The Time I Saved a Few Lives

As a security agent for El Al Israel Airlines in the 70s, every day was like a battle zone.

In the summer of 1973, just before the Yom Kippur War, I worked as a security guard for El Al Israel Airlines. By August, battle drums could be heard, and given the region’s politics, dealing with security threats was a full-time job. Our mission was to prevent planes from taking off with a bomb on board. Simple, eh?

Terrorists thought their job was easy, too.

Whenever one attempted to fly to Israel, the stories unraveled following the most elementary interview. They were nothing if not tenacious. Then, a new tactic was attempted, a clever one at that.

One afternoon, two twenty-something English women approached the check-in counter at London’s Heathrow Airport in what could only be described as premarital bliss. They were both heavy set, the less polite way to describe them was wearing several layers of baby fat and far too much mascara. They were recently proposed to by a pair of dashing Arab gentlemen, as we found out after inquiring about the purpose of the trip. They exclaimed, “we’re going to meet our future in-laws!”

But why are you traveling on a one-way ticket,” we asked.

“After the ceremony, we’re off on a honeymoon cruise to a romantic Greek island.”

We could tell they were telling the truth because we knew what clues to look for and there were none, no evasion, no stammering.

So we asked which Greek island?

“Somewhere in Greece,” they replied. The guys told them the island was so small it had no name.

There are 6,000 Greek islands. That is why a groom who takes his wife on a honeymoon in Greece will always say they’re visiting Santorini or Naxos, Rhodes, Mykonos, or Corfu. It’s comparable to owning designer luggage. The entire purpose is to flaunt.

Going to a no-name island was the equivalent of saying “we are traveling to a city in America.” Bells began ringing, and they weren’t wedding bells.

The problem was they didn’t look anything like terrorists but the story sounded as if they might be. We had to ask ourselves, what’s wrong with this story? After we took them back for interrogation, we discovered that the Arabs had packed their suitcases with a special gift inside. They were told not to open it, or it would spoil the surprise. That was accurate in the extreme.

Of course, the ploy was to smuggle a bomb on board and blow up the plane. The women were unaware, and because they were unaware they made great ‘storytellers.’ Except that a liar’s story always has a flaw.

All we did was take out the middleman.