Choirboy Caffrey

Chapter 7 - A Case of Immunity

St. Louis. Monday morning, December 8, 2003

Extremely early in the morning, Peter slammed on the brakes on the way to the airport when the car in front of him abruptly slowed down.

"When we get back to New York, I'm doing the driving," Neal said.

"I didn't know you owned a car."

"I don't."

"Well, I'm not letting someone who landed his own car in a lake drive my car. When you get a car, then we'll talk about who drives."

"You really need to let go of the whole car in the lake thing, especially since you think I'm still traumatized by it. Anyway, I can always get a car. I could steal one."

"No."

"I'll bet you wouldn't want to drive a stolen vehicle. That would probably look bad."

"There will be no car stealing."

"Did you know an Aston Martin used in one of the James Bond films in the mid-60s was stolen in Florida in 1997 and never recovered? I would love to drive a Bond car."

"You know..." Peter stopped himself from revealing that Neal's code name in the FBI case files had been James Bonds, derived from his bond forgeries. He'd be insufferable if he knew about that. "Is that theft something I'm going to hear about when we trade your confession for immunity?"

"No, but I'll help the Bureau solve the case if I get to drive the car after I find it."

"That's not how things work at the FBI. We don't play with the evidence once it's recovered."

"Maybe you should try it. See if it helps increase recovery rates. I'm sure it would improve morale. FBI agents always look depressed."

"We look intimidating."

"Keep telling yourself that."

When Peter checked in at the airport, he found his ticket had mysteriously been upgraded to first class for the Chicago to New York leg of the flight. "Did you do this?" he asked Neal.

The only answer was an attempted angelic look followed by, "Merry Christmas, Peter."

Peter wasn't entirely surprised that he lost track of Neal between the ticketing desk and the security line. As far as Peter could tell, Neal didn't have his real ID with him, and probably didn't want to travel under an assumed identity with an FBI agent. On the one hand, Peter was unhappy that Neal was probably committing a crime, but on the other hand, Peter was the one who had insisted the immunity deal meeting occur Monday afternoon in New York City, which he now realized didn't give Neal much of a window to get there legally.

He'd try to be more mindful of that in the future and avoid putting Neal into a no-win position again.

But the more he thought about it, the more annoyed he got that Neal had defaulted to breaking the law. He could have explained the issue and asked for a delay in the meeting, or requested assistance in getting back to New York legally. Peter couldn't let Neal get into the habit of taking the law into his own hands, and especially didn't want to start a precedent of letting Neal get away with it. Minutes before his flight boarded, Peter placed a call to Agent Clinton Jones.

That afternoon, Peter walked into an interrogation room where a sullen, handcuffed Neal had been waiting for nearly an hour. "You put out a warrant for my arrest!" he said the moment he saw Peter. "What happened to immunity?"

"We offered immunity on the condition that you stop committing crimes. And yet, mere days later, you traveled to New York under a false identity. The government takes that very seriously. That's a felony, Neal. Did you think I was simply going to ignore it?"