The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

  AFTER escorting the wounded men to hospital, Sullivan returned with a suitcase. He placed it on the factory floor and opened the latch, letting the two sides slap down hard on the concrete. There was a stir among the dozen factory workers who stood by watching them. One of them began to smile. A suitcase full of guns could do that to a crowd of men. On one side of the suitcase was what looked like the shattered remnants of a gun: a naked barrel, two handle pieces with grips, and two circular pieces of steel.

  “Now, who‘s the lad knows how to work this beauty?” Sullivan said.

  Muller translated, but the men remained mute. Sullivan bent down and went to work. His hands moved quickly from one handle to another piece of steel, snapping it together before reaching for another handle and then the barrel. Finally he rose, holding a blue-steeled piece of metal in one hand and one of the steel circles in the other. He took the cylinder and slapped it into place holding the front grip, the barrel pointing down. A Thompson sub-machine gun.

  “How about now?” he asked.

  One of the Germans raised a hand, then another with a bit more trepidation. Sullivan walked to the first German. “You lad. What‘s your name?”

  “Paul Vorschakker.”

  “Paul,” Sullivan said, handing him the gun. “You just won yourself a Tommy. Congratulations.” Paul took the gun firmly and seemed to grow two inches.

  Sullivan returned to the other side of the suitcase now, where an assortment of semi-automatic pistols lay. He handed them out to the rest of the group, explaining a few of the intricacies here or there. Then he stepped back, Cockran‘s cue to address them all.

  “Go on. Aren‘t you the talker?” Sullivan had said. “Just like your da?”

  Cockran wasn‘t half the speaker his father was, but this was one area where he was more experienced––addressing men on the eve of battle. Their job was simple, really. Until further notice, they no longer worked from opening to close––they worked from sun-down to sun-up. One man would be outside each of the four possible entrances to the factory and one man inside. Three men would patrol the vulnerable flanks. The last man, Paul, would wait inside in a central spot with his Thompson, ready to bring down fire wherever it was needed. Sullivan would stop by once every night but he wouldn‘t say when. They would have to spot him first and raise the alarm. This would keep them sharp. It was easier to stay focused if you knew that someone was coming that evening.

  “This is dangerous work, gentlemen, don‘t misunderstand,” Cockran said. “It might only last a couple of weeks. It might last a couple of months. But no longer than that. If we can‘t beat these Nazis back, NBM will be forced to close this factory and you‘ll all be out of work. You are fighting for your jobs and those of your fellow workers. Make sure you win.”

  The men listened to Muller‘s translation solemnly but there was little reaction. They still looked stiff and nervous. He needed something more, a distraction.

  Sullivan saw it too and leaned towards Harmony, “Speak up, now, lass,” he said quietly.

  “What? Me?” Harmony whispered. “What could I possibly say?”

  “Doesn‘t matter what you say,” Sullivan replied, “just as long as you say it.”

  Harmony turned to Cockran, concern in her eyes but he motioned her to go on.

  “Are you too blind to recognize when you‘re being adored by a pack o‘ lads?” Sullivan said. “They may not fight for a couple of micks like us, but they‘ll fight for a princess.”

  Harmony seemed to understand and reluctantly stepped forward. “I… I know that none of you ever asked for this. All you wanted was a job, to provide for you and your families. But if you do this for me, if you protect my factory, you‘ll have my thanks. And your jobs too.”

  She stepped back toward Cockran and Sullivan, a quizzical expression on her face as Muller translated what she had said. “Do you think that did any good?”

  Cockran was proud of her. She had given the men what they needed. “Have a look.”

  She looked around to see what both Sullivan and Cockran were seeing. The men seemed buoyed somehow––and most of them were looking directly at Harmony with a smile on their lips. She smiled back as if she now understood. “And I promise a kiss and a hug from me for the bravest among you. That is, of course, if your wives and girl friends say it‘s okay.”

  The men laughed and cheered when they heard the translation.

  “Off you go,” Cockran said to them. “Good luck.”

  29.

  A Luncheon in Alexandria

  Alexandria

  Friday, 5 June 1931

  THE Graf Zeppelin had earlier flown over Cairo and the pyramids at Giza and now passed low over the curving arc of Alexandria‘s harbor, barely a hundred feet off the ground. A road ran along the waterfront lined with buildings from one end of the arc to the other.

  Professor Campbell described the scene below as if he were a tour guide. “See the two forts guarding the entrance of the harbor? The one on the western tip is Fort Qaytbay and it stands on the site of the ancient Pharos Lighthouse which was built in 279 B.C. and collapsed in the eighth century. It was the marvel of its day, over 400 feet tall. Hydraulic machinery hauled fuel to the top. It had a mirror of polished steel reflecting the sun by day and a fire by night.”

  The Graf passed over the center of the harbor heading south and the Professor continued his travelogue. “Over there are the ruins of the Temple of Serapis and that tall monolith is Pompey‘s Pillar, over a hundred feet tall. Built in the third century by the Emperor Diocletian. The two sphinxes beside it were built by the Ptolemys.”

  The big ship turned slowly to the right and headed back to the waterfront and the marine terminal where seaplanes landed and a temporary mooring mast had been erected for the Graf.

  “We will be staying at the Hotel Cecil,” Sturm said as all three of them piled into a yellow taxi which carried them back along the curving waterfront to the European sectors.

  “You‘re certain Weber is expecting us?” Mattie asked as they walked into the hotel‘s cool lobby. Potted palms were everywhere while polished wooden fans created a gentle breeze over the smooth dark marble floor.

  “In a manner of speaking. Weber is a collector of ancient antiquities from the Middle East—Persia and Mesopotamia in particular. He believes he will be meeting with Herr von Strasser from Zurich and that Professor Campbell and I represent a wealthy Swiss banker who has financed an expedition into the border area between those two countries and has made an astonishing discovery about which the world knows nothing. Wait here,” Sturm told Mattie, pointing to a wicker chair beneath a towering palm, “while I hire a car and telephone Weber.”

  Moments later Sturm returned with a smile on his face. “No need to check into the hotel. Herr Weber has invited us to stay at his villa. It is five miles west of Alexandria on the coast road. Many wealthy expatriates from Europe live there. The locals call it ‘Millionaire‘s Row‘.”

  Sturm summoned a porter to take their bags back outside the hotel entrance where a large cream-colored Packard Phaeton had pulled up, driven by a small, dark-skinned, wiry Egyptian who introduced himself as Anwar. He opened the rear doors for Sturm and Mattie and the front passenger door for Professor Campbell. He placed their luggage in the long automobile‘s boot and then wheeled the big motorcar around and headed south. He picked up Shari al-Mitwalli, pointing out to them St. Catherine‘s Cathedral on the right as they approached Shari al-Saba Banat, which they followed until it brought them to the Mahmudiyyah Canal which Professor Campbell explained had been dug in 1820 in order to connect Alexandria to the Nile. The Weber villa was on the canal‘s west bank within sight of Pompey‘s Pillar.

  The villa itself was a long, sprawling affair, barely visible behind eight-foot-high white-washed walls. They came to an archway blocked by a sturdy iron gate. Anwar leaned on the Packard‘s horn until two servants emerged from the shade of a nearby guard shack, both of them carrying aged Enfield carbines. Anwar shouted
at them and they shouted back in Arabic, a language Mattie did not speak. She caught the word “Strasser”, however, and that seemed to do the trick because one of the men leaned his rifle against the shack and swung the wide gate open. Anwar jammed the Packard‘s accelerator to the floor and the car leaped forward, leaving a cloud of dust and the two guards coughing in its wake.

  “Idiots!” Anwar shouted in French as he had done from the beginning, explaining that most Egyptians preferred it as a second language to the English of their occupying power.

  The dirt driveway extended for another 150 yards, ending at the front of the villa and a circular drive featuring a marble fountain from whose center rose a five-foot high spray of water.

  Their host was waiting for them in the cool shade of the house‘s entrance. He was a large man in his late forties, with thinning dark brown hair around a large head, a thick neck and three chins which quivered as he walked forward to greet them. Dressed in a flowing white robe trimmed in bright green and yellow, a small fez atop his head completed the picture. Introductions were made and their host led them into the villa through an inner courtyard into a dining room which opened onto elaborate gardens leading down to the canal. Mattie noticed that all the servants were young, attractive Egyptian girls, some barely in their teens.

  Lunch was a lavish affair. A cold cream soup made with plums followed by fish caught fresh that day, their host assured them, accompanied by many bottles of chilled white burgundy. Next came lamb, more vegetables and more wine, a red Rhone, with dates and figs as the last course, accompanied by a sweet Riesling.

  Mattie had been pacing herself, nursing one glass of wine per course. She noticed Sturm had done the same. The Professor, however, was enjoying himself immensely, two glasses with each course, as he regaled their host with stories of the fictitious expedition he had just conducted in the wilds of the Persian-Mesopotamian border and the treasures he had delivered to his patron in Switzerland. Campbell was obviously a frustrated actor, she thought, as Weber devoured the academic‘s story as eagerly as he polished off the food and the wine, consuming the better part of a bottle himself for every glass that Mattie finished.

  Over the figs and dates, Mattie watched Sturm and the Professor close the deal. Without once hinting that they knew of the Joseph Lanz notebook or Weber‘s service with the Austrian mountain troops, Weber agreed to use his expertise from his days in the Austrian army to look at their field maps and answer the questions they had about their new expedition. In return, their Swiss patron, who was staying at Shepheard‘s Hotel in Cairo, would sell Weber any five artifacts he chose from the ten whose photographs Sturm and Campbell would show him tonight.

  Sturm‘s intelligence had assured him that Weber was an indiscriminate collector, an amateur of whom others frequently took advantage. Campbell in turn had assured Sturm that the objects in the ten photographs which he had taken from a collection in a private museum in Geneva, where a friend of Campbell‘s was the curator, would be unknown to Weber.

  Weber poured the last of the Riesling into his glass and raised it in a toast. “To your health, Monsieurs, and to you as well, Mademoiselle. May we all live well and long.”

  Weber rose and extended his hands to the young Egyptian girls beside him. “I must retire for my afternoon rest,” he said with a leer that signaled it was not the only thing on his mind. “I have instructed my servants to afford my guests every courtesy and to see to their wishes as if they were my own.” he said, gesturing expansively toward the other equally young and attractive women hovering nearby.

  With that, Weber turned and waddled out of the room. Mattie looked at Sturm. “Swell. So what do we do while he‘s upstairs playing house with the children?”

  Sturm smiled. “Patience, Mattie. Patience. We wait and trust that he will sober up in time for dinner. He has agreed to help us and that is half the battle. In my experience, information extracted under duress is not as valuable as that given willingly.

  30.

  Cabaret

  Munich

  Friday, 5 June 1931

  AFTER a full day of guns and training with the factory workers, Cockran and Sullivan treated Harmony to dinner at a lively cabaret on the outskirts of Munich that Muller had recommended––even though he admitted it was not quite his cup of tea. Muller had begged off, something about attending his uncle‘s birthday celebration. The cabaret acts themselves were amusing, and there was open dancing between the stage acts. Some of the acts seemed more burlesque than anything else, which Cockran had not anticipated, as creative nudity remained the common theme throughout the evening‘s performances. Harmony did not appear to be put off or embarrassed by any of the acts, although she appeared withdrawn in between her cheerful and rather particular orders of Hefeweizen, “With a thin slice of lemon, no seeds, if you please.”

  Cockran took a sip of his bock––surprisingly sweet considering its dark color––and leaned forward. “Everything all right?”

  Harmony turned to him, “Oh yes, it‘s fine,” she said. “I just keep thinking of those poor men Bobby took to the hospital yesterday.”

  “They‘re in good hands.” Cockran said.

  “I can‘t help but wonder whether it‘s all worth it.”

  “It is.”

  “One or two factories? Why not just sell? Let those men have a safe job.”

  “This is about more than your factories. It‘s about right and wrong.”

  “Oh, nothing is so black and white as that,” she said, irritated. “What about safety? Peace of mind? What‘s wrong with that?”

  “Giving in to extortion will bring you neither safety nor peace of mind.”

  “I‘m just not cut out for this kind of danger,” she said, taking a sip of her hefeweizen and leaning forward. “And I‘d wager you‘ve seen more than enough bloodshed in your life as well. You served in the war, didn‘t you?”

  Her question surprised him. He said nothing but gave her a brief nod of his head.

  “I thought so. I was a nurse‘s aide at the end of the war. I was barely 15 but I‘ll never forget the faces of those men. Good men, ordinary men, meant to live lives of peace with wives and children, a pint with friends on Saturday and church on Sundays, not a short life filled with blood and mud. You have a beautiful boy back home who needs you. You don‘t need to fight this battle for me. You don‘t need to choose violence. Help me sell NBM and we can all safely go home. ”

  Cockran drank his bock slowly. He had seen more than his share of blood and mud in the war but she didn‘t know the half of it. She knew nothing of his days in MID and the Inquiry during and after the war; or Nora and Ireland and that bloody summer of 1922; or even the equally bloody summer of 1929 when he and Bobby had avenged Nora‘s death. Violence had a way of seeking him out. “Some men have that choice. I‘m not one of them.”

  Harmony did not answer, but withdrew into herself again as a comedy skit commenced––a short, balding man trying to seduce a buxom blonde. Cockran looked across the table at Sullivan and found cold blue eyes staring back. Cockran returned the stare and saw Sullivan slowly, deliberately rub his chin. They were being watched. It had been nine years since he‘d last used these signals, ones they‘d been taught by Michael Collins. Cockran brushed back the hair by his ear, a sign which asked where their spectator was located. Sullivan‘s response was to look to Cockran‘s left. He acknowledged the signal and reached for his stein of beer.

  Cockran‘s eyes wandered as he drank, resting on nothing specific, but taking in enough to notice a smartly dressed, narrow-faced man with thinning brown hair standing over by the bar, near the entrance. Cockran turned back to the stage just as the skit concluded and the crowd burst into raucous applause at the buxom blonde, now naked to the waist. Sullivan gave Cockran another quick signal––only this one Cockran couldn‘t quite remember.

  Sullivan rose before Cockran could reply and he placed a hand on Harmony‘s shoulder. “I‘ll be back in a few, Darling.” Harmony smiled bac
k and Sullivan pushed his way through the crowd to the men‘s room.

  Cockran had an idea of what Sullivan had in mind, signal or no signal. He stood up and held a hand out to Harmony as the band struck up a soft dancing tune. “Care to dance?”

  Harmony smiled and rose. “Aren‘t you full of surprises? I thought you‘d never ask.”

  “I‘m not that good,” Cockran said.

  “Don‘t worry,” she said as he led her onto the floor and wrapped his other arm around her waist. “I‘ll show you what goes where.” He felt her body, soft and warm, press against him as she deftly guided him in time with the music.

  “We‘re leaving after this song”

  Harmony looked confused. “Leaving? Why?” she said. “What about Bobby?”

  “Never mind about Bobby,” Cockran said. “We‘re being watched.”

  “We—”

  “Don‘t look around!” he said, stopping her before she could turn her head.

  She leaned in closer, resting her head on his shoulder. “How can you be so sure?”

  “There‘s a gentleman in the back who is paying too much attention to us,” he said. “When the song ends, take my hand and drag me to the bar to buy you another Hefeweizen.”

  The song lasted for another minute while they danced cheek to cheek, the scent of her hair doing nothing to distract him from the feel of her body against his. When it ended and the audience and dancers applauded, Harmony looked up to Cockran. “Now,” he said under the noise of clapping. “And keep smiling.” She took his hand and weaved through the crowd to reach the bar. The entrance lay off to the left of the bar; the narrow-faced man off on the right end of the bar. Cockran could see him turn his head in another direction, to avoid being spotted by Cockran and Harmony. They reached the bar but, before Harmony could signal the bartender, Cockran turned left and marched directly towards the entrance.