Swan swept across the remaining half mile and cut sharply to a stop a foot in front of Vierhaus and Ludwig. His breath was even and unlabored as it curled from his lips. Ice caked the rims of his goggles and the collar of his jacket. He shoved the goggles up on his forehead and nodded. Vierhaus realized that he was seeing Swan, undisguised, for the first time. His straw-colored hair was long and uncut and he wore a full beard. His eyes were turquoise blue and as intense as a hawk’s. He wore no hat. Small knots of melting ice glistened from his long locks and his facial hair.
Quite a handsome devil, Vierhaus thought to himself.
“Herr Professor, good to see you again. It has been a while.”
“And you, Colonel Swan,” Vierhaus answered, shaking his hand. “That was quite an impressive display.”
‘Ja. About a second and a half under my last speed, I should say.”
Ludwig looked at his stopwatch. “Actually 1.2 seconds,” he said and laughed. “If you go any faster, Swan, we’ll have to supply you with wings.”
“I thought perhaps we might have dinner tonight at my hotel, just the two of us,” Vierhaus suggested.
“I really must decline, Willie,” Swan replied. “The next day or two could be difficult ones and I must be in top form.”
“Oh? Why so?” Ludwig asked innocently.
“Time for the match between Kraft and me, isn’t it?” Swan answered. “I cannot afford distractions.” And laughing, he headed for the base cabin.
“How did he know that?” Vierhaus asked. “I thought it was to be a surprise.”
‘ja,” Ludwig answered with obvious annoyance. “So did
The cabin at the base of the mountain ‘was small, with two bedrooms, a kitchen and the large living room which was the planning and lecture center. One entire wall was covered with a six-foot-square detailed map of the local area.
Kraft was smaller than Swan but huskier, with a bull neck and bulging arms that swelled his cotton sweatshirt. He was clean shaven and his dark hair was trimmed close to the scalp. He sat at rigid attention, in sharp contrast to Swan who was slouched back in his chair. Kraft had given up a promising career as an Olympic skier to join the Six Foxes. He was a former honor student, fluent in English, French and Italian.
Swan ignored his adversary. Instead he stared with narrowed eyes at Ludwig, listening to every word his tutor said.
“This is the exercise,” Ludwig was saying. “You will climb the side of the Hummel, here.” He used a pointer to show where the exercise was to begin and its eventual course. “You will go up the west face, which is about thirty-five hundred feet, then cross here to the back side and ski down the reverse face. The objective is to retrieve this flag before your opponent.”
He held up a small red Nazi banner with a black swastika in its center.
“Will we be scored on anything other than speed?” Kraft asked.
“The object is to retrieve the flag,” Ludwig repeated. “You will have fifteen minutes to study the chart. That’s all. Heil Hitler.”
“Heil Hitler, “the two men said in unison, raising their arms in the Nazi salute. Ludwig and Vierhaus left the cabin. Swan and Kraft studied the chart in silence, Kraft scribbling notes to himself while Swan stood close to the map and stared at it without expression. This exercise is a chess game, he said to himself. A very dangerous chess game. The back slope was a glacier formed by melting snow in the warm August afternoons and then refrozen at night.
There were two courses down the slope. The one on the west side of the glacier was faster but far more dangerous with a deadfall of at least a thousand feet along half its length. The eastern trail had sporadic deadfalls and a natural shelf halfway down to break the run. The two trails merged halfway down the slope. After that it was a drop run all the way down—a piece of cake. The crucial decision would be whether to risk the run down the western wall or cross to the east side.
Ludwig’s instructions were simple—retrieve the flag. That was the operation, so the test was one of skill, intelligence and speed, not heroics.
He concentrated on the map. Since they were climbing up the west face, he would have to cross over the glacier to get to the east run, a dangerous task in itself. One slip and he would plunge 1,500 feet down the glacier to certain death.
Ludwig had devised a devilish contest.
“Well, Swan, good luck. May the best man win,” Kraft said, offering his hand.
“The best man is going to win,” Swan said without looking at him. Ignoring Kraft’s outstretched hand, he turned abruptly and left the cabin.
* * *
By noon Swan had reached the crest on the back side of the Hummel. By his calculations, he was two or three minutes ahead of Kraft. He wasted thirty seconds, staring out across the valley, focusing his mind on the map. The peak of the Hummel broke away to the east while the west run, the more dangerous of the two, started only fifty or so yards away around the ledge of the mountain. Skiing across the glacier on the back side was more than risky, it was foolish. And there was another factor, the wind. It howled madly around him, twisting the snow into whirlwinds. But by skiing around the front of the crest he could cross to the other side on good powder. Two hundred yards across, he figured, and Kraft was closing on him.
Retrieve the flag. Ludwig’s only instructions.
He jumped off and skied around the front side of the peak, headed across to the other side, leaning forward on his skis with his back to the harsh wind, letting it carry him across. He would force Kraft to take the dangerous west run. He sped across the crest, cut sharply as he reached the east side and whipped around the peak to the back side, stopping a few feet from a precipitous deadfall.
He was standing on a small ledge just above the trail down the side of the glacier. He studied the trail for a moment, watching the wind sweep the snow out across the frozen river. Good powder, he thought. Below him the glacier spread almost the entire width of the mountain’s face: gleaming, melting ice sliced with narrow, deep fissures formed by rivers of melting ice and snow.
Swan looked up toward the peak of the Hummel, thirty yards or so above him. A wide and dangerous overhang of snow clustered near the crest of the mountain. Rivers of melting snow poured from its jagged rim to form the deep cuts in the glacial face of the mountain. Here and there deep cracks appeared in the broad snow overhang.
An avalanche waiting to happen, thought Swan.
He looked to the west. The natural path coursed down through the trees, a steep run, almost vertical in places. Directly below Swan, his trail was hampered by boulders and stunted trees. It was a slower run but safer. From the rim of his eye he saw Kraft emerge on the far side of the glacier. Kraft had achieved the peak, too, and only seconds behind him. But now Kraft had an open avenue to the faster, more dangerous run. Would he take it? Or lose valuable time chasing Swan to the easier side of the slope?
He will operate on pure instinct, thought Swan. Kraft had made his decision before reaching the crest, basing it on the maps. Now he was cornered. He could not afford to cross the melting river of ice that separated them. He has to make the western run. And as he watched, Kraft hopped in the air, swung his skis around and started down the western face. A fatal decision.
Swan jumped into the air, shoved himself over the ledge with his poles and started straight down the east run. Below him was a straight course halfway down the steep slope, then a ridge of boulders formed a natural shelf that spread east to west halfway across the mountain’s face. He plunged toward the shelf, keenly aware that Kraft was already seconds ahead of him on the opposite side of the glacier. To his right, steep cliffs raced past. He watched for patches of ice that might throw him over as he vaulted down the narrow trail. Far to his left he could see Kraft, seconds ahead of him, fighting the wind as he raced along the dangerous west trail. Swan reached the shelf and leveled off, twisting to a stop.