The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

  “Miss McGary. A revolution is hardly the place for a lady of your refinement. The Hanfstaengls‘ drawing room is far more suited to your beauty and charm.”

  “Bugger off, Hermann. I‘m just doing my job. You may be a war hero,” she said, eyeing the blue-ribboned Pour Le Merite, the Blue Max, tied around his neck, “but I‘ve seen more dead men up close than you. Now, if you‘ll excuse me, my photographer and I have to be off.”

  “I am so sorry, Miss McGary,” Göring said smoothly, “but we have need of your fine motorcar. As you can see,” he said, gesturing to the column passing over the bridge, “we only have two automobiles. That is unfortunate because we have three machine guns. And so, we need your Mercedes to mount the third machine gun. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  Later, Mattie was to regret her impulsiveness. But at the time, all she could think of was getting the story. “Look, Hermann, all I want is to report what happens. I was there last night and my newspaper in London already has the story. I wrote it before Kahr went back on his word. Let Helmut and me stay with the car. One of your men can drive. I won‘t shill for the Nazis, but I‘ll give you a square deal. I‘ll tell the truth.”

  Göring smiled. “You‘ll be fair, Miss McGary, but will your Jew photographer be?”

  “Helmut‘s religion is irrelevant.” she snapped. “He works for me. He does what I say.”

  Göring then directed one of his men to take the wheel and another to mount a machine gun. “It‘s not his religion that bothers me. It‘s his race. But I accept your vouching for him.”

  Mattie cringed but, behind her, Helmut was silent. Their motorcar added to the parade, Mattie started to make notes and told Helmut to take photographs of the three thousand Storm Troopers behind them. Dressed in gray tunics with peaked caps, the men were in high spirits as if they were marching to a picnic rather than an assault on the center of government in Bavaria.

  Göring had placed Mattie‘s Mercedes at the head of the column, immediately behind the front row of Ludendorff, Hitler, Hess, Göring and three others. Fifteen minutes later, Mattie saw they were approaching the narrow street which led into the Odeon Platz, the second choke point she had identified and where she had intended to cover the story. As they entered the long, narrow street, houses looming up four stories on either side of them, she began to question her decision. If they had not stayed with the motorcar, she and Helmut would have had time to reach the choke point ahead of the march. It was moving that slowly because of Ludendorff‘s age. Now, with a sinking feeling, she knew she was on the wrong side of the choke point.

  Fifty yards ahead, she could see that the Bavarian state police, arrayed in battle gear and steel helmets, had set up a barricade exactly where she had predicted. She stood up on the passenger seat to get a better view and quickly estimated there were at least a hundred police, massed shoulder to shoulder, three rows deep, their rifles seemingly pointed directly at her.

  The march came to a halt, its leaders barely twenty yards away from the police. Ludendorff, his Luger already in his right hand, addressed the police officer in charge. “If you are a German patriot, you will let us pass. We hold no ill will toward the police or the army.”

  Mattie was surprised that Hitler did not speak. He had linked arms with the man beside him and it appeared as if Hitler were holding on to him for support. Hitler‘s face was very pale, his right hand holding a pistol at his side, his trench coat tightly belted. She recalled Hanfstaengl‘s phone call earlier that morning about Hitler‘s ambivalence.

  Then it happened. A shot rang out. The narrow canyon of the street was a sound chamber and Mattie could not tell whether the shot came from behind or in front of them. Mattie was no stranger to weapons fire. But she was ill prepared for the hellish fury which erupted. In front, the police opened fire with the deafening sound of a hundred rifles, a sound soon eclipsed by the explosive noise of the machine gun mounted in the rear of her Mercedes.

  Mattie had instinctively taken three quick photos and then dove for the floor and huddled there while the firing on both sides continued. It seemed like an eternity, but eyewitnesses she interviewed later told her that it was only sixty seconds. Sixty seconds of blazing hell.

  When the gunfire ended, the silence that followed was quickly filled by the moans and cries of the wounded and dying. The windscreen of the Mercedes had been shattered by the gunfire but, miraculously, Ludendorff was still standing ramrod straight. The others in the front row were all on the ground, including Hitler, his arm still linked with the dead man beside him.

  “Helmut! Are you all right?” Mattie said in a stage whisper.

  “Ja,” Helmut replied.

  “You‘ve got to see this. Use your camera.”

  “I can‘t. The gunfire shattered it. Quick! Give me your 35 millimeter.”

  Mattie rummaged in the bag at her feet and reached back to Helmut with her Leica. As Helmut began to shoot photos, Mattie watched. Hitler was the first to rise, freeing himself from the grasp of the dead man beside him whose blood was staining the pavement from a massive head wound. Hitler moved quickly, clutching his left arm, the pistol still in his right hand. As he passed the car and Helmut continued to operate his camera, Mattie saw the same thing the camera captured, a look of sheer terror on Hitler‘s white, ghost-like face as he sped past, heedless to the cries of the wounded Storm Troopers left in his wake. Mattie‘s last glimpse of Hitler and Helmut‘s last photograph was of Hitler‘s back as he climbed into a waiting motorcar.

  On Board the Graf Zeppelin

  Friday, 5 June 1931

  MATTIE made her way to the washroom in her bare feet. She stripped off her bloody shirt and blood-stained trousers. She winced at what she saw in the mirror. Streaks of dried blood covered her face and neck. Anwar‘s blood had seeped through and stained her undergarments as well. Using a washcloth, she wiped the blood away. Almost presentable, she donned her green silk robe. Once back in her cabin, she saw that one of the crew had made up her bunk. She opened her suitcase, pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, and poured two fingers into a crystal tumbler. She drained the tumbler, feeling the liquor burn in her throat and then the warm glow spreading throughout her body. She quickly poured two more fingers.

  Mattie shook her head. She had seen battlefields before and men killed or horribly wounded, but nothing could have prepared her for the manner of Weber‘s death. So much blood gushing from his neck. It was like something out of the middle ages.

  There was a soft knock on her cabin door. Mattie opened her eyes and rose to her feet. Her loosely knotted robe fell open and she said “Just a moment,” as she paused to tighten the robe and then opened the cabin door to find Sturm holding two half-filled brandy snifters.

  “May I come in? I wanted to check on my patient‘s progress.”

  “Sure. It‘s going to be hard to sleep tonight. Another night cap wouldn‘t hurt.” She took the brandy, walked back and sat on the far end of the bunk, pulling her feet up under her.

  Unlike Mattie, Sturm was not dressed for bed, but had changed to a plain pair of linen pants and a white cotton shirt, its sleeves rolled up above his elbows, revealing his strong forearms. His blond hair was uncombed, falling in a comma over his forehead in a boyish way which reminded her of Cockran, not the cold, efficient killing machine of only a few hours ago.

  “How is your arm?” Sturm asked, nodding at the gauze beneath her gown‘s left sleeve.

  “I‘m feeling no pain now, thank you,” Mattie replied but, as she felt the glow of the brandy seep through her body, her mind flashed to the last time they had been alone together and she reminded herself that airships, adrenaline and alcohol had lowered her resistance once before to the strikingly handsome man barely two feet away. She resisted an impulse to pull her robe more tightly around her, aware that it would only draw more attention to her nakedness beneath.

  “Excuse me,” Mattie said. “Would you repeat that, please?” as she realized Sturm had been talking to her
while she had been subduing her baser instincts. Sturm smiled, and she couldn‘t help smiling back. No, he certainly didn‘t look like a killer now.

  “What I said was, we do not know who our adversaries are. Professor Campbell thinks they may be the same Austrian troops who hid the Spear originally. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But we do know they are ruthless and, for whatever reason, they are determined to stop us. I intend to ask the Institute for more funds. It will no longer be sufficient to hire only an alpine guide, a cook and some local men to attend to our needs. We need skilled marksmen as well.”

  Mattie nodded in agreement.

  “I also believe you should reconsider your own participation….” Mattie cut him off in mid-sentence. “Don‘t even think of it,” she said, her voice tight with emotion and memories of her father. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

  Sturm held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and rose to his feet. “I didn‘t expect you to agree, but I had to ask. I fear we must start sooner than we had planned. We have weakened our enemy tonight but we must move quickly before they can regroup. I thought you might find your holiday in Venice with Herr Cockran more enjoyable and certainly safer.”

  Mattie rose too, placed her hand on Sturm‘s forearm. She badly needed to be held close and comforted but she was relieved Sturm was leaving. The temptation might prove too great. “That‘s sweet of you, Kurt, and very thoughtful. But this is my job. That always comes first.” She forced a laugh. “Besides, Bourke thinks the search for the Spear is safer than the stories I usually cover. It‘s sometimes a point of dispute between us but I won‘t change my mind,” she said as she kissed him softly on the cheek. “You saved my life today. Twice. Thank you.”

  After Sturm left, Mattie dropped her robe in a pool beside the bed. She drained the last of the brandy and crawled beneath the sheets. But sleep was difficult. The severed head kept flashing through her mind as she relived the image of it rolling against her foot in the villa. The more she tried, the harder it became to erase from her mind the severed head and twitching stump of Weber‘s neck. She tried to change the image to something more pleasant and finally settled on making love with Cockran last Sunday night at Chartwell. It worked, after a fashion, but in that twilight before sleep came, her mind kept flashing back between Cockran and Sturm, refusing to settle on either man until it all became a blur in her mind and sleep overtook her.

  Nightmares. Mattie is lying in a dark alley doubled over in pain while heavy boots thud into her side. Her ruined Graflex and Leica lie in her field of vision on the glistening cobblestones, wet from rain. Someone grabs her head by the hair and pulls it painfully up. She feels the cold steel of a pistol pressed against her temple. “We warned you once about hanging out with Jews. You should have listened.” The pistol fires and Mattie screams.

  Mattie is back at the villa. She is naked and the man with the scar forces her to her knees and then down until she is resting on her heels. The other man places Weber’s head in her hands and grabs her head by its hair. He yanks it back, exposing her throat, while the man with the scar swings the sword once more and severs Mattie’s head from her body. There is no pain and she is still alive. She feels her head bouncing down the four steps and coming to rest at the foot of the steps, looking back at her headless body, still kneeling there, Weber’s head held in her hands, while her neck spouts blood, just as Weber’s had. Her blood splashes on the marble in front of her head and covers her face. Mattie screams and screams.

  Suddenly, a man whose face she cannot make out a ppears to save her. Her head is miraculously reattached to her body and the man, naked to the waist, is embracing her. “Hold me, please hold me,” she says and they kiss eagerly, and she feels his hands on her breasts. She knows she is in a dream now and she gives into it. She gasps as she feels one finger and then his tongue move inside her. Her hands hold his head tightly as the pressure builds, her breath growing short until she screams once more, this time not from terror, but pleasure. Her breathing grows more regular and, relaxed by her orgasm, her eyes grow heavy. She looks for a moment at the man’s face but it is obscured by shadows. It doesn’t matter. She knows she is safe and there will be no more nightmares tonight.

  34.

  The Last Honest Man in Munich

  Munich

  Saturday, 6 June 1931

  COCKRAN walked stiffly from the taxicab to the entrance of the NBM factory, the stitches in his hip freshly sewn in hospital that morning. Sullivan was beside him and greeted the armed worker standing outside with a firm handshake. The man‘s eyes were swollen with the strain of a night without sleep. The worker let them inside and called for the plant manager Steinmetz who emerged from his upstairs office and loudly bounded down the stairs.

  Cockran wasn‘t sure what to expect from Steinmetz. They‘d come to improve security at the factory and instead provoked a platoonstrength raid on the factory. But Steinmetz greeted them like old friends, shaking Sullivan‘s hand with vigor and speaking in an uninterrupted stream of German which Rolf translated.

  “They came last night, you know. They murdered three of our best. But we sent two of the pigdogs to their own place in hell. It was you who made us ready for them. It was you who gave us strength to fight back. We thank you.”

  “Don‘t thank us,” Sullivan said. “We gave you the guns. The strength is yours.”

  Steinmetz nodded. He finally turned to the rest of Sullivan‘s company. Rolf translated. “He‘s talking about your last translator. A lawyer?”

  “Yes. Name of Muller. We think he may have double-crossed us,” Cockran said.

  “You thought right,” Rolf said. “Steinmetz says he‘s a Nazi. One of the first things Muller said to him yesterday was to ask how his mother and grandparents were doing. Knew their addresses and where his mother worked. He got the message.”

  “Your workers were also trying to tell me something last night, but I couldn‘t understand them. Any idea what it was?” Sullivan asked Steinmetz who didn‘t seem to know. “They said something about the police,” Sullivan prompted.

  Steinmetz cocked his head, as if something had just registered. “They must have been trying to tell you to see a police captain named Jacob Weintraub. A Jew.” Rolf translated. “They say he‘s the last honest man left in Munich. If anyone in this city can help you, it‘s him.”

  “I SAW you in here yesterday,” Captain Jacob Weintraub said through Rolf as he closed the blinds in his office. “I saw what was happening. You thought you were the ones talking to police officials, when it was your interpreter, Herr Muller, who was threatening each of them.”

  The captain was short, stout and aging, his balding hair compensated by an ample mustache under a long Semitic nose. He made little unnecessary movements, his hands folded on the desk before him after he sat down. His eyes were intense and focused.

  “How could Muller threaten your officers?” Cockran asked.

  “He has party support.”

  “Nazis?” Cockran asked. “What can Nazis do to you? You‘re policemen.”

  “Herr Cockran, you do not understand Munich,” Weintraub said, looking at his hands. “At least, not today‘s Munich. I am but an old man in policeman‘s clothing. Any power that the law confers on me can be blocked by the actions of V-men.”

  “‘V-men?‘” Cockran asked.

  “Yes, V-men. Vertrauensmänner. Trustworthy men. Secret supporters of the Nazis hidden within various levels of local and regional government even the national government.”

  “These are the men who block our efforts, as well?”

  “The same.”

  “And what if we removed a few of these fellows?” Sullivan asked, leaning forward.

  Weintraub‘s eyes narrowed. “You would be subject to prosecution to the full extent of the law.” Now Weintraub also leaned forward. “But if some of these men were to have a crisis of conscience and decided, of their own accord, to let us do our jobs, we might be able to help.”

  “Who a
re these lads?” Sullivan asked. “Maybe we can pay ‘em a visit.”

  “I do not know,” Weintraub said, shaking his head. “I have suspicions but no proof. Much of what they do is hidden in bureaucratic machinery. You work for NBM, correct?”

  “I‘m its lawyer.” Cockran replied

  “Have you not figured out who is behind the sabotage at your client‘s Munich plants?”

  “Of course. The SS.”

  “But why?” Weintraub asked. “Why bother to harass an American company?”

  “Because the extortion revenue directly pads the Party‘s coffers.” Weintraub chortled. “Those sums are piddling compared to the steady flow of income from other sources. Go back to the origin of that income. Go back to the beginning. Before the bastards cut your pretty face. Think plainly, without passion.”

  Cockran took a moment to glance at Rolf, who shrugged: “That‘s what he said, I swear.”

  “Personally, I never thought you were that pretty to begin with,” Sullivan said.

  “Who would profit by NBM‘s demise?” Weintraub pressed. “And pay the SS to do it?”

  “A rival company,” Cockran answered immediately. Of course. That would explain the attack on him in New York and the finders‘ fee bribe offers to Harmony. He had suspected it in New York but put the theory aside in Germany in the face of one bureaucratic obstacle after another. The Nazis were running more than a protection racket—they were hired thugs, using terror tactics on behalf of a company that could fund them more deeply than any amount of extortion. And Cockran knew who. A sterilizing human breeding fanatic with a beautiful wife.