They were treating the murders as a terrorist attack. When they hit the hotel, they hit it at three in the morning and hit it hard. A bag was thrown over Helena’s head and she was spirited away in a waiting van to an off-the-books safe house for interrogation.
Mordechai knew within three minutes that Helena had not been trained by some radical group and smuggled in to massacre Israeli citizens. She was not a terrorist. She was, though, a murderess and this presented its own special set of problems.
Killing the client who had regularly abused her could very likely be defended in court. Killing the pimps who kept her as a sex slave could also likely be defended in court. Killing every other male in the brothel, even in an uncontrolled fit of rage, would be much more difficult. Compounding the issue was the fact that two of the businessmen she had gunned down were somewhat prominent.
Helena was an incredibly sympathetic figure. With all of the evil Mordechai had seen in the world, her story moved even him. He wanted to help her, but there was only one possibility. He left her in the interrogation room to make some phone calls.
When he returned an hour later, he laid out his offer and told her he was sorry, but that she would have to decide right then and there. They didn’t have the luxury of letting her sleep on it. If she was to be spared a trial, multiple wheels would have to be immediately set in motion.
She agreed to the offer.
As soon as Mordechai had left the room to relay her decision, she broke down. She was free from the horror of the abuse and the beatings and the starvation. But she had traded one form of bondage for another. Looking for some sliver of hope, she focused on the fact that her family would be taken care of. If that was the only good that came out of this, it was better than nothing.
She was taken from the safe house to a private hospital where she was treated for her injuries and allowed to rest.
Mordechai visited her daily. She had been checked into the hospital under what would become her code name, Yael. It meant “to ascend” in Hebrew. He had chosen it because of the chapel near where he had found her. It was also a figure from the Bible who saves the Jewish people by destroying an enemy general. From the beginning, Mordechai put much more faith in her than she did herself.
Once she was rested, she began a series of transformations. As Michelangelo could look upon a block of marble and see the statute inside, Mordechai could see the goddess beneath her Slavic features.
A team of plastic surgeons refined and sculpted her nose, her breasts, chin, lips, and cheekbones. In the process, they noted that she had suffered an array of facial fractures, undoubtedly at the hands of the men who had held and abused her during her perilous journey to where she was now.
He brought her family to come see her and put them all in a home near the sea for a week. The father, who was a raging anti-Semite, blamed the Jews for the entirety of his daughter’s traumatic experience. He chose to ignore that his own fellow citizens had abducted her in his own home country.
On Mordechai’s advice, she had not told her parents that she had been forced into the sex trade. While they might have suspected she had been used sexually, he recommended that she explain that she had been abducted and forced to work in a factory. When she misbehaved or displeased the slavers, she was beaten. Her enhanced appearance was due to the grace of the Israeli plastic surgeons responsible for her facial reconstruction. Neither parent asked about her breasts.
She told them that she had been too ashamed to come home. She needed to heal from the trauma, emotionally and physically. During that time, she had met Bentzi. He ran a human rights organization focused on stopping human trafficking. She had been offered a job with the organization and intended to remain in Israel.
Her father was beside himself. Her mother cried for the rest of the visit. Helena cried too. The lies were difficult to tell, but they were necessary and the more she repeated them, the less painful they became.
When her parents returned home to their village, her training began in earnest.
Helena learned fast and she learned well. When Ben Mordechai moved from Shin Bet to the Mossad, he took her with him. She was far too valuable an asset to ever turn over to someone else.
But now, as he approached the white Ford Transit van here in Geneva, he was questioning her value.
Before he could reach for the handle, the door was opened for him and he climbed inside.
Two young Mossad agents sat monitoring a bank of electronics. Next to them was a chesty redhead in her late fifties.
“You heard everything?” Mordechai asked as he removed the wireless transmitter and placed it on the counter.
She looked at her two young agents and said, “Go get some coffee.”
When the men had exited the van, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Mordechai. He shook his head.
Lighting up, she took a deep drag and then exhaled the smoke toward a small vent in the roof. “I’d say we’ve got a serious problem.”
Nava Itzik was an assistant director in the Mossad’s Special Operations Division or “Metsada” as it was known. Under their dark umbrella fell some of the Jewish State’s most dangerous assignments. In addition to paramilitary operations, sabotage, and psychological warfare, they were also charged with carrying out assassinations. When Nava Itzik found something to be a “serious problem,” she usually brought some particularly nasty force to bear in order to get it out of Israel’s way. That was what she was paid to do. And as her deputy, Mordechai was paid to do whatever she told him to.
“If I had seen this coming,” he said. “I never would have put her on this job.”
Nava took another drag on her cigarette. “I saw it coming,” she replied as she blew another cloud toward the vent. “I know more about Pierre Damien than she does, and I’d still probably go to bed with him.”
“But that was her assignment. She was supposed to sleep with him. What she wasn’t supposed to do was fall for him.”
“I think she fell for you first.”
Mordechai was taken aback. “Me?”
“You rescued her. Took her away from that brothel. You gave her stability. Some hope.”
“I didn’t give her any choice.”
“She chose to trust you.”
“What she chose was to not go to prison,” he corrected.
“You’re emotionally unavailable, Bentzi. Any woman can see that. It makes you more attractive.”
“Are you psychoanalyzing me or is this supposed to be some weird compliment?”
“Neither,” Nava replied. “I’m just telling you the truth. No matter how well she shoots or fights, she’s deeply insecure. We both know that.”
“Everyone’s insecure. If you don’t have doubts, there’s something wrong with you. She may be insecure, but she’s a good person.”
“The hooker with the heart of gold. Except she isn’t really a hooker anymore. She’s an asset. Our asset, and whatever let’s-play-house, happily-ever-after fantasy she has created in her mind with Damien, it needs to come to an end. Right now. Israel can’t afford fantasies.”
“You think that is what this is all about? She sees Damien as her way out?”
“If you’re going to reach for a parachute, why not one spun from platinum?”
Mordechai let that sink in for several moments.
“Of course, the other possibility,” Nava suggested, “is that she is trying to make you jealous.”
“Jealous of what?” he demanded. “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”
Nava put her hands out. “Okay, don’t get angry.”
“I’m not angry. I just want this all fixed. There isn’t time to start over again. If she’s not successful, we’re through.”