THIEF! Chapter 12
Risk
The next day, Dream came to school. During lunch, he tacked up a message to the public bulletin board. Since this was a rare occurrence, many people gathered around it and Liana and her friends could view it without raising suspicion. The letter said:
"Thank you for your help. Now we have information for you, tonight."
Everyone was perplexed by this message. Who was Dream talking to? What did it mean? Only Liana and her group understood at all, and even they differed in their opinions.
Liana was quite pleased with the response. "This is excellent news. I'll go back tonight."
Jenna, however, was not so enthusiastic. "They are welcoming you to break into their home. That means that they may have set a trap for you, to find out who you are. They will undoubtedly be curious as to your identity."
Angel nodded. "It would be easy to set up a camera on the note they leave you, or to stick a tracer on the note itself. They will probably do both."
"But knowing this beforehand, we can take steps to counter them already," Bobby argued. "Anticipating their measures will allow us to negate them."
"Yes, but they may have set up more than merely these two things. There may be many cameras, or there may be something I haven't thought of at all. They might even have a SWAT team on standby. Liana still takes a great risk if she goes into that house tonight. Either way, it's your decision, Liana."
Liana paused, thinking. "It is true that I will risk much to continue this. But perhaps that is the price of having the police help us. We need them, because we cannot do this alone. We need their manpower, their legitimacy, and their long experience. It is a risk I will have to take."
Jenna frowned, worried about her best friend. "Alright. But me must do all we can to mitigate the risk, or I won't be able to live with myself. First, Dragon should not go with you inside the house. At the most, she should be outside, ready with emergency support. We do not want to reveal that this is a joint effort. Another thing we don't want to show is your pokemon. They can trace you that way, so don't use them unless it's, once again, an emergency. The only pokemon we can really afford to show are Dragon's, since no one knows who she is. Angel, we'll need your technology expertise again. I want us to stay in communication with each other. And Bobby, we'll need either Combusken's flame or my Quilava's. It's your choice."
Bobby looked down for a moment, deep in thought. The others frowned as they wondered: Did Bobby have a different idea? Finally, he sighed, and said: "Combusken can do more than light up a flame. It can serve as a silent watch-keeper."
Liana gasped. "You don't have to tell them this, Bobby."
"Yes, I do. They deserve to know, and it can help us." Bobby quickly told Jenna and Angel what he had told Liana, revealing his bond with Combusken. He finished by swearing them all to secrecy again.
Jenna smiled. "That is quite convenient Bobby, thank you for telling us." And she continued to detail her plan.
That evening, Liana, Dragon and Combusken came to Dream's house again. Dragon let out Mightyena and Espeon, and they set up an unobtrusive perimeter around the building's area. They were not noticed, but as Liana approached, she was.
A camera from the front of the house spotted her. Dream and his father were awake in the second floor, watching from a PC along with the police's best technology expert. "Ok, he's here. Wearing a mask, gloves, skintight black clothes, and…hold on, this looks like a girl." All three men were surprised. But it was good to know. Now they had another lead.
Liana spoke quietly into the microphone in her shirt. "All the first floor windows are locked, and probably wired with alarms. A couple of windows on the second floor are open, though. That's how I'm going to get in."
"Ok," Jenna responded. "Just remember, you don't want to use Kirlia, so it's time to show off with some gymnastics." Then she become more serious. "But don't make it flashy or they can still trace you."
"Dragon," Bobby said. "According to your Mightyena there are some people gathered only a few feet away, around the corner. You should stay away from there."
"Will do," two voices whispered. Liana noticed that one of the windows had a balcony, so she decided to use that one. With a small jump she had hold of the balcony's edge. She swung back and forth a bit to build momentum, she levered herself up and onto the ledge. Then she climbed in the window.
"Hmmm, this girl seems to be quite agile. Perhaps she is an acrobat, or a dancer, or a gymnast. Anyway, she chose Dream's room, did she? Camera 5 will pick her up." That camera was an infrared one.
Liana walked quickly through Dream's room. She knew that the message would be in the same place she had left hers, and that meant downstairs. She moved swiftly and silently, hoping to attract no notice. But she was seen by the infrared cameras, and heard by the microphones. As she neared the table on which the envelope sat, she noticed a single lit candle, probably so she could read it. The message said:
"We thank you for your information. After a brief investigation, we have almost enough to move. We wish to catch these men in the act, however. Can you discover the time and place of the next such meeting? If you can do this, we will set a trap for them."
Enclosed also in the envelope was a list of names and addresses. "They must be for the men in the meeting. The police found out who all of them were already. Amazing." Liana read off each of the names and addresses softly, and Angel, back at Bobby's house, recorded them.
"Why is she saying them out loud?" Dream wondered.
"Perhaps she is committing them to memory?" His father answered.
"It doesn't matter," the technology expert said. "Now we have a voice print from her words. If she decides to reply right away, we might even get a sample of her handwriting."
"If she does that, then the tracer will be useless."
But Liana wouldn't do that. She blew out the candle and took the whole envelope with her. Then she retreated back the way she had come, finally jumping to the ground from the same window.
Liana stood facing directly away from the house, and held the envelope up to her face. This way, no cameras could see her lips move; no microphones would hear her words. "Angel, did you get all the names and addresses down for sure?"
"I've got them all. So you can continue on now."
"Why is she just standing there? What is she doing? Oh, wait, she's going now. But I still wonder what that pause was for. Looks like she's going, and she took the tracer with her. Hey! What was that flash?"
Liana now walked swiftly away, and soon met up with Combusken. She held out the envelope, and Combusken quickly lit it on fire. "Alright, Dragon, we can go now. I just have to come back later to deliver the reply."
Within an hour, Liana came back, bearing a reply. She put it in their mailbox, not bothering to enter the house again.
The next morning the three came out from the house and began exploring for clues. They found only a couple of footprints till they came to the street. Then Dream noticed the ash on the ground, which was the charred remains of the message and the tracer. His father noticed the card in the mailbox, which read: "Understood. I will do what I can, and will tell you when I find something."