Unbroken Enigma

France, 1931

Captain Gustave Bertrand sighed as he gazed out his window. In his line of work setbacks were to be expected, but the most recent one stung more than usual. The ciphers Lemoine had gotten from their German contact seemed to be a chink in the Germans' undecipherable Enigma machine. But today, after his meeting with the British, he wasn't so sure.

"Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!" The red-faced official tossed the files back onto the table. "This isn't nearly enough to work with!"

The other man tried to interrupt, but was cut off by the first.

"Don't waste my time like this, you hear? This is not enough! Don't come back unless you have something actually useful!" Then he stormed off.

The others had been considerably more polite, but had made it clear that if their expert could see no use for the ciphers, there were none, and perhaps he should ask his contact for more helpful information?

The captain shook his head. He considered passing the information to the Polish cryptologists, but dismissed the idea. No need to waste their time with useless materials.

Germany, 1932

Hans-Thilo Schmidt quietly went about his duties, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The French paid him handsomely for information, but he wasn't sure what to give them now. His contact had made it clear that the material he provided initially wasn't useful enough for more payments. But as an employee of the Cipher Center, he wasn't sure what else he could provide them with. There were the top secret materials in the safe... but no, it wasn't worth the risk if the French weren't willing to buy them. He would have to find another way to supplement his income.

Poland, 1932

The graduate students always get the short end of the stick. At least, that's what Marian Rejewski thought as he rested his head on his desk. He had been working on the problem of the Enigma machine for months now, yet there seemed to be no end in sight. Simply put, the millions of millions of millions of possible combinations posed by the device would take far too long to untangle with only the outdated commercial model as a reference. He knew there must be something missing, some unknown he could solve for if only he had a few more knowns. But without that information, he was stuck.

England, 1939

Germany had successfully invaded Poland, and rumors were flying through the huts and halls of Bletchley Park. England would join the war, England would do nothing, England was next, what will the other countries do? Welchman attempted to block out the chatter. He was hoping to design an automated way to decipher Enigma messages, but that required knowledge of its inner workings. He drummed his fingers on the table. Welchman had an idea he wanted to discuss with Turing, but no one knew where he was. There were lots of rumors about that, too; some of his coworkers said he was burying silver. Welchman shook his head. Turing might be brilliant, but Welchman would bet good money that Turing would never find that silver again even if he made himself a map.

England, 1940

Rear Admiral Godfrey heard a succession of light raps on the door. "Enter," he called out.

Lieutenant Commander Fleming walked through the door and saluted. "If you're busy I can leave a note, sir."

Godfrey shook his head. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Well sir," said Fleming, "I had an idea about how to help the chaps over at Bletchley Park."

Godfrey raised his eyebrows, and noted that his subordinate's voice was tinged with just a trace of excitement. This would be one of those ideas, then.

"The mathematicians can't make much headway without coding materials, so I thought maybe we could get the Nazis to bring the materials to us! If we use one of their captured vessels, then wait until after a storm, we could set it up so that it looked like one of theirs had crashed! Then, when they approach to rescue us, we take their ship fast enough that they don't have time to destroy the ciphers! That way Bletchley would have enough stuff to work with and we could finally start reading German messages."

Fleming paused expectantly. Godfrey sat back in his chair. The problem with those ideas was that they were patently absurd, yet something about them seemed like they could work.

"I'll consider it," said Godfrey. "You're dismissed."

Fleming left the room, and Godfrey shook his head. He couldn't believe he was considering it.

England, 1944

Hopefully unbeknownst to most, Churchill was being treated for gunshot wounds. The assassination attempt had taken place quietly, so it had been easy to keep it from leaking to the press. The rumor mill would be harder to shut down, but hopefully it was enough to keep panic at bay.

Churchill grimaced through the pain. That German agent had spoken with a perfect accent, and he had been able to infiltrate the staff easily. Even after capturing a working Enigma machine, Bletchley Park was struggling to keep up with the bulk of German communications. Who knew how many other agents were operating among the Allies?

He hoped against hope that Operation Bodyguard would distract from the preparations for landing in Normandy. But with the Germans winning the intelligence war, the rest of the war would be an uphill battle.

USA, 1945. President Truman approves the use of the atomic bomb to expedite the end of the war.

Berlin, 1945

Transcript from the Enola Gay flight log: "My God, what was that?"