Selected Detective
OLD SALT MINES

“Hmm, have him call me, can ya? Khalifas. Khalifa! Kal-ee-fa. Yes, of course he knows.... Whahuh? Yeah, it's very important. Very urgent. sorry? ok, all right, thank you, thank you.” Khalifa put down the phone. For a moment he sat in his place, rubbing his temple; then he stood up and exited the office across the corridor to another room, taking the atlas from the bookshelf on the wall. He went back to his desk, then quickly opened his index, then opened the relevant page and began tracing the latitude and longitude lines with his fingers until he could find the location of the name of the place he wanted: Salzburgs. He lit his cigarette and began to look carefully.

It's been an hour since he last talked to Ben-Roi. As agreed, he had to wait for the Israelite to call him back; then, having heard nothing from him and impatient to know what, if anything, was, what they found from Schlegel's brother Khalifa contacted his mobile phone. Been busy. He waited five minutes, then called back. He called for a third time, ten minutes after that, but now the number was turned off.

For no reason that he could explain, he began to feel an uneasy feeling in his stomach, a faint sign of a problem that grew stronger with the passage of time and the state of the phone that remained dead, he said, until finally, he was sure something must be wrong, so he called the David Police Station.

Since it was his first meeting with the Israeli police bureaucracy, he had to build a deal with the barrier wall before it was finally connected to the secretary who was in stuttering English, detective Inspector Ben-Roi and his partner are on their way to Austria. To Salzburg why and when they came back, he did not know.

Even if he knows, he also has no right to disclose the information. Khalifa wanted to urge him, wanting to talk to someone higher up, but that would mean revealing why he was so eager to contact the detective; and since all affairs relating to this Menorah should be treated as confidential, he had no choice but to withdraw, after asking the secretary to relay a message to Ben-Roi to call him back when he makes contact with her.

“What is he doing?” he muttered to himself, staring at the open atlas below. “What ..?” The door of his room opened and Muhammad Sariya poked his head into the room.

“Not now, Muhammad.”

“I can...”.

“I said no now! I'm busy!” His tone is sharper than he intended, but the news of Ben-Roi has confused him and he is not in a comfortable mood for a jest. Sariya looked somewhat surprised by her rude attitude, but said nothing, just shrugged, raised her hand as if apologizing and pulled away again, closing the door behind her. Khalifa thought to pursue him she had never been rude to her deputy, never but she was too uptight now, and instead she sucked deeply what was still left on her cigarette, throw the tip out the window and drown his head in both hands.

They found something, in such a way, at least quite obvious. Something important. Something that required them to go all the way to Austria to pursue it. For a moment he wonders if he overreacted, whether there is an innocent explanation of Ben-Roi's silence, as he forgot to call him out of eagerness to dig up new findings, or was unable to get a signal on his cell phone and he was so hasty in chasing the plane that there was no time to stop and use the coin phone.

Butno. The more he thinks about it, the more he rethinks everything that happened over the past few days, everything he saw and heard from Ben-Roi, he said, it made him feel certain that this was not just a case of accidental negligence on the part of the Israeli, but a deliberate movement to cut his way, Khalifa, out of the picture scenario at this crucial moment. wh why? personal issue? Because Ben-Roi doesn't like it? Want to claim all the awards have found Menorah for itself? Or, is there a bigger and foul game being played here, an even wider agenda? He doesn't know. The only thing he knew was that this Israelite was absolutely not to be trusted.

Khalifa lit another cigarette, tapped her finger at the table, and finally decided to pick up the phone and dial the personal mobile phone number Gulami had given her the night before, in case she was in an emergency. Five rings, then an answering machine. He shut down and started calling back. Much the same. The Minister is holding a meeting with President Mubarak, will not be able to be contacted until night, cannot be disturbed, under any circumstances. Damnit.

He stood up, approached the window, tapped his finger on the window frame impatiently, then went back to his desk and called an acquaintance at Al-Ahram, asking how he could communicate with Sa’ib Marsudi.

His friend gave him the number of someone in Ramallah, who then gave him contacts in Jerusalem, who gave him contacts again in Ramallah and then gave him the number of an office in Gaza, yang tells her that they don't know where Marsudi is. Damn right!

He called anyone for a while, then, not knowing where to go, he went down the corridor to wash his face, and tried to cool his head. As soon as he passed the last workspace before the toilet, he noticed Muhammad Sariya sitting alone at his desk, enjoying her lunch, he stopped and turned his head at the door.

“Muhammad.” Sariya raised her face.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you like that. I'm a little bit...” His deputy waved the chives at him, ignoring his apology. “Forget it!”

“Nothing important, ’kan?” Sariya bit her bag.

“Only about door, kok.” Khalifa shook her head, not understanding.

“You know, that picture you gave me, that slide. The one you found in his villa Jansen.” With so much in mind, Khalifa had completely forgotten about that thing.

“Listen, can we do this another time, Muhammad? At the moment the tomb is not my priority.”

“Sure,” says Sariya. “Although that's why I thought you'd be interested in him.” Khalifa shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“Yahh, this is not a tomb.”

“Not ... so what?”

“Mining,” says Sariya. “In Germany. Salt mining, exactly.” For a moment Khalifa was silent at the door; then tempted too, she went into the room.

“I can size six times four which as usual,” Sariya start, while pointing at the slide,

“But not showing anything so you can not see it. Only after I asked the children in the photography section to enlarge the picture, I found something interesting.”

He holds the first big photo. It was the same door that Khalifa remembered: dark, forbidden, opening upward at the base of a high wall of gray flat stone. Now, just above the door frame, he can clarify the letters that were roughly written on the rough stone surface, so smooth that they were not visible on the original slide. He bowed, watching the written words.

“Gluck Auf,” he read, stammered in his pronunciation.

“That means good luck,” explained Sariya. “German. I spoke to his Embassy.”

“And they can identify the tomb only from it?”

“Mining,” says Sariya correcting. “And no, they can't. This is a greeting of traditional miners, actually. Used throughout Germany.”

“So how?”

“Well, for that matter, I have the photography people enlarge the top of the door and enlarge the picture again, really raise it, and..” He also lifted the next print.

“Capture something?” Khalifa takes a look at the entire surface of the photo.

It looks exactly the same as the last picture, except for something like a small white spark above the right corner of the door, under the letter “f” from GLUCK AUF.

“What is it?”

“Good!” sariya said with a big smile. “We will make the detection.”

He held up the third and final photo, very clearly, just a small segment of the door frame, the AUf said underneath it had been faint but readable, inscribed on a stone in an area no larger than the size of a coin, the legend of SW16.

“At first I thought it was graffiti,” he said. “I sent him to the Embassy, who knows could give you a sign.they got in touch with a mining expert in Germany, and finally contacted me this morning. It was revealed that it was actually..”.

“Part of numbering system?”

“Accurate once. Usually around the city named..” he saw first on the A4 sheet full of notes “Berchtesgaden. To identify old salt mines. This special mining named..” He looked again at his note “Berg-Ulmewerk. Abandoned since the end of the nineteenth century, they even sent me a map and some things about its history. Very efficient these German people.” He reached into the folder again and took out the facsimile paper, then gave it to Khalifa, who was sitting at the end of her desk.

There were some pages with useless German inscriptions, because he could not use the language as a map, nor as an image of a mountain. He could not be sure, but with its flat, rugged top it looked differently like an oil painting hanging in the front room of the Hoth house. He felt his chest tighten a little, a boost to his adrenaline.

“This city, Berder what it is. Where exactly?”

“Berchtesgaden,” his deputy corrects. “South germany. Near the border with Austria.” There was a moment's pause, then Khalifa stood up and took a quick step into her study. The map was still open on his desk and grabbing it, he began to focus his eyes on each page.

Exactly five seconds for him to find what he wants. Berchtesgad. Less than twenty kilometers from Salzburg, which is the nearest airport. He picked up the phone and dialed the number. Three rings, then Chief Hasani's voice is heard in the telephone line.

“Pak? Khalifas. I want to apply for travel costs.” I heard a small mutter.

“I'm worried a little higher than that, Sir.” He bit his lips. “Austria.” The murmur suddenly became louder.