Jack Higgins - To Catch a King

For my daughter, Sarah, from one

unashamed romantic to another …

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication For my daughter, Sarah, from one unashamed romantic to another …

Prologue PROLOGUE In July 1940 Walter Schellenberg, SS Brigadeführer and major-general of police, was ordered by Hitler to proceed to Lisbon to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, then staying in a villa at Estoril after fleeing the German occupation of France. This story is an attempt to recreate the events surrounding that astonishing episode. Most of it is documented historical fact although certain sections must obviously be fictional. The person who emerges from the whole bizarre affair with most credit is the Duke of Windsor himself. For that reason I offer this book as a tribute to a gallant and honourable gentleman.

Lisbon—1940 LISBON—1940

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Jack Higgins

Copyright

About the Publisher

In July 1940 Walter Schellenberg, SS Brigadeführer and major-general of police, was ordered by Hitler to proceed to Lisbon to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, then staying in a villa at Estoril after fleeing the German occupation of France. This story is an attempt to recreate the events surrounding that astonishing episode. Most of it is documented historical fact although certain sections must obviously be fictional. The person who emerges from the whole bizarre affair with most credit is the Duke of Windsor himself. For that reason I offer this book as a tribute to a gallant and honourable gentleman.

Just after midnight it started to rain, and the Portuguese policeman brought a cape from his sentry box and placed it around her shoulders without a word.

It was quite cold now and she walked a few paces along the road to keep warm, pausing to look back across the mouth of the Tagus to where the lights of Lisbon gleamed in the distance.

A long way; not as far as Berlin or Paris or Madrid, but she was here now, finally, outside the pink stucco villa at Estoril. The final end of things, more tired than she had ever been in her life before and, suddenly, she wanted it to be over.

She walked back to the policeman at the gate. ‘Please,’ she said in English, ‘how much longer? I’ve been here almost an hour.’ Which was foolish because he didn’t understand her.

There was the sound of a car coming up the hill, headlights flashed across the mimosa bushes, and a black Mercedes braked to a halt a few yards away.

The man who got out of the rear was large and powerfully built. He was bare-headed and wore glasses and his hands were pushed into the pockets of a dark mackintosh.

He said something briefly in Portuguese to the policeman, then turned to the girl. His English was quite excellent.

‘Miss Winter, isn’t it? Miss Hannah Winter?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Could I see your passport?’

She got it out quickly, her hands fumbling in the cold so that the cape slipped from her shoulders. He replaced it for her politely, then took the passport.

‘So – an American citizen.’

‘Please,’ she said, a hand on his sleeve. ‘I must see the Duke. It’s a matter of the gravest urgency.’

He looked down at her calmly for a moment, then nodded to the policeman who started to open the gate. The car rolled forward. He held the door for her, and she climbed inside. He followed.

With a sudden burst of power, the Mercedes jumped forward, the driver swinging on the wheel, taking them round in a circle and back down the hill towards Lisbon.

She had been thrown into the corner and now he pulled her upright roughly and switched on the light. He was still clutching her passport.

‘Hannah Winter – American citizen? I think not.’ He tore it apart and flung it into the corner. ‘Now this, I think, would be a much more accurate description.’

The passport he pushed into her hands was German. She opened it in fascinated horror. The picture that stared out at her was her own.

‘Fräulein Hannah Winter,’ he said. ‘Born in Berlin on November the ninth, nineteen-eighteen. Do you deny this?’

She closed the passport and pushed it back at him, fighting to control her panic. ‘My name is Hannah Winter, but I am an American citizen. The American embassy will confirm this.’

‘The Reich does not acknowledge the right of its citizens to change nationalities to suit their inclinations. You were born a German. I confidently predict you will die one.’

The streets were deserted and they drove very fast so that already they were into the city and moving down towards the river.

He said, ‘An interesting city, Lisbon. To get into any foreign embassy it’s necessary to pass through a Portuguese police checkpoint. So, if you’d tried to get into either the British or American embassies, we would still have got you.’

She said, ‘I don’t understand. When I asked to be admitted the man on the gate said he’d have to check with headquarters.’

‘It’s simple. The Portuguese police have accepted an extradition warrant to be served on Hannah Winter on a charge of murder – murder three times over. In fact, they’ve agreed to expedite the matter.’

‘But you – you’re not the police.’

‘Oh, but we are. Not the Portuguese variety, but something rather more interesting.’ He was speaking in German now. ‘Sturmbannführer Kleiber of the Berlin office of the Gestapo. My colleague, Sturmscharführer Gunter Sindermann.’

It was like something out of a nightmare and yet the tiredness she felt was overwhelming so that nothing seemed to matter any more.

‘What happens now?’ she asked, dully.

Kleiber switched off the light so that they were in darkness again. ‘Oh, we’ll take you home,’ he said. ‘Back to Berlin. Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.’

His hand was on her knee, sliding up over the silk stocking to her thigh.

It was his biggest single mistake for the disgust his actions engendered galvanized her into life again. She fumbled for the handle of the door, holding her breath as his hand moved higher. The Mercedes slowed to allow a water cart to pass. She shoved Kleiber away with all her strength, pushed open the door and scrambled into the darkness, losing her balance, rolling over twice.

The shock effect was considerable and when she got to her feet, she had to lean against the wall for a moment. The Mercedes had pulled up further along the street and started to reverse. She had lost one of her shoes, but there was nothing to be done about that. She kicked off the other, plunged into the nearest alley and started to run.

A few moments later, she emerged on to the waterfront. It was still raining heavily and a considerable fog rolled in from the Tagus and street lamps were few and far between. There seemed to be no shops, no houses, simply tall gaunt warehouses rising into the night.

As the fog closed in around her, it was as if she was the only person in the world, and then she heard the sound of her pursuers echoing between the walls of the alley behind her.

She started to run again, lightly in stockinged feet. She was cold, very cold – and then a light appeared dimly in the fog on the other side of the street backing on to the river. A red neon sign said Joe Jackson’s and underneath American bar .