded like Neal was speaking French. Walking past again a few minutes later with a full coffee mug, Peter heard Neal say something in French again, and then Henry responded in what might also have been French. Or maybe German. It didn't actually sound like any language Peter recognized.

"Non, non, non." Neal shook his head in despair. "Didn't you learn anything in two years of high school French? Your accent is atrocious."

"How is it you can imitate Neal perfectly in English, but not in French?" Peter asked.

Henry looked intrigued. "Say it again," he told Neal.

Neal repeated a phrase in French. Henry parroted it back perfectly, mimicking both Neal's voice and his accent.

"Not bad," said Neal. "I'd be impressed if I thought you had any idea what you just said."

"What if it was a song?" Peter suggested. "You memorized tons of lyrics for the Masterson case. Can you set the phrases you need to learn to music?"

"Maybe," Henry said. "If we made the lyrics the English phrases followed by the French translations, I'd probably retain it. It might mean humming in the middle of conversations to bring the phrases to mind, but that's better than completely mangling the language."

Neal nodded. "It's your best shot. I could work with Angela to set some phrases to a tune that you'd remember. We might even use the resources for her ethnomusicology classes to record it. Then you could listen to it on the flight to Paris. Let's call her now, see if she'd have time for us tonight. I could get you started and then head to my Abstract Expressionism class."

"You won't have time before your class," said Henry. "We have dinner plans."

"What, like the breakfast plans I knew nothing about?" Neal complained. "Listen, the whole trip up to the Burkes' cabin in the Catskills was supposed to be my combined spring break and birthday celebration. Why can't we just leave it at that?"

Peter realized these dinner plans must be the reason El had warned him to keep his schedule open tonight and not work late.

"This isn't me," Henry said. "June wanted to be part of your birthday, especially since she was out of town last year."

Neal took a deep breath. He was likely thinking back to the fact that last year on his birthday, June had been staying with her daughters, mourning the loss of her husband. She seemed to be rebounding from her grief, but Elizabeth had told Peter that recently the anniversaries of Byron's death and funeral were leaving June feeling blue. If she actually wanted to celebrate something now, of course Neal would want to be supportive. He nodded. "Sure. What's the plan?"

"You'll find out when we get there," Henry said, with what Peter thought was an overly smug smile.

"Are you kidding me?" Neal said. "I need more than that. How about when, where, and do I need to change back into a suit?"

"Trust me," said Henry. "All will be revealed in due time."

"Screw that," said Peter.

Henry looked at him wide-eyed in surprise and then tried a placating smile. "Umm, Uncle Peter, I think you're supposed to be setting a better example for us."

The reminder that Henry's mother had recently married Peter's older brother did nothing to soothe his temper. Instead it reminded him that he was stuck with this troublesome young man for the rest of their lives. It was time to let him know that didn't mean he was getting a free pass for obnoxiousness. "Did you listen to what Radha and Tricia were saying this morning?" Peter asked. "It applies to families, too. You've had plenty of chances to spring surprises on Neal the last few days using the excuse of his birthday. We're at work now. Stop playing games. You want someone to set an example? You do it. The two of you, show everyone here that you're working together instead of trying to outshine each other. Got it?"

"Got it," said Henry.

Neal nodded. "Loud and clear."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to share what's eating at you?" Peter prompted. He even sat down, to be at Henry's level. "You were getting worried looks from the Win-Win contingent in the opening meeting." He turned to Neal, "Unless you've already gotten it out of him?"

"Not yet," Neal admitted. "He won't talk about it."

"That sounds counter to our goals here today," Peter said.

"Yeah, I get that." Henry looked down at the table and seemed to be gathering his thoughts. "The thing is —"

Jones strode down the hallway, and they could smell the pizzas in the boxes he was carrying. "Get it while it's hot!" he called into their room.

Henry stood up.

"A psychology major should know avoidance isn't going to solve this, whatever it is," Neal warned.

"True, but I'll need every bit of strength I can muster. Food, first. Confessions later." He followed Jones to the conference room where Sofia was setting out plates and napkins.

"Confessions?" Peter asked. "What's he talking about?"

"Whatever it is, I'm on his side."

"Yeah, I know. That's what worries me."