A/N: Well a lot's happened this past week all over the world, I hope you're all okay and that you're staying safe and out of public as much as possible. I know this is a scary and uncertain time, but we're going to make it through and I know I've been in need of a distraction, so this week I'm going to post a second chapter on Wednesday. It's not much, but it's what I can do. Enjoy


Extract from "Song Throughout Time," by Kasper Hansen (2012)

... this melodic technique was best employed by the renowned skáld (poet) Eirik Kjellson, active between 920 - 940 AD, though it's unknown what became of him after that period. Many of his lyric verses live on today thanks to the Nesna Manuscript, discovered in 1920...


The Nazis in Poland meted out reprisals for the assassination of Captain Sauer, but they knew it had been the work of the Polish resistance and they were a veritable army by now. They didn't know just how much inside help the Polish resistance had had. Their attacks on the resistance grew more furious for a few days before their attention drifted back to the Eastern Front. Thankfully no small towns were razed.

Alice and Otto cut the Polish tour short and went back to Berlin. Alice returned to find a flood of commiseration letters waiting for her at the post office.

Dear Siren, read a letter in a child's handwriting accompanied by a charcoal drawing of Alice, My mama told me you got a big shock while you were singing. I hope you're alright. I have all your records, even the ones from before the war. Lots of love, Mary.

Alice wondered at what point she ought to describe herself as a killer. She suspected she'd crossed that line long ago.


When Steve heard a timid knock at his door, he bounded over to open it. Bucky was due back on furlough after months at training. But it wasn't Bucky on the other side of the door: his eyes widened as he spotted Tom.

"Tom! Hello, come on in." They usually met up elsewhere, but it wasn't unheard of for Tom to visit Steve at his house. The teenager smiled sheepishly at Steve as he stepped inside and kicked off his shoes. "I assume you've got your letter for Alice?"

"I do," Tom said, fishing in his pocket for the letter to his sister. He handed it over, and Steve took it to the table where he kept Alice's last letter. "I was wondering," Tom murmured, "could you... show me? How to... code it, or whatever it is you do?"

Steve blinked. Ever since Alice had gone back and they'd struck up their correspondence again, Steve had been the encryption intermediary for Bucky and Tom. He'd decrypted Alice's letters for them, and encrypted their replies. They'd quickly gotten into a rhythm (save for some teasing from Bucky - he often wrote things in his letters just to make Steve embarrassed while he encrypted). "Of course," he said. "Take a seat."

Tom sat, tugging at the end of his sleeve. His hair was tousled from the wind outside, and his eyes flicked over the encrypted letters on Steve's table with interest.

"So," Steve said, pulling Alice's last letter toward himself. "Alice hides the next key in her previous letter. First, you need the date."

"17th of September," Tom read off the letter, leaning on his elbows.

"Right. So then you go to the 17th line of the letter" - Steve traced his finger down the page - "and the ninth word."

"Glue."

"So that's the key for the next code."

Tom nodded slowly, frowning, and at that moment the front door burst open. Steve flinched, about to rise, but then Bucky stuck his head in from the entryway.

"Hello!" he called brightly. "Oh, hello Tom!" As he kicked off his own shoes and walked into the room he focused on what they were working on. "Oh, good, I've got my letter too." He reached into his jacket to pull out a much-folded piece of paper. Normally he sent his letters to Alice to Steve, who encrypted them then sent them on to the Thomas Cook Office.

Steve rose and he and Bucky slapped each other's backs for a few moments. "Good to have you back," Steve told him. "The kettle's almost boiled."\

Bucky rolled his eyes as he walked into the kitchen.

Tom, who'd been watching them with a bemused smile, tapped Alice's letter. "So how does the word glue help us?"

"Right." Steve pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from under the pot of drying lavender. "Have you ever heard of a Vigenere cipher?"

Round eyed, Tom shook his head.

Steve launched into an explanation, drawing out tables and example sentences as he watched Tom's face for comprehension. When Bucky came out of the kitchen, haphazardly balancing three mugs of gritty, rationed coffee, he smiled at the sight before him: Tom scribbling out notes on a spare paper, tongue between his teeth as he looked back and forth between his letter and his notes. Steve leaned over to point out an error and Tom scribbled it out. Steve smiled at Tom's huff of frustration.

"You'll get it," Steve encouraged. "It took me forever to get my head around it."

Bucky set down their coffee, but only Steve noticed. "You'll make a coder of him yet," Bucky noted as he sat down.

Steve sipped his coffee with a pleased smile and watched Tom scrawl strings of seemingly nonsense letters on the paper. "It runs in the family."


In October and November the Siren toured occupied North Africa. They started in Morocco and traveled across the north coast to Algeria. The warm Mediterranean weather was a relief after the cooling temperatures in Germany, and if it weren't for what she did with her time Alice might have felt like she was on holiday; she dug her toes into the sand on long white beaches overlooking the blinding blue ocean, shaded her eyes as she surveyed an endless plain of sand dunes, and stared out the car window as the driver took them through the beautiful, bustling streets of Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. In Rabat she clung to the crenelations of a sunset orange castle and looked out across the Atlantic.

She'd gotten sunburned on the first day, and poor Heidi had fussed and tutted her tongue as she patted Alice's face with powders and creams before that evening's performance in an effort to make her look less like a lobster in a wedding dress.

She hardly performed for the public at all. This tour had been set up with the Propaganda Department with the explicit purpose of putting on performances for the troops. Mediterranean breeze flowed through sprawling barracks housing thousands of soldiers wearing the desert-brown Afrika Korps uniforms.

On the most part they were respectfully enthusiastic toward the Siren as she toured through their barracks in her flowing white dresses and painted face, though she grew used to the sounds of catcalls. Some of the more explicit things that were yelled at her made her blood boil. She never let it show in her face. One man dropped to his knees in the dirt and asked her to marry him. Alice couldn't find an ounce of a joke in his face.

At Goebbels's department's request, for several of the concerts Alice forewent her usual costume and instead wore a military uniform. The soldiers went wild when she walked out on stage in the officer's uniform with its tall black boots and desert-colored cap, and the red swastika wound around her backup singers came out behind her like a line of non-commissioned officers, goosestepping in time. She sang the songs she'd written for the Nazis, dressed as a Nazi, to a crowd of raucous Nazi soldiers in the desert air, and felt her stomach sinking to her boots.

When she raised her hand and cried Heil Hitler, eliciting a deafening response from her audience, she felt herself disassociate. That was happening more and more often – it was as if she was looking at herself from outside her body, watching Die Sirene.

When she came off stage she bumped into Otto in the dressing room. He cast his gaze over her with a funny look in his eye.

"I know," Alice murmured. She tore the hat off her head and dropped it on the dressing table. She began pulling at buttons and trying to uncinch the tight leather belt from around her waist.

"I was just going to say-"

"I know," she cut him off. "Help me get this thing off." She couldn't deny that wearing the uniform was remarkably effective as a performer and as a spy, but every glance she caught of herself in the mirror made her stomach flip dangerously.

Performing for the troops was a veritable goldmine of information. The North Africa tour had initially been suggested by the Propaganda Department, but Otto had leapt on the opportunity. Alice didn't know the details, but it was clear the Allies had a vested interest in getting immediate, up-to-date information from Morocco and Algeria.

So she and Otto drew up maps of barracks and ports, counted troops, chatted with everybody from commanders to footsoldiers, and Alice even managed to swipe a few German codebooks from a radio room. With those books the Allied troops in the Atlantic would be able to understand every transmission the Germans sent each other for a week: an invaluable resource. Once the week was up, Alice spent her off hours listening to transmission radio wavelengths softly in her room with a pad and pencil, putting her mind to the codes, trying to crack them. Everything she deciphered she wrote down and put in one of the various drop boxes set up in each city she performed in. Anna, their only backup singer who was also resistance, had a "beaux" in Algiers that she was always off disappearing to see. It was an easy way to get their information out without raising suspicion.

These countries were remarkably well-set up for counterintelligence. Alice soon learned that a member of the Polish resistance had set up an intelligence organisation called Agency Africa months earlier, and they'd been collecting information for the Allies ever since.

From the frequency and nature of the requests for information from their handlers, Alice suspected that the Allies were doing more than monitoring the situation in Morocco and Algeria: they intended to attack.

Her hunch was proved right when, before dawn on the 8th of November, the British and American forces launched simultaneous U-boat and air invasions of the three main ports in Morocco and the two in Algeria, effectively cutting the Germans off from the sea and fencing them in. Alice didn't find out the details until later, of course. All she knew was that she was woken up in the pre-dawn darkness by alarms and then the shattering blasts of bombs and gunfire.

She, her retinue, and the other German civilians were evacuated east in blacked-out trucks to Tunisia. The backup singers huddled together, pale and wide-eyed in their pajamas. Alice had peeked through the back flap of one of the trucks as they climbed a cliffside road and saw massive troop carriers and U-boats sailing across the water toward Algiers, lit by the sunrise. The truck turned a bend and she caught a glimpse of black silhouettes charging up a white beach like so many ants. Her heart leaped at the sight. The truck bounced and the flap flipped closed again, shrouding Alice in darkness.

In Tunisia there was some back-and-forth via telegram to Berlin about whether the Siren should continue her tour to boost morale for the now beleaguered and encircled troops – more had been sent from the Eastern Front to Tunisia after the invasion. Alice was all for it, because she'd be able to keep up the stream of information for the British and American forces, but the Propaganda Department eventually decided they couldn't risk one of their biggest performers across the Mediterranean in such an uncertain environment.

The end of the telegram from Berlin read: ON YOUR RETURN WE HAVE NEW OPPORTUNITY IN MIND STOP VISIT PD OFFICE AT EARLIEST CONVENIENCE STOP

Otto shrugged at Alice's confused frown, and began packing his bags.


Excerpt from article "Operation Torch: The First Strike Back" by Helen Cook (1990)

Launched on the 8th of November 1942, Operation Torch was one of the first Allied lightning-attacks to push back the German front lines. The British and the Americans had agreed to team up for the attack, to relieve pressure on the Eastern front by drawing German attention to North Africa.

A massive Anglo-American fleet of 350 warships and 500 transports landed 107,000 troops in Morocco, seizing the three major ports and fighting against Vichy French Nazi-allied troops, before moving east to Tunisia. Despite fighting French forces in Oran, in Algiers the Allied forces were assisted by French resistance. Intelligence from within the occupied countries was vital to securing the ports.

The leader of the Vichy French forces (Admiral Darlan) soon capitulated to the Allies, causing Hitler to order the occupation of the rest of France. and concentrating forces in Tunisia. Darlan was eventually assassinated, and after some political troubles the Free French dominated the administration of North Africa.

Within eight days the Allies had secured their goals in North Africa, giving them a strong foothold in the Mediterranean, a symbolic victory over the Nazis, further French assistance in the war effort, and taught them lessons about planning and executing such collaborative, large-scale operations. It also began a new phase of the war: where next?


A week later Alice and Otto sat side by side on a couch that stank of cigarette smoke, across a low coffee table from seven Propaganda Department representatives. Alice wore a giant fur around her neck and a pair of massive pearl earrings, and felt faintly ridiculous.

Inge, the blonde, blue-eyed secretary, stood by the door of the sunny meeting room with her hands clasped behind her back.

"You've seen our latest productions, I'm sure," the main producer Karloff was saying, half leaning across the table towards Alice. "They've topped box offices across the Reich, the people love them. They're wonderful for boosting troop morale as well."

Probably because they're the only films available anymore, Alice thought. She knew the Propaganda Department had released some films, but she hadn't seen many of them – actively tried to avoid them, if she could. They were all the same patriotic, xenephobic nonsense in the end, and she knew they were more of a response to the propaganda movies the Allies kept putting out.

Otto folded his hands over his stomach. "I saw the latest one, Hitler's Dream. It's very good – it's a wonder how quickly you're able to film and produce them."

Karloff smiled. "Well, with the support of the Führer and his cabinet, many doors open." He shifted and faced Alice once again. "We are all agreed that our next production ought to star you, Fraülein Siren." Alice's eyes shot wide open. "People know your face and your voice, and seeing you on the screens would warm their hearts."

Alice's mouth fell open. "I… you want me to be in a film?" For a moment she thought: It's a trap. But she didn't understand how. Beside her, Otto had leaned forward. The production men were all smiling, as if they'd given her a gift.

The man to Karloff's right cleared his throat. "The script is already finished, and our director just signed on last week. You'd be co-starring alongside our best leading man, Karl Schneider. You've seen his work?"

Alice nodded numbly as the men in the room began talking back and forth about the proposed film. Schneider was a brawny, Aryan-looking man with blonde hair and blue eyes and a cleft chin. In his last film he'd fought off a whole troop of American GIs with one hand literally tied behind his back, shirtless, for some reason glistening with oil like a Roman gladiator.

"What's the name of the production?" Otto asked. He'd pulled out a notepad and pen.

"Love and Victory on the Front," Karloff said casually. Alice fought back a grimace. "Filming would start almost immediately, so we'd have to get started on the contracts this week. What d'you say?"

All eyes turned to Alice.

"I…" she swallowed. She'd been expecting another proposed tour when the Propaganda Department said they had another opportunity. This was… unexpected. "May I think about it?" She sensed Otto tense beside her, though he didn't say anything, and she knew that they were going to fight about this.

Karloff's easy smile dropped. "Of… course. We'll need to know by" – he checked the calendar on the wall and then glanced back, but not before looking to Otto as if for help – "by tomorrow."

Alice smiled. "I hope you know I'm truly flattered by the offer, all of you." She met their eyes. "I just want to make sure it's the right decision for my… career."

They nodded at that, though they still looked uncomfortable. They weren't accustomed to being told no. Inge the secretary scowled. Alice's eyes flicked to her right and she saw Otto looking stormy. Oh, they were definitely going to have a fight.


They did.

Alice balled her hands into fists as she paced back and forth over the rug in her apartment. "I can't be in a Nazi movie, Otto, I can't!"

"Why not?" he asked exasperatedly from the couch. He'd slumped onto it and was now looking across at her as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

She turned on him. "Well for starters I don't need to. What purpose would it serve?"

"It'll give you an excuse to stay in Berlin, so we can collect information about the offensive in Africa and Russia." He began counting things off on his fingers. "Filming a production like this will get us both close to every single bigwig who comes through Berlin. It'll give you the perfect excuse to ask questions about the war. The level of fame from the cinema will likely open more doors." He lifted a fifth finger. "And if you refuse they will always be looking at you out of the corner of their eyes, wondering why."

Alice swallowed. Her heart had been pounding since the offer was first made, and she wasn't sure why. Surely it wasn't all that different from her dozens of other performances?

"I've never been in a movie!" she protested. "And they want me to be the lead!"

"That's true, but think of it this way: you've been an actress for years. Only this time, the stakes are much lower. If you make a mistake they can just cut the reel and start again." He let out a sigh and then rubbed his chin, eyeing her. "I know why you're nervous."

She stilled. "You do?" I don't.

He sighed again. "You put your soul into your singing. I know it. But it's still different from appearing in film. With a song you can give them your voice, and it'll be etched onto a record and sent out on the radio waves. But in a movie? They're going to capture your face, your eyes, your being. It will be undeniably Alice Moser."

Alice felt a prickle go down her spine. "You're right," she murmured. "I've done and said awful things for this mission, Otto. But what will this make me?"

He ran a hand over his jaw again. "It won't make you anything other than what you are, Alice. A soldier." He leveled his gaze at her. "I can check with the SSR about this, but we both know what they're going to say."

Alice grit her teeth. He was right, of course. A film opportunity could open up a wealth of information. Damn it all.

At the back of her mind, she wondered just how much the papers in the States reported on the German film industry. She'd come this far being able to keep her life in Europe vague in her letters to Steve and Tom, and as far as she knew they'd never heard any news otherwise. How would they, given that Germany had banned all foreign reporters?

She swallowed. I can't let the fear of being found out stop me.

She dug her fingernails into her palms and met Otto's eyes. "Alright. I'll do it."


Excerpt from article "Karl Schneider and the Siren film deal!" in the Völkischer Beobachter (Nazi Party newspaper), November 1942 [Translated]

In exciting news, the Siren has signed on to be the co-star in an upcoming Karl Schneider NSDAP movie, to premiere in March next year. This writer looks forward to hearing the Siren's enchanting voice on the big screens, and being moved by the German Aryan spirit.


It was an absolutely rubbish script. Alice almost quit on the spot the first time she read it. The Propaganda Department always did this: they bottled up what they thought it meant to be a 'loyal German' and hammered the audience over the head with it. It was why their music always fell so flat.

Whatever, Alice eventually told herself, I'm not in this to make a work of art.

It was like Hollywood but in hyperspeed: she had a few weeks to learn her lines, be fitted for costumes and undergo screentests, and then they started filming just after November rolled into December. Alice didn't take to acting quite as smoothly as Otto had predicted; it was different with the director and crew watching her every move, asking her to smile wider or cry after that line. The scrutiny made her skin crawl.

Liebe und Sieg an der Front [Love and Victory on the Front] was the story of a German soldier on the Eastern Front and his wife – Alice – who'd stayed behind in Berlin. The first half was a whole load of rot about making do in times of hardship, during which Alice's character sang songs about missing and being proud of her husband as she prepared care packages for the soldiers at the front. Alice grew used to long days of beaming and dancing her way across sets with hot lights threatening to melt her makeup off, while the director yelled at her. One of the least terrible songs from the whole film was a chorus piece about the resilience of the people of Berlin.

She worked late nights and early mornings, in and out of the makeup chair, rehearsing lines as she fell asleep.

Her costar Karl Schneider, she had to admit, had a wonderful baritone. It all felt so sour though. In the second half of the movie Alice's character, Magda, got word that her husband was MIA, and travelled out to the Eastern Front to find him. There were lots of shots of Alice (in full makeup, of course) travelling in a headscarf across a snowy landscape, meeting heroic soldiers with chiseled jaws, and struggling through the trenches. The final climax of the movie came with Alice's character being kidnapped by a snarling Slavic man with some vague notion of doing her harm.

Her husband (who had been valiantly fighting behind enemy lines) got wind of her plight and came to rescue her. Alice and Karl Schneider had to film the scene where he carried her out of the bad guy's basement as she clung to his chest, weeping, about thirty times. Alice's eyes ached. And right after that they had to film their dramatic kiss on the setpiece meant to represent the battlements of Stalingrad. Schneider tasted like whiskey and cigarettes, and he grabbed her waist so hard that Alice had to fight off a wince. The film ended (finally) with the two of them returning behind friendly lines just as the army broke through the Russian defenses and secured victory.

The movie was very blatantly about the Battle of Stalingrad, which was still being fiercely fought in Russia even as they filmed. The real battle wasn't going quite so easily as the one they played out on their brightly-lit sets.

Otto stayed with her whenever Alice was on set, which wasn't strictly necessary but made all the difference. She'd found herself in such a strange, false world and his familiar face made it easier.

The whole process made Alice's skin crawl, but Otto had been right; it seemed every other day some politician or general was visiting the set to meet the latest big stars, and Alice had an open invitation to every star studded party in Germany. If she'd thought she was famous before, being the star of an upcoming film was another level. She rubbed elbows with the people who ran the country and the war, and picked up information from them like a magpie with glittering trinkets.

Otto passed on their new connections to the SSR, and in return they passed back assignments on each person of interest: investigate that minister's family tree, we're certain there's an illegitimate child that could be used as leverage. Where does the General intend to be on Saturday? What does the troop commander think about HYDRA? Does he know where any of their bases are?

The film was useful for the connections it gave her, but it frustrated Alice to be unable to travel outside Berlin. She got invitations from multiple occupied countries for her to perform, which excited the Propaganda Department but which she was unable to accept, and numerous opportunities for the SSR came up, which she had to pass on to other agents.

In December, news of mass executions of Jews hit Britain and America like a bomb. Alice barely heard the news, because of course the German papers weren't reporting on it, but when Otto told her she let out a great sigh.

She and Otto had been working toward this for months. The SSR had requested any proof they could get of the disappearances and murders of Jewish people. Alice had passed along everything she'd heard the Nazi higher ups saying, and the stories from the resistance underground. She'd even traveled back to Vienna and had Noah, the Jewish man who'd escaped one of the trains bound east, dictate his story.

Alice and Otto hadn't been able to get anything concrete, but their handler had said anything would help. And now no one on the Allied side could pretend they didn't know what was going on.

They know, Otto murmured, with heavy shadows under his eyes. Now they must put a stop to it, as soon as they can.

Alice had chewed her lip. Because she knew that it would only stop with the end of the war and the utter destruction of everything the Nazis had built; a momentous task.

She couldn't wait.


Two weeks before Christmas, a young officer visited the movie set with some other government types. Alice and Otto had done their research as per usual: Kurt Ohlendorf, an SS-Hauptsturmführer (mid-level commander) in the Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi intelligence service. An interesting connection, but he'd shown up with bigger fish so he'd been low on the priority list.

But then he kept coming back.

The first time he returned to the set he arrived with the director, laughing and joking, but quickly turned his attention to Alice.

"It's wonderful to meet you again, Fräulein Siren," he said as he took her hand with a smile. He had neatly combed strawberry blonde hair, a long slanted nose, and protruding ears. Alice thought nothing of it.

The second time, he arrived with a bouquet of yellow carnations for Alice and walked her outside to her waiting driver, talking about the many fine food establishments thriving in Berlin even in the midst of the war.

After that, Alice and Otto went on high alert. An officer from the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) was not to be underestimated. But after four more visits from Kurt Ohlendorf, once to her apartment, Otto called her over to his offices.

"I've been in touch with the SSR, and they say that Ohlendorf isn't an intelligence agent. He doesn't run missions. He works for them, sure, but SSR intelligence says that he's just an administrator-"

"He's not exactly low down in the chain of command," Alice protested.

"Apparently his uncle was Heydrich" – Alice's throat tightened at the mention of the Nazi leader who'd been assassinated in Czechoslovakia partly thanks to her intelligence – "and that's how he got his position. They can't exactly have the war hero's nephew doing grunt work."

Alice put her hands on her hips and paced across the carpet. "Then if he's not an agent, why does he keep visiting? Are you sure about the SSR's intelligence?"

Otto spread his hands. "We may have to open ourselves to the possibility that Herr Ohlendorf likes you."

Alice halted and scowled at him. "Don't be ridiculous."

But it made sense. Men had chased Alice before, of course: flirtations at parties, letters slipped under her door, but she'd become a pro at turning them away so efficiently that they thought it was their idea.

Alice ran her tongue over her teeth frustratedly. "Well. I'll just send him on his way then." She made for the door.

"Hang on."

She stopped again and looked back. "Otto. No."

He stood up and circled his desk. "Alice. The boy works for one of the most secretive agencies of the SS, has nothing better to do than visit other departments all day, and clearly isn't the sharpest if they've stuck him with a fancy uniform and a desk. He has family connection to Nazi leadership. And our plant says that the SD is investigating HYDRA. He could be useful."

Alice crossed her arms. "You're not suggesting we try to turn him."

"Not at all. I'm suggesting that you let him take you out on a date."

"Otto-"

"I don't like it any more than you do, believe me, and I'm not suggesting that you take him to bed, Alice. Just… play into his ego a little. Let him invite you to his office. But be safe."

Alice wanted to keep arguing, but he was right. Still, she raised an eyebrow. "Starting affairs with Nazi leaders isn't necessarily a good idea, Otto." Goebbels' mistress Lída Baarová had been reprimanded by the Führer himself, forbidden from leaving the country, forbidden from performing, and hounded by the Gestapo until she finally fled to Prague before the war. Alice couldn't afford to have anyone looking at her that closely.

Otto's face darkened. "I know. But the boy isn't married, and I know you, Alice. I know you'll be careful."

Alice's tense fury abated. I didn't think I would have to do this, she wanted to say, but it sounded ridiculous even in her own head. She'd been making friends with Nazis for years now. What was the difference between that and allowing one of them to court her?

Nothing, she told herself. But as she drew in a deep breath and left Otto's office, pointedly avoiding thoughts of Steve, she couldn't help but feel that she was stepping over an invisible line.


Alice and Kurt Ohlendorf began seeing each other. They just went for lunch the first time, and Kurt told Alice about his mother and how he used to spend his summers as a boy. Alice told him lies in exchange. After that, it was almost easy. They went to the movies, to coffee and dinner, and Kurt walked Alice home from the film set. He pulled out her chair for her and bought her flowers.

Their 'budding romance' was of great delight to the idle celebrity photographers of Berlin, who liked to snap photographs of them walking arm in arm down the street or sitting across from each other at restaurants and print the photos alongside headings like 'Winter is the season of love'. Alice wanted to tear the papers up, bring the shredded pieces to the publishers and scream don't you know there's a war on? But it was all so ridiculous that she settled for screaming into a pillow and then focusing on her work.

Whenever she was with Kurt, her gut churned. Alice had flirted and used her connections plenty of times before. But all of this – the jokes over dinner and the fleeting touches – reminded her very vividly of Steve (even though he'd never had the money to buy her flowers or take her to restaurants like these) and it made her feel worse than ever before. How could she ever explain this to him? She avoided most physical contact, telling Kurt she wanted to take it slow, but she'd had to give him a peck on the lips a couple of times (once at a party, once when he'd just leaned in and kissed her) and those had ended up in the papers too.

Alice thanked her lucky stars that German papers didn't make it out of the country anymore, then felt awful for the wish.

I've been lying to Steve for years, she told herself one evening as Kurt introduced her to a senior officer as 'My Alice'. Why is this different? Kurt slung his arm around her waist.

It is different.


Joseph Goebbels, 1943:

"The Fuhrer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world."


In early January, Kurt invited Alice to visit his office. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) was one of the seven departments of the Reich Main Security Office, and so was based in the long, looming office building on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in the heart of Berlin. Alice cast awed eyes up at the glinting windows of the building as she and Kurt walked from the car. This building housed the SD, the Sicherheitspolizei, the administration wing of the Einsatzgruppen death groups, and the Gestapo. She'd never been inside the main offices before.

The Reich Main Security Office had become a massive bureaucracy and was always reorganizing, so even Kurt had limited access throughout the building. He gave her a walking tour; introducing his colleagues, pointing out the various departments and explaining what they did. Alice nodded and asked the occasional question, but though she pretended to pay attention her focus was everywhere else: she read everything in reach, memorized names, scrutinized calendars on the walls of each office, and formed a mental map of the massive building. It was startling how many documents they left lying about. Most of what she read was probably useless but she committed it all to memory anyway, desperate to make the most of what was likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime visit.

She made sure to ask for the bathroom when Kurt was distracted in a conversation with his boss (who didn't seem to put all that much faith in Kurt's abilities to multitask), so that she'd get directions instead of an escort.

Freed, Alice strode down the surprisingly wide, spacious corridors and got herself lost. Well, that was what she planned to tell anyone who questioned her. She drew herself tall and thought I belong here, I belong here as she walked across the length of the SD department halls. She'd spotted a meeting of some kind when she and Kurt walked into the SD, and had spotted a map of North Africa on the wall. She wanted to find out more.

But when she found her way back to the meeting room, she saw through the window blinds that the small group of uniformed men were getting to their feet, shaking hands and exchanging nods. The sounds of chairs scraping on the floor echoed to the corridor outside. Damn. Meeting's over. She squinted, trying to make out any details on the map of North Africa that hung on the wall inside.

But then the doorhandle turned down, and her gut clenched. She stood alone and in civilian clothes outside a meeting room. She'd spotted some seriously senior insignia on the men within, and they were likely to recognize her. Alice could prepare to bluff, or she could hide.

Choose.

Alice threw herself backward, slamming down on the doorhandle behind her and practically falling into the room beyond just as the meeting room door opened. Alice swung her door shut behind her and then whirled around. White tiles, stall doors. Bathroom. Her nose wrinkled. Men's bathroom.

Then the door she'd just shut behind her began to open. Instead of flinging herself backwards again Alice darted forward and slid behind the opening door, where a small recess was set into the wall for storing mops. The doorhandle hit her elbow as she dove for cover.

Two male voices echoed past her, their footsteps clipping on the white tile as they entered the bathroom, and Alice squeezed her eyes shut as she pressed up against the inside of the recess in the wall. Perfect. Now if they catch you you'll be in more trouble than ever. She doubted an apologetic smile and a stupid comment about how she had a terrible head for directions would be enough to divert suspicion after getting caught hiding in the men's bathroom of this building.

The bathroom door swung shut, leaving Alice exposed. She was still out of view, since after the entrance you had to turn directly left to enter the main bathroom, but she no longer had the door covering her. Her skin prickled. A mop handle was digging into her spine.

She was so busy chastising herself that she didn't properly pay attention to the conversation of the two men who'd just walked in until they mentioned a very significant name.

"All I'm saying, Hans, is that you needn't be worried about Casablanca." Alice's eyes snapped wide. She heard the sounds of zippers, and then urination. She gritted her teeth. "Our agents at the hotel are well undercover, and all we have to do to ensure success is name the day."

"But a failure would-"

"We have the assets to spare, Hans-"

The bathroom door flew open again and Alice just barely contained a yelp. She heard another man walk into the bathroom, his breath loud and his shoes squeaking on the tile. Alice's gut clenched. I have to get out of here.

"Colonel," said the man who'd been speaking to 'Hans' in a near-laughing tone. "Will you tell Hans he has nothing to worry about?"

Alice held her breath and slid out of the hollow recess in the wall, keeping the tiled corner of the wall between herself and the urinals. Her eyes were glued to the corner, and when she saw the black flash of a uniform she slipped closer to the door. Her heart thudded against the inside of her ribcage and her gut was churning so hard she thought she might be sick.

"I won't speak about this any further outside of the meeting, and neither should you," came the gruff voice of the newcomer. The voices fell silent.

Another zip sound, followed by the rustling of movement.

Please, wash your hands, Alice begged as she wrapped her fingers around the doorhandle and slowly, carefully turned it. Her back was turned to the main entrance to the bathroom and she felt as if her back was on fire. The door eased open silently.

"Well, I suppose we'll see one way or another in a few weeks," came Hans's voice. It sounded much closer.

When the door was halfway cracked Alice couldn't bear it any longer, and dove outside. She didn't stop to ease the door shut again or even to see if there was anyone else in the corridor. She just strode back the way she'd come, her face neutral and her muscles screaming with the effort to not run. Ten seconds later she heard the bathroom door open again. She didn't look back.

She held her head high all the way back to Kurt's office, just as his boss walked out of it. She smiled to his boss and then to Kurt when she strode inside.

"You were gone a while," he noted absently, sorting papers on his desk with an overwhelmed look on his face.

Alice dropped down into his office chair. "There was a queue for the bathroom."


That evening Alice burst into Otto's house. Otto, who was used to this by now, made her a cup of tea and they bent their heads over his dining room table.

"Casablanca," Alice echoed when she'd finished describing what she'd heard. "That's-"

"Where the Allies are having a conference to plan their strategy for the rest of the war. In two weeks." Otto normally seemed unflappable, but his eyes had grown wide as Alice told him what she'd heard.

"And apparently the Germans have agents at the conference hotel," Alice added. She knew which hotel in Morocco the conference was being held at, she'd stayed there on her tour. It was under Allied control now. She bit her lip. "I didn't hear enough. It sounded like they hadn't chosen a date yet but I don't even know what the goal is – it sounded like some kind of attack, and obviously they were trying to keep it secret."

"We can pass this on, but the SSR is going to need more than this. This is one of the biggest conferences of the war. The Nazis could just be planning an intelligence gathering mission, but I doubt it. Churchill and Roosevelt are going to be there, either of them could be a target. Also the Free French are going." Otto rubbed his temples. "You can't exactly go back to the SD office."

Alice sat down on his couch and closed her eyes. "Well, who do we know who'd have access to this mission?"

"Top down? Hitler. Whichever Minister is managing this mission, probably Himmler since he's the head of the SD, maybe also the head of the Einsatzgruppen." Alice's eyes opened, but Otto kept talking. "You mentioned a Colonel, we could figure out who he is, and a Hans. There'll be documentation, there has to, especially with the conference so close now. They'll be worried about detection in Morocco, not back in Berlin-"

"Otto," Alice interrupted. She swallowed. "I've got that party on Friday. The one Kurt invited me to."

Otto frowned at her over his glasses. "Why, who's going to be there?"

"It's not about who's going to be there," she murmured. "The party's at Kurt's uncle's friend's house. Heinrich Himmler's house." Otto stilled. "Everyone knows it practically doubles his office, and like you said there has to be documentation." She swallowed. "I could-"

"What, break into the office of one of the most powerful men in Germany while the house is full of people?"

"Yes." Alice stared him down. Her palms were sweating where they rested on her knees, but a strange calm had fallen over her. "We can do it."

"I'm not invited, Alice."

Her eyes bored into his. "We can do it." She swallowed. "I have an idea."


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PS: Thanks to user The Muses' Summer House for the idea for the scene with Steve, Tom, and Bucky.


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Guest: You are very welcome, I do what I can! Good idea about google docs, I'm in the process of moving all my files over. Thanks very much :)