The Parsifal Pursuit

by Michael McMenamin

  The manager nodded and moved to the phone. Cockran scanned the room quickly from right to left, from the leather club chairs and bloody sofa by the window over to the door leading to the bedroom. He went through the open door and then into the bathroom beyond and found nothing. Nothing. There were no signs of Mattie. Or the Spear.

  Cockran left the bathroom and went back into the bedroom where he saw a sheet of paper lying next to the bellman‘s head in a spot he had not seen from the other side of the room.

  Herr Cockran,

  My apologies but the safety of the Holy Spear is paramount and anyone who places it in jeopardy—man or woman—will be dealt the ultimate justice of the Lord. This hotel employee who attempted to stand in our way should serve as vivid proof of the strength of our convictions.

  The Spear must remain hidden and I have determined to do so. Your woman is safe and the other woman as well. Only you can place them in jeopardy now by making any attempt to find them. When the Spear is safely hidden again, they will be returned to you, unharmed. By the Word of God, I beseech you—do nothing and wait for their safe return.

  Josef Lanz

  Cockran let the note fall from his hands. Lanz! The Templars! Why hadn‘t he spent the night with Mattie? This never would have happened if he had been there.

  “Herr Cockran!” The hotel manager said. He held the telephone receiver to his chest.

  “Is that Weintraub?” Cockran said, crossing the room. “Give him to me.”

  “No, Herr Cockran,” the manager said. “Kapitan Weintraub is dead.”

  “AND the Spear?” Professor Campbell asked, the tension in his voice clear.

  They had all gathered in the sitting room of Churchill‘s suite. Churchill sat in a leather chair, chewing on his cigar, deep in thought. The red-bearded figure of Rankin stood next to him. Campbell shifted uneasily in his own chair, his eyes red and fixed upon Cockran who stood beside Sullivan. Harmony, they learned after a brief inspection of her room, was also missing, presumably kidnapped along with Mattie—the “other woman” Lanz referred to.

  “Sod the Spear,” Cockran said. “It‘s gone and good riddance. All I care about is Mattie.”

  Cockran‘s conversation with the Munich police had been brief. Captain Weintraub had apparently hung himself in his office yesterday evening; a suicide note spoke of overwhelming guilt about his own personal corruption. The suicide note tidily pinned most, if not all, of the Nazi V-men‘s obstructionist activity upon Weintraub. Supposedly, he also despised the fact that he was a Jew. For Cockran, that was proof enough that Weintraub had been murdered. It was confirmed moments later when Cockran inquired as to the whereabouts of one Reinhard Tristan Hoch. There was a long pause before he was told that Hoch had been released for lack of evidence shortly after Weintraub‘s death.

  Professor Campbell held his head in his hands. “This couldn‘t be worse. I have lost the Spear and Professor McGary‘s daughter! It wasn‘t supposed to happen this way!”

  “Nothing ever happens the way you expect it,” Churchill said calmly from his chair. “To fret over such an obvious condition does nothing to alter it. Action this day, gentlemen. We must think of solutions and act. Where could she have been taken?” The rest of the room was silent. “Bourke, do you have any faith in what the Munich police have told you?”

  Sullivan answered first. “I wouldn‘t trust them if they told me the Pope was Catholic.”

  Rankin‘s Scottish accent sounded out from behind Churchill. “A corrupt police force is an incompetent police force,” Rankin said, with an authority that bespoke his Scotland Yard credentials. “They are good for little else than pocketing bribes. When it comes to real police work, they can‘t tell their elbows from their arseholes.” He paused, lowering his head. “If you‘ll pardon my French. Lanz may be a fish the Nazis find worth catching, but the police won‘t be the ones who reel him in.”

  “Sergeant Rankin is correct,” Churchill said. “We cannot rely on the police to find this Lanz or his Templars.”

  Professor Campbell looked up from his hands. “Do you think we can accept this Templar‘s word that he has taken them only to prevent us from following? That he will return the women unharmed? Could he be sincere?”

  “Unlikely,” Rankin said. “Why would he kidnap Miss Hampton, as well? If insurance was truly the only reason Mattie was kidnapped, then there would be no reason to kidnap Miss Hampton. Certainly, Miss Hampton is a lovely young lady, but who among us finds a stronger attachment to her than to Mattie?” No answer greeted him. “My point exactly. If his note is genuine, Lanz already has his insurance with Mattie. Why take Miss Hampton also?”

  “Who cares?” Cockran said, agitated. “We must assume the worst. You‘ve seen the rituals these men engage in. Can you find any logic behind it? They beheaded a bellhop in the name of the Lord‘s ‘ultimate justice,‘ for Christ‘s sake!” he said, consciously emphasizing the common profanity.

  Churchill raised a hand and shot Cockran a hard glance, much like the glances he received when they argued about Irish politics nearly a decade ago. Cockran knew Winston wasn‘t much of a believer either, but he knew when Churchill was telling him he had gone too far. His father—who was a believer—would have done the same thing. With the same glance.

  “Excusing Bourke for his understandably strained emotions, the point, my dear Professor Campbell, is that it would be wrong to assume the Templars mean no harm to Mattie. We cannot leave her fate to the hands of men who have already betrayed us more than once.” Churchill rose out of his chair and walked into the center of the room, drawing on his cigar, gathering his thoughts. “There is something else, another peculiarity surrounding these events that deserves our scrutiny. Sergeant Rankin? Tell us what you found in your inspections of the two rooms—more to the point, tell them what struck you as odd about the crime scenes.”

  Rankin took in a deep breath, expanding his barrel of a chest. “To start with, there were no signs of a break-in at Mattie‘s room. That means that her abductors were welcomed into the room by Mattie herself.”

  “And the other room?” Churchill prompted.

  “Miss Hampton‘s room did show signs of a break-in. But, although there were also signs of a struggle within the room, most of that struggle was spent carefully knocking over tables and chairs, creating an artificial tableau.”

  “What do you mean?” Campbell asked.

  “I mean that there was no struggle,” Rankin said. “The room was carefully made to appear as if there had been, but Miss Hampton did not struggle with anybody. The crime scene was staged.”

  Cockran watched while Churchill smiled slowly, as though the pieces were starting to fall together. Professor Campbell, however, continued to look perplexed, as if he were trying to wrap his mind around Rankin‘s detective work.

  Sullivan placed a soft hand on Cockran‘s shoulder. “Stay here, Bourke. I‘ll be back in a few hours.”

  Cockran turned to face Sullivan, whose face was hard and determined. Sullivan had a plan. “Where are you going?”

  “Never you mind,” Sullivan said. “Stay with Churchill. I‘ve heard enough. I‘m going to pay a visit to an old friend.”

  68.

  The Hotel Belonged to Us

  Munich

  Tuesday, 16 June 1931

  BOBBY Sullivan was impatient. Once he heard Rankin‘s analysis of Harmony‘s room, he thought he knew who was behind Mattie‘s kidnapping. Maybe he was getting the hang of this detective businesss after all.

  Sullivan sat on a crowded bench in a noisy hallway not far from the primary booking area in the Munich police headquarters, reading a dayold copy of The Times. No one stopped to ask why he was there. Sullivan‘s spot was carefully chosen, two doors down from the offices of the Chief of Police, where Deputy Prosecutor Eric Schmidt was in conference. Schmidt was the young lawyer who had been discovered lying unconscious on the street a week back, with multiple wounds and peculiar photos and hospital bills attached to his clothing.<
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  Sullivan had not told Cockran, but he had asked one member of the Apostles, Ronan, to stay in Munich and keep up surveillance on V-men like Schmidt after he and Cockran had left town. Sullivan had caught up with Ronan after they had returned to Munich. According to Ronan‘s notes, the young prosecutor had become a recluse in his stylish Munich apartment since his little mishap. His broken nose was still swollen and his right arm was in a sling. The beating his kidneys received had apparently weakened his bladder, forcing him to visit the loo a couple of times every hour. He had returned to work sparingly in the last several days, and on the occasions when he did leave the comforts of his home, he only went to two places—his law offices and police headquarters. Nowhere else. Tailing him had not been difficult.

  Glancing inside the doorway, Sullivan knew it was only a matter of time before nature came to call on young Schmidt. Sullivan turned a page of the paper to keep up the act. There was no way he could have told Cockran what he planned to do. With Cockran there was always a risk he would insist on near certainty before agreeing to utilize Sullivan‘s preferred methods. And in this case, Cockran would have a point. Reasoning his way through it, there was no way to rule out the Templars and point the finger solely at the SS for Mattie‘s kidnapping. But there were too many unexplained coincidences. Weintraub murdered; Hoch released last night; and Mattie‘s very real kidnapping immediately followed by Harmony‘s staged “kidnapping”.

  Frankly, Sullivan had his doubts about Miss Harmony Hampton. He had warmed to her at first. She was a fine looking young woman who seemed genuinely frightened. But, with hindsight, there were too many question marks. The SS had known exactly where to ambush them in landing spots chosen in Harmony‘s presence. And, despite her earlier kidnapping by the SS, she was remarkably unconcerned when she was recaptured by them in the mountains.

  The Chief of Police‘s office door opened and a young woman stepped out, holding the door as Schmidt followed slowly behind her, nodded his appreciation and turned down the hallway towards Sullivan. He waited until Schmidt had passed him, headed for the lavatory, then rose to follow him, leaving the paper behind.

  Inside the lavatory, a middle-aged policeman was scrubbing his hands at a sink. Schmidt passed into the far stall, pushing the wooden door closed behind him. Sullivan walked slowly behind the policeman to wash up in the adjacent sink. Keeping his head down to obscure his face, Sullivan saw the policeman finish up and leave without tossing him so much as a glance. Sullivan picked up a mop from the corner and jammed its long pole through the lavatory door handle. Then he reached inside his coat with his right hand to remove a knife, feeling a mild twinge of pain. His right arm still worked, but not with the same strength as the left. With a strong kick, he broke the flimsy lock on the stall door, knocking the young lawyer against the back wall, his pants down around his ankles. With his right forearm, Sullivan pinned the man against the wall, pressing the flat of the blade firmly against his neck with his left hand.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. Schmidt began jabbering in German, but Sullivan cut him short. “Knock it off. I know you speak English, so I‘ll start by cutting this artery right here if I hear another word of German. Cries for help will only speed the process. Understand?”

  Schmidt nodded carefully, fully conscious of the razor sharp blade on his neck.

  “I know you had Weintraub killed. I know you arranged to spring Hoch out of jail. Tell me what happened to the girls in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten.”

  Schmidt‘s eyes opened wide. “Girls? I…I don‘t know who you are referring to….”

  Sullivan applied greater pressure on the blade, drawing a thin drop of blood where the blade edge broke the skin. “I won‘t ask again. Tell me about the kidnapped girls.”

  Schmidt‘s breathing became rapid and panicked. “Ja!” he said and quickly corrected himself. “Yes! Okay! Please relieve the pressure of your knife. I might cut myself if I speak.”

  “Isn‘t that a pity?” Sullivan said. “You‘ll talk the way you are. Start with last night.”

  “Yes, okay,” Schmidt panted. “I secured Herr Hoch‘s release on the basis of a lack of evidence. Afterwards, I escorted him to a clandestine meeting of the SS in Munich.” Schmidt paused. “I…I was asked to attend, though I must assure you I‘m not a member of the SS.”

  Sullivan waited and lessened the pressure on his knife. Encouraged by this, Schmidt continued in a firmer voice. “The English woman was working with Hoch. She would help gain access to the Scottish woman‘s room where Herr Himmler‘s coveted Spear was being held. They… they intended to behead someone—it didn‘t matter who—so as to make the abduction appear to have been committed by others. But I took no part in these activities!”

  “Where have they taken the women?”

  “I don‘t know. I swear I don‘t know. They didn‘t tell me. I‘m not SS.”

  “You were there for a reason.” Sullivan said. “Give me the reason.”

  “All he asked was that we remove all police forces from the area of the hotel in which the women were lodged and that all hotel security people be given the night off.”

  “How did you do that?” Sullivan asked. “You don‘t own the hotel.”

  “The hotel belonged to us. Just as most of Munich belongs to us.” Schmidt said, his confidence rising. “Now, the Spear of Destiny is ours and soon, all of Deutschland as well.”

  Sullivan pulled the blade back from Schmidt‘s neck and transferred it into his stronger left hand. “Us? You mean the Nazis? But didn‘t you say you weren‘t a Nazi?”

  Schmidt rubbed his neck and continued to speak with confidence. “No, I didn‘t. I‘m a party man and proud of it. I‘m just not SS. They‘re lunatics. I‘m a German patriot.”

  Sullivan smiled, a thin-lipped smile under cold blue eyes that no sane man ever wanted directed at him. “And by party, you mean the Nazi Party?”

  Schmidt nodded and quickly added, “But not SS.”.

  Wrong answer. “‘Tis a distinction lost on a boy from County Mayo,” Sullivan said, reaching out with his right hand to cover Schmidt‘s mouth. Before Schmidt realized what was happening, the knife had sliced deep into the lawyer‘s throat, severing the carotid artery, Sullivan taking care that the spurting blood from the convulsing body was directed away from him.

  Sullivan watched with disinterest as the lawyer died. It took less than thirty seconds for Schmidt‘s heart to fail and the life to fade from his eyes. Sullivan left him seated on the toilet, his pants still down around his ankles. Sullivan closed the stall door behind him and moved to the sink to rinse the blade and wipe the blood off his shoes. Without a backward glance, he pulled the mop from the door, left the bathroom and blended in with the people walking in the hallway. Bobby Sullivan really didn‘t like Nazis.

  69.

  And I Have the Key

  Munich

  Tuesday, 16 June 1931

  KURT von Sturm‘s arrival at Churchill‘s suite of rooms was unexpected. The handsome, blond German stood composed and business-like facing the cool stares from the men there. “I am sorry to disturb you, gentlemen,” Sturm said. “But I have urgent news concerning Herr Reinhard Hoch.”

  For Cockran, the presence of Mattie‘s likely lover was as unnecessary as it was unwelcome. He hoped he had seen the last of Sturm back in the Alps. Cockran waved his hand dismissively. “If you‘ve come to tell us that Captain Weintraub has been murdered and Hoch released from jail, save your breath. We already know and we have more pressing matters.”

  “My apologies,” Sturm said, his face revealing no reaction to Cockran‘s comment. “I had not realized the news had spread so fast. Permit me to ask what matter could possibly be more pressing than bringing Herr Hoch to justice?”

  “Rescuing Mattie,” Cockran said harshly. “She was kidnapped this morning.”

  Cockran watched the German‘s eyes narrow in response to the news as he explained what had happened—the blood, the note from Lanz, and their doubts concerni
ng Harmony‘s abduction. As Cockran spoke, Sturm‘s genuine concern was obvious in his eyes. Mattie had been right. The Nazi bastard really cared for her and had never intended to kill her, despite indications to the contrary within the dossier Joey Thomas died delivering to Cockran.

  “I am most sorry to hear this news,” Sturm said slowly, as though straining to control his voice. “I feel responsible for Miss McGary‘s fate because I agreed to allow her on the expedition. These are merciless men who have taken her. You have my word that I will not rest until we have returned her to safety. Please, allow me to help.”

  Cockran considered this for a moment. He winced inwardly at Sturm‘s attempt to absorb responsibility for Mattie‘s fate. Cockran‘s own guilt was far greater. If only he had spent the night with Mattie, this wouldn‘t have happened. Cockran shook it off. Finding her came first. His feelings could wait their turn.

  “Can you locate Josef Lanz?” Cockran asked, laying down the conditions for Sturm‘s involvement. “We have no faith in the Munich police.”

  “If he is in Germany,” Sturm said, “I will find him. I have many resources at hand.”

  At that, Sturm was provisionally accepted into Churchill‘s circle as they began to develop a plan of action that could garner them the information they needed to find Josef Lanz. As they talked, Rankin removed himself from the discussions and walked towards the outer door of Churchill‘s suite, the one that lead into the hallway beyond. The men in the room stopped their conversation and watched Rankin approach the door.

  “Sergeant Rankin?” Churchill asked.

  Rankin held up his hand, asking for silence and removed his own revolver as he peered through the spy hole of the door. He pulled his head back in surprise and then holstered his weapon. He opened the door, but not wide enough for anyone in the room to see beyond him.