The DeValera Deception

by Michael McMenamin

  “Thank you, my Führer,” Sturm replied.

  “The 1918 revolution will be avenged, my young friend, and heads will roll. Then, all of Germany will have its revenge.”

  Sturm watched as the Mercedes drove away, outlined against the afternoon sun, until it disappeared in the shadows of the trees. Yes, he thought. Revenge. His father would be proud and Germany at last would have its revenge.

  Historical Note

  The De Valera Deception is a work of fiction but there are historical facts which provide a foundation and framework for the story.

  Winston Churchill. It‘s not the first time nor will it be the last that Churchill will be cast as a key character in an historical thriller. In fact, you might say Winston did so himself in his 1897 romantic adventure novel, Savrola, where a hero strongly resembling Churchill overthrows an evil dictator in a mythical European country and steals the love of the dictator‘s beautiful wife in the bargain.

  Churchill’s detractors, of which there was no shortage before 1940, called him an “adventurer”, a “half-breed American” and a “swashbuckler”. He was all these things and more. In addition to fighting Islamic warriors on the Afghan-Indian border and in the Sudan in the late 1890s, bloody no-quarter battles where Churchill killed many men at close range, he also accepted in 1900 the surrender of the Boer prisoner of war camp in South Africa from which he had escaped the previous year. A crack shot, he bagged a rare white rhino in Africa in 1908, drawing the admiration and envy of Theodore Roosevelt who tried to do the same but was not so fortunate. He became a seaplane pilot in the early 1910s after being appointed at age 38 the First Lord of the British Admiralty and survived more than one crash landing in that pioneering era‘s flimsy aircraft. In the First World War, while stationed in the same Ypres salient where Corporal Adolf Hitler also served, the two future adversaries drew sketches in their spare time of the same bombed-out Belgian church. Contrary to some views, Hitler was a talented artist but Churchill was better, a gifted Impressionist whose works anonymously won awards.

  Churchill’s 1929 North American Holiday. Churchill took a three month holiday in North America in the summer of 1929 with his brother and their two sons at approximately the same time as portrayed in The De Valera Deception. Churchill wrote articles for William Randolph Hearst and was a guest at both his palatial home in San Simeon and Marion Davies‘ seaside mansion in Santa Monica. He was present in October, 1929 on Wall Street on Black Tuesday and was badly damaged financially by the Crash.

  Bourke Cockran (1854-1923). Churchill‘s real-life Irish-American mentor, both a political and oratorical role model, was the prominent turn-of-the-century New York lawyer, statesman and Congressman William Bourke Cockran whose fictional son‘s exploits (Cockran was childless) are depicted in The De Valera Deception and subsequent Winston Churchill Thrillers. Everything said by Churchill and others about Cockran in the book is accurate. A Democrat and close adviser to President Grover Cleveland, he was acclaimed by members of both parties, including his friend and Long Island neighbor Theodore Roosevelt, as America‘s greatest orator. He was TR’s principal economic adviser in the presidential election of 1912. Churchill was only 20 years old when the two men were brought together in November 1895 by Churchill‘s mother, the stunningly beautiful American-born heiress Jennie Jerome with whom Cockran had an affair in Paris in the Spring of that year following the deaths of their respective spouses. Sixty years later, Churchill could still recite from memory the speeches of Bourke Cockran he had memorized as a young man. Those wishing to know more about the close relationship between Churchill and Cockran are referred to Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and His American Mentor by Michael McMenamin and Curt Zoller and available from Enigma Books.

  The Graf Zeppelin. The record-setting German airship made an historic around-the-world voyage in the summer of 1929 funded by William Randolph Hearst. Hearst held a grand banquet in honor of the zeppelin‘s crew in Los Angeles but neither Hoover nor Churchill were present.

  The Russo-German military alliance in the 1920s. German rearmament after the Great War did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union had a clandestine military alliance throughout the 1920s whereby German engineers and industrialists developed in Russia beyond the Urals the most modern weapons sytems in Europe from artillery to aircraft to tanks, all in violation of the Versailles Treaty. The purpose of the alliance was the destruction of Poland. The letter to this effect from General Hans von Seekt, Chief of the German General Staff and mentioned by Trotsky in the Prologue is genuine.

  Eamon de Valera and John Devoy. De Valera spent most of the Anglo-Irish war safely in America raising funds in the approximate amount of $5M of which $1M was sent back to Ireland and another $1M was spent by de Valera and his entourage on first class rail travel and luxury hotels where no expense was spared. $3M was left behind in American bank accounts and later used by de Valera to buy an Irish newspaper in 1931. John Devoy‘s opinions of de Valera are accurately portrayed as is de Valera’s sabotage of the heretofore unified position on the Irish self-determination planks at the 1920 Democratic and Republican convention. Devoy died in September 1928 but his fictional counterpart was pleased to live for another year and play a role in de Valera’s true nature being exposed and depriving him, if only fictionally, of the $3M he selfishly had kept for himself instead of buying much-needed arms and ammunition for the Irish fighting for their freedom in 1920 and 1921. Dev did famously say that history would record Michael Collins as a great man and that it would be at Dev‘s expense. We couldn‘t agree more. Check out Neil Jordan‘s classic film Michael Collins if you want to know why.

  Herbert Hoover and William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan. The First World War Medal of Honor hero and later head of the Office of Strategic Services in World War Two—the predecessor to the CIA—was Hoover‘s campaign manager in the 1928 election. Hoover asked Donovan to be his running mate but Donovan had declined, securing Hoover‘s promise to make him Attorney General if he managed Hoover‘s campaign. Hoover later reneged on his promise solely because Donovan was a Roman Catholic. Hoover had reaped the benefit of a vicious anti-Catholic campaign against his Democratic opponent, New York Governor Al Smith. As a result of Hoover‘s bigotry, his cabinet was exclusively white, male and Protestant. Hoover‘s intense dislike of Churchill stemming from his time in London during the First World War in charge of food relief for Belgium is accurately portrayed. Churchill didn‘t personally have Hoover arrested in 1915 but thought he should have been.

  Miscellaneous. Jack Manion and his San Francisco Chinatown Squad, LA’s police chief “Two Gun” Ed Davis and Woodrow Wilson‘s secret organization “The Inquiry” are accurately portrayed except that The Inquiry had no “Irish Section” and Irish self-determination was never seriously on the table at Versailles. Woodrow Wilson‘s famous 14 Points didn‘t include Ireland.

  Michael McMenamin & Patrick McMenamin

  March 2010

  Acknowledgements

  We owe a debt of gratitude to many people who helped bring this book to light. Katie McMenamin Sabo, our daughter and sister and the first writing teacher either of us ever had. With an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, she really is, as she often reminds us, Rose Wilder Lane to our Laura Ingalls. Kelly McMenamin Wang, our other daughter and sister who, even with her MBA from Dartmouth, is a really good writer herself and is always giving us new and clever marketing and promotion ideas. Check out both Katie and Kelly’s writing at their home and life organization website www.pixiesdidit.com whose motto is “Life Should Be Easy.“ Mystery writer Les Roberts, our close friend and ever-patient writing mentor, from whom Patrick took a college screen writing course when he was a junior in high school and who, like any good mentor, validated our dream while continuing to give us candid and insightful advice. Robert Miller, the editor and publisher of Enigma Books who published the first paperback edition of Michael‘s book Becoming Winston Churchill and who agre
ed with us that the world really needed a series of historical thrillers set in the 1930s featuring Winston Churchill. The creative folks at Brainchild Studios/NYC who came up with a killer cover design. Alexis Dragony, Michael‘s former assistant who typed so many iterations of the book and is now living in Long Beach California hiding out from the IRA under the Witness Protection Program using the name “Emma” and kept safe by a horde of stuffed mice. And, finally, to all our good friends and relatives who read our book as well as our second and third Churchill Thrillers, The Parsifal Pursuit and The Gemini Agenda [to be published in 2011 by Enigma Books] who, along with Les Roberts, told us they thought our stories were a lot better than than many other thrillers they‘d read. They were probably just being polite but its praise like that which keeps us writing. Thanks guys.

  Bourke Cockran and Mattie McGary‘s next adventure takes them in 1931 on a quest high into the Austrian Alps and places in peril both their lives and their romance . . .

  The Parsifal Pursuit

  by

  Michael McMenamin

  and

  Patrick McMenamin

  Coming from Enigma Books

  In Spring, 2011

  Read on for an excerpt . . .

  “The Threat To The Spear”

  Castle Lanz

  The Austrian Alps

  March, 1914

  Major Josef Lanz was no stranger to violence. A shade over six feet, he was taller than the average man under his command in the elite unit of ten Austrian Army mountain troops standing patiently behind him on their wooden skis, semi-automatic carbines slung over their shoulders, awaiting his order. He pushed the hood of his white parka back and his dark hair and sunburned face stood out against the white of the snow, a pale scar running diagonally across his left cheek, a souvenir of more youthful days and happier times.

  Lanz turned to the man beside him, his second in command, Captain Hans Weber, “The snow is letting up. Have the men camp here for the night. Tell them we will ski out at first light. You and I will ascend to the castle but only after the men are asleep. The threat to the spear, the heilege lance, is real. And it comes from our German friends, not the Black Hand.”

  After midnight, the two men returned from the castle looming above their camp site and approached the five tents in silence. A few embers in the campfire still glowed amidst the dormant ashes surrounding them. Nearby, stacked neatly against one another in a circle, a group of 7.92 mm Mannlicher M98/40 assault rifles stood ready. Lanz counted them. There were ten. He turned to Weber and unslung his weapon, a Bergmann MP 18/1 submachine gun, and watched while Weber did the same. Lanz crossed himself and turned to Weber, who also made the sign of the cross, then pulled the bolt back on his 9 mm weapon. “Ready.” Lanz said.

  Weber brought a whistle to his lips and gave three short blasts, the shrill sound echoing in the thin mountain air. One by one, the flaps on the five tents opened and the men mechanically stumbled out and arranged themselves in an orderly line, still wearing the white parkas in which they had slept. Without warning, Lanz opened fire and Weber did the same. The men‘s bodies danced like marionettes on a string as the 9 mm rounds ripped into their chests and bellies, blowing out their backs with great gouts of blood. In fifteen seconds, all the men had collapsed, their white parkas now stained red. Still, Lanz and Weber kept firing into the prone bodies which continued to jerk and jump as the bullets hammered home.

  Ater a full thirty seconds of sustained automatic weapons fire, they stopped, smoke rising from the perforated barrels of their Bergmanns. They slung the weapons back over their shoulders. They each withdrew from their holsters an M 1903 model Mannlicher locked-breach automatic pistol and walked over to the bodies. Going down the row methodically, a coup de grâce was delivered to the temple or forehead of each man, whichever was more convenient.

  I wish we could give them a proper Christian burial.” Weber said

  I share your sentiments, Hans, but the ground is frozen. By spring, the wolves in these mountains will make sure no trace of our men remains.” Lanz said as he looked back at the castle, “What we have left here must never be disturbed nor discovered. You and I are the only ones who know. For anyone else who learns or even guesses at the secret, their lives are forfeit.”

  “The Spear of Destiny?”

  Long Island

  Spring, 1931

  Monday

  Hearst’s phone call put a spanner in her plans. Before it, Mattie McGary was looking forward to an ocean crossing followed by a fortnight on holiday in Venice with her lover, that big beautiful Irish bastard Bourke Cockran. A few hours later, the voyage was abandoned and she was packing her bags with an adrenalin rush fueled by landing an exclusive interview with a leading European statesman followed by the prospect of an exciting new adventure. The Venice holiday had been relegated to a pleasant interlude sandwiched between two more big steps up the ladder in her rising career. But she would phrase that differently when she gave her man the bad news.

  Mattie and her boss, William Randolph Hearst, had been walking in the garden at Hearst‘s castle-like home on Long Island‘s Gold Coast when he reached inside his tan Harris tweed sport coat and pulled out a long brown envelope and handed it to Mattie.

  “What‘s this?” she asked.

  “A one-way ticket on the Graf Zeppelin which leaves tomorrow morning from Lakehurst, New Jersey for its home base in Friedrichschafen. The day after you land, you have an appointment in Berchtesgaden with the leader of Germany‘s second-largest political party.

  “Adolf Hitler?”

  “Yes. I understand you interviewed him twice prior to his Beer Hall putsch in 1923.”

  “Not many people know that, Chief. Where did you hear about it?”

  “From Hitler himself. Through Ted Hudson, my resident correspondent in Europe who has been negotiating with him, unsuccessfully I am afraid, to sign an exclusive contract to write articles for my newspapers. Mussolini writes for me. So does Churchill. I want Hitler as well.”

  “But why me?” Mattie asked.

  “Hitler refuses to negotiate further with Hudson. He demands twice what we pay Mussolini and Churchill and he says he will only consider a lesser amount if we send you as a representative the one he refers to as ‘that beautiful and talented young Englishwoman.‘”

  “I‘m not English.” Mattie said as if it were an insult. “I‘m a Scot.”

  “A distinction which is lost on Hitler.” Hearst put his hand on Mattie‘s back and gently directed her out of the garden and towards the beach. “Hitler is important to me, Mattie. He may well become Germany’s leader just as I am certain Winston will one day lead England. I want him to write for my papers and you‘re the person he wants. Please do this for me.”

  “Why must I leave tomorrow?” she asked. “Bourke and I will be sailing on the Europa this Sunday. Once we land, I can fly to Germany.”

  Hearst frowned. “We don‘t have the luxury of time, my dear. Scripps-Howard—The New York Telegram—is sitting on Hitler‘s doorstep like a vulture waiting to swoop in if we fail. I‘ll be damned if I‘m going to let Roy Howard best me again. It was bad enough when he bought out Pulitzer‘s New York papers. This is most important to me, Mattie. Please say you‘ll go.”

  Mattie sighed. She was licked and Cockran had lost. Hearst was disarmingly direct. He was incapable of dissembling. When he said “please” and asked twice, it really was that important to him and she knew she couldn‘t disappoint him.

  “Okay, Chief, I‘m your girl,” she said and gave him a hug and a kiss.

  “Wait a moment,” Hearst said as Mattie turned to depart. “There‘s more.”

  “More?” Mattie said, turning back, raising her eyebrows at Hearst.

  “Yes, my dear. I had a long telephone call from Churchill this morning and he presented an interesting proposition. It may cost £10,000 but, if you agree, I‘m inclined to accept.”

  “Winston?” Mattie said, frowning, looking at her watch. “Will th
is take long, Chief? I‘ve got to leave for court. I promised Cockran I‘d be there to watch his oral argument in the state court of appeals. It‘s a big case for him. Those damn eugenics zealouts are trying to sterilize another young girl. What did my dear godfather propose now?”

  Mattie listened to Hearst as they walked up from the beach. “Winston told me it involved an expedition to locate something called ‘the Spear of Destiny.‘ He said you would know what he was talking about. Seems it may be missing from a museum in Vienna and Winston is raising capital to mount an expedition to retrieve it. He said you would understand.”

  The Spear of Destiny? Mattie understood all right, her pulse quickening. It meant everything to her late grail scholar father, Winston‘s closest political friend in Parliament back in 1904 after Churchill bolted the Tories and joined her father‘s Liberals. The Spear of Destiny missing? This was going to take awhile. Mattie knew she wasn‘t going to make it to court now. But it was her father, after all. What could a girl do? “Tell me more,” Mattie said.

  “Not much more to tell. Some professor-type has Winston convinced that the Spear in the museum is a fake and the real one is hidden somewhere in the Alps,” Hearst said.

  “The Alps? Where?”

  “In Austria. That‘s where the expedition comes in. They aren‘t sure exactly where so it may take some time to locate it. They figure a proper expedition may cost upwards of £20,000. Winston says he‘s persuaded an industrialist friend of his, Sir Archibald Hampton, to put up half the money. For the other half, we would have exclusive worldwide rights on the photos and the story.” Hearst smiled and looked down at her. “Do you think we should? Is it that big a story?”