May 24, 1941
At the Apartment
Raymond and Laurent discussed their options. Norris was expected shortly.
If they blew up the factory, they were unsure of the potential consequences given that it appeared that the factory was producing chemical weapon shells. There was speculation to this effect and Raymond suggested that such treachery was not beyond the Nazis. Then Laurent realized that they had not seen any Germans anywhere near the factory, and the output was transported in civilian vehicles.
The dossier they had been provided indicated that the Ollivier factory was making “quality machine parts” while in reality it was doing something related to chemical weapons. That amounted to more than just modifying the assembly line.
Laurent proposed infiltrating the factory to get eyes on what was happening there. Raymond suggested having Vincent covertly interview people at the pub near the factory to see what he could learn.
Laurent suggest setting up an ambush to take out the radio detection operator on their list, Kriminalassistentanwärter (Corporal) Werner Mayr. Raymond left a coded message in a dead drop to get more information on Mayr’s habits.
They elected to go to Chateaugiron, but first they went to the library to see what they could learn.
At the Library
The library was not crowded when they arrived, but they all noticed an older gentleman watching Norris. Laurent followed him around acting like a research assistant.
Norris and Laurent researched local history, cult activity, suspicious deaths, and the like. Norris found an excerpt on The Poisoners’ Cult. Laurent was less successful.
Raymond flirted with a pretty girl in the cooking section. He found a Letter from Citizen Tanguy in an old cookbook while he was flirting. Norris researched the Abbey de Saint Pol in Bruz only to discover that it had been burned to the ground during the Revolution and never refounded. The village had been abandoned as well. Nevertheless, they believed that there might be something there to be discovered.
While they were researching, the man who had been watching them left library.
In the Marketplace
As they were walking through the marketplace on the way back to the apartment, they noticed the two German sentries leaving the area in opposite directions. A moment later, a non-descript young man attacked Norris with a meat cleaver.
The attacker missed. Laurent attempted to hit him, but failed. Norris grabbed the attacker’s arm, but failed to gain control. The attacker then attempted to wrest free of Norris and dropped the meat cleaver. Raymond grabbed the cleaver.
Laurent hit him in the right leg and the man fell to the ground. Norris punched him in the face and knocked him out. Searching the man, he found a suicide pill in the man’s mouth that he had failed to bite down on. Otherwise, the man had no papers or identification of any kind.
Raymond attempted to hide the cleaver, but could not find a place to conceal it, so he put it in his briefcase. A moment later, the German sentries returned from their patrols back to the marketplace. Laurent blended into the crowd, pulling Vincent away from the body.
Raymond was a little more obvious and caught the attention of one of the sentries. The soldier accosted Raymond and asked what had happened. Raymond told him that the man had had some kind of fit, whereby he fell to the ground and thrashed around violently, injuring himself. The soldier polled the other people nearby. There were contradictory accounts, but some of the crowd corroborated history and in the end, the sentry believed Raymond story.
After the sentry released him, Raymond approached an aristocratic woman who had seen the whole incident and invited him for coffee at a nearby café. He questioned her about events in the area, while Laurent and Norris quietly made their way back to the apartment.