A/N: This is another super long one sorry! You'll see why I'm REALLY sorry in a bit though. (Also if you know anything about codes please don't come after me for my fudging)

Also to note, the final 'article' is real and comes from 'German History in Documents and Images (GHDI)'

TW: Antisemitism


Pliny the Elder, on sirens: "they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces."


Heinrich Himmler, commander of the SS and one of Hitler's most trusted men, lived in a mansion in the heart of Berlin.

As their car rolled up the paved driveway, Alice stared out the window at the tall brownstone. It had peaked rooves, dozens of glittering windows, and manicured hedges lining the front. It had to be three stories high. Kurt told her about the history of the house as she eyed the golden light spilling out of the windows across the lawn, silhouetting the soldiers standing guard.

They stepped out of the car and servants ushered them inside. Kurt helped Alice remove her black velvet and ermine coat, baring her arms to the firelit warmth inside the house. A grand staircase reared up before them, and to their left flung-open doors revealed a wide space packed with people, with three crystal chandeliers and massive windows overlooking the dark garden. Everyone wore uniforms and evening gowns; they weren't celebrating anything in particular, but if you got an invite to Himmler's house, you dressed up.

"My goodness," Alice murmured.

"This is one of the finest houses in Berlin." Kurt, in his shiny black dress uniform, smiled and cocked his elbow so Alice could wrap her hand around it.

Alice wore a satin silver dress with embroidered patterning, which pooled around her feet. She'd pinned her hair away from her face to fall in curls down the nape of her neck. As they walked into the main room, a photographer snapped their photo.

Alice felt a sharp focus come over her as Kurt introduced her around the room. She knew mostly everyone already, but she strengthened old acquaintances, laughed at stupid jokes, and pressed her finger to her lips when people asked her about the upcoming film.

"You know I can't tell you!" she protested lightly. "Don't press me, I can't keep a secret to save my life. I know you'll like it, though."

The night slipped on, with a brief pause for a speech from their host and a round of champagne in honor of the Führer ("even though the man doesn't drink at all," a commander's wife noted wryly by Alice's side). Alice didn't glance at the clock often, but she was keenly aware of the time. She picked up drinks and set them down discreetly elsewhere, without drinking much more than a glass. The room was loud with dozens of overlapping conversations and clinking glasses.

At 11:08, Alice disentangled herself from Kurt and drifted across the room; he barely noticed, as he'd grown used to her flitting from one conversation to another.

When she slipped out of the room and into the quieter corridor beyond, Alice leaned against the wall and waited a moment, wineglass in hand, listening. The corridor was empty, as the servants had their own passageways, and the soldiers were all outside. She drew in a deep breath.

A minute later, the volume of the room behind her spiked. Alice slipped down the corridor, turned right into the main atrium and climbed up the grand staircase, her footsteps silent on the carpet.

Otto had connections in most major social hubs in Berlin. This included the brothels. One of his connections at the most popular brothel in Berlin had been seeing a certain client for a few months now: a very famous client indeed, in the highest strata of the Nazi party.

This woman had secured herself an invite with her client to Himmler's party. Alice had nearly stopped in her tracks when Otto had told her that; the man in question had a wife, but apparently hadn't needed a lot of convincing before inviting his mistress to the party.

But Alice wasn't involved in that side of things. All she knew was that at exactly 11:10PM, the mistress planned to fly into a fit of rage at her client. At the shouts and sounds of crashing glass from the main room, Alice almost wished she could be there to hear it, and to see the faces of the guests.

But she'd already reached the top of the stairs and paced down the darkened corridors beyond.

At the dimly-lit main junction of the upper corridors, Alice paused. She couldn't see light pouring out from under the cracks of any doors, which was a good sign, but she also didn't know where Himmler's office would be. Otto had found some original architecture plans for the house (though they were from 1910), so Alice headed in the direction of the original main office. She still clutched her full wineglass in the hopes of being able to use an 'oops, I got lost!' excuse, but the further she went the less effective that would be.

Alice's eyes flicked down, and her gaze sharpened. The carpet at her feet was clean and well-maintained, but the best servants in the world couldn't keep a carpet from being worn down by hundreds of boots. There was a well-worn track down the carpet leading to the door at the end of the corridor. The most-visited room in this house has to be the office.

She hurried toward the door and tried the handle. Locked. Another good sign.

Alice dropped to her knees, pulled two pins out of her hair and pressed them into the lock. She could practically hear Peggy in her ear: you don't pick a lock. You push it back out of its housing until it's no longer aligned with the latch. Like so.

As she pushed the pins against the lock, manipulating it back, she held her breath to listen to the house. She could hear the main party still: a high, female voice was shouting something, with a hubbub of voices in the background. She couldn't hear anything on her floor aside from her own heartbeat in her ears.

Once she'd dislodged the lock, Alice tried the handle again. It clicked open to reveal a dark room with the vague silhouette of a desk by the window. Her heart leaped.

She retrieved her wineglass from where she'd set it down and slid inside the office, closing the door behind her. Then she retrieved the flashlight she'd stuck down the front of her dress and switched it on, careful to keep it pointed downwards so the light wouldn't be visible through the windows.

Like the rest of the house the office was spacious, with three filing cabinets, two desks (one for a secretary no doubt) and a few chairs and a low table set up for meetings.

Alice's dress whispered across the floor as she went to the secretary's desk. She took a moment to memorize the layout, then began rifling.

There was so much. Alice flipped through letters, order briefs, reports, photographs of soldiers and civilians, maps, budgets. And this was just what was in the secretary's desk drawers. Alice did her best to retain what she skimmed through, but she had one goal tonight and she could not allow herself to be distracted. Her fingers were nimble as she scoured the desk's contents, the flashlight held in her teeth and her hair falling in her eyes.

Flicking through a folder in the first drawer, she found a draft of a speech. She was ready to skim past it when she saw a penciled-in date in the top corner: January 20th? Ten days from now. The middle of the Casablanca Conference. Alice's eyes darted over it: it was a celebration speech of some victory over the Allies in North Africa. The top paragraph had been left blank for details, making the whole thing vague and frustrating. Though it did say 'this is a great victory for Germany and for Italy'. If the Italians were involved that could help with the SSR's search in Casablanca.

Alice finally slid the draft back into its folder then moved to Himmler's ornate wooden desk. It was thankfully well organised. He had separate drawers for the separate departments he oversaw, and an in tray on the top of his desk. The skin on the back of Alice's neck prickled. She guessed she'd been gone five minutes at most, but even that could be too long. This mission, whatever it is, is in ten days. Surely he must be working on it now.

She skipped over the drawers and went straight for the in tray. She rifled through paperwork needing signatures, reports on bureaucratic matters and – her fingers stalled on a telegram labelled GEHEIM [CONFIDENTIAL]. Her gaze flicked over it, but it was gibberish. A random assortment of letters-

It's encrypted.

Alice's heart squeezed almost painfully. Time was slipping away and all she had was a vague victory speech with an uncertain date. She couldn't let all this effort go to waste.

She stared at the mash of letters. Her temples were sweating.

A moment later she took in a sharp breath through her nose. A Vigenere cipher. Okay. Okay. I can do this. She ran a finger over the lines, picking out patterns. She didn't have time to take notes so she had to hold it all straight in her head. A headache bloomed between her eyes.

Her fingernails bit into her palm. This wasn't working, she didn't have the key and this telegram could be nothing, she was wasting time.

Wait. Normally with Vigenere ciphers she assumed that E, N, or I was the most commonly recurring word in the German alphabet. But if this telegram was about what she thought it was… Casablanca had four As in it.

She reworked the cipher in her head, running through mental alphabet tables.

There. She hadn't quite figured out the key but she'd figured out the pattern, and that word could only be:

CASABLANCA.

Alice let out a louder sigh than she probably should have, then yanked out the napkin and pencil she'd brought with her. She hastily copied down each line of the telegram, not bothering to decode it.

She stuffed the napkin down her dress along with her extinguished flashlight, her heart pounding. No time to look for anything else. Now to get back down without being-

The door opened.

Alice froze halfway between the desk and the door and met the intruder's eyes in the gloom. He was a little older than her, wearing an officer's dress uniform. She'd met him at the party, she realized: he had dark hair and light eyes, and he'd introduced himself as Albrecht. At the time she'd flicked her eyes over the insignia on his uniform and thought: not useful.

But now she stared into his pale, confused green eyes and realized that her life now rested in his hands.

He frowned at her, one hand on the doorknob. "Fräulein Siren? What are you…" she'd already set everything back the way it was and hidden her flashlight, but she was standing in the dark, in Heinrich Himmler's previously-locked office. Alice opened her mouth, thinking of how to talk her way out of this.

But then she saw it all come together in the officer's eyes. Suspicion flooded his face and made Alice sick to her stomach.

He took a step toward her, hand outstretched. "Fräulein, I think I had better take you to-"

Alice didn't stop to think. She stepped forward and slammed the side of her open hand into the man's temple, just the way Peggy taught her: rigid bones, every ounce of force she could muster.

The man dropped.

Alice dropped too, her knees thudding on the carpeted floor and her fingers landing on the man's – Albrecht's – throat.

Her own heartbeat pounded and thrummed against her skin. But she couldn't feel a pulse beneath her fingertips.

Surely that isn't all it takes to kill a man?

But she kept kneeling there, waiting to feel a flutter, and there was nothing. She glanced to his face and her heart slammed against her chest when she saw that he had one eye half open. But his pupil was frozen. Lifeless.

Alice's stomach dropped, then heaved. She slammed a hand over her mouth and focused very hard on not vomiting.

Albrecht didn't move. He didn't do anything.

Alice took a breath. She was kneeling on the floor of Heinrich Himmler's office with a handwritten code on a napkin stuffed down her dress, and a dead man lying in front of her. A man she had killed.

Her stomach didn't heave again. She didn't let it. She realized that the side of her hand was aching – she flexed her fingers and hissed a breath through her teeth when her pinkie finger pounded with pain. No time.

Alice got to work. She swept her eyes over the office to make sure she'd left everything as it had been before she appeared, and slid her wineglass just outside the door. Then she grabbed Albrecht around his middle and heaved him backwards, out the office door and onto the worn-down corridor beyond. His body made a strange sliding sound against the carpet.

Once his feet cleared the doorway she set him down and turned to close the door. She tweaked the lock back into place with a hairpin (it might stick or fail in the coming days, but it wouldn't be obvious it had been broken into), then picked up her wineglass and precariously placed the rim between her lips, so she could carry it without her hands. Wine sloshed beneath her nose.

Now. She dropped to a crouch by Albrecht, grabbed his arm and heaved him up, maneuvering his horrifically limp body until she had him in a fireman's carry. She drew in a long, deep breath, balancing her and Albrecht's centers of gravity, before pushing into a standing position. Peggy had trained her in this. Albrecht weighed heavy on her shoulders, making her legs shake and her neck strain, but she had him.

Alice wobbled down the corridor with the dead man on her shoulders. She didn't go in the direction she'd come from as the main staircase was too risky. She headed for another staircase she remembered from the architect's plans, letting out a breath of relief when she reached it. This stairway was in a dark, unused part of the house. She eased Albrecht down at the top of the stairs and he slumped against the wall, limbs sprawling. Yes, he's dead, Alice thought distantly.

Her breath felt like ice in her lungs, sharp and painful, and sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She took the wineglass from her mouth.

Albrecht still had one eye half-open and unseeing, his head lolled on his shoulder where he was propped up against the wall. His dark hair stuck up on one side. Alice's vision swam; she stopped seeing Albrecht, and she started seeing a corpse.

Her breath came fast and her heart pounded. But she didn't have time for that.

Taking a breath to keep her fingers from shaking, Alice poured the contents of her wineglass out over Albrecht's black dress uniform. The sharp smell of alcohol filled the air. Then she dropped to a crouch and set her hands against his side. He was still warm.

Alice shoved, and the body pitched sideways down the dark, cold stairs. She turned away so she didn't have to see, but she heard it: the strange, oddly muted sound of his body falling, followed by a final thud. Alice flinched. She spied a light switch on the wall. She hit it, flooding the staircase and the corridor below with light. Let them think he turned it on. She didn't look back. With one last breath to steady herself, and a final check that she had everything she'd brought with her, Alice slipped back through the house.


Alice slid through one of the doors into the main room of the party just as the Nazi commander's mistress was escorted out the other, which had the handy effect of making her entrance unseen. She quickly lost herself in the throng of laughing conversations and clinking glasses, her head spinning. As she reached up to wipe sweat from the back of her neck and make sure her hair didn't look crazy, her eyes flicked to the ornate golden clock.

11:25.

She'd been gone fifteen minutes.

Is that all?

"Alice!"

Kurt's voice. He slid up beside her. "Oh, your drink's empty, Perle," [Pearl] he murmured in her ear. "Let me fetch you another." He took the glass from her numb fingers and moved away again, leaving her alone amidst the bright lights and flashing teeth.

Alice felt, abruptly, like bursting into tears.

You don't have that luxury, she told herself harshly. She took in a breath through her nose. You are the Siren, and you are at a party. Act like it.

She saw a familiar face and swept into a conversation with a trio of generals' wives, flashing them a warm smile. Within seconds she was asked her opinion on the latest winter fashions.


Alice had twenty minutes to drink and pretend to smile until she felt it sweep across the room. There wasn't a loud shout or a dramatic announcement like she'd expected. It spread like a rumor: one of the guests has been found dead. Gasps, excited questions. The Gestapo were called, and the soldiers banded around the house as if they were under attack.

But a minute later the tension lifted and the party broke up. They couldn't exactly party on into the night like they had intended to. A man had died. How unfortunate.

Himmler himself apologized to Alice and Kurt for the inconvenience. Alice didn't hear a word he said.


Excerpt from Geheime Staatspolize Incident Report, January 10th 1943, Berlin [Translated]

The deceased, Albrecht Schneider, was found at the bottom of the north stairs. After examination, Doctor Fischer gave a preliminary determination of death by epidural hematoma caused in a fall down the stairs, caused and exacerbated by alcohol consumption. Time of death to be determined later.

The deceased's family has been notified, and security at Reichsführer Himmler's domicile has been doubled as a precaution.

... Recommendations: Stress the importance of temperance to officers of all rank in the Nazi Party.


Kurt drove Alice home. She sat in the passenger seat and responded automatically to his comments about the evening. Her hair was wild, sticking to the back of her clammy neck. She could feel the hard metal of her flashlight against her breastbone, and the faint tickle of the napkin with its pencil scribbles.

She felt… she felt… tired. She blinked, searching for more. Feel something, she demanded of herself. But she'd slammed a wall down against the upswelling of panic and horror back in that mansion, and she didn't know how to lift it yet.

So she sat, cold and tired, as Kurt drove her home. He parked, and walked her to her door, and kissed her. For a few moments Alice just stood there and let it happen. She felt cold inside and out, a gaping hollow in her chest. She'd carved something out of herself tonight.

But then Kurt's hand slid to her waist and his mouth was at her neck, and he was pressing her against the door. She felt the wooden ridges press into her skull.

Alice jolted back into her body and wanted to shrivel. She froze for a moment, resisting the instinct to strike Kurt like she'd struck that man. When she was sure she had control of herself she cleared her throat.

Kurt looked up finally, his pupils blown wide in the gloom.

"Thank you for driving me home," she said clearly.

He smiled hopefully.

She added: "I'd best be getting to sleep now. Goodbye, Kurt."

He clung to her a moment longer, and Alice's heart thudded, but then he sighed and stepped back. "You prove a mystery once again, Perle."

She opened the door to her apartment. "Women aren't that much of a mystery, Kurt." Then she stepped inside and closed the door in his face.


She couldn't call Otto. They'd agreed on radio silence that night, and she didn't know who might be listening to the phone. So she just… went about her normal evening routine. She peeled off her dress, set the flashlight and napkin in a hollowed-out book in her bookshelf, changed into her pajamas, washed her face. She eyed the purpling bruise on the side of her hand and gingerly moved her pinkie finger. She didn't think it was broken. She slid into her bed.

She thought she wouldn't be able to sleep. But after staring at the dark ceiling for a while her eyes slid shut and she just… faded away.


The next morning she met Otto at his office. He ushered her in and closed the door behind her, his body tense with energy.

"Did you get it?" He had bags under his eyes. He mustn't have been able to sleep last night.

Alice nodded and handed over the pencil-scribbled napkin. She'd decoded just enough that morning to know that it was information the SSR desperately needed to know (they were right, it was an assassination plot), but had stopped there. It was best if she didn't know the details. She'd scribbled the key, SIEG [VICTORY], in the corner, and on the back she'd included a note about the draft letter she'd read and the possible mission date. "We have to get this to them right away."

Otto took the napkin from her gloved fingers, scrutinized it, then folded it in half. "We've got a drop set up for this afternoon." Alice moved slowly across the room, silent as a ghost, and lowered herself onto the couch. She felt tired to her very bone marrow. Otto looked up and finally focused on her face. "Are you alright? I heard the party got broken up because of some drunken fool-"

Alice had thought she might be able to keep this from Otto somehow. If she didn't tell anyone, maybe she hadn't really done it. But all it had taken was for him to mention it. Her breath shivered and she glanced down.

"I killed him." She barely recognized her voice.

Otto froze. "What?"

"The drunken fool." She swallowed. "He walked in on me in Himmler's office and I… I didn't have a choice. It was so easy." Her fingers clenched. "I poured wine on him and pushed his body down the stairs."

"Oh, Alice." She glanced up but it wasn't horror she saw in Otto's face. His expression was more open now than it had been since that night she'd broken him open. He slid the napkin into his pocket and strode across the room toward her, before sinking to one knee and taking her hand. "Alice. I'm so sorry."

She shook her head. "I was already a killer. This is just… a more immediate death."

He squeezed her hand. "I know. We are both killers, you and I." His brow pinched. "But that doesn't make it easy. And it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, no matter how deserving the victim."

He paused, letting his words sink in. Alice weighed what he'd said and found that it did make her feel a little better. He was good at that.

Part of her ached for how unfair it was: unfair for Albrecht that he had happened to walk in on her, unfair for Alice that she'd had to kill him. Albrecht was a Nazi. But he was by no means the worst of them, not even the worst in that house. But he'd been the one she had to kill.

It did hurt. But Alice would not take it back.

Otto sighed. "I'm proud of you."

Her gaze flew up to his, and he shrugged. "I am, whatever that says about me. You completed your mission and you did what you had to, so you could continue to help people. Without this information…" he shook his head. "They might have killed Churchill and probably Roosevelt at the same time. But we'll stop them. And if you'd been caught, I know the war would be worse off without you. You protect people, Alice."

She nodded jerkily. "I know. I know." And now I kill them, too. She bit her lip. "Let's… let's go make sure this information gets to where it needs to be."

He nodded, his eyes sad behind his glasses that he didn't need. "Let's do it."


January 11th 1943
Vienna

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your last letter, it made a long week bright again. Sorry to hear your job isn't going well. The sensible part of me wants to tell you not to quit, because even with all the factory jobs going it's not certain you'll get steady work again soon, but the rest of me says to hell with your boss!

I'm not finished with Brave New World yet since some work things came up, but can I put in a request for a cheerier book next time?

Thanks for the update on Tom, I hope by the time this letter arrives the cold has cleared up. No doubt Molly will be practically drowning him in her patented 'flu tea.

I haven't been up to much really. I went to a party yesterday, but I didn't enjoy it. Sorry I don't have anything interesting to tell you. Although it sounds like Brooklyn's an interesting place to be at the moment, what with the docks getting even busier (I can't imagine it! They were already practically full to bursting with ships when I visited) and the new factories opening. Speaking of which, have you considered a job in one of those? That could be a good way to contribute to the war effort - I know, not the way you want to, but it would make a real difference. Every small thing will count.

I have to sign off now, I've got a performance in half an hour. Stay safe.

Love,
Alice


Two weeks later the Allies announced all the resolutions from the Casablanca conference. It shook the German steadfastness, to see their rivals so organized. As one, the Allies agreed that they would seek unconditional surrender from the Axis powers: complete and total defeat. They'd also honed their strategy for the war going forward, and had come to agreements about how to progress the war in Europe and the Pacific. The next week, the Americans began bombing Germany itself.

Unknown by most of the Allied attendees of the conference, at 2AM the night before the major leaders arrived at the hotel, a squad of SSR agents kicked down the doors of six German and Italian agents under cover as hotel staff. One of the spies pulled a gun and was killed. The others were in interrogation by the time all the leaders had arrived. Their guns were confiscated and put into storage.

Churchill and Roosevelt were informed of the plot, of course, and agreed that it ought to stay a secret: let the Germans stew over the unknown fate of their agents, and never give them public credit for getting so close. Both leaders thanked the SSR, of course, and the agents who had arrested the spies.

You've done fine work, they told the agents. But the world will never find out.

Alice and Otto met with their handler in Switzerland the month, and he offered them a smile. We stopped it, he said. That was all he would tell them, and that was all Alice needed to know.


Reddit Forum 'r/worldwartwo', subreddit posted 10 March 2008

u/academania: Theory Thursday! So I came across this conspiracy while looking through newspaper articles from the sixties. Apparently back then the idea was going around that in 1943 there was a thwarted assassination attempt against Roosevelt and Churchill at the Casablanca conference. Click here to see the articles, which talk about how there are 'disappearing guests' on the hotel register, and evidence of foreign agents being taken into custody a few days before the conference began. Out there, outrageous, or a possibility?

u/sevenbox: that's crazy, sounds similar to the thwarted assassination attempt against them and Stalin at the Tehran Conference later that year, Operation Long Jump (though of course many people doubt that Operation Long Jump was real). This could be a 'missing link' proving a chain of assassination attempts against the Allied leaders.

u/theprof: Nope, you've got to be mad to think this is true. The evidence is so weak, and German counterintelligence in the war was utter rubbish, there's no way they'd have gotten such a significant foothold in Allied North Africa. Source: I am a History professor.


A few days after the party at Himmler's house, Alice had a TV interview to promote the upcoming film and her music.

There was only one television station in Germany, Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk, and while it was still in production despite the war Alice knew that not many people actually owned television sets. Still, the Propaganda Department had insisted.

The studio reminded her a little of the film set, with its bright overhead lights, the boom mics on looming metal supports, and the strange, boxy cameras. She'd prepared for this interview with Otto, but that didn't make it any easier.

The station newsreader, a man with blonde slicked hair, interviewed her. "Fräulein Siren, do you believe in the Nazi dream?"

"Of course," she said earnestly. "This country is one of great visionaries, and I support them with everything I have. I'm excited for the future of Germany." She was careful not to say Germany and Austria. They were one and the same, now.

For the first half of the interview she smiled and answered questions as a cold fury oozed in her gut. But gradually, after dozens of questions and dozens of lies, the fury turned to numbness.

"What's your vision for the future of the Third Reich?" "What do you want to say to our troops?" "You're from Austria, the same as the Führer. What's that like?"

Alice lied through her painted lips and made it look beautiful.


Filming on the movie wrapped in January, and Alice's leash loosened. She began touring the country again, and in Munich she and Otto were put in touch with a different kind of resistance.

Alice had heard of the White Rose: the anonymous group had been leaving anti-Nazi pamphlets around Munich since June of last year. It hadn't been reported on much, but Alice heard lots of things that didn't end up in the papers. She was pretty sure her Swingjugend contacts had some connection with the group, which was confirmed when Liesl (one of her friends from Austria) asked her to get in contact with a group of students during her Munich tour.

She and Otto were wary. On the 13th there'd been a student riot at the university after Munich's Nazi leader gave a speech. Also, the White Rose hadn't been heard from for six months. But Otto agreed to let Alice meet with the students alone, under the cover of darkness. She was younger, so they were more likely to trust her, and she was the one with the connection to them.

So on the second evening of her tour, Alice bound her chest and stuffed her hair into a flat cap and strode onto the darkened campus of Munich university.

The meet was set for an unlocked university building on the edge of campus. It took Alice a while to find it, as it was difficult to find her way in the dark, but soon she found the dark-bricked building and slipped in.

She turned to find a small group of people waiting for her: five young men and a younger woman in a winter coat sitting around the room and an older man leaning against the wall. Candles flickered on a table at the middle of the room, casting them all in a yellow glow. They'd been mid-conversation when she arrived, but now they all looked up at her in silence.

"Guten Abend," she murmured, dipping her chin in a nod. Her eyes flickered around the room. Christ, they looked younger than her.

One of the young men scrutinized her. "You're Liesl's friend?" Liesl had moved from Vienna to Munich last year.

Alice nodded. "Yes. She said you needed some help."

This time the older man, who from his suit and general bearing Alice guessed was a professor, spoke: "She also said that you would be able to help us transport these." He laid a hand on two rucksacks.

Alice met his eyes, then strode across the dimly lit room to peer into the rucksacks. She saw stacks and stacks of printed paper with large headlines: AUFRUF AN ALLE DEUTSCHE! [APPEAL TO ALL GERMANS!] Her eyebrows rose as she skimmed down one of the leaflets.

It began: The war is coming to its certain end. Alice's heart jumped. Hitler cannot win the war, he can only prolong it! His guilt and the guilt of his assistants have infinitely exceeded all measure. A just punishment grows ever closer!

She hadn't read the first four pamphlets but she knew they'd been aimed at the German Intelligenz, using the arguments of Aristotle and the Bible to turn support away from the Nazis. This paper seemed less like an intellectual argument and more of an appeal to the common man. Plus, this one was printed – they must have access to a printing machine.

She skimmed down to the end. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of the individual citizen from the caprice of criminal, violent States – these are the bases of the new Europe. Support the resistance movement, disseminate the leaflets!

Alice looked up. "You guys wrote this?"

The young students met her eyes with defiant glances.

"Yes," said the girl. She looked so young, her hair pinned back with a clip and a flower pattern on her dress. One of the men glanced over at her as she spoke and Alice's eyes flicked between them. They looked very similar.

Another young man spoke: "Can you help to disseminate these?"

Alice nodded. "Yes. Where do you need them?"

The young man who looked like the girl's brother met Alice's eyes. "Everywhere."

She stayed for another five minutes discussing arrangements before she shouldered the two rucksacks and turned to leave. But before she walked back into the night, she glanced over her shoulder.

"Be careful," she whispered. She'd only just met these young, idealistic students but she could feel their boldness growing. "This isn't just an intellectual battle, there are lives at stake."

"We know," said the girl, her eyes firm.

Alice held her gaze for another few moments before letting out a sigh. "Alright. Lebewohl." [Farewell] She turned her back and left them.


Alice and Otto brought the stacks of leaflets (hidden in makeup bags) with them on the rest of their tour to Innsbruck, Vienna, and finally to Berlin. Each place they went, they distributed the leaflets to their network to be mailed out.

Otto had read the leaflet silently when she returned, before looking up at her through his glasses. "You think this will do anything?"

She shrugged. "We're at a crucial moment, Otto. The Germans have stalled in Russia, and the Allies are binding together. Words like this" – she waved the leaflet – "could be what it takes."

He shot her a doubtful look.

"Either way, these kids are right. They have a right to freedom. If we can help them with that, even a little bit, it's worth it."

Otto still seemed doubtful, but he didn't argue further. They'd learned to trust each other.


At the beginning of February, after a month of defeats, the Germans officially surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad. This was the first major defeat they'd suffered, and its ripples were felt across Europe. The German army was in retreat after losing a chunk of its soldiers. This was the first time that the Nazi war machine's strategies had failed.

More than that, the news of the defeat cast a pall across Germany.

Back in Berlin, Alice attended a sad drinking party with some Nazi generals. They began the night bragging about how Germany would strike back with all the fury of the Reich, but as the night wore on and more brandy was consumed, they were just drinking. No one said it, but it was clear something awful and significant had occurred. Alice poured herself generous glasses and drank to celebrate.

That didn't last long, though.

On the 18th, German newspapers proclaimed the capture of dangerous terrorists in a brilliant move by the Gestapo.

The White Rose had been arrested.

Their names were blasted across the newspapers and their characters torn to shreds: siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, along with their friend Cristoph Probst, were in custody on suspicion of treason after they were found distributing their sixth leaflet at Munich University. The Gestapo were searching for others. Alice recognized all their faces in the pictures.

The arrests made Alice's heart plummet to the bottom of her feet – not only out of sorrow for the young revolutionaries, but also out of fear. She'd only met face-to-face with the White Rose members once, in the dark, and they probably didn't know enough about her to give the Gestapo anything under pressure, but it was a terrifying reminder of how close she could come to discovery.

But the days passed, and no one came to arrest Alice, so she could only assume Probst and the Scholls had kept their silence. They'd certainly seemed brave when she met them.

It moved very quickly after that. The three were brought to trial at the Volksgerichtshof [People's Court], found guilty, and sentenced to death. They were executed the same day by guillotine. Alice found out about all of it in one go, on the radio.

On the same day, students at Munich university protested against the 'traitors within their ranks'.

Alice went cold when she heard that the degenerate rogues had been killed. Her heart ached for them.

This is what awaits me if I'm caught, she thought as the radio presenter began discussing the hunt for the rest of the White Rose. These kids were only distributing pamphlets. What would happen to me, if they find out all that I've done? She stared at the black-and-white photograph of the guillotine.


Excerpt from article 'Last Days of the White Rose,' by Millie Schutz (2014)

... after the tragedy of their capture, their rigid determination to protect their compatriots at all costs frustrated the German interrogators and likely saved the lives of many other White Rose participants. They faced two days of intense interrogation, in which the main investigator Robert Mohr attempted to save Sophie's life by prompting her to testify against her brother, which she refused.

... during the trial, Sophie often resisted the judge (who had refused to allow the defendants to testify on their own behalf), once rising to shout "You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won't admit it?"

Only hours later, she was beheaded by guillotine. She was only 21. Her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst (a father of three), both 24, were also put to death. Before the blade fell on Hans, he cried:

"Es lebe die Freiheit!" (Long live freedom!)

These words were not publicized in German media at the time, and nor were Sophie's:

"Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go... What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"


Days later, Otto knocked on Alice's door. She let him in, frowning at his breathlessness and the way he mopped at his balding forehead as he walked in.

"Otto?"

"I'm fine," he panted. "Water?"

She fetched him a glass. He'd gotten his breath back when she returned, so after taking a sip he met her eyes and said, very calmly:

"Tonight, you'll be performing for Hitler."

Alice frowned. "He's at the Eastern Front."

Otto shook his head. "He came back to Berlin for that state funeral yesterday." He sipped his water. "I just got word. He's coming to the opera house tonight, they've reserved a box for him."

Alice fumbled behind her for the kitchen counter, missed, and staggered backwards. She met Otto's round eyes. "Do the SSR know?"

"I've just sent a message, but it's not likely they'll have time to even get back to us. We don't have time to figure out a strategy for intelligence collection, we don't even know his schedule-"

Alice ran her tongue over her teeth. "I could kill him."

The apartment became very, very quiet. Otto froze where he stood and Alice couldn't have moved if she wanted to. The only sounds were car engines and distantly cawing birds from outside.

Alice felt shivery, energized. She'd only ever seen Hitler twice before: once at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, when the crowd had screamed out of sheer excitement when he'd appeared, and the other time at his speech at the Heldenplatz in Vienna after Germany annexed Austria. After that he'd become a distant, untouchable figure. Her career had only really soared after the war began and Hitler had passed over a lot of state appearances in favor of making war. He didn't get many chances to sit and enjoy music for an evening.

So Alice had been doing her work, and he'd been doing his. But now she could picture it so clearly: he'd come to see her sing. He'd visit her backstage afterwards, like all the other generals did, throwing their weight around, and he'd shake her hand. In that moment he would no longer be that distant, untouchable figure. He'd become real: just a body full of blood and nerves like the everyone else. A man. Men died easily.

I could kill him.

"No," said Otto.

Alice's chest swelled. "Otto, this could be my only chance. They'd never expect it, I could do it-"

"There's no way the SSR would go for that, Alice. It's far too high risk, and besides, something like that would take months of planning and we don't even have 24 hours-"

"We don't need to ask their permission, we could just do it-"

"Stop." Otto surged towards her and grabbed not her wrists like she'd expected, but her hands. He pulled her hands towards his chest in a strange embrace and looked into her eyes. "You're a spy, Alice. Not an assassin."

Her stomach roiled. "Am I not? That's not what you said when we shot that general in Prague. Or when I killed Albrecht to keep my cover. If I'm to be a killer, Otto, let me kill the greatest killer of them all." Her tone was low, insistent.

He surprised her when his eyes welled with tears. "That is not what we need from you, brave one. That's not what the world needs from you."

"But he's-"

"The Nazi war machine will go on without Hitler. Surely you understand that." He didn't break his insistent gaze. Alice felt the ice storm inside her still a little. It was true – Hitler had built up a bureaucracy of war so complex that it powered on without his constant direction. Like the network Alice had built in Vienna, it had taken on a life of its own now.

Otto squeezed her hands. "Help us to pull apart the machine."

Alice was alarmed to feel tears spilling from her eyes. "I could do it, Otto." Her voice had gone quiet. Everything she'd done, every awful choice she'd made, none of it would matter. She could kill the man at the center of it all. It wouldn't matter what happened to her after that.

She wondered if Steve would be proud.

A tear rolled down Otto's cheek as well. His voice came low and husky: "I know." They kept looking into each other's eyes, and Alice felt devastated. "But you won't."

The knowledge cascaded through her like a landslide. She realized that at some point she'd started clinging to Otto's hands so fiercely that he couldn't have let her go if he tried.

She closed her eyes. "I won't."


In the end, it went much the way Alice had imagined. Her performance went off without a hitch, save for the whole audience standing up at the start, turning to Hitler's box and raising their hands in a deafening Heil!

Alice couldn't even see into the box. The stage lights were too bright.

Afterwards she sat in her dressing room with Otto and her backup singers, and waited. It didn't take long.

She and Otto had agreed to do nothing other than watch, listen, and report back. But they'd still done their research. Alice had read Mein Kampf years ago and had followed Hitler closely in the news since then, but as the day wore on she dug into everything she could find written about him.

It became quickly apparent that Adolf Hitler was either terrified of women, or hated them. Maybe both. He'd made various comments about viewing politics as a woman who must not be degraded or made impure, but protected by strong men. When asked why he was still single, he said he saw his duty to the country as his duty to a spouse. He'd raved against prostitution and promiscuity in his youth. There'd been some rumors that he'd had a relationship with his much younger cousin before her suicide in 1931.

Alice had looked up from her reading that morning and turned to Otto. "I know what my approach is going to be."

He looked up. "I was thinking flirtation. Stroke his ego, make him feel powerful." He rolled his eyes. "Works on most men."

"Yes, a bit of that," she replied. "But…" she gestured to her research. "He's terrified of women he can't control. He doesn't want witty repartee, or strength. So I have to be controllable."

So when the Führer of the Third Reich walked into Alice's dressing room that evening she went for the quiet approach: she lowered her eyes, smiled shyly, let Otto and the opera house manager do most of the talking.

Hitler himself seemed ordinary in the flesh. He had sweat on his forehead, and tired lines under his eyes. His dark hair and mustache were combed neatly down, of course, and his dress uniform was impeccable, but he wasn't a still image in the newspaper. He was a living, breathing man.

When he took Alice's hand to shake it she felt his warm skin, and tried not to blink as a blinding camera flash went off. She let Hitler grip her fingers and shake firmly, his dark eyes on hers. I could be killing you right now, she thought, and smiled at him. She would probably have gone for a gun, she thought; easy to smuggle in the sleeve of her dress, easy to just pull out and fire. Or a knife – no chance of that misfiring.

His attendants were idle, smiling, their hands nowhere near their weapons. She imagined what they'd look like, spattered with blood and their faces the perfect picture of surprise.

But none of that happened.

Hitler released her hand. "Fräulein Siren. I greatly enjoyed your performance. You have a gift." She was used to hearing his shouting, impassioned speeches, so his normal speaking tone came as a shock.

"Oh, thank you," she dipped her eyes, as if he was the sun and it was hard to look at him.

"You're from Austria, no?"

She smiled brilliantly. "Yes. The best things come out of Austria."

He smiled. Alice's skin crawled. "I couldn't agree more. Joseph tells me you are a great asset to our Propaganda Department."

"Thank you," she beamed. "I do what I can. To help." Her voice was a little higher, a little younger.

"A worthy cause, Fräulein. Keep up the good work."

She smiled. "I will."

Then he'd turned to Otto, and Alice shook hands with Hitler's attendants.

All in all, it likely only lasted five minutes. He was a busy man, after all.

That night Alice and Otto went back to his dark office, sat on the couch together, and finished a bottle of whiskey between them. They didn't talk.


Excerpts from Adolf Hitler's Speech to the National Socialist Women's League (September 8 1934):

"We do not consider it correct for the woman to interfere in the world of the man, in his main sphere. We consider it natural if these two worlds remain distinct. To the one belongs the strength of feeling, the strength of the soul. To the other belongs the strength of vision, of toughness, of decision, and of the willingness to act. In the one case this strength demands the willingness of the woman to risk her life to preserve this important cell [child] and to multiply it, and in the other case it demands from the man the readiness to safeguard life."

...

"What the man gives in courage on the battlefield, the woman gives in eternal self-sacrifice, in eternal pain and suffering."

...

"...we have gained the trust of millions of women as fanatical fellow-combatants, women who have fought for the common life in the service of the common task of preserving life, who in that combat did not set their sights on the rights which a Jewish intellectualism put before their eyes, but rather on the duties imposed by nature on all of us in common."


Late February, 1943

Steve ducked his chin further into his scarf as a bitter winter wind howled down the street, threatening to knock him back a step. He was in a foul mood, over nothing in particular. He'd just gotten a letter from Alice, which normally made him walk on air for a few days, but even her dry, subtle humor couldn't quite pull him out of his funk. She'd only made one, passing allusion to her life in Europe – she'd mentioned she'd visited an art gallery in Munich that she thought he'd enjoy. She didn't explain why she was in Munich at all.

He and Alice had been in intermittent contact since she'd returned to Austria, through their secret line of communication. They spoke in ciphers. Steve's only knowledge about what she got up to came from her. It wasn't like he knew anyone else in Europe, and all the information in the papers was about troop movements and bombings. At least there hadn't been any bombings on Vienna.

He hadn't seen Bucky in weeks, since Bucky had been promoted to Sergeant and now had bigger responsibilities. Steve had tried and failed again to enlist, in Harlem, after visiting the area to watch Tom's baseball game – the kid had just made the school team.

Steve was stuck at his dead end job at a department store. He was technically there to draw sketches for their advertisements, but he usually wound up doing administration work in the office. It was fine, but he wanted to be useful. Every day felt like a waste.

Steve kicked a loose piece of cement and winced when it bruised his toe.

"Paper! Buy your newspaper here!"

He glanced up at the paperstand on the side of the pavement and skimmed the headlines. Christ, he was tired of hearing about the war, and he wasn't even in Europe. And yet he also couldn't get enough.

He saw the word Austria and stopped in his tracks. His heartrate ticked up – surely there hadn't been any fighting there? The Allies were still battling it out in Italy.

He picked up the paper (The New York Times) and found the line that had caught his eye. It wasn't an article, just a headline:

PAGE 32: AUSTRIAN SINGER AND FILM STAR BACKS NAZIS 'ALL THE WAY'.

Huh. He dug into his pocket for change and handed over 5 cents to the vendor. Steve hadn't written his letter in reply to Alice yet, maybe he could tell her about this film star and see what she thought. It might prompt her to open up a little more.

As he approached the trolley stop he flicked the paper open to page 32.

He stopped in his tracks, making the pedestrian behind him swear and veer around him.

Because for the first time since March of last year, he was looking at Alice.

And she was shaking Hitler's hand.


March 1943
Berlin

The premiere of Liebe und Sieg an der Front [Love and Victory on the Front] was a star-studded affair. Alice had expected it to be somber, given the recent loss at the Battle of Stalingrad and the fact that the German Army had withdrawn from Tunisia, but it was almost the opposite: people wanted some excuse to celebrate, and a movie about a fictional victory seemed to be the perfect opportunity.

Alice arrived at the premiere theater in a gold satin dress that trailed a yard behind her as she walked. Kurt in his dress uniform stood by her side as her date, but even as she smiled up at him Alice considered asking Otto what he thought about her cutting things off with Kurt soon. His usefulness was drying up and he'd been getting more insistent about pushing their relationship forward.

What with the thousands of flashing camera bulbs, her stupidly long dress getting under her feet, and avoiding Kurt's wandering hands, she barely saw Otto outside the theater. He was shaking hands and making acquaintances, always working.

Before the film started they took a cast photo all together, and Alice's costar Karl Schneider wrapped his burly arm around her waist. She flashed a smile.

Finally they all filed into the theater and Alice relaxed in the darkness.

The movie, as she had predicted, was pretty terrible. Full of clichés and blatant propaganda, Alice winced at the sight of herself whirling across the screen with a bright white smile and elaborate makeup. But at the climax of the film (she winced at the on-screen kiss between Karl and herself, remembering his harsh grip) she looked around to find that many in the audience had been brought to tears.

She had to remind herself: half the people here have a family member off fighting the war in a distant country. I might despise the reason for it, but these people still love their family. They still miss them.

It brought a strange, sad pallor over her and she barely paid attention to the rest of the movie.

She stole away as soon as she reasonably could once the credits rolled. Her makeup felt heavy and her skin crawled at being around so many people. She wanted her bed.

As she climbed into the car behind her driver, though, she asked him to take her to the post office first. Once they'd arrived she slipped out, glancing around to make sure there was no one around to stare at the gold-clad singer, and darted over to check her post box. Her heart leaped when she saw two envelopes addressed from the Thomas Cook Office, Lisbon. She tucked them in her purse and got back in the car. Her knee jumped nervously all the way home.

She said goodnight to her driver as he pulled up to her apartment, then gathered up her stupid dress train, ran upstairs, let herself inside, and didn't even get past the kitchen before she tore open the first letter. When she saw Steve's handwriting on the secondary envelope inside (her Vienna address – she had her mail rerouted), she beamed.

Alice kicked off her shoes inside her kitchen as she slit open the envelope and tipped it, and out fell… a newspaper clipping? She frowned and peered inside the envelope. There was no accompanying letter.

She set the envelope aside and began unfolding the newspaper clipping. She saw the upper margin: New York Times. The paper was rumpled and creased, as if someone had crushed it up and then smoothed it out again.

When she saw her own face in black and white her heart… disintegrated. Her fingers froze and she sucked in a shaky breath at the sensation in her chest: it was as if her heart had just shriveled up and fallen apart. Because she recognized the photo.

Fingers trembling, Alice finished unfolding the newspaper. The headline jumped out at her:

NAZI SONGSTRESS: AUSTRIAN SINGER 'THE SIREN' BACKS NAZIS "ALL THE WAY"

Alice's legs trembled. She was standing in her kitchen, there were no chairs near her, so she just kind of sank to the ground as she clutched the newspaper clipping.

With her knees pressed to the cold tile, her eyes darted over the photographs. The article took up a half page of the paper, so there were lots of them: the photo of her shaking hands with Hitler in her dressing room, the lights illuminating her smile. A photo from her TV interview in January. Another of her in the Nazi uniform she'd worn in Morocco, with a massive swastika behind her and her mouth wide open mid-song. Yet another of one of her performances, this one in her white dress. At the bottom there was a photograph of her and Kurt outside a Berlin restaurant, his arm looped around her shoulders and his lips pressing against the corner of her mouth. In that one, she looked shy and pleased.

Alice let out a low, horrified sound that echoed in her kitchen. She'd always played the part and done her job, but it wasn't until this very instant that she realized how convincing it looked. Her throat clogged up and the sound she'd been making died.

Alice's eyes burned and her fingers shook, but she forced herself to read the article. Given that it was American, it was of course disparagingr.

The Siren soared to fame in the Reich at the beginning of the war, and has taken her career from success to success thanks to generous support from the propaganda-starved Nazi party and the lack of musical competition thanks to the migration of most decent performers out of Germany.

Further down, another line read: The Siren flits from party to party, securing friendships in the highest places. Here she is pictured with her latest beau, Kurt Ohlendorf, nephew of late Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich.

The Siren sings anthems of hope and success for rabid German audiences of civilians and soldiers, and hosts many military commanders at her famous parties.

Alice fumbled the paper. They're talking about me.

There were quotes from her television interview and all the other radio interviews she'd done.

"Germany will succeed in its ultimate dream, I believe that," says the Siren. Most singers in Europe nowadays choose not to express political opinions, even if they do perform in Germany, but the Siren holds no such qualms. "I back our leaders all the way. Our National Socialist future looks bright, and I can't wait to be a part of it!"

When Alice reached the end, she dropped the article on the floor. It stared up at her accusingly, her own face and her own words reflecting back at her.

She planted one palm beside the article, almost flinching at the chill radiating from the tile floor. Then she pushed herself up, getting shakily to her feet. She turned to the bench and looked at the envelope again.

There was no other note. Nothing but her address in Steve's elegant hand.

A gasping sound echoed through the kitchen and Alice realized it was her own breathing, shuddering out of her chest.

He could have just stopped writing her. There's no way she could have known what stopped him. But this – she glanced back down at the article on the floor – was a demand for an explanation.

But Alice couldn't explain.

How could I be so stupid to think that they'd never find out?

She fumbled for the second envelope and tore it open with her teeth because her hands shook too badly.

It was from Tom. It wasn't even encrypted.

Alice.

Please, explain this. Steve and Bucky showed up here an hour ago with this newspaper article, and I've been staring at it since then and I can't stop seeing you.

Did something happen? Are you being threatened? Is someone impersonating you?

I have no idea what's going on. Steve's not speaking anymore, and Bucky won't shut up, but they're scared, Alice. And angry. If this is you… why on earth are you doing this? I can't think of a reasonable explanation and I'm trying, believe me. You didn't mention any of this in your letters to us, and I know you haven't been telling us everything, but this?

When you came back, you said you maybe had a new job. That you were going to help people. I believed you, Alice.

Please. You promised me that one day you would tell me all your secrets. Now's the time. Even if you can't tell me everything, just give me some kind of sign. I know there must be an explanation for this.

Love,
Tom.

Alice was weeping so hard by the time she finished the letter that she could barely read it. She shook from head to toe. Her teeth were chattering.

Because she knew what she had to do.

She couldn't explain. She couldn't tell them the truth, not even if she encrypted it with her strongest cipher. Not only would it put herself in danger but it would be a risk to Otto, to everyone in their network, the SSR, and everything they were trying to achieve.

So when she'd stopped shaking quite so violently she collected the letter, the envelopes, and the newspaper, and set them in her sink. She fetched her matchbook from the drawer. It took her four tries to light a match. She dropped it on the papers and watched the words blacken and curl. She watched her own face go up in flames.

With the smell of phosphorous and smoke in her nostrils, Alice gripped her kitchen counter and cried so hard that her sinuses blocked up and her throat hurt and her heart shattered. She hunched in on herself and shuddered.

It's safer for them, she told herself. Safer if Tom doesn't have a sister. Safer if Bucky and Steve never knew Alice Moser at all.

She'd once written to Tom: I want to make you proud. She had to give up on that. She had to break her promise to tell him her secrets.

Bucky had said Steve needs you here with him. Alice had known, even then, that she wouldn't get to have that.

She'd told Steve I love you. Maybe she shouldn't have said it. Maybe it would be easier on him if she hadn't.

The paper blackened into ashes, and she rinsed it all down the drain. At some point she'd stopped crying. She just stood there, her face red and swollen and her breath coming in gasps, as if she'd been physically wounded.

After what could have been hours Alice drew in a deep breath that made her chest shudder. She walked across her apartment, still fully clothed from the premiere, and curled into bed.

She fell asleep, and dreamed of darkness.