“You have nicest tits of all,” Salim assured her grandly. Stacie was annoyed with herself for feeling proud.
It was a bitter moment when the van stopped. Now they would really be ogled! Sheepishly Salim tried to mend his fences, but the doors were opened while he was still fumbling with the first girl. Rannah laughed caustically, her companion with the inevitable rifle leered appreciatively. “Those things will look better with a few whipmarks,” she observed casually as she produced her key.
Whipmarks! On their breasts! Four pairs of female eyes focused on her sardonic regard. She chuckled at their dismay as she unlocked Stacie’s hands. “Just you. Out!” she ordered briefly.
Solid ground felt good to Stacie’s feet. Without asking or waiting to be told her hands flew to their task of repairing Salim’s predation. She had no sooner achieved this much desired end than Rannah accepted a cord from her henchman and ordered. “I’m going to tie your hands. If you want to fight or run Fazzim will hit you with his gun.”
It was part of the jig-saw taking shape. They were captive.
They would be given no freedom. Looking about her, Stacie saw they had entered a high walled Courtyard. She could run for the gate, but it would be futile. Hopelessly, and feeling foolish, she held out her hands.
“Behind your back!”
Only her total helplessness would appease! Fearfully Stacie turned her back and crossed her wrists, wryly remembering a hundred movies in which she had seen a heroine similarly bound. The cord bit and twisted savagely, its final knot was like the clanging of a prison door. It hurt and told her she was captive, a couple of testing tugs emphasised that she could never free herself. Once more it was a new and incredible sensation.
The next shock was the slamming of the doors of the van and the return of the man and his gun to the cab. The vehicle roared out of the Courtyard and disappeared. Rannah twisted a hand in the hair of the bound girl and tugged. “Make no trouble,”
she advised. “I can handle you like a kitten.”
Stacie knew desolation. She had not even known the names of the other girls, but there had been comfort in their presence. Now she was alone, the fact was sinister. She took as quick a survey as Rannah would allow. What she saw spelt wealth and consequence, a private Oasis walled and tended, the building huge yet graceful, definitely Moorish. She had no way of knowing if it was an isolated palace or part of a community. Rannah gave an admonitory tug. “Come.”
He sat in an open mezzanine, a shaded balcony above his patios and gardens, a pleasant place. He was sipping coffee. His robe was of Jedrah but his face was of the West, vaguely familiar, handsome and suave. He did not rise, but waved her to a chair across from him at the small table. “Please sit down, Miss Blair.”
So he knew her! Silent and cautious the captive approached. Rannah had disappeared. Tentatively Stacie sat, her bound hands precluded grace. She would let him talk, she could protest later.
“Coffee?”
“Thanks, I’d like some. But my hands are tied behind my back.”
He nodded appreciatively. “I will lift the cup to your lips. It will be a pleasure.”
She would play it cool. Deliberately her voice was casual.
“Why not untie me so we may drink together in comfort?”
“I prefer you tied. It pleases me.” His nonchalance outmatched hers.
Stacie watched him pour. She swallowed both her pride and the coffee when he raised the cup. She needed it.
“Young women find the loss of their hands difficult at first.” His voice had a pleasing vibrancy, his English was perfect. Again there was the shadow of familiarity.
“You always tie the hands of your female guests?” She knew her sarcasm trite, but it was apt.
His smile was reflective. “More often than you might suppose,” he acknowledged. “It is amusing to watch their reactions.”
“I am tied too tight. It hurts.”
“Of course, Rannah is most competent.”
She knew herself played with. Seething, she kept silent.
“I am Mohammad Yasin,” he said simply.
Another of the jig-saw pieces fell into place. She recognized him now! But he was as unbelievable as the rest of the nightmare. Yasin was Arab Oil. Yasin was a delegate at the United Nations, an Arab spokesman. Yasin was one of the most powerful men in the world. She should have been reassured, but she was not. “Would the Secretariat approve this . . . this . . . ?” She shrugged her strained shoulders eloquently.
“I am sure you are puzzled.” His faintly amused courtesy was ill-matched with her bound hands. “I will bring you into the picture.”
“Could I have more coffee?” Her demand was an assertion of herself. She also wanted the coffee.
Gravely, Mohammad Yasin went through the small ritual.
When he resumed his seat he continued without changing inflection: “I have brought you here to torture you.”
Stacie let it sink in. It was too big to encompass in a single moment or with a quick exclamation. Was it opera bouffe or pure evil! For such a word there was no median. Fear was a cold presence within her spine. She looked at Yasin in wide eyed puzzlement.
His rich cool voice acknowledged her inability to respond.
“Not too long ago before we repossessed our Oil, my daughter little more than a child, by odd mischance fell into the hands of a crew of rough-necks, all American, operating one of your father’s drilling rigs. Fourteen of them raped her repeatedly throughout the day, poured crude oil over her nakedness as a parting gift and sent her on her way. I was not then as well known as now . . .”
He paused musingly. Stacie saw the whiteness of his clenched hands, and stilled her voice.
“My representations seeking justice, made direct to your father, were ignored or treated with ridicule or flatly rejected.” He eyed Stacie quizzically. “Your father is a hard, biased and conceited man.”
Stacie twisted against her tied wrists. Yasin’s words made the cord seem tighter than before. She grudgingly conceded his judgment of her parent largely true. She could believe that a few years ago he would have treated the rape of a wog girl far away with amused contempt.
“And you’d punish me for this!” Her voice told her disbelief.
“Is it not fitting?”
Again the seeking to adjust, to comprehend reality. Her eyes were an appeal to reason. “But it’s pure melodrama!”
He shrugged agreement. “Most of life is, my dear. That or farce. The division depends on where you live.”
“My father will ransom me.”
“I am sure he would.” He waved the thought aside. “I have more money than he. True, he has some power and much wealth, but neither match my own. This leaves you as his only currency.”
“But there’ll be a tremendous fuss. The hi-jacking, the disappearances. Daddy will raise the roof in Washington over me . . . !” She probed for a weakness in his armour.
His amusement was genuine, “Let us consider, my dear, what Washington and your father face. The plane with its elderly is already well on its way to its normal destination. The group of passengers most likely to be of profit are in the hands of a guerrilla force for whom I hold some sympathy. Everyone is witness to the fact that you and your three companions were seen to be free and walking of your own will along a desert path without coercion. Conclusions will be drawn, none of them certain. You have disappeared. Who can tell with today’s youth . . . perhaps from your own caprice.” Yasin smiled. “A good deal of trouble, yes. But you will be worth it.”