White Collar: An unofficial novel - part 8

Prisoner's dilemma

It was not without that Neal wondered what Mozzie and Elizabeth talked about in there. They had watched the screen covering Peter's front door for twenty minutes, at least.

"What do you know about this guy?" Deckard asked him out of the blue. Neal had said he had no idea who the man was.

"He's another C.I. Peter leans on him when Neal's not around," Jones answered for him.

"Really?" Neal returned, sounding appropriately offended. "We should talk to him."

"No, let's let it play out," Deckard said, considering the two of them. "Let's see where he leads us."

Neal glanced at Jones and caught his eye. Whatever Peter was doing, it would be troublesome without them getting intel about it.

Another twenty minutes later and a cab stopped outside and Mozzie exited the building.

"Looks like our C.I.'s left the building."

He stopped on the sidewalk and polished his glasses. Jones glanced at him as if it was a secret sign to Neal. It was not one pre-made, but he did have a guess what Moz was saying.

"You want us to follow him or stay here?" he asked Deckard.

"We should follow him," Jones said at once.

"We do both," Deckard declared. "My guys stay and monitor the house. We'll follow the miniature Caffrey."

He rose and got out of the van as the cab drove away. Jones and Neal followed and when Jones got to the FBI car first, Deckard had little choice but to get inside with them. He actually sneaked past Neal to get the front passenger's seat. In another situation, Neal would have smiled.

They followed the cab to the car parlor where Rebecca worked. The cab let Mozzie off.

"I guess it's 'put your C.I. to work' day," Jones mused and seemed as puzzled as Neal felt. "We should find us a better spot."

They exited the car. Neal stopped Deckard as if he was going the wrong way, taking the man's keyring at the same time.

"This way." Neal pointed.

With the cover of two cars, Neal, Jones, and Deckard saw Mozzie walk up to Rebecca, talk to her and then walk to a desk right in front of the display window and sit down. Rebecca took the seat opposite and nothing told that she had no clue who this stranger was.

"They got to be talking about Burke and Franklin," Deckard said.

Neal felt his cellphone buzzing. The display said it came from the FBI main switchboard.

"Excuse me, guys, I got to take this." He moved to hide behind the other car to get some distance. "This is Neal."

"Hey," he heard Peter's voice at the other end. "Are you with Deckard?"

"Yeah, yeah," Neal answered as if he was answering a question about the weather, not looking and Deckard.

"Are you there, sir?" Peter asked.

"I am." Bancroft's deep voice. A three-part conversation.

"Who's that?" Deckard asked.

"Tell him it's Bancroft," Peter said, overhearing the question.

"It's Bancroft," Neal answered.

"Diana should be with Stan Volker," Peter said. Neal sent a casual glance into the car parlor. Diana just arrived with a man in an orange shirt.

"Yeah. Uh-huh. That's correct," Neal nodded as if what he saw had nothing to do with it. Deckard moved over to him.

"Give me the phone!" Deckard said.