The Last Secret Of The Temple (45 page)

Aside from a few snatched minutes here and there he hadn't slept for seventy-two hours, and he was shattered, more shattered than he'd ever thought it possible to be, everything inside his head all fogged up and confused so that he was no longer entirely sure what the fuck he was doing any more, or why he was doing it. Three days ago it had all seemed so clear: the article, the interviews, the aftershave – it had all fitted, all tied in. Keep her close, keep watch, wait for the cracks to appear. But the cracks hadn't appeared – she was too clever, too controlled – so that despite himself he was starting to have doubts, to wonder if maybe he'd got the whole thing wrong (the way she'd been with Schlegel just now . . . could someone like that . . . ?). Sure, he still had the bellyache – God, did he have the bellyache! – but could he trust it? Could he trust himself? He didn't know, he just didn't fucking know any more. And he never would unless they could find the Menorah. That's when she'd—

'What do we do now?'

'Hmm?' He was still half-sunk in his reverie.

'What do we do now?' Layla repeated.

He shook his head, trying to drag himself back into the present. 'Pray that schmuck Khalifa's found something.'

'And if he hasn't?'

'Then we get back on the phones. And we stay on them till we find what we're looking for.'

He slowed and looked across at her, pupils swelling with suspicion and antipathy, before turning away again and striding on down the hill, Layla trailing in his wake. At the bottom they got into his BMW and drove out through the hospital's white metal gates, turning onto the main highway back towards central Jerusalem. As they did so, just for an instant, Layla caught sight of a blue Saab parked on the forecourt of a derelict garage on the corner opposite the hospital entrance, the driver leaning forward over his wheel apparently staring directly at them. It only lasted a split-second and then they were past and speeding off back into the city.

Behind them, Avi Steiner started the Saab's engine.

'OK, they're moving again,' he murmured into his walkie-talkie. 'Kanfei Nesharim, eastbound. I'm with them.'

He engaged first and slipped out into the traffic, weaving his way through the cars until he was hovering directly on their tail.

Back in his office, Khalifa crunched a pickled turnip from the bag of
torshi
he'd bought on the way back from Hoth's villa and, with a reluctant sigh, lifted the telephone and dialled Ben-Roi's mobile number. The line rang four times, then clicked into life. As usual, the Israeli didn't bother with formalities.

'So?'

'Nothing,' replied the Egyptian.

'Fuck it!'

'You?'

'What does it fucking sound like?'

Khalifa shook his head, wondering if the man was capable of forming a sentence that didn't hinge on an expletive. Never in his life . . .

'You've seen the brother again?' he asked, trying to keep his voice civil, not to dwell on how utterly objectionable he found the Israeli.

'Just finished with him.'

'And?'

'Fuck all. The man's a zombie. Just sits there fiddling with his book making weirdo humming noises.'

There was the echo of a female voice – Layla al-Madani, presumably – asking Ben-Roi what was being said, the Israeli responding with an aggressive 'Wait, will you!'

'And there was definitely nothing in Hoth's house?' Ben-Roi's voice stormed down the line again. 'You're certain?'

'Certain,' replied Khalifa. 'I've gone over every inch of it.'

'The garden?'

'That too.'

'What about—'

'And his car. And his hotel. And the Alexandria Police have gone over his former residence. There's nowhere left to look, Ben-Roi. Not here. Not in Egypt. There's nothing.'

'Well, you must have missed something.'

'I have not missed anything.' Khalifa clenched his fist. 'There's nothing here, I tell you.'

'Well, just keep looking.'

'You're not listening to me. There's nowhere left. What do you want me to do? Dig up the whole of Luxor?'

'If that's what it takes, yes! We have to find it. I have to—'

The Israeli broke off, abruptly, as if reining himself back from some comment he hadn't wanted to make. There was a fractional pause, then he resumed, struggling to keep his voice level.

'You know what's at stake here. Just keep looking.'

The Egyptian threw up a hand helplessly. Like talking to a bloody brick wall! He mumbled a tight-lipped 'OK, OK, I'll see what I can do' and leant forward, ready to put down the phone.

'What's the book, by the way?' he asked.

'What?'

'You said Schlegel's brother had a book.'

There was another fractional pause, the Israeli clearly floored by the question, then a brief muttered exchange as he asked Layla. The next thing, so loud it made Khalifa jerk the receiver away from his ear, there was a high-pitched squeal of tyres on tarmac as of a car abruptly changing direction, accompanied by a chorus of outraged beeping.

'Ben-Roi?'

'I'll get back to you!' shouted the Israeli. Then, to Layla, 'Why the fuck didn't you—'

The line went dead.

The young man picked his way carefully across the building site, a heavy holdall clutched in his right hand, stopping frequently to check he wasn't being watched or followed, an unnecessary precaution since the site had been abandoned for the last five months, and anyway, it was way out on the fringes of the city, well beyond any populated areas. He passed a pile of breeze-blocks, skirted a network of crumbling foundation trenches from which lines of rusted iron rods stuck up like wind-blasted saplings, before eventually coming to a large metal shipping container at the very centre of the site, its door secured with a chunky padlock. After taking another cautious look around he produced a bolt-cutter from the holdall, snapped the lock and, easing open the door, went inside, the air hot and musty, thick with the smell of dust and tar. At the far end lay a crumpled heap of tarpaulin – the interior's only contents – and, crossing to this, he carefully concealed the holdall beneath it, smoothing the material back to its original shape before going outside again and re-securing the door with a new padlock. He threw a final lingering glance around, then removed a single key from his pocket, stooped and buried it in the sand at the container's front left-hand corner before straightening and hurrying back across the site, the tassles of his
tallit katan
flicking from beneath his shirt like anenome tentacles swirling in a strong current.

'Why the fuck didn't you tell us this before?'

'Because you didn't ask,' snapped Dr Gilda Nissim, striding ahead of them down the corridor towards Isaac Schlegel's room. 'I might be a psychiatrist, but that doesn't mean I can read people's minds! And kindly control your language!'

Ben-Roi opened his mouth, apparently about to yell at her. Somehow he managed to control himself and instead just let out an exasperated growl. Layla quickened her pace, coming up level with the doctor.

'And you say his sister gave it to him just before she left for Egypt?'

Nissim gave a curt nod, clearly struggling to master her own temper. 'Mrs Schlegel stopped off on her way to the airport. Spent fifteen minutes with him, gave him the book, then left again. It was the last time he ever saw her. He hasn't let it out of his sight since.'

'For fuck's sake!' muttered Ben-Roi underneath his breath, glowering at the back of the doctor's head.

They reached Schlegel's room, but instead of stopping Nissim led them on down the hallway and out through a set of glass doors at the far end of the unit, explaining that at this time of the morning her patient liked to sit outside in the sunshine. They climbed a set of steps up through a rockery planted with flowering geraniums and purple-headed lavender bushes, then followed a narrow, white-stone path up to the very top of the hospital compound, where there was a grassy knoll surrounded by pine trees, very still, very peaceful, the air redolent with the bitter-sweet tang of pine needles, the hazy forest sea of the Judean Hills spreading out all around. Nissim nodded towards a solitary figure sitting alone on a concrete bench at the far side of the knoll, and, throwing Ben-Roi a severe look over the tops of her glasses, withdrew. The two of them continued walking until they reached the bench, Ben-Roi taking up position behind it, Layla sitting down beside the old man. The book, as ever, was clasped tightly in his lap. She laid a hand gently on his arm.

'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.