Morris interjected "Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?"
Shulamit answered "We didn't know that you and Vicki were that couple. You never mentioned the circumstances of your kidnapping."
Zorik saw that this was leading to an argument and cut it short "Please relax, we are here together and must stay unified and support each other. Inbal and I left Israel months before this happened and Ari and Avi have also not been in touch with news from Israel".
Zorik then looked at the other couple, Shulamit and Nate Levy, and asked them how they were captured. There was little doubt that Shulamit was the talkative one in the Levy family and indeed she started to describe how they were captured.
The Levy couple wanted to celebrate their Silver Wedding and the fact that their youngest daughter had moved out of their small apartment in Haifa to study at the university in Beer-Sheva. They had intended to go on one of those "all inclusive" deals in Antalya but when they heard that an Israeli couple disappeared under mysterious circumstances they changed their plans and joined a guided tour to Georgia. They had heard a lot about that country with its magnificent mountains, good food and wine as well as nice, hospitable people. They were also attracted by the low prices for the "last minute" deal. The flight from Tel-Aviv to Tbilisi was a bit scary as the old airplane seemed to be on the verge of breaking apart, as cheap charter flight sometimes seem to be but almost never really crash. It was a no-frills flight so they were really hungry and thirsty when they landed in Tbilisi in the evening. They were driven with the rest of the group by coach to the Marriott Hotel on Shota Rustaveli Avenue. As soon as they got the key to their room and put their luggage in the room, Nate said that he was starving and that he wanted go out to look for something to eat. Shulamit said that he should not go alone and offered to join him as she, too, was famished. So they didn't bother to unpack and took the elevator down to the lobby and enquired at the front desk about a place to eat. The woman at the desk said that they could order room-service and when they asked for the menu they saw that at that time of night only served cold sandwiches. So Shulamit said to Nate that it would be better to look for a restaurant near the hotel and get some hot food so out they went.
The streets near the hotel were lit up nicely but they didn't see a restaurant that looked inviting, so they wandered a little further. As they crossed a small alley they saw a neon sign that looked like a restaurant. They started down the dark alley when suddenly they were surrounded by four men wearing black leather jackets. The leader asked them something in Russian and when they didn't respond said in heavily accented English "Tourists?"
Nate just nodded as he was at a loss for words for a moment.
The man didn't see this silent response and immediately got angry and said "Where from?" in an aggressive tone.
Nate was still unable to respond but Shulamit proudly said "Israel".
The man looked at his three buddies and muttered something and then smiled nastily and Shulamit could see a couple of gold teeth reflecting the neon sign, and said "Come with" in English and drew something out of his jacket's pocket.
Nate heard the sound of a flick knife opening and saw it glinting. He lifted his hands and said "Dollars? Do you want dollars?"
The man turned serious and grabbed Nate by the collar and pulled him deeper into the alley. Two of the younger guys grasped Shulamit's hands and twisted them behind her back. Her scream was muffled by coarse hand that was placed over her mouth.
The Israeli couple was forced to walk down the alley while one of the young men pulled out his cell phone and spoke to someone in rapid Georgian. A few minutes later a pick-up truck with a double-cabin appeared and the Israelis were forced into it and thrown on the floor under the back seat. Once again Nate tried to offer dollars but the response was a slap on the back of his head. The older man and the driver of the truck started arguing and shouting about something. Nate couldn't follow the conversation that was taking place above his head but understood that Iran was mentioned several times. The older man warned Shulamit and Nate that if they as much as muttered a syllable he would cut their throats. Of course, they didn't understand his exact words but there was no doubt what his intentions were. They cowered on the floor of the truck and tried to hold each other for comfort.
The pick-up truck drove along the right bank of the Kura River and then along the Rustavi Highway and finally straight across the border into Azerbaijan. There didn't seem to be any formalities while crossing the border, probably because it was close to dawn and the guards on both sides preferred to stay in their sheltered shacks rather than worry about the light traffic. The leader of the group was busy talking to someone in Russian on his cell phone and probably making some kind of arrangement to hand them over.
They reached Gazakh and stopped near the Olympic Complex and were met by three men in a van. The Israeli couple was ordered out of the pick-up truck and as soon as they saw the three men Nate was sure that they were devout Muslims. Some money changed hands and the pick-up truck headed back north while the van with the hostages continued south-east. Crossing from Azerbaijan into Iran was even easier and within a few hours Nate and Shulamit found themselves incarcerated in Evin Prison.
The irony of the situation was not lost on all the Israelis in the cell — here the Levy couple tried to evade the risk of going to Turkey only to suffer the very same fate they had tried to get away from. Even Zorik, who prided himself on being a pragmatist and realist, had to accept that this was an act of fate rather than an act of faith, while the others regarded the whole affair with fatalism. Shulamit said that they had not suffered any ill-treatment by the kidnappers in Georgia or by the Muslims that took them from Azerbaijan to Tehran. The only abuse they endured was from the fat jailor in the Evin Prison and even that was more because he was a sadist than because their captors wanted to extract sensitive information from them.
Zorik asked all the people in the prison cell whether they knew if the Israeli authorities had been aware of the missing couple. Nate said that he was sure that their tour guide would have noticed their absence in the morning following their abduction and would certainly report it, but he didn't have any direct knowledge if that had happened.
Zorik then turned to Avi and Ari, the two Israeli guys who were in their twenties and asked them how they ended in Evin Prison. Avi was a muscular tall man in his early twenties and would have even been considered as very good-looking if it were not for a large fresh scar on his right cheek. He pointed to the scar and said that the fat jailor had violently pushed him into the cell and when he fell his face was scratched by the latch on the door. Ari was thin and short but his blue eyes were burning with an internal rage. Apparently he was the talkative one and described briefly how they ended up in Evin Prison.
They were dancing with a large bunch of young men and women at a "full moon" party on the west coast beach at Kata. The loud music reverberated in the air, echoed back from the trees and pinged like a sonar directly on the brain. The young beachaholics, a term for people addicted to beach parties and alcohol, were moving about mechanically like zombies in time with the music. They were fuelled by copious amounts of cheap alcohol and by low quality marijuana, amphetamines and an assortment of other drugs. Most of these were homemade by enterprising locals and tourists who didn't care about any after-effects that the users may experience once they sobered, if they bothered to do so. Two blonde girls, who said they were from Sweden, encircled Avi and rhythmically imitated his every move, while Ari looked on a bit jealously at the laughing threesome. Avi quietly said something to the girls and one of them turned to Ari and invited him to join their dance. The four of them continued dancing for another couple of hours and then the girls said they had to go to the toilet and indicated that the guys should follow them in ten minutes to the nearby guesthouse where they were staying. Avi and Ari nodded and said that they would pick-up a little more "fuel" and join them shortly. Ari said something to Avi in Hebrew and both giggled, patted the girls on their backside and sent them on their way. Then they headed towards the cluster of trees where they knew that every variety of drug or alcohol could be purchased.