Goldengirl

Dryden had decided he must get to Goldine and warn her about Esselstyn. A man smart enough to fix a flight reservation next to one of the consortium wasn’t going to be held off for long by U.S. team security. Goldine would need to know what to expect and how to freeze him off. She was sure to be preoccupied with the running. Dryden’s problem — if he got close enough to speak to her before Esselstyn — was convincing her it was important. Her moods were so volatile. But it couldn’t be shirked.

Instead of moving with the mass of the crowd toward the Stadium approach, they turned right at the street’s end and headed toward one of the three training tracks where athletes warmed up for their events. There was a better chance of seeing Goldine here than trying to penetrate the security at the Olympic Village, which was organised with the 1972 shootout in Munich still much in mind.

The track was a full 400-metre circuit surrounded by a double wire fence patrolled by officials. The public enclosure extended along one side of the stretch. There must have been two hundred or more spectators seated on the tiered benches simply watching athletes in warm-ups jogging around the perimeter and exercising on the grass. Almost as many again were clustered around the competitors’ entrance: autograph collecting is a popular activity in the Soviet Union, engaged in by adults as well as children.

And as Dryden and Melody arrived, something was happening there. A team bus had drawn up and officials had swung metal barriers into place to provide a passage through the converging crowd. The athletes debouched at speed, ignoring the papers and pens hopefully thrust toward them.

Dryden was looking through his field glasses at some girl athletes limbering up on the far side.

‘No chance?’ Melody asked.

‘None at all. They aren’t even Americans.’

‘Who are these people arriving?’

‘Not Yanks, for sure. We obviously picked the wrong training track.’

A small Latin-looking man at his elbow seemed agitated when Dryden started to replace the glasses in their case. He tugged at Dryden’s sleeve, jabbering unintelligibly, stabbing his finger in the direction of the crowd at the gate. It seemed ungracious to push him away; he was evidently doing this from the best motives. He didn’t want Dryden to miss the excitement at the gate.

One word came through the spate of sounds and by repetition made itself understood: ‘Krüll.’ The little man wanted them to know he had spotted Ursula Krüll.

‘Krüll. Oh, yes. Ursula Krüll,’ said Dryden, nodding energetically. He turned the glasses on the slim brunette who had just run the gauntlet of autograph hunters.

She was talking with two other girls dressed similarly in the blue tracksuit with the letters DDR displayed. Cameramen were crowding around them, but she continued the conversation with the cultivated indifference of someone who has lived in the public eye for a long time. It was a pretty face, whatever preconceptions you had about Eastern Bloc athletes, the cheekbones shaped high, the curving top lip lifted interestingly even in repose. Her blue eyes continued to look steadily at her companions, undistracted by the cameras.

‘Cool,’ said Melody.

‘Krüll, si,’ said the little man.

‘Let’s go,’ said Dryden. ‘If the East Germans are here, you may be sure the Americans aren’t coming.’

As they were moving off, they saw Krüll slip her thumbs in the waistband of the tracksuit and ease it over her hips, still talking as she lifted her lightly tanned legs from the garment. She checked the level of the famous shorts with a quick movement of her hand, turned abruptly and wagged a playful finger at a cameraman, then trotted leisurely away around the track. If she felt any tension at the prospect of the afternoon’s events, it didn’t show.

They fared no better at the next training track, except having it confirmed by some U.S. 800-metre men that Goldine wasn’t likely to appear on the public training tracks at all. ‘The only place you’ll see that chick is in the Stadium racing,’ one told him. ‘She works out on the Village track, then they rush her to the Stadium in a hired Zim, along with two musclemen and her physician. Man, you have to be somebody to rate that class of service.’

At three o’clock that afternoon, eight girls bucked from the blocks in the first Semi-Final of the 100 metres. In the tiered seating beyond the finish, Melody tightened her grip on Dryden’s hand. From their foreshortened view, it was difficult to tell who had started well. The line of runners moved without the impression of speed you got from seeing them side-on; but the energy of sprinting, the rhythm and power, were dramatised in the hammer motion of legs — knees raised, it seemed, extravagantly high, shoes pounding the track.