Excerpt from translated article 'Das Geheimnis der Sirene [The Mystery of the Siren]' by Hans Schruben (1965):
What researchers who look into the Siren must accept at some point, is that there are stories we do not know. Perhaps someone knows the truth and is hiding it, or perhaps all the facts are not in the same place yet. But until then, we must accept life without all the answers.
Peggy stood at parade rest on the airfield beside Colonel Phillips, both of them watching in silence as a dull green troop transport aircraft touched down on the runway, bouncing slightly. It was a dim grey day in England, and the clouds threatened rain. A breeze brushed a strand of hair over Peggy's face and she shook it away impatiently.
The plane slowed down and wheeled around, making its way back to the small hangar Peggy and Phillips stood by. They watched, faces impervious, as the plane trundled to a halt. The rear doors opened up and a colorful crew poured out: Captain Rogers and the 107th Tactical Team. They looked grubby and tired, streaked in mud.
"Rogers," Phillips called as soon as they were in earshot. Peggy could practically hear his teeth grinding. "Care to explain why the hell you and your men pulled out of Italy without any orders? We've got an attack plan, you can't just travel back to safer shores every weekend-"
But Captain Rogers did not appear to be listening. He strode straight up to them – to Peggy – and spoke. "Agent Homer."
Peggy eyed him calmly. She'd never seen Steve angry before, not like this – he didn't loom or appear violent, but there was an intense determination blazing in his eyes. In his full Captain America uniform, the whole effect was fairly intimidating. "I beg your pardon?"
"Don't do that." He said brusquely. "You… do you know who she is?"
She. Before she could stop it, a flicker of panic made itself known on Peggy's face. "She… revealed her identity to you?" This was unanticipated. Peggy had simply assumed that Alice would go under her 'Al' disguise. She'd been a little worried about Alice keeping it up for four days, but she knew her to ba an excellent actress. What had happened?
"Yes," Steve said simply. The other men had trailed after him, watching the exchange with wary faces. "Do you know who she is?"
Peggy frowned. There was a weight to Steve's words that she didn't quite understand.
"What are you on about?" Phillips demanded, his anger at their sudden return turning to frustration. "So you figured out our agent's Austrian, why-"
"No," Steve said insistently. "I mean do you know who she is to me." Behind him, Sergeant Barnes cleared his throat. "To me and Bucky."
Peggy's eyes darted. Her mind whirred into gear, trying to understand what had shaken Captain Rogers so – oh. Brooklyn. Damn it all to hell. "You know her," she said cautiously, peering at him.
Steve took a step back, intensity ebbing, and met Sergeant Barnes' eyes. "They really didn't know."
"Seems like someone screwed up somewhere along the line," Barnes muttered.
Steve shook his head. "It's like we guessed, they must've been keeping so many secrets about us all that no one got all the facts in the same place."
"Enough of that," Phillips said in irritation, clicking his fingers. "Care to explain what's going on? You know Agent Homer?"
The two friends turned back to face them. Steve still seemed restless and upset, so Sergeant Barnes answered.
"We've known her most of our lives," he said simply. "Alice Moser…" he searched for words, and Peggy's stomach dropped at the use of Alice's full name. "Alice Moser is our best friend."
Steve and Barnes' men exchanged glances at that, but seemed to prefer to remain in silence.
"That's right," Steve added. He turned to face Peggy and Phillips, drawing himself tall. "And you're using her as a spy."
He held their gaze, righteous. Peggy did not break eye contact. Her mind was whirling with confusion as she tried to understand how this could have happened, but she was first and foremost a leader, and she would not show shame or weakness.
After a few moments, Steve's expression closed a little. "That's not why we're back, though," he said almost grudgingly. "Alice found something."
Later that day, Peggy found herself looking out the window of Colonel Phillips' office in Whitehall, standing silent with her hands resting on the windowsill as Phillips raged (well, he was forced to whisper for fear that someone might hear him, but his anger was irrepressible).
"And that dressed up wrecking ball has the gall to be angry at me," Phillips hissed as he rifled through his filing cabinet – for what, Peggy wasn't sure. "As if I'm the one who turned his friend into a devious little-"
Peggy stopped listening. How could I have let this happen?
She'd made a fatal error when she'd avoided looking into Alice's private life in Brooklyn. She hadn't considered it relevant. She'd had the SSR check on Alice's connections of course, but they only search for potential Nazi links. Why should a 95 pound asthmatic who'd never left Brooklyn raise any special interest?
Peggy bit the inside of her cheek as she stared unseeing at the street below. Since that morning she and Phillips had interviewed Steve and Barnes extensively about their connection with Alice. She could see it all now: how the crucial truth had fallen through the cracks.
When Steve was selected for Project Rebirth, Alice was long gone in Europe and there were no documented connections between the two of them anymore – unless the SSR had cared to delve into every student who'd ever attended Brooklyn High School. They hadn't.
Behind her, Phillips dropped a folder and papers went flying everywhere. He started cursing, and didn't bother to whisper this time.
Peggy thought back to those weeks in Brooklyn. She'd noticed that Alice had a private life of some kind during their training, but that had not been any of Peggy's business. Alice didn't let it impact her work, and Peggy trusted her to keep secrecy and put the mission above all else. And from what Steve and Barnes had told her, it seemed Alice had done just that.
Peggy thought about the pain Alice had been in these past months. Remembered her saying I know this work is the most important thing I've done. But I've lost people I care about. The wrenched, longing look Peggy remembered seeing in Alice's eyes matched the expression on Steve's face this morning.
She ran a hand over her chin. Alice had let Steve, Bucky, and her brother think she was a Nazi, and they had cut her off.
And Peggy had known all three of them, had been in the middle of all of it, and she'd been clueless.
I will never let this happen again.
As this thought firmed her posture and clenched her fists, as Phillips growled and snapped, Peggy recalled the way Steve and Barnes had spoken about Alice in their debrief. They'd told Peggy and Phillips about their childhood, and the bond that had been formed over years of letter writing and shared history. Their voices had been fond, familiar, concerned. Steve's expression had been different from Barnes' though. Alice, to Bucky, was a dear childhood friend. To Steve… it was clear she was something more.
Alice was always so difficult to read, even to a master such as Peggy. But Steve was practically an open book.
A stirring of disappointment made itself known in Peggy's gut, and she frowned as she looked down at the busy street outside. Perhaps, if he'd never found out about Alice… but no. This was for the best. Peggy had enjoyed a brief moment of hope, which wasn't to be. Not with this… unspoken something.
She turned away from the window. Perhaps, with the hope removed, she and Steve might find a way to be good friends. They hadn't quite reached that point yet. Steve clearly liked Alice a great deal, and that showed he had excellent taste.
It doesn't matter anyway, Peggy thought frustratedly as she crouched down to help put Phillips' papers right. We've all got jobs to do. She knew she had some of the best people working for her in the SSR, and when they succeeded and the war was over, then… well, then I'll have time for foolish thoughts like these.
Phillips returned to furious whispering, and Peggy picked up the paper he'd been digging around for: a personnel list.
For now, she thought, we have a spy to catch.
The 107th Tactical Team had returned to the Whip & Fiddle, but they weren't here to drink and carouse this time. They were certainly putting on a good show of it, but they'd taken over a table in an alcove in the smoky corner of the bar, distant from the other midafternoon barflies.
When Steve and Bucky had put their heads together to find a safe planning location, this was the best they'd come up with. They couldn't exactly have one of their big tactical discussions at the war table in the underground Whitehall Offices, where all the other SSR employees - and a potential HYDRA spy - could hear.
At the center of their table lay plans of Dover Castle, along with intelligence notes Peggy had personally collected herself, and photographs of each SSR employee. Bucky had brought a pinup catalogue along, which they used to cover their plans if anyone happened to walk by.
They had three days until the meet at Dover Castle, and since they'd arrived in London they'd been working hand in hand with Peggy and Phillips to arrange an intercept.
When he wasn't thinking about disguises and locations for lookouts, Steve's mind retreated back to those four impossible days in the Italian mountains. His mind had reeled to have Alice in front of him once more, and now it reeled at the loss of her. He sketched her – familiar eyes and unfamiliar bearing – when he couldn't sleep.
He thought, by now, he should be used to being apart from her. They'd been separated since the age of seventeen, and by now they'd had more time apart than they'd ever had together. And yet he found himself lost once again in the strangeness of not having her by her side, not having her cool green eyes to turn to when he wanted to share a joke, or a smile.
He thought, once again, how unfair it was that the world kept pulling them apart when the time they had together felt right. He felt as if he were defying some sign from the universe for resisting against the endless tide that pushed them apart.
"You're all up in your own head again," came Bucky's mutter.
Steve blinked to find himself staring down at his own hand, which lay spread over a floor map of Dover Castle and its grounds. He wondered how long he'd been staring at it. "Sorry."
"S'alright, I get it," Bucky sighed. "There's a lot to think about."
"Yeah," Steve said roughly. "I… like I was saying, we need to intercept the spy without HYDRA realizing, ideally, so we can learn as much as possible. Also we need to prevent the spy from using the cyanide capsule they'll no doubt have."
"Right," Bucky said with a knowing, wry look at Steve. "That's why I'm saying that if it is a handler meet, we should let the meet go ahead as planned and then nab the spy after the handler leaves."
"We run the risk of the spy handing over vital intelligence, though-" began Dugan, only to interrupt himself as he saw someone approaching the table, and slid the pinup catalogue over their plans.
But it was just Gabe. "Hey fellas," he grinned as he strode up to them, dusting snow off his collar. He dropped a newspaper on top of the pinups and flopped down beside Dernier. "Look what I found."
They all craned forward to see the copy of The Times, which Gabe had folded open to a specific article. It was headlined "Nazi Diva", and two large photographs of the Siren graced the page.
Steve's stomach flipped over.
Dugan dragged the paper toward himself and goggled at the photos. The first was of Alice at the premiere for her movie, arm in arm with the costar, and the second Steve remembered from the New York Times article: her in a flowing white dress with draping sleeves like wings, her expression piercing and unknowable.
"This is her?" Dugan whispered, and turned the paper to show the others. They'd only known the slight, grubby young woman dressed as a boy with her hair stuffed into a cap. The closest they'd come to seeing the Siren was when she sang – or maybe when she'd shot those soldiers. "You'd hardly recognize her."
The others all fought for a look at the paper, but Steve just gazed down at it and nodded. "I guess that's the point."
Iron Placard on the front of an office building in Whitehall, London:
Historical London: The Whip & Fiddle
From 1904-1945, this site was home to the pub "The Whip & Fiddle". Most notably the pub was a well-known favourite of Captain America and the Howling Commandos. As William Dirk, the former owner, put it: "They was always in here when they weren't off blowing up Nazis. Drinking, laughing, but never causing trouble. I'll be sorry to never see them all together here again."
The Whip & Fiddle was destroyed during a Luftwaffe air raid in January of 1945.
Four days later, Howard Stark watched with his arms folded across his chest as Dugan and Morita marched his lab assistant (who he'd thought was a genial young man named Jerry) down the SSR corridor to a holding cell. "Jerry" spat German curses at everyone who looked his way, and was currently trying to step on Morita's toes. Howard cringed.
"We intercepted him at exactly 1500 at Dover Castle, as he accessed a dead drop," Peggy explained in a crisp tone. Captain Rogers stood silently beside her. "We think we'll be able to get at least a few weeks of counterintelligence out of the dead drop before HYDRA cottons on."
Dugan shoved Jerry into the holding cell and Morita slammed the door.
Howard winced. "I think I'll be more selective in my choice of assistant, next time."
"You had better," Peggy said evenly. "You're lucky we caught him, he was passing along some of your blueprints."
"Right," Howard said distantly. Everyone was looking at him, which he would normally feel great about, but now the back of his neck felt hot. "Excellent work Pegs, Rogers." He nodded at them both and spun on his heel to return to the lab. He wanted to check if anything else was missing.
He did not hear Agent Carter say softly: "The credit doesn't belong to us."
He did not hear Captain Rogers' reply: "No." Then, a few moments later, Captain Rogers held a hand out. "But none of this'd be possible without you, Agent C– Peggy. You're doing good work."
There were a few more moments of silence. Then Agent Carter took Captain Rogers' hand and shook it. "Thank you, Steve."
Days later, Alice received a fan letter signed from S. Ulysses. It took her and Otto about an hour to decrypt the letter.
Things had gone pretty much back to normal for them, or as normal as things could get. Heidi had done a brilliant job of being Alice for the few days she'd been missing, though they'd had to fake an illness to explain why she didn't have any visitors, so Alice had been easing back into public life gently.
Alice had told Otto most of the truth about her time in the Italian mountains. She told him everything, in fact, apart from exactly how close her relationship with Steve was, though she suspected Otto might have guessed what she didn't disclose. He seemed disgruntled to hear that she had a connection that might distract her, but he agreed that Steve and his team sounded very promising for the future of the war.
Alice had done her best to avoid being distracted, to prove Otto wrong, but she couldn't hide the fact that the past four days had completely changed how she approached the war. She couldn't pretend to be a cold, precise manipulator any longer. Not when she had such a warm pit of hope thawing in her chest.
After some head scratching and reviewing their alphabet charts, Alice and Otto cracked the encrypted letter to find a simple message:
GIANT IS BLIND. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS INCOMING.
Alice's eyes flicked over the message, and she smiled. As she and Otto knew, Argus in Greek legend was a hundred-eyed giant.
"They got him," she breathed.
"Or her," Otto said fairly.
"Or her," she agreed. "And that's one less weapon HYDRA has in fighting this war. We're going to get them."
"We sure are," Otto yawned. "Now let's get some sleep."
The weeks ticked on, quicker than Alice had expected. Christmas passed to meagre fanfare, then New Years, as the Siren continued her Italian tour. Alice and Otto gathered intelligence as diligently as ever, and if Alice found herself reading the newspapers a little more closely, well, there was nothing odd in that, was there?
Of course, Otto found it odd.
She was sitting in the dressing room with the paper open before her, reading about a raid by Captain America and his Invaders in Albania (I wonder what brought them there. They've had a few random raids, but none in Italy), when Otto cleared his throat.
"Be careful," he muttered.
Alice finished the article and looked up. "What?"
Otto was signing requisition orders for new costumes for the backup singers. "With your… the man you mentioned. He's a soldier."
fHe wasn't looking at the newspaper, but Alice snapped it shut anyway. She frowned.
Otto looked up, saw her expression, and sighed. "Soldiers don't have long lifespans."
"Oh." She looked down at the closed newspaper, then inspected her fingernails. "I know, Otto, trust me. Steve… our whole lives, I've been so terrified of him dying."
It was Otto's turn to frown.
"He was sick our whole childhood. He never complained, but I think he's very lucky he made it to adulthood. Or just stubborn. So I've spent years being terrified of him not being… strong enough, or determined enough." Her eyes burned. "So much so that I think I've been subconsciously preparing for the worst." She looked up. "But he's always been strong enough."
"Alice…"
"I know," she said briskly. "I know, Otto. You and I, we know better than anyone. But I can't act like he's dead already. That's not how hearts work."
"No," he sighed, reaching up to smooth down his thinning hair. "It isn't. That might be an easier world."
Alice stood up, folded the paper, then walked over to set her hand on Otto's shoulder. "We're not fighting for an easier world, though, are we?"
He smiled, and she squeezed his shoulder.
"I just don't want to see you hurt," Otto murmured. But before Alice could answer, he stood up. "Let's prepare our packet for the Zurich performance."
Excerpt from translated book 'Lessons of Japanese Morality' by Satomi Miyagi (1896):
... This reminds me of the legend of Miyako Sonodayu, the Japanese master of traditional jōruri music in the Edo period, who famously went missing after climbing Tsurugidake, the most dangerous mountain in Japan. This is a reminder that if you seek inspiration in the midst of peril, peril will seek recompense.
Standing aboard a troop transport ship in the Mediterranean, Steve watched the shifting water. Bucky leaned against the prow beside him, arms crossed and his face hard.
"You ever wonder what she's up to, right now?" Steve murmured. His body ached from their last raid against a HYDRA outpost in Sardinia. They'd gotten everyone out safely, but Steve had absorbed a blast from a HYDRA cannon on his shield and been sent flying off a five-story building.
That might explain Bucky's sour mood, actually.
"Of course I do," Bucky said. He frowned. "Did you hit your head?"
Steve rolled his eyes. "I gotta be concussed to wonder about Alice?"
"No. But you haven't mentioned her much."
Steve shrugged helplessly. "What's to talk about? I have no idea where she is, what she's doing, or if…" he shook his head, still staring down at the water. "And the end of this war isn't exactly in sight."
"We're going to win it," Bucky said firmly. He wasn't the first to express this confidence: what with the Russians turning the tide on the Eastern front and the ramping-up of plans on the Western Front, things looked bad for the Nazis. It was by no means a done deal, but… for once, it didn't look like the Nazis were going to sweep across the world and swallow it whole.
"Well," Steve sighed. He didn't know what had come over him – he hadn't wallowed in melancholy like this for a while. Perhaps it was because it had been a month since he'd watched Alice walk off into the treeline in Italy, and nothing had changed. The war went on and he and his men fought lightning fast, effective raids without really seeming to deal a devastating blow. "Then there's not much to say until then."
"I can think of some things to say," Bucky said with an edge in his voice. "Like… what would Alice say about you running in front of cannons?"
Despite himself, Steve smiled as he looked up into Bucky's annoyed face.
"Don't you smile at me like that, idiot," Bucky said, though Steve could see a smile tugging at his mouth. "If Alice were here she'd say you're an absolute moron, and just because you think you're invincible doesn't mean you are, and a tiny shield is not an effective weapon against massive cannons-"
"Alice sure seems to have a lot to say."
Bucky frowned a moment longer, but then his frustration melted away. "Well. If you've been wondering what Alice has been up to, then I think you'll enjoy the telegram we just got from Agent Carter."
Steve frowned. "What do you mean?"
Alice had done dozens of these performances in Switzerland by now. They were always late, for one thing, since they had to go through so much paperwork and security at the border to the neutral country, and the workers at the performance hall were distant and distrustful of her and Otto, a marked difference from the reverence they received in Nazi-ruled countries. She'd dressed herself, since Heidi was busy on another assignment in Italy, and tonight she sang her way through a few arias from her brief opera career, as well as a few original songs.
The lights were low, muted, and the atmosphere intense. Alice could sense her audience's displeasure at the Nazi songs warring with their enjoyment of her voice. She had an image as the German songbird to keep up, but she also wanted to keep getting invited back, so during the short break she quickly whispered some instructions to her accompaniment. After that, they reeled through some French arias and the audience perked up.
Alice let her mind drift. As always, the true purpose for the Swiss performances was to meet with Peggy. It would be the first time she'd seen her since meeting Steve and his team in the Italian forest, and Alice had dozens of questions percolating in her mind. She wondered if Steve and Bucky had told Peggy about her. If Peggy had known they knew each other.
And if Peggy knew, then Alice had just one question for her: How could you let us both go on in ignorance and pain like that? Alice knew the value of secrets but that didn't seem like a necessary one to have kept.
The song changed, and Alice smiled at her audience.
She knew better than to believe that Peggy would have put their friendship above the mission – that was part of the reason Alice respected her so much.
Well. Alice had been wondering for a month now. And tonight she'd finally have the chance to ask.
When she returned to the dressing room after thanking the performance hall owners profusely (in French), she found Otto waiting with a note.
"It seems our friend wants to meet us on the roof," he murmured as he burned the note in the nearby gaslamp.
Odd, but not unusual. Alice felt too eager to change, so she grabbed her winter coat and they headed up. The performance hall was emptying out, occupied now only by backstage hands who barely gave Alice and Otto a second glance as they made their way to the service stairs.
The stairwell was cold and grim, and the door at the top opened onto near darkness. Otto stepped out first, one arm hovering behind him as if to keep Alice at bay. He peered around. "Can't see anyone," he murmured.
"Over here," came Peggy's clear, precise voice.
Alice pushed out past Otto, impatient now, and turned just as Peggy melted out of the shadows at the far end of the rooftop. The lights of Zurich glowed dimly below them, and above them the stars were obscured by indistinct clouds. A frozen wind dragged across the rooftop. Peggy wore a long, thick coat and her face was obscured by a woollen hat and scarf.
For a few long moments, they all just looked at each other.
"Apologies for bringing you up here," Peggy began. "Last time, someone saw me leaving your dressing room, and I wanted to avoid setting a pattern."
"Smart," Alice replied.
Otto looked between them. Alice hadn't confided her questions and concerns in him, but he had sensed her increasingly impatient mood as the performance drew near.
Peggy took a few paces toward them, her face inscrutable, and Alice couldn't stand it any longer.
"Did-"
"Yes," Peggy replied instantly. Her expression shifted, becoming searching and earnest. "Captain Rogers told me everything about the last mission."
Alice let out a breath. Well. She'd been worrying about how to ask, but it seemed she needn't have bothered.
Peggy looked uncomfortable for the smallest moment. "I owe you an apology, Alice."
Alice eyed her. "You didn't know we knew each other, did you?"
Peggy shook her head. "That's why I'm sorry. I should have known. I made a mistake."
Alice let out a breath. She had known that Peggy was human just like the rest of them, capable of mistakes, but the proof of it was startling. And maybe a little relieving. "Thank you," she said. "But I suppose… there's no reason for you to have known. We've all kept secrets."
"Yes," Peggy said heavily. She paced closer again and soon they were within arm's distance, Otto silent by Alice's side. Peggy was easier to read up close. Her eyes were warm. "How are you? I'm asking as a… friend." Alice fought down a smile – this was the first time either of them had acknowledged it. "It must have been a shock."
Alice finally allowed her smile to break loose. "I'm fine. Better for having you here."
And like that, any remaining tension bled away. So quickly that if Otto had blinked he might have missed it, they pulled each other in for a tight, swift embrace before stepping apart again. Peggy then smiled at Otto, and they leaned in to kiss each other on the cheek.
"Well, let's get to work, shall we?" Peggy said with a smile in her voice.
"I suppose so," Alice nodded. "Congratulations on getting Argus, by the way."
"Yes." Peggy sighed. "He was Howard's lab assistant, got past our security by using a dead man's records. Clever stuff. Though we owe our thanks to the both of you. We wouldn't have unearthed him if it weren't for you."
Alice and Otto shared a glance. "Not at all," Otto said modestly.
Alice cocked her head. "When we were looking into it all, it seemed there's been a few eyes watching the SSR. I'd keep your ear to the ground for any other signs of espionage."
"Oh, I will," Peggy reassured. "In this world, I trust no one implicitly."
Alice smiled. Then Otto pulled out their latest intelligence packet, which was a mixture of intercepted plans and communiques, rumor from around Italy and Germany, and notes on each German leader they'd encountered recently.
Otto talked Peggy through it. Peggy nodded and asked questions, but towards the end she looked up and saw Alice standing with her hands in her pockets and her face troubled.
"Something on your mind?" Peggy prompted.
Alice frowned down at her feet, which were freezing in high heels, before looking up. "This isn't… it isn't related to what we've been doing, but I've noticed that there's been lots of raids in other countries. Raids by… well, by Captain Rogers and his team." Peggy's expression became appraising.
Alice swallowed and went on. "It's not my place to tell the SSR where I think they should go, but… HYDRA prides themselves on their resilience. If we want to truly fight them we need to concentrate our whole focus on them, one place after another. I think the SSR should concentrate their efforts wholly on Italy, flush HYDRA out and stop them spreading. Each time the… the SSR leaves, we give HYDRA time to recover."
Alice had been anticipating a smooth, cool look and a change of subject, but Peggy nodded seriously. "I agree with you. I recently discussed this with Colonel Phillips, and that's the approach we're going to follow from now on. We get actionable intelligence from all over Europe regarding HYDRA, but recently we've begun to suspect that this is partly HYDRA attempting to divide us and distract us. Italy is one of their strongholds and a large basis of their mechanical output – as we've learned, thanks to you – and we need to concentrate there."
Peggy nodded once more, tapping her fingers against the briefcase Otto had given her. "So we don't require much change from you on that count, other than that we might ask you to be more flexible in your travel plans in the coming months, in case we need location-specific information."
"I'm sure we could manage that," nodded Otto. "We have to return to Berlin in a few weeks to touch base with the Propaganda Department but they'll agree to repost the Siren to Italy, I think. They're losing musicians all over the place so their last worry is a singer who wants to go to the front."
"Excellent," Peggy said with a grim smile. "Now, there's something I wanted to discuss that goes beyond the 107th Tactical Team. Our focus with them will be Italy, but… there are other, larger plans."
Alice's eyebrows rose. Larger than HYDRA?
"I can't tell you much, as the name of the game now is counterintelligence. But over the next few weeks and months, here's what I need you to do…"
Alice and Otto returned to Italy the next day, and a few days later, it seemed, so did Captain America and his Invaders. They were growing harder to ignore. Stories of their lightning raids and their indestructible leader were whispered in the streets of Rome and sneered at by Nazi generals during wine-drenched parties. Alice wondered if they'd always been so infamous, or if she was just hypersensitive to it now.
Sometimes she found herself reading an article in the paper describing Captain America's last 'nuisance raid' into Nazi-controlled Italy and experiencing a kind of double vision: she had to constantly remind herself they're talking about Steve.
It was hard to tell from the German media, but it seemed Steve and his team were doing what Alice had suggested – redoubling their efforts against the HYDRA troops entrenched in Italian soil, hitting them hard and not letting up. Alice and Otto listened to the rumors that raced through their network, noticing with satisfaction whenever one of the HYDRA locations they had discovered went silent.
In response, they redoubled their efforts to pin down the remaining HYDRA locations. Steve had apparently seen a map of a few base locations across Europe, but the most specific he could be about the Italian one was "In the northwest, near the border to Switzerland". Italy was not a small country, and the 'northwest' was not a small place.
In addition, from what Alice could make out, HYDRA not only had a main factory but also two large warehouses and at least one occupied town. And since the loss of the Austrian base, they'd gotten very good at hiding. Their troops stayed mobile, looting towns and farms for resources and capturing civilians as forced labor.
In addition to chasing rumors of HYDRA in Italy, Alice reached out to some of her friends abroad. Specifically, those in France. Peggy had not been able to give Alice any specifics but it was clear the Allies had some kind of plan for France in the coming months. Alice had been asked to redouble her connections in the country, and learn everything she could about German expectations regarding Allied plans.
She quickly learned, from her various resistance contacts (especially Vera Izard at the OCM, who had helped Alice get back to Brooklyn), that the Germans anticipated an incoming attack. But they didn't know when, or where.
Peggy had further instructions for Alice upon hearing this: spread lies.
And so, through her friends in the resistance and her connections within the German leadership, Alice lied her heart out.
The Americans have secretly allied with Spain and are going to launch a land attack through the border.
The Australians are being pulled out of Egypt in July for a massive attack.
Churchill and FDR met last weekend to discuss something. I don't know what they spoke about, but they requisitioned detailed maps of Brittany.
She was careful with her lies. She never spread them directly herself. She had friends send coded radio messages over channels she knew the SS were monitoring, left notes written in French in compromised dead drops, and had allies speak 'drunkenly' to known Nazi intelligence officers. It was difficult to arrange this from afar, but Alice had been forming connections in these countries for years. She knew how whispers worked.
And when she heard these whispers echoed back by German intelligence as they sought to find out more, she allowed herself a few moments to bask in self-satisfaction. But then she got back to work.
Excerpt from podcast series The Second Great War, episode 'The Great Deception' (2013):
"So the important thing to remember here is that German coastal defences in France were stretched thin - they just didn't have the resources to completely blockade each beach. So what they did was concentrate their resources on the place where they thought attacks would come.
"The Allies figured this out, and that began what would become one of the largest military deceptions in history. They called it Operation Bodyguard. From July of 1943 right up until after D-Day, hundreds of Allied commanders, soldiers, agents and allies worked tirelessly to trick the Nazis as to the time and place of the major attack on France. They used double agents to plant false information, and allowed various transmissions to be intercepted. The 'story' they wanted to sell was that the invasion of Northwest Europe would come later than was actually planned, and would occur in Pas de Calais, the Balkans, southern France, and Norway.
"What is even more astounding than the scope and boldness of this plan, in my opinion, is the fact that it actually worked."
The situation in Italy was growing tense. After months of stalling at the Winter Line in the south of the country, the Allies had redoubled their efforts to push north. Fighting was fierce in the Cassino region and lines were shifting every day. Meanwhile, Steve and the 107th Tactical Team had learned how to fight beyond the front, with the assistance of Air Force parachute drops and a very helpful network of Italian Resistance who offered them vehicles and munitions whenever they ventured deep into Nazi-occupied Italy.
Alice monitored their progress, and fed all intelligence she could back to SSR command in the south of Italy. This was done through a series of resistance allies, dead drops, and constantly-changing radio channels and telegram addresses. Slow, and only about 70% of their intelligence actually made it, but it was the best they had. They never used the same route twice.
One day in late January, Alice heard from one of her resistance contacts, an elderly baker in a small village near San Marino, that a troop of men in strange uniforms had been sighted in the next village over.
After assigning one of her runners to check out the rumor (the Siren couldn't exactly traipse from village to village with no excuse), Alice finally got a solid lead: not only was the village host to the occasional strangely-uniformed soldier in search of booze or company for the night, but just a few miles north was a large warehouse that the villagers were afraid to go near. There were rumors that people went missing if they got too close.
Alice decided that this information needed to go directly into the hands of those who could do something about it.
After a long night of considering her options and implementing a plan, Alice arrived the next morning at the post office with a gauzy shawl around her hair and accompanied by the hotel porter who huffed under the wooden case she'd asked him to carry for her.
The post office employee looked up, and after a second of confusion realized who she was. "La Sirena!" he exclaimed, eyes wide, before ushering her towards his counter. "How may I help you?"
Alice gestured to the box the hotel porter carried, just as the man lowered it carefully onto the counter. "I'd like this posted to Messina, please."
The employee's face fell a little. "That's in the south, Signora. On the… other side."
"I know," Alice said with the barest hint of impatience. "I understood the post was still running, though?"
"It is, but I… the package will have to be checked, Signora."
In her pockets, Alice's hands clenched. "That's fine."
"May I ask what the package contains?"
"It's wine, for a friend of mine from Germany who lives in the south of Italy now." This was all true, save for maybe the friend part. One of the other Propaganda Department musicians, a male opera singer named Heinrich, had fled Germany at the end of last year to avoid charges of fraud. He was still a staunch Nazi, though he kept it quiet in Messina, and the Propaganda Department would find nothing odd in Alice sending him gifts. The SSR plant at the post office in Messina knew to divert any packages from Alice to Heinrich straight to SSR command.
"I understand," the employee nodded. With an apologetic smile, he disappeared behind a door at the back of the post office.
Alice turned to the hotel porter and tipped him generously for his efforts. As the porter left, the back room door opened once more to admit the same postal employee – and a uniformed Gestapo officer.
Alice's heart flipped in her chest but she merely smiled politely.
"Gnädige Frau," [Ma'am] nodded the Gestapo officer, who looked to be in his thirties and bore a grim, professional expression. No charming this one. The postal employee stayed at least three paces away from the officer, who came up to eye the wooden box. "Contents?"
"A dozen bottles of Sangiovese wine," Alice replied, hoisted her handbag higher on her shoulder.
"And for what purpose are you posting them to Messina?"
"They're a gift for my friend. I can give you his address-"
The postal employee darted forward to hand Alice a form – written in German, not Italian – with space for postal details. Alice bent over the counter to fill it out. As she did, the Gestapo officer pulled out a metal crowbar.
"I'm going to inspect it," he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
"Very well," Alice said evenly. She finished writing Heinrich's address, and tried not to wince as the officer cracked open the metal box.
She watched out of the corner of her eye as the officer pulled out each carefully-packaged bottle of wine, inspected the label, the paper packaging, the note she'd written for Heinrich, and the insides of the box. Alice's heart thudded against her chest.
When he reached for the cork of one of the bottles, she looked up. "Oh really, must you? This isn't cheap wine, sir-" her complaints died in her mouth as the officer popped open the cork without even looking at her. The rich smell of deep red wine oozed into the air.
The officer peered down the neck of the bottle, sloshed the liquid inside, and drew a long sniff.
"That's the 1930 vintage," Alice sighed. She glanced at the postal employee, who shot her a commiserating look. She slid the completed form across the counter to him, her fingers carefully steady.
With a narrow glance up at Alice, the Gestapo officer stuffed the cork back into the bottle. Then with slow, careful deliberation, he proceeded to uncork and smell each consecutive bottle, impervious to Alice's silent frustration and the postal employee's exasperation.
Finally, when the post office stunk like liquor and the officer had found nothing but wine, he recorked the last bottle, made a note on the form Alice had filled out, then strode through the back door again without so much as a polite apology.
"That will be twenty thousand lira, Signora," muttered the pink-faced postal employee. "I'll see that the bottles are repackaged securely."
"Thank you," Alice smiled as she handed over the money.
She turned and strode out of the post office, saving her smile for when she'd passed through the doors. The Gestapo officer had been so careful in his search of the box and the bottles. And yet he hadn't thought to check the corks.
Alice had spent hours last night carefully hollowing out each cork and squeezing in rolled up papers – her message, miniaturised maps of the area around the HYDRA warehouse, and ways to contact local resistance. Then she'd weighted the corks carefully and sealed them with putty.
Alice cast one last glance back at the post office, hiding her wry smile. Time well spent.
When the SSR had swapped out the corks, Heinrich would no doubt enjoy his wine.
The first note Alice received from Steve was a surprise.
When she received the note from one of her couriers, encrypted so it appeared to be song lyrics, she assumed it was one of the various secretive notes she received as part of being the spider at the center of an information web. But when she reopened the note in the privacy of her hotel room in Rome, she realized she recognized the handwriting and her heart shuddered to a halt.
Using one of the methods from her childhood, she decrypted the note in no time:
Thanks for the intel about the warehouse near San Marino. Got anything for the area north of Florence?
- Ulysses
Alice traced Steve's familiar, elegant letters with a smile. Someone really ought to teach him how to disguise his handwriting.
She allowed herself a few more moments to trace the page, then burned the paper with her bedside candle. This was a strange reminder that Steve really wasn't that far away from her most of the time, though they existed in totally different worlds.
Sitting on the edge of her bed with her chin in her hand, she wondered why the information request hadn't come through the SSR. But then it clicked: Steve's team worked under the SSR, but they moved too quickly and independently to run everything by Peggy and Phillips all the time. If they needed intelligence about an area, they needed it swiftly and directly.
Alice tapped her chin. I can work with that.
It took her a day to gather all the intelligence she and Otto had about that area, then craft a response and hide it in a box of biscuits. Alice gave the biscuits to the same courier and told them to send it back the way it had come. Not a very sophisticated method, but Alice had also included instructions for their next communication.
She could see it all expanding out in her mind: dead drops, couriers who could cross the front lines, radio signals and ciphers. It would be difficult since Steve and his team were so mobile, but the challenge was almost exciting.
Steve received a dusty, battered box of biscuits at the camp in Pompeii the next day. It didn't take him long to find the message pasted beneath a false layer on the lid, and once he'd figured out the code he gathered his men, unable to conceal his smile.
"Homer says that HYDRA likely has a mobile troop travelling east of where we were planning to hit. Probably about a hundred and fifty men. We could pair with the resistance forces there and drive east, take out the HYDRA troops first."
The others instantly started discussing this new development, but Steve had eyes only for the pencil-written letters on the cardboard in his hands. He'd used her SSR name, but this message wasn't signed from Homer. It was signed Ulysses.
Over the next few weeks, a budding line of communication sprang up between Alice and the 107th Tactical Team. It was interspersed and brief, barely a blip in the wider network of what Alice had going on. But it felt like the sun shining between the clouds.
Otto tried to come up with a reason for Alice to cease contact, since anything relating to the heart made him suspicious, but he couldn't deny that the communication had increased the Tactical Team's effectiveness. Alice and Otto were able to give them fast, actionable intel on the ground that had them working moves ahead of the Wehrmacht and HYDRA.
Of course, then the Siren's scheduled Italian tour came to an end.
Heidi took over the network and communication with Steve and his team, and Alice, Otto, and the rest of their retinue returned to Berlin. Alice's backup singers were pleased. Their families had missed them, and no one could deny that the situation in Italy was growing more and more precarious.
Alice and Otto strategized the best way to get back.
A few days after their return (Alice had been busy sorting out a mold issue in her apartment and avoiding Kurt's calls), they arrived at the Propaganda Department offices. Alice and Otto shook officials' hands and sipped the whiskey brought in by the secretary. The men retired to another office while Alice sat in the makeup chair, and then they came to the main reason for the visit: a new set of press photographs of the Siren.
She didn't wear the usual white performance dress this time around. She had a few different costumes – an SS-Gelfolge uniform, a housedress, and a traditional dirndl apron dress, for whatever reason.
As Alice preened on set, half-blinded by the lights, she watched Otto and a handful of Propaganda Department officers chatting with each other behind the photographer. The main producer, Karloff, seemed to have forgotten to iron his collar this morning. And now she looked closer, it seemed his hair was going grey.
Alice couldn't quite hear them over the whine and snap of the cameras, but she'd been practicing her lipreading for years on stage so she was pretty sure they were discussing a new album.
"Let's have a costume change," called the photographer, and Alice ducked behind a screen to pull on the SS women's branch uniform. She emerged to see Otto and Karloff shaking hands.
"We'll work on it in Italy, I promise," Otto nodded. "We should be ready to record by March."
More work, Alice thought resignedly. I don't know where he thinks we'll find the time, in between spreading French counterintelligence and trying to hunt down HYDRA in Italy.
She made a mental note to dredge up her lyric notebook from the bottom of her suitcase, and moved back toward the set.
"No," came a cross voice from Otto and Karloff's direction, and Alice looked up to see the Propaganda Department senior secretary, Inge. The severe-faced blonde strode toward Alice and pointed at her uniform. "You have put the Iron Cross on the wrong side. It should go on your left breast, not your right."
Alice paused for a moment, startled into silence. Then she glanced down at the scratchy brown coat she wore, and saw that she had indeed pinned the Iron Cross to the right side. She looked up again. "Oh I do apologise – you're in the SS-Gelfolge, am I right?" Even as she said it she noticed the Gelfolge pin on Inge's secretary uniform. Alice smiled and adjusted her Iron Cross.
Inge watched her, unimpressed, then turned to take Karloff's whiskey glass.
Alice strode onto the photography set, adjusting her cap.
"You're certain you won't mind being sent back to Italy?" Karloff called to Alice as she followed the photographer's directions. Alice silently marveled at how Otto had somehow made them think that sending Alice back to Italy was their idea.
"The soldiers and people are so welcoming in Italy, and I have no fear for my own safety, Karloff," she replied as the photographer adjusted her skirt. "I miss Vienna and Berlin when I'm gone, but I can survive a little homesickness."
"You are good," sighed Karloff. Inge frowned at the back of the room, and didn't stop even when Alice met her eye. Alice smiled, and Inge looked away.
The camera flashbulb went off again and Alice sighed through her nose. A drop of sweat slid down the back of her neck under the hot lights.
"You're the mother of the nation!" called the photographer, tapping his chin as a reminder for her to lift hers. "Savior of innocents, the pride of the Aryan race. Pop your shoulder for me now."
Alice lifted her shoulder, tilted her head up, and stared down the camera. The Iron Cross felt heavy on her chest. Keep up the performance, Siren.
She felt as if she'd been performing on a stage in front of the whole world for years. Always a false face, words that didn't belong to her, smiles she didn't feel.
She wondered what she'd find in the darkness when the curtains finally drew shut.
Reviews:
CaptainLoki: Thank you for the translation help! I appreciate it. And I'm glad you liked their kiss ;)
BananaOctopus: Hello and welcome! I'm so glad you're enjoying this story. As for whether Alice's true work is known in the future, we'll have to wait and see ;)
GuestPrime: Hello hello, it's wonderful to hear from you! I'm over the moon that you like this fic so much. I agree with you about having to be careful with OCs, and I definitely set out to make Alice her own person with her own story - that happens to mesh nicely with Steve's. And I definitely enjoyed writing little Steve - he's so dorky and yet with so much heart. As for what happens next… you'll have to wait and see ;) Thanks so much!
Sprout: I'm so glad you liked the last chapter! It is sad to no longer be writing them together, but they might be back together sooner than you think ;) Thank you so much!