The Masada Faktor (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

M
y last emails to Saul had bounced back saying there was no such email address. His accounts on Twitter and Facebook were deleted and his phone number was disconnected. Meanwhile, Arthur was working on locating him. And when he found him, I had no doubt that Arthur could make him talk.

Later that evening I messaged Absalom on Twitter. The direct message wouldn’t send. Instead, I received an error message saying that the account had been removed by request of the account holder. I tried Facebook, same response. I was stalled out. I phoned Arthur and caught him up and told him it was imperative to find Saul.

Hamas had continually warned Israel about a big surprise with a lot of help from other terrorist organizations and countries. How sardonic if any of the financing had come from stolen Jewish Holocaust money.

Was this The Masada Faktor? They had underground rocket launching sites, command and control rooms, storage, and weapons bunkers. Everything was interconnected between the mosques, schools, and training camps.

It was morbidly interesting and tragic that none of these places were bomb shelters for their people: women, children, elders. This was the real reason there were so many Gazan casualties.

Hamas’ rockets were reaching Tel Aviv and all the way to Haifa. Jerusalem was experiencing a few direct hits and the entire country was on red alert running for shelter.

The underground tunnels were a wild card. Some of these concrete reinforced tunnels were up to ninety feet underground. Who really knew how far they extended? Israeli technology could probably detect them, but we didn’t know if they had actually started looking. People in the North were now reporting digging sounds under their houses and feared the same from Hezbollah.

Hamas had demands. They also had options. We knew that Iran was supplying Hamas with weaponry but we didn’t really know to what extent.

Lior and I sat outside on most of the hot nights for hours watching the starry sky and the planes flying up and down the coast.

On one of those nights, when Lior and I felt as close as sisters, she began to tell me about her relationship with her boyfriend, Menashe.

“Natasha, I am so in love with him.” Lior’s voice was cracking and she couldn’t look into my eyes.

“What is it, Lior? You know you can trust me.” I was curious and wanted to gain her confidence because of what we had been going through together.

“The reason you always have to leave the house when Menashe comes over is because he is extremely jealous. Lior’s voice had risen and she started laughing and crying at the same time.”

“Seriously? Why would he be jealous of me?” I started to implore her to tell me.

“Menashe is possessive. He doesn’t like me to have friends.” Lior was looking away from me again.

“Why not, Lior?” I was trying my best to be understanding but had the sense she was underplaying Menashe’s possessiveness.

“He is insecure. He thinks any friendship that I have, with a woman or man, will detract from we have together.”

Lior started to cry. ”He only wants me, and thinks that I should only want him, no one else. He can become wildly jealous if he thinks I am interested in another man. And because you like to go out, and he thinks you are flirtatious, he said that you are a bad influence on me.”

I thought about what to say to Lior before I started to talk. Lior was quite attractive, you could even say she was beautiful. Petite, with long black hair, she always wore perfect make up, and cute outfits. She could be described as sexy, and I was shocked that she would end up with such a controller.

“Lior, he doesn’t hurt you, does he?” I looked into her eyes to see if she would answer truthfully.

“No, he has never hurt me physically.” Lior wailed, with pain in her voice.

I couldn’t see any reason for Lior to be with a guy like that. Eventually, I knew from experience, that the jealousy would only increase and could cause trouble for Lior. But I had the feeling that if she had to choose between Menashe’s love and my friendship, she would choose him. I could not think of anything to say to comfort her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I
t was hot and I knew I was dreaming. Mother was here and that was impossible. She looked beautiful, and she was angry. “Natasha, what are you doing?”

“I’m in Israel, Mother, looking into your mystery.”

“I didn’t expect you to put your life in danger. I wanted you to turn this over to the authorities. You should go back to America.” Mother was drifting away.

I could hear pounding and awoke to realize it was knocking at the door. I dragged myself out of bed and peeked out. Arthur and Dalia were outside and from the serious look on their faces I knew that something was up.

Arthur was not just what he appeared to be. He was doing tour guide work to supplement his income but he did investigative work as well. From the time that he had landed in Israel during the Six Day War on June 10, 1967 at eighteen years old, he had been fearless.

Arthur burst out saying, “Saul is dead. He committed suicide in Key Largo, Florida.” Arthur was shaking his head.

I was speechless and Dalia came to me and wrapped her arms around me. Then I went to make a pot of coffee and we sat outside speaking quietly. Lior was still in bed. I hadn’t shared the story of Mother’s last wish with her.

“That is not the only thing I have to tell you,” Arthur said, “There is more about Saul.”

Dalia was babbling, going on and on about what Arthur had come across about Saul. I asked her to slow down. Although her English was excellent, she was getting some words jumbled.

“
Sheket
Dalia, Quiet! Lior is still in bed and she knows nothing of The Masada Faktor.” I was shushing Dalia but I wasn’t exactly speaking low myself. We both just looked at each other with wide open eyes.

“Saul was mentally ill,” Arthur began, “We found out that he had been hospitalized and plus he had a criminal record.” Arthur had a briefcase with him and took out what looked like a hospital report and also a rap sheet from Monroe County, Florida.

I wasn’t surprised that Arthur had obtained a copy of Saul’s criminal record, but health records are impossible to get hold of for individuals in America with the new confidentiality laws. The criminal report stated that Saul’s juvenile record had been sealed, but the adult record detailed a variety of misdemeanors with county jail time served and one felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon.

“Did he go to state prison?” I knew that conviction of a felony included punishment in a state penitentiary for at least one year.

“No,” Arthur continued. “Because of his mental illness, he did not. Saul had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and hospitalized for twelve months in lieu of going to prison for his violent felony conviction.”

I began to read the health records which were further unnerving.

Dissociative identity disorder is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. Dissociative identity disorder is a coping mechanism and thought to stem from trauma experienced by the person with the disorder. The person literally dissociates himself from a situation or experience that’s too violent, traumatic, or painful to assimilate with his conscious self.

The patient had suffered physical and emotional abuse as a child and due to this trauma had created another personality that would immerge in stressful situations. That second personality was actually a balance to Saul’s violent personality. The other personality was named Absalom, and it appeared that he was the good side of Saul.

Saul was aware that Absalom existed but was not able to control when Absalom was present. It was apparent that Absalom would appear to balance Saul’s criminal behavior and his reliance on alcohol as self-medication.

An unusual aspect of the diagnosis is that because Saul was aware of Absalom’s existence, he periodically simulates the other’s personality to trick and/or confuse health care staff.

Saul appears to suffer from many traits of DID: depression, mood swings, suicidal tendencies, anxiety, alcohol abuse, and sexual compulsions. It is thought, but not proven, that Absalom is aware of Saul’s existence.

I didn’t read any further. I was speechless, in shock really. Absalom was Saul. Arthur said he was glad Saul was dead. I was thinking about the effect of the Holocaust on the children of survivors. But I couldn’t comprehend the whole story.

Saul was dead. I wouldn’t hear from Absalom again. Tajir was in custody. That left Millie Stone out there. I needed time to think.

Arthur had found more information about the group of Nazis originally involved in The Masada Faktor. I don’t know how he did it but his investigative skills were superb. He had connections in Israel that he couldn’t speak about. He pulled out an additional folder. He wanted to read it to me and Dalia. With a serious voice he began to read the report out loud:

“The Nazi named Erich had been sought out and recruited by the CIA, and moved to America. He married an American woman and did not want to sabotage his new found luck; so he decided to forget The Masada Faktor.”

Arthur continued reading and started adding his own twists, and was clearly enjoying himself, “Bruno the Nazi junkie died of a heroin overdose in 1950 without having had children.”

“You know Gustav, the macho Nazi commandant?” Arthur laughed. “As it turned out Gustav was a homosexual and he decided to stop pretending to like women and accepted himself as gay. Needless to say, he brought no progeny into this world to further The Masada Faktor. So he continued to cultivate his liaison with Hershel the Kapo. He kept in close contact with Saul’s father all throughout the years after World War II.”

“The Nazi Erich actually worked for the CIA?” I wanted to know everything.

Arthur took a sip of coffee and continued, “This is good. Erich went to work for the CIA, and supposedly gave up all Nazi contact. Well, as it turns out, he was a double agent, still working for Odessa. He is currently in federal prison in North Carolina.”

“As for our fellow Jew, Hershel, he, of course, recruited his son Saul who would become the recipient of a million dollars for his participation.”

“Gustav died in 1968 and Hershel continued his role to groom his son Saul who had accepted the assignment wholeheartedly.”

“Now to the connection with Millie Stone. The Nazi Oskar excelled in his participation and lived a long life. Oskar died in 2011 in Munich, Germany. It is suspected that Millie’s mother was to be the next in line to continue the plan, but she had mental problems, so Millie was to take over and was also offered a million dollars as enticement.”

“And we knew the Nazi Joachim was Tajir’s father and that he had a massive stroke and was living in a care facility. Tajir has brothers, and we do not know if they are involved. We don’t know yet what the status of charges against Tajir are. You may be called to testify against him.” Arthur stopped talking.

Then the three of us started talking about what we thought Millie might be up to. I suspected that Millie might have been assigned to have me killed but not right away. It seemed that first they wanted to know if anyone was working with me. “I am afraid that you guys may be in danger and possibly Lior too.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Dalia was saying, but her eyes did not look convincing.

I told the Goldins that I thought Millie feared that I might find some credible information that I could turn over to the Israeli government that would alert them and ruin the plan before the culmination which had been so heinously deliberated.

But Arthur thought differently. “According to my contact at the
Shin Bet
, The Masada Faktor was already being taking seriously by the Israeli government, although they think the plan became diluted over the years.”

“They knew about The Masada Faktor?” I was aghast.

“Yes, they know everything. And I filled them in on some details that they didn’t know. I have turned over the copy of the German document to the
Shin Bet
.” Arthur looked serious, “And they want you to be careful. But since Tajir is in jail and Saul is dead, they think you will be all right.”