To Catch a King Read Online Free PDF

door opened and a young woman in SS Auxiliary uniform entered. “Have you been busy?”
    “Not particularly.”
    “Good. You can go now.”
    She started to unbutton her uniform jacket and Irene Neumann took down her coat from behind the door and left.
    Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was fifty-two. A U-boat commander of distinction during the First World War, he was now head of the Abwehr, the Intelligence Department of the German Armed Forces High Command. Although a loyal German, like many of the officer class, he loathed most aspects of the Nazi regime, an attitude that was to lead to his downfall and execution toward the end of the war.
    Schellenberg was on close personal terms with him and they frequently rode together in the Tiergarten. As he waited beside his car, he could see the Admiral now, cantering along the ride between the trees followed by his two favorite dachshunds, who were obviously experiencing some difficulty in keeping up with him. He saw Schellenberg when still some little distance away, waved, and turned toward him.
    He reined in and dismounted. “Business, Walter, or conversation?”
    “Interchangeable, I usually find.” Schellenberg called to his driver, “Come and hold the Herr Admiral's horse.”
    They walked among the trees, the dachshunds waddling at their heels.
    “How goes the war then, Walter? From your point of view, of course.”
    “Well, Herr Admiral, I think we could agree on that.”
    “And Sea Lion?”
    “Only the Führer has the facts there.”
    “And expects the British to sue for peace any day. Do you think they will?”
    “Not really.”
    “Neither do I. Not with the Channel to cross. And they always do so damned well with their backs to the wall. You heard the gist of Churchill's speech? Fight on the beaches, in the streets. Blood, sweat, tears.”
    “There's still the Luftwaffe to come.”
    “I know,” Canaris said scornfully. “Fat Hermann boasting again. Reduce London to ashes, bomb them into submission. Wasn't that what he was supposed to do to the British Army at Dunkirk? Instead, the Luftwaffe got all hell knocked out of it by a handful of Spitfires.”
    His face was stiff with anger, and Schellenberg watched him closely. He genuinely liked Canaris; admired him as a man. On the other hand, the Admiral was undoubtedly indiscreet. He was already suspected by Heydrich and Himmler, as Schellenberg well knew, of having leaked the date of the attack in the West to the Allies, which if it was true, had certainly done them little good.
    “Well, what is it, Walter? What do you wish to discuss? I know that devious mind of yours by now. Spit it out.”
    “I was wondering,” Schellenberg said, “whether you had an opinion on the Duke of Windsor.”
    Canaris roared with laughter. “Has Ribbentrop dropped that one in your lap? My God, he really does have it in for you, doesn't he?”
    “You know all about it then?”
    “Of course I do. He approached me yesterday. He knows we have an organization in Lisbon. He seemed to think we could handle the whole affair.”
    “And why don't you?”
    “Our man there is a German industrialist who operates under the cover of a flourishing import-export business. In Abwehr files he is called A-1416.”
    “Yes, I met him when I was last in Lisbon.”
    “The British Secret Service know him, I believe, as Hamlet.”
    “A double agent? Then why don't you have him eliminated?”
    “Because he serves my purposes. Feeds them the kind of information I want them to have on occasion. It's a we-know-that-you-know-that-we-know-that-you-know situation. Needless to say I couldn't possibly give him the Windsor affair. He'd put the British straight onto it.”
    “And is that your only reason?”
    “No—I think the whole thing a nonsense. A number of incidents concerning the Duke have been hopelessly misconstrued. To give you an example: a speech he made some years ago at a British Legion Rally suggesting that the time had come for British veterans