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Bill Goodman was back down in Quantico where it all had begun at the dawn of his career as an FBI Agent. The reason for this stroll down memory lane was because he was attending a retirement gala for the head of the FBI who was stepping down due to some serious medical issues. The Bureau was determined to give the man who had been at the helm of their ship for decades a sendoff worthy of his status.
Bill, never one to be comfortable in social situations, saw a few people he recognized but he didn’t engage them in conversation. However, one person refused to be ignored. Peter Burke, now heading up the New York division of the FBI’s White Collar unit, strolled over and made his presence known. Once upon a time they had been fellow probies together before each found their own niche in the vast organization.
“Bill Goodman, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Burke said as he immediately transferred a champagne glass to his left hand and stuck out his right. “I was hoping I’d see a familiar face so I wouldn’t have to make small talk with people I don’t know.”
“Peter, you look great, and congratulations on your promotion to ASAC,” Bill immediately replied as he pumped the other man’s hand.
“And I’ve been hearing great things about your accomplishments as well,” Peter smiled. “Congratulations on your big coup of taking down that hinky Pyramid Corporate Security Firm. That was a real feather in your cap.”
Bill shrugged modestly. “Well, it wasn’t all thanks to me. I had a lot of help.”
“Yeah, I heard about that Joint Task Force thing with the CIA, but maybe I’m telling tales out of school. But just so you’re aware, that pairing is sort of an open secret in the higher echelons of the Bureau. So, were the spooks helpful or a hindrance?”
“Let’s just say that the people trained down on ‘The Farm’ in Virginia do their best work in the shadows so the Bureau can claim all the glory.”
Peter laughed. “That’s a very diplomatic but evasive response, Bill, and it doesn’t tell me much. Care be a bit more enlightening? Unlike some of my colleagues, I can be discreet. Logistically, how did you fit into the hierarchy of an agency with big trust issues?”
Bill knew his old friend could be like a dog with a bone, and he wouldn’t let the topic alone until he got answers. “Well, they gave me a certain amount of access, but I’m sure I wasn’t privy to all their stuff. From the get-go I was paired with someone that I’m not sure how to label. He’s like a partner or maybe an asset depending on the circumstances, so maybe he’s both. One minute, he’s getting on my last nerve, and then a second later, he’s confiding his own secrets to me or saving my life.”
Burke laughed. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. I’ve got one of those human conundrums myself. My confidential informant’s name is Neal Caffrey and he’s a fusion of a partner/asset. And he can drive me crazy on his best days. He’s also got skills that help me take down bad guys so that my clearance rates are in the stratosphere. I guess sometimes you’ve got to take the good with the bad, not that I’m complaining. I actually like the guy a lot and we’ve become close over the last four years.”
“So, it seems like he’s committed for the long haul,” Bill remarked.
“Well, he’s committed by default, meaning he’s serving out his four-year sentence as a parolee on an ankle monitor while he’s working for me. But lately, that tracker’s been off more than it’s been attached because he goes undercover quite often.”
“So, then you must trust him,” Bill concluded.
Peter shrugged. “I trust him more now than at the beginning. We’ve come a long way since those early days, and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge that’s changed my perspective.”
Bill was nodding as he thought of his own situation. “That’s kind of like the relationship I have with Colin. When we were abruptly paired together, I didn’t always trust him. In fact, at one point in time I thought he could have been a double agent and was playing me as well as his own team. Now I trust him and accept the fact that no matter how annoying he can be at times, he’s brilliant at what he does. His forte is role playing, and he does it well. He can go undercover and remain so inconspicuous that you never see him coming until he wants you to notice. And believe me, when you do see him, it’s usually too late.”
“I guess the really smart ones always tend to be complicated,” Peter replied. “Neal’s talent is being a quintessential con man and that’s a definite plus when he’s doing his thing working a suspect. He has a silver tongue and could sell ice to Eskimos when he turns on the charm. When we finally caught him and arrested him for bond forgery years ago, other marks he had swindled during his larcenous days refused to come forward to testify at his trial because they liked him.”
Bill was laughing. “Are you serious, Peter?”
“Quite serious. Everybody winds up liking him. His elderly landlady adores him and spoils him like a favorite grandson. I think my wife is secretly in love with him. And my dog goes gaga and totally ignores me whenever he stops by my house.”
“Well, Colin can turn on the charm just like your partner. Even though my parents have never met him, he managed to win over my mother after one long distance phone call. She’s insisting that I bring him home to Ohio for the Thanksgiving holiday. I think his British accent convinced her that he’s never had an American turkey dinner with all the trimmings or pumpkin pie.”
Peter smiled as he snagged a canape from a circulating waitress, but then his expression became pensive. “Do you ever wonder why people are what they are, Bill? How is it that some individuals end up with issues while other people seem to be what society calls ‘normal,’ for lack of a better word?”
“Are you maybe referring to the old ‘nature or nurture’ thing?” Bill asked curiously.
“I know it’s a rather hackneyed debate, but I believe Neal’s childhood helped shape him into a version of his adult self. It took me years to get the whole story out of him, and it wasn’t pretty. Apparently, his father abandoned his spouse and his only child when my partner was just 3 years old. The two people left behind had to fend for themselves, and it seemed too much for a wife and mother to handle. So, she retreated into her own depressed world, and a little kid had to basically raise himself. And later when Neal was an adult, his old man reappeared, and that guy turned out to be a murderer without a soul.”
“So, in your partner’s case, it could be a matter of both genes and environment that shaped who he ultimately became,” Bill mused.
Peter was shaking his head. “No, Neal has a good heart and he’s nothing like his father.”
Bill shrugged helplessly. “Well, unlike you, I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle that makes Colin who he is. He’s used the story of being an orphan from time to time when he’s trotting out one of his alter egos, but that could all be fabrication.”
“Maybe, or maybe not,” Peter said slowly. “Neal always says that any good lie should contain a grain of truth for it to be believable.”
“Now you’re giving me food for thought,” Bill admitted.
“Just passing it along as one friend to another who seems to be in the same boat,” Peter replied before continuing the discussion. “Well, no matter how they were raised, I think it’s us who need to adapt to who they are now if a partnership is going to work. We have to be aware of their strengths as well as their weaknesses and keep them afloat, maybe even protect and shore them up if they’re in danger of floundering.
“After all, they’re only human and I know that Neal is not impervious to being hurt no matter how much he tells me that he’s doing just fine. At the end of the first year that we were working together, I watched an anguished man come apart at the seams when his girlfriend was killed in an explosion. Afterwards, he hid behind a wall of stoicism, and I felt helpless to get him through it. Although it’s been years since that happened, I’d wager he still has a scar on his heart.”
Bill raised an eyebrow at that revelation. “Well, my friend, the parallels just keep mounting up. Colin was on assignment in the Philippines with his partner who he claimed was the love of his life. He was on his way to meet her in a hotel when it was firebombed by terrorists, and he was left standing on the street watching it burn. The scuttlebutt that I heard was he was brought home out of the foreign arena because of the trauma, but that information didn’t come from him.”
Peter was nodding his head. “So, Colin and Neal were both victims in their own way, and both are probably still carrying around a lot of survivors’ guilt. Maybe that’s part of making them who they are in the here and now.”
“So, what do we do in the here and now?” Bob asked what he thought was a rhetorical question.
Peter shrugged. “I guess we go sit down, eat rubber chicken, listen to boring speeches, and count our blessings that we have the kind of partners that we have.”
*****
One year later, Bill Goodman called Peter Burke.
“Peter, the reason for me reaching out is two-fold. I heard about the take down of the Pink Panthers, and that’s a phenomenal win for the Bureau. Congratulations. But maybe I should be offering my condolences because that win came at a very steep cost. I’m sorry that you lost Neal Caffrey.”
Bill heard the man at the other end of the connection take a deep breath, and when he spoke, there was definite angst in his tone. “Yeah, I’m asking myself if it was worth the cost of losing my partner, and if I had to do it over again, would I have sanctioned it and put Neal in that kind of danger? Now it’s too late to second guess myself, and I have to live with the hell of not knowing.”
“Yeah, it’s sort of your version of survivor’s guilt,” Bill commiserated.
“I guess now I know how Neal felt and the burden he had to shoulder for a good part of his life — a life that ended far too soon.”
An old friend tried to be supportive. “It’ll be hard, Peter, but you’re a strong person and I think in time you’ll manage to find your way through this monumental loss.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Peter said unconvincingly. And in time, a grieving individual did find his way when something that once seemed tragic morphed into something wonderful.