WAR: Like thieves in the Knight by Sonja Launspach with Linda Rose Pierce Time: co-current with the Three ring circus Place: the Raven and the Loft Sonja leaned against the wall amidst the group of mercs observing the two groups of in the middle of the room. She scanned the Natpack for Linda Rose. She and Linda had a little task to do tonight while everyone else was occupied with the current pageant. She caught Linda's eye and nodded. She picked up her satchel from the floor and began slowly, nonchalantly to make her way toward the back as if she were going to the lady's room and then slipped unnoticed out the back, headed for the parking lot and waited for Linda by the merc van. Her dark clothes blended into the night, a shadow against the steel car. Linda arrived a bit breathless a few minutes later. "Any trouble getting away?" Sonja asked her. "No, I slipped away when the free-for all began, nobody will notice me gone, they're too busy yelling at each other." she replied "Good, you got the 'present' we're going to leave?" Linda grinned, "you bet." The ride to Nick's loft was uneventful. Sonja parked the van around corner, she doubted any Knightie would have stayed behind, but it was best to be cautious, and she didn't want the van to show up in any surveillance pics. She and Linda quietly made their way to the door. Sonja reached into her bag and pulled out her digital analyzer. She ran the card down the side of the door code and watched the colors go from red to green. The door clicked open. "Cool" Linda said Sonja grinned back, "one fun thing about being a merc is the toys you get." They climbed the stairs to the loft. Lock picks took care of that door and they were in. The loft was deserted and dark, a jumble of shapes, mounds that emerged from the darkness, the only light the ambient light from the street. "Ok," Sonja handed Linda a flashlight from the bag and turned hers on, "you have the description of the luggage?" "Yeah, right here." Linda replied, handing her the slip of paper. "Let's get to it, we don't want to be gone too long, no will think anything of my being absent, but your affiliation might wonder where you went off to." The two women searched the loft, looking under sleeping bags, all the while stepping carefully over the piles of books and videos for Dotti's suitcase. "Eureka" Sonja called. "Quick, are they in there." Linda tried to push her way past the merc to get at the suitcase. "Wait, hold on, We have to do this carefully, you don't want Dotti to know that someone's been in her suitcase immediately, do you?" Sonja restrained her. "Here, hold the light while I work" Linda watched impatiently as the merc carefully laid out the contents of the suitcase noting where everything had been until she came to the black silk pajamas carefully hidden in the bottom. "Ah," Linda sighed. "Give me the others," Sonja said. Linda handed her the pair of JD Barney pajamas, which Sonja put back in the suitcase in place of Nick's pajamas and then replaced the contents of Dotti's suitcase so that it looked undisturbed. Dotti was in for a big surprise. Grinning, Linda took Nick's silk pajamas, wrapped them carefully and put them in her bag. Silently as they had come the two women left the dark loft to its jumbled shapes and returned to the festivities at the Raven.