The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

Friday, 12 June 1931

  MATTIE knew exactly where she wanted to look and it wasn‘t the chapel. While she initially had been disappointed when the Professor discovered a spear in the Great Hall, she wasn‘t surprised to find it was a fake. Whoever made the fake spear in the Hofburg—and it was very good—could easily have made more.

  Mattie had been thinking about where to search as she fell asleep after Cockran left her the night before, her slumber blessedly free of nightmares. The Great Hall and the chapel were obvious hiding places. The living quarters were less obvious but if Campbell believed the chapel was a more likely hiding place, he would have gone there first. He didn‘t. He put all his eggs in the Hohenstaufen tradition of tucking hiding places into the castle‘s stonework—the Great Hall.

  Mattie had concluded, after listening to them on the Orient Express as well as at Weber‘s villa in Egypt, that the men who were trying to keep her from the Spear were as deeply religious as they were bloodthirsty. Fanatics. So where would religious fanatics hide a sacred religious symbol? Mattie thought she knew. It came to her with the same chilling clarity that she had the morning before about Cockran. She walked through the courtyard, its ground choked with grass and weeds brushing against the tops of her boots, inspecting the low-lying structures along the eastern wall as far away as possible from both the living quarters and the chapel so the odors there would not join the other smells which assaulted the senses of the castle‘s inhabitants. The stables. Mattie was looking for the castle stables, a fitting location for a sacred relic of the Son of God whose life had commenced in just such a humble location.

  Mattie found the stables more easily than she had anticipated. They were not what she expected. Instead of hugging the outer walls, the stables extended out from the walls a good 100 feet at a right angle, openings visible on both sides of its peaked roof to provide crossventilation for the stable odors to dissipate in the mountain air, rather than fester and concentrate in an enclosed structure. The wooden doors to the structure were open and severely storm damaged but inside, the sturdy wooden stalls were intact.

  Mattie walked through the entire structure, her boots kicking up dust from the dirt floor, the sound of mice skittering away at her approach. There were twenty stalls in all, ten along each side of the structure, but her search revealed nothing. Mattie knew what she was looking for—an oblong canvas package bound with leather straps like the bogus one in the Great Hall.

  When Mattie reached the end of the stables, she sat down on a rough wooden bench, opened her canteen and took a long drink of water. She stared back at the stable‘s entrance, and then she looked up. Two broad beams ran down the center of the structure. They looked considerably older than the beams which formed the peaked roof, and she wondered at their purpose. A flat roof, she thought. Yes, at some point in the long distant past, the stables had a flat roof and these were the two major supports on which the cross beams were placed. When the new roof had been put in, the cross beams had been taken off. But there had been no need, and it probably would have taken too much trouble, to remove the main beams themselves, which were massive, at least a foot and a half, maybe two feet, wide.

  Mattie tucked the canteen onto the webbed belt around her waist, and began to slowly walk back through the stables toward the entrance, looking up this time and not to either side as she had earlier. She had just passed the midpoint when she saw something. Up in the rafters, flush against the triangle of stone above the stables‘ entrance was an object of some kind, barely visible against the stone surface. Mattie was five feet from the stable opening, craning her neck upward. Yes! There was something there! But how could she get up there? The beams were twelve feet high!

  Mattie retraced her steps through the stables. Where the hell was a ladder when you needed one? The closest thing she found was a large, rough-hewn cabinet, doors hanging ajar, resting in a corner next to the bench where she had sat moments earlier. She could see shelves inside it. If she could make it to the top of that cabinet, then she could access the nearest main beam and walk down it to the front of the stable.

  Okay, Mattie thought, it was a plan. But she also had a tale to tell. She started to plot how her photo story would play out. Boring photographs of the Spear alone wouldn‘t cut it for Hearst. The Chief wanted suspense, action and adventure. Mattie made a mental note of the earlier photos she had taken and began her usual practice of silently drafting their captions and organizing them into a photo essay narrative.

  • Shot one. From the lake looking up at the castle: “At dusk, the battlements of the castle loom high over our campsite.”

  • Shot two. The castle courtyard from the small end: “At daybreak, a return to the castle to seek out its secrets.”

  • Shot three. The Great Hall: “Sunlight streaming in the broken windows, the search begins.”

  • Shot four. The fireplace: “A secret hiding place discovered.”

  • Shots five and six. The fake spear and spearhead: “A disappointing discovery of another forgery.”

  • Shot seven. The exterior of the stable: “Will the stables hold the sacred spear?”

  Mattie stopped. The sun was streaming in the open windows on either side of the stable. She adjusted the exposure and took several photographs. Shot eight: “The search continues.”

  Mattie slung the leather camera case over her shoulder and tentatively put her good foot on the first shelf. It held as she put her full weight on it, reaching up with her hands, stepping up to the next shelf, and then the next, until at last her hands reached the broad top. She pulled herself up, wincing at the splinters she was acquiring in the process. Once on top of the cabinet, she sat there for a moment and picked the more obvious splinters from her palm and fingers.

  Okay, she thought. That damn beam was about three feet away and a foot and a half above her head. She could barely reach it with her hands and hold on, but to get up there after she did so would mean she‘d have to swing her right leg up and over. She knew she wouldn‘t have the upper body strength to pull herself up using her arms alone. If she couldn‘t do that, she was in for a nasty tumble to the floor below.

  What the hell, she thought. Her right ankle and left knee were still sore, but she could feel the adrenalin start to flow. She wasn‘t going to stop now. She stood up on the top of the cabinet, took a few steps back and then bolted forward, leaping into the air where, to her surprise, the strength of her leap carried the top half of her body onto the beam, her chest on the front edge and her fingers firmly fastened onto the back edge of the beam. In this position, it was just a matter of swinging her right leg up onto the beam, which she did.

  Mattie sat astride the foot and a half wide beam, legs spread on either side, and swung the Leica around, taking off the lens cover. She adjusted the aperture, took two more photographs and put the Leica away. Shot nine. “Something sighted in the distance.”

  Mattie got to her feet and began walking carefully down the center of the beam, keeping her eyes on the package at the end of the beam, not looking down. Halfway down the beam, she stopped again and took two more photographs. Shot Ten. “Could it be what we are looking for?” Ahead, there lay a canvas-covered package flush against the stone wall, its six-foot length spanning and supported by the two beams. She stopped, knelt down, opened the Leica‘s aperture as wide as it would go because there was virtually no light here at the end of the stable, and took two more photographs. Shot Eleven. “Success? What lies inside?”

  Next, she had to lift one end of the six foot long package off of the other beam and bring it back to her beam. She sat there, legs down and over the side and hefted her end of the package. It didn‘t seem like much. Slowly, she eased the package toward her. It left the other beam and was on the verge of plunging down, but she leaned back with the weight of her body on her end of the package, and slowly pulled it toward her. Soon she had the package securely on her beam. Sliding down the beam toward the far end, she rolled the package away from the stone wall several fee
t and then moved back over it and sat with her back to the stone wall, catching her breath. After a moment, she stepped back up, then bent over and picked the package up, holding it across her arms. As she did so, a pain shot through her left knee and she felt herself lose her balance and begin to sway to the left. She recovered by using the package as a tightrope walker would to regain her balance.

  The next part was tricky. Usually she didn‘t mess with time exposures or photographs of herself because she was a journalist and not the subject of the story. This time was different. She was certain she had found the Spear of Destiny and she was bloody well going to have a record that she did. James McGary and his only daughter were going to be the heroes of this story. She stepped over the Spear, walked ten feet down the beam, took out the Leica, pulled the strap over her head, snapped off its cover and folded the cover under the camera so that its angle was focused up. She looked through the viewfinder. She decided to set the timer for thirty seconds. That would give her just enough time. It would be a great upward angle shot from below, which would make her look taller. She fished inside her vest pocket for her seldomused compact and took it out. The light was dim but she saw a smudge on her nose and wiped it off. She tousled her hair, licked her lips, set the timer and moved, walking purposely but carefully back to the package. She stepped over it, turned around and picked it up. She took two steps forward and stared confidently straight ahead, so that the photograph would capture the straight line of her jaw. She had been mentally counting as she walked and waited, three one-thousand, two one-thousand, one one-thousand. Pause. Click. Shot twelve. “Walking back to safety.”

  Getting herself and the Spear down from the beam to the top of the cabinet posed no difficulties. Sunlight was streaming in at oblique angles as she placed the package down in one of the streaks of light and opened it, unfastening the leather straps and taking several photographs of the Spear in its package. Shot thirteen. “The Spear revealed.” She moved closer and focused directly on the spearhead and took two more photographs. Shot fourteen. “A closer examination.”

  Mattie picked up the Spear and examined it closely in the sunlight. As she did so, a trick of the light made the Spear tip almost seem to glow in her hands. She moved her fingers from the shaft to the spearhead and found it surprisingly warm to the touch, even though it had been in the sunlight for only a few moments. She turned it over and found exactly what she had hoped. The second and third rows of bindings on the Spear tip were close together and equally far apart from the top and bottom rows, looking just as they did in the Hofburg photographs of the original Lance taken by her father. Mattie had no doubt. This was the Spear of Destiny. She fought back tears as she thought “Papa, this is for you...”

  Mattie quickly rewrapped the Spear and rebound it with the straps. She took it outside into the courtyard, looking around for the most dramatic shot. If she propped it up against the south wall of the stables, she would be able to almost frame it between the northeast and the northwest towers. She would leave the canvas behind it, because it was lighter than the dark stone of the stable wall and would provide a better contrast.

  Mattie quickly arranged the canvas and the Spear and experimented with several aperture settings before selecting the one she wanted. Then Mattie waited. The Spear was in shadow now but the sun would soon move across its face and she intended to take a series of photos as the sun struck, first one side of the blade of the spearhead, the full Spear and then the other side, before moving on. A triptych. Shots fifteen, sixteen and seventeen.. “The afternoon sun illuminates the sacred Spear which mercifully ended the Savior’s ordeal on the cross and enabled Him to fulfill His destiny.”

  “Thank you very much, Fraulein, for going to all this trouble.” Mattie was startled to hear Reinhard Hoch‘s voice as she felt a pistol shoved hard into her right side as he whispered “On behalf of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler and my fellow Teutonic Knights, please accept our everlasting appreciation for securing the Spear of Destiny for our Fuhrer. As your reward, you will have the high honor to accompany me to our mountain fortress in Wewelsburg where you will be accorded the privilege of participating in our sacred ceremony of consecration.”

  62.

  The New Templars

  Castle Lanz

  Friday, 12 June 1931

  ONE of the gunmen stepped forward, lowered his rifle and pulled the hood back from his head. Dusty gray hair topped his sharp, angular face, a prominent scar below his left eye. “Lower your weapon,” the man said. “You would be dead now if that is what we wished.”

  Sullivan kept his Luger aimed where it was as he let the dead SS man drop to the ground.

  “My name is Josef Lanz. I serve with the Lord‘s grace as Prior of the Ordi Novi Templi, the Order of the New Templars.” Lanz then shifted his head to one side and lowered his gaze to Harmony. “We are not here to harm you, my dear,” he said. “You are safe.”

  Harmony, relatively calm until now, had clearly been unnerved by the automatic rifle fire. Her eyes held the expression of a trapped animal. She shrank back.

  Lanz nodded to his men and they flared out to each of the prisoners, cutting loose their bonds and raising them to their feet. Sullivan kept the Luger pistol firmly in his right hand as his loose bonds were severed, not yet ready to trust these new gunmen.

  “Weren‘t the Templars disbanded and destroyed after the Crusades?” Cockran asked.

  Lanz looked at Cockran. “Our enemies thought so. But that was long ago. It was easier to disappear into the shadows than remain an open target. Some leaders were more receptive to our presence than others. Emperor Franz Joseph and his predecessors were among them, and he formally recognized our new order early in this century. The Holy Lance which these Nazi scum and the Kaiser‘s men seek within the ancient walls of this castle was entrusted to us by the emperor many years ago to keep it from the hands of one who would use it for evil purposes.”

  “Who was that?” Cockran asked to keep the man talking until he put his pistol away.

  “Kaiser Wilhelm. He schemed to acquire the Spear of Destiny before the Great War but we prevented that. Now he seeks to secure it for his son. We will prevent that as well.”

  “Your castle, I presume?”

  “My family‘s,” Lanz answered. “Castle Lanz has served many purposes over the years, most recently as the hiding place of the Holy Spear, but some within the brotherhood have lost their way and failed our Lord.” Lanz appeared slightly sad at the words. “We must find a new place to keep it safe as I did before the Great War. The Hohenzollerns are not worthy, but the danger they pose is nothing compared to what my ancestors faced and what we may again face.”

  “What‘s that?” Cockran asked, noting the Luger was still pointed at them.

  “Bonaparte. Fear of Napoleon is what brought the Spear to Vienna, to the Hofburg where it was placed under Templar protection. My great-grandfather had that honor. But these new men who seek the Spear, these SS who have sworn their allegiance to Hitler, a common Austrian? They may prove the gravest threat of all. They serve the next Bonaparte. I met Hitler before the war. With the Spear, that godless man will start a revolution for a new world order.”

  “I don‘t care about the Spear,” Cockran said flatly. Hitler‘s interest in the Spear explained the SS presence here in the mountains and Hoch‘s infiltration of the expedition, but that didn‘t concern Cockran. Only one thing mattered. “A woman named Martha McGary and Professor Geoffrey Campbell are a part of that expedition. Before last night, they were completely unaware of the plot to deliver the Spear to the Kaiser. I seek only to rescue them.”

  “Our interests coincide. We can help you.” Lanz said. “The woman has suffered at our hands and we have much to atone for. Campbell is a god-fearing man and a distant brother, a York Rite Mason. He never knew that the Kaiser was behind their search for the Spear.” Cockran relaxed as Lanz reholstered his Luger and continued. “Campbell had no way of knowing his special knowledge of the Spear
was being perverted to evil ends. Without his knowledge, however, the Spear would not be in such peril from these new barbarians.”

  “That‘s your problem, not mine,” Cockran replied. “All I want is to rescue the woman. Campbell too, if possible, but the woman comes first. What do you need from us?”

  “Your aircraft and your weapons. I have lost many men in the past few days. We are down to our last five and I cannot wait for reinforcements,” Lanz said, nodding toward the crimson-streaked, black-garbed bodies, “With these four dead and the two we killed at the Virgental Falls that leaves fifteen SS in control of the castle, including their leader, Hoch. They have killed everyone else, all the Austrians and the other armed Germans. Campbell, the woman and von Sturm were alive an hour ago but we have little time to waste. The woman found the Spear. Now the SS have it and may leave with the Spear at any moment.”

  “How do you know all this?” Cockran asked.

  “This castle has been in my family for generations,” Lanz said. “I know the public areas and the secret passageways like the back of my hand.” His smile faded. “Two of my men are there now watching. We are in two-way radio contact and your friends were safe when last we checked. Before all this,” he said, gesturing toward the dead bodies.

  “Please, check again. Now.” Cockran asked.

  A field telephone was brought forward for Lanz and he picked up the receiver and whispered quietly into it. Then he turned to Cockran. “The woman is being held in the Great Hall with the other two. The SS leader, Reinhard Hoch, and two of his men are there as well. The other twelve SS are in the courtyard or on the ramparts. Based on what we‘ve overheard, they plan to pull out within the hour, some in your aircraft, the others on horseback. They intend to kill your friends before they leave. So, what‘s it to be? Will you help?”

  Cockran retrieved his Webley and nodded. “Let‘s saddle up.”