The times are perilous just like the slick streets of Berlin, he thought to himself. Perilous, yet fraught with opportunity! It was a risky enterprise, more dangerous for one such as he than any of his colleagues realized. Should one of his enemies discover his secret and leak it upward to the man he would see an hour from now, he would himself become one of the nameless victims of some future SS purge. But he was not ready to spill his blood yet. He was a survivor. He had not climbed as high as he had without considerable cunning of his own.

Korsch turned from the window, returned to his desk, and sat down to review the papers in front of him. He possessed dossiers on Americans, Germans, Russians, and a whole range of influential individuals from all walks of life—information he had been accumulating for his own personal use when the time came for him to make his move to the next-higher echelon within the clandestine hierarchy of the secret police force. Yesterday’s summons from Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, was the indication that that moment had at last arrived.

If he could show himself well in Himmler’s estimation, well, advancements came as quickly as declines in these heady days when national socialism was on such a rapid rise. He just had to watch his own flank, to make sure nobody delved too deeply into his past.

Loyalty these days was not a dependable commodity. The winds of fortune shifted more rapidly in Berlin than those of the weather. And storm clouds were not so readily visible on those horizons as the ones which had blown in from the north twelve hours ago.

Once more he busied himself with the documents before him, seeing if there was anything he might have missed that would prove useful in the ensuing interview.

He had amassed papers on Nazi party members in high and low places, on leading Jews, on foreigners in Germany, on diplomatic higher-ups, on church leaders, and especially on financiers and industrialists whose fortunes he would tap if the opportunity ever presented itself. He was not above blackmail and extortion. If he could do his job, and pad his own coffers in the meantime, well, no one ever said national socialism did not offer its more enterprising adherents advantages for personal advancement and gain.

Forty minutes later Korsch exited the building, pulling his hat and leather coat tightly to him against the slashing rain, got into his car, and began the fateful drive toward what he hoped would be a fortuitous meeting with the man most people recognized as the second most powerful personage in all of Germany.

As he drove, he reflected on the road that had brought him here, so near at last to the very pinnacle of power.