To Catch a King

She managed a smile. ‘As much as I ever will be.’

Connie was a large, rugged-looking Negro of forty-five, with close-cropped greying hair. Born and raised in New Orleans, he had been playing the piano like a dream since the age of seven and couldn’t read a note of music.

‘Trouble?’ he asked, sitting on the edge of her dressing table.

‘Uncle Max tells me I leave with you on Monday.’

‘That’s it. Twelve hours to gay Paree, then the night, express to Madrid from Austerlitz Station, and I can’t shake the dust of this town soon enough.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘You’re worried about the old man, aren’t you?’

‘He says he isn’t coming, Connie, but if he stays here …’

‘If ever a man knew what he was doing, it’s your Uncle Max, kid. I’d leave it to him.’ He took her hand. ‘You worry too much and that ain’t good because we got a show to do, so let’s get with it.’

She took a deep breath, stood up and followed him out, immediately aware of the club noises. People talking, the laughter, the hustle. It had an electricity to it that never failed in its effect on her.

Two other Negroes waited in the shadows beside the small stage, both younger than Connie. Billy Joe Hale, the bass player, and Harry Graf, the drummer. They dumped their cigarettes and moved on stage with Connie.

Hannah waited and then the spots bathed the stage in white light and Uncle Max’s voice boomed from somewhere at the rear of the room. ‘And now, the Garden Room proudly presents direct from New York, the one and only Hannah Winter.’

And as Connie and the boys moved into a solid driving arrangement of ‘St Louis Blues’, she walked on stage to thunderous applause and started to sing her heart out.

Reinhard Heydrich, unlike most Nazi party members, had been born a gentleman. Cashiered from the navy he had joined the SS and had been quickly chosen by Himmler as his deputy. His rise to the position of head of the Reich Main Security Office, one of the most powerful positions in the state, was a tribute as much to his total lack of any kind of humanity as to his qualities of leadership and superior intelligence.

When Schellenberg entered he was seated at his desk in his Prinz Albrechtstrasse office and was wearing the full dress uniform of an SS Obergruppenführer for he had just returned from dining with Hitler at the Reich Chancellery.

‘Ah, there you are, Walter,’ he said amiably. ‘You’ve been having a busy evening, I hear, playing Galahad to the Winter girl.’

‘Is there anything you don’t know?’ Schellenberg said. ‘It’s only just happened, for God’s sake.’

‘One survives, Walter, in this wicked old world of ours by knowing everything there is to know about everything and everybody.’

‘Which in this case would seem to mean that the people who work for me report to you first.’

‘Of course,’ Heydrich smiled. ‘Tell me about her. How long has she been under surveillance?’

‘Since she arrived. Two months now.’

‘And she really fell for this little drama of yours tonight?’

‘I think so.’

‘What exactly do you hope to achieve? Access to her bed or information?’

‘It’s her uncle we’re after, remember,’ Schellenberg said. ‘The fact that he’s an American citizen makes things difficult.’

‘But he 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 is a Soviet agent. He’s 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 at 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 Saarbrücken – 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 to power 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 meteoric.

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 MI5 agents in Holland. This had led to their kidnap 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 Kurfürstendamm and Alexander-platz.

Greatest irony of all, of course, was that Walter Schellenberg was no Nazi. Heydrich, Himmler, even the Führer, all came to trust his judgement implicitly on intelligence matters and yet, always in his mind, he stood on one side, a spectator of the whole sorry charade, as 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

On Thursday morning just before noon, Schellenberg was working at his desk 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 his 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.

Von Ribbentrop received Schellenberg in his private office at the Reich Chancellery.

‘Good of you to come, my dear fellow. Sit down and I’ll get straight to the point. I am speaking to you on behalf of the Führer himself on this matter, by the way, so we are talking of something with the highest security rating.’

Schellenberg was immediately intrigued. ‘I see. Please continue.’

‘Did you by any chance meet the Duke of Windsor during his German tour in nineteen thirty-seven?’