The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

  Donal was with her as a precaution against a possible SS attempt to retaliate. He was to check in with them by telegraph at each major station. The first had been Verona where things were fine. The next was Milan. Until then, Cockran could relax. He and Bobby were on holiday.

  “It‘s a sophisticated drink, nothing you would understand,” Cockran replied.

  “And it‘s the high hat you‘re wearing now?”

  Cockran smiled. “Nope. But I‘m a martini connoisseur and Harry‘s is the only place in Europe that makes a decent martini. Try one. Expand your palate. Learn to be a gentleman.”

  Sullivan grinned and, for a moment, the hardness that perpetually lined his face softened and the cold blue eyes sparkled. “Not likely. But I‘ll have a martini just the same.” Sullivan said to the hovering waiter. “I noticed you had a letter waiting for you when we arrived at the house today. Who knew to find you here?” Bobby asked after the waiter had left.

  Cockran smiled. “Mattie. I expected to hear from her sooner. I didn‘t know how to reach her when we moved from the Bayerische so I left word with Winston where she could find me.

  “Why haven‘t you opened it?”

  “I like to combine my pleasures,” Cockran replied. “Sipping an icecold martini while reading a letter from Mattie is the next best thing to having her here sipping one beside me.”

  The martinis arrived in a chilled silver cocktail shaker which the waiter carefully poured into two short frosted glasses. Harry didn‘t believe in olives or stemmed martini glasses.

  Cockran took a sip and sighed. “Perfect. The best I‘ve had since New York.”

  Sullivan took a sip and coughed. “Tis a weird definition of ‘perfect‘ you‘d be having,” he said as he took the top off the martini shaker and poured it back in. “You can have my share,” Sullivan said as he quickly motioned to the waiter and ordered a Jameson‘s.

  Cockran laughed and opened the letter. As he read, he felt the color drain from his face.

  Sullivan noticed. “Bad news?”

  “You could say that,” Cockran replied. He picked up the letter and read it again, slowly.

  Dear Bourke,

  I have tried so many times to reach you and left so many messages for you to return my calls. I needed to tell you the search for the Spear would keep me from joining you for at least the first week in Venice and I just wanted to hear your voice again. Since then, however, the thought has occurred to me more than once that you may be avoiding me. On the few occasions when I have gotten through to your room, Harmony has always answered the phone and in our last conversation she dropped many hints that the two of you were on intimate terms. She even described your birthmark for me and told me how muscular you were without your clothes on.

  Darling, I’m a big girl and you don’t have to avoid me. I love you but I worried sometimes that what we had together was too good to be true and couldn’t last. I’m not the easiest person to live with and I’ve always known that, much as I love him, I could never be a good mother to Patrick, certainly not like someone who could be there for him every day when he comes home from school. So it’s probably better for all concerned if you found someone who could be everything to both of you. Maybe it’s Harmony. I only know it can’t be me, however much I wish it could.

  Harmony said something about how nice it was to be sharing you but I guess I’m just not that kind of girl. Your many flaws notwithstanding, I’ve never been happier than during my past two years with you but I prefer my men one at a time and I never share.

  I want you to be happy and it may be a long shot but I’d like us to still be friends.

  All my love,

  Mattie

  P.S. Winston told me you had run into trouble in Germany. Listen to the Big Fella’s advice, Cockran, and keep your ass low to the ground.

  M.

  Wordlessly, Cockran handed the letter to Sullivan who read it also. “Harmony? You didn‘t….”

  “No, of course not!” Cockran snapped, surprised at the harshness of his voice.

  “I didn‘t think so. No offense intended. But where exactly is that birthmark?”

  Cockran shook his head. “Nowhere you‘ve seen,” he said. That birthmark business would make a saint suspicious as if an additional reason were needed after Harmony told Mattie the two women were “sharing” him. Cockran felt the guilt wash over him. That he hadn‘t actually slept with Harmony was cold comfort. In the event, he had pulled back from the brink and Mattie was the reason despite her failure to call him. Yet, Mattie‘s letter said she had called him. Many times. And Harmony had not passed on a single message. Why? Had she been choreographing his seduction all along? He replayed their encounters from the transparent swim suit to the Pullman compartment to that Friday night in Munich after the SS ambush. It sure looked that way now.

  Sullivan said nothing as Cockran stared at the canal. What could he do besides wait for Mattie to arrive? He‘d never liked waiting. He wasn‘t good at it. Then he heard his name called.

  “Mr. Cockran! Mr. Cockran! I‘m so glad I found you.”

  Cockran turned to see the Hearst stringer, Joey Thomas, approaching their table.

  “Joey! What are you doing here in Venice?” Cockran asked, introducing him to Sullivan.

  “I came to see you. Mr. Hearst said to find you. Mattie‘s in danger and he said you‘d know what to do. He told me to tell you the Hearst organization would reimburse you but to spare no expense in finding her.”

  “Slow down, Joey, slow down,” Cockran said. “Mattie‘s in danger?” Joey nodded breathlessly. “Start at the beginning. Here, have a drink,” Cockran said and poured the residue of Sullivan‘s martini from the cocktail shaker into a glass. Joey took a big gulp and then began his story, from the last time he talked to Mattie until his conversation early Sunday with Hearst.

  Cockran listened intently, his eyes never leaving Joey, alert to only one thing. Mattie was in peril and Hearst expected Cockran to save her. Apart from Paddy, no one was more important to him. He would do anything to keep her safe. It didn‘t matter if he might be losing her. It never occurred to him for a moment not to go after her. He wasn‘t surprised Hearst felt the same way. He knew first hand Hearst‘s reputation for fierce loyalty to his employees.

  “Mattie‘s letter to me is postmarked the morning after she talked to Joey,” Cockran said to Sullivan. “If she‘s in the Alps with these people and this von Sturm character, she‘s had a good one- or two-day head start. It‘s going to be tough to catch up to them.”

  Sullivan nodded.

  Cockran turned back to Joey. “You‘re sure Hearst said spare no expense?”

  “Yes, sir. He said you used to work for him and that you‘d know his word was good.”

  “What about that dossier those men gave you in Berlin? Do you have it with you?‘

  “Not the original. I left that in the safe at the Hotel Luna Baglioni. Mr. Hearst told me to get out of Germany for my own safety so I‘m going to stay here in Venice and write the article. But I had a photocopy made at the Hearst bureau in Berlin before I left. It was developed in our own darkroom,” Joey said, as he shoved a thick manila envelope across the table. “Mr. Hearst said to give it to you so you would know what you‘re up against. There‘s a map in there too.”

  Cockran took the envelope and set it down beside his chair. Joey looked exhausted and was having a difficult time staying awake, his eyes occasionally closing. Just then, Cockran caught rapid movement out of the corner of his eye. A motorboat was coming quickly into his field of vision, far faster than the five kilometer per hour speed limit in effect on the Grand Canal. Cockran saw a man braced in the rear of the boat bringing to bear a submachine pistol.

  “Bobby! Joey! Down!”

  Sullivan hit the ground a moment before Cockran who, on his way down, reached out and grabbed Joey‘s coat sleeve to take the reporter with him but he just sat there, confused, and inexplicably stood up rather than slide off his chair to safety. Cockra
n‘s hand was still gripping his sleeve when gunfire ripped into his back and exploded out his chest, his body jerking with the impact and then falling onto the table. He slid down between Sullivan and Cockran who released his grip on Joey‘s lifeless arm and saw only frozen eyes staring out into space.

  The terrace in front of Harry‘s Bar was in complete panic, women screaming, men shouting. More than one person had been hit by the automatic weapons fire. Cockran saw that the boat was not returning and instantly turned in the other direction towards Piazza San Marco to see if it were more than a hit and run attack. It was. Two more men were half way down the calle leading from San Marco to Harry‘s Bar. They carried submachine pistols held low.

  Cockran winced at the pain in his hip as he drew his Webley while Sullivan drew both of his Colt .45 automatics. “Take the one on the left!” Cockran said as his first two shots hit the man on the right square in the chest and blew him off his feet before he could raise his pistol. Sullivan simultaneously shot the much larger man on the left, squeezing off four shots in less than two seconds. But the big man did not go down and had raised his weapon by the time Sullivan‘s last two shots hit home. The first shot hit higher in the chest and the second higher still, tearing into the man‘s throat. He staggered drunkenly, one hand reaching for his ravaged throat, while a finger on the other hand tightened on the trigger of his submachine pistol, sending a burst harmlessly into the ground.

  The renewed automatic weapons fire startled those remaining on the terrace, tending to the wounded. There were no new casualties, Cockran could see, but everyone was scrambling to leave the terrace as quickly as possible. “Out that way,” Cockran said, pointing to his right. It would take forever to explain this to the Italian police and time was a luxury they didn‘t have. “Through the garden. But slow. Like we‘ve got all the time in the world.”

  Sullivan reholstered his weapons. Cockran picked up the manila envelope and both casually walked past the patrons still sprawled on Harry‘s terrace from the Canal-side attack, mindful of the Big Fella‘s rules on blending into a crowd after you shot your target. Don’t draw attention to yourself. They hopped over a small brick wall and were soon inside the small park which fronted on the Grand Canal beside Harry‘s Bar, full of arching trees to conceal them. They turned away from the canal and walked inland, towards San Marco. Soon they heard the sounds of a police siren on a boat in the Canal and could see a squad of six carabinieri on San Marco marching double time towards the closed end of the square.

  Cockran and Sullivan casually walked down the path leading out of the park. They placed their hats back on their heads, keeping the brims low. They walked over to the San Marco vaporetto stop where they waited patiently with the rest of crowd, who were gesturing and wondering in excited tones about the cause of the recent gun fire.

  Sullivan started to get on the first vaporetto that pulled into the dock, but Cockran held him back. “That one will take us directly across the Grand Canal to our stop at San Saluté,” Cockran whispered. “If there are any more who are tailing us, we won‘t be able to pick them out of the crowd and we could lead them right to our palazetto. Take the next one going in the other direction. It will make ten stops before it reaches to the same place. We‘ll get off one stop before ours, just to be safe. If anyone who gets on here is still with us, it won‘t be coincidence.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, the va poretto had almost made the full circuit and they stepped off at Academia, one stop before their palazetto near San Saluté. No one had followed them. Their landlady, Contessa DaSchio, an Anglo-Italian whose father had been a British diplomat, greeted them as they walked up to their three-bedroom flat above the family‘s living quarters. Unaware of the gunfire, she readily agreed to have the cook prepare a cold supper.

  Upstairs in their flat, Cockran laid out the maps Joey had given them and saw just what a two day head start meant in Alpine terrain. If they left Venice in the morning, they would still be three days behind even if they managed to find a mountain guide. Cockran didn‘t like the odds he and Sullivan had alone against the men who were with Mattie. There was no time to waste. The germ of an idea was beginning to form on how to make up for Mattie‘s head start.

  “Should I be checking the train schedules to Innsbruck tonight?” Sullivan asked.

  “We‘re not going to Innsbruck. I‘ve got to call Winston first in Munich and let him know about the plot to assassinate Hindenburg. He can arrange to let Hearst know what happened to their reporter here. If I know Hearst, he‘ll have his Rome correspondent pick up the original of Joey‘s dossier from the hotel‘s safe. He won‘t be able to resist covering a story as big as an assassination conspiracy. He‘ll send every Hearst reporter he has in Europe to Germany to follow up on all the leads in the dossier. Then I‘ll make a second call to Milan. I think we‘ll find what we need there but I want to make sure.”

  “Milan? But shouldn‘t we be after finding Mattie? Just because she thinks you‘ve been getting a leg over on Miss Harmony ...”

  “We‘re going after her but we need a quicker way. Wire Donal about the danger to Mattie, our new plans and the shoot-out today. Then see if you can find McNamara and Murphy in Rome and ask them if they‘ll join us tomorrow in Milan.”

  “Not to worry. They‘ll come. The Squad sticks together. Always.”

  “And have them bring their guns.”

  Sullivan looked at Cockran, rolled his eyes in mock disbelief and smiled. Someone who didn‘t know him would never have described it as a smile.

  41.

  There May Be Another Explanation

  The Austrian Alps

  Monday, 8 June 1931

  MATTIE was in the lead Mercedes truck of the three-vehicle caravan as it slowly moved across the Alpine valley floor through a meadow alive with color. Two of the vehicles, including Mattie‘s, were the canvas-topped G-2 model with full time 4-wheel drive, three differential lockers and an independent suspension. The third and largest vehicle was the six-wheeled G-1 which had four wheels in the rear and a larger truck bed for carrying their supplies. Seeing the Alps from a distance in Innsbruck and the small lakeside town of Zell-Am-See had not prepared her for the grandeur of seeing them this close, erupting from the earth on either side of her. It was barely noon, but she had already shot two rolls of film. She made a note to limit herself to one roll of scenery per day until they reached the castle. The castle, not the scenery, was the story.

  The driver of her truck was their guide, a small, leathery-faced man, not given to small talk which was why she had shot two rolls that morning. It kept her mind from thinking about Bourke and Harmony. People could love each other like she and Bourke did and still not be right for each other. In her heart, she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She was the one who twice told Cockran that they should take a break in their relationship; that she might not be the girl he needed. How was she to know that before they could talk things out he would meet someone like Harmony who was younger, prettier and appreciated Bourke‘s protectiveness?

  Sturm and their Austrian guide had shown her their intended route deep into the Hohe Tauern mountains. Each night they would make camp beside a source of fresh water, either a waterfall or high mountain lakes. While the area they would be travelling through was largely uninhabited except for isolated farms, Sturm said they would avoid any mountain inns or villages and thereby minimize any local gossip which might follow in their wake. They hoped to cover more than half the distance to where the castle ruins were located on the first day, using the G-1 and the G-2s. But at the end of the second day or the morning of the third, they would have to leave the vehicles behind, as the mountain passes at that point would be too steep for the sturdy trucks to navigate. They would switch to even sturdier Austrian pack horses, Haflingers, and make the rest of the way on foot. In total, a four or five day trek, depending on the weather and terrain.

  Mattie tried without success to put Cockran and their break-up out of her thoughts. It would b
e nice to have a diversion. That was what she needed. To take her attention away, if only for a while, from her heartache. And an attractive man like Kurt von Sturm would be an ideal candidate. A diversion. She recalled their one kiss. The thought brought her comfort.

  When they stopped for lunch beside a fast-running stream which bisected the valley floor, Mattie noticed the newcomer, Reinhard Hoch, ordering around the four Austrians—the guide, the cook and two porters—as if they were indentured servants. She didn‘t like Hoch and the more she saw of him, the less she understood why Sturm had virtually made him his number two in command. After lunch—grilled fresh fish caught by Gregor, one of the two Austrian porters in her Mercedes G-2 and a skilled fisherman—Mattie had sought out Sturm to accompany him in his G-1, hoping to learn more about the arrogant Mr. Hoch. But the warmth of the sun and several glasses of Italian Soave, chilled in the same stream where the fish were caught, soon had her nodding off as the G-2 moved along.

  THE Prior turned to the man beside him who was studying the small caravan through a pair of field glasses from a hidden perch high on the valley wall.

  “They are the ones from Alexandria?”

  “Yes, Major, I am certain. The woman‘s red hair alone is enough to identify them.”

  “How long do you believe it will take them to reach the first pass?”