White Collar - as an unofficial novel - part 3

Pai Gow

When Neal was picked up by Peter the next Monday morning he had spent the whole weekend walking almost every street of Manhattan within his radius.

"Still up for a to walk to the office?" Peter asked.

"You've been checking my anklet."

"Yup," his handler agreed.

When they stepped out of the elevator two people burst passed them and the whole office was at a stir.

"Why all the craziness?" Neal asked as they passed the double glass doors.

"I don't know," Peter replied, frowning. "This can't be good."

Lauren saw them and hurried to meet them.

"Peter, Hughes wants to see you right away."

"All right."

Peter left for Hughes' office. Neal took off his hat.

"So is this what it looked like when I escaped?" he asked her.

"I don't know. I was working on important cases." So cheap, Neal sighed.

"What's going on?" he wanted to know as he tagged along when she walked back into the stir in the office.

"The bureau is missing an agent."

He watched Peter pacing in front of Hughes desk and his boss talking to him.

"That isn't good." So his hunch that this was about a person and it was urgent had been true.

"Yeah," Lauren agreed. "He's an undercover from the D.C. office. We lost contact with him 12 hours ago."

"What do you think happened?" Neal knew undercover could be dangerous but disappearing for twelve hours? He thought it sounded odd.

"I don't know. Could be in trouble, could be laying low. We're not sure."

"Listen to me," Neal overheard Hughes saying. "We need somebody who understands money laundering."

He did not hear Peter's reply. Hughes rose from his chair and walked to the railing outside his room, facing the open office of the white-collar unit. When he waved in their direction Lauren moved but the legendary agent rose a hand to stop her and then pointed at Neal with two fingers. He did not wait to see if Neal got the point but walked straight into the conference room.

Neal grinned all over his face when he turned to Lauren.

"Excuse me. I have an important case to deal with." Cheap, but he could not help himself.

When Peter joined them in the conference room Neal hovered by the door and Hughes scanned their cluttered white-board.

"Sit down," he told the kid as he passed him. Peter emptied the box of Pai Gow tiles he had brought with him on the table. The kid frowned but did not comment so Peter walked up to the white-board and pointed at a photo.

"This is Agent Mark Costa. He was posing as a drug trafficker, looking to clean some dirty cash through this guy." He pointed at another photo. "Lao Shen, money launderer out of China. Costa was working him until last night."

"According to his last contact," Hughes continued, "Lao was making a pit stop in New York for 72 hours and after that, he boards a flight to the homeland and we lose him." He folded his arms and gazed at Neal.

"So why you telling me this?" the kid asked, not getting his part in this.

"Nicholas Halden," Hughes returned, keeping his eyes on Neal.