Chapter 3

(Vetting the Mole)

Honey had a lot more friends the next training day. She liked the fact she was more accepted in the group but she still knew it was bad form to break her cover as a strictly administrative type person. She concentrated on her running and tried to stay out of trouble if that were humanly possible. In accordance with her instructions from Sir Knightly, she made an effort to be friendly with the French girl with the jealous attitude, Yvette.

The girl almost scoffed at her overtures like she was some used car salesperson trying to make a quick profit. It was obvious the girl was panting with desire to get into bed with Karl. She still saw Honey as competition in that area and Honey made an effort to dissuade the girl from that perception. The next time Karl dropped in on them from his own training routine, she gave him the "cold shoulder" right in front of Yvette. It was the only way she could convince the girl that she was sincere about not poaching in her back-yard.

No matter how hard she tried to establish some degree of rapport with the young French girl, she was not succeeding. The girl was firmly opposed to her overtures suspecting an ulterior motive. She was probably safe in her assumptions because Honey was indeed acting under orders from her mysterious boss, Sir Knightly. The way that she finally broke through to the girl was because of the "water safety course" that most people saw as fun but a few hated even the mention of it in conversation. Honey was an accomplished swimmer and had even taken schooling in underwater activities like spear fishing and photography.

The concept of "water safety" was a way of saying people needed to be trained to survive both in and under the water. One didn't have to be a world-class swimmer or some trained seal to survive. The program was just concerned with teaching each participant to learn how to float and to navigate to safety when in over their head. Little tricks like inflating clothing and grasping the concept of treading water for an extended period of time were key elements. Above all, the ability to avoid "panic" in a sudden situation was the most important ingredient of all.

It just so happened that Yvette was a "beach bunny" spending all of her time on the sand and showing off her nicely tanned body. She had seldom ventured into the water to practice her swimming technique and detested any contact of her impeccably groomed hair with the nasty water.

The first exercise was for the entire section to leap from a ten meter high platform into the deep end of the training pool. Yvette was devastated because she would knew it would involve her hair and getting water in her ears and eyes as well. She tried to talk her way out of the exercise but to no avail. Honey could tell right away that Yvette was in trouble because she sank immediately to the bottom of the pool without bobbing to the surface like everyone else. She went down to the tiled surface and pulled the girl up to the surface with a firm hold around her neck.

Yvette was sputtering like a drowned kitten but most of the others were busy with their own problems and did not notice her floundering in Honey's grasp. Honey stretched her body out underneath the French girl and held her chin and face above the surface. It was an approximation of the correct floating and treading water routine and looked quite proper to anyone watching the scene from the sidelines.

"Don't let me go, Mrs. Weston. I am not very good in the water and need your help desperately."

Honey smiled in triumph because she had the girl literally eating out of the palm of her hand. She knew all the girl needed was a thin buoyancy belt under her backside to help her stay in the floating position. They both moved to the side of the pool and were marked as having passed the course.

Yvette was furiously trying to dry her hair and failed to meet Honey's eyes. Honey took the brush from her hands and wrapped her legs around the French girl and slowly brushed the gleaming hair until it was reasonably dry and back to normal.

"When we have the water exercises, you must stay very close to me ma Cherie. It would only be temporarily, until you are able to float on your own without any assistance. You must put yourself in my hands and I will keep you safe."

Yvette's attitude changed after that incident and she started to stay in Honey's shadow looking to her advice and approval when she did something with excellent results. Honey enjoyed grooming the girl into a confidant and spent more time brushing the young girl's hair and massaging her aching muscles after a strenuous exercise in the field. The French girl began to look for Honey's hands on her skin more than silly dreams of one of the male field workers exercising her feminine channel with a thick pole in a compromising position. Little by little, Honey learned odd fragments of the girl's lurid past and her disreputable family who had taken advantage of her at every turn.

It was easy to discern that Yvette was no mole and no threat to the program and she reported that conclusion to Sir Knightly who was much relieved to hear it because he was primed to send her on an important mission to Vichy France.

A week later as the course was in its final days, she found herself teamed up with Claude, the egocentric Frenchman who thought he was "God's gift to women" that required them to transit from point A to point B with little or no exposure to discovery by any military or police units in the area. It was fortunate that she was familiar with the region and was also conversant with the reading of maps because poor Claude didn't know up from down and had no idea what the little squiggly lines on the map depicted. Left to his own devices, he probably would have taken them to the middle of Loch Ness and a big red "F" on the exercise.