White Collar - as an unofficial novel - part 6

Setback

El was out for a walk with the dog when there was a knock on the door. Somehow, he was not surprised to see Neal outside when he opened. The kid held a SIM card. Peter's mood sank.

"What's that?"

"Walker's calendar," Neal replied with a wide, proud grin.

Peter glared at his pet convict who so often seemed to do the wrong things for the right intentions.

"And how did you obtain Walker's calendar?"

"From Whitney," Neal said, still smiling. "His assistant. We met at a small restaurant, she invited me for a drink."

This was just unbelievable!

"You happened to run into her, and then she invited you for a drink?"

"Got to love New York."

"Yeah, and then she handed you a copy of her SIM card?" Peter said, irony dripping, as he let the kid inside.

"Yeah, I'm a confidential informant, right?" Neal said as he sat down on his sofa. "And if someone found this information on the street and brought it to you, you wouldn't blink."

Peter sat down across from him. Why did this guy always search for the loop-holes in the law, when he knew he would be met by objections? Why could he not just do it the right way?

"I told you, nothing stupid."

"Word on the street..." Neal said, confidence not leaving him for an inch, "is that Walker is gonna hit the First Unity branch tomorrow at noon."

Peter glared at him. He did not accept the SIM card and still, the kid insisted that he should learn its contents. But it was not the same as evidence. This was a tip from an informant. They got hundreds of them every day. FBI did rarely act on one tip only. But this was Neal Caffrey, his consultant.

"You're sure about this?"

"Oh, yeah."

The next day he sat in the van with Neal, Jones, an agent from Special Forces, and Renee Simmons from the bank security who hired the FBI from the start. They were right outside the First Unity bank.

"We've got everybody in position," Peter said.

"What makes you sure this bank is the target?" Simmons asked.

"Word on the street," he muttered and could almost see Neal smile beside him.

"I don't understand," Simmons continued. "Why don't you think this bank is secure?"

"Well," Neal said, "they haven't had time to install half the security measures we recommended."

"You've been inside?" she asked.

"I'm very thorough."

"Well, we've reset the vault doors in all of our locations to change daily. There's no way they're getting in there without the access codes."

"These guys have bravado and then some," Jones said. "Dallas was hit at 9:00 a.m., Chicago at the lunch hour."

Peter saw a security guy walk passed one of the security cameras on his way out. He pointed, baffled."

"What?"

"The northwest guard takes lunch at noon," Simmons explained.

The guard stepped out on the street through the side door.

"That's their point of entry." Peter was sure of it.

Then the alarm inside the bank went off.

"What have we got, people?" he called over the radio.