Saturday - 1300hrs - Joanne

Joanne Hallewell stood behind the long black walnut counter and looked at the shoppe around her. Leather Bound Books. Even after the meeting with the solicitor the previous week when ownership of the shoppe was officially transferred from her grandmother to her, Joanne could not believe she actually owned the store! She'd always loved Leather Bound, and the weeks spent there with Granny every summer when she was a child was what sparked her interest in literature, and specifically in rare publications. She'd sit and read when ever she got the chance, soaking in the early classics right along with the obscure and unknowns. It was Grandma Tina who had taught her how to order and receive stock, how to make the cash drawer balance out at the end of the day, and more importantly; how to interact with the customers. Now they were her customers!

The prospect of owning and operating the bookstore was daunting enough, but Joanne was even more nervous about "the larger picture". After six weeks of training with agents of the Kink Support Network in Edinburgh, Scotland, she was in the field, as they liked to say on the other side of the border. The problem with that little phrase was that she was 'in the field' in her own damn country!

The KSN recruiter, Allison Smith, had told her that she had a very specific part to play in the fight against the current misogynistic regime. During her second week at the secret training facility she was introduced to a young woman known only as Agent X. X revealed that she was being trained to take over a safe house in London that was one of the most valued sites the Network had in the city, not only for it's location but because of the communications room in its attic.

Joanne questioned Agent X about their decision to assign her to such an important position when there must have been more experienced agents available. Her response was that she was uniquely qualified for the posting, and she would understand why when she got to London. In the meanwhile, her attention needed to be on her present training.

The training included self defense, the use of weapons, and very basic spy trade-craft, but the main focus seemed to be on how to behave, as a woman, in London. These lessons were taught by X herself, who Joanne heard had spent a couple of years living undercover in the city. Agent X told Joanne that life in her home town of Long Riston was quite relaxed in comparison to the capital city. London was dominated by the regime and Moral-Regeneration Unit troops patrolled the streets like it was a city under siege. Women there really had to watch what they said and did, or they could end up in trouble.

The instructors at the training facility felt that Jo's fiery temper was her biggest liability, and Agent X spent a lot of time working on subduing that temper. Daily scenarios were created to put Jo into situations where she had to stifle her instinctive responses to harassment and injustice. The difficulty did not come with keeping her true feelings to herself, or learning to keep her mouth shut; it was in controlling her initial reactions. A gasp, a raised eyebrow, a clenched fist...all were potential signs of defiance that might be picked up by an experienced MRU agent.

When she was finally deemed to be ready, she was spirited back across the border and returned to Long Riston to await her brother's arrival.

"How will I know where to go? Does Jonathan know? Is he with the KSN, too?"

Allison had given her the "serious look", and shook her head. "Jonathan must never learn that you're with us," she said. "As to where you're going? You're going to visit your grandmother."
 
"Granny Tina?" Joanne's look of confusion forced the serious look on Allison's face to be replaced by a wide grin.

"Yes, Granny Tina." Allison reached across the center console of the car and patted Jo's spandex clad knee. "You'll soon see your dear granny in an entirely different light, my dear."

How true that prediction was!
 
Joanne glanced toward the front door of the shoppe to see her grandmother peering out through the lacy sheers that covered the window. It had been somewhat of a shock to learn that her dear sweet grandmother was running a safe house for the Kink Support Network in the center of London. When asked how that came about, she was even more surprised.

"You don't think I've always been an old woman, do you? I was once young like you. I've been around."

And indeed she had! When Christina was in her early twenties she had been approached by British Intelligence. They had learned that she made frequent trips to Belfast to visit a friend and asked her to courier messages to and from the loyalist paramilitary. There was a certain amount of risk involved, but she had agreed to do it. That risk increased when she was asked to report back on things she heard and saw at the local pubs and restaurants while she was out with her friends. Her activities had gone from being a courier to being an outright spy. This continued for a couple of years until the agent who had been running her was reassigned to the HMS Invincible as the Intelligence Officer. Unwilling to leave her in the hands of someone new he asked her to officially join MI6 and serve as his aide.

Together they saw action in the Falkland Islands, and then a few years later the Persia Gulf, aboard the HMS Gloucester. It was during duty on the destroyer that she learned to operate a wireless transmitter and was involved in coding and decoding messages.

When she finally returned to England she found her mother to be in ill health. She resigned from the Service to take over running Leather Bound. Thirty five years later, as the new Moralist regime swept into power, she was visited by a pretty young woman by the name of Jessica Smythe, who she learned was the head of MI6's Special Actions Unit. After an afternoon of conversation, Ms Smythe had convinced her to join a newly formed underground resistance movement they were calling the Kink Support Network.

"They're here," the elder Hallewell said as she turned the doorknob and opened the door just a little bit. Four women stepped into the shop and the door was closed immediately behind them. "Into the poetry room, quickly," Christina said, motioning for Joanne to lead the way down the narrow hallway towards the rear of the shoppe.

The women had just entered the room which housed hundreds of volumes of ancient poetry when Joanne heard the front door open and close. A moment later, a man appeared in the doorway and said, "Out front, now!" and then stepped aside as Christina physically turned her around and hurried her back into the hallway and towards the front of the store.

Everything was happening so fast, and Joanne felt very much out of control. Her grandmother had told her they were taking in these women and hiding them until a safe way to move them out of the city was arranged, but something must have gone awry.

No sooner had Christina and Jo stepped behind the sales counter than the front door flew open and half a dozen well armed MRU troopers forced their way in. Looking around, the officer in charge shouted, "Where are they?"

"Excuse me?" Christina asked.

"The women who just came in here, where did they go?" The squad of soldiers surrounded the large wooden counter, their weapons held menacingly towards the two women.

"I'm sure you have mistaken, sir," the elderly woman said very calmly. "My granddaughter and I are alone in the store, please look around if you need to." She waved her hand towards the racks of books in the front of the store and then towards the hallway.

Although Joanne's mind was screaming, 'No! They'll find the women!', her recent training took over and she willed herself to remain calm. Smiling, she stepped out from behind the counter so that she stood between the men and the hallway.

"She's right, sir, we are quite alone here." She stood straight with her shoulders back to push her chest forward. The men, as predicted, were momentarily distracted and she hoped the delay was helping the guy in back who had ordered them to the store front. She didn't know who he was, or where he had come from, but had he not arrived when he did they all would've been caught in the back room.

Five or six seconds passed before the unit's leader finally yanked his squad back to the task at hand. "Miller, Johnston, upstairs!" he barked. "Potter and Welles with me."

The three men pushed past Joanne and began searching the small, book filled, rooms on either side of the hall. The two men left in the front of the store moved in on Jo.

"Aren't you a doll?" one of the men asked.

"Careful Mick, she might be armed."

"I'd better search her then," Mick replied, turning Jo by the shoulder and pushing her towards the counter.

"There's no need for..." Christina's objection was silenced by the sight of the rifle barrel raised in her direction. 

Joanne supported herself against the sales counter as the militia man began feeling her up from behind. She knew he was doing nothing more than taking advantage of his position of power to molest her, since anything hidden under the form fitting clothes she was wearing would be quite obvious.

She winced as his hands came up and around to cup her breasts. He pressed himself against her leather clad backside, grinding his pelvis against her as he continued to fondle her breasts. The man's actions were repulsive and a wave of humiliation swept through the pinned woman. He had no right! Joanne felt her rage building.

"You're going to want to strike back; to defend yourself," Agent X had counseled her. "It's okay to resist, but not to the point where the asshole will hurt you. A little resistance will be expected and I don't doubt that the bastards enjoy a little squirming. Always remember the bigger picture. You need to stay out of MRU confinement, and you need to stay healthy. A trip to Hospital to mend broken bones will jeopardize everything."

Several quick moves came to mind that would have the jerk on the ground in seconds but what would she gain? A trip to a detention center or...the emergency room? Agent X was right; this wasn't the time or the place for what she wished she could do. Besides that, she knew they were heavily outnumbered and she had yet to hear any commotion coming from the back of the shoppe.

"Anything?" the man holding the rifle asked.

"No weapon, but I think I feel some bullets here." He laughed as his hands roughly groped Jo's breasts, feeling her nipples protruding beneath the fabric of her blouse. "You got some bullets in there, doll?"

"If I do, I'm sure you'll find them, sir," Jo responded meekly, while trying to avoid his hands. In response he pushed harder against her, chuckling slightly as he enjoyed his apparent show of strength.

As the man's hands roamed around behind her to explore her ass, Jo blocked out his assault and wondered why the searchers hadn't found the man and the women. The store was not that large. An alarm would've sounded if they had exited through the back door, so they had to be back there somewhere. Was there a hiding place her grandmother hadn't shown her?

"Eh-hmm," a throat clearing warning was sounded.

The groper backed off as the two men who had searched the upstairs apartment came back into the room. The trooper gripped his machine gun and glanced at Joanne with a look that told her she had better keep her mouth shut. A moment later the unit leader and his two men joined them. He glanced at the two who had searched the upstairs apartment and saw them shaking their heads.

"Let's go," was all he said as he led the squad through the sales area and out the door. There was no apology or acknowledgment that they had made a mistake; they just left to search the next store.

Christina walked behind them and locked the door after they had all filed out. She turned to her bewildered granddaughter and smiled.

"Let's go meet your section chief, Peter Taylor."