Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

I thought about making a getaway by plane directly from Moscow or the surrounding area, a possibility that would be relevant if Anna turned out to be held in an area close to the city. Such a plan would necessitate access to an airport and a small plane. I had a vague memory of a group of brave ‘refuseniks’ who tried to do just that and failed. It didn’t mean that I too would fail, but it did mean that I’d have to invest a great deal of time and effort in the planning.

After I typed the word ‘Moscow’ in various internet aviation sites, up came the names of airports I’d never heard of not far from the city. Myachkovo, Bykovo, Chkalovsky. Enlarging Google’s satellite photos gave me an initial idea about these airfields. I chose a small private strip used mainly for short flights in light aircraft and started working on it. Clearly, to know if this was a realistic option I would have to go there and gather information about the fencing around the field, its security arrangements, working hours, and aviation companies using it. And then as the time for putting the operation into practice approached, I’d have to bribe a pilot, perhaps also tackle the field’s security guards and risk an aerial chase.

Of course, everything would have been much easier were I able to ask the Mossad for help. A small question put by Alex to his sources in Russia could have unearthed where Anna was being held, whether she ever left the jail and if so, when. One little passport, with a picture of Anna, would have enabled me to sneak her out of Russia before anyone noticed she was gone. But there was zero chance of me getting such assistance. At some stage I thought of turning for help to my friend Mahashashli, but I rejected that possibility out of hand: he would profit a good deal more by handing me over to the Russians than by helping me.

Slowly, slowly, as I uncovered the information, the various options crystallized and I began to fine-tune the scheme. The semi-psychological stages in the planning of every operation were known to me and I experienced them this time as well. At first the idea one has appears to be unfeasible. As the information is assembled, it begins to look possible. But then, as you start to fine-tune the chosen plan and need to gather the small but essential pre-operational intelligence details, once more it slips from your grasp, appearing impossible to implement. It’s easy enough to say ‘bribe a female prison guard’. But how, in practice, do you track down such a person? Bribe a pilot who flies there? But how do you find one? It’s very simple to say ‘bypass the border with Kazakhstan’ but how and precisely where does one bypass it? Even without help, however, the plan was possible. The risks would be mine. It’s me that the jailer, the pilot, and border guard might hand over. It’s me who’s likely to spend years to come, close to Anna, but in a nearby prison.

I remembered how, years earlier, I’d crossed the border from Russia to Kazakhstan, just before we liquidated the drivers of the missile transporters. That led me to assume that if I prowled around the border I’d again find passable gaps. Were I to wait in my car outside the prison gates, I’d be able to spot a female guard and follow her back to her house. Were I to sleep in a hotel close to the airport, there’d be a good chance of my meeting pilots there and forming a working relationship with one of them. Afterwards there’d be all sorts of other obstacles but in the end I’d succeed.

I was in the mood for action, a very different mood from the one I’d been in for a whole year. At night I imagined Annushka’s face as I stopped my car alongside her just as she was walking out of the prison gate on ‘home leave’, if such a thing existed; or setting off for work, holding on tightly to her few bundled belongings. I’d open the door and say, Annushka, zahadi –get in. And I could see her face as we reached the next street, and imagine her pouncing on me with hugs and kisses and her expression when I told her a plane was waiting for us on the runway. Hold on tight, I’m going to drive right through the fence. Or when I told her, we’re on our way to Kazakhstan, Annushka, do you want to sleep first? I have an apartment here.

For the first time since my return to Israel I masturbated, imagining Anna’s face, filled with passion, biting her lower lip, her eyes closed, her black hair streaked with grey spread out like a hand-held fan, and she was the most beautiful being on earth. I pictured her firm thighs, her slightly rounded buttocks, those shapely shoulders, and her soft, ample, pendulous breasts. And those eyes of hers, wide open, with love. Eyes that said everything I wanted to hear with one caressing, yearning, lustful, look.

I felt like someone fighting his last war. The war over his last love. Orit was my first love and I knew that Anna was the last. There wouldn’t be another.

I gleaned whatever I could from sources in Israel. To find Anna and draw up a detailed plan I had to be there, in the field. Only in that way could I find prison guards and through them discover where Anna was. I would then have to familiarize myself with the region in which the jail was located, discover the routes I could take from there to a nearby airfield, or those that led to the border, and rent an apartment along the way. I had a lot to do. The old horse did indeed smell war, and the wind of battle was certainly coursing through his veins.

All I had was an Israeli passport. Through a major travel agency I obtained a visa for Russia and bought a ticket for a direct flight to Moscow. At Ben Gurion Airport, shortly after I passed through passport control, two Shin Bet agents came up to me and I was arrested.

You’re playing with fire and you think that you can control the height of the flames and that you yourself won’t be burned, the senior Shin Bet investigator summoned to the airport said to me.

I don’t care about getting burned, I said, or for that matter, igniting a fire, even if what I’ve done is made known to the Russians.

Apparently you also don’t care about your girlfriend, the investigator retorted. Your chances of freeing her were very small. Anyone you turned to for help would have handed you over to the authorities. They’d have taken the money, and then betrayed you. Meanwhile your girlfriend would never again have seen the light of day. And nor would you. And by the way, her chances of getting out early aren’t at all bad. The only thing you were about to do was to spoil that chance.

I’d said nothing to my interrogators about my plan to free Anna. Where had they got their information from?

What difference does it make where we got it from? We knew about every move you made and all the people you questioned. At your trial all the material in your computer will also be presented as evidence. The police are confiscating your computer as we speak.

The Shin Bet had been listening into all my conversations, were aware of all my meetings and, apparently, everything stored in my computer was also known to them.

What are you detaining and questioning me for anyway? I protested. I’m allowed to travel to Russia and even if I wanted to commit a crime there that’s none of your business. The only ones whose business it is are the Russians.

We don’t have to prove that you’ve committed any new crimes, the investigator replied in a quiet, firm voice. We have plenty of those to work with from your past. Did you know that the polygraph test didn’t show that you were telling the truth? And even without that we have enough to throw you into jail for a very long time.

So get on with it, I said, refusing this time to succumb. Let me go now, and issue an indictment against me. I don’t believe there’s a judge who’d be foolish enough to buy your crude attempts to incriminate me.