A/N: I lost a whole chapter and a half of this story thanks to the evil computer gods, thank you to the lovely Sadie Kane for keeping me sane while I wanted to pitch myself directly into the infernos of Hades. That is all, I'm working on rewriting, the update schedule won't be affected :)
Also, this is long. Oops.
April 1942
Alice would come to feel a little guilty about tearing Otto to shreds as she had that night, but only a little bit: it turned out that had been exactly what they needed to come together as a team.
Overnight, it all fell into place. They had a system: performances, social gatherings, private visits, drops and meetings in the shadows. They trusted each other's judgement and relied on their mutual resources. They still kept necessary secrets from each other, but Alice didn't feel that they were hiding anything from each other. She even told Otto that she was still sending letters back home to 'friends', which he didn't approve of but he didn't stop her.
Alice rented an apartment in Berlin, and split her time between there and Vienna. Spirits in Berlin were still high; despite setbacks on the Eastern Front, more and more countries were falling to the Reich and it seemed Hitler's dreams of a united Europe weren't far away. Alice found herself, bizarrely, coming to feel fondness for places and people in Berlin (her next door neighbor was a sweet grandmother) while utterly despising it at the same time.
She'd become part of an international network of couriers – people were always flitting around a star, it wasn't unusual for her to meet many people. Otto realized quickly that she was good with people and patterns, and together they wove a resistance network. They set up drop sites, information exchanges, and even a bit of sabotage on the side. Alice got personal invites to government buildings and did everything she could while there: she spoke to everyone who seemed even slightly inclined to discuss their work, snooped in every unattended desk, and even broke phone wires and machinery from time to time, just because.
They set up a monthly performance in Switzerland, which gave them a regular way to contact a handler in the SSR. After each performance Alice and Otto simply waited in her dressing room and the handler (usually the same young agent, but occasionally someon else) would appear. They fed back every little thing they learned about HYDRA: Schmidt's latest reported location, the resources and machine parts they'd purchase, the evidence of their bases across the Reich. Alice also reported on the mood in Berlin and gave reports on the characters of each Nazi leader she'd met, commenting on various weaknesses she'd observed.
At the end of May, the German papers exploded with the news that the SS Leader Heydrich had been attacked in Prague: assassins from the Czech resistance (likely with the aid of foreign allies) had stopped his car on his commute to work, and thrown an anti-tank grenade into the vehicle. Heydrich wasn't dead but badly injured by shrapnel.
When Alice read the headline as she took tea in her Berlin apartment, her stomach swooped. A moment later, grim satisfaction settled in her gut. This was important for the Czech resistance. Though, she realized a second later, this was the first major blow against the Nazi leadership. She didn't know what they would do in response.
SSR Mission Report by Agent Carter: Project Homer (May 29th, 1942). Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist
CLASSIFIED
As expected, Agent Homer and Agent Badger have solidified their network in multiple countries. Both agents report that they are each satisfied with the other's performance, and encouraged further collaboration. Indeed, the intelligence the pair are collecting is startling. The Reserve is quickly becoming reliant on their information to track HYDRA's movements.
No signs of compromisation.
Recommendation: Give the agents permission to expend further resources, and request that they expand their reach.
Alice should have known that with her rising fame, people would take a closer look at her. It happened just days after news of the attack in Prague.
She and Otto were at a launch meeting for her latest record with the Propaganda Department, sitting in a room hazy with cigarette smoke alongside half a dozen producers and officers in suits, and the senior secretary, a tall woman with clear blue eyes and blonde hair a shade darker than Alice's. Alice sensed that the woman didn't like her all that much. Goebbels himself wasn't there, as there was a Nazi leadership meeting on the same morning. A radio in the corner pealed out a piano piece.
They were just discussing planned tour dates and press appearances when one of Goebbels's officers – the lead producer – lowered his voice to say:
"Fräulein Moser, I must bring something up with you. Though we were aware of your time as a child in America" – that was a well known fact and not particularly shocking, since many artists had lived abroad – "we were most shocked to learn that after your beloved father's death your late mother, rest her soul, married a…" his voice lowered further and he used a disgusting word that made Alice's heartrate skyrocket with rage. And fear.
The room fell silent. The radio continued to play its cheery piano piece.
Alice sensed Otto go still beside her. She could feel him thinking, scrambling for something to say, but everyone in the room was looking at her. These suited men with their cigarettes and slicked hair and mustaches were watching her with judgement writ across their expressions. And she realized: they already knew. That's what this meeting was about, at its essence. They had done their research into their latest propaganda asset, found something horrifically unsavory, and called a meeting to confront her with it. At the far desk, the secretary narrowed her eyes and her lip curled.
Alice's heart pounded. Otto's fingers clenched on his knee.
The officer began speaking again, saying how they'd found marriage records, really very shocking, and a birth certificate-
"I'd hoped that no one would ever find out about that," Alice said in a soft voice. They all fell silent again. She cast her eyes down and her fingers twisted into her dress. "I… I try not to think about when I lived in America. It's such a different place, so many lines have been blurred, I…" she pressed her shaking lips together for a moment. She didn't look up, but she knew they were all hanging onto her every word. "I knew that what was happening wasn't… natural." She reached up and brushed a tear away with the back of her hand. "I didn't understand at the time, I was so young, but when I was older I just felt… horrified at the choices my mother made."
She heard nothing but the song on the radio, and the sound of men breathing. Her cheeks burned.
"When my uncle came and took me back to Austria I just wanted to forget it all." A tear spilled down her cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't think…" she ducked her head. "I didn't think anyone would find out."
She hunched, like a child in trouble, and nearly jumped when she felt Otto's hand land on hers. He gripped her fingers and squeezed. More tears spilled down her cheeks and rolled off the tip of her nose to splash on her lap.
After a few silent moments, she looked up from under her lashes.
The men who weren't shooting significant glances at each other were watching her with naked, undisguised pity. Her stomach flipped and she had to press a hand to her abdomen to steady herself. Her skin prickled and burned, but the hollow of her chest felt as empty and cold as an Arctic waste.
The main producer rubbed a hand across his jaw, eyeing her. "I see," he murmured. He glanced at a few of the other men in the room, then looked back at her. "I understand now. Such a childhood…" He shook his head pityingly. "You can't be blamed for your parent's choices. And that child…" he pressed his lips together.
"Disgusting," chimed in the man to his left, before throwing back a sip of his whiskey.
Alice's ears were ringing. "Disgusting," she echoed in a small voice.
"Oh, Fräulein," said the producer. He stood, and came to sit on the couch beside Alice, on the other side from Otto, and patted her hand. "I am sorry for bringing all this up. Well, now we can be honest with each other." He looked up and met the eyes of every other man in the room. "We see no need for this information to get out. You needn't worry about this again, Fräulein Moser, we understand your desire to put it in the past."
The men around the room nodded seriously, and within moments conversation struck up again: tour dates, an article about the Siren to promote her all-Germanic wholesomeness, press pictures. The secretary was sent for more coffee. Alice appeared visibly shaken for a few moments more, until one of the producers told her a joke. She smiled, a look of relief in her eyes, and joined in the conversation.
When it was all over, Otto had the driver take them straight back to Alice's apartment. They didn't speak in the car. When they arrived he walked her up the stairs, hand at her back, and took the key from her trembling hand to let them both inside. He didn't try to stop her when she dashed for the bathroom.
Otto poured a glass of water in the kitchen and brought it to her in the bathroom. He found Alice clinging to the edges of the toilet bowl as she heaved up her breakfast, gagging and near blind from the tears streaming down her face. Her arms shook and the bathroom echoed with the terrible gasping sobs ripping from her throat. Otto could tell that she'd be screaming, if she wasn't worried about the neighbors hearing.
He swept her fine blonde hair off her face and gathered it out of the way at the back of her neck. He rubbed her back, and when her gasping breaths edged too close to dangerous he forced her to slow her breathing before she passed out. When she could breathe, he made her drink the water.
She slumped to the side of the toilet, knees drawn to her chest, and gripped her hair in her hands.
"I can put my own life and my own image on the line," she croaked, still shuddering. "But I didn't want to bring my family into this. I… my brother - they don't deserve-"
"I know," he murmured, and passed her the water glass again.
She didn't take it. Her hands dragged downward and he realized a moment too late that she was clawing at her lips, groaning between gritted teeth, as if trying to take back what she'd said. Otto pulled her wrists away gently, surprised at her strength, until she stopped fighting him. She'd cut herself; the blood spilled down her chin.
He rubbed his thumbs across the back of her hands. Her head tilted back, thudding against the tile wall, and her eyes squeezed shut with an agony he'd never seen before.
"You are not the things that you say," Otto murmured. He cautiously released her wrists. "You are the things that you do, Alice, and you are doing so much good. I know it hurts, I can't imagine..." he blew out a breath. He'd thought it was all lost, that moment in the meeting room. He'd seen the fear and rage flash in her eyes, followed by the utter hopelessness. And then she'd… she'd done that. She was stronger than he'd ever given her credit for.
He reached for the water glass and held it out. "I know it hurts, but you are helping, Alice. Don't lose sight of that."
For a few long moments she didn't move. She sat slumped against the wall, her hair straggled across her face, blood dripping from her chin, and her face wrenched with misery.
But then she drew in a breath, and after a moment her fingers closed over his on the glass.
May 30th, 1942
Dear Steve,
I've done something terrible. It's for a good reason, but I have to wonder at what point 'doing the wrong thing for the right reason' becomes a hollow excuse. I know this will make you worry, and I'm sorry for that, and I'm sorry I can't tell you what happened.
But I needed to tell you. Talking to you makes me feel real when nothing else does. I miss you. I'm so sorry I left, and I hope one day you'll understand.
Tell me something normal.
Love,
Alice.
May 30th, 1942
Dear Tom,
I love you. I know that's embarrassing to hear, but I don't say it enough. I love you. Dad loved you. Mom loved you. They loved each other, so much. And that's worth protecting.
You remember how you said they'd be proud of me? I really needed that. It's hard to imagine what people would have thought once they're gone. But if I can trust anyone on that, it's you.
I want to make you proud, Tom.
As for you, I'm proud of you every day and you don't need to do anything to earn it.
How did your exams go?
Love,
Alice.
Alice didn't get their replies for over a month, which gave her heart some time to heal, but the letters – which arrived in the same envelope – brought her to loud, sobbing tears as she read them in bed. The pages ended up so damp that it took her a few tries to burn them.
General Heydrich died of his injuries on the 4th of June, and the Nazis rained down hellfire on the people of Czechoslovakia. They razed the village of Lidice to the ground, murdering or arresting the over 500 citizens and taking away their children. Another village was torn to shreds because they found a resistance radio there.
Over ten thousand people ended up arrested. The German papers salivated over it all, worked up into a frenzy over the assassination and celebrating the fierce reprisals.
Alice read it all in horror. She might not have ordered the assassination, but she knew she'd been involved in some way. And these were the consequences. All those people dead. She'd always known that the Nazis were brutal in their retaliation, but this was potent proof. How does one fight against that?
Excerpt from article 'Seventy Years On: Remembering Lidice' by Henry Horák (10 June 2012)
... While it's only been a month since the dust settled after the tragedy in New York, it is worthwhile looking back to remember other acts of defiant resistance, and the consequences.
On this day seventy years ago, 173 men over the age of 15 were executed in the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, after the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. The nearly 200 women (four of them pregnant) and 88 children were sent to concentration camps. Only a handful survived. Those children deemed "racially acceptable" were taken from their parents and given to German families to raise under Nazi ideals.
The village itself was destroyed with fire and bombs. The animals were slaughtered. Graves defiled. When all living things were gone, the Germans brought down all the buildings, laid down topsoil and planted crops.
The people of Lidice had never harbored Heydrich's assassins. Had never had anything to do with the attack at all.
Nazi propaganda, bloodthirsty for revenge, praised and publicized the utter destruction of the village and its people. The assassins themselves were betrayed by a fellow Resistance member, had nearly their whole families killed, and died in a firefight against the Germans when they were found in a Prague cathedral.
The Allies had not foreseen this level of violent retribution for the assassination, and approached all later missions with much more caution.
After that, the summer passed in a blur of travel and music. Alice, Otto and their retinue expanded beyond Germany and Austria into occupied France. At first she performed at the same music halls, but then orders came through from Goebbel's department and she traveled out to the provinces, performing for the troops. It was strange to look out over her audience and see only dull green uniforms. They were enthusiastic crowds. She sang Berlin is still Berlin, and Erika, and other patriotic songs that she herself had written. The words tasted like ash on her tongue, but she made them sound like gold.
She wrote and performed a new song while touring the different army companies. It was called The Eagle's Flight, and it was more of a comedy song than anything else, but she'd slipped in a subtle hint of resistance. In the third line she compared the might of Germany to that of the Greek hero Odysseus. But she referred to him by his other name: Ulysses. The code word she and Steve had been using since they were children.
She hadn't done it for any particular purpose, more to feel like she was doing something. Not just giving in blindly. But on her second night performing it she looked out over her audience of cheering, wolf-whistling Wehrmacht soldiers and realized that Steve would want no part of this. She'd just put a sacred piece of her childhood in a Nazi song. She felt sick at herself, but the song was written now.
She performed it forty seven times on the tour.
Alice reconnected with Vera and her resistance network. She set up a spider's web of couriers, through which she and Otto coordinated airdrops of arms and supplies for the various Maquis groups in the countryside. She had regular dinners with German military commanders, which became a rich source of information. She had to be careful how much information she passed on, because if she gave away everything she knew then it would become clear where it had all had come from.
Alice had hoped to meet with Josephine Baker, an African-American performer in France who she had met on her last tour (and subsequently had discovered that Josephine worked as a resistance activist, housing members of the Free French). But things had gotten too dangerous for Baker, and she was now performing for Allied troops in North Africa.
The face of the resistance in France had changed. It was far more organized and militarized. The British SOE had agents everywhere. In response, the Gestapo were getting cleverer.
Alice met with agents under the cover of darkness and in the bold light of day. She slipped money to a man who she knew was running an escape line to get fallen Allied airmen out of occupied France and into neutral Spain. She spoke with dozens of informants, from brothel owners to corporation chief executive officers. In Lyon she agreed to an interview with a dark haired, hawk-eyed journalist named Virginia Hall. For the first half of their meeting they discussed Alice's recent career successes and the prospects of her love life. For the second half of the meeting Alice told Hall what her informants had told her, so Hall could covertly pass the information on to London for her, and in return agreed to provide vehicles and resources for a planned upcoming jailbreak of resistance members.
The Gestapo tapped phone lines and stole mail, keenly hunting down suspected spies. For whatever reason, they never seemed to suspect the women.
Even in France, rumors of the ghettos and camps in the East filtered back. People tended to dismiss most rumors as exaggeration, but Alice felt nothing but an acute sense of horror. So many people are missing, she thought. Where have they all gone?
Alice didn't write to Steve about the war. It was all too sensitive, too secret, and she sensed a similar desire in him to have some kind of connection untainted by war. Steve sent her his art, and she wrote him some lyrics from her latest songs (the least-Nazi ones) in English. Writing English music was a strange kind of relief. Steve told her about Brooklyn, and she told him about the croissant she'd had for breakfast and the way the sun had looked setting over the Seine. They read the same books and exchanged their thoughts.
Each time a letter arrived, Alice surprised herself with her desperate excitement.
Excerpts from 'Free French' by Louise Caron (1970)
... surprising to many at the time, a number of foreign-born women put their lives on the line to support the resistance in France. Among them were Josephine Baker, an African American performer who married a French Jewish indsutrialist. Baker became an 'honorable correspondent' for the French military intelligence, and later housed Free French fugitives.
Another notable foreign-born female resistant was the legendary New Zealand-born Nancy Wake, who lived with her husband in Paris at the beginning of the occupation. She helped to get Allied servicemen and Jewish refugees out of the country and to safety (the Pat O'Leary line), but eventually had to flee herself after the Germans began hunting her (they called her the 'White Mouse'). She trained with the SOE in Britain before parachuting back into France in 1943 to work directly with the Resistance. She only found out at the end of the war that her husband had been killed by the Gestapo.
Virginia Hall was an SOE Agent who arrived in occupied France in 1941 under the guise of an American journalist. She first worked to organize resistance movements and supplied assistance and resources, but after being forced to flee returned in 1944 as a wireless operator.
Nancy Wake, Virginia Hall and other agents sent into occupied France were trained in Britain by the Romanian-born Vera Atkins, who also worked to break the German Enigma codes. She was responsible for 37 female agents who worked as couriers and wireless operators, and was trusted by the SOE leadership for her integrity, organization and exceptional memory. She lived by the motto 'dubito ergo sum': 'I doubt therefore I survive'.
...
Civilian resistance cropped up everywhere... there are also reports of a young man only known as 'Al' who seems to have been involved in some quite central resistance movements: the Pat O'Leary line, funneling resources and information past the Nazi occupiers, and in setting up networks of radio operators ("pianists") and informants. No further information exists about this man, and it's suspected that he was arrested under the Night and Fog Decree towards the end of the war. Alternatively, some historians suggest a host of different resistance figures as the elusive "Al" including the Belgian resistant Albert Guérisse and even novelist Albert Camus.
Alice, Otto and their retinue arrived back in Berlin on the first day of August. The sun-drenched streets were sweltering, and the dark recesses of the city gave off the sickly sweet smell of rotting garbage. People seemed optimistic about the Eastern Front again, as the German Army was charging straight for Stalingrad, and despite the Americans joining the war the Nazis still controlled nearly the whole of Europe.
Alice was frustrated at the course of the war, but privately pleased when it came to her and Otto's progress; it seemed all their careful work in wheedling close to HYDRA's contacts in other Nazi departments had paid off. The key HYDRA leadership, after months of exile, had been invited back to Berlin for just three days to account for themselves in front of Hitler and his generals himself.
At first it was just meant to be a series of meetings, and Alice began trying to work out how to get herself at least in the same building, but then they found out that Hitler's personal secretary Martin Bormann was going to throw a dinner at the Kroll Opera House in honor of the visiting science division. Hitler wasn't expected, as he would be getting a train back to the Eastern Front mere hours after the meeting with Schmidt.
If that's not a sign that they're infighting, Otto commented as he and Alice discussed the rumor, I don't know what is.
Otto said he'd see about securing invitations the next day, but he didn't have to wait that long. When the morning post arrived the next morning it included a letter addressed to Die Sirene, from the office of Adolf Hitler.
Excerpt from Nazi Party Chancellery Report, August 1942: HYDRA Progress [Translated]
Outcomes of attempting to naturalize their leadership are uncertain. They did not admit to any paramilitary activities beyond Führer authorization.
Schmidt says and does everything he is expected to, but we have no way to determine how genuine he is being.
Alice had performed at the Kroll Opera House before, but never like this. The flat ballroom space had converted into a dining room; cleared of seats and neatly arranged with elegant tables, and the red velvet box seats on the upper levels looked down on the chandelier-lit dining hall, completely empty.
An enormous swastika hung behind the stage. Alice knew that they sometimes held the Reichstag parliament meetings here when the ministers weren't off at various military postings (since the actual Reichstag building had mysteriously burned down in 1933).
Alice had backup singers now: six Propaganda Department chorus girls who wore toned-down versions of Alice's usual snow-white performance dress. They'd stood behind her and harmonized nicely during the cheery propaganda songs, but now Alice stood alone on stage. The orchestra were hidden below in the pit.
The letter from Hitler's office had requested a specific setlist which stated: during the main course, you will kindly perform the Queen of the Night's aria from Die Zauberflöte. Alice had never actually performed the opera since her uncle had grown increasingly annoyed with the time demands of opera as she grew older, and Alice had not wanted to be tied down to a performance after his death, but she knew the high, furious aria like the back of her hand: it had been the centerpiece of her graduation recital. Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen – in English, 'Hell's vengeance boils in my heart'.
The performance gave her ample opportunity to keep an eye on her crowd, especially since she could see them just as well as they saw her, thanks to the ambient dinner lighting. As far as she could tell, the guest list was slim: some generals and ministers she recognized, but mostly just their representatives. It seemed no one had wanted to waste a night on Schmidt and HYDRA.
She supposed they were considered a failed division, after all. They'd failed Hitler's expectations.
Alice filled her lungs for the high, stacattoed upper range of the aria and closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate. This was a villain's aria, she needed to call on her rage.
She briefly wondered if the Nazi intelligence would pay more attention to HYDRA if they knew everything that the SSR did. Because Alice felt certain they were up to more than sulking in that distant base of theirs.
Her breath pealed out of her in a piercing cry – she liked that note, it made her lungs burn – and then as the aria eased into the instrumental segment she opened her eyes to gaze down at her audience once more. Her attention flicked to the HYDRA table.
Schmidt sat straight-backed and grim-faced in his chair. He wore the usual black dress uniform with the silver buttons and red swastika on his sleeve, but she picked out strange details: his vest seemed padded somehow, as if he wore some kind of armor beneath it, and he had a silver pin in his breast pocket. She was too far away to make it out. She opened her mouth to launch back into the second half of the aria.
Schmidt's eyes were on her but his attention felt different to the others in the audience; he didn't appear to be hearing her sing, so much as he was weathering it. Like a storm that must be tided over. He didn't look pleased, but she suspected it was more to do with the company and circumstances he found himself in, rather than the performance before him. He didn't take a bite of the food before him. He had such a black, fixed stare. It made her want to shiver.
Doctor Zola slumped in the seat to Schmidt's left. The lights bounced off his glasses, making it seem like he had two giant white circles for eyes. Zola wasn't looking at her at all, seemingly too occupied by the steak dinner. As the aria moved to the Queen of the Night's final vengeful cry: "Hört, hört, hört" [hear, hear, hear], she crested a particularly high note and Zola glanced up for a moment.
Schmidt's lieutenants made up the rest of the table, wearing a strange dark uniform that Alice had never seen before. These were grim-faced men also, and she noticed that they always looked to Schmidt for their cues. They hadn't moved a muscle when the dinner host had invited everyone to eat, only picking up their cutlery when Schmidt nodded. She'd heard that HYDRA had arrived in Berlin with a whole contingent of soldiers, but they mustn't have been invited to the dinner.
Otto sat at a table up the back, ignoring her performance since he seemed to be deep in conversation with the representative for the Minister of Transport.
She could see the clear divide between the regular Nazi divisions and HYDRA in the room before her. The other officers and ministers representatives sat easy in their shiny black dress uniforms, drinking and smiling genially up at the Siren singing before them. Their bodies angled away from the stiff HYDRA men, as if unconsciously rejecting them. It reminded Alice, bizarrely, of an unruly teenager who didn't quite fit in with the rest of the family.
But she knew, as perhaps the Nazis didn't, that this unruly teenager was up to more than mischief.
She allowed herself to express her frown – she was singing of revenge, after all – and threw her arms wide to belt out the final lines of the aria.
An hour later Alice found herself strolling down a dim, concreted corridor in the underbelly of the opera house, arm in arm with Doctor Zola. His feet shuffled on the floor beside her and his tuxedo chafed at her bare arm.
Alice had gone the usual rounds of the dinner party, flitting from table to table – she'd barely had anything to eat, her stomach was grumbling – and she'd heard quite a few interesting things. The HYDRA lieutenants were gruff and unwilling to speak to anyone outside their circle, including the luminescent singer who'd just given up her main course to sing them an operetta. Alice would have felt offended if she hadn't already wanted to shove their steak knives through their trachias.
The non-HYDRA attendees, on the other hand, were very happy to gossip about HYDRA. All she'd had to figure out was who was actually in the know and who was just making stuff up. It turned out even ministers' representatives knew a surprising amount.
Alice had only come across Schmidt briefly, at the photo opportunity as everyone stood around drinking champagne. The photographer had hustled them together and Alice had barely noticed who stood tall and looming to her left before the photographer's flash bulb nearly blinded her. When she turned, he was gone again. He was faster than he looked.
After unsuccessfully flirting with one of the HYDRA generals for about fifteen minutes, she'd spotted Doctor Zola lurking by a side door to the theater, trying to hide in the shadow under the alcove like some kind of light-shy rodent. Schmidt was nowhere to be seen, and the assembled guests had closed off into their own groups. There was no place for a lone doctor amongst all that. Alice sensed that the HYDRA lieutenants didn't pay him much mind.
Alice had slipped into the darkness beside Zola and flashed him a commiserating smile. "Don't like crowds either?"
He'd adjusted his bow tie and avoided her gaze. "I am… not a people person. Unlike you, Fräulein."
"You'd be surprised," she'd said with a hint of a grimace, then nudged the side door open with her toe. "Come, Doktor, I could do with some quiet."
And he'd just… come with her.
He'd been mostly quiet at first, listening as she showed him around the underbelly of the opera house. She'd performed here dozens of times before, so she knew the building's secrets. The main theater dazzled and rebounded with the noise of dozens of different conversations, but these were the service corridors: sound got absorbed in the close, insulated walls, and if you didn't understand the marking system it would be easy to get lost in the muted silence.
Alice had just shown him the rigging storage, and had slipped her arm through his. She was slightly taller than him, and he went stiff and uncomfortable at the contact, but Alice ignored it.
"I was surprised to get the invitation to this event," she said, after describing her last performance. "I'm still an up and coming artist, really, and I'd heard that Herr Schmidt's division resided outside of Berlin." She smiled across at him. "I met you all once before you know, in Bavaria. I was just a girl then."
"I remember," he said with a small, uncomfortable smile. He kept on walking down the narrow corridor. His trousers swished as he walked, and Alice suspected they were a size too large for him. He cleared his throat. "We almost didn't come back."
"Oh?"
"These are dangerous times. Schmi- we thought it might be safer to stay where we were. But loyalty won out, in the end." The underbelly of the opera house wasn't well ventilated. Zola's forehead beaded with sweat.
Alice smiled. So Schmidt suspects the main Nazi leadership of plotting against him, she surmised. And I don't buy the 'loyalty' bit for a moment. He came to do some snooping of his own. Zola seemed to think nothing of what he'd said. The best intel is the intel they don't even know they're giving.
"Herr Schmidt seems to inspire loyalty himself," she said politely. She knew about the cult-like obsession within his troops, how they overloaded new recruits with nonstop propaganda, sleep deprivation, and occasionally hallucinogenics. She knew they had thousands of soldiers at their disposal. It didn't hurt to find out more.
"You mean our soldiers," Zola surmised.
She wrinkled her nose as she ducked a little to dodge an overhanging pipe. "They're not very friendly."
He laughed, and she was surprised at how normal it sounded. "They are not intended to be friendly, Fräulein." There was an edge to his voice: a low darkness. Alice instantly reevaluated him. This is no hapless scientist caught up in a situation too big for him. He likes the power and prestige.
"No, I suppose not. But you all seem different from the last time we met."
"Schmidt has proven himself a worthy leader," Zola explained, sounding almost tired. "He achieves incredible results. Superhuman. A leader with the power of the gods."
Alice's eyebrows raised. She'd heard bits and pieces of Erskine's work with Schmidt, but… "My. Worthy of inspiration indeed." She laughed a little, truing to gauge how much further she could push. She leaned in. "Though I don't think my priest would approve."
His smile in reply was almost sarcastic. "I don't mean that God." Alice frowned and he shook his head. "It's… nothing, really." She felt his giving mood slip away, and he looked around. They'd come to a junction. "Where are we?"
Alice eyed the white painted markers on the walls. "We're near the generator room. Oh, there's a beautiful old disused dressing room near here I used to hide in sometimes." Perhaps with a few more moments of privacy he might tell her what he meant by gods. She was sure it had something to do with HYDRA's incursion into Norway. "It's over… here."
Alice turned the creaky metal doorknob to the black-painted door that had so often been her respite as a lonely teenager. Zola hovered in the corridor behind her. The door swung open to darkness and the familiar smell of mothballs and dust. Her nose wrinkled at another smell – some kind of chemical.
And then she noticed the dressing room wasn't entirely dark. A single electric flashlight stood on its end on a table inside, dimly illuminating the far side of the room. There was movement, and Alice's eyes caught on the silhouette of a man hunched over the table. She frowned, peering –
A glimpse of scarlet, a flash of furious white eyes, and a violent howl: "Get out!"
Alice lurched back like she'd been struck, practically knocking Zola over as she backpedaled out of the dressing room. She slammed the door shut behind her and gasped for breath, terrified. What–
"Come, Fräulein," Zola muttered. He didn't seem as scared as her. He took Alice's arm and led her away with a haunted look on his face. Alice let him lead her. Her heart pounded in her chest and she couldn't get that image out of her mind's eye: surely she'd seen a ghoul of some kind. But she recognized the voice.
She was just starting to regain control over her gasping breath when she heard pounding footsteps echoing from behind them. She and Zola whirled to see Johann Schmidt thundering toward them, his dark eyes flashing from his pale face. Alice stared. He looked normal, if angry. So what had she seen in that dark room?
"Doktor Zola," Schmidt snarled, narrow eyed, and Alice felt almost surprised that he wasn't yelling. "Why are you down here?"
Zola swallowed and physically leaned away from his leader. "We were just walking, we didn't think-"
"That much is evident," Schmidt spat as he turned on Alice. She felt suddenly very exposed, in her high heels and her white performance dress which left her arms and upper chest bare.
"And what gives you any interest in a man such as this?" he demanded of Alice, gesturing to Zola. He loomed, seeming to suck up all the darkness of the narrow corridor.
Alice didn't bother trying to hide her fear. But she did muster enough courage to meet his eye. "I'm fascinated by brilliant minds, Herr Schmidt. Do you deny your servant his brilliance?"
Schmidt cast an eye over Zola. "No," he said disdainfully. "I suppose not." He turned back to her. "So you consider yourself an Intelligenz, do you Siren?"
Alice smiled shakily. "Oh I could never claim such a title, I'll leave that to you scientists. I do appreciate spending time in the company of minds sharper than my own, though." Her mouth quirked. "It's refreshing, after spending all day with chorus girls." She despised herself for the dig, but it worked. She almost rejoiced in the glaze that went over Schmidt's eyes as he dismissed her. He reached up to the back of his neck, wincing as if his clothes were uncomfortable.
Don't relax yet, she told herself. Her heart still thundered at his crackling, dark energy of moments ago. Don't play too dumb, don't play too smart.
"Say," she began, "you were there for my performance earlier. Do you enjoy music?"
He turned cold eyes on her. Zola remained silent at her side. "I was there. I appreciate your choice in music. Mozart goes too often unappreciated in this era."
"A fan of Mozart! You have excellent taste."
The compliment rolled off Schmidt like oil off water. His eyes were still on her, sharp and knowing and possessive in a way that she really wasn't used to from men. He didn't want her, but he felt like he owned her all the same.
Alice saw now that he couldn't be swayed by attraction or compliments, like she'd been able to lead Zola. Schmidt was a singularly driven man with passion for one thing only: power. There wasn't much she could do to manipulate him besides stroke his ego, oh so carefully, and show him how scared he made her. That, at least, wouldn't be difficult.
"You have never really performed Die Zauberflöte before, have you?" he said rather than asked, narrow-eyed. Schmidt took a step toward her and Alice shuffled back a little, angling behind Zola. Let him think of me as a grasping socialite, angling for powerful friends. His eyes bored into hers. Let him think of me as anything other than what I truly am.
"No," she replied evenly. "Though I was the lead in Tosca for a time when I was younger. One day I hope to take on the role of Brünnhilde-"
He took another step forward, and Alice swallowed. She didn't know why she'd told him that, she supposed she'd wanted to tell him as much truth as possible to ease his suspicions-
"The Valkyrie." His eyes sparked. "Wagner's heroine. She meets… an unpleasant ending."
If it were anyone else, Alice would assume they thought she didn't know the opera and were being condescending. But she knew Schmidt hadn't underestimated her. He knew that she knew the story: that Brünnhilde perished after a multitude of tragedies by riding into the funeral pyre of her fallen lover with a cursed ring, bequeathing the cleansed gold to the women of the water.
He knew, because he had just seen, that Alice could bring men to tears with her renditions of tragedy. Schmidt knew all this, and it chilled her to her bone.
He leaned in. "Tosca, the Queen of the Night, and next Brünnhilde," he mused. He cocked his head. "What is it about women who meet a violent end that calls to you, Siren?"
Thankfully he didn't seem to require another airy, witty comment. The disturbed look on her face seemed to be enough because he smiled, bowed his head once, and walked back the way he came.
It occurred to Alice that all that might have been punishment for surprising him.
As she stood dumbstruck in the silent corridor, Zola shifted at her side.
"Shall we walk back to the party?" he suggested meekly.
Alice nodded, mute.
They walked back most of the way in total silence. Zola seemed to understand.
But then, as the lights grew brighter and the sound of the party started to echo down the maintenance corridors, Alice remembered she had a job to do.
"Is he always like that?"
"More or less," Zola sighed. "More so since…" he cut himself off.
Gently, Alice pushed. "He seemed different last time. What changed?" Erskine never did find out the extent of what their experimentation had done to Schmidt.
"He did," Zola said darkly. "But he is… a great man."
"Oh I can see that," she agreed, careful not to let it sound sarcastic. "You seem quite dedicated to him."
Zola's face did something complicated, his eyes going dark behind his glasses. "He has great visions. He can help me achieve my own."
"Your visions? Scientific breakthroughs, no doubt?"
"You have… no idea," he said in that dark, greedy tone. But then the golden lights of the party fell on his face and the darkness subsided. He leaned over to kiss her hand. "Until next time, Fräulein. I hope to hear you sing again."
"You're welcome to visit any time, Doktor Zola." She made her parting smile just flirty enough to make the man swallow, then she swept back into the warm embrace of the party.
She and Otto met with their handler in Switzerland the next week after the regular monthly performance, and passed on their notes from the HYDRA dinner.
Alice's report was short, but direct.
Schmidt is too smart to be manipulated. He's changed since the experiment with Erskine: he's more paranoid, power hungry, ambitious. He's detaching himself from the Nazi leadership and forming his own agenda, with an army loyal to only him. The Nazis believe they can keep him under control and have even dismissed him as a threat, but he has his own independent base, resources, and army. He's able to do whatever he likes.
The rising tension between HYDRA and the main Nazi leadership bears potential for manipulation. Perhaps turning them further against one another would mitigate further losses to the Allies.
I also believe Schmidt is suffering medical setbacks from whatever procedure he underwent. He had to leave the function and seemed upset when intruded upon. I suspect a skin condition or hair loss of some kind. He may be using cosmetic measures to disguise it.
Zola's intelligence equals Schmidt's, but he is insecure. A coward. He may be manipulated through the promise of power and resources, or threat to his own life. But he should never be trusted.
HYDRA seems to have bases in most European countries, against Nazi wishes. There was word of a U-boat base in the Mediterranean. I suspect from the various comments about cuisine that it is located on the Greek coast. A HYDRA lieutenant also mentioned a 'power source' to his comrade outside the men's bathroom.
September 1942
For Alice's twenty fourth birthday, she threw herself a massive party in Berlin. It ended up bigger than any her uncle had ever planned, thanks to the reach of her newfound fame, Otto's maneuvering, and the desperation of the German elite for something to celebrate.
Alice's backup singers led a massive chorus of Happy Birthday, and after much prompting she took the stage herself to sing the old song Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, about a lonely knight visited by a fairy bride in the evenings. She walked offstage beaming at the applause, and went to cut her cake.
The real reason she'd thrown the party, of course, was so that she and Otto could fish for every piece of information they could about the Russian Front. The German Army was storming towards Stalingrad, and things looked grim. The SSR – and the Allies – knew that Russia would be crucial in turning the tide of the war, so Alice and Otto had been tasked with getting everything they could to help the Russians and earn their trust.
Alice danced and laughed with people she'd known for years, many who'd attended her uncle's funeral, who'd celebrated her successes and given her invitations and recommendations to the highest strata of society. They were mostly politically and militarily connected, but she'd made sure to form other connections so as not to be suspicious: restauranteurs, cinema and museum owners, athletes (though everything ended up tangled in the war at some point or other).
To Alice, these were her contacts. But she knew they thought they were her friends.
It was strangely painful to wield friendship as a weapon. On her birthday, especially, it struck her. But her heart didn't waver. These friends had chosen to stand on the backs of those weaker than them, so Alice wouldn't hesitate to tear them down.
As she reflected on this, sipping a drink as she made her way over to the representatives from the Propaganda Department, she bumped into a tall woman with a blonde updo and a pinched look of displeasure on her face, wearing a plain brown dress. She looked to be maybe four or five years older than Alice.
"Oh, hello!" Alice said with a smile. I know her. How do I know her? At the woman's slightly wary look, Alice placed the memory: this was the Propaganda Department senior secretary, who'd been at that meeting where they'd confronted Alice with her 'dark past'. "I'm sorry, I've so rudely forgotten your name…?" Alice had been so rattled that she hadn't thought to remember.
"Inge," the woman said. She didn't offer her hand. "Inge Richter." From the look in her eyes, Alice guessed that Inge hadn't forgotten what she'd learned about Alice. Alice flicked a glance over her and picked out the SS-Gelfolge (the women's wing of the SS) pin on her breast pocket, and the plain wedding band hanging on a chain around her neck. War widow, then.
Alice smiled. "What did you think of my performance?" she nodded to the stage.
"I'm not much of a one for music," Inge replied. She glanced over Alice's shoulder. "I'm fetching drinks for Herr Miller and the others, excuse me…"
"Of course." Alice stepped aside and the secretary walked past.
Hm, Alice thought as she stepped into the circle of suited men who welcomed her with a cheery chorus of birthday wishes. It seems the charm doesn't work on everyone.
The next day Alice visited her private post box to find a letter from the Thomas Cook Office. She tore it open to find a joint letter from Steve, Bucky, and her brother. They'd written it together, their separate handwriting scrawling down the paper, and had signed the bottom together. They must have sent it weeks ago to make sure it arrived on time for her birthday.
Alice cried when she burned the letter. Some days she felt she was falling further into a world that was changing her. It comforted her to know that her heart was safe back in Brooklyn.
Alice spent the rest of the month in careful preparations with Otto for a big performance she had planned in Warsaw. She hadn't been to Poland in a while as the situation there had grown tense, what with it now being the homeland of the largest resistance force in occupied Europe. They'd assassinated General Heydrich and were running a targeted campaign of military resistance against the Germans.
Meanwhile, the Nazis had begun deporting Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto.
And yet the Siren would go. A beacon of hope for the weary soldiers and administrators manning the occupied city. Posters of Die Sirene (or Syrena as she was known in Polish) hung from buildings still ridden with bulletholes from the siege of the city three years earlier. Kiosk owners hawked tickets to the performance with enthusiasm in their eyes – not many artists came to Poland any more. Her records played on the radio, a kind of siren call: come.
When the night arrived, Alice sat patiently in her dressing room as Heidi patted her cheeks with powder. Another girl stood behind her with a flatiron, curling her hair into wisps. The dressing room bustled with backup singers and theater workers, a veritable tide of people. Alice heard the twangs and squeaks of the orchestra setting up in the pit, and beyond that, the distant hum of the audience.
Otto perched on an empty dressing table. "… and we've got a full house of over a thousand, since they squeezed in more seats in the aisles. You'll need to use your big voices tonight, ladies," he said to the backup singers, who practically buzzed in their seats from excitement.
Normally a performer of Alice's caliber would have performed in the Warsaw Grand Theatre, but it had been blasted to smithereens by the Nazis when they invaded. They'd booked the Roma Theatre instead, a vast hall with vivid red trimmings and the latest in electrical lighting. Alice had stood on the stage before the empty theater this morning, as she liked to do before performances, and breathed in the silence. She'd worked hard to make this night happen.
"Isn't it wonderful, Alice?" exclaimed Freya, the youngest singer at just nineteen, as she swept past with an armful of ribbons. Freya was one of their regular hires – not resistance, just there to sing. Only one of the girls doubled as a spy and courier. Alice liked them all: they all had wonderful voices, and despite some homesickness when they traveled, were tough as nails.
Freya met Alice's eyes in the mirror. "All of those people who've come just to hear you. You've practically stopped Warsaw in its tracks!"
"Not just me," Alice said with a smile as Heidi patted her cheekbones with blush. "You too, all of you. I couldn't do it without you."
That set all the girls off either thanking her or profusely denying her statement, and Otto looked on with a quirked brow.
"It must be nice for these men to hear a voice from home after so long at war," he added in his low voice. Alice met his eye. Always playing the part.
Jana, a vibrant redhead who'd also been a regular hire, leaned over. "It's true, Alice. Even Captain Sauer has come out to hear you sing!"
Alice's eyes went round. "Truly?" Captain Sauer was known to be almost a recluse.
The stage manager, who'd come in to hand the lighting arrangement folder to Otto, looked over. "Hush, Jana. You know that's meant to be a secret."
Jana ducked her head.
"Oh, of course," Alice said. "What an honor! Let's keep it to ourselves. Perhaps he'll call on me afterwards." She looked up at her eight gathered chorus girls and winked. "I'll have to practice my surprised face."
They all burst out in laughter, and after a quick smile Alice pursed her lips so Heidi could paint them red.
The stage manager gave the sign, the curtains rose, and Alice and the girls launched into their first song: Berlin is Still Berlin. Their setlist began with an uproar of patriotism, but softened towards the middle – some of Alice's original pieces, some operettas and art songs. These were more complex to sing. She felt the girls taking her every lead, syncing their breaths and voices to hers. It was a heady feeling.
As she slowly brought her hands to her chest in the crescendo of the chorus of Wertvolle Wörter [Precious Words], the song she'd written as a tribute to her lost home, Alice felt her audience holding their breath. Their eyes were on her, utterly entranced. Even that captain, enticed out from wherever he'd been hiding, was up in one of the VIP boxes unable to stop listening to her.
Listen, she said with her voice. Listen to me, and none other. You are mine, and I will not release you until the last note fades.
The backup singers' voices softened and Alice's crested, pealing out of her in a high, full note that filled the massive space of the theater. She felt all the threads of her performance stretching in the balance, woven throughout the room, connecting each person in her audience.
The spell shattered at the crack of a gunshot.
With the acoustics of the theater the sound was deafening, cutting Alice off mid-note and making her flinch.
For half a moment the theater was silent save for the resounding echo of the shot.
Then Alice opened her mouth and screamed.
As if broken from a spell the whole crowd started screaming too. The audience rippled as people dove for cover or shot to their feet to run for the exits. What had once been a cresting, lilting song became deafening pandemonium.
Black-clad attendants rushed the stage, and Alice's view of the audience was swallowed up by pressing limbs as she was grabbed and rushed off stage. As attendants and screaming backup singers dashed by her, her gaze darted around.
A man's body lay draped over the lip of one of the upper theater boxes, one pale hand dangling into empty space. Blood dripped over the ornate side. The man wore a black dress uniform, and Alice caught the glint of medals on the man's chest.
A second shot cracked through the theater, and Alice's heart went cold.
That's the nameless, faceless assassin. Taking his life to spare mine, and everyone else who brought this about.
Darkness fell over her face as she was dragged backstage, but not before her eyes lingered on the scarlet blood dripping from the theater alcove.
A faint hint of guilt thrummed in her gut, but a moment later it faded.
Captain Sauer was one of the most reticent of all the Nazi leaders. An engineer and a doctor, the SSR had been getting intelligence for months that he'd been working with HYDRA since before the beginning of the war, running biological experiments on living people. He'd also spent time recently with a man named Doctor Mengele. Sauer had a brilliant mind, but death followed him wherever he walked.
A month ago, they'd gotten word that Sauer intended to take his research from his work in the Warsaw ghetto and join HYDRA at their main base. The SSR barely knew what he'd been up to, but the danger he posed was clear.
Alice trembled as she was rushed downstairs, through warren-like corridors to the emergency bunker set up in the underbelly of the theater.
He murdered hundreds, she thought, seeing the man's limp body in her mind's eye. He'd have murdered thousands more.
She wished she could wipe them all away so easily.
The emergency bunker was already packed with theater staff and members of the audience. Alice put on her best performance of the night: she burst into a hysterical fit, weeping and gasping so fast that she worked herself into a bout of hyperventilation. Help me, she cried, grasping for the doctor, and he began giving orders: lay her down, fetch her a glass of wine, settle down Fräulein, you weren't hit. It wasn't you.
Minutes later the Warsaw SS chief (who'd been in the audience) burst in with a veritable army of officers. Alice mentally prepared herself even as she hyperventilated, sure that they'd come to question her. She'd prepared for this.
But the Gestapo men's eyes slid right past her as they moved to question the event organizers and guards, demanding to know who was in charge and how one of the Polish resistance could have gotten into the theater.
Alice blinked. It was as if she were just a film they'd come to see; not a person, but the entertainment. Otto might have to answer some sticky questions, and who knew, maybe they'd come back for Alice later, but for now she was nothing.
Alice's backup singers gathered around her, weeping and hyperventilating as if they were still taking her lead.
With her nerves alight and a bitter vindication burning hot in her throat, Alice sucked in a shuddering breath and then fainted dead away.
Excerpt from article 'The Astonishing Assassination of a Nazi Recluse', by Ales Svoboda (12 February 1950) [Translated from Czech]
Evidence suggests that the assassination was coordinated by Allied forces (specifically, the British Special Operations Executive and the American Strategic Scientific Reserve), in conjunction with the Polish resistance. It's unknown how either side determined Captain Sauer's whereabouts, as he had been in hiding both from the Nazi leadership and the general public. But the intelligence they were able to retrieve told them not just that the Captain would be attending the event, but the exact box he intended to sit in. From there, the Polish resistance were given access to the theater by unknown agents to carry out the assassination.
... the infamous Siren, whose performance Sauer had come out of hiding to attend, was reportedly deeply distressed by the killing, and was hospitalized for a day following the incident. She cut her Czechoslovakian tour short and returned to Berlin.
~ You seek to make play as a Valkyrie, burning warrior woman cursed to die. You are so much more. ~
Once again I want to thank AO3's beckmessering for helping me to figure out where Alice would be in her opera career at this stage, and for suggesting lots of different pieces Alice could perform!
And seriously, the female spies who were active in World War II are the f***ing best. They're 90% of the reason I wrote this story. Virginia Hall? Badass. Nancy Wake? Badass. Josephine Baker? Badass. When Nancy Wake parachuted into France to help the resistance she got stuck in a tree, and the French resistance leader came up and said "the trees in France bear such beautiful blossoms this year" and Nancy just replied "Don't give me that French sh**". She also killed a Nazi sentry with her bare hands to prevent a mission from going detected. Virginia Hall had a f***ing artificial foot named Cuthbert, and when she was escaping the Nazis she contacted the SOE like 'hey, I hope Cuthbert won't cause me any trouble' and they didn't know wtf a Cuthbert was so they said 'if Cuthbert troublesome, eliminate him'. History is hilarious, you guys. And filled with f***ing badasses.
