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The Soprano's Visit Andy in Mayberry
We visited Triple AAA Storage of Mars Hill
North Carolina on a fine Spring day in the Appalachians, and can confirm its remote location. The facility’s manager, a man named ‘George,’ told us, of the
two Israelis, “They were joyriding, and it cost ‘em. They said they was, at
least that’s what I heard one of ‘em tell the sheriff.”
He referred any other questions to the
facility’s owner, who was, George said, “Sal Annone from New Jersey. He bought the
business three or four years back.”
A 'Salvatore Annone' owns a number of North
Carolina businesses, a search of corporation records indicated. We asked George
if we could speak to Mr. Annone, but were told he has an unlisted phone. Employees are forbidden to give
it out. Was Sal Annone the Israelis point of contact with some other
organization?
The Sheriff's investigation, halted by the
involvement of the FBI, had been unaware of the reason the Israelis stopped at
Triple AAA Storage, and of the recent (last September) ownership change there.
No matter how it was considered, the case seemed full of “anomalies.”
Shmuel Dahan, for example, listed an
address in swanky Miami Beach, and had more than $12,000 in his personal bank
account. “That sort of caught my attention,” said the Sheriff.
A local reporter who overheard lawmen discussing Shmuel’s
bank account later told us, “My brother delivered furniture all through college, and I don’t think
he made $12,000 the whole time. Where was this kid getting the money?”
Aristotle, St Paul & 'foreigners'

A few of the '‘mysteries’ seemed faintly
humorous. “What’s the name of that guy that kept calling all last week?” Sheriff
Harris asked an assistant.
“Guy,” she replied. The Sheriff grimaced. “They work for a guy
named ‘Guy.’ G-U-Y,” he told us.
We wondered: Did 'Guy' have a last name?
The Sheriff grinned again. “He never said.
But I’ve checked a lot of cars out in the County, and in over thirteen years
I’ve never pulled over anyone with an Israeli driver’s license. I’d certainly
never expect to see somebody like that on that old road.”
“There aren’t many foreigners here; they kick
them right out,” said Sarah Nicols, a waitress at the Aeropagas restaurant in
Mars Hill. “They don’t like foreigners around here."
Over a salad we learned about the curious history
of Mars Hill from 'Dino the Greek,' the café’s owner. “The
ancient meaning of Aeropagas is Ares, or Mars, Hill,” he told us. “It’s a place
in Athens right under the Acropolis, where philosophers would speak. Hundreds of
years after Aristotle spoke there, St Paul addressed the Athenians from Mars
Hill.”
The Founding Fathers of the town had decided on
its name in the 1850’s, after re-tracing St Paul’s steps through the
Mediterranean, and stopping at the Aeropagas (Mars Hill.) “They were religious scholars,” Dino
explained.
“They founded the Southern Baptist college that is still in town today.”
"When people lie, its always for a reason"
Fueling law enforcement suspicions of the two
Israelis is their clear belief that the two men were lying.
"I know when they tell
that they didn’t see me behind them, it has to be a lie,” said Harris. “They said, at first, that they were going to
Boston to take some furniture. Then later on we found out it was West Virginia.
And all that their truck was packed with was some used furniture so old it
doesn't seem anybody would pay to move it."
But, couldn't it all have been just a really horrible mistake? Maybe the Israeli military reservists/movers just
hadn't heard the police sirens... “Oh no he had to see me,” said the Sheriff.
“The siren was going…. I could see him in the mirror looking back at me.“
"People at a big fish fry came out to the front
porch when they heard the sirens, and seen the blue lights. They all saw the
truck go by, saw me go by. One man seen the bottle come out of the truck, and
the rest saw it turning in the road after the truck went by."
"There’s no doubt about the fact they threw the
liquid out of their truck. And they didn’t stop when they should have. I would
have been happier if they’d said, ‘yes, the bottle was ours.’ That would have
relieved my mind. But they still say they didn’t throw it out. They
still say they didn’t see me behind them, even though they pled guilty to
evading arrest.
The Sheriff shrugged fatalistically. "I was asked by a reporter today
about my impression of the case. I said I can’t really give an
answer to that. There are still a lot of questions to be answered."
The incident must be seen as
extremely
troubling, especially in light of the fact that at least sixty Israelis were detained in the
aftermath of the 9/11 attack. Just like the 'NASCAR Israelis' in
Tennessee, most were in their early twenties, and fresh out of the Israeli
military. And since then there have been regular credible
reports of
suspected Israeli intelligence agents around the U.S., posing—most famously
until now—as
"art students."
Among this particular set of young Israelis in
the U.S., the term of choice currently appears to be "'mover."
Interestingly, the Israeli-owned company the men
worked for, Summit Movers, is much-written about on the Web, and allegedly has
had approximately twenty insurance policy cancellations in their short three
years of existence, as well as being allegedly implicated in the Israeli-run
"scam" moving company scandal in Miami which the FBI seems always jes' a step
or two slow in closing down.
In truth, after our journey to Mayberry all we're really sure
of is that
the arrested Israelis were observant Jews. We learned that courtesy of a nice elderly lady at the jail who brings
the prisoners their meals. In one of the few decisively-factual statements we
heard, she told us, “They don’t eat pork. I think we got them fish &
chips.”
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