CHAPTER ONE

 

The only sound the girl could hear was her own breathing, deeply in and out; it was her whole world. Her brain felt befuddled. It was still dark; she must have awoken early. She felt a bit stiff, uncomfortable and decided to turn over. Nothing happened, she could not move! Her breathing became more rapid as she struggled to comprehend, feeling a bit alarmed now.

Tensing her muscles, she braced her arms and legs, but again nothing happened. Panic began to set as she tried to turn her head, open her eyes but nothing seemed to work. She made a conscious decision to relax, to try and think. What had happened to her? She must have been hurt, injured and was now in hospital? Yes, that must be it, she rationalised. But how? When? Her mind was presently a blank. Trauma brought on by the shock of whatever happened to her she decided. Hopefully it was temporary - her mind protecting her - but from what? She shivered in apprehension.

Now she was slowly becoming aware of various aches and pains on her body. It was uncomfortable; the drugs the hospital had given her must be wearing off. How could she attract anyone's attention? Maybe, she pondered, she was unconscious and needed to come around, open her eyes and tell the world that she had made it, pulled through? Yet something seemed to be physically preventing her eyes from opening, as it was also preventing her moving her limbs.

Fresh panic set in to make her heart pound faster. She must have been so badly hurt in the accident that she couldn't move or see. Now she was just a vegetable, but a feeling, hearing vegetable. Yes, hearing! The girl realised that she could indeed hear, albeit just a background sound like a dripping tap. She must think harder, establish what had happened, tweak out her last memories.

Basics first. What was her name?

Cathy. It tumbled into her consciousness making her feel better. Not all was lost, she was remembering, forcing herself to. Yes, Cathy was her name; she was in her early twenties and worked as a legal secretary. That was better, she felt proud of herself. Things were coming back now.

She had a husband, a British army officer. She could visualise his handsome face and strong body. He was so caring of her. Had he been with her - was he hurt too - or worse? Or if not, did he at least know which hospital she was in? No, she sensed he hadn't been around when whatever happened to her. That thought made her even more despairing. She must control the panic and try to think back.

She had a nice red car and ... what made her think of that, she pondered. Suddenly another wave of panic...something must have happened in the car, an accident?

This was silly, she was determined to force her mind to unlock its secrets and no longer hold her a prisoner in her own body. A prisoner? Somehow that word made her feel bad. Why? Slowly she forced her mind to unravel the knots it had made in her memory.

She recalled leaving her office. It was a hot day, but the car park was cool, and then... Her mind tried to shrink away but it was saved by a sound intruding into her world; an opening door, heavy grating footsteps on a concrete floor. She now concentrated on the approaching person.

"With us again so soon, pretty lady." It was a man's voice in broken English, an oily unpleasant voice. She felt more afraid now, afraid of that voice and shuddered when the footsteps stopped before her. "That good, we no want anything happen to you - yet." She shivered again at the words and their sneering tone.

A hand ruffled her hair and lightly slapped her head. It sent sparks of pain into her as she struggled to move. It was useless, her arms and legs just wouldn't work. She was helpless.

She tensed as she heard the footsteps departing and although she instinctively didn't like the voice, she didn't want to be left alone again in the dark, helpless. But she was. It was as if she was all alone in the world - apart from those who had apparently kidnapped her.

Her breathing was again rapid and shallow. She forced herself to relax and understand what had happened to her.

It had been hot. Yes, she almost gave a cry as she remembered. She worked in the Arabic state of Pashar as a legal secretary in the British Embassy. And yet... she wasn't just a legal secretary. The memories she had deliberately suppressed of her secret intelligence duties surfaced. Yes ostensibly she was just a secretary - but she was also a cipher clerk decoding secret messages to and from the embassy. Angrily she buried those memories again, it was dangerous to think about her other clandestine duties in unguarded moments. OK, so she wasn't a secret agent or anything glamorous like that, but nevertheless it was important and classified work - which had to be kept that way - that's why her memories were reluctant to surface - but she must force them out now.

Her head ached. Something about her cipher work was on her mind. More memory returned. She had recently received a message. That was it ... an important one. It was about the activities of a local group of Arabs; she had to pass it onto her contact. Rules forbade the messages leaving the embassy or being e-mailed and phones could be tapped over here. So, as usual when she had such things and in accordance with regulations, she'd written the gist of it, with a few changes, as if it were a letter home and had folded it in her handbag. She had arranged to meet one of her friends, in reality a secretary in the American embassy. On this occasion it was Susie, a vivacious American Hispanic with short red hair. Her other contact, Paula, another secretary in that Embassy, was a teenager, a petite Midwest girl, also pretty and with long brown hair. It all depended who was on duty on at the given time - today Paula was off-duty so Susie was the meet - in a local cafe. They varied the place each time. ... Her returning memory took her back to her car.

She had driven herself out of the embassy compound as she had done so many times before, gunning the powerful four-wheel drive to raise a swirl of dust. Then on the side-street she always took, just out of sight of the embassy, a teenage Arabic girl wearing big sunglasses and a baseball hat had flagged her down. The girl held a white sheet of paper with her name, Mrs Cathy Frazer, written on it.

What now? Her first reaction was to ignore the girl. But then she had thought better of it; the girl obviously knew her, was expecting her and it could be something important. Controlling her impatience she jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop a few yards past the youngster and was secretly pleased to see that the girl had to run up to her. She wound down the window, cautiously only a little so the girl could speak.

"Are you Mrs Cathy Frazer?"

"Yes, well, what of it?"

"Someone called Suzie, I do work for her sometimes, gave me a message for you. It is that that instead of the normal place, she'd meet you at a cafe round the corner," the youngster had said with girlish enthusiasm. "She said something about her being watched. I can show you how to get there; it's only a minute or so."

Cathy had been indecisive. How many timers had they been warned about last minute changes to arrangements for meetings? And although she looked young and harmless Cathy didn't know the girl. But while she bit her lip the eager girl had clambered into the back of the car.

"Straight along this road then right at the end, it's also near a clothes shop I want to visit," the girl said cheerily.

Cathy assumed she was a local youngster that Suzie used to pass messages. Her guard was down. What harm could it do to change from meeting her friend in one public place to another?

She soon knew. The girl had struck before Cathy could ever have expected trouble.

"Look in the mirror." Before she had even got to the end of the road she had heard the young Arabic voice from the back of her car; it now had a strange inflection.

"Aaghh," she had jumped in her seat, making the big car swerve violently in the quiet road as she felt a sharp pain in her neck.

Instinctively she looked into the rear view mirror to see the girl, leaning right behind her brandishing a thin stiletto. The girl's knife had delicately jabbed her neck, making her begin to slow down, seeking to stop the car and leap out to face the girl.

"Ug, ug, Mrs Frazer, do nothing but drive or my blade goes right through your neck and into your throat," the voice was now low, in control, dripping venom.

Cathy gulped, feeling the point pressing against the nape of her neck. Imagining it skewing her, she gently gunned the car forward again, hoping against hope to be stopped by a traffic policeman so she could jump from the car. But the roads were quiet at this time of the day.

"Keep cool, Mrs Frazer. Do exactly as I tell you and you won't get hurt," the pressure of the knife eased only slightly on her skin.

"Please... take my money, don't... what do you...?

"No talking, just do as you are told if you want to keep breathing. Turn left here, then second right." The instructions were crisp, precise and Cathy dare not argue as she drove off the main road and into a side street. "Stop right here. Look straight ahead; do not prevent the gentleman from getting in."

Cathy could recall the sweat of fear trickling down her side as, staring obediently straight at the windscreen she was aware from the corner of her eyes of an Arab youth jumping quickly into the passenger seat beside her. He was also disguised, like the girl, with mirrored sunglasses and a baseball hat pulled well down.

"Drive, take the third right. Pass the gentleman your handbag," the girl continued.

Cathy ground her teeth, hating her lack of courage as she meekly fished it up from the floor and obeyed. He immediately opened it on his lap, pocketing her mobile phone. She felt cut off and helpless from anyone who could help. Worse, they were now heading for a secluded part of town. With resignation she guessed that she was to be robbed. She just hoped that the letter to Suzie would just be thrown away. These yobs wouldn't make anything of it anyway she assured herself.

"Stop here, switch off," the girl ordered when they reached a deserted car park. Her fingers felt hot as she clenched the wheel whilst the boy reached across, deftly switched off the engine and pocketed her car keys. She tensed expecting an assault or worse. `"Hold the wheel, don't let go, don't move or talk. If you resist in any way you know what to expect," the girl's calm voice ordered as she again pricked her knife into her neck.

Cathy remembered being frozen in fear and loathing as the boy's hands reached out to her. He unbuttoned the top of her blouse. She tensed still further as they grabbed the large silver locket nestling on her cleavage.

"Please, no. It's worthless, just a present from my... aahhh," she had gasped as the knife had jabbed her again, hurting.

"Quiet, bitch, or you get really hurt," the boy snarled as he wrenched the locket from her neck. With barely a glance he threw it backwards to the girl in the back seat. Somehow she guessed and feared that he knew what it was - that it contained her emergency alarm to the embassy.

"Legs apart, don't squeeze together," the boy snapped. She closed her eyes as his hands slid over her. They ran up her thighs under her skirt, undid more buttons of her blouse, running over her shoulders, pulling it from her skirt and even under feeling around her bra. If anything had been concealed on her, he would have found it.

"Nothing obvious on her, safe to get her back," the boy instructed.

"Look, please..." Cathy was fumbling for words. If it wasn't a simple robbery, it could be something quite more serious and worrying.

"Shut it. We need you alive if possible but a few cuts won't matter," the girl again used her knife till Cathy felt that her neck must resemble a pincushion. She lapsed into a terrified silence, knowing for sure that this was more than just a 'simple' robbery. "Into the back seat, don't try anything," the voice brooked no disobedience - and Cathy was in any case too frightened to attempt any.

"Face down, lay across my lap, hands behind you, mouth open," the girl issued curt instructions, prodding her with the knife until she obeyed.

"Hugggh," she remembered gasping as a rough smelly rag was shoved into her mouth and a pair of handcuffs tightly clicked around her wrists. Her helplessness had been completed by the sack pulled over her face.

Then she had felt her car move off, with her a blind helpless prisoner on board. She pulled desperately on her wrists and arms but they wouldn't budge. They were confined tightly behind her. She hated that loss of control, feeling so vulnerable, the heat of the day confined under her hood choking and stifling her so uncomfortably.

"No struggle, it's useless, you ours now!" She felt the girl's arm pinning her tightly down to prevent her useless squirming.

Getting out of the driver's door and clambering into the back seat beside the girl had been her last act of freedom, her last taste of fresh air. From casually driving her car, something she took so much for granted, she was now no better than a helpless animal. She had become merely a pawn in someone else's game, with absolutely no control over her own destiny.

It seemed that for an hour or more she was driven as a prisoner in her own car. Finally they slowed and stopped. There was the sound of an old creaking gate being unlocked and then locked after the car, which soon stopped and the engine died. And as the daylight under her hood dimmed Cathy sensed they had driven into some shade somewhere.

Roughly the girl grabbed her arm and had hauled her stumbling from her car, making her lose her shoes in the process. Rough concrete was painful under her bare feet as she was hustled along in the girl's grip. Thankfully it felt cool away from the merciless heat of the midday sun, but worryingly she felt herself being led down stairs, cellar maybe? That was ominous, she remembered thinking. After a couple of stumbling, toe-stubbing minutes the girl whisked off her hood.

Momentarily Cathy blinked her eyes to focus them with the return of sight. She gulped. Before her stood a large and unpleasant looking Arab wearing a black mask in contrast to his soiled white suit - and he had a gun pointing steadily at her.

"I sorry, Mrs Frazer," he sneered with no sorrow at all as he levelled the weapon at her.

Cathy could recall her blood pounding fear; nearly wetting herself as in slow motion she saw the fat brown finger begin to squeeze the trigger. In turn she squeezed her eyes shut her muscles rigid with tension trying to imagine what it would feel like when the bullet tore into her. A part of her wondered why go to the bother of kidnapping her, just to kill her. Her hands were useless sweating balls of fear in the handcuffs. She tugged on them again so uselessly.

Still she waited for the last sound she would ever hear. Fractionally she opened an eye just in time to see and feel the gun barrel nestle against her forehead. The metal was warm and she guessed the gun had been in his pocket for some time. It felt as if her head would explode with pressure long before the bullet bore into it.

"Plggshhhh," she managed through her gag, her eyes wide with terror as she struggled in the girl's grip.

"Goodbye, Mrs Frazer," she recalled hearing the girl's light-hearted voice. Desperately she tensed herself, waiting for the bullet to furrow its way deep inside her. Her mind flew to her husband Tim. Would he ever know what had happened to her? Tears welled up; she so much wanted to see him again, if only to say goodbye and how much she loved him. But she guessed it was not to be. She wondered how much that tiny slug of metal tearing into her flesh and bone would hurt before her mind switched off and oblivion took her?

Then instead of the explosion and ripping flesh, she had felt a hot jab of pain in her arm. Looking down she saw a syringe in the hands of the Arab boy. It had been a good distraction and as if through a veil she heard the fat Arab chuckling horribly as he put away his gun.

Long before the drug took full effect Cathy had collapsed from the sheer pressure of her ordeal. Her brain seeking refuge in nice thoughts of Tim, hoping against hope that he could find where she was and rescue her, then it shut down and she had slumped into the arms of the fat masked Arab.

Yes, it had now all come back to her now, every unpleasant detail. After knocking her out with the needle they must have tied her securely into a chair and she was again hooded to increase her fear and helplessness. And it was working; she had been completely disorientated, trying to piece together her situation. Yet the effects of the drug were still seemingly in her system, with the shock and fear; she felt herself lapsing into unconsciousness again, her final thoughts of her husband, trying to impel him to find and rescue her from this hell.