chained me to a water pipe in the kitchen with a chain long enough to let me reach the toilet. I started looking in the kitchen drawers to find a tool to break the chain – a knife, a can opener, anything. There was nothing I could use. Then I thought of a completely different angle. Under the sink there were a few bottles with detergents – cleaning stuff, you know.”
I nodded.
“The chain they used seemed to be made of iron. So I looked through the detergents’ labels for ingredients I could use to prepare a caustic acid that would eat the metal.”
I looked at her, amazed, and then remembered that she was a chemistry teacher. But my chemistry teachers in high school never looked so good.
“Did it work?”
“Eventually, yes, I used a drain cleaner, which I mixed with other detergents,” she smiled. “But the problem was that the solution I was preparing would emit dangerous gases. It would also leave a stench and, most importantly, would take a long time to consume a thick iron link. I didn't know how much time I had.”
“So what did you do?” I asked. I found her, and the story, fascinating.
“I covered my face, prepared a small quantity of the acid in a glass cereal bowl, and left one ring of the chain dipped inside. I tried not to move, to keep the link soaked in the acid, but my eyes and nose were watering. I was able to keep it dipped for about an hour when my captors returned.”
“Did they notice anything?”
“Yes. They noticed the smell immediately and asked me what it was.”
“I said, ‘It was dirty here, so I cleaned.’ I guess they were satisfied with that.”
“Did they use the phone?”
“I didn't see any phone at the apartment. During the night they locked me in the living room and kept me chained to the sofa bed's metal leg. When they fell asleep, snoring so loudly they could've torn a hole in the wall, I checked the link I'd dipped in the acid and it looked to me like it had been damaged, but not enough to break. The following morning they brought me an apple and a roll for breakfast and tied me back onto the kitchen pipe. As soon as they left I started working on the acid and doubled the quantity. I said to myself, better to cry now because of the fumes than have my family cry over me. Two hours later, the metal was becoming weak so I twisted it and a few drops of the acid flew on my leg.”
“That must have hurt.”
“Well, I have a scar now,” she said, bending to show me her ankle. She came so close I could smell her light flowery perfume.
“You'll live,” I said. “Tell me how it ended.”
“Around noon I was able to break the link but it wasn't enough to release me. I couldn't touch the broken link because of the acid, and the broken part was not big enough to unlink the chain. I almost panicked. I didn't know when they'd be coming back. If they found what I'd done, they would've hurt me.”
“So what did you do?”
“I placed the broken link between the kitchen door hinges and opened and closed the door a million times until the weak metal was flattened and then broke. Then I was free! I still had the handcuffs on my left wrist and a chain of three feet dragging from it. I ran out the door and into the street. I know I must have looked awful, but I didn't care. I stopped a taxi and he took me to the Israeli Consulate. And the rest, you know,” she said, assuming that I already knew the whole story.
“You're lucky to be a chemistry expert,” I said admiringly.
Ariel smiled. “In fact my education and expertise are in physics. I'm finishing my Ph. D. in nuclear physics at the Technion. I teach chemistry in high school to support myself.”
The Technion, Israel's top technological academic institute, was often compared to MIT. So Ariel was following her father's path. Was she also doing it now in Moscow?
“So whom did you meet there?” I thought Benny Friedman might have been on the scene.
“It was a man named Ilan. He debriefed me and wanted me to leave on the first flight out to Israel. I refused and demanded to talk to my dad first.”
Her calmness took me by surprise.
“So they told you?”
“Yes.” She paused. I could see she was fighting tears; her eyes glistened. Impulsively I reached a hand out to touch hers, resting on the table.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't cry then. It hit me later. They told me that they'd had to send my mother back to Israel and that she was fine. I spoke with her on the phone and she begged me to return home. But I was angry and wanted to stay. I had to see what I could do to track down my father's killers. Everything happened so quickly. I went with Ilan to the safe-deposit box but it was empty. I guess my mother had taken everything out.”
This was a good opportunity to upgrade my credibility level with her. “In fact, it was a combined effort of your mother and me. I have the letter in my room; I'll give it to you later.”
The place had become noisy all of a sudden. I looked around. A wave of people had washed into the restaurant. I'd been so immersed in our conversation that I hadn't even noticed.
“Have you met Hans Guttmacher?” I asked.
“My father's banker? I know he's holding some things for me, but I didn't get a chance to see him. When I first arrived in Munich, two or maybe three weeks ago, I've lost track, there was no answer from my father's hotel room. So I called Guttmacher. His name was mentioned in my father's letter. I thought that as his banker he might know where my father was. We had a short conversation.”
“Did you ask Guttmacher if he knew where your father was?”
“I only mentioned that I hadn't been able to talk to him yet.”
“Did Guttmacher say anything about it? Did he know where your father was?”
“No, he had no reaction at all, or maybe he said he didn't know. I don't remember.”
“So you never met your father in Munich?”
“No. I first called his hotel, but there was no answer from his room. I called him again several times and left messages but he never returned my calls.”
“Now you know why he never called you back.”
“Yes,” Ariel said quietly. “And I'm just beginning to accept the fact that he's gone.”
“Did you talk to Guttmacher again?”
“Yes, but only briefly.” Ariel pushed away her plate. She put her head in her hands. “I don't think I can deal with food anymore.”
I signaled the waiter to clear the table. But I needed to continue.
“Why did you travel to Munich in the first place? Did your father talk to you about that?” I found myself asking her a question to which I knew the answer from Benny. Was I questioning his story?
“The whole thing was very strange. First I got a call at home in Haifa from someone who told me his name was Gideon. He claimed to be my father's friend and that my father needed me badly in Munich. I didn't quite believe him. But Gideon insisted and told me that my father had wired ten thousand dollars to my bank account in Haifa from Bank Hapoalim in Luxembourg to pay for my trip and expenses. So I decided to check my account and see if the money was there. I thought that would indicate whether Gideon was telling me the truth.”
“And the money was there,” I said knowingly.
“Yes. Exactly the way he said. I had another indication that it was my father's money because he had used that bank to wire me money from time to time. He found it convenient, since the bank in Luxembourg is a branch of my Israeli bank. But this time I noticed something different: the money came from a trust with a long German name that I couldn't pronounce, not from my father's regular account.”
“Do you know who the man was who called you?”
“Gideon? No; I think he's from the Office. He never said it, but I suspected he was working for the Israeli government and that the call was connected to my father's distant past at the Mossad.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Did he explain why your father didn't call you directly, why he needed somebody else to call his own daughter?”
“Gideon said that my father could not call but that he had asked him to make the call to me. The man calling himself Gideon gave me the pension's name in Munich where I should stay and my father's hotel name and room number. He told me to call my father's hotel when I arrived but not to go there. I called my mother and told her
