It was later in the morning when Julie picked up her phone to make a call. The chill in the air from her previous meeting with Lehman hung all over her office as she pecked the numbers into the phone receiver.

“Come on, don’t dawdle” she instructed the recipient of the call. She knew all the calls were monitored and she wouldn’t have much time before ears would be listening in.
“ClarMar farms” came the cheery voice at the other end of the line.

“Do you sell all-natural cover honey?” asked Julie with as cheery a voice as she could muster.

“Why yes we do, sweetie. We sell it between 1pm and 3pm. And you’re in luck, we have a fresh batch made up for today”.

“Why thank you,” replied Julie. “I should be there about 2pm then”.

The sweet voice replied back from the other end of the electronic conversation. “We’ll see you then sweetie. Thank you for calling.”

Julie hung up the phone with a sigh. She had about an hour until lunchtime and that’s when she’d make the meeting.

****


”Good grief is it hot,” she mumbled as she slid into the front seat of her car. It was hot enough already that she had to start the car and let it run to allow the air conditioning to stop blowing superheated air in her face.

As she backed the car out of her assigned space she could feel the eyes of the parking lot guard on her. It was a new man, a younger one. She didn’t recognize him at all and he wasn’t wearing a trooper’s uniform so he was a regular contractor. Lehman had continued to augment his troopers with military contractors for mundane tasks such as roadblocks, building security and guarding parking lots.

The State Troopers were the Waffen SS to the contractors Wehrmacht.

Putting the car in gear she drove off down the length of the City Hall complex. Its transformation from a southern small-town City Hall building to a military fortress was shocking. Some days she had to remind herself that she still worked and lived in America.

She did have to laugh at the silliness of it all. Here she was, small town girl, in love with an Army deserter turned freedom fighter and smuggling secrets out of City Hall in her brassiere. She patted the thumbdrive memory stick that she had tucked into the bottom of her brassiere against the underwire.

She found out about the scanner flaw almost by accident. One of the guards casually mentioned that the underwire of women’s bras would obscure the images of their scanning equipment. It was some sort of software flaw that was in the process of being corrected. That day she found the smallest thumbdrive she could find and sorted through all her undergarments until she found one suitable to the task.

“I’m like Layne Bryant meets James Bond,” she muttered to herself as she drove towards the outskirts of town.

Before long she pulled into the abandoned filling station on the outskirts of town. It was a perfect place for a drop. She could use the restroom as a ruse for pulling over should anybody be following her and her car was almost entirely blocked from view by anybody that might happen to drive by.

Scanning around and seeing nobody she walked quickly from her car to the ladies room. The handle to the door turned easily, as it always did, and she dashed inside. A tingle of excitement raced through her. Adventures like this beat the dullness of another night of TV reruns.

The gray tile walls of the dingy ladies room slowly came into focus as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Before long she found the light switch and was awash in a swath of bright light. It didn’t take long to find the broken tile behind the toilet. A corner of the tile had been busted out to expose the hallowed out cinderblock behind it.

As she had been instructed to do she placed the thumbdrive in the crack. Careful, as always, to cover her tracks, she flushed the toilet and then washed her hands.

Laughing at the sillyness of the entire situation she quickly left the bathroom, returned to her car, and after looking to ensure she was alone, backed out of the filling station. Before long her car had disappeared down the street, eventually to return Julie Dawson to the foreboding oppression of the City Hall complex.

****

As the trees refused to sway in the windless skies, and the heat of the day baked the pavement, the shadowy figure of a six-foot tall, two hundred pound man eased his way into the ladies washroom of the abandoned gas station. He had seemingly appeared from nowhere before disappearing inside the structure. After the appropriate timeframe he left again, quickly disappearing down a side street.

Within minutes he covered the distance back to his parked truck. Despite being bathed in sweat he moved confidently and with ease. He had found over the years the best way to appear suspicious was to walk around as if you were suspicious. Walk around confidently, and as if you had not a care in the world, and people tended not to notice you.

He slid behind the wheel of his pickup and within seconds was on his way.

John Miller wanted to get back to the farm to discover the contents of the latest batch of documents his source had provided.

****


As his truck approached the roadblock Miller slowed to the appropriate speed and prepared to wait his turn in line.

Roadblocks and inspections had become commonplace in the county. Previous groups of contractors who had been in charge had used them, but not to the degree the State Troopers had been.

He was fourth in line and he casually whistled a sad tune as he waited his turn. Experience told him that the guards were inspecting those waiting in line every bit as much as those at the front. Miller excelled at being easily casual, a trait that had helped him over the years and in various places around the world.

He eased forward as the line moved and resumed his wait. He almost felt sad for the Troopers, having to stand on the roadway in the baking sunlight in their heavy uniforms, heat radiating upwards through the polyester and fabric. It didn’t take long for that sentiment to pass, however. For as bad as the contractors had been, they had paled in comparison to the brutality of the State Troopers. Several of Miller’s compatriots had run afoul of the Troopers in some fashion and ended up dead. There were no questions to be asked or jury with whom to lodge an appeal.

It had been in interesting journey for Miller. He and his wife’s relocation to the south, the troubles in the North, shipping his family and several friends off to a safe place in Wyoming, the birth of a resistance movement; it had all happened so quickly. Before Miller knew it their group had linked with others in a coordinated effort to fight back against the tyranny of Miles Donovan.

But like so many things in life, too much of a good thing can often times be bad.

So far, none of their men had been captured, but several had been killed along the way. The worst was when a group of resistance fighters got caught off-guard and ended up fighting a running gun battle with the Troopers for nearly two miles before the group could disengage. It was a mistake the small movement could ill afford to repeat. Seven good men ended up dead as a testament to the seriousness of the fight they were in.

“License and papers” barked the guard as Miller pulled into the number one space.

Smiling and nonchalantly Miller passed over his identification and waited for the inevitable questions.

“Mister Sizer” growled the guard. “You’re doing work for ClarMar Farms. Where’s your supplies?”

“None going back this time,” replied Miller. “Was dropping off a broken ATV motor to Smitty’s Garage. Damn thing just won’t start.”

Eyeing Miller over with his best attempt at being intimidating, the Trooper simply returned his papers and waved him through.

As the checkpoint faded in his rearview mirror, Miller was left with a very uneasy feeling in his stomach. Something wasn’t right.