Chapter Text
“I’m about to become the last person on earth who knows where you are.”
If there was one thing Neal was good at, it was keeping a cool head in stressful situations. Most people would react to being kidnapped with panic, but Neal was not most people. His senses became keener as the level of stress increased. He noticed there were three kidnappers; the two who grabbed him and one other driving the get-away car. Neal was no expert on being kidnapped, but there were a few indications that this would not be considered a normal kidnapping.
The first sign was the handcuffs. As the hood was thrown over his head, someone put handcuffs on him, someone who knew what they were doing. The cuffs were double locked to avoid accidental tightening and injury.
The second sign was the seatbelt. He wasn’t thrown into the back of a cargo van. He was placed into a car firmly; with a hand on top of his head guiding him in, and then the seatbelt was secured around him.
The third sign was the removal of his anklet. The kidnappers didn’t smash or cut the anklet. They used a key. Only Peter and the marshals had a key, and he was sure this wasn’t Peter.
As he listened to the conversation of the kidnappers, he started to understand what was going on.
“Seriously?”, One kidnapper said to another. “‘I’m about to become the last person on earth who knows where you are?’ Wasn’t that a bit mellow dramatic?” Neal mentally noted the speaker as the hand-cuffer.
“I’ve never kidnapped anyone before. What are kidnappers supposed to say?” That’s cowboy-boots-guy, Neal thought.
“This isn’t a kidnapping. This is an extraction. Take the hood off of him.” The voice of the third kidnapper came from the driver's seat and had a note of authority—the Boss. Neal had the nagging feeling that he’d heard that voice before but couldn’t quite place it. The guy in the back seat next to him, Boots, pulled the hood off of him, and he got a look at his kidnappers.
He was sure he had never seen Boots and Cuffer before, but the reflection of the driver in the rearview mirror was familiar.
“Jack Harper, long time no see. Mind telling me what’s going on?” Neal was uncomfortable with his hands cuffed behind his back but refused to squirm into a more comfortable position.
Harper was focused on maneuvering through traffic and didn’t respond for a moment. At the next stoplight, he put the car in park got out of the car to trade places with Boots. Now sitting next to Neal, he held up a handcuff key and indicated that Neal should lean forward so he could take the cuffs off.
“Good to see you again, Danny. You’ve been a busy boy since you ran away.” Jack Harper smiled at Neal.
“My name is Neal, which I’m sure you know since you had the key to my GPS tracker.”
“For the next week or so, your name is Danny. And, to answer your previous question, what’s going on is that we’re taking you to see your mom.” Jack’s tone was calm and friendly while still having a matter-of-fact firmness to it.
Neal nodded while he processed the information. “Do I have any choice in this? Why couldn’t you just have asked me if I wanted to see her instead of this whole kidnapping farce?”
Jack laughed quietly. “Payback. When you ran away, I was the case agent responsible for keeping you and your mother safe. You disappeared without a trace, and I caught heck for it. You were eighteen so, we had to let you go, but I was left to deal with your mother. But this is not really a kidnapping and, yes, you have a choice. Here’s your choice,” Jack’s tone became stern, “we can put the tracker back on you and take you home or, we can take you to see your mom. The woman who gave birth to you and loves you. Sure, she made mistakes, and she’d be the first to admit that. Right now, she is in a hospital with liver failure. She’s on the transplant list, but it’s not looking good for her. She wants to see you. That’s your choice. Either we take you home, or you decide not to be a selfish little snot, put on your big-boy pants, and go see your mom. What’s it going to be?”
“Well, since you put it like that, I guess I’ll go with the big-boy pants.” Neal looked Jack in the eye while he continued, “I’ve tried to find her, you know. Several times. I contacted Ellen, but she said she hadn’t heard from mom in years.”
Jack sighed and shook his head. “No, your mom wouldn’t speak to Ellen after you left. She blamed Ellen for you leaving. Ellen tried to contact her through the marshal service a few times, but your mom refused to communicate with her. The last time Ellen tried to contact your mother was just a week before she was killed. She told us the name you were using and where you were. Up until then, the marshals had no idea that Danny Brooks was Neal Caffrey.”
Neal laughed at that. “Seriously? All that time the marshals were chasing Caffrey, they didn’t know about Danny?”
“We take our witness protection responsibilities seriously. Any information about Danny Brooks was only accessible on a need-to-know basis. Even your fingerprints were not in the general database as belonging to Danny Brooks.”
“What about now? You’ve just taken Neal Caffrey from FBI custody and the marshals tracking system. Isn’t somebody going to miss me?”
“Your records will show you are in the custody of the US Marshal service, but the details will not be accessible to anyone. They’ll know you didn’t run, but that’s all they’ll know.”
“So, Boots and Cuffer are with the marshal service?”
Jack gave him a puzzled look. “Boots and Cuffer?”
Neal pointed to the front seat, and Jack smiled when he understood.
“Yes, marshals Davis and Northcutt. They are your protection detail. Speaking of protection…..” Jack reached up over the back of the front seat, and Northcutt handed him a large brown envelope, from which Jack withdrew a new tracking anklet. “Put this on. I’m not taking any chances of you slipping away.”
Neal put on the anklet with a frown and asked, “Where are we going?”
“Pittsburgh.”