"9735, it's time for your interrogation." The roar of the guards echoed in the gloomy dungeons of the Gestapo headquarters, and the iron doors of the dark chambers rose in response, and all the prisoners stood up alertly, as if they were facing a great enemy. Only a man in an iron-gray suit with slightly gray hair turned a deaf ear to the voice, still pacing unhurriedly in the cramped cell. He was Prisoner 9735, Admiral William Canarris, former head of Imperial Military Intelligence.

"You don't have to stare at me like that, you don't have to look innocent, Canaris, you were ordered by the Führer to arrest you, we have found enough evidence." In the specially arranged interrogation room, three people sat in the middle of the Führer's Austrian countryman, Ernst Kartenbruner, the new head of the Reich's Central Security Service, Walter Schellenberg on the right, and Heinrich Müller on the left.

Hoffman was resolute in his reshuffling of the intelligence agency, and as soon as the strategy meeting was over, Himmler's concurrent head of the Reich Security Bureau was removed, and the internal structure changed dramatically. Otto Orlendorff's Imperial Security Service (domestic functions) and Artur Nabi's Criminal Police Service were separated from the Reich Security Directorate and merged with the former general police system, with Himmler also serving as Chief of the Imperial Police, with unified responsibility for internal security and internal inspection. The Military Intelligence Bureau, which had been independent and controlled by Canaris, as well as the intelligence agencies within the High Command, the General Staff, and the various branches of the service, were all integrated into the Imperial Security Bureau. The current Reich Security Directorate has been completely transformed into a specialized agency for intelligence gathering, information analysis, espionage infiltration, and domestic counter-espionage, mainly including Walter Scherenberg's State Security Service (foreign functions and spy dispatch), Heydrich Müller's Gestapo (domestic counter-espionage), and Galen's Intelligence Analysis Service. Now, Kalten Bruner, who was in charge of the Reich Security Directorate and was also the SS deputy national leader, was in much more power, reporting directly to the Führer, and there was a vague tendency to replace the assassinated Heydrich as the second man in the SS.

Theoretically, the Reich Security Directorate was now a subordinate body of the High Command, and Keitel was their direct leader. However, it is clear to everyone that the control of the intelligence system has now passed into the hands of the Führer, who not only controls the restructuring of the intelligence system and the adjustment of its functions, but also personally observes the relevant intelligence content. Countless pieces of information that had been generalized, contradictory, or unauthenticated were sent to Hoffman's case, and every day the Secretariat had to organize and bind them to the Führer's aide-de-camp for review and then to Hoffman for review, and Bowman was the main facilitator in this process. Everyone expected that the Führer would soon be overwhelmed by such trivial information, which had no concrete value and could not be substantially proven, but on the contrary, the Führer not only carefully read all the information, but also made special annotations to the information that he considered important or highly suspicious, and the report on the coffin of Canaris was the work of Galen on the basis of Hoffman's latest instructions.

Canaris sighed softly in his heart, as a veteran spy, it had long been a part of his life, but even so, he was still shocked by the suddenness of the operation—almost a few minutes after the strategic meeting uncovered the traitorous group, Hoffmann personally ordered the SS to arrest the deeply hidden mole under the pretext of convening a meeting. has been locked up for a few days, and what has puzzled him all the time is, why did the other party discover his flaws? Judging from the current interrogation posture, it may be difficult to get out of the situation.

"General evidence is useless to you, because all the intelligence agencies have your people infiltrating, and you can always clean up your suspicions, but ......" Heinrich Müller shook the information in his hand with a confident expression, "You can't kill Reinhardt Heydrich directly, no decent German will carry out the order to assassinate the SS deputy commander-in-chief, you have to rely on the British—to be exact, you handed the information to the British, Let the British manipulate the Czech underground to kill Heydrich. ”

Canaris remained silent: "This is the most baseless speculation I have ever heard. ”

"Very good, as the Führer expected, you will deny everything." Schellenberg took over the conversation, "In the past few days, we have investigated all the personnel and materials you have contacted, and you have covered up all the clues that may have been exposed, but there is nothing you can do about the information reported and archived by the intelligence officers of the Military Intelligence Bureau and the subordinate agencies within the scope of their authority, do you want to listen to the analysis report of Director Galen?" ”

Canaris did not reply, but listened to Szelenberg read to himself: "The archives show that before the Polish campaign, the accuracy of the information examined and reported to the Führer by you was about 75%; From the Polish campaign to the end of the French campaign, the accuracy rate remained at around 70%. But since the Battle of Britain, the accuracy rate of the intelligence you report has dropped rapidly to 40% - you can defend yourself with the British spy agency's intelligence gathering and counterintelligence capabilities, but the fact is that you deliberately withheld the correct or near-correct information - whenever conflicting information arrives at you, you tend to report the wrong information after passing the review, and put the correct information on the shelf and annotate it as 'nonsense'. After searching and comparing the original files, some important and correct information has been destroyed by you. We can assume that your intelligence analysis skills have suddenly decreased, but we cannot explain the high contrast between the accuracy rate of intelligence involving Britain and the United States and the accuracy rate of intelligence involving the Soviet Union. Because 40% is just an average, you get less than 30% correct when you take out the intelligence on the Eastern Front...... However, the accuracy rate of the information content that you denied and commented on 'nonsense' has reached more than 70%. It can be seen that you have carefully sifted through the wrong information and submitted it to the Supreme Commander. Whether or not you have contact with the British, you cannot escape these charges. ”

Canaris was secretly frightened, this analysis hit him in the soft underbelly - as Schellenberg said, he did not have any formal intelligence or personnel exchanges with the British and American intelligence agencies, but he was convinced that he had been friends with the head of the British MI6 for a long time, Menzies, the so-called "big C", and many things could be tacitly understood without communication, just like old friends who had not seen each other for many years, and they could make the other party feel their existence without talking - because he was very relieved in the use and collection of intelligence. The most typical is that during the Battle of Britain, he issued a reference to the Sea Lion Project, which was that 31 fully equipped divisions were deployed on the British Isles, but in fact Britain had only 6 exhausted and barely equipped divisions at this time, and the Supreme Command and the Gestapo could not distinguish the mysteries, and the British spies hidden in the military intelligence and base camp could fully read these contents.

"You can still deny the analysis report of Director Galen, but there is one thing you can't escape." "General Henri Giraud, former commander of the French Seventh Army and head of the underground resistance, was imprisoned in a secret prison by us and was to be executed by order at the request of the Führer, only to escape on the eve of the execution. All along, you have denied that Reinhardt Heydrich had been duly informed of this order, believing that the latter's sudden assassination led to the escape. But we reorganized the whole operation, and the Frenchman, who could not speak a word of German, was a one-armed disabled man, and could not have fled without the help of others. It's even more confusing if you fake British intelligence or some other organization to take over, but the truth is that you didn't take over MI6 at all, and Giraud had just the right amount of omissions or hidden dangers in every critical link before he escaped from our control, and it was because you ordered the deregulation......"

In fact, including the troika and everyone, they could not believe that Canaris was the biggest enemy hidden within the Empire, and they were inexplicably surprised by the Führer's decision to arrest the admiral without obvious evidence, and what was even more unacceptable was that the results of the investigation and analysis afterwards showed that the Führer's claim was completely correct, when all the events that exceeded the normal probability of mistake were gathered together, The only explanation is deliberate.

Carten Bruner and the troika were unanimous in their affirmation of Canaris's lack of contact with the British spy service, which is why the Gestapo had been suspicious of Canaris but had no definite evidence - they could not find Canaris's motive for treason, and the admiral's performance was impeccable in terms of money and beauty, nor did they have a deep hatred for the Führer like frustrated high-ranking officials such as Beck and Brauchitsch. As a high-ranking general of the Third Reich, Canaris had enough fame, status, and power to be a true top elite of the empire, in other words, completely unmotivated to commit crimes.

The Führer's opinion dumbfounded: "Fool, his purpose in being a traitor is not for himself, he is for the sake of opposing the war - this vile, arrogant wretch thinks that the path he carries out is the only right direction." ”

"Why did you go to the trouble of interrogating me when you think you have my evidence?" Canaris retorted unceremoniously in a sneering tone, "According to you, I have no accomplices, and you must not be delusional to make me confess a duty that I have not assumed......

"You're right, we already know what you know, and the interrogation of you is not to draw any conclusions from your mouth, but to tell you something that you don't know or pretend not to know." Kaltenbruner stood up and coldly ordered, "Keep him carefully watched, don't let him have a chance to commit suicide, let alone let him take the opportunity to escape." ”

Dragged back to his solitary confinement cell with his heavy shackles, Walter Schellenberg and Kartenbruner exchanged glances and asked Heinrich Müller: "Do you think the Führer's strategy will succeed?" ”。

"This is a big fish, but also a fat bait, he hides too many secrets, the British can't help but be lonely." Heinrich Müller shook his head and said coldly, "There will be countless minions rushing over like moths to a fire, just like the story in the summer garden, we just need to prepare the lampshade and admire the corpses all over the ground......"