The Arab had turned and was walking back down the harbour wall when the Negro youth drew silently alongside him.
'What have we got to do?' he asked, not bothering to look at the Arab, his Ray-Ban-shielded gaze fixed on the land ahead.
'The Englishman wants me to find an agent of theirs, who went missing on arrival at the airport. He suspects Major Mosafa and a renegade Englishman, Sir Rodney Stonefield of abducting her. While I am at the airport, I'll see what I can find out. I'll meet you at the souk at six. Look for me around Abdullah's spice stall. You know the one I mean?'
'Yes Auda. I know it.'
The two men parted company at the end of the harbour wall, the youth crossing the palm tree lined boulevard, the Arab turning left and following the paved track beside the beach in the direction of the gleaming steel and glass buildings of the modern quarter of the capital.
Major Mosafa was sat in his leather swivel armchair, half his attention on the reports before him on his desk and half his attention on the queue of passengers at the airport customs desk. Having access for security purposes to all the passenger lists he had scanned them and found amongst the passengers one possible victim: a nineteen year old English girl who was travelling alone to El-Saram for two weeks. Mosafa glanced up at the queue. There was no single, young girl in sight. He looked back at the reports before him.
The pro-democracy movement was still carrying out their peaceful demonstrations outside the compound of the American managed oil-refinery. There was no cause for alarm there; allowing such activity even suggested that the King was tolerant of people who opposed him. What was more troubling was that the pro-democracy movement was now gaining support amongst the desert nomads. These camel riding, tent living tribes had never been incorporated satisfactorily into modern El-Saram and whilst they were taxed, they were given nothing back. Naturally enough they had little sympathy with the King.
Mosafa glanced up again at the secret window concealed as a mirror just in time to see a slim, tall girl standing at the customs desk. She had a mane of blonde hair, smooth, tanned skin and large blue eyes. A white T-shirt tucked into jeans clung tightly around her full breasts, showing the outline of her bra. Mosafa glanced at the name that was being keyed into the customs computer by his security staff. It was the English student. Mosafa pressed one switch on his desk and a discreet green light came on behind the customs desk. Seeing their signal, the female customs officer, smiled apologetically as she asked the girl to step to one side, whilst her backpack was checked. Mosafa leant back in his chair and smiled to himself. He wondered how Sir Rodney was getting on with the English secret agent.
Ten minutes later Mosafa had his desk cleared of all pressing matters except for one. This was a report from one of his Captains at a remote garrison in the west advising him of a local rumour that the garrison was to be attacked and its arsenal of weapons seized by the rebel activists. Mosafa tried phoning the Garrison Commander to question him about this but found the number was out of order. He then tried to call the local army barracks in that region but found that its number too was unobtainable. Wondering what his security staff had done with the English girl, he irritably punched into his phone the number for the Police station in the town nearest to the garrison. This number he found engaged so he slammed the phone down, cursing and telling himself he would sort it out later.
Finishing his coffee with one quick gulp Mosafa let himself out of his office and went briskly down the corridor to the interrogation room. There was a mirror window from the corridor that gave him a view of the room and he paused to glance in and see what was happening. The English girl was kneeling on the floor, her arms drawn backwards, her wrists bound together with cord. She was naked except for her white briefs and bra. One of the female security officers was holding her by her hair and had her head pulled back. The other was holding a small glass bottle under the girl's nose.
Mosafa let himself into the interrogation room. The English girl, turning her head in the direction of the door when she heard it open, looked imploringly at him. Her mouth was opened wide, her jaws forced apart by a dental gag of plastic coated steel. Saliva was trickling over her chin as she shook her head begging the two women guards to let her go. Her body jerked, her head thrashing from side to side as she was forced to inhale the contents of the phial.
The girl's struggling quickly diminished as the glass bottle was kept under her nostrils. As Mosafa walked across the room he watched her eyes droop shut then her head rested slackly on one shoulder.
'Don't give her any more. I want her aware of what's happening to her. It's more satisfying to see them struggling. Put her face down over the table.'
Vanessa tried to swallow against the rising feeling of sickness caused by her forced inhalation of the chemical. Swallowing with her jaws forced wide by the steel gag felt almost impossible and she groaned with despair. The two female guards dragged her by her arms across to a table and forced her to bend across it. She had looked for rescue by the man who had just entered the room but now, with dismay, she realised he was here to participate in her torture.
The two female guards freed the cord from her wrists. One pulled her arms out above her head from the far side of the table while the other grasped her long, blonde hair and drew her head backwards so that she was being pulled from both directions. How could this be happening to her? God, why had she ever accepted Auda's invitation to visit him! Of course, her insatiable sex drive had encouraged her. Now she was in deep trouble, if not for the first time in her life. The previous summer, a spell as the model of a painter of submissive females had introduced her to a whole new world of sexual experience. Some of it had been painful, some frightening, all though had been deeply satisfying, though it had taken her some time to come to admit this to herself.
'Hold her like that, I'll put the cuffs on her,' ordered the man.
Vanessa struggled weakly as a leather cuff was wrapped around her wrist. She looked unhappily at the stout leather as the man tightened it around her slim wrist. Feebly she pulled against the hold of the female guard who held her arm outstretched from the opposite side of the table, but the slender nineteen year old girl stood no chance against the two women and man ranged against her. The chemical they'd made her inhale had left her feeling giddily weak and her three assailants worked together with practised ease. The younger female guard held both Vanessa's arms, whilst the older woman grasped her hair and drew her head back, making her eyes smart with pain as her hair was pulled. The man buckled the leather cuff around Vanessa's wrist then felt under the table until he found a strap dangling there. He fed the canvas strap through the steel ring of the wristcuff then slipped the end back into the buckle. Drawing the strap tight he then flicked the toothed buckle back over the webbing and the strap was now held taut.
Vanessa shook her head, looking wildly at him, her blonde hair damp with perspiration and tangled about her face. The chloroform was starting to wear off, and aware that if she didn't get free now, she would probably not have another chance, Vanessa threw herself into a determined struggle.
'Come on now, don't pretend you don't want this,' the man smiled down at her as he took hold of her other wrist and folded a leather cuff around her skin.
Vanessa glowered at him and gave up struggling, well aware now that with both her wrists secured, escape was impossible. The man was gazing appreciatively at her near naked body. His gaze lingered on her breasts, rising and falling with her efforts to pull free, they heaved provocatively under her flimsy bra. The large, dark areoles were clearly visible under the fine cotton. She could imagine how aroused he was and she wondered if he had been watching all the passengers disembarking from her flight, in the hopes of finding one worth abducting.
Vanessa knew, in fact she was arrogantly aware, that she had the sort of perfect body men went crazy for. Her breasts were high and firm and she loved wearing tight T-shirts that showed them off to good effect. She had a narrow waist and deeply tanned skin from a summer spent in the south of Italy. Her long, blonde hair hung in very loose curls half way to her waist and was bleached by the sun to a golden straw colour.
'Shall I tell you what's happened to you?' the man smiled at her and Vanessa looked back abjectly, her blue eyes wide and baleful. Her head was being held back and pulled down sideways by a firm grasp on her long hair. She was panting hard through her open mouth, her generous bow-shaped lips forced wide apart by the sprung steel arms of the dental gag. Her mind was racing. What was planned for her? Why had she been abducted? Surely Auda was not involved in this? She had been introduced to the Arab Sheikh by the painter for whom she'd modelled. Vanessa had been loaned, bound and blindfolded to the Sheikh for his pleasure and she'd discovered that he was very well endowed and their brief liaison she had found deeply pleasurable.
'We found a bottle of vodka in your hand luggage. Now, you know that such things are not allowed here, but you're just a naughty girl,' the man gave a scathing laugh.
Vanessa shook her head in denial, her protest of innocence was made into nothing more than an incoherent gurgling by the cruel gag that kept her jaws widely prized. The man walked back around the table and stroked his hands down her bare back. She flinched under his touch then when he slipped his hands inside her pants she kicked out at him.