The Silk Trap. A Novel in 43 Chapters
Chapter 29: Artur’s tour of the Jebel.
Artur sat quietly as Michel poured his heart out to him about what had happened in the last 24 hours to him and Lara.
He told Artur about his fight with Lara and how she disappeared from the hotel, and how Michel found her drugged and smuggled away by a gang of four men who later revealed themselves to be police officers. He described in detail his journey following the ambulance that Lara was shifted into when they reached Liberec and how Magda, the kind cab driver, helped him. Michel spoke emotionally about how Magda saw one of the police officers carrying Lara’s scarf and some of her belongings in a bag up to the Jebel hotel to hand it over to someone there. But as Michel gulped the last sip of his pint of lager, he confessed he had lost Lara’s trail. He now had no idea where to look for Lara. All his roads have somehow melted into thin air.
Artur rubbed his hands over his mortar shell scarred chin and said, “You have been through a lot, my friend. No wonder I found you drowning in your tears in the church.”
“But can I ask you something?” Artur looked at Michel intently as he asked this,
“Yes, what do you want to know? Michel replied.
“Is Lara a close friend of yours?”
Michel’s eyes misted over with emotion, and he answered, “I am in love with her, and she is my best friend.” Then Michel paused and continued, “But she does not know that I am in love with her. I was going to tell her in Prague. In fact, I invited her to a surprise long weekend here to tell her this and ask her to be my girlfriend.”
“But she was abducted before you could tell her this? Artur asked, leaning forward to confirm his suspicion.
“Yes.” was all Michel could muster before he had to look away from Artur to hide a fresh trickle of tears.
Michel felt a gentle, comforting rub on his back from Artur. It was the kind of caring touch that only a father reserved for his son, something Michel never really go from his father while growing up.
It was getting close to 8 pm, and the sun was starting to set, lighting up the sky into a symphony of red and pink tones. Artur suggested that they head back to the hotel because he wanted to show Michel something there that might help him find Lara.
As they entered the Jebel reception, Artur asked Michel to accompany him to the back of the hotel.
“What I am about to show you has always confused me until now, but now hearing your story, I think it could explain something,” Artur said as he opened a metal door in the pantry that led down a long set of stairs that opened out to the lawns at the back of the hotel.
They both looked out, and in front of their eyes lay a sprawling labyrinth of old Cyprus trees and romanesque marble and stone statues littered all around the garden.
“This is the old Liberec cemetery,” Artur began. “It was here before the Jebel complex was designed. This cemetery dates back to the 15th century. Most of the graves were moved out, but about 100 graves were left behind as there was no money left for the transfer. This whole garden is a private garden belonging to the jebel hotel now, and no tourists are allowed in. But as I am a staff member and know the hotel Director well, we are both ex-army. So I have the key to this section.” You can only come in through that pantry door in the basement, and then you have to climb up to get to the hotel kitchen.
The place looked overgrown and forgotten. There were old drums and washing machines and ovens left around rusting. Michel saw that the place was in bad shape and looked spooky, to say the least. Artur kept walking past the junk and to the wall at the end of the cemetery. The wall was old and in need of serious repair. But Artur kept walking along the wall until he almost reached the far end of the wall. They were now at least a thousand meters away from the hotel door. Michel was lagging. Artur called him to come and see something on the ground that he was looking at.
“Look, I have never quite understood this.” Michel looked down at what Artur was pointing at. He saw an old rusted hatch of a tanker mysteriously sunk deep into the ground next to some ancient gravestones. It was the diameter of about a foot across, which could allow one person to enter and exit from it. But the strangest thing about it was that it looked used with footsteps clearly visible around it.
Artur looked back at Michel and said, “we should not hang around here too much if we are being watched. But you see, this thing feels quite unusual in the middle of an abandoned graveyard, and the fact someone uses it off and on tells me that there is something under there that I don’t know about.”
As they walked away from the hatch, Artur continued speaking, although in a more hushed voice.
“I do know that there are ancient tunnels in this cemetery that run from the hill down to the plains below, which are about a kilometer long until they emerge close to the highway that leads to Germany.” I have been one of them, but I think it might be blocked now due to rain.
Artur continued to talk fast as they reached the metal door that led up to the hotel, “ It is said that the invading Moorish generals built the ancient tunnels in the 15th century to reach the city and surprise the armies of the local Christian kings who lived in Liberec below. The tunnels were kept alive until the Second World War when the Czeck resistance used them to fight the invading German army and hide in them after organizing surprise attacks on passing convoys. There are even some tunnels that connect the Jebel to the main city, but I don't have a clue if any of them are still active.”
Artur had reached the main reception by now and saw one of the managers coming towards Michel and him, so he hurried to finish his thought, “If Lara is somewhere here, then that secret hatch and those tunnels could be hiding something; that might lead us to her.”