name for the operation will be 'White Sword' Das Weisse Schwart!
Jawohl, my General. Fraulein Kramer, you are now assigned exclusively to this operation. You will, at the first opportunity, initiate sexual intimacy with the subject in such a way as not to alarm nor offend him, but rather to strengthen our hold over his allegiance. 'Very well, my General. In due course it may be necessary for you to enter into a form of marriage with the subject. Is there any reason why you could not do so, if required? Heidi did not hesitate. None, my General. You can rely on my duty and loyalty entirely. I will do whatever is required of me. Very good, Frulein. General Zoller coughed and hunted noisily for breath, and his voice was still rough as he went on, Now, Colonel, it will suit our purpose if the subject is winner of a gold medal at these Games. It will give him a a great deal of prestige in his home country, apart from the ideological aspect of a white Aryan triumphing over a person of an inferior black race. 'I understand, my General. There is not a serious German contender for the light heavyweight title, is there? No, my General, the subject is the only serious white contender. We can make certain that all matches which the subject fights are refereed and judged by members of the Party who are under the control of our department.
Naturally, we cannot effect the decision in the case of a knock-out, but- Naturally, Boldt, but you will do all in your power, and Frdulein Kramer will report daily to Colonel Boldt on her progress with the subject. Both the Courtney and Malcomess clans had descended upon the luxurious Bristol Hotel rather than the Olympic village, though David Abrahams had bowbd to the dictates of the athletics coach and moved into the apartment house with his team mates, so that Shasa saw little of him during the days of hard training leading up to the opening of the Games.
Mathilda Janine prevailed on Tara to accompany her to most of the field athletic training, in return for equal timeshares of her company at the polo fields, so the two girls spent most of their time dashing from the vast Olympic complex across Berlin to the equestrian centre at high speed, the only rate of progress with which Tara seemed able to conduct her father's green Bentley.
The brief lay-off from training, combined with the imminence of the Games themselves, seemed to have sharpened David's running rather than harmed it. He returned some excellent times during those five days and courageously resisted Mathilda Janine's suggestion that he should sneak out for just an hour or two in the evenings.
You are in with a chance, Davie, his coach told him, checking the stopwatch after his last run before the official opening ceremony.
Just concentrate it all now and you'll have a bit of tin to take home with you. Both Shasa and Blaine were delighted with the ponies that their German hosts had provided. Like everything else in the equestrian centre, the grooms, stabling and equipment were all without fault, and under Blaine's iron control, the team settled down to concentrated practice and were soon once more a cohesive phalanx of horsemen.
Between their own long sessions on the practice field, they watched and judged the other teams whom they would have to meet. The Americans, expense not considered, had brought their own mounts across the Atlantic. The Argentinians had gone one better and brought their grooms as well, in flat-brimmed gaucho hats and leather breeches decorated with silver studs.
Those are the two to beat, Blaine warned them. But the Germans are surprisingly good, and the Brits, as always, will be slogging away at it. We can flatten any of them, Shasa gave the team the benefit of his vast experience, with a little luck. Tara was the only one who took the boast seriously, as from the stand she watched him tear down the side field, sitting tall in the saddle, a beautiful young centaur, lean and lithe, white teeth flashing against the dark tan of his face.
He's so big-headed and cock-sure, she lamented. If only I could just ignore him. If only life wasn't just so flat when he's not around.
By nine o'clock on the morning of 1 August 1936, the vast
Olympic stadium, the largest in the world, was packed with over one hundred thousand human beings.
The turf of the central isle had been groomed into an emerald velvet sheet, and ruled with the stark white lanes and circles that marked out the venue for the field events.
The running track around the periphery was of brick-red cinders. High above it rose the Tribune of Honour', the reviewing stand for the traditional march-past of the athletes. At the far end of the stadium was the Olympic altar with its tripod torch still cold.
Outside the entrance to the stadium stretched the Maifeld, its open acres of space containing the high bell tower with the legend: 'Ich rufe die Jugend der Welt, I summon the youth of the world. And the massed echelons of athletes were drawn up to face down the long boulevard of the Kaiserdamm, renamed for the solemn occasion the Via Triumphalis. High above the field floated the giant airship, the Hindenburg, towing behind it the banner of the Olympics, the five great linked circles.
From afar a faint susurration rose on the cool still morning air. Slowly it grew louder, closer. A long procession of open four-door Mercedes tourers was approaching down the Via Triumphalis, chromework gleaming like mirrors, passing between the closed ranks of fifty thousand brown-uniformed storm troopers who lined both sides of the way, holding back a dense throng of humanity, ten and twenty deep, who roared with adulation as the leading vehicle passed them and threw their right arms high in the Nazi salute.
The cavalcade drew to a halt before the legion of athletes and from the leading Mercedes Adolf Hitler stepped down.
He wore the plain brown shirt, breeches and jackboots of a storm trooper. Rather than rending him inconspicuous, this sombre unadorned dress seemed rather to distinguish him in the mass of brilliant uniforms, gold lace, bearskins and stars and ribbons that followed him between the ranks of athletes towards the marathon gate of the stadium.
So that is the wild man, Blaine Malcomess thought as Hitler strolled by, not five paces from where he stood. He was precisely as Blaine had seen him portrayed a thousand times, the dark hair combed forward, the small square mustache. But Blaine was unprepared for the intense Messianic gaze that rested upon him for a fleeting part of a second, then passed on. He found that the hair on his forearms had come erect and prickled electrically, for he had just looked into the eyes of an Old Testament prophet, or a madman.
Following close behind Adolf Hitler were all his favourites: Goebbels wore a light summer suit, but Goering was portly and resplendent in the sky-blue full-dress of a Luftwaffe marshal and he saluted the athletes casually with his gold baton as he went by. At that moment the great bronze bell high above the Maifeld began to toll, summoning the youth of the world to assembly.
Hitler and his entourage passed out of sight, entering the tunnel beneath the stands, and a few minutes later a great fanfare of trumpets, magnified a hundred times by the banks of loudspeakers, crashed over the field and a massed choir burst into Deutschland fiber alles. The ranks of athletes began to move off, wheeling into their
