White Collar - as an unofficial novel - part 6

Stealing Krugerrands

Peter watched Neal moving around in the conference room. He could tell the kid was upset. He exchanged a look with Diana and Jones, both waiting to hear what happened the night before. Though Neal had had an Eagle, he had not recorded anything. Though Peter wanted to catch them all, he had no intention to ruin the kids' lives. There were no need to give the court more than needed.

"So, last night at the Globe?" Peter asked.

"The kids do the legwork," Neal said. "Oswald fences the goods and kicks them back a share of the profit. If the kids get caught..."

"Oswald can sell them out," he nodded in return. He could see why the kid was upset.

"Yeah, he'll say he was teaching a class, and they took it too far."

"He's more slippery than you are," Diana smiled at Neal.

"Thank you."

Diana was right. Neal was a con-man, but he would not put kids in trouble.

"Do you think you can get him to reveal the painting?" Peter wanted to know.

"I don't know," the kid admitted. "They spent the night talking about the next best heist."

"Which way are they leaning?"

"Everything from diamond heists to stealing boats," he answered. Peter sighed. "But I think we can choose for them."

"How so?" Jones asked and Neal finally sat down. He even glanced over his shoulder, as if to check that nobody else was listening.

"I happen to know a petty crook who's moving Krugerrands on Sunday."

"Gold Krugerrands?" Peter asked. "Of course you do." Why was he even surprised?

"His name is Russell Smith," Neal told Jones who sat with a laptop. The agent entered the name.

"Bingo," Jones said. "Racketeering, extortion, robbery." He turned the computer for them to see.

"And I don't like him." A harsh statement coming from Neal. But if the kid wanted to sell out a crook to the FBI, Peter was not the one to complain about it. "We intercept Russell with the Krugerrands," his pet convict continued, "send Jones down the street with the coins, and I get the kids to steal them from him instead."

"We can watch them," Diana nodded, "follow the case back to Oswald."

"Tell me more about this guy. How do you know him?" he asked. Caffrey was his responsibility and everything on a silver platter did not mean that they should eat it.

"He's a friend of a friend."

"Mozzie?"

Neal made that face, that vague smile and avoiding eyes. He was not going to confirm or deny.

"You can convince Oswald and the kids to go after him?" Diana asked.

"I can still be slippery," Neal grinned and leaned back in the chair. "I'll get them to convince me."

He smiled at this, as did Jones and Diana. Still, the kid was without anklet when he met them and he wanted a guy he did not like off the streets. There might very well be something going on that Neal did not tell him.

Neal sat with Oswald and the kids outside the school building at one of the tables with parasols.

"If jewels are the target," the professor returned to Veronica's speculation about stealing a valuable diamond, "what are the challenges of extraction and export?"