The Last Secret Of The Temple

by Paul Sussman

  'Hello again, Isaac,' she said. There was a brief silence, then, 'Will you let us see your book? The one Hannah gave you. Can we look at it? Is that OK?'

  She had been worried he might not wish to show it to them, would be panicked by her request. Far from it. With a faint sigh, as if he was relieved finally to be asked the question, Schlegel slowly lifted his hands away, allowing her to take the book from his lap. Ben-Roi leant forward, craning his head to get a look.

  It was a slim volume, paperback, very creased, with a green cover on which was printed a simple black line-drawing of a pine tree. Underneath, in English, was the title Summer Walks in the Berchtesgaden National Park. Layla glanced up at Ben-Roi, raising her eyebrows, then flicked the book open to the contents page.

  There were ten walks listed, each with a name – the Konigsee Trail, the Watzmann Trail, the Weiss-Tanne Trail – and also a colour code, the latter apparently corresponding to coloured markers on the ground. The last in the book, the Hoher Goll Trail, was designated yellow.

  'Look at the yellow one,' Layla whispered, her heart starting to pound.

  Ben-Roi said nothing, just came round and sat down beside her. She began leafing through the book, rapidly, searching for the relevant section.

  'Hoher Goll Trail,' she announced after a moment, flattening the book out on her lap.

  Like the other nine chapters, this one started with a simple black-ink line drawing, in this case of a mountain, its summit flat and craggy, a long hogs-back ridge sloping away from it towards the right before ending in a sheer cliff on the edge of which was perched what looked like a small house. There followed some basic facts about the walk – Length 19 km; Time 5–6 hours; Difficulty Level 3 (out of 5) – a scale map on which its course was marked out by a zig-zagging dotted line, and then six pages of text describing the walk in detail, with inserted boxes providing extra information on local flora and fauna, points of historical interest, etc. Two-thirds of the way through the text a paragraph at the end of a page had been highlighted in red felt-tip pen:

  Cross the road and take the track directly opposite, behind the derelict pumping station. After a thirty-minute climb – steep in places – you will come out into an open space in front of the entrance to the abandoned Berg-Ulmewerk salt mine (for more on the region's salt-mining tradition see introduction, p. 4). High above you, weather permitting, you will see the summit of the mighty Hoher Goll (2522m), to the right the roof and radio mast of the Kelsteinhaus, or 'Eagle's Nest', formerly Hitler's tea-house (see box). Below there are wonderful views down to Obersalzburg, Berchtesgaden and the Berchtesgadener Ache river. The trail continues to the left, beside the small stone cairn (see box overleaf).

  Layla and Ben-Roi exchanged a look, confused, uncertain what any of this had to do with Dieter Hoth or the Menorah. She flipped the page. The box mentioned had also been highlighted. It was titled 'The Hoher Goll Skeletons'. They glanced at each other again, then started reading.

  In May 1961, at the spot marked by this cairn, six skeletons were discovered by passing hikers after a night of unusually heavy rainfall had washed away the topsoil from the shallow grave in which they were buried. All were male, all had died from gunshot wounds. Fabric remains suggested they were concentration camp victims although their identities have never been established, nor the reason for their presence up here in the foothills of the Hoher Goll. They are now buried in the cemetery at Berchtesgaden. When passing, it is customary to add a small stone to the pile as a mark of respect.

  There was a momentary silence as they processed this information, then, both speaking at the same time, 'The Dachau prisoners.'

  Their voices were charged, excited. Layla shoved the book at Ben-Roi and began rooting through her bag, pulling out her notepad and flicking through its pages, the paper making an urgent rasping sound beneath her fingertips.

  'Jean-Michel Dupont,' she muttered. 'He said something, about the Nazis, the way they . . .'

  She found the page she wanted, ran a finger down it, started reading.

  'At the end of the war the Nazis either sent looted treasure abroad or hid it at secret locations within Germany, usually inside abandoned mines.''

  She looked up again. For an instant their eyes held, then they both started scrambling. Layla snatched the book back and began scribbling down details of the mine and its location, her writing so juddery with excitement that after a few frantic scrawls she was forced to rip the page out, screw it up and start again. Ben-Roi was on his feet, speaking rapidly into his mobile phone, his voice fading in and out as he paced back and forth across the knoll, left hand scooping at the air as if to try and speed everything up.

  Five minutes later it was all arranged: two seats on the 11.15 flight from Ben-Gurion to Vienna, then a connection on to Salzburg, the nearest airport to Berchtesgaden, where a hire car would be waiting. Barring any unforeseen delays they'd be in Germany by late afternoon.

  'Let's get a shift on,' said Ben-Roi, striding off down the side of the knoll. 'If we miss this flight there's not another one till tomorrow.'

  'Khalifa?'

  'Fuck him. We know where it is now. He's irrelevant.'

  He disappeared beneath the brow of the knoll. Layla turned to Schlegel, who through all of this had sat silent and motionless, gazing out across the forested hills. Taking his hands in hers, she pressed the book back into them.

  'Thank you, Isaac,' she whispered. 'We won't let Hannah down. I promise.'

  She hesitated, then leant forward and kissed the old man on the cheek. He gave the faintest of nods and seemed to mumble something, although it was too low for Layla to make it out – 'my sister', possibly, she couldn't be sure. She squeezed his arm, then stood and went after Ben-Roi, the two of them jogging down to the bottom of the hospital compound and out onto the street. She was still clutching the crumpled-up ball of paper she had ripped from her notepad earlier, and as they came up to the car she launched it into a bin at the roadside before slipping into the passenger seat and slamming the door.

  From his position opposite, Avi Steiner watched as they pulled off and disappeared into the traffic. Then, murmuring something into his walkie-talkie, he started the engine of his Saab, idled off the garage forecourt and, turning the corner, pulled up at the bin and got out.

  JERUSALEM

  Har-Zion was beside the phone when it started ringing, gazing out of his apartment window while he massaged balm into his bare arms and torso. He bent and lifted the receiver, wincing slightly as he did so – even with the cream his skin seemed to have been getting ever tighter these last few months – answering with a brief 'Ken' and then listening in silence to the voice at the other end. Gradually the pained expression that had twisted his mouth when he first bent down rearranged itself, first into a pucker of concentration, then a smile.

  'Get the Cessna ready,' he said eventually. 'And speak to whoever we've got at the airport – we'll need to plant a tracker, just to be certain. Meet me downstairs in twenty. Oh yes, Avi, I'm coming. I'm definitely coming.'

  He replaced the phone and, squeezing more balm into his hand, slowly circled it over his stomach, staring out at the Old City beneath, with its domes and towers and, just visible, the long patchwork rectangle of the Western Wall. For a moment, just a brief moment, he allowed himself to daydream: an army, a great army, all God's children, Israel united as one, marching past the Wall with the Menorah at their head before passing up onto the Temple Mount and tearing down the Arab shrines. Then, screwing the cap back on the ointment bottle, he went through into the bedroom to start getting ready.

  LUXOR

  'Well, ask him to call me, will you? Khalifa. Khalifa! Kal-ee-far. Yes, of course he knows . . . What? Yes, it is urgent! Very urgent. Sorry? OK, OK, thank you, thank you!'

  Khalifa slammed down the phone. For a moment he sat where he was, rubbing his temples; then he got to his feet and stormed out of the office and down the corridor into another room where he snatched an atlas from a bookshelf on
the wall. Back at his desk he flipped rapidly through the index, then yanked open the relevant page and began tracing the lines of latitude and longitude with his fingers until he had located the place-name he wanted: Salzburg. He lit a cigarette and stared down at it.

  It was an hour since he'd last spoken to Ben-Roi. As agreed, he'd waited for the Israeli to call him back; then, having heard nothing from him and impatient to know what, if anything, they'd found out from Schlegel's brother, he'd rung his mobile. Engaged. He'd given it another five minutes, then called again. Still engaged. He'd called a third time, ten minutes after that, but now the mobile was switched off. For no reason he could explain he had started to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, a vague premonition of trouble that grew stronger as the minutes ticked by and still the mobile stayed dead, until eventually, convinced there must be something wrong, he'd contacted the David police station.

  As with his first encounter with Israeli police bureaucracy he'd had to put up with a deal of stonewalling and obstructiveness before finally getting through to a secretary who, in faltering English, had informed him that Detective Inspector Ben-Roi and a colleague were currently on their way to Austria. To Salzburg. Why, and when they were due back, she had no idea, nor would she be at liberty to reveal that information even if she did. He'd wanted to push her, demand to speak to someone higher up, but that would have meant explaining why it was he was so anxious to get in touch with the detective; and since this whole damned Menorah thing was supposed to be confidential, he'd had no choice but to back off, asking her to get Ben-Roi to call him if he happened to make contact and leaving it at that.

  'What the hell's he doing?' he muttered to himself, staring down at the open atlas. 'What the bloody . . . ?'

  The office door flew open and Mohammed Sariya put his head into the room.

  'Not now, Mohammed.'

  'I've got—'

  'I said not now! I'm busy!'

  His tone was sharper than he'd intended, but the news about Ben-Roi had rattled him and he wasn't in the mood for trading jokey banter. Sariya looked faintly put out by his abrupt manner, but said nothing, just shrugged, held up his hands as if to say sorry and withdrew again, pulling the door shut behind him. Khalifa thought of going after him – he was never short with his deputy, never – but he was just too wound up and instead sucked away what was left of his cigarette, threw the butt out of the window and buried his head in his hands.

  They'd found something, that much at least seemed clear. Something important. Something that necessitated going all the way to Austria to follow up. For a brief moment he wondered if he was simply over-reacting, if there was some perfectly innocent explanation for Ben-Roi's silence, like he'd just forgotten to call in the excitement of unearthing this new lead, or else couldn't get a signal on his mobile and was in such a rush for his plane that he didn't have time to stop and use a payphone.

  But no. The more he thought about it, went through everything that had happened over the last few days, everything he'd seen and heard of Ben-Roi, the more certain he became that this wasn't simply a case of an innocent oversight on the Israeli's part, but a deliberate move to cut him, Khalifa, out of the picture at the crucial moment. Why? A personal thing? Because Ben-Roi didn't like him? Wanted to claim all the credit for the Menorah's discovery himself? Or was there some bigger, more insidious game being played out here, some wider agenda? He had no idea. All he did know was that the Israeli was absolutely not to be trusted.

  He lit another cigarette, drummed his fingers on the desk, then, coming to a decision, picked up the phone and dialled the private mobile number Gulami had given him the other night, in case of emergencies. Five rings, then a voicemail message. He rang off and dialled again. Same result. He called Gulami's office. The minister was in a meeting with President Mubarak, wouldn't be free till the end of the day, not to be disturbed, under any circumstances. Dammit.

  He stood, crossed to the window, rapped his knuckles impatiently on the frame, then went back to his desk and called a contact of his on al-Ahram, asked how he could get in touch with Sa'eb Marsoudi. The contact gave him a contact in Ramallah, who gave him a contact in Jerusalem, who gave him a contact back in Ramallah who gave him the number of an office down in Gaza, which told him they had no idea where Marsoudi was. Bloody dammit!

  He phoned around a while longer, then, having got nowhere, he went down the corridor to splash some water on his face, try and clear his head. As he passed the last office before the washroom he noticed Mohammed Sariya sitting alone at a desk inside, eating his lunch. Feeling a pang of guilt for his earlier behaviour he slowed and put his head through the door.

  'Mohammed?'

  Sariya looked up.

  'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I've been a bit. . .'

  His deputy waved a spring onion at him, dismissing the apology. 'Forgotten.'

  'Nothing important, was it?'

  Sariya bit into the onion.

  'It was just about that doorway.'

  Khalifa shook his head, not understanding.

  'You know, the picture you gave me, the slide. The one you found in Jansen's villa.'

  With so many other things on his mind Khalifa had completely forgotten about it.

  'Listen, can we do this another time, Mohammed? Right at the moment tombs aren't high on my list of priorities.'

  'Sure,' said Sariya. 'Although that's kind of why I thought you might be interested.'

  Again Khalifa shook his head. 'How do you mean?'

  'Well, it wasn't a tomb.'

  'Not a . . . so what was it?'

  'A mine,' said Sariya. 'In Germany. Salt mine to be precise.'

  For a moment Khalifa hovered by the door; then, intrigued despite himself, he came into the room.

  'Go on.'

  His deputy crammed the remainder of the onion into his mouth and, bending down, retrieved a large cardboard folder from beneath the desk, removing first a sheet of A4 paper with notes scribbled all over it, then three large photographs, then the slide Khalifa had found in Hoth's villa.

  'I got a regular six-by-four print done,' he began, indicating the slide, 'but it didn't show anything you couldn't already see. It was only when I got the guys down in photographic to do a proper blow-up that I found something interesting.'

  He held up the first of the large pictures. It was the same doorway Khalifa remembered: dark, forbidding, opening up at the base of a high wall of flat grey rock. Now, however, just above the doorway's lintel, he could make out crude lettering scratched into the bare stone, so faint as to have been invisible on the original slide. He bent forward, squinting at the words.

  'Glück Auf,' he read, struggling with the pronunciation.

  'Means good luck,' explained Sariya. 'German. I spoke to their embassy.'

  'And they could identify the tomb just from that?'

  'Mine,' corrected Sariya. 'And no, they couldn't. It's a traditional miner's greeting, apparently. Used all over Germany.'

  'So how?'

  'Well, just for the hell of it I got the photographic guys to zoom in on the upper part of the door and blow the picture up again, really enlarge it, and . . .' He held up the next print. 'Notice anything?'

  Khalifa ran his eyes over the picture. It seemed exactly the same as the last image, save for what looked like a tiny white blob at the top right-hand corner of the doorway, just below the 'f' of GLÜCK AUF.

  'What's that?'

  'Very good!' said Sariya with a grin. 'We'll make a detective of you yet.'

  He held up the third and final photograph, very grainy, just a small segment of lintel, the word AUF and, beneath it, blurred but legible, painted onto the rock in an area no bigger than the size of a coin, the legend SW16.

  'At first I thought it was graffiti,' he said. 'I sent it over to the embassy anyway, just on the off-chance it might ring a bell. They got in touch with some mining expert back in Germany, and he finally came back to me this morning. It turns
out it's actually—'

  'Part of a numbering system?'

  'Exactly. Used around a town called' – he consulted the note-covered sheet of A4 – 'Berchtesgaden. To identify old salt mines. This particular one's a mine called' – again he consulted his sheet – 'the Berg-Ulmewerk. Abandoned since the end of the nineteenth century. They even faxed me a map and some stuff about its history. Bloody efficient, the Germans.'

  He delved into the cardboard folder again and pulled out a sheaf of fax-paper which he handed to Khalifa, who sat down on the edge of the desk. There were a couple of pages of writing in German – useless, since he couldn't speak the language – a map, and also a picture of a mountain. He couldn't be sure, but with its flat, craggy summit it looked distinctly like the oil painting hanging in Hoth's front room. He felt a slight tightening of his chest, a tickle of adrenalin.