The two Arab youths appeared and dragged her legs first out of the vehicle. A pole was slid under the rope binding her ankles and wrists and they lifted her easily, taking the weight from the pole across their shoulders. Hanging upside down she could see that she was being carried to a narrow tower of stone and somewhere in the distance she could hear the sound of the sea, waves breaking on rocks, a distant but relentless pounding noise.
The heavy door to the tower, framed by an archway of flaking stone was opened as they approached, light flooding out. Vanessa was gazing down at the sand and saw a scorpion suddenly caught by the light freeze for a second before it scuttled away into the shadows. The two young men carried her quickly over the threshold, the man who had abducted her following close at heel. The door was swung to and closed with a resounding thud.
'So what have we here?'
Vanessa looked up to see a slim, late middle aged man in creased beige, white shirt and coloured silk cravat looking down curiously at her.
'She's called Vanessa. She's English. Nineteen. An interesting acquisition,' said the Arab as he gestured for the two young men to take her down a narrow flight of twisting stone steps.
'So what do you make of this mystery phone call?' asked the Englishman.
'I've no idea, but it spells trouble, I'm certain,' the Arab answered with a dismissive shrug.
'Raoul,' he called down the stairs, 'give her a wash in the well then bring her up and put her in my bed. Give her a drink and some food but keep her tied.'
The youth leading Vanessa called back up the stairs.
'Yes Major. We take good care of her. Food and water and wash, yes, very good.'
Vanessa was carried down into a cool and sand floored basement. Removed from the pole she gave a sigh of relief. The pain of being hung upside down by the arms and legs was something she could only suffer for so long... She glanced around her at the room, shuddering as she took in the chains dangling from the walls and the stomach churning equipment scattered across one table. Then she saw the second table. Through the adhesive tape that was secured across her mouth she gave a gasp of surprise. Strapped down over a cross-shaped bench was a naked young woman.
Vanessa sat obediently still as a rope was tied around the one that already bound her ankles.
'Time for your wash.'
'You enjoy.'
'You ready for wash, yes?'
Vanessa looked at the two youths questioning her. Suddenly the gleam in their eyes made her deeply unsettled. She glanced back at the other girl. There was something protruding from her backside and Vanessa could guess what it was. The poor bitch had been left with a butt plug in her. She was wondering for how long she'd been strapped down over the bench like that when the girl lifted her head and looked at them.
She had long dark hair and a beautiful olive complexion but her mouth was forced cruelly wide and filled by a ball gag. Her eyes were moist with tears and her hair was tousled over her perspiration soaked features. Vanessa could see faint marks across her exposed rump where she must have been whipped. Her thighs were spread wide and strapped with broad belts that were tight around her legs. Poor thing, Vanessa thought, wondering to herself how long the girl had been a prisoner here.
'Time for your wash,' one of the youths announced cheerfully.
Vanessa gave a grunt of discomfort as she was dragged by her legs across the sand to one corner of the basement. There was a circular low wall of stones and before Vanessa knew what was happening she was being lowered head first down the well shaft by the rope tied to her ankles. She felt cold water soaking her hair and she lifted her head up in alarm. She felt herself revolving slowly, and then her shoulders went under the water. A second later and the water came over her head and a few seconds after that she was completely submerged. Almost immediately though she felt herself being lifted up again. Shaking with cold and fear she was hauled right up out of the well and into the waiting hands of the two youths who were laughing at her discomfort. With a bar of soap the younger of the two lads quickly washed her from head to toe whilst the other unfastened and discarded her bra then stroked her breasts appreciatively. Once covered in lather from her hair to her feet she was then lowered back into the icy well water. Having been rinsed she was hauled up again and she was then carried back up the narrow stairs. Vanessa saw the other girl was watching her and they exchanged sympathetic glances.
Auda moved stealthily around the wall, brushing the flaking old masonry with his left shoulder. There was no way in except for the one door. Solid heavy wood, studded and recessed into the stone arch it would not be easier to force an entry that way. He circled the tower once more, surveying the windows. There were none on the ground floor, only slim arrow slits, too narrow to admit a person. On the first and second floors the windows were larger but they were all shuttered except for two which were barred with iron rods. Auda stepped back and looked up at the battlements of the roof. Perhaps that was the best way?
Drawing his long cloak around him he retreated back the way he had come, trudging slowly up the sand dune to where Basil sat waiting.
'What's the verdict chief?'
'Difficult,' Auda slumped down and accepted a tin mug of steaming coffee from his servant.
Basil had appeared at the airport a quarter of an hour after he'd summoned him. He had an old, open top jeep, the back of which was piled with supplies. The young man was flustered and out of breath and spent the next ten minutes explaining how hard it was to do what had been expected of him in so short a space of time. Auda had not seen the Major leave the airport and was beginning to think he had somehow slipped past him when he saw a RangeRover come speeding around the corner of a distant storage building and race across the deserted tarmac. As the vehicle paused at the security gate he recognised Mosafa at the wheel, seemingly alone. Guessing he probably had the girl stashed in the boot, Auda waited until the RangeRover was a good distance down the road before he gestured for Basil to follow.
Since it was late in the afternoon and the roads were busy with people heading home from their work it wasn't too hard to follow the Major's vehicle without becoming obtrusive. As usual the few traffic lights in the city weren't working and the police performing traffic duty, in their starched white uniforms and peaked caps, looked the part but were actually creating more confusion with their meaningless arm waving. Auda smiled to himself. Despite the modern high-rise buildings and the newly constructed roads of the capital, El-Saram was still medieval at heart. The King, a despot and a fool in Auda's opinion, had imported from the western world what he imagined his country needed but generally it was useless and served only as window dressing to give the right image for tourists, whose presence and money he welcomed. The police, for example, looked good in their immaculate white uniforms and smiled at every tourist or businessman but they served only to distract the critical eye from the real police of El-Saram: the secret police, who wore no uniform but wielded all the power.
Auda had settled back, allowing Basil to drive. Following the Major's RangeRover they had weaved their way around cyclists, camels and clapped out old buses until they left the city behind them. Auda unfolded and surveyed an old map of the area from when it had been a British colonial province. The King had banned all maps and map-making except for ones that he authorised, maps that carefully omitted his military bases; the inland oases and old towns of the hinterland that the King wanted to become forgotten. These places were still controlled by local Sheikhs and if he could reduce their trade he would reduce their wealth. Turn his opponents into beggars and how could they stop him, was his reasoning.
The perfect new tarmac swept across the sand with bold confidence for five kilometres to an inlet where there was the main oil-refinery. After that the road, which followed the coast, was nothing more than gravel. Basil allowed the RangeRover to increase its lead and the dust that it threw up acted as an efficient smoke screen enabling them to follow unseen. After a few more kilometres the main road swung inland but the RangeRover carried on down an old track that was marked on Auda's map but seemed to lead nowhere except out to a peninsula of land that thrust out into the ocean for several kilometres. Auda thought his map showed nothing but then scrutinising the map more closely he saw that almost hidden amongst the zigzag ink lines representing the cliffs was the tiny outline of a tower marked on the cliffs at the furthest point of the peninsula. The map showed that the track took a circuitous route to the tower and that if they could get the jeep along a wadi, a dried out streambed, they would effect a short cut and rejoin the track half way to the tower.
So the diligent British Empire mapmakers had even come here, Auda thought to himself, staring down the sand dune into the dark. The faint lights of the tower were the only things as far as the eye could see to show the mark of man on the wild landscape. Apart from the distant sound of the sea grinding over the rocks and against the cliffs, there was an eerie silence. The tower, he guessed must have been built as a lighthouse or a watchtower many centuries ago. And now it was being used by a Major of the secret police as a dungeon for helpless foreign girls to be held in and tortured for his amusement.
The short cut had worked and Auda had scattered a few tyre spikes across the track where they rejoined it. Basil had suggested that they ambush the Major but Auda had merely wanted to lure out from the tower whoever was in there. They had then driven the jeep across country to the tower and arrived in time to watch two young men hurry from the tower and drive a Mercedes down the track at reckless speed. Auda had then hoped to find the tower unguarded but he hadn't banked on it being so impregnable. He was quietly walking around the high stone walls when he heard a voice from inside. Even with one man still in it there was no way they could force an entry quickly enough to surprise him. So it was that they'd settled back to watch the arrival of the Major and had seen Vanessa being carried into the tower by his two servants.