To Catch a King Read Online Free

was born a German,” Heydrich said impatiently. “I've seen his file, and the Führer has stated often enough that citizens of the Reich do not have the right to change nationality.”
    “The Americans might have a different viewpoint on that one,” Schellenberg pointed out. “And this is hardly the moment to antagonize Washington.”
    “So—are we any further forward with this Winter affair?”
    “Not really. As you can see from his file, he attended the University of Berlin as a youth and was a member of the Communist Party. It is my belief that he still is.”
    “A Soviet agent possibly?”
    “Perhaps. Certainly involved with the Socialist Underground and probably also the illegal transfer of Jews from the Reich.”
    “Then what are you waiting for? Arrest him.”
    “Not just yet,” Schellenberg said. “If we wait a little longer we get not only Winter, but his entire organization. And he is under surveillance at all hours.”
    Heydrich sat there frowning, then nodded. “Very well, Walter. You can have another week. Seven days and then …” He stood up. “What are you going to do now?”
    Schellenberg knew what was coming. “Go home to bed.”
    “Nonsense,” Heydrich grinned. “The night's still young. We'll make the rounds of a few nightclubs. Help yourself to a drink while I change.”
    He went out and Schellenberg sighed, moved to the drinks cabinet, and poured himself a Scotch.
    He had been born in Saarbrucken in 1910, the son of a piano maker. Cultured and intelligent by nature and with a gift for languages, he had entered the University of Bonn at the age of nineteen in the faculty of medicine, but changed to the study of law after two years.
    Well qualified, but penniless, he saw opportunity in the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933 and accepted the suggestion of one of his professors that he join the SS. His gift for languages brought him to the attention of Heydrich, who had recruited him at once into the SD, where his rise had been rapid.
    A number of successful intelligence operations had combined to consolidate his position, culminating in the Venlo incident in 1939, during which he had posed as a resistance agent to gain the confidence of three British MI-5 agents in Holland. This had led to their kidnapping by SS troops on neutral territory.
    Decorated by the Führer himself, he had been promoted SS Brigadeführer and Major General of Police and was still only thirty years of age.
    Of course, he had his enemies, but Heydrich and his wife liked him, so that he moved socially in the very best circles in Berlin. But there was a price to pay, including the occasional night out with Heydrich, whose sexual appetite was insatiable and who was never happier than roaming the cabarets and clubs of the Kurfurstendamm and Alexanderplatz.
    Greatest irony of all, of course, was that Walter Schellenberg did not consider himself a Nazi. Heydrich, Himmler, even the Führer, all came to trust his judgment implicitly on intelligence matters, and yet always in his mind he stood on one side, a spectator of the whole sorry charade, contemptuous as much of himself as of them.
    The rain beat against the window and he raised his glass to his reflection, in mock salute.

3
    O n thursday morning just before noon, Schellenberg was working in his Prinz Albrechtstrasse office when the phone rang. He recognized the voice at once—von Ribbentrop.
    “Schellenberg, are you free? I'd like you to come over to see me at once.”
    “Anything special?” Schellenberg asked the Foreign Minister.
    “A matter of the utmost importance to the Reich. I can't discuss it on the phone.”
    Schellenberg called Heydrich at once and reported the situation, always aware of Heydrich's rage at even the slightest suggestion of his personal authority being usurped. For once, Heydrich was more intrigued than anything else and told him to get on with it—with the promise of a detailed report later.
    Ribbentrop received Schellenberg in his