Challenge #04723-L341: La Resistance

An undercover agent deep behind enemy lines. The radio is broken. The phones are dead. The gun is still warm, the crime scene fresh. And the contact is 6 hours late. Has the agent been double crossed, left for dead, or worse? -- Deathshead419

Good news, bad news, good news... Good news, the gun still had ammo, and she was smart enough to pick it up with gloved hands. If the occupiers were looking for clues, they wouldn't find a hint of her. Gloria could take the gun for defence, but... it would also be something to tie her to the scene.

The corpse on the floor was Gloria's contact. Still warm, but not very warm Six hours, perhaps, since he had become the late Martin Boutonniere.

Whoever had killed him had taken some of the more interesting plans, but missed where Martin had hidden the list of names. Gloria found it intact and undisturbed in its hiding place. She removed it, and put everything back the way she'd found it. On the way out, she locked the door. She'd hid the key where anyone might hide a spare key to the apartment.

The list safely in the bottom of her purse, Gloria did her best irritated performance as she made her way to her next cleaning job. Four official places of work, then she would go to the safe house. Make arrangement. Get somewhere other than here.

There were occupiers everywhere. Gloria tried not to look too long at them. Tried not to dismiss them and thereby give away that she hated them. They thought they were helping. They told themselves that they were bettering the occupied territories. Which let them have every kind of cruelty for the 'ungrateful' they chanced to find.

Best to not be found with dangerous information in her purse.

Gloria used the excuse of a sick relative for hurrying through her work. The safehouse visible through the windows of her fourth cleaning job.

A van, and several occupying soldiers arrived at the safe house before she could finish her work. A thin sliver of luck. If she had chosen to clean three, she would have been caught.

Everyone here knew not to ask questions of the occupiers. That got their notice, which earned their curiosity, and ended in a van with search and seizure orders. Never to be seen again.

Gloria had to think fast. She took some time in the bathroom to relieve herself and excavate the list. Burning hot evidence, but as cold and clinical as a needle. Dangerous, all the same. Names. Addresses. She found one that sounded rational to visit. One she'd met at the bakery more than once. It could be possible that she'd visit on more personal business.

They could workshop a quick excuse when she got there.

Gloria crammed the list back into her purse, and finished up. Both with her biological and professional business. And then took the back way out. Smartly making her way to her new, improvised safehouse. Like she'd been there before. A proud and confident veneer over the trembling anxiety in her middle. If they ever got rid of the occupiers, she could have a magnificent career as an actress.

She already had years of experience.

He was surprised to see her out of context, she said, "They found the safehouse, and they found Martin." Henri was sharp enough to recognise the context. "You'd best come in. I'm making coffee. And there is cake."

It was stale, but it was good enough for verisimilitude. Rations were hard to juggle in this time of strife. Food was eaten, regardless of quality. It was only disposed of when it was irredeemable.

They set themselves up for what appeared to be an intimate rendezvous whilst still being reputable about it. Just in case unwelcome visitors came knocking. Henri's apartment was far enough away to have a chance of avoiding the occupier's attention.

Neither of them were willing to take the chance. "So they found Martin. Do they have the list?"

"No. It was the first thing I looked for. I found it, so they can't."

"Leave any trace?"

"None. I put everything else back the way I found it. It's safe, for now."

"You have it," murmured Henri. An obvious conclusion. "I won't ask where. We're next to strangers, and you have no reason to trust me."

The coffee was tired, and the cake was stale. "If the coffee or the cake was fresh, I would trust you less."

"Wise woman. Do you know what they took?"

A car door slamming outside made them flinch. Made them pause. Waiting for the sound of boots on stairs, waiting for the subtle clatter of weapons in occupier hands. Those sounds did not come, but rather the chatter of some occupier soldiers chatting up a woman renting her body.

In a handful of minutes' anxious silence, the car drove off.

They could breathe.

"They took plans. I don't know how many. Better to cancel all of them. Regroup. Re-organise." She didn't say retreat. There had to be a way around it. She had the list and they didn't. That was something.

Retreating meant that they won. While Gloria was alive, she would not let them win.

In that moment, Gloria made up her mind. Rebellion cell or not, they would lose if she had anything to do about it. Henri might be a friend. He might be a mole to sabotage the rebellion. A double agent.

She needed a test. "Where do you work?" she said.

"Slaughterhouse," he said. "They don't let us prepare the meat. I'm only there to sweep up and kill the rats."

An idea formed. "You lay baits, don't you?"

"Sure."

"When you see a shipment of meat for the occupiers... do what you can to slip some baits into the meat, or... onto the meat." They were the only ones who got it, these days. People like them hunted other things that the occupiers would never eat. "Don't take risks, just take an opportunity. I... will figure something out."

Two days, and it would be Ration Day. The perfect day to wander around and check the others on the list. Two days to find out if she was compromised.

Two days to test the network of women to see if they could be the new cell.

The one she started with was too easy to find. She needed something more insidious. More omnipresent. Harder to eliminate.

All the women she knew had children, families, people she knew... All of them were very aware of what the occupiers were doing here. And how evil it all was. They were motivated, invisible to occupier eyes, and vital to the running of things.

If anyone could throw a wrench into those works, it was the women of the city.

[Photo by Kaffeebart on Unsplash]

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