The Masada Faktor (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I
was waiting for the #57 bus at the Hadera Central Bus Station to get to Netanya. The bus was late. A young IDF soldier carrying his automatic weapon sat down on the bench next to me. I could see the big gold bullets, which I had never noticed before, in the chamber of his weapon. I had seen many, many soldiers, male and female, carrying automatic weapons but never noticed seeing the bullets.

A second soldier joined us. We waited for the bus together. They both wore
yarmulkes
, or
kippahs
as they are called in Israel. The dome-like cap is worn in deference to God.

The soldiers were young but confident. The first soldier’s name was Eli, and we ended up deciding to become Facebook friends. Eli told me he was going home for
Shabbat
and wanted to tell his uncle, who was single, about me. I was all for it.

The bus arrived twenty-five minutes late. I chose a window seat. The temperature outside was eighty-six degrees. I was still thinking in Fahrenheit, simply couldn’t help it. The humidity was rising. I heard Hebrew and Russian being spoken.

I was looking upward into the sky. What if I saw a rocket? The bus driver had his radio set to the news. My Hebrew had improved. I could understand much of what I heard but was still struggling with the verbal. Ashdod took a hit on a gas station that morning.

Trying to pinpoint my emotions at that moment I noticed that I felt an immense solidarity with my country and was so proud of our ability to defend ourselves. The rising Third Intifada was already being fought in the media with propaganda and psychological warfare. I was getting so tired of the whole situation and wondering when it would end. We were about to pass the Laniado and Olga Interchange.

I was headed for Laniado Hospital, which was on the way to Netanya, because of an interesting email I’d received. It was about a possible connection related to the founder of the Laniado Hospital who, like Mother’s father, was from Cluj, Romania in Western Transylvania and ended up in Auschwitz.

The writer of the email explained that her father was the founder of the hospital. He was a rabbi who lost his first wife, their eleven children, and most of his followers at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust, and had known Mother’s father before the War. The rabbi survived and went to America, then Netanya. In 1975 he founded this hospital to be run according to Jewish Law. He had since died, but this daughter who wrote to me, worked at the hospital and wanted to meet me.

Mother’s father had been involved with the Satmar Rebbe clan in Transylvania and yes, it was quite possible that he knew this Rabbi. But for someone to contact me about this connection from seventy to eighty years ago sounded convoluted to me. It seemed fishy and I would be on guard, but my curiosity could not keep me away.

I needed to get off at the Olga Interchange and take a connecting bus. I didn’t know a thing about Laniado Hospital so I did my due diligence the night before online. I found that the hospital had triaged many wounded people after a multitude of terrorist attacks and suicide bombings during the Second Intifada.

During that time, there were twenty Netanya-area suicide bombings, including the Passover massacre of 2002 by Hamas at the Park Hotel. That one was considered the deadliest in the Second Intifada when thirty civilians and 140 were injured.

In 2002 Operation Defensive Shield was launched in the West Bank to try to stop the suicide bombings in Israel. Looking for any underlying connections to the reason I was being led to the Laniado Hospital, I considered whether there was some comparison between the current Operation Protective Edge and the previous Operation Defensive Shield.

I was over thinking everything. Perhaps nothing was connected to The Masada Faktor and everything was simply random. Arthur had said that the
Shin Bet
felt that the Masada Faktor was handled, except for Millie. I felt like I was losing my mind. But as long as Millie Stone was still out there, I needed to follow every lead.

And so I made my way to the hospital. I would go in and look around and see if anything happened. Instinctively, I felt like the person who sent the email was Millie and not the Rabbi’s daughter. In case that turned out to be true, I texted Arthur to let him know where I was going, just in case.

When I got to the hospital I went directly to the cafeteria and ordered an iced tea. This was a huge medical complex serving a population of 450,000. I supposed that because I had posted photos of myself online, that whoever was to meet me might know what I looked like.

The email had said that the person would meet me in the cafeteria, but I had no idea what the person meeting me would look like. Unless, of course, it was Millie Stone.

It was the designated time, and I sat there drinking my iced tea while looking at the hustle bustle of this amazing place. Then a woman with blonde hair sat down at my table. She didn’t say a word, she was simply glaring at me.

I did a double take, suddenly realizing it was Millie. She was dressed in a tan trench coat despite the hot temperature. I was staring at her, as she wore a long blond wig and heavy makeup.

There was no doubt it was her, no mistaking that German accent when she said, “So we meet again.” Millie’s eyes were darting around which reminded me of the first time we had met.

“Again with the mystery? What do you want, Millie?” I was in no mood to play games.

“You are going to come with me,” a sing-song tone to her voice seemed higher pitched than normal and she had an odd aura about her, almost calm but extremely intense.

“No, I am not! I am not going anywhere with you Millie.” I was adamant. “Tell me once and for all how deeply you are involved in the conspiracy to destroy Israel!”

That seemed to anger her as she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You will come with me now, or I will detonate the suicide belt that I am wearing under this coat, and you and everyone in this hospital will blow.”

We both stood up at the same time and she put her arm in my arm and smiled. Loudly announcing, “It is so good to see you darling, let’s go for a walk.”

She gave the impression that she knew where she was taking me. There was a park like setting on the medical campus in the distance. She led me holding tightly to my arm and we walked for a long time until we reached a pond with a bench.

I heard birds chirping and the breeze was sweetened by some flowers, but I realized that I didn’t know their names. I thought that if I made it through this day alive, I would make an effort to learn all about Israel’s flowers and birds. First I would go to the Botanical Gardens in Jerusalem and then …

Millie pulled me hard toward a bench, disrupting my thoughts about birds and flowers and we sat down. People walked by us, not suspecting that she was ready to explode.

“You killed Saul!” Millie hissed, actually spitting on me.

“No, Millie, Saul committed suicide.” I was breathing deeply, trying to stay calm and wiping her saliva off of my face.

“You are responsible. You killed him! And you are responsible for Tajir being in police custody.”

“I have an idea about what happened to you Millie, and I am sorry that your childhood was stolen from you, the same as it was from Saul. But it is not my fault. What do you want from me?” I didn’t know what to say to her. She was clearly insane.

I thought about my life and how it could be ending shortly. I wondered if anyone would miss me. Perhaps I had to accept the way my life was going to end. But I had things to do. Stuff to accomplish. I was still discovering my talents and abilities and hadn’t yet gotten married. If I died on this day, that would be it. I told myself I had to fight. Mother would want me to fight.

“You think you are so smart.” Millie’s eyes were rolling around, she seemed to be watching everything at once but at the same time she looked terribly out of control.

I knew at this point that Millie was homicidal but wasn’t sure if she was actually suicidal. I had to keep her talking. “Tell me everything Millie, please. I am ready to die if that is what you want but you may as well explain.”

“Okay, you bitch, I will tell you. Why not? I loved Saul and he loved me. We were going to be together. We met five years ago and we have spent lots of time together all over the world. It was all planned. As soon as we found out if you told anyone about The Masada Faktor and then dispose of you, we would each have received our million dollars. And it would have been our time to be together.”

I couldn’t help myself from letting out a tirade. “Don’t you realize that a perfidious Jew is the worse type of traitor? What about Israel? What was the plan? Was it really the tunnels or was it something more, like a nuclear bomb?”

I had to know and I had to make her tell me. At that point she jumped up and grabbed me by the arm again. I was scared but resolved to make the last few moments of my life count.

“Please don’t hurt other people.” Because we were walking back into an area where there were people, I couldn’t let her blow herself up and kill innocents.

When we got near the parking structure a white van pulled up and the side door slid open. She pushed me in. My mind was working furiously and I was trying to figure out how I could signal Arthur. I should have phoned him before I left and coordinated something.

She jumped in after me and tore off her wig and the trench coat. There was no suicide belt. She had tricked me. The driver, who I had never seen before, took off fast and we both lost our footing and fell backward in the rear of the van.

“You idiot,” Millie bellowed to the driver, “Slow down so we don’t attract attention.”

I didn’t know if she had a weapon, but she hadn’t shown any at that point. And the guy was busy driving. I was thinking, trying to formulate a plan. The first thing I did was look for the handle to get the sliding door open. But then Millie told me to lay face down on the floor of the van.

“Make me,” I said to her with all the false courage I could muster. And then I saw that she had a syringe in her hand. She didn’t have the chance to stick me because I punched her right in the nose with my fist as hard as I could. She started howling and the blood was spurting from her nose, and we became locked in a wrestling match.

The syringe had fallen out of her hand and the driver was driving erratically. He pulled over and jumped back and began to help Millie, so I lost my hold on her. They tied me up and blindfolded me. And then I felt the sting of the syringe in my neck.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I
was dreaming about the Nili Spy Ring that had been so brave in World War I, trying to stop the deportation of the Jews in Israel by the Turks. I had been to the First Aliyah Museum in Zichron Yaakov and was mesmerized by the story. In the dream I was part of the spy ring.

But then I woke up in the van which was now parked. I was still tied up, but alone. My mouth was like cotton and my head was pounding. My clothes were drenched in sweat and I had Millie’s blood splattered all over me.

I was able to loosen the blindfold by doing head rolls. But I couldn’t see outside. My hands were tied up tightly behind my back. They didn’t do such a good job tying my ankles and I was able to get out of that rope and up on my knees and then looked out through the space between the two front seats through the windshield.

They were outside the van arguing in German. I didn’t understand German but I did understand Yiddish and there were many similarities between the two languages.

Millie was talking about leaving Israel and the guy was telling her she couldn’t. “
Ermorden die Frau
,” he was shouting that over and over at her. He was telling her to murder me! I heard a blast, from the gun going off.

I had opted to play dead, something I remembered from watching Westerns when I was a kid and had gotten back down a second before the side door slid open. I snuck a peek, it was Millie. She had a lot of blood on her. Some from her nose, and the rest mixed in from splatter from the driver who was lying dead or wounded, I wasn’t sure.

Then Millie kicked me hard in the ribs and got in behind the steering wheel, not seeing that my blindfold was off since I was face down. We were off again. I couldn’t react to the kick and play dead at the same time. She thought I was still unconscious. Somehow I had to untie my wrists, because I knew I was next. Dammit, I should have brought the Glock 19.

The van stopped. I wasn’t sure how long we had driven but I sensed that we were driving up a hill. “Millie,” I spoke her name in sort of a hushed tone, trying to make my voice friendly, “Listen, let’s talk. We can figure this out together. Are you still working with anyone? Who is in charge?”

She did not respond but the van stopped. She got out and opened the side door and just stared at me.

I had an idea. “Let me help you clean that blood off of you. I have some wet wipes in my backpack. I am so sorry I hit you in the nose. I just lost control. Millie, please untie my hands.”

She grabbed my backpack and dumped everything out and found the wipes and began to clean her face and hands. I kept talking, urging her to think about the situation. “I can tell the police that you shot that guy in self-defense, they will understand.”

“Shut up! I have to think,” she said. “Everything has changed. Saul is gone.”

While she was busy cleaning herself I thought about my phone and wallet, and remembered that I had put them into my pockets. That wasn’t much but it gave me some hope.

“You have a good job as a flight attendant. You can do that and forget about all of this,” I was racking my brains trying to think of some way to untie myself but came up blank.

She had put her gun down on the van floor while she was wiping the blood off her face and I was able to scoot out. I kicked the gun at the same time which sent it flying into the bushes on the side of the road. My hands were still tied but I was now standing outside the van. “Where are we?”

I didn’t expect an answer but she said, “Zichron Yaakov.” She pushed me hard and I rolled into a dried prickly bush which scratched me quite severely on my legs and arms.

The harder I tried to get up the more scratches I got. Then I saw her looking for the gun and I got my footing and began to run down the hill through more of those awful bushes. It was hard to run with my hands tied behind me.

She didn’t look for the gun too long, as I soon heard the engine start and could hear her driving away and the crunch on the gravel. I was so surprised that she let me go, but she probably didn’t want to run into those bushes after me.

Finally I got my wrists free by rubbing against a sharp rock. I don’t know how long it took but I thanked God that I had my cell phone and wallet in my pockets. I called Arthur. I felt pretty beat up and didn’t know what drug had been injected in me, although I was quite clear headed by then.

Arthur was not able to come for me but I wasn’t far from Hadera according to Google maps on my phone. I called a taxi service and by chance an English speaker answered. I explained my location according to the GPS and she said the taxi would be there as soon as possible.

I had a lot of Millie’s blood on me and my scratches were bloody. My dress was ripped and my hair was wild. The driver was alarmed by my appearance and offered me a bottle of water. He wanted to call the police but I said, “No. Take me to Hadera!”

Lior was home and she started shrieking when she saw me. I had to explain why I was such a mess. “I am fine, Lior. Please calm down.” I then told her the whole story of The Masada Faktor.

Lior was sympathetic but she became very frightened. “I love you Natasha, but I think you need to move out as soon as possible.” Lior was losing her cool and I was angry that I had to take care of her fears even though I was the one suffering. I understood that she didn’t want to get hurt but still, I was stunned that she would kick me out. Was Lior really going to throw me to the sharks?

“Lior, please don’t make me go. It’s only Millie left out there and she will be arrested soon. I really don’t have anywhere else to go, and all my things are here,” I was panicking that she wanted me to leave but had to look at her view. We agreed to talk about it again later.

I got in the shower without bothering to turn on the
dood,
glad the water was still warm from the hot day. I washed my hair, cleaned my abrasions with soap and water. My ribs were killing me and I was itching badly. I put Aloe Vera gel and then lotion all over my body, borrowed a pain killer from Lior and went to bed. I was depressed and angry.