"Psst."

I turned and peered into the dark alley to see who was there.

"Psst, Monsieur. Over here."

I could barely make out the figure standing in the shadows by the recycling bin (Cans and glass only).

He was wearing a trench coat and a beret and looked amazingly like Peter Lorre in one of those 40's spy movies. When he spoke, he even sounded like Pete Lorre.

I stepped into the alley, alert for any danger. I was scared but I was desperate. Unsure of whom I could trust in the city, I needed to make contact with the resistance movement.

"Bon Soir. I am Peter Lorre. I haven't done this in a long time, so I may be rusty. Would you give me the password, please?"

"Lady Astor's fan has fleas." flew off my tongue because I had repeated it daily during training before parachuting into Brighton and then making my way into enemy held Denver, headquarters of the reviled and feared Health Cops. That's how I found myself in this alley somewhere near Little Raven Street in down town Denver.

"The soap dish is in Denmark." came his countersign. I relaxed. He was one of us. I noticed the bulge under his coat. He was carrying. I recognized the unmistakable shape of a cigarette pack in his breast pocket. A smoker. One of the many who had been forced underground by the Health Cops and were now meeting surreptiously, in underground clandestine meeting places where it was safe to smoke.

Peter led me down the alley to a small doorway. After an exchange of more passwords, we entered a room that was almost dark, with only a bare light bulb dangling from the high ceiling. At first I thought the room was filled with the fog that wafted up from the Platte River but then I realized it was smoke. Cigarette smoke. Glorious, thick, acrid cigarette smoke. I sucked it in greedily. Peter smiled at me and offered me a non-filtered Pall Mall. I lit up and felt my knees grow weak as the jolt of nicotine shot through me.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could make out the other members of the resistance. They looked quite ordinary. A portly gentleman in a sport jacket. A matronly woman in a very suburban skirt and sweater set. Three or four Goth kids off by themselves. Finally, I saw her through the haze of smoke. Magda, fiery leader of the local resistance and the person I had been sent to contact. Almost six feet tall, with long black hair and piercing, intelligent grey eyes, she stood with an unfiltered Camel cigarette dangling from the corner of her crimsoned, lipsticked mouth. Grey ashes flecked her resistance issue black turtleneck. This was more than a cause. This was love. She crushed out her cigarette on the wood floor and addressed the crowd. "Fellow resistance fighters. We will not give up. Right now a band of us is on its way to hijack a truck loaded with domestic beer. When they return, we will barbeque the steaks we stole last week, drink the beer and what else? SMOKE!"

Just as she finished, we could hear the thump- thump- thump of the jack-booted Health Cops in the alley. They had cleverly snuck up on us by not using that annoying 'wheep- wheep' sound that you hear from every foreign film cop car. Their hybrid cars moved silently with only the sickening sounds of Kenny G music coming over their speaker systems.

Magda and I clung to each other, our nicotine tainted breaths heavy with lust. " I love you, Rick. I'll never leave you." She muttered, her face buried in my smoke stained jacket.

I held her at arms length. "Magda, You're getting on that bus to Kansas with Peter. These hacking coughs of ours don't amount to a hill of beans in this fight for the rights of smokers. You will alert others to the peril of the Health Cops and I have work to do here. Whatever happens, we'll always have Globeville." With tears in her eyes, she turned and left.

As they walked across the rain soaked tarmac to the bus, I yelled out, "Peter. I loved you in "The Maltese Falcon."

Without turning back, he shouted, "Thanks." and threw his cigarette butt into a puddle of water. He laughed that wonderful, cigarette roughened laugh of his and then they were gone into the fog.

As I headed into the dark underbelly of the Denver night, I could picture the other resistance members, arms linked, fanning out into the city, humming the "Marlboro" theme. I knew eventually we would win if we could hold out until those other smoking strongholds came to our aid. China. Vietnam. The Basques in Spain. Victory would be ours. Damn the Health Cops. I lit up for victory. Viva La Tobac!!!!

Jim Syring is a former smoker who lives in Denver.