Monte Carlo, Monaco, is an elite showcase for the rich and famous, and as a personal nurse to billionaire Edmond Safra, Ted Maher had been granted a back-stage pass.

Ted Maher: Every place that I ever visited, his banks, his offices -- were beyond your wildest dreams.

Sara James, Dateline NBC: This was like working for a king.

Ted Maher: Yes, it was.

Safra's formal estate in the south of France was it fact a castle that once belonged to a Belgian monarch.

His apartment in the center of Monaco was a sprawling penthouse on the top two floors of his bank building.

Ted Maher: It was beyond any description. So lavish, so beautiful.

Around the time Ted Maher began working for Edmond Safra, the banker -- who was 67 years old and suffered from Parkinson's disease -- was eyeing retirement and planning to make Monaco his permanent home.

He was selling his Republic National Bank to HSBC.

It was a curious and controversial move since Wall Street analysts thought the sale price he'd negotiated was nearly 40 percent below what the bank was worth.

Maria Bartiromo: There were a lot of questions, actually, why he would sell it at the price that he did. It was very strange.

But even with the lowered price, Edmond Safra and his wife Lily were about to receive $3 billion cash from the sale.

Monaco is a well-known tax-haven for the rich, one good reason why the Safras would choose to live here.

But there was something else: this tiny country is also considered a safe-haven from crime.

With surveillance cameras on every corner, Edmond Safra would have felt safer here than almost any other place on Earth.

Sara James, Dateline NBC: He was highly concerned about security, wasn’t he?

Ted Maher: That's an understatement.

The Safra penthouse was a fortress. Security cameras installed inside and out, bullet proof glass and steel shutters on every window.

What's more, Safra employed a full staff of body guards who were highly trained officers from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency

Israeli journalist Boaz Bismuth knew some of Safra's security team.

Sara James, Dateline NBC: These are the best kind of security guards you can have?

Boaz Bismuth: Yes, they are the best. Safra could have afforded to take the best and he did take the best.

As the banker's Parkinson’s disease worsened, and he prepared to cash out his business, some observers say the family affairs were increasingly controlled by his wife Lily.

Bryan Burrough: It is fair to say that all of the people around him knew not to step on the wrong side of Lily.

Once-widowed and twice-divorced, Lily didn't exactly fit in with the conservative Safra clan. By the late nineties, there was a well-known rift among the Safra brothers.

Boaz Bismuth: The cousin of Mr. Safra, he told me that one of the reasons why the family relation was so bad is Lily, the wife of Mr. Safra. That she drove him out of the family.

Whatever family turmoil was brewing behind the scenes, Ted says he enjoyed taking care of Mr. Safra. The job was much less hectic than the hospital work he was used to. In fact, on some nights it was a challenge to stay awake.

Ted Maher: I had heard of people being fired for falling asleep. So there was a different kind of stress.

Sara James, Dateline NBC: This was the stress of working for a billionaire?

Ted Maher: Correct.

Far from home, Ted says he bonded with one co-worker in particular -- a nurse from New Jersey named Vivian Torrente.

Vivian's daughter Genevieve was 19 when her mother went to work for the Safras.

Genevieve Torrente: She just told me she got this great job, it pays well, she gets to travel. It's great and I get to visit wherever she goes.

Ted Maher: She was like a mother figure to me. She was a very, very nice nurse.

But there was tension, Ted says, between him and the head nurse. They didn't get along.

And Ted missed his wife and kids back in New York.

Sara James, Dateline NBC: You were away from your family. You were working long hours. There must have been part of you that got sick of it.

Ted Maher: Yeah, but you know, I knew the end would justify the means. I was there for my family.

Then in November of 1999, two weeks before the fateful night that would change everything, Ted says he got some wonderful news. The probationary period of his employment was over and he was put on permanent staff.

What's more, he says, he began making plans for his family to come live with him in Monaco.

Ted Maher: I was given full benefits as far as health for my family. And I just couldn't believe it, you know, that, you know, it was like the Holy Grail.

Two weeks later, Ted went to work on the night of Dec. 2.

He was sharing the overnight shift with fellow nurse, Vivian Torrente, taking turns administering medication and sitting by the billionaire's bedside as he slept.

By all outward appearances it seemed like any other night.

But what came next, and the version of events you are about to hear -- Ted’s version -- would be debated, dissected and scrutinized from that night to this very day.

Take a look at the layout of the penthouse. On the top floor, the nursing station here.

Next to that, an exercise room that led into Safra's bedroom.

Through another door was a large bathroom and dressing area.

Around 4:30 in the morning, Vivian was with Safra in the bedroom, while Ted was in the nursing station, trying not to fall asleep on the job.

Ted Maher: I routinely went into Mr. Safra's gym and I grabbed a 10 kilo barbell that I brought into the

nursing station so that I could do some curls to keep myself awake.

Ted says he was sitting here at a desk in the nursing station when out of nowhere, he was attacked.

Hit on the head from behind.

Ted Maher: I went down, I was assaulted from behind so I went down. I was dazed and as I went down, I realized something really bad's going to happen.

The former Green Beret says he sprang into action. Lurching up with the barbell in his hand, he saw two masked men.

With the weight, he knocked one of them to the floor.

Ted Maher: The second man pulled out a knife. And they grabbed a-hold of my leg, pulling me towards them as I was trying to get away from them. And they took the knife and I was cut on my left calf here, on the left calf. And I turned and I was cut on my right side with this knife. And then I turned again, trying to get away, and I was stabbed in the middle. And at that point, I went unconscious.

Ted believes he was only out for a few minutes. When he came to, he says the masked men were nowhere to be seen.

He rushed to tell the other nurse on duty that the apartment had been broken into.

Ted Maher: She said, "My God, Ted, you're bleeding." I said, "Vivian, there are two people here. "Take Mr. Safra, go into the bathroom."

Safra, who was obsessed with security, had equipped his bathroom with steel reinforced doors, turning it into a panic room for an emergency just like this.

Ted Maher: I gave her my cellular phone that I had. I said, "Here, you can call help. I'm going to go down and get medical help for myself.” Otherwise I was going to die.

With Safra and Vivian locked in the secure bathroom, Ted stumbled down to the bank lobby, where a security guard called police.

Within minutes he was in an ambulance on his way to Princess Grace Hospital, thinking the worst was over.

Ted Maher: I’m going to make it. I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. I did it and everyone's going to be OK.

Sara James, Dateline NBC: What do you mean I did it?

Ted Maher: I stopped these people from killing Mr. Safra.

But it soon would become abundantly clear that Ted Maher’s actions inside the penthouse that night did not lead to the happy ending he might have envisioned. Far from it.

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