In time, Cathy’s body was covered in sweat as she struggled to remain still, her strong muscles in agony from the demands this placed upon them. Eventually a soft moan escaped from her tightly compressed lips as her leg muscles weaken and slipped back a fraction of an inch, tightening the rope around her throat by another millimeter. Alone in the darkness, Cathy began to cry, moving beyond fear to terror, the terror of dying a millimeter at a time.
Her only solace the thought that they would be coming to rescue her any time now. They had to be coming……… they had to.
/////////////////////////
As Cathy sweated, struggled and cried in the dark, the Arab drank tea with the Poshtoons in the large central room of the cave. The men were discussing again and again the attack on the helicopter, each man’s role in defeating the Americans growing with each retelling of the story.
Though he could not speak their language, the Arab could sense their mood easily enough. He could see that it was happy even without the terse and begrudging translation provided by the dour Kehalis. . Those translations grew even more terse as the men’s boasting turned to last night’s anal rape of the blonde American.
More from their faces and their extravagant gestures- and the hardening expression on Kehalis’ face- than from Kehalis‘ translation, the Arab could sense that the men viewed him more favorably now, and that their taste of the woman had taken away their curiosity about her, at least for the moment. He did not think that Kehalis would have much success turning the men against him over her now. That, he knew, could change quickly.
But for the moment, he decided that his main problem was the Americans rather than the men he nominally led. Patiently, he waited for the conversation to work its way from what they had done to what they must do next. They must either flee to the safety of the tribal area over the border or remain here in hiding until the search died down.
Even in his inexperience, he could see that the barren hillsides would provide them no cover from an aerial search if they simply tried to flee back to the border and safety. It was obvious to him that they should stay here in the cave. The Americans would no doubt search for their lost whore. But in a few days, there would be other emergencies , other problems, which would require their attention and divert the troops searching for her.
The search for the woman would be , if not actually forgotten, reduced to a token effort with little chance of success. Once the decision to stay here and hid had been made, the question of whether or not they would be found by the American search was, to the Arab’s mind, a matter of God’s will. There was no use further worrying about it.
They had water from a nearby stream, but they would need food beyond the pocket full of bread and the sack of tea the men each carried with them if they were to stay here. The question of food, as well as proper clothing for his new female slave, were all that concerned the Arab now.
Patiently he waited for the subject to work its way to food, his mind half on the Pashtoons and half on the woman he had left bound in the dark room.
///////////////////////
As the Arab sipped tea and Cathy suffered, the Americans were indeed coming. They had discovered the crash site shortly before dawn. It had taken that long because, without any idea when the aircraft went down, the aviation battalion had to search the entire return leg outlined in Cathy’s flight plan.
Even with every available helicopter in the air, that had taken hours. By the time the aircraft reached the area of the crash, the flames on the downed helicopter had died out, leaving only darkness. Without on-board thermal sensors, the searching UH-60’s from Cathy’s aviation battalion saw nothing on their first pass through the area but the indistinct greenish jumble of the mountains below them as seen through their night vision goggles.
It was only when the thermal gunner’s sight on one of the three attached AH-64 Apache attack helicopter detected the hot metal of the crashed helicopter to the east of the presumed flight path that the searchers learned for sure what had happened to the missing UH-60. Forbidden to land because of the danger of an ambush set around the crash site, the air crews could only circle helplessly and wait until an infantry company was assembled and flown to the site to secure it.
Once the site had been secured, it took some hours before the searchers realized that there was a body missing. Which crew member was missing and presumed captured was unclear at that time due to the badly burned condition of two of the bodies. After a local search turned up nothing. more hours were lost while additional troops were transported in and CIA predator unmanned drones diverted from other duties to search the surrounding mountainous terrain.
Mindful of the delay and desperate to keep whoever had taken one of the aircrew captive from reaching sanctuary in Pakistan, the ground commander made a fateful decision. He decided to use their helicopters to leapfrog ahead of the presumed fleeing enemy and land the troops hard on the border with orders to search back northwest toward the crash site.
Aside from the predator drones high overhead, no searchers entered the valley of Kehalis’ cave.
////////////////////////////
Hours later when the Arab returned to the room, he saw Cathy still struggling to keep her legs from relaxing and tightening the rope around her neck as her leg muscles slowly weakened. She seemed unaware of his return, too absorbed in her desperate struggle to notice him. He turned up the lantern and put it on the platform by her.
He stared intently at Cathy’s face in the lamplight. It was covered in her sweat, jaw clinched , the lips a tight red line across her face, her eyes tightly closed as Cathy struggled to remain motionless. He saw that she had turned on her side in her struggles, her body still tightly , cruelly bowed by the rope connecting her booted feet and the nose around her slender neck.
Cathy remained unaware of his presence until he reached out and ran his hand over her clothed body, feeling the tension there, the struggle of her will to control her tired muscles. With a start, Cathy’s eyes flew open and a soft “OH” escaped her mouth.
” Do you have anything you wish to ask me., slave?” He asked softly.
” Yes, Master .. please .. release me.. I can’t take this any longer..
Master?”
The Arab could see the desperation as well as the humiliation in her eyes as well as hear it in her soft voice.
” You address me as Master. Do you understand what that means?”
” Yes, I understand. Please.. untied me.. I can’t breath…my legs are so ..”
” Tell me what it means, Cathy.”
Cathy choked as she fought to get the words out. Horrible as they were to her, she had to accept them.
” Yes.. Master. It means you own me. You can do anything you want with me..
with my body. I am.. Your.. slave.”
” Very good, slave. But I know Western woman. I wonder, do you really understand what you are saying?”