The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

  Mattie smiled. “I remember that. It was very moving. Certainly airships filled with hydrogen are no weapons of war. How did you come to serve on airships?”

  “My father.”

  Mattie was puzzled. “Your father sent you off to fly airships? How did that happen?”

  “I asked; my mother said no; and eventually my father brought her around. After that it was easy.”

  “Your father must have had a lot of influence to get you into such an elite outfit.”

  “In a manner of speaking, I suppose he did,” Sturm replied, pausing while the fish course was served, Dover sole, and a chilled bottle of Moselle uncorked by the steward.

  Mattie nodded but said nothing, a technique she had picked up from Cockran. An old lawyer‘s trick. Silence. Many people are uncomfortable with silence in a conversation and after awhile will fill it, often saying more than they intended. It worked with Sturm. He focused his eyes over Mattie‘s left shoulder as if he were staring out to sea and finally turned back.

  “My father was Peter Strasser,” he finally said.

  “I‘m sorry, the name is not familiar,” Mattie said.

  “My father was head of the Imperial German Naval Airship Service. He was Germany‘s most decorated naval officer. He died in the war.”

  “A zeppelin crash?”

  “Of sorts. We were flying in a group of six of our newest airships, the ‘height-climbers‘ designed to fly above twenty thousand feet to evade British aircraft. My father was in the lead ship and, unfortunately, the British had made advances in their aircraft as well. His zeppelin was shot down. But it never crashed. It burned and disintegrated before it ever reached the ground. They gave him the Blue Max posthumously. It‘s his ribbon I wear, not mine. Mine is somewhere in a drawer. But my father‘s ribbon is always with me.”

  Mattie was horrified. “I‘m so sorry,” she said reaching out to place her hand over Sturm‘s. “Please forgive me for raising such a painful subject. I had no idea.”

  Sturm briefly put his hand warmly over hers. “No apologies are necessary. You had no way of knowing. My father has been with me since I boarded this ship. I can‘t think of zeppelins, let alone fly in them, without my father‘s memory at my side.”

  The steward was back, serving the main course, pork tenderloin medallions, potato pancakes and sauerkraut along with an excellent red Rhone, Chauteauneuf du Pape.

  “This meal is delicious,” Mattie said. “As good as any on an ocean liner.”

  STURM was surprised that Mattie had managed to draw him out about his father, let alone the fact that it was his father‘s ribbon, not his own Blue Max, which was his constant companion. No one else knew that. Until now. He almost never talked about his father , and certainly not about the horrific circumstances of his death which Kurt had witnessed.

  The McGary woman was indeed as beautiful as he had remembered, both in Munich and in California. And with brains to match her beauty. Worthy prey indeed. A long silence followed as they ate, giving her the opportunity to recover from her embarrassment over his father‘s death, Sturm could have predicted her next question.

  “Forgive me for asking, but why is your name Sturm, not Strasser?”

  Sturm paused. “It‘s a long story and might bore you. Would you like the short version?”

  “I can‘t imagine you being boring, but sure, let‘s have the short version.”

  “Is this off the record? I wouldn‘t want any of this to appear in Hearst‘s newspapers.”

  “Of course. It‘s off the record. A talk between friends. Nothing more.”

  Friends already? Sturm thought this was a promising start. He leaned closer to her.

  “I‘m a wanted man in Germany for crimes I committed over ten years ago. Property was destroyed and men who tried to stop us were killed. Arrest warrants were issued and I am a dangerous fugitive who changed his name to avoid arrest,” Sturm said and then leaned back.

  Mattie laughed. “You‘re joking. Now you must give me the long version.”

  Sturm paused. Mattie was still leaning forward. There was a risk in telling her the full story but it was minimal. No German government in its right mind would dare arrest and try him today. He poured them both another glass of wine and leaned closer.

  “It was after the war,” Sturm began in a low voice, “and the Allies had awarded to themselves all eighteen of our naval airships as reparations.”

  Sturm could see it now as he told the story to Mattie. It was the night of 23 June 1919. Only eighteen zeppelins had survived the war, standing silently in their sheds at Nordholz and Wittmundhaven, awaiting delivery to the victorious Allies. Two days earlier, in a daring act of sabotage, the officers of the German High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow in Scotland opened the sea valves of their ships, sinking them all. Sturm persuaded his fellow naval airshipmen to emulate the bravery of their seafaring brothers. They split themselves into two teams of ten men each, Sturm taking the group assigned to Wittmundhaven, only a few kilometers from the North Sea and the barrier islands of the East Friesians.

  When the sun rose the next morning over Wittmundhaven, all eight of the great zeppelins had been destroyed in vast explosions, leaving them a twisted mass of blackened duralumin. All the unprepared Allied sentries were dead, their throats cut, something he did not tell Mattie. The scene was duplicated simultaneously at Nordholz. Notwithstanding the Blue Max the military had awarded him for his valor that night and for the whole of his earlier wartime service, a warrant was issued for his arrest by the new Socialist government in Germany several months later. Forewarned, Kurt changed his name from von Strasser to von Sturm and, courtesy of an introduction from Hugo Eckener, went to work for Fritz von Thyssen, the head of Germany‘s largest steelworks, and also known to Sturm as “Berlin”, a key member of the Geneva Group, something else he did not tell Mattie. Germany took care of its heroes, even if its spineless Socialist government did not.

  “That‘s an amazing story,” Mattie said. “I‘d love to be able to write it someday.”

  Sturm stiffened at hearing this but Mattie quickly reassured him, putting her hand over his. “But you have my word. It stays with us.”

  Sturm relaxed and poured the last of the wine into each of their glasses. “But enough serious talk for tonight. What are your plans for tomorrow?”

  “Reading, mostly. There‘s not a lot to do around here other than meals. Perhaps some photographs if we see something interesting.”

  “I can arrange something interesting for you to photograph. How would you like a tour of the interior of the Graf Zeppelin? From stem to stern?”

  “Is that possible?”

  “The zeppelin commander, Max Pruss, flew with my father. It won‘t be a problem.”

  “Swell. I accept. I can‘t wait.”

  Sturm and Mattie rose from the table. Mattie reached out a hand to say goodnight which Sturm clasped and brought briefly to his lips.

  “Thank you for a delightful evening.”

  “Thank you as well. I enjoyed myself.”

  “I assure you, the pleasure was all mine. See you tomorrow morning,” Sturm said. And certainly tomorrow evening as well, he thought. Tonight had gone well. The prey unaware, the hunter closing in.

  14.

  Bobby Sullivan

  New York City

  Tuesday, 26 May 1931

  Evening

  MOST people passed Bobby Sullivan on the street and paid him no mind. If they did, they might have assumed that he had once been a prize fighter, taking in a broken nose, curly dark hair, and a wiry athletic build on his nearly six foot frame. Unremarkable and unnoticed except for the coldest blue eyes Cockran had even seen. Most people who saw those eyes would avert their gaze, hoping he wouldn‘t look at them again.

  Cockran sat across from Sullivan and two pints of stout in an Irish speakeasy in Hell‘s Kitchen. He‘d placed his call to Sullivan the moment he reached his townhouse.

  “Two men?” Sullivan asked.

>   “Three, counting the driver,” Cockran said.

  “Armed?”

  “Two were. Not sure about the driver.”

  “Took a swing at them, did you?” Cockran nodded yes. “Not too smart.” Sullivan said and brushed his dark hair away from his forehead, his lecture concluded. “How‘s your elbow?”

  “Better than his nose,” Cockran said.

  “Threatened your boy?” Sullivan asked as Cockran took a sip and nodded again. “A mistake to make you angry. Better to do it my way. Never get mad. Get even.”

  Cockran couldn‘t be sure and would never ask, but he suspected he was Sullivan‘s only friend in America. Sullivan was new to America, but Cockran had known him, or rather, known of him, since 1920. That was shortly after Cockran arrived in Dublin as Hearst‘s chief European correspondent and first met Michael Collins. At the time, Collins was a flesh and blood legend, systematically dismantling the British intelligence network in Ireland, one body at a time. The most wanted man in Ireland and the most elusive, with the biggest price on his head.

  Bobby Sullivan was Collins‘ most feared assassin in what Collins called his “squad”, popularly dubbed “The Apostles” when their number reached twelve. The British had other names for them. Hit men. A murder gang. For once, the Brits were pretty close to being right.

  Recruited at age seventeen, Sullivan had killed ten men before he was nineteen. In those days, Cockran and Sullivan seemingly had little in common. Sullivan the assassin, Cockran the journalist. But Cockran had killed before both during and after the war as an Army MID agent. He had left all that behind by the time he met Sullivan. He had been the peaceful go-between who brought together Michael Collins and his father‘s old friend Winston Churchill, the new British Colonial Secretary, contacts which eventually led to freedom for the Irish Free State.

  Their relationship began in the summer of 1922 when Eamon de Valera and the IRA looked freedom in the face and refused to accept it. In the Irish civil war that followed, Cockran‘s young wife, Nora, had been one of the first victims, abducted during an IRA bank robbery, then raped and murdered. Something quite similar and horrific had happened to Sullivan‘s older sister, but she had been permitted to live, only to be abandoned by her husband.

  At the time, Cockran and Sullivan didn‘t know that women close to them had been harmed by the same men. Both had waited a long time for revenge—seven years. Two summers ago, old enemies of Ireland resurfaced with a gun-running operation in America, a prelude to an IRA coup d’etat in the young Irish Free State. Bobby Sullivan and quite a few from Collins‘ old squad had traveled to America and joined forces with Cockran and Winston Churchill to stop the operation. Fortuitously for Cockran and Sullivan, it included the men responsible for the harm done to Sullivan‘s sister and Cockran‘s wife. Grimly, they had killed those responsible. It left them friends. Afterwards, Sullivan stayed in America and Cockran had used what remained of his late father‘s political influence to help Sullivan secure a New York state private investigator‘s license.

  Cockran supposed that Sullivan actually did things from time to time which private dicks did. But that wasn‘t why the big man had turned pale last night at the mention of Bobby‘s name. Even the Irish mob boss Owney Madden wanted to keep on Sullivan‘s good side. Bobby took the occasional free lance assignment from Madden. Not as many as were offered and not as many as Owney would have liked. Bobby Sullivan could be very selective about whom he killed.

  “These lads,” Sullivan said. “One short? One big?”

  Cockran nodded. “You know them?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Little Colin and Big Billy. T‘was me who trained them as bodyguards.”

  “They weren‘t guarding anybody.”

  “Doesn‘t sound like it,” he said and smiled. “Lucky for you they were slow learners.”

  Cockran laughed. “You know better. Lucky for them I wasn‘t in a bad mood.” He couldn‘t tell if Bobby was apologizing. But he knew this was as close as it got. “I may need your services. I‘ve got a new client.” Sullivan listened while Cockran talked.

  “So, what do you think?” Cockran asked after he had finished explaining to Sullivan the sabotage at the two plants owned by Sir Archibald Hampton‘s company in Germany.

  “You‘ll pay for a first class steamship ticket to Germany?”

  “Yep. First thing tomorrow. Paddy and I leave Sunday. I‘ll wire you there.”

  “And, after Munich, a side trip to Ireland on the way home?”

  Cockran nodded. “You‘ll have a few days to check things out there before we arrive.”

  Sullivan shrugged. “Owney won‘t be happy. He has a couple of jobs lined up for me on the West Coast, but sod him. I‘ve never been to Germany.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” Cockran said. He was pleased. Diplomacy without a credible threat of force is like Guinness without a creamy head. No one pays attention. That was one where even Churchill agreed with the Big Fella‘s rules.

  “‘Tis nothing. But I have one question.”

  “Go ahead,” Cockran said.

  “How long will you keep my hands tied in Germany?”

  Cockran shook his head. The two men were a lot alike but their differences ran deep.

  “How long, Bourke?”

  “When I decide that German law can‘t protect NBM‘s factories there.”

  “Does it look like I went to fucking University?” Sullivan said. “Spell it out.”

  Cockran grinned. “I think you understand me fine. You just don‘t like it.”

  “I don‘t mind,” Sullivan said. “ ‘Tis your assignment. Only the law never much concerned the Big Fella when he had me hunt down Black and Tans on the streets of Dublin.”

  “No, you‘re wrong. Mick had great respect for the law,” Cockran said, sipping at his Guinness. “Irish law. The Black and Tans were agents of an occupying army that was never there with the consent of the governed. They were legitimate targets.”

  “Good,” Sullivan said. “I hadn‘t been losing sleep over it, but it‘s nice to know.”

  “You know my rules. Never initiate force except in self-defense. That‘s key. Men have a right to defend themselves and what they own. So do companies and so will we.”

  Cockran knew that Sullivan never waited for someone to hit him first. If you were a threat to him or anyone under his protection, that was all he needed. And that was where he and Sullivan differed. Cockran‘s father had been a lawyer and instilled in his son a respect for the rule of law, not men. Cockran agreed with his father. Up to a point. But the rule of law was still administered by men––and when men failed or refused to do so, Cockran could be as cold and ruthless as his blueeyed friend who sat expectantly in front of him.

  Cockran‘s own philosophy came from both his lawyer father and Michael Collins. Neither man entirely trusted governments. Cockran shared that mistrust. “Governments create nothing,” his father always said. “They have nothing to give but what they have first taken away from others.” Where his father differed from Collins was what to do when a government took something from you or yours or did not provide the protection it promised. Cockran‘s father would accept a court‘s verdict. Collins wouldn‘t.

  “Here is where you and I part company.” Cockran said. “The rule of law defends what men own. That includes the NBM factories that Sir Archibald owns in Germany. We use no force, except in self-defense, until it is clear the German government has failed or refuses to defend NBM. Until that point, even if it seems right to you, we do not initiate the use of force.”

  “And aren‘t you a regular Marquis of Queensberry? I don‘t remember you waiting for the courts to make a decision when the Big Fella gave you that list with the three names on it.”

  Cockran shook his head slowly. Bobby damned well knew that Cockran hadn‘t been acting as a lawyer during the deadly Irish civil war back in 1922, a war that imperiled the Irish Free State‘s hard-won liberty. That summer, Bourke Cockran had been an avenging a
ngel ready to kill anyone remotely related to those responsible for his young wife‘s murder. Collins had used Cockran‘s rage and grief to recruit him to carry the Irish civil war to America to eliminate the three IRA paymasters in America—their top fund raisers and bankers. Sullivan had been there with Mick Collins in a back room at McDaid‘s Pub in Dublin and had passed across the scarred table a Webley revolver in a paper sack. Cockran had been the last assassin Collins recruited. The last Apostle. It was a bloody summer. Collins himself was assassinated by the IRA in his home county of Cork. So were the three IRA bankers in America. But the death of Cockran‘s wife had not been avenged. Not then.

  It was a hard memory, one he didn‘t like to dwell on.

  “It‘s not the same. The IRA bankers weren‘t breaking the law in America but they were enemies of the Irish Free State in a time of war. I can argue that they were legitimate targets because their purchase of arms would have led to the killing of more innocents in Ireland. The government in America wouldn‘t stop them. I did.” Cockran drained his Guinness. “But we both know that‘s not why I did it. I was an assassin, nothing more. You and Mattie are the only ones who know that. I won‘t be playing a role like that ever again. Once was enough.”

  Sullivan didn‘t respond but stared at him with those cold blue eyes. Did he believe Cockran would never do that again? Or was he simply aware that he had touched a raw nerve he shouldn‘t have? It didn‘t matter to Cockran. He just had to follow Cockran‘s rules. “The country we‘re in makes no difference. So long as its government is just and honest, we let the courts decide and, in the end, we abide by what they say. Due process. But when people place themselves above the law and governments do nothing to stop them, then all bets are off.”