The Nipplin Building in San Francisco breathed with the weight of authority. Sarah Lin adjusted her blouse and carried her thin folder of forged credentials past the outer guards. The interview had already happened; Trade Minister Togo Masuri had personally intervened, singling her name from the stack of applicants.
Now, she began work. She was assigned as a clerk within the Trade Ministry, where she would handle minor logistics for the upcoming Imperial Family's state visit — travel funds, ceremonial expenses, paperwork that most men in authority overlooked. What they didn't know was that this put Sarah dangerously close to the streams of money and authorizations surrounding the event. It was an infiltration right under the Kempeitai's nose.
Her first day, she was seated beside Meka, the beautiful Japanese woman she had met during interviews. Meka's eyes were sharp — always watching. Their conversations were polite, brief, yet Sarah could feel that every word she said was being measured, weighed, tested.
What gave her cover was her handler: the janitor of the Nipplin Building, an older Chinese man whose broom and bucket made him invisible. During their fleeting meetings by stairwells or utility rooms, he slipped her whispers of instructions, small slips of paper, or reassurance. "You are inside now. Do not hurry. They trust slowly, but once they do, the information flows."
Across the city, Jack Hutto sat at home in the wreckage of the raided apartment. His body still bore bruises, but it was his spirit that was broken. Sarah was gone most of the day now. He told himself he might simply disappear. Run.
But as he sat, he noticed one of Sarah's bags half-hidden under the bed. A diary was inside, its leather cover weathered from time. Jack flipped through the pages, reading words he barely understood. Names, coded references — and then one phrase that made his breath stop.
His wife's mother… linked to The Voice. Not merely sympathetic, but deeply embedded, perhaps even one of the founding threads. Jack dropped the diary onto the floor, his mind racing. His wife was tied by blood to the very phantom the Kempeitai and Nazis were desperate to find.
Meanwhile, Vice Admiral Arimoto was deepening his own game. By day, he chaired committees for Admiral Yamamoto, overseeing the planning of the Imperial Family's arrival. By night, he entertained clandestine meetings.
One such meeting took place in a shuttered teahouse. There, a Nazi envoy flown in from Rome under false pretenses entered quietly. Their discussion was soft, careful, but one observer caught it all: Agent Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo's most ruthless investigator, dispatched personally by Obersturmbannführer Felton.
Barbie tracked the envoy from the airport, through alleys and streets, until he slipped into Arimoto's company. He did not approach — he only listened, memorizing. He saw papers exchanged, gestures of agreement. To Barbie's trained eye, this was unmistakable: Reinhard Heydrich's influence had reached the Pacific States without Berlin's permission.
Barbie returned immediately to the Nazi Embassy. The building was alive with activity, Wehrmacht guards adjusting banners, secretaries typing correspondence, SS soldiers polishing ceremonial uniforms. Felton was watching all this unfold when Barbie appeared, his expression sharp as steel.
They retreated into the ambassador's private suite, richly decorated with dark oak, Nazi insignia, and a view over San Francisco Bay. Barbie delivered his report, voice measured, precise. When he spoke Heydrich's name, Felton's composure cracked just slightly.
"Impossible," Felton muttered. "Western command knows nothing of this. No envoy is authorized without my hand."
Barbie handed over his notes. Felton dismissed him with a salute, then sat alone at his desk, cigarette smoke rising as he contemplated the implications. This was treasonous in its own way — another faction of the Reich operating on Japanese soil.
He pressed a button. Within moments, SS soldiers entered. Felton's voice was clipped, decisive:
"This intelligence is Priority One. Relay to Agent Barbie that all embassy resources are at his disposal. From this moment forward, he will pursue the envoy's movements exclusively. No errors. No leaks."
The soldiers saluted. Felton exhaled, then stepped into the secure communications chamber. An encryption agent stood ready. Felton dictated his report, word by word, his tone urgent. The message was coded, sealed, and marked: Priority One. Highly Classified. To be sent directly to Obergruppenführer Imel in Berlin.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in a quiet French countryside…
The two French boys were running. The barking of German shepherds was deafening now, a chorus of fury pounding the air. Branches clawed at their faces as they sprinted through the woods.
Ahead was a tall cement fence — one of the barriers that had marked the old German compounds after the occupation. The older boy hoisted the younger up, desperate. The smaller child scrambled and was pushed over to the other side.
But before the older boy could follow, the barking closed in. He turned — and the last thing the younger saw was his friend standing firm, screaming, as the dogs crashed upon him. The forest swallowed the sound, replacing it with growls, tearing, silence.
The younger boy ran, stumbling through the trees until the rooftops of his small village came into sight. Bursting into his home, he collapsed into the arms of his nanny, sobbing uncontrollably, words spilling out. She paled at his story, then quickly reached for the telephone.
Within minutes, the house's master was informed at his office. A shadow had entered their quiet town, and it bore the swastika and the wolf's teeth of the Reich.
Back in Paris, Lucy excused herself from Imel's farmhouse meeting. "I have an appointment with Frau Riefenstahl," she said softly. "Olympic work cannot be delayed."
Imel waved her off. "Go. We will continue here."
Lucy was driven to the Olympic stadium, a structure so vast it seemed to eclipse the very sky. Vichy French Police patrolled the entrances, their uniforms a blend of traditional French gendarme style — dark navy tunics, kepis with red trim — but stamped now with the new symbols of collaboration: the Vichy insignia pinned above their breast pockets. Their presence was constant, officious.
Alongside them, Wehrmacht soldiers marched in patrols, rifles slung, eyes sweeping over workers and visitors. Among them, a handful of SS officials lingered, their black uniforms cutting sharp lines among the grays and blues — present not as guards, but overseers.
Paris, in this moment, was not only a city — it was a playground for the Reich. Nazi officers on leave strolled boulevards, tourists in their own empire, while behind the façades, shadows of horror were being staged.
Lucy entered the stadium, where the first rehearsals for the Olympic ceremonies had begun. Athletes trained in silence, cameras clicked, and all around her, propaganda was being polished into gold.
But Lucy's eyes were not only on the light. She was already searching for the cracks in the spectacle, the ways to bend Riefenstahl's grand vision into something that could one day reveal the truth.