Lucy would be the first to admit she didn't look good being blonde, not one little bit. She felt washed out, like the way her favorite dress looked like after a whole summer of wearing it back when she was eight. She hadn't liked it the moment they had bleached her hair back in London, and she didn't like it every other time she looked into the mirror. Gone were her red locks, gone was the hair she had grown over so many years, cut until it went just past her shoulders. She had to learn how to pin her fringe until it disappeared, the way to curl her hair at night.
And she had to admit that the mission was not all that dangerous. Ok, that was a lie, it was dangerous because she would most certainly be killed if she was found to be a spy, but the work didn't have her risking anything too much. After all, the job Veronique had gotten without lifting a finger thanks to her older brother Jaques, same as her apartment, and everyone seemed to trust her thanks to him.
Veronique didn't speak German, barely understood the basics, but Jaques did speak it. If they asked, and they had asked, Veronique was just too dumb for languages, and it had taken her teacher hitting her knuckles with a wooden ruler for her to speak basic English, accented in the way the man from the corner store back in Switzerland spoke English. It was almost dumb luck the General she had been assigned spoke French as well and could understand Veronique without problem—except it wasn't, because she had been chosen for a reason, and her German was just a tad beyond basic.
But Veronique was a good secretary. She had all the papers filed, took the best notes even if they were in French, and she was a professional at arranging meetings for the General she was assigned. She couldn't crack the codes they were written in, and when the General had once asked her if she could understand what a letter she was given to post said, Veronique had turned red, looking all sheepish as she tried to read what she thought was German with French vocals.
Lucy was not naive. She knew the German were smart, but everywhere in the world there were men weak for a pretty, young little thing that giggled behind documents and looked at them starry eyed.
And the General had dismissed her, trusting the sister of his good friend Jaques.
But Lucy was no idiot. Lucy saw patterns, and Lucy told Jaques over their weekly tea, trusting him to relegate the information back to the SSR. He wasn't in the German military, had only befriended the General at a bar by "chance". Lucy kept her ears open for gossip, made friend with other girls that worked desk jobs and traded womanly and housekeeping advice with an ease she had only seen in her coworkers back at the hospital. She told tales of Veronique's life, constructed a cover of a wide eyed young woman who believed in the Nazi cause, who dreamed of charming an officer that made the wishes of the Fuhrer come true, who was giddy when she raised her palms to salute the higher ups.
And Lucy cried at night, touching the empty place where her wedding ring once rested. She touched her engagement ring, the one she had refused to part with, placed in the middle finger of her right had so it was not obvious, and made up stories of a proud father giving a gift to his little princess the day of her eighteenth birthday, just months before his passing.
Jaques didn't speak of America. He didn't speak of the SSR either, told her it was better if she knew nothing. It didn't sit well with her, not at all, but there wasn't much she could do about it. They were basically alone in this, in the middle of Berlin. The SSR wouldn't be able to just get a rescue team to get her out if things went wrong, they were too deep in. And she knew that when she accepted, she had grasped at the opportunity dangling in front of her to prove she was just as capable, just as good as other agents.
Mrs. Brennan always did tell her that would be her dooming.
In the middle of July, there are rumors that men sent to check on the head of H.Y.D.R.A weeks ago never returned. By the beginning of August, they are no longer rumors and the Generals are left scrambling to get the scientific division back on Nazi control. They talk of insubordination, of a base that was gifted and turned into a fortress. They talk of a man that no longer answers to the Fuhrer, how dangerous it is. The generals don't care about a small secretary who doesn't even speak German.
They would have worried about an American spy who understood German, though.
She learns more about Nazis than H.Y.D.R.A, that much is true. But the SSR can give the information to the government, and every mention of Schmidt is carefully logged, put away to tell Jaques the next time she sees him. There is the location of the base the Fuhrer had given him, somewhere in the Alpes, and the soldiers laugh about banishment and how far away it is, not seeing how the distance allows him to act freely. There are whispers about Schmid, about how he changed, how he lost the Aryan perfection and how it was the reason he was sent away. There are fewer whispers about inhuman strength, but for some reason those are less believed.
Lucy knows those to be true.
Veronique sits at her desk and chatters with other women, shuffles papers and organizes meetings. She schedules the General's day, reminds him of his duties and family dinners. Veronique sends the General shy smiles, tries to touch his hands when she gives him papers, leans just enough so he can see the opening of her blouse, even if there isn't much to see.
Lucy listens, and Lucy sees, and Lucy learns.
As August draws to an end, Veronique arranges for the General to take a trip outside Berlin for a meeting that will last for at least four days.
"Sir?" Veronique knocks softly on the door of the General's office, waiting for his approval before opening it "The car is ready for you. It would be advisable to leave in around thirty minutes if you want to arrive on time to the meeting" her French is soft, her voice meek as she looks at him shyly, always shyly.
The General has his hands placed on his desk, standing as he looks at papers. The light from the midmorning comes through the window behind him, and it creates a ring of golden around his head. His uniform is ironed to perfection, no doubt from one of the many people he must have serving him on his house. Lucy kicks down the resentment she feels inside, thinking of how she's shared her bed most of her life with someone else—her mammy, the Barnes girls. She kicks down the thought of how she grew up in houses with more people than rooms and how this man has at least 5 unused ones if the gossip is to be believed.
"Are you okay, sir?" Veronique asks, honey sweet, taking a step inside and closing the door behind her.
"Come here, Veronique" he says, and she walks until she's standing in front of the desk. With a nod, he indicates for her to take a place beside him. He puts papers aside too quickly for her to read, and clears the place so she can see the map underneath more clearly "This is the place where H.Y.D.R.A has their biggest factory. Up until this point, they delivered us weapons, but didn't show promise for any new advancement. As of yesterday, all communications have been cut. There will no more deliveries, and Schmidt has declared H.Y.D.R.A. independent from us. Today's meeting will be to see what to do"
"General…why are you telling me this?" Veronique asks, eyes fixed on the map of Germany in front of her. While Veronique traces the border with Switzerland, Lucy memorizes where the three big Hs are placed, apparently the three main factories. They're not placed only in Germany, but all over the Axis controlled territory, multiple smaller Hs scattered around.
"I trust you, Veronique" the General whispers "You have been a perfect assistant, and you seem dedicated to our noble cause. You're a perfect fit for us, with this lovely hair…you have beautiful eyes, Veronique" he leans closer, takes a blonde curl of her hair and places it behind her ear. With him that close, she's reminded again of how young he is. Barely forty, he's the perfect image of an Aryan, with his light hair and dashing eyes. He's unmarried, too dedicated to the Nazi cause and climbing ranks to worry about things like love and family, although whispers say he's thinking of settling down before the war ends.
Lucy yearns for her Steve.
"Your car awaits, General" Veronique answers instead, perfect porcelain cheeks blushing, looking flustered at the closeness.
Lucy tries to avoid tears by pinching her tight.
Two days later, there is a knock at her door. It's just a few hours after her tea with Jaques, where she had told him of the location of the bases, drawn crudely on a loose piece of paper as best as she could.
Veronique is not expecting anyone, so Lucy takes her small revolver and looks through the peephole.
There are four men from the SS outside her door and a fifth man in civilian clothes, and she closes her eyes for a second, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
She knows very well what this means.
But she can pretend, if only to buy herself time. She's on a fifth floor, windows leading straight to the street, no balcony, no fire escape. To be honest, she hadn't thought much about escapes except for the first week when she had noticed there were no ways of escape if you didn't count the front door, had been lulled into a sense of safeness that came from the fact that this apartment had been assigned to her by an ally, had thought there would be a fake address on Veronique's papers that wouldn't make it possible for her to be traced here.
But Jaques Dubois is right outside her door with the enemy.
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She takes down three men before the fourth manages to slip behind her and knock her out. There are a few seconds in which she's just dizzy, eyes slowly clouding over as she lies down, and that is when Jaques leans down and whispers against her ear.
"Hail Hitler"
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She wakes for a second when they throw her against cold metal, her shoulder burning with pain. She thinks she hears gift and Schmidt , but the darkness comes back before she can make sense of that.
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She gains some consciousness in the back of a truck, hands tied behind her back and feet tied together with rope.
She barely moves before a man is hitting her again.
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She wakes again in a cell, a small pain in her neck where they probably injected something that knocked her out for so long. She's alone in the cell, but there are others all around her. There are all kinds of uniforms, soiled clothes that she's sure didn't start as brown, but that's the color they are now. They are all men. Soldiers.
An H.Y.D.R.A. agent comes in, yelling in German to get the men moving, and she's left alone again with few men that were too weak to walk. The closest man around her is three cells down, and when she tries to speak up, a man comes to hit the bars of her cell with a gun and yells for her to be quiet.
If it was morning when everyone went away, it must be close to sunset when they all come back, slower and weary, tired from what she can only guess is forced labor. A bunch of men come into the cell beside Lucy's, and they all take places in the cold floor. After so many hours, she's moved places when she could no longer feel her ass and was in the middle of pacing when they came back. She walks towards the shared wall to her left and sits in the floor, leaning against the metal bars, the cold biting her skin through her thin, cream-colored sweater.
"Where am I?" she asks the man leaning beside her in the shared wall between their cells. He's a redhead, like her, but she can't guess his nationality, so she tries with English.
"Austria, we think" the man answers in perfect, not-English English. American.
God, she was so many miles away from home.