I SWEAR I'M GOING TO BREAK THIS ADD HABIT OF CONSTANTLY POSTING NEW STUFF AND NOT STICKING TO THE STORIES I HAVEN'T EVEN FINISHED.

But I can't help it ._.

Anyway, thanks to Polarbird for beta (YOU MAKE A VERY PICKY BETA, WHICH IS VERY AWESOME, BTW) And acknowledgments to Zuul and Dusk Zephyr, who's Spy/Sniper fics were excellent and a few of whose motifs I have bothered in the opening (To Dusk: I asked Zuul permission to do this, but not you, so if you're upset over it, I can delete this and edit those things out)

Anyway, here.

---

“Spy,” Sniper asked, “Can I use a favor?”
   
“Mmm?” the two were lounging in Sniper’s nest, enjoying a lull in the fighting that afternoon. There had been a mutual quiet between them, as they enjoyed the brief serenity of the ‘Hottest Part Of The Day..’ . One of the falcons glided by outside. “What for?”
   
“Tell me ‘bout your past,” Sniper asked. He’d always been interested, but never thought he’d be able to wring anything from the Frenchman. But with a favor, it was always worth a try.

    “Interesting question, mon ami,” Spy said, sitting up from the pile of hay he’d been lazing on. “But quite a difficult one. Surely, you know the difficulties in answering such a thing.”

    “Yeah, but…” Sniper struggled for a good way to structure the question. He didn’t want Spy to slip out of this one with some sort of blatant lie or trick. “Well, tell me three sentences about your past. Three /truthful/ sentences.”

    “Three?” Spy thought about it for a moment. His lips curled. “Well, if you insist. In my past, I met a Sniper. In my past, I came up the ladder to this place. And in the past, I was asked about my past by that Sniper.”
Hee.
    “Hey, what are ya-” the Australian realized what Frenchman had done. “Oh, screw you, mate.” Spy smiled and lit a cigarette. Bullet dodged.

  



 “But I want to join you!” there was a hint of desperation in the boy’s voice. He was talking to two men leaning on crates, cigarettes in their mouths and Stens in their hands. They did not look impressed with the dark haired, scrawny young boy before them. He was clad in a thin coat missing many buttons, tan shorts, and a brown baker’s hat. Slung over his shoulder was a sepia bag bulging with something large and unseen. The boy gave a slight shiver in the cold air around him, his cheeks flushed from the bitter breeze of that October morning. The place smelt of fish and stale bread, lingering with the tobacco of the cigarettes before him. The boy couldn’t help but crinkle his nose at the scent. He’d always hated cigarettes.

    “And how do you propose the resistance could use an urchin like you?” one of the men asked. The man adjacent to him snickered and took a drag of his cigarette, sending smoke into the boy’s face and making him cough.

    “I am young and petite! Zhe Nazis would never notice me !” he swung his bag to his chest and began rummaging through it. From it, he withdrew a large, expensive Leica II camera, his prize possession. The two men were suddenly distracted, and stared greedily as Spy fumbled with, and then displayed it to them. “And with zhis, I can take pictures and gather intelligence expertly!”
   
“Like a little Spy?” one of the men asked with a chuckle. His companion laughed too, before returning his gaze to the boy’s dark camera.

    “Yes! A spy!” he brought the camera to his eyes and snapped a picture of the men, as if to demonstrate his prowess. “I will not let you down!” the men exchanged sly looks. They both want something, and it isn’t the brat in front of them. 

As if on cue, a Wehrmacht officer in a shiny black uniform strutted by, 'ooking directly ahead, unaware of the illicit congregation.  At first, the men clutched their guns and drew back into the shadows, but after he passed, they seemed to both share an idea. The boy had hidden in a corner, behind a damp brick wall, stifling his breath to seem inconspicuous. His face was alive with fear, his eyes wide and wary. “Did he see us?” he asked the two men, who had returned from hiding and were looking at him amusedly.
I like this line.

    “Oh no, but I should hope not,” the taller of the two began improvising. “That man is the nefarious…Klaus Hitler, the son of the Fuhrer himself.” it was all he could do for his companion to stifle a giggle. 

At first, the boy appeared surprised and even more worried, but then he raised his eyebrows in suspicion.

   “I did not think Adolf Hitler had a son,” he said. “I have not read it anywhere.” the way the boy said this unnerved the two partisans. It seemed the boy was fairly well educated., and their was a certain sinister tone coloring his voice they did not like. How could a child speak like that? Obviously, something had made him learn how to get his way. “And besides,” the boy continued, “Hitler is fifty-one years old. That man must have been…” he ruminated on it for a moment. “At least in his thirties. Are you lying to me?”


    The fighters exchanged uneasy glances. How the hell was this kid so sharp? But they were not too deterred. They wanted that camera. “Perhaps we have mistaken fact for rumor,” one of them said. 

    “Ahh,” the boy said. He sounded convinced, and intrigued.

    “But in any case,” the man continued, “that man is a dangerous enemy to our cause. If we could only figure out his movements, then maybe we could kill him, but alas…” he shook his head for effect. Yes, the boy was definitely buying it.

    “What if I could tail him?” he asked. “He’d never notice me!” Yes, the boy was doing exactly as they wanted now. But he was a clever one. They’d have to be convincing.

    “Oh, I don’t know,” one of them said. “It would be a very dangerous mission, especially for one so young…”

    “I am willing to do anything!” the boy said, his chest swelling with pride. “The Nazis have taken everything from me, so I…I will die for France!” he mustered all the power he could into those words. Internally, the partisans, cynical and jaded as they were, would have liked to jeer at this naivety, but they held back. 

    “Well, if you really think you can, I suppose you could really help the resistance…” the man to the left leaned back and took a puff of his cigarette. Delicious.

    “I can, and I will!” the boy said, gathering his camera and nodding to them. “I won’t let you or my country down!” he began rushing down the alleyway, hoping he could catch up to the fearsome German without attracting attention.

    “Wait!” the voice calling behind him made the lad stop in his tracks. He swung around, bag flopping and hitting his side as he did. “Leave your camera here. If you were to be captured, who knows what sort of things they might find on it?” checkmate. Now, he just had to buy it…

    “Of course! You’re right!” the boy rushed back and took the bag off his shoulder, handing it to the shorter of the fighters. “I must be more careful! Thank you!” he ran back down the alleyway, unburdened by his bag and hopping over an overturned crate as he went. The men snickered as one of them withdrew the Leica II from the bag, both seeming mightily impressed by themselves.
I thought the Leica II was the camera?
  
  “Nice job, Francoise,” the one with the camera said as he looked over it.

    “Indeed,” Francoise agreed. “Think the boy will get himself killed?”

    “Who cares?”

…


  The boy rushed down the streets and boulevards, dodging men and women grudgingly making their morning commerce. The officer was strutting down the street imperiously, his boots clicking on the pavement, everyone around him dodging his glance

He must be someone important, the boy thought to himself as he stalked the officer. As his time on the street had grown, he’d gotten better and better at shadowing people unnoticed; now, he considered himself to be capable of following this plump, oblivious German inconspicuously.  He had to! For France!

He leaned on streetlights, ducked into salons and apartments, and sat on the side of the pavement to seem like an average urchin when noticed, following swiftly all the while.

The officer walked several blocks and conversed with two other soldiers at the town’s intersection before making a turn into a Café. Shoot! The boy cursed and was forced to duck into a newspaper stand as the two soldiers walked past. He was not, however, unnoticed by the stand’s owner, an gaunt, hawk like woman who shooed him out with a broom she wielded. Rubbing his head and wincing from a blow it had received, the boy ducked behind a wilting potted plant and watched the officer as he sat down and began sipping a cup of coffee. from a blow he had received, maybe? What with 'the boy' following, it seems a little misplaced as 'it.'  He looked content, on the Café terrace, drinking coffee in the cold air of the morning. After a few moments, a waiter brought him a newspaper instinctively, which he took without a word. It really rankled the boy, how this man could sit around on his homeland and take whatever he wanted, while he was struggling to survive. It made him angry. It made him want to…no. He had to control himself. For France!

    After a few minutes of sitting and reading and sipping coffee, the man was joined by a dark haired, beautiful woman in a black satin coat. She wore a large, matching hat that wavered in the breeze, and a pair of large smoked glasses that kept almost all her face above her nose concealed.
 
She sat down gracefully in a seat adjacent to the officer, who just then noticed her and leaned to let her kiss him. The boy, still hidden in the bush, felt his heart burn. So, he wasn’t just content with taking France’s food? He had to have its women, too? He crept forward and cupped his ear to hear the two talking.
   
“Have a good morning, dearest?” the woman said as she sat down and withdrew a handkerchief from her purse. With it, she dabbed at the officer’s face and cleaned up the coffee dripping around it in a nauseating manner.

    “It’s good now that you’re here,” the officer said, his French thick and imprecise through his German accent. “But besides you, my flower, things have been difficult.”

    “Have they now?” she asked. A waiter brought her a cup of coffee, which she took and sipped. The officer looked at this disapprovingly.
   
“Women shouldn’t drink coffee,” he said bluntly. “It’s much too strong.”

    “Oh?” she put her cup down and leaned over towards him. With one hand, she pressed his dark jacket, and with another, reached into its pocket and withdrew a small, delicate cigarette. “Then men shouldn’t be smoking. It’s much too…alluring.” she brought her hands back and lit the cigarette with a lighter in her purse, bringing it to her lips and allowing herself to very lightly smoke. 
   
“Speaking of alluring…” the officer said, leaning forward, “Perhaps you can help me. I’ve been looking for a little something, something I’ve not had for some time, and I though a lovely lady such as yourself might be able to…oblige me?” From behind the bush, the boy couldn’t help but stick his tongue out in revulsion.. Were they talking about doing…/it/? Bleh! 

   The lady gave a sibylline smile and leaned forward as well, so that their faces were but a few inches apart. Her eyes, and intentions, remained opaque behind her dark glasses.  “I think I might be able to help, love,” she said after a few seconds of staring, reaching into her purse and withdrawing a large, black letter. She waved it before his face enticingly, only to draw back when he tried to grab it. “This will give you all the whereabouts of every partisan group in the Midi-Pyrénées, as well as the neo-Republicans Franco has been so bothered by. Send your agents out with this information, and I guarantee the region will be quelled within a month. And I’m sure this will improve the Reich’s standing in Spain considerably.”

    The boy’s stomach clenched up. That letter could doom them! And if the resistance was crushed and Franco was pleased, Spain might join the war! And with two enemies at their steps, he was sure the Brits wouldn’t be able to resist. The whole war depended on him!

    “I thank you very kindly, my lady,” he said, reaching again for the letter. “And I’m sure the higher ups will-” he was interrupted by a cry, and turned to see a boy running at him and the lady. The lady was shocked, but after that, irritated. How had she not noticed him?

    “Long live the resistance!” the boy cried as he jumped onto the table and swiped the letter from the woman’s hands. She could have easily prevented this, but did not. She wanted to see how this might play out. The officer’s face, however, turned red with rage, and it was with a barely controlled voice he shouted, “Klaus! Dieter!” the boy barely made into onto the street when the two large soldier roughly seized him and carried him back. He snarled and kicked, shouted and bit, but could not break the grasp of the two men. He was brought back to the officer, whose apoplectic face made him grow pale with fear. 

    “Give me that, you shitty little brat,“ With a gloved hand, he swiped the letter from the boy’s hands, then backhanded him hard, so that blood was drawn from his mouth.
   
“Shall we kill him?” one of the soldiers asked.. The boy felt himself freeze up, his blood turn to ice.

    “No,” the officer said, storing the letter safely in his pocket. He motioned for one of the soldiers to hand him his MP 40, which he did. “I will.”

    “No!” the boy was about to say this, defeated by his own terror and ready to beg, but he was beaten to it by the woman besides them.  She moved past the soldiers and took the boy in her hands. “I’m am so terribly, terribly sorry. This is my son, Jacques.”

The boy looked up at her, nonplussed. Jacques? What was she…
 
“A son?” the officer repeated. “You have a /son/?”

“Yes,” she said, summoning tears to her eyes. “He is a rebellious and angst boy, and tends to act out, but I do my best to raise him…”
.

    “Well then, let me teach him a lesson!” he lifted the butt of the rifle into the air, preparing to strike down at “Francoise’s” head.

    “No! You mustn’t!” she grasped the boy more tightly. “Just let me take him off, and I promise that I will punish him. Please, sir!” she was laying on the sympathy card well. Maybe too much, she thought to herself. The situation was extremely delicate, and one wrong move could…

    “Fine,” the grumbled as he lowered the rifle. “But only because you’ve done such an excellent job for me this day. Make sure to punish him well!”

 “Oh, thank you, love!”  she said, her face lightly up as she kissed him on the cheek. Lighting.  “I promise I will!” With a vicelike grip, she seized the boy and pulled him away from the officers and the café. He thought it better not to struggle, as he didn’t want to irritate his savior. She held his elbow firmly as she brought him down the street and past a corner, to where a pristine Citroën Traction Avant was parked. Here, she stopped and looked at him behind her dark shades.
   
“Get in,” she growled. He did not argue as he scrambled into the car. She entered through the other door and tossed her purse to the back as she started the car up. It rumbled like a beast awakening before taking off onto the road, the engine growling as it brought them down the street.

    “Wh-who are you?” the boy managed to ask. Suddenly, the thought of his camera hit him; he cursed himself for leaving it, but now, it was far too late to do anything about it.

    “A better question is, who are /you/,” she said in a dangerous voice, “To jump out of nowhere, interrupt my meeting, and possibly destroy my relations between best source of intelligence I’ve had in months?” she let her anger seethe out. The nerve of his little brat.

     “I…” suddenly, it clicked. “You’re a spy?!”

    “Yes, Sherlock,” she said as she made a turn. “And you’ll be dead, if you breathe word of it.” 

    “Let me join you!” he said fervently. “Please, kind lady, teach me!”

    “Teach you what?” she asked disdainfully. “How to be a spy.”

    “Yes!” the boy said. “Oh, please! I want to help!”

  “You think you have what it takes to be a spy?” she asked him coarsely. When he nodded, she let out a high laugh. “I doubt it. If that last stunt was any indication, you, child, are no spy. A spy is cunning. A spy is capable. A spy has a plan to escape from every situation she comes across, which you clearly did not have.”

    “Then teach me!” the boy was pleading now. “I will give up everything I have!” it was true.

    “And what do you have?” she asked, apparently able to read minds. “Parents? A home? Siblings?”

    “No,” he murmured. “I have nothing.”

    “That’s not true,” she said, deadpan. “You have memories. And those are things you’ll have to give up as well. Would you be able to do that?” For a minute, the boy had to think about this.  Could he give up everything, and become a blank vessel of subterfuge? But then again, he thought, what else could he do? This might be his only chance to make something of himself. As distant a chance it was, he would not pass it up.


    “I will give up everything,” he said, a steely determination coloring his young voice. At once, the woman brought the car to a halt, and parked it there in the street and took off her glasses to look at him fully. 

There was no doubt in his stormy-blue eyes, no fear, just determination. Yes, she thought to herself. This was just the kind of kid she was looking for. A smile passed her lips, and soon, the car was moving again.

    “You might do,” she said. “But we will have to see.” My, what a successful day. She’d taken out a Wehrmacht officer and found herself a possible successor.

    “Really? You mean it?!” the cold in his countenance melted to show a jubilant, eager young boy. That would have to be dealt with.

    “Yes,” she said simply, making another turn and driving towards an open road stretching far beyond the city limits. “But now, we are off.”

    “To where?” the boy asked.

    “Paris,” she said with a smile, suddenly speeding forth. Somewhere back in Toulouse, an officer was getting a very nasty surprise in a letter.