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Peter had said to meet in the conference room, it had already been fifteen minutes and six sketches before Peter joined them.
“We need you to go undercover Neal.” Peter said.
“Okay, no problem.” Neal replied, “What’s the occasion Gala, party full of models, drug deal?”
“No models this time, we need to check out Wayne Enterprises. They contacted us to say they think some of the managers are embezzling from the company and they want to see if we can find anything.” Diana passed him the files that she had for the case. “You are going to be there for a week at least, we have you set up through a temp agency as a midlevel employee in their medical marketing department. We need you to take a look around and see which managers look bad or if the corruption runs all the way to the top.”
“Umm, I’m not sure you want me for this mission, Peter.” Neal hedged. He could do it and he would definitely be looking into this, like why in the world did this kind of thing get outsourced in the first place this files should have been in his hands ages ago and never given to the FBI.
“Nope, you can’t only take the fun ones Neal. You are the lucky one you don’t have to be stuck in the van the whole week.” Jones said.
“Okay I’ll do it, but if anything goes weird, I told you to use someone else.” Neal agreed gathering up his stuff to head out the door.
“Neal, why would anything go wrong?” Peter calls after him. “Oh, no I’m going to regret this aren’t I.” Peter wondered what color this conversation was going to wind up in his stress journal this time.
Day One went by fine. New hire Russell Moon started in the marketing department and quickly set to work impressing his bosses. It didn’t take long before he was being sent all over the building taking things to different people and covertly checking out any files, he could get a glimpse of. Neal soon had a chance to look things over and start making copies of what he needed to prove the embezzlement claims.
Day Two wasn’t much different more files, more offices, and more theft. Tim was getting mad, why were they stealing from Wayne Enterprises. They had best wages across the board, promoted the most qualified people, made sure people of color got the jobs and wages they were qualified for. They offer free health care and benefits that no other company did, why did these people not feel that they were getting enough without the embezzling. Grants and scholarships were so easy for the employees and their families to get there should be no one that actually had a reason to steal from WE.
Day Three is the day that White Collar loses their collective minds. Tim knew it was risky but yesterday he had been sent to the top floor to take some papers to the upper management offices. He had deliberately stayed away from his own offices, but hadn’t managed to completely hide his face when passing the elevators. So, he wasn’t really surprised at all when his highly efficient secretary decided to bring him all his paperwork to the marketing office he hid away in.
"Please sign here, here, and here. Thank you very much Mr. Drake Wayne. We would just like to know will you be attending your 3 o’clock meeting today or are you teleconferencing again?" Mx. Jordan, Tim’s personal secretary asks.
“I plan on teleconferencing into the meeting as usual, and I was going to stop by later to sign things as we discussed earlier. Why did you come down now, Mx. Jordan?”
“You were supposed to sign those papers over a week ago, Mr. Drake Wayne. Despite the fact that I stayed at the office late three nights in a row, you did not show up to finish this paperwork, so now that I have you in the office, I came to get your signature. But just in case you forgot your office is on the 52nd floor, Mr. Drake Wayne. Will there be anything else you need at this time, Sir.”
Tim had heard his name said in a variety of ways but never had he heard it with such chilling sarcasm, and that is even including hearing it from Damian in his stabby phases. He knew with perfect clarity that he was going to have to make it up to his staff for his Undercover work but he hadn’t though he would get caught undercover while undercover from his cover.
“No that will be all Mx. Jordan, I’ll make sure to stop by the office more frequently from now on.”
“What the heck is that, Neal.” Peter hollered in his ear, he knew that this was going to be a full page color coded entry into his stress journal later. “Neal, why are you pretending to be their boss, this was not part of the plan.”
Tim winced a bit at the volume coming over the earpiece. “I have no idea why they think I’m Mr. Drake Wayne, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea to deny it!” He knows very well it wouldn’t be a good idea to deny it to his own secretary’s face. He was not suicidal despite what anyone else though about his self-preservation skills.
"You know you can't sign the paperwork that is fraud." Jones reminded them both.
“Well, I already did so I guess it will be okay.” Tim tries to regain his Neal playing Russell mindset so that he can finish this day and be done with the case. He however can’t stop his thoughts from running though contingencies for when this whole thing blows up in his face, gift baskets he can get Mx. Jordan and the inevitable press release that he is drafting because of this whole embezzlement scheme.