Read One Shot Kill for Free Online Page A

settled for a long drink from her water bottle, and a vigorous attempt to scrape her boots.
    This was also her first proper chance to look at Edith’s injuries. All the agents in Espionage Research Unit B had done first aid training, but as she was a girl Charles Henderson had also sent Rosie away for a more advanced nursing course.
    As far as Rosie could tell, a broken finger and the possibility of cracked ribs were as serious as Edith’s injuries got. The bad news was that the sheer number of minor cuts, burns and bruises would slow the healing process. Several were already infected and a trip through a germ-filled sewer was the last thing she’d needed.
    ‘Sorry, but I had to put her down or I would have dropped her,’ Eugene said, as he screwed the cap back on his water bottle. ‘Not too far to Madame Lisle’s place now.’
    Notes
    3   Boche – Offensive term for Germans

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Madame Lisle ran a small stud farm. Unlike most peasants, she’d been allowed to remain in the Lorient military zone because petrol was in short supply and several important Kriegsmarine officers had taken a liking to the practical, well-tempered horses she had a reputation for breeding.
    Lisle was in her mid-sixties. She knew Edith, having been a lifelong friend of her guardian Madame Mercier. While not a resistance member, Lisle had helped in small ways and had even harboured a radio operator who’d been forced to go on the run.
    Eugene had considered approaching Madame Lisle in advance, explaining their situation and asking to buy horses for the operation. But everyone was nervous after the brutal Gestapo crackdown and you couldn’t be sure how anyone would react. So while he’d checked out Madame Lisle’s property two nights earlier, making sure she was still around and had the kind of animals he needed, Eugene didn’t speak with her until he arrived on her doorstep with Edith on his back.
    ‘Edith, my god!’ Madame Lisle said. ‘The state of you.’
    Shock turned to fright as she took in Eugene and Rosie’s combat gear and she moved to close her front door.
    ‘I have Germans visiting today,’ she spluttered. ‘You’ve got to go. It’s dangerous here.’
    The reaction was no surprise and Eugene wedged his boot in the door. ‘I’m sorry to impose.’
    ‘You cannot!’ Madame Lisle shouted.
    She was angry at Eugene barging into her front hall, but Edith’s wounds and bloody dress were hard for a decent person to ignore. Madame Lisle’s body deflated as she took a step back.
    ‘They’ve been torturing people around here too,’ she said anxiously. ‘Four Gestapo came to my neighbour’s house. Their boy is only thirteen. He’s a bit simple, but they threatened to slice off his private parts if he didn’t tell them what he knew about two friends who were in the resistance.’
    ‘I know,’ Eugene said soothingly, as he helped Edith into the hallway.
    ‘The poor boy is up each night with cold sweats and nightmares,’ Madame Lisle said.
    ‘These are tough times,’ Eugene said. ‘I promise we won’t stay long.’
    He took no pride in using his bulk to intimidate an elderly woman, but it was a matter of survival and there was nowhere else to get horses.
    ‘Are you here alone?’ Rosie asked. ‘Is anyone working on the farm?’
    ‘I have a stable boy, but he takes Saturday off.’
    ‘We’ll just be here until dark, Madame,’ Eugene said. ‘We need three horses and I’ll pay whatever you ask. We’ve got a train to catch this evening and after that you’ll never see us again.’
    ‘Do you have a bath?’ Rosie asked; breathing air tinged with the smell of horse piss, while realising she ought to have removed her sewage-smeared boots before stepping indoors.
    ‘I’ve a tin bath but no coal. I’ve been chopping wood, but my back is terrible and that Michel is hardly worth the money I pay him.’
    Eugene smiled as he showed off his bicep and sensed a chance to win the old girl over.
    ‘Big