White Collar: An unofficial novel - part 12

We can try normal

Peter found Diana in the conference room with Neal. He knocked on the door frame and entered with Jones on his tail. Diana turned the chair around.

"Diana, do you know who Helen Anderson is?"

"I love Helen Anderson!" Diana said, thrilled. "She'll take on Wall Street, big oil. She's fearless."

Peter glanced over her head at Neal at the other end of the table. He seemed to fight not to chuckle.

"Great, because we're sending you into the magazine to keep her safe," Peter said. "We can investigate the threat, but we can't interfere with her story. So I need you to keep an eye on any leads that you might see while you're there."

"Got it."

"One other thing. Helen refuses FBI protection, so she can't know that that's why you're there."

"How's that gonna work?"

"Uh...Pshew," Peter sighed, frustrated. How to tell? "Jones?"

"Well, how many words can you type per minute?"

Diana leaned her head back with a tired grin on her face.

"So I'll be an undercover bodyguard slash assistant."

"As in dry-cleaning and dog-walking..." the kid mumbled from his side of the table. Diana sent him an eye that was probably trying to be lethal.

"We made you a bulletproof résumé," Peter said, handing her a file. "Graduate of Helen's Alma Mater, impeccable work experience. Now all you need to do is nail the interview."

Diana's head flew up, and her eyes stared at him in disbelief.

"I have to interview?"

"When your dad worked at the Embassy in England, you had a British nanny, right?"

"She was a regular Mary Poppins. Why?"

"So you got the accent down," Peter explained. "Here. Just brush up on this." He handed her a kit with the dialect instructions for British English in Northern England that the FBI had.

"A dialect? Are you joking?"

"No. Helen lived in Northern England when she wrote for the Economist. She has a soft spot for Manchester. It may give you an edge over the other candidates."

"Fine. Anything else?"

Peter jammed his hands in his pockets.

"Mm...No. Working for a Pulitzer prize winner. How great is that?"

"Yeah, yeah," Jones agreed. "Uh, nice offices. A juicer. Juicer."

"Juicer's awesome," Peter nodded.

Neal just closed his eyes and shook his head.

"What's with the hard sell?" Diana asked.

Peter and Jones exchanged a look.

"Helen's..." Peter searched for the right word. "Driven."

"Driven's good."

"Mm-hmm. She's a little... Intense."

"Intense?" Diana repeated and turned to Jones.

"She puts the 'hell' in 'Helen.'"

Diana started to get what it was all about, and she did not like it. Neal seemed ready to burst out laughing any time.

"In order to protect her, you can't get fired," Peter said. "She's gonna keep you on a tight leash, ask you to do things that are way beneath you. For the length of your assignment, your life is not your own."

"Yep." Neal understood what that meant.

"So, I'll be at the absolute beck and call of my tough new boss," Diana concluded. Now the kid could not hold it any longer and chuckled.

"What's funny?" Peter asked.

"Nothing. No," he grinned back at him and turned to Diana: "If you ever need any advice..."

Peter glanced at the kid. He should have sent him instead. Then his young convict would learn that things could be much worse.

Neal woke up alone a morning when he had thought he would not. They had not made any promises to each other, so he could not be angry at Sara. But it made him a bit sad that he did not mean more to her than occasional sex.

He went to the bathroom, and when he returned, he heard a knock on the door. He picked up a T-shirt to put on when he heard Sara's voice on the other side:

"It's me. Sorry. Snuck out while you were sleeping."

He opened the door.

"I heard you," he lied. "Morning."

"Morning."

She pushed one of her two coffees into his hand. They kissed.

"You know, if you'd stayed over, I'd have made you coffee."

"Mm-hmm. I had an early client call, which is kind of why I'm here. I need—

"Help?"

"Advice. I'm working a recovery, and I'm up against a tech 98 alarm system."

"Full video, remote monitoring." He pulled the T-shirt on.

"Can I beat it?"

"Yeah. You need to get to the control panel and take out the wi-fi. You have bolt cutters?"

"Small, medium, and large..." she answered, and somehow it sounded incredibly sexy. "But that's assuming I can dodge the guards."

"Well, if you find a partner, you could run a Wally Burns."

"What's a Wally Burns?"

"One person distracts while the other gains access."

"Oh. You think I could go it alone with a stun gun and a D.O.D.-grade router?"

"Mm." He did not like that idea. Too much violence.

"Normal people don't talk about this before work," she chuckled.

"No, they don't. We can try normal."

"Okay."

"Yeah, let's try it."

"Great. Sweetie?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Did you take out the garbage?"

"Honey, I shredded the garbage." He had one of Mozzie's inventions for it. Left everything he put in there as tiny fragments of what it once was. "You know the feds love to rummage."

"They're not the only ones," Sara said. "You know, I once tracked a Rothko to the Hamptons using a jitney receipt."

Neal laughed at this.

"Okay, that did not work." He tried to figure out something ordinary to say. "Um...All right, how's this for normal? We are invited to my co-worker's house for a dinner party."

"Oh, I will whip up some canapés," she joked and looked at him for a follow-up. He did not provide one. "You're being serious?"

"Diana's girlfriend thought it might be fun." Christi did not know she had invited them tomorrow, that particular Wednesday. But if Diana nailed her 'job', which she probably would, she would be late home. Christi, and Sara, and he would have the dinner ready for her.

"Yeah," Sara smiled. "Yeah, I think so, too."

She moved to leave, but he caught her and pulled her close.

"What's behind that tech 98?"

"I can't tell you. What are you doing today?"

"Helping Peter find out who's threat to kill a public figure while Diana goes undercover as her assistant."

"Same old, same old? Who is it?"

"Can't tell you."