Alt.History 102 (The Future Chronicles) Read online

  “I didn’t steal it,” she said. “It is my own invention for frequency hopping to prevent the jamming of radio-controlled torpedoes. I could re-develop it if I had the appropriate supplies and access to a radio or communications expert and some technicians.”

  Hitler made a rude, dismissive sound. “Why not just explain it to me?”

  Hedy tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and let her wrap slip down her arm, exposing more of her ivory skin. She smiled seductively. “Because I got my ideas from musical theater, and I don’t have the technological terms to explain them. Let me reconstruct my ideas and share them with your scientists or experts. Then we can present them to you more professionally. I promise you won’t be disappointed.” This last was dangerous, since in fact she did intend to disappoint him by stalling until she could figure out a way to escape.

  He was watching her through narrowed eyes now, a bemused sort of annoyance masking a darker murk of unhinged hatred and fury that hung on a hair-trigger. One wrong move…

  Adolf rose to his feet. “Very well. Give Soldat Schmitt a list of supplies you require. I’ll have someone meet with you tomorrow. You may join me tonight at 7:30 sharp for a film in my private cinema. I warn you Hedwig. I’m not a patient man.”

  * * *

  A desk, paper, notebooks, pencils, and other office supplies were delivered to her quarters later that afternoon, and after working on some notes for a few hours, Hedy dressed for her appointment with der Führer.

  Fortunately they weren’t alone at the cinema. After a screening of Mrs. Miniver, which Hitler raved about, Hedy was invited back to Hitler’s private residence with the rest of his entourage, and everyone spent the remainder of the evening listening to a two-hour monologue from Hitler regarding the primacy of science over religion and the lies of Christianity. Hedy chewed on the inside of her cheeks to remain attentive and awake. She had surveyed the men in attendance carefully and matched them to the list of Hitler’s inner circle that No Name had required her to memorize. She recognized Göring, Keitel, Speer, Jodl, and Bormann, but the others she would have to learn, which would not be easy if Adolf was the only one who ever spoke.

  The next morning after breakfast and the usual exchange of “Heil Hitler” with Soldat Schmitt, Hedy was escorted through the maze of bunkers and barracks to the radio building. On the way, Schmitt indicated tersely that she’d be working with a Major Klein and that der Führer expected a presentation of her invention in two days, provided Major Klein thought it had merit.

  Once inside, Soldat Schmitt stopped smartly behind a man bent over a bank of radios and offered a sharp “Heil Hitler.”

  The man lifted an eye from the radios in front of him to regard Hedy with an almost baleful expression before doing a double-take. He rose, returned Schmitt’s greeting with perhaps slightly less fervor, and gestured into another room with a small conference table and some radio equipment under repair. Hedy proceeded into the room, and Soldat Schmitt retreated back outside, where Hedy was sure he’d remain, ensuring she didn’t attempt to depart this surreal prison.

  Major Klein had a scruff of blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. By any estimation, he was a funny looking man, with a large nose, poor skin, and a long scar that ran down one of his cheeks.

  “I understand you think you have an invention of sorts,” Klein said as they took seats across the table from each other.

  Hedy nodded and clutched the folder containing her drawings closer to her chest. She was about to reveal to the Axis Powers the technology she’d created to help the Allies win.

  “Let’s see it then.”

  Reluctantly, Hedy placed her folder on the table and opened it. “My invention involves the application of carrier waves in different frequencies for use in the remote control of torpedoes and other crafts, using synchronous records—one at the transmitting station, and one at the receiving station with the frequencies being changed randomly over the course of the transmission. The idea is that anyone tuning into any particular frequency would only be able to hear a small portion of the message. And if a frequency is being jammed, it would only affect one of the hops.” She withdrew a drawing from her folder, showing the apparatuses at the transmitting and receiving stations.

  Klein, who had worn a look of patient reserve before she’d started talking, had started to blink rather rapidly. He took her sketches.

  “The difficulty,” Hedy continued, “is that I don’t quite know how to operationalize it.” This was a lie of course. George had solved that problem.

  Klein’s expression had shifted from one of patience to deep concentration.

  “You came up with this yourself?” he said, glancing up over the edge of her papers.

  Hedy dug her fingernails into her palms. “Yes, I did.”

  “What was your inspiration? Why were you even thinking about torpedoes?”

  “My late husband Friedrich used to be an arms dealer. I sat in on a lot of meetings between him, der Führer, and Mussolini. It got me to thinking, and I’ve always wanted to help the war effort.” She didn’t add for which side. “I’m not just a pretty face.” Her words, meant to be light and flirtatious, came out rather more severely than she intended.

  Klein regarded her for a few seconds as if to assess her beauty, and his lips formed a tight line as if he’d found it wanting. “This has promise. It’s not new, you understand. We’ve been aware of the potential for frequency hopping for a while. But this is a new way of looking at it. We may be able to develop it. Thank you for your contribution. I’ll inform der Führer.” He stood, and as she rose to her own feet, he made as if to dismiss her with a “Heil Hitler.”

  She shook her head before he could speak. “You don’t understand. I want to help you develop the invention, and I have other ideas for weapons systems.”

  Klein made a disdainful gesture. “Working with weapons systems is no place for a lady, especially one as beautiful as you are.” Klein said this last with some odd inflection. “Surely there are other things you would rather be doing.”

  Tears pooled in the corners of Hedy’s eyes. How she hated her beauty sometimes.

  Klein’s eyes widened at the sight of her tears, and his expression softened slightly. “Tell me, to what extent are the Americans working on this technology? Are they aware of the nature of the invention that they accused you of stealing?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “But yes, they were aware of it. Let me work with you for a week. If at the end of that time, you don’t find me a useful contributor, I’ll retire to my quarters and do the things a lady should.” The word “lady” twisted as it emerged from her mouth.

  Klein’s eyes fell to her filmy chiffon dress, so out of place in this dense wooded compound.

  “Very well,” he said. “You may sit at the table. But we will not allow for disruptions that are not relevant to the work.”

  * * *

  Klein spoke to der Führer and then assembled a small team of communications and weapons specialists. Hedy requested and received new dresses consistent with the ones that Adolf’s secretaries wore and attended the meetings with her notebook, a bare face, and her hair pulled back in a bun.

  The men greeted her with lowered brows and silence the first day, as she listened to their deliberations and took notes, all the while knowing the potential solution to the problem. By the end of the week, they offered fleeting but patronizing smiles as she took her seat, as if they hadn’t expected her to possibly last so long at a table of men discussing switches, mechanisms, and levers. By the third week, the smiles had become more flirtatious, as if she were the group pet or mascot. She remained out of the conversation, her stomach in tight knots. What if they figured it out? What if she’d given the Nazis an idea that would allow them to win the war?

  By the fourth week, the group dwindled in size. “Called out to other, more pressing things,” Klein indicated. Quitters, Hedy thought with a mixture of relief and strange annoyance—did nobody see the value i
n her invention?

  It was the end of November and rains pelted out of the sky for most of the day, suffusing the cement bunkers with a bone-numbing cold. The German invasion of Vichy France had started, but British raids on Berlin had increased in intensity, and Russian successes in Stalingrad had put der Führer in a bleak and furious mood, ordering his Generals not to retreat at any cost.

  He didn’t summon her to join his entourage at the cinema and his tedious oratories every night, but when he did, she dressed in her Hollywood attire and attended, her cheeks aching from smiling at his inane speeches. She’d completed a surreptitious reconnaissance of the compound and couldn’t see any way out, or any way to get a message to the Americans. Wolfsshanze, they called it. The Wolf’s Lair.

  By December, only Klein occupied the radio building when she arrived with her notebook. Adolf and his inner circle were leaving to spend the holidays at the Berghof the next morning and Hedy, despite angling for an invite, in the hopes of getting word to her contact in Berchtesgaden, in the hopes of escaping, was not being taken along.

  She was supposed to have seduced Adolf by now—at least that had been No Name’s plan—but although she’d been at her coquettish best and could feel Adolf’s eyes on her constantly, he rebuffed her advances as if she were a joke, leaving her to lick some inexplicable wounds. Was she really upset because a man she loathed—a monster—no longer seemed to appreciate her beauty? Was she surprised that a psychopath was toying with her? Did she feel that obligated to complete the mission, even if that meant sleeping with the devil, for a country that had thrust her so recklessly into danger? Or was it that she believed sleeping with him, no matter how abhorrent, might be the only thing that could ensure her survival?

  “Your idea’s not going to work,” Klein announced crisply. “We’ve got too many other things to deal with. Things are turning in Africa. We need all of our men focused on the offensive, not some unworkable invention.”

  “It’s not unworkable,” she replied, frustration rising in her gut. She’d watched Klein during their meetings. He was an intense man—meticulous, restrained, and tidy. There were times when the group seemed to be verging on the answer, and Klein had steered them in a different direction. There were times when she almost wondered if he was deliberately sabotaging their work.

  “Maybe not, but right now we have other things to look after. You are dismissed, Miss Lamarr.”

  “What about my other ideas? My other inventions?” Hedy cried. She hadn’t realized how much sitting in the meetings had meant to her. How much being part of a group of men—even if they were enemy men, even if she had to remain silent—talking about inventing had come to shape her mornings and become the only thing that she looked forward to. Already she had a notebook of ideas, extensions of their discussions, things she wanted to build on her own.

  Klein’s voice gentled. “Go back to your quarters, Hedy. Perhaps you should ask der Führer to let you go to Berlin and get out of this hole in the ground. There are troops to entertain there, and nightlife, although with the raids, you’re safer here. Someday your invention will see the light of day, but not in this war.”

  “And why is that, Ernst?” she said. “Why have you not come up with a solution?”

  Something in his eyes flashed. “Because we haven’t, Miss Lamarr. Dismissed.”

  She sought a private moment with Adolf after his monologue that night, and affected a grave look. “Major Klein has indicated my invention cannot be operationalized. I’m so sorry, Adolf. I thought it would work.” She fluttered her eyelashes in a way that usually affected men. “I want so much to help with the war effort. Perhaps I could go to Berlin and entertain the troops?”

  His face became bland, and anger lurked beneath the edges of his expression. Spittle had collected in the corner of his mouth as it often did when he spoke at length. “Your place is here for the duration of the war. Soldiers of the master race have no need for the types of frivolous diversions that the parasitic races do. Do not force me to recall that you are a Jew,” he said with a flinty smile. Then he turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Hedy cried herself to sleep for several weeks while the rain turned to sleet and then snow, and men on the battlefield exterminated each other with continued vigor. She listened to the radio avidly for any signs that the Americans were using her technology, that frequency-hopping torpedoes were turning the tide of the war, and saving lives, but the only stations she could tune in were Nazi propaganda stations that broadcast stories regarding the continued domination of the Third Reich, although her eavesdropping in the mess hall suggested otherwise.

  Hitler returned to Wolfsschanze in January. Hedy was surprised by the resumption of her invitations to the cinema and evening monologues. Despite continued bad news from the eastern front, and Jodl’s suggestion that he consider calling a retreat for the Sixth Army in Stalingrad, Hitler’s speeches didn’t reveal a loss of confidence or admit any prospect of defeat. But the manic gleam in his eye seemed to grow brighter as the darkest days of winter progressed.

  Adolf took Hedy to his bed for the first time the night Paulus surrendered to the Soviets. He was both rough and priggish, manhandling her body as if she were a possession and then dismissing her back into the night to return to her quarters with her constant escort, disheveled and ashamed.

  And so he continued to summon her, and seeing no choice, she went and discovered that he liked to beat, and be beaten, that he could be both present and terrifyingly absent, and that he was disgustingly, paradoxically human, plagued by stomach pains, flatulence, and impotence.

  She developed a talent for disassociation, for pretending she was playing a role on the stage, for remembering that she was an object.

  But even after she thought he might have developed a fondness for her, Adolf refused to entertain her requests to leave the compound, even for an afternoon. No amount of sexual finesse or cajoling would change his mind and asking too frequently enraged him. She was famous, and any sighting of her would give the location of the compound away, and she was safe here. Why would she want to leave? Why, indeed? Adolf would not like the answer to that question.

  He discreetly furnished her with new dresses, novels, and furs, and made it clear that their relationship was to remain secret. To the world and the German people, she didn’t exist. To those on the compound, she was little more than a prisoner, a washed up Austrian actress who had wanted to bask in Hitler’s light, and she played this role as if her life depended on it. The men who had occupied the table with her in the radio building barely gave her a passing glance—they probably thought she’d stolen the invention too—and Adolf’s inner circle, while polite, viewed her as a non-entity.

  When she wasn’t with der Führer, she spent her time circling the compound restlessly with her guard or sitting at her desk trying to invent things. Klein humored her by providing her with the manuals for the radios and other machines on the compound. She pored over them and filled page after page of ideas for smart torpedoes, torpedo detection systems, and more efficient U-boats. She took to presenting her thoughts to Klein every Monday on his break where he would listen gravely, a small smile curved on his lips, then thank her for her efforts to win the war.

  The Allies continued to beat the Germans back on many fronts throughout 1943. Hitler was often away at the front or ensconced in one of his other many Führerhauptquartieres around Germany, Poland, Austria, and France. When Italy surrendered and changed sides in September, der Führer was in an alarmingly good mood, and his monologue at Wolfsschanze that night focused on the treachery of a few Italians, who were serfs to Jews, and aliens to their own country.

  He’d grown more detached, paranoid, and prone to violence when he called upon her, yet seemed almost clingy at times. He was most pleased when she was charming and pretended to adore him. The few hints she dared to drop about leaving the compound were no longer met with verbal rebukes or explanations. Hedy painted her bruises painstakingly w
ith pancake makeup and continued to present her ideas to Klein every Monday.

  When Adolf made it clear that Hedy wasn’t going to the Berghof at Christmas for the second year in a row, she started to lose hope. If she never left the compound, she would never escape, and it seemed the war had gone on forever. Shouldn’t the Americans have perfected her frequency-hopping technology by now? Shouldn’t they be winning as a result? They were winning—even that seemed evident from the Nazi propaganda radio—but too slowly and painfully. Time was running out for the Jewish people. Hitler’s monologue before he departed for Christmas on the righteousness of the Final Solution had made Hedy’s blood run cold. How could everyone just sit around a table every night and listen to a madman? How could they just carry out his orders day after day?

  On a frigid, dark morning just before Christmas, she ran through the pelting sleet to the radio building.

  “I have the answer,” she announced to Klein. The building was almost deserted, everyone save for a skeleton crew gone home to family or at least to a more homey environment for the night. Her guard remained outside.

  “Do you ever stop?” Klein asked, but his lips were turned up in an amused way. Then his eyes seemed to catch the shadow of discoloration on her cheek and darkened.

  “What about using rolls similar to player piano rollers with perforations to synchronize the frequencies? It would allow for 88 different frequencies.” She held out the drawing she’d so carefully replicated from the ones that she and George had prepared over a year before. She’d become desperate. She had to escape from this compound. She had enough intelligence on Hitler now to make a difference for the Allies. She just needed to get out of the compound. Maybe by giving Hitler a real potential solution, by making herself indispensable as an inventor, she could bargain her way out.

  Klein took the paper, a skeptical expression on his face. He shook his head. “No, I don’t think that will work.”