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Peter was very pleased with himself. Finally, after six years of marriage, he had come up with an appropriate and creative anniversary present for the woman he loved. Right now he was seated across a small wrought iron table from his lovely, patient wife enjoying slices of mango and Eggs Benedict in the tropical paradise of Belize. He had surprised El with reservations at an exclusive, luxurious private resort nestled among swaying palm trees and surrounded by pristine white sand and azure blue water. They had arrived yesterday, more than just a bit fatigued from airport hassles and a wild taxi ride from the terminal. But that did not stop them from making the most of their evening and the wee hours of the morning. It was like a second honeymoon for them; actually maybe more like a first honeymoon since their initial one was an abbreviated visit to the Jersey Shore because they were on a shoestring budget.
After breakfast, Peter was all for returning to their bungalow to take up where they had left off. With that pleasant thought in mind, he was just about to take a bite of toast when someone suddenly slid into one of the empty chairs at their table.
Peter’s eyes widened, then his forehead furrowed menacingly. This was just wrong…… so very, very wrong! He could feel his blood pressure going up as he became more agitated. Peter had promised El that he would leave all his work at the office, and now it had showed up here and was staring him in the face! Neal Caffrey, decked out in long khaki shorts, white linen shirt and leather sandals, pushed aviator sunglasses onto the top of his head, smiled his killer smile and exclaimed, “Hi guys!”
Peter put his head in his hands and exclaimed, “No, no, no, Neal! Go away! I am on vacation with my wife in a foreign country sans badge, gun, and any inclination to pursue your ass! Just go away!!”
While Peter fumed and fussed, Elizabeth giggled, so Neal focused all of his attention on her as he said, “It’s about time Peter stepped up and took you to some place that is worthy of you, Elizabeth. This resort is great, Peter. Good job!”
“Oh, and your wife told me back in New York that I should call her Elizabeth,” Neal added quickly, least he antagonize the man any further.
Peter steadied his hands that were taut with the tension of wanting to grab Neal by the scruff of his neck and shake him until his teeth rattled. Or better yet, maybe toss him off a cliff into the Caribbean as bait for the sharks. He took some deep breaths, and in a deadly calm voice said, “Are you stalking us, Neal, because if you are, that will definitely not turn out well for you.”
“Of course not, Peter,” Neal protested in a patient voice.
“I needed to talk to you, but since you decided to leave New York, I had to come down here to accomplish that.”
“What? Your phone’s not working?” asked Peter sarcastically.
“Actually, this is something that needs to be discussed in person. And I really could use a break from New York right now.” Neal explained.
“Go away, Neal.” Peter reiterated.
“Peter, hear me out,” Neal begged. “I have this small problem that I need some help rectifying, and you would be the best person to do that.”
“Go away, Neal!” Peter’s eyes had narrowed and his tone had become more strident and dangerous.
Elizabeth put her hand over Peter’s, and ever the voice of reason said, “Hon, Neal’s come all this way; whatever it is must be important.”
Neal stared at Peter beseechingly, and between the two of them, Peter knew surrender was the best option. He was determined to just get it over and done with and then send Neal packing. After that he would make himself pretend that this had never happened.
“Okay, so what’s your little problem that is so pressing that you have to annoy me,” asked Peter in a controlled voice.
“Well,” began Neal in a deceptively casual manner, “Hypothetically, a few weeks ago, Nick Halden seems to have gotten involved in a high stakes poker game in Lower Manhattan. Due to luck and his incredible skill, he was a really big winner that night. Of course everyone at the table was very happy for his good fortune except for one very poor sport by the name of Irvin Silverstein. It seemed that when all was said and done, Mr. Silverstein had lost over $500,000 and he did not take that very well.”
“My God, Neal, you actually fleeced the consigliere of the Ippolito branch of the New York Mafia!” Peter was aghast. “I know this is a rhetorical question, but why would you cheat in a card game with a very powerful lawyer representing the Mob?”
“I didn’t exactly cheat, Peter. My expertise and proficiency were just a cut above everyone else’s. And it wasn’t as if all the players sat down at the table and exchanged their resumes before we started the game. Cash was the only thing that you had to show,” Neal answered in a calm voice. “Besides, with a name like Silverstein, he certainly didn’t sound Italian, so how was I supposed to know this bit of trivia.”
“Actually, Neal, that’s a pretty big piece of trivia,” Peter scoffed. “With your encyclopedic knowledge of old movies, I’m surprised you didn’t recall that in the 1972 ‘Godfather’ movie, the consigliere for the Corleone family was named Tom Hagan. See the parallel here, Sparky?”
“No lectures, please, Peter. This is serious! He put a bounty on my head. Do you really want to see my brain matter displayed like a Rorschach test on the wall of some alley?”
Peter seemed to be giving it some thought. “Maybe the FBI should have come up with that bounty idea,” he mused. “It may have been productive if we could have added that incentive on your Most Wanted FBI poster. It could have saved the Bureau a lot of money that they paid me in overtime and traveling expenses.”
Neal looked pained until Peter capitulated and added an afterthought, “Of course we would have stipulated that you had to be turned into us in one piece.”
The young man heaved a sigh and just stared at Peter, willing more of a response from the man.
“Neal,” Peter began in a matter of fact tone. “You can solve your own little dilemma by just giving the nice man his money back.”
“Peter, you know that I abhor violence, especially when it’s directed at me, so that’s the very first thing that I offered to do,” Neal stated firmly. “But he wouldn’t take it back. Said there is some kind of ‘code’ about these things. Go figure!”
“You mean to tell me that he would sacrifice $500,000 plus a bounty just so that he could get you whacked?” Peter asked incredulously.
“Yep!”
“So exactly what do you want me to do about this, Neal?” Peter asked. “The Bureau is definitely not going to offer witness protection to one of the guys on their Most Wanted list.”
“Well, I was kinda hoping that you could find something to charge him with and then send him away for a long enough time that Alzheimer’s would set in so he wouldn’t remember me.” Neal looked hopeful.
“Neal,” Peter began in lecture mode. “Consiglieries are usually lawyers who know how to keep their hands clean, or at least cleverly cover their tracks. Don’t you think that if Organized Crime had anything on this guy or anyone in the organization that he represents that they wouldn’t have used it already to take them down?”
Neal looked crestfallen for all of two seconds before he suggested, “Well, do you guys have anything on Ippolito himself that you could use as leverage? You know, so that he would make his lapdog back off and rescind the hit.”
“The FBI keeps a constant check on all of the Mob’s activities, and would jump on any anomaly they could find in the structure or finances to bring them down, so that’s a moot point,” Peter said.
“But the FBI is most likely hampered by those pesky ‘rights of the individual’ thingies, aren’t they? Everything has to be done strictly by the book or it’s not admissible in court. Correct?” asked Neal.
“Now we’re on the same page, Buddy.” Peter smirked. Then he mulled over the unspoken context of what Neal had just stated. “What are you thinking of doing, exactly, Neal,” Peter asked quickly.
“Well, I kind of suspected that I was going to have to do the heavy lifting on this one, Peter. So I already have boots on the ground back in New York. I just wanted to make sure that you’d be willing to use whatever information that may happen to come your way.”
Peter began to feel a headache forming behind his eyes. This was so not how he wanted to spend his week in Belize. “Look, Neal, I’ll use my access at the FBI when I get back to see if there’s anything legal that we can use. But no promises.”
Neal smiled as if he had won the lottery, making Peter mentally add, “Oh God….please don’t let him win anything else!”
Just when Peter thought he may be able to rid himself of this pest, Neal piped up yet again. “You know, Peter, since you’ll be tooling around in your databases, could you multi-task and perhaps see if you could find out where Kate Moreau may be?”
Peter’s eyebrows flew skyward. “Please tell me that you didn’t just have the audacity to ask me to find your girlfriend.”
Elizabeth, who had be quietly attentive throughout this whole bizarre exchange, suddenly made that sympathetic face that Peter knew all too well. “Peter…,” was all that she had to say to forestall his contemplation of really strangling the young man this time.
With tired resignation, Peter asked, “Where did you lose her, Neal?”
“If I knew that, Peter, then she wouldn’t be lost,” Neal explained patiently.
“Did you ever consider the possibility, extreme I know, that she doesn’t want you to find her?” Peter asked in an even tone. Being calm right now was becoming a Herculean task for him.
“Not really, but I suppose…..
Peter cut him off before he could finish the sentence.
“No, Neal! Read my lips! No! I ought to make you clean up all of your own messes to teach you responsibility!”
Neal managed to look pitiful to the point that Elizabeth had to intervene to soften the atmosphere. “Oh, Neal, honey, maybe Kate is just not the right girl for you. Love shouldn’t cause such angst. There must be a whole army of young ladies who would be thrilled to have your attention. There is a beautiful, vivacious young woman who works for me that would just love to meet you. She has a thing for bad boys.” After a beat, Elizabeth added, “Of course, your dates would have to be on the down low.”
Peter looked at his wife incredulously and wondered when he had fallen down the rabbit hole. “El, please stop. Neal, you’re a bad influence on my wife. This conversation is at an end!”
Switching gears like a revving Ferrari, Neal’s face turned bright as he asked, “Okay, no more discussion. So what do you guys want to do today? They have this attraction not far from here called ‘The Great Blue Hole,’ and then there’s the Barrier Reef. We could rent a small sailboat to get there. I know how to sail, Peter.”
“Of course you do,” said Peter sarcastically. “But we, as in El and I, are going back to our bungalow to make mad, passionate love for the rest of the day and you’re not invited!!”
Neal actually blushed. “TMI! Peter, TMI! That means too much information, in case you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering, Neal. I am aware of Internet acronyms. They annoy me almost as much as those dumb emoticons that you persist in attaching to your texts. Just stop pestering me and make yourself scarce.”
“Your wish is my command, Peter.” With that parting remark, Neal grabbed Peter’s half empty glass of orange juice and finished it. Then he absented himself and there wasn’t any trace of him for the rest of the week.
*****************
When Peter returned to his office after his vacation, the “Inbox” on the corner of his desk was overflowing. Back to reality, he mused as he removed the heavy folder that lay on top to take stock of the work to come. As he opened it, something fell out and onto the floor. Retrieving it, Peter discovered it was a delicate origami palm tree. He closed his eyes and sighed, not even able to venture a guess as to how Caffrey managed to get it there.
His annoyance was short-lived, however, when he discovered what he held. The folder was like a cornucopia of information pertaining to every venture that the Ippolito organization had their fingers into around the globe. Smuggling, money laundering, racketeering and many more clandestine crimes were highlighted in meticulous detail. Front companies had been de-cloaked, hierarchies identified, off-shore accounts with corresponding passwords listed……..the treasures went on and on. Whoever had unearthed these facts must have tunneled down through layers and layers of security and firewalls to obtain them. The FBI’s own tech geniuses hadn’t been able to scratch the surface, so Peter was suitably impressed.
It was five minutes later that Neal’s call came in to his cell. “Well, Peter, what do you think?”
“I think that we can’t use any of this information because, sadly, it was all obtained illegally,” said Peter.
“But you do have it, and knowledge is power,” returned Neal.
“Yes, it is,” agreed Peter.
It was as if Peter and Neal were engaging in a mind meld, as they often did, and that was always a slightly scary thing!
********************
Later that day, Peter Burke, FBI agent, set up a face to face meeting with Joseph Ippolito, Sr. in the office of his attorney, Mr. Irvin Silverstein Esq. Once there, he nonchalantly laid copies of pertinent information regarding the family’s enterprises in front of the Mob boss and his lawyer. Silverstein immediately began arguing that every piece of incriminating evidence was obtained without proper authorization and wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, yada, yada, yada. Peter let him pontificate until he finally ran out of steam. At that point, Peter very somberly informed the two men that the Office of Homeland Security had granted the FBI great latitude in the pursuit of terrorists.
“My client is not a terrorist!” Silverstein huffed.
Peter just waited patiently. He didn’t read either man their rights or tell them they were under arrest. He just stared and smiled his Cheshire cat smile. Eventually Ippolito, who had allowed his mouthpiece to speak for him up until this point, asserted himself.
“What is it that you want, Agent Burke? Or should I say, how much do you want to make this go away? I’m a pragmatic man and I know that you wouldn’t be here alone unless you are representing yourself and not the FBI. And, I expect that you have a fail-safe plan in place in the event that you were to go missing. So, what is necessary to keep this among friends?” Peter stated his request to Ippolito, and Ippolito then made sure that his lawyer was onboard. It would not have boded well for the man if he hadn’t agreed.
Once out in the sunshine, Peter expelled the breath he had been holding. He returned to the FBI office and made a stop at the Organized Crime floor to deliver intel that might be useful even though it was not legally actionable. It was like Neal said, “knowledge is power.” Let the cowboys in Organized Crime try to wield that power to lure the spider from his web.
Later that evening when Neal called to thank Peter for literally saving his life, Peter brushed away his thanks and said, “It’s back to business as usual for the two of us now, Neal. Game on. Bring it!”