Many great works of fiction have had their roots in historical events, and no other age has ever known the making of history such as the one in which we live. War, that dreaded rider of the red horse, more than any other scourge upon this earth, has shaped lives, our way of living them, and the tales we tell about them. In our time we have known not only actual armed conflict in remote corners of the world, but in less troubled spots we live in the shadow of the "cold war," the fear of nuclear war, and what is more often referred to as "the threat against the peace."
In the midst of the latter, Sold into Slavery strikes out at us with dynamic force. Embellished with Middle-East intrigue, Trevor N. Travis's latest novel rifles us through a rampant tale of passionate lust and explosive action, yet woven with the thread of Oriental vs. Occidental "morality" which builds suspense to its last unbridled degree.
Mr. Travis's past books have given us deep insight into the comparison of Eastern and Western sexual mores; he once again exemplifies those differences here. As often pointed out in his previous works, the East has something to teach the West regarding tolerance in the sexual arena as well as in other individual peculiarities. Human beings of the future will surely deplore the obsessive Western preoccupation with what is "proper and moral," denying the right to read, view or accept what has long been common practice in other cultures throughout the world.
The sophisticates have largely-and in the main rightly-convinced us that much of what we thought to be vice in the area of sex was not vicious after all, and those who have been largely unfettered by sexual restrictions hold out to the rest of us an example that is more and more tempting as our punctured and eroded absolutism becomes increasingly useless as a shield against the temptation of bodily gratification.
There will surely be some who will say that this is an immoral book, that such a book can only give a further encouragement to the drift toward degeneration already so apparent in the United States and throughout much of the rest of the world. But the careful reader will know better.
We trust that you are one of these.
-The Publishers
CHAPTER ONE
There was no moon. The desert frightened Crystal when it was like this; it reminded her of the barren wasteland which sometimes haunted her dreams. Of course, it was barren and very much a wasteland, but she remembered it by moonlight when it resembled a vast sea dotted with illusionary vessels of odd shapes, sometimes a silvery sea that billowed into the horizon and beyond. Tonight it was bleak and eerie, adding to the tension which made her want to bite furiously at her nails.
The alluring young woman stirred, changed her position and sighed uneasily in the seat beside the balding, thirty-three year old plump man who was driving with eyes fixed on the strip of flat, unbending highway ahead. His nerves are showing too, she thought. He had hardly spoken the last fifty miles, but she welcomed that.
She wondered about Yossi for the thousandth time. Would he be there? She wasn't the best at map drawing, but using Las Vegas as the central marker, along with the named secondary roads which crossed the main highway, she felt certain her pinpoint had been just that-pinpointed.
She reached for a cigarette, considered it, and bypassed. Her throat was raw. Her eyes burned from the arid heat, and the damned radio was off the station again. She'd dropped the news thing anyway. There had been nothing. How could there be, with three more days before the bank opened and the loss discovered?
The money lay neatly packed in the valise on the back seat-$500,000 of it. My God! Fantastic! Utterly fantastic! A half million dollars ... what can we and the cause do with that, darling?
"We must be almost there," C. Earle Newman, her brother-in-law said. "Check the map, Crystal. We just passed viaduct 36. It can't be any more than a mile."
"You're right. I just looked," she said. "It should be the next right turn."
"It has to be," he added in an edgy voice. "Light me a cigarette, will you?"
Crystal Morris responded automatically. She strained her eyes for the sight of the road-mouth ahead. Yossi, he there, darling! she prayed in silent nervousness. The pudgy hand reached over, and she placed the lighted cigarette between his extended fingers. It went to his lips, and she heard him suck the smoke deep into his lungs even above the hum of the motor. The sound repulsed her.
"There it is!" he exclaimed. "That's got to be it."
He shoved down on the accelerator then let off of it in the same abrupt fashion, lurching the twenty-two year old blonde woman beside him backward and forward with mild whiplash motions. It had been that way ever since Los Angeles, Crystal thought irritably; he had to be the worst goddamned driver in the world. She brushed her long gold hair back over her shoulder, holding onto the armrest as he swung onto the desert road with a dangerous swerve of the back wheels.
"Now, let's hope our plane is there waiting for us, baby," C. Earle Newman spoke, half under his breath.
It should be, he reasoned; he'd paid plenty for it, with half in advance. Every last detail had been considered and arranged for. In a few hours they would be safely in Mexico. From there it would be South America-Brazil probably and with a half-million bucks to begin their new life together. He glanced over at the curvaceous young woman beside him, sensing irrepressible desire immediately fomenting in the depths of his loins. Yes, she was worth it; he wasn't sorry-not yet anyway.
"How're you holding, baby?" he asked, reaching over to run his hand along the firm fullness of her upper thigh, feeling its nylon-covered warmth beneath her short-skirted dress.
"Me? Fine, fine," she answered, her cringe an inward emotion she had learned to conceal well from him. She gaped ahead, sweeping her glance from side to side. "If only the damned moon would come out. How much farther do you think?"
"Not far ... a mile, maybe. Don't worry, we'll be able to see the outline of the plane. It's supposed to be near the road," he said, thinking how much she resembled her sister, his wife of five years. But it was only a physical similarity; there it ended. Tracy's apathetic notion of marriage was as responsible for what had happened as was her irresistible younger sister sitting next to him right now.
It hadn't been a spur of the moment thing, either. Since the first week following their honeymoon, it'd been going on. With both parents dead and one another all the two sisters had of real family, he'd agreed to let young Crystal live with them. Christ, it had been inevitable. At seventeen, she'd been no wilder than any of her generation, he supposed, but when she'd come right out and asked him to fuck her, he'd shown as much willpower as a kid in a candle shop. Maybe that was some sort of record-both sisters' virginity; he liked to think it was, anyway.
Tracy was either ignorant of the lurid affair going on, or simply refused to acknowledge its existence. He'd agreed to pay Crystal's college tuition at his wife's request, but the voluptuous doll had repaid him at every opportunity. It'd been her college boy friends which had nearly driven him bats with jealousy, but the luscious green-eyed sexpot had that crazy way of reassuring him. He'd insisted she spend all vacation time, including long weekends with them-all except this one, the long Memorial Day affair.
They had planned it carefully, down to the tiniest detail. Crystal had bussed down from Berkeley, and he'd picked her up at the Greyhound terminal after he'd bought the car.
The day of decorating war graves was going to give them that extra twenty-four hours before the bank loss could possibly be discovered. By then, they would be long gone.
"I think I see something," Crystal said, pointing ahead off to their right.
"Where?"
"Over there. See?"
He stared. "I doubt it, Crystal. Too close to the main highway, and there're boulders all around. He wouldn't chance a landing on that terrain. Besides, we have to pass down through a dry wash first, according to the map."
The young blonde woman didn't answer. Her stomach had begun to quiver at the thought of drawing closer and closer to Yossi and what was to come. Her hand crept into the purse beside her, rummaging unnoticed until its fingers closed on what she knew to be a small white tablet. Just as surreptitiously, the "soper" was delivered into her mouth and swallowed away with proficiency. It was Methaqualone, the "fad kick" at school. She loved what it did to her inhibitions. Be there, darling; be there. God! He had to!
They came onto the dry wash abruptly, the vehicle descending into the bed dug by innumerable flash flood conditions. Beyond should wait their transportation, C. Earle Newman speculated anxiously-their means of conveyance into the exotic life five-hundred thousand stolen dollars was going to bring them. No, he wasn't sorry; he'd do it again for her. Maybe she'd pressed him at the last, but it had been his idea over a year ago when they'd really begun to plan it seriously. Being promoted to bank branch manager had intensified those plans by making the whole operation more simple to bring off.
"There it is!" she exclaimed, sitting upright to point at the faint outline of a small aircraft against the backdrop of dark desert night.
The fleshy, balding husband saw it. He felt excitement whip through him. "Yeah," he said. "That's our sky-chariot for sure, baby. Now ... let's see if we can drive over to it across that sand."
He swung off the narrow road and found the desert earth like hardpan beneath the tires. The car's headlamps made the plane unquestionably distinguishable. A male figure was standing motionless beside it, watching their approach. As they drew closer, Newman saw that he was wearing a jacket and was hatless. He appeared younger than Sanchez, the Mexican that the bank manager had hired in Tijuana to meet them here, but that had been almost a month ago, and he'd forgotten the guy's exact features. It didn't matter anyway; certainly that plane could be there for no other reason than their own.
"Excited, honey?" Earle questioned with a tight grin.
"Never more," Crystal breathed, her heart pounding as she stared at the curly-haired, youthful-looking man waiting calmly for them. He was slender and tall and had dark obsessive eyes which penetrated to the depths of her soul. She knew that thin, boyish face with its determined chin and handsome,, though sometimes bloodlessly severe lips.
Earle cut the lights and engine. "Stay put while I make sure everything's okay," he ordered, getting out of the car, surprised when she opened the other door and hopped out too.
The shadowy figure moved toward them, and Earle waited as Crystal came around to stand just behind him. The sky seemed lighter, he thought; maybe the moon was going to show itself a bit. That should help with their takeoff. Sanchez looked nothing like he remembered him. Could he have sent someone else? The gloom seemed to fall away from him; he was holding something in his hand-holding it out toward them ... what the hell ... i-it was a-a gun, for Chrissake ... a gun pointed right at his belly!
"Crystal?" the figure questioned in a clear level voice.
"Yes, darling."
Earle Newman both heard and saw his wife's sister dash suddenly at the slender man holding the automatic trained on his plump belly. His free arm went around the narrow span of her waist, hugging her tightly to him.
"Wh-What the hell ... you're not Sanchez," the absconding husband stammered, gaping stupidly at the stranger embracing his girlfriend. "W-What's happening here? Crystal, for God's sake, who is this man?"
"Tell him who you are, Yossi, love," Earle heard his blonde accomplice say in a mocking tone, the words seeming to slur as she spoke them. Her arms were around the stranger's neck, and she was kissing his face and rubbing herself lewdly up against his side while his hand smoothed down to rest on the rounded swell of her full young buttocks.
Flabbergasted, C. Earle Newman gaped at the incredible scene before him, the glaring fixed gaze of this man with the unwavering weapon sending an icy chill of foreboding disaster up his spine.
"Where's the money?" Yossi asked.
"On the back seat in a suitcase," Crystal answered, nuzzling the gunman's neck to Earle's mounting nausea as he stared in stunned disbelief at the other man's hand caressing the firm, fleshy ovals of her buttocks through the light-textured mini-dress. "What about the pilot?" she asked.
"In the plane. He had an accident-ran into a bullet," Yossi replied in a calloused monotone. "Let's not waste time," he added, pushing her to one side. "Get the money from the car. The counterfeit is in a bag beside the plane. You change them while I look to your lover-boy's comfort."
Crystal tittered giddily, then turned to flash a cold unfeeling smile at her sister's deserting husband. There was sufficient moonlight now for Earle to see the inconceivable vicious gleam flashing in her large green eyes. Good Christ! What was happening?
The shocked embezzler refused to recognize what he knew to be true. He staggered backward a step as if he had been struck a physical blow.
"You ugly slob!" Crystal hissed bitterly at him. "Did you actually think I'd take on a whole dull lifetime with an obnoxious slob like you? I'd rather be dead. But instead, you're going to be ... isn't he, Yossi?"
"Crystal! My God, wh-what's happened to you?" Earle Newman choked out in a stammering voice. "A-after what we've been to each other ... all of our plans together...."
"Lies and tricks, you fat idiot," she spat at him. "All calculated to bring about this moment ... oh, maybe not in the beginning when I didn't know any better and thought it'd be wild laying a married man ... but then I met my darling Yossi and learned that there were more vehement purposes to live for. Tracy doesn't know it yet, but we're going to do her the greatest favor of her life!"
Her words slashed at him like the jagged edge of an assassin's knife. Earle Newman's brain swam, the blood seeming to rush from his head. He was going to be sick.
Yossi mistook his intentions when the balding husband seemed to bolt forward. The younger man sidestepped with effortless agility and swept the automatic's steel barrel down with a sickening crunch just above C. Earle Newman's left temple, hammering the bilious husband to the earth.
"You fuckin' bastard!" Yossi snarled, watching the groaning man's blood trickling profusely into the sand. A shiver of fascination ripped through him at the sight. He waited for the fat hulk to move, but it didn't, and then vomit began to gurgle from its mouth.
"He isn't-dead; is he, darling?" Crystal whispered, moving close to stare down at the bleeding body with a perverse captivation.
"I hope not. I'm a long way from through with the prick yet," Yossi snarled, hooking the toe of his boot beneath the unmoving form to kick him over onto his back. "Naw, there's plenty of life left in him." He shoved the automatic into his belt, squatted, and began to pull at his unconscious victim's trousers, jerking his pants and shorts down to his knees so that his genitals were exposed.
Crystal felt a stimulating tremor ripple through her soft belly at the sight of her brother-in-law's vulnerable loins helplessly bared. Twice before, she had assisted her zealous young lover wreak his almost fanatical vengeance, the lurid memory of those gruesome occasions firing obscene thrills through her drug-influenced body.
"Listen, go change that money like I told you, and put the real stuff in the plane. The bogus goes back in the car," Yossi ordered. "And don't let the pilot scare you. He's deader than Christ."
"Y-You won't do anything until I come back, will you, honey?" Crystal pressed, her voice tight with sensuous excitement.
"Damnit! Do as you're told!" he snapped, his dark eyes glowing fiercely as they glared at her in a moment of moonlight and she hurried away.
Yossi Nidam, twenty-two year old Palestinian Jew, sensed his mother's Arabic blood pounding furiously through his veins while he bound the fat man's hands behind his back with his own belt. American Jew, French Jew, Russian Jew, what difference did it make? He despised that part of his own self, the curse of his father, even to his name that he bore. But he had long ago disowned that part of him, as Pasha would see when he presented the money. How could the powerful leader refuse him membership then once he realized how devotedly he had worked for the cause? He couldn't. Yossi felt confident of it.
Earle Newman groaned and opened his eyes vacantly while his tormentor watched, still on his knees beside the bound, partially denuded man. Newman tried to raise up and Yossi smashed his balled fist in a hooking arc against the flab-cushioned jaw, jarring the balding, blood-streaked head down hard against the ungiving desert floor. A whimper of pain burst from the man's open lips. Again his eyes tried to focus, almost pathetically now.
"D-Don't hit me. God! Don't," C. Earle Newman begged. ''T-Take the money ... anything, but d-don't hurt me anymore."
"Whining dog! Circumcised prick!" Yossi derided through clenched teeth, spraying saliva into the bound bank manager's bloodied features, sadistic excitement building with fermenting pressure in the tightness of his gut. He sensed his genitals stirring, his penis hardening from the heartless emotions boiling fiercely in the depths of his loins. "El Fatah is your judge and jury tonight, Jew. Damn, how I wish Ibn Pasha were here to witness this!"
The tentacles of panic had long since gripped slimily around Earle Newman's very soul. He could hardly reason the extent of what was happening to him; it was beyond his dazed and sickened comprehension. Only that it was horror and Crystal a deceiving part of it registers. They were going to kill him-murder him-and there was nothing he could do to protect himself! He felt the hot tears running uncontrollably down his face and heard the sobs choking up out of him.
"Oh Christ ... don't, don't please?" the bound and bloodied husband pleaded without shame, the spineless wail both enraging Yossi and feeding his cruel hunger all the more.
He kneeled up higher and drove his vicious fists like short-chopping hammers into the soft doughiness of Newman's unprotected stomach as if he were setting the stroke on a slave galley. Loud grunts of forced raspy breath tore from the prone man's agonized throat, his legs trying to jackknife in defense.
From his pocket, Yossi jerked out a handkerchief and stuffed it into the opened gasping mouth. His eyes blazed and his swollen cock strained feverishly against the front of his pants as he jerked free his own leather belt. He thought of his dead mother and his young sister, the whore, in Tel Aviv. Crystal came running up behind him, and he said "Pull his pants down further ... down around his ankles."
She did, breathing heavily as Yossi ripped Newman's shirt upward until he was naked from mid-chest to his shins.
"What are we going to do to him?" she questioned hotly.
Her lover didn't answer. His lips drew back in a bloodless grimace, and he brought the belt down with whistling, unmerciful force against Earle Newman's naked white flesh.
"Uggghhmmmph! Ugggghhhmpphhh!" the tortured prisoner choked out through the gag, writhing beneath the broad thong of leather, its heavy buckle biting and ripping like a cat-o-nine-tails into the flaccid meat of his helplessly corpulent body.
Shivers of frantic excitement held Crystal spellbound while she watched the sadistic persecution unfold. "Let me, Yossi? Let me?" she begged.
"Kick him in the balls! Smash his nuts! Do it!" Yossi commanded harshly.
"Yes, yes!" she gasped, wild sensations of blinding lust racing through her now fire-filled loins and belly. She sensed the warm wetness seeping from between her flushed pussy-lips against the thin nylon strip of her panty crotch band as she kicked off her slipper so that she could feel the limp bulge of his naked cock and balls when she ground her foot into them.
The wild-eyed blonde girl didn't kick; instead, she placed her slender foot carefully on the hated genitals which had brought her such forbidden pleasure, and began to grind down on them without mercy.
"Stomp 'em! Stomp 'em, goddamnit!" Yossi screamed at her as he tore at the front of his pants open until his own blood-engorged penis was released from its painful confinement.
"Uuuggghhmmph ... uuuhhhgggmmph!" C. Earle Newman bleated one last time as Crystal's foot smashed down obscenely into his defenseless crotch, and then there was no sound that came out of him regardless of what they did to his crushed and bloodied, savagely welted body. He was unconscious.
Yossi sat back on his haunches, dropping the belt and removing the gag from Newman's mouth. He was panting loudly, the blood-swollen rod of his cock protruding through his open fly like a rigid, red bulbous-knobbed staff saluting this barbaric execution. Her young eyes feasting on his bloated cock-head, Crystal eased down onto her knees before him and reached forward to gently take the circumcised shaft in her hand. Lovingly, she began to stroke it for him.
"You want me to suck it now, darling?" she whispered with a feline hiss of lustful passion.
"Yeah. Christ, yes," he swore, his dark eyes burning rabidly. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a straight razor, his breath fiery hot against her face. "I-I'm going to cut him open when I cum," he whispered as she began to unfasten his pants to draw them down, exposing his hair-covered loins to her widened eyes.
"Oh God!" she hissed, frenzied tremors of salacity charging maddeningly through her drug-aroused body.
"Get where you can watch. It'll be fantastic!" he promised, running his hand through her long blonde hair. "Then, we'll dump him and the pilot into the car, douse everything good with fuel oil and set it afire while I fly us out of here."
She nodded, her eyes eating him up as she continued to tenderly caress his long thick cock and the semen-bloated sac between his legs.
There had never been anything to equal this time, the impassioned young woman reasoned. She was going wild in the sensitive depths of her desire-incited loins. The squashy sensation of Earle's soft genitals still lingered against the sole of her foot.
"Go ahead, suck it," her dark-skinned lover commanded.
She leaned forward and kissed the tip of the young man's lustfully inflated cock-head, flicking out her hot tongue to catch the little drops of seminal fluid escaping from its tiny end-slit. Eagerly, she caressed his filling testicles, ovaling her lips and slipping them in feverish hunger down over the smooth burgeoning head, beginning to suck and lash with her tongue in a fervent effort to draw the seething sperm from the core of his pulsating balls.
Yossi felt a sharp surge of salacious sensation rifle through his body, making his distended penis swell to even greater size inside the heated cavern of her soft wet mouth. He watched the top of her head with its long honey-colored hair begin to lewdly bob up and down on the end of his stiffened member. She was using her tongue the way she knew he liked it and he could feel it swiping around the thick coronal rim, stimulating his rigid shaft to make short little reflexive jerks in her mouth. Her lips were moist and soft, moving further down onto his vein-covered penis, taking all she could into her mouth, surrounding his erected flesh with the warmth of her breath and saliva.
She began to suck voraciously and he saw her spread her thighs and reach one hand up between them to tug aside the narrow white crotch band of her panties. She moaned around her mouthful of passion-bloated cock-shaft at the contact of her finger on her own lust-incited pussy. He kneeled up further, shoving his hips at her face and pushing his blunt cock-head even farther in toward her convulsively working throat.
The sight of Earle Newman's helpless, blood-spattered body lying unconscious in lurid semi-darkness just a few feet away, and the thought of what he was going to do to him in the name of the cause, added furiously to the sensation Crystal's omnivorous sucking was bringing Yossi. He opened the straight razor to see the moonlight reflected in gleaming shimmers against the cold sharp steel and his heart began to pound.
He tensed his thighs and strained his hips at her face, his loins growing hotter and hotter. Her tiny tongue worked furiously around his undulating cock-shaft, and he knew she was finger-fucking her own steaming pussy to the lewd rhythm of her joggling head. Her free hand was stroking the pressuring sac of his balls and in his gut he could feel the imminence of the explosion to come. Deep inside him the boiling sperm was underway, and the thought of what he was going to to to Newman while he shot his teeming load down her throat overwhelmed him with a perversity of pleasure. He worked his hips lewdly, fucking into her face like a demon, forcing his rampaging cock ever deeper toward the tightness of her throat.
Crystal heard him gasp, uttering unintelligible words. She felt him bending over Earle and she strained her eyes trying to watch as his cock's throbbing head slipped down into her eagerly swallowing throat. His cum-bloated balls pulsated in her cupping hand, and she rubbed her tiny hardened clitoris in time to his every inward thrust into her gaping mouth.
"You fucking Jew dog!" Yossi screamed. "Oh Christ! I-I'm cuuuummminnnggg!"
Frantically, Crystal sucked, taking his jerking hardness down her wanting throat while her mouth stretched grotesquely and her eyes twisted and bulged half out of their sockets at what he was doing between her brother-in-law's defenseless thighs. Suddenly, flooding spasms of his scalding thick cum flooded into her mouth in pungent, sticky jets of primeval male release!
And then, Earle shrieked horribly into the silent night, and Crystal saw the shimmering glitter of the slashing razor and the blood spurting from his loins just as the raging issues of Yossi's sperm squirted down her throat from her lover's wildly spewing penis. Then she sensed her own orgasm rising higher and higher, cumming with tremendous force as Earle screamed once more and Yossi laughed insanely, mad with his moment of sexual climax and sadistic revenge.
He had castrated her ex-lover. And now he was hacking off Earle's flaccid penis and stuffing it into the fat man's shrieking, blood-stained mouth!
CHAPTER TWO
Once the initial shock was passed, a durable Tracy Newman bolstered up and set herself straight. The primary impact had been more severe than the after-effects. Though her secure, if prosaic, existence had come to an abrupt end with scandalous proportions that were reflected in every familiar face, the capable young woman chose to ignore it. Neither brooding nor self-pity could change what had happened, and disregarding its nefarious immensity, she knew she had to go on.
The twenty-five year old shapely blonde widow was not, she realized, all that calloused. Her mettle of stubborn determination in the face of adversity had simply, "kicked in" as might an emergency generator during a power failure. Earle was dead, violently and mysteriously, but most definitely wiped out of her life forever. To some extent, she mourned his loss after their five years together, but not as she might have in the absence of the monstrous outrage her late husband had committed.
Whatever they had once shared that had led her to the altar with Earle had from their very wedding day grown more and more hollow, until there was little but the shell of security left at the end. How long it might have gone on that way Tracy had no idea, and it was no longer of any importance. What did matter in the aftermath was her sister Crystal's disappearance and possible complicity in the murder of her husband.
Tracy had never remotely considered such a thing as an affair between them. Too close to the forest to see the trees perhaps. Earle Newman had nothing physical to tempt a ravishing young girl of Crystal's temperament and personality, and she had always seemed to be playing to an entourage of boyfriends her own age, especially these last three years at Berkeley. It seemed ridiculous to the widow of two weeks to even conceive of such a thing; yet she knew now that it was so.
A letter Tracy had found only yesterday in one of Earle's jacket pockets had revealed all and more than she cared to know. The letter was from her younger sister, and the little endearments and references to sensual secrets between them was proof enough of their affair. In addition, Crystal's May 25th appointment to meet Earle at the Los Angeles Greyhound bus terminal was sufficient to possibly implicate her in the plan to rob his bank.
Tracy would have discovered it earlier had she gone through her dead husband's things, but with the terrible jolt of the whole shocking affair she hadn't wanted to touch anything belonging to him. The police had somehow overlooked the letter when she'd let them search, and had it not been for total lack of contact with Crystal since the horrifying event, she might never have become suspicious that her own sister had possibly known of and was perhaps even a co-plotter in the unbelievable crime.
Right after the authorities had broken the news to her of Earle's charred remains being discovered in a burned-out auto on the Nevada desert, Tracy telephoned her sister and finally gotten her apartment building manager. Miss Morris had been gone since before Memorial Day, according to the manager, but he was expecting her back any time. She had mentioned a short vacation to him and he assumed that's where she was. Her rent was paid ahead for another month.
Crystal's so-called holiday, especially without any advance warning to Tracy, had struck the older sister as unusual enough in itself. But with Earle's embezzlement and subsequent gruesome death being front-page news across the U.S., Crystal's strange absence and lack of contact had become frightening, and that was the very reason Tracy was carefully examining Crystal's small Berkeley apartment at that very moment.
The apprehensive older sister had said nothing to the authorities and she would not. She had no real proof that Crystal was involved anyway, and was not about to implicate her younger sister's name in such a sordid affair ... even should she discover that proof. Instead, the stunning blonde widow intended to do everything in her power to protect and help her only family member cover up her misjudgment, and that was the undertaking she'd blindly set for herself. Crystal mustn't be made to suffer a lifetime of disgrace because of one error, a mistake that she had undoubtedly been lured into by an insidious Earle Newman who Tracy had never really known.
The murdered man's surviving young wife stood by the front window of the small, silent apartment, the aura of her disappeared sister like an enshrouding veil around the younger girl's personal belongings. Tracy's blue-green eyes grew moist as she stared out onto the quiet tree-lined street below, so peaceful in the mid-afternoon sunshine. Somewhere out there, Crystal had to be hiding, fearful that she had no one to turn to after what she had done, but it wasn't fair, and somehow Tracy had to find her and make her understand this. The question was how, and where did she start looking first?
She had discovered nothing among her sister's things, not even a letter. She'd half-expected to come across something from Earle, but found herself glad that she hadn't. She wanted to know nothing more than she did of their adulterous affair. As for Crystal's acquaintances, Tracy had no idea who they might be, or how to go about locating them. It seemed as if she had already butted up against a solid wall of nothingness.
She couldn't go to the police for help without taking the chance of causing exactly what she did not want to-involving Crystal in the San Regis bank embezzlement. Her own name, and she would certainly have to give it, was enough to make them investigate the possibilities of a tie-in. So the authorities were out. Whatever she did would have to be on her own ... but what?
Maybe if she stayed there for a night or so something might happen? Perhaps Crystal might come back for some of her things, or a friend would call trying to reach her. Anything was better than sitting in that empty house back in San Regis. She hadn't come prepared for an overnight stay, but there was enough of Crystal's clothing about, and she felt certain the manager wouldn't mind.
Tracy lighted a cigarette as she walked to the kitchenette to make herself a cup of tea. She found a bottle of unopened scotch and decided on that instead.
Pouring the golden liquid over ice and adding a little water, the curvaceous, short-haired blonde returned to the armchair beside the front window. She slipped off her shoes and began to rub her stockinged feet against one another as she sampled the welcomed drink and stared out at the street below. It was derelict moments like these which brought the enormity of her suddenly emptied life crashing in around her. She shivered as if her back had been nakedly exposed to an icy draft.
Who had the other body found in the burned car with Earle belonged to? It had been a male, but that was all the police had told her, except for the suitcase filled with cremated currency five-hundred-thousand dollars of it, they estimated. What had the two men been doing there on that desert, and how had the fire that destroyed them started ... or were they already dead when the fire was set? But if that were so, and they were murdered, why didn't their murderer take the money...?
Something unusual caught Tracy's eye, interrupting her sequence of grim thoughts. She leaned forward to read the word scratched in pencil on the varnished woodwork of the window sill. "Yossi 26-46-68". Yossi? Would that be a name-and a phone number? Yossi? A nickname ... female, perhaps? Tracy ran her finger lightly over the gouged letters and numbers. They were deeply imbedded, and probably done by someone who had occupied the very chair she was in right now. Doodled while in thought, maybe? Crystal's doodling, or a tenant before her?
She set down her drink, arose and went to the phone, dialing the number. It rang, proving that it was a working number. Tracy waited, hardly breathing. Again and again it rang. Her palm began to perspire against the molded tanned plastic of the instrument. She let it ring a few more times, then hung up.
Yossi, she thought, walking back to the chair. Hadn't she heard Crystal mention that name sometime or other?
* * *
At the Oakland airport there had been a rental car waiting for Jeb Delaney. The rugged-faced twenty-eight year old insurance investigator copied the cab number Tracy Newman stepped into, then walked to a phone booth and placed a call to a lieutenant at Oakland Police Headquarters. A few minutes later, while they discussed old times and how the good life was treating them, the lieutenant gave Delaney the information gotten from the taxi company's dispatch office-the address of Tracy Newman's destination. Thirty minutes after, the young man with the ivy-league air sat in the rented car which he had parked strategically so that he could watch the Berkeley apartment building.
Later he'd learn which apartment, but Jeb felt confident that it was probably the flat of her younger sister. He'd already gotten a routine rundown on Crystal Morris, Mrs. Earle Newman's only close relative, and accordingly found her to be a comparatively clean college chick-not too wild, but wild enough for a gal with no record of drug abuse. Though sleeping around wasn't uncommon these days for unattached young ladies, what with the pill and liberal abortion laws to protect them.
No shady rock was being left unturned. Everyone the Newman's had had even a brushing acquaintance with over the past two years was being investigated. Cyril Stone, Corliss Insurance Inc.'s chief investigator, and more affectionately known as "Old Stony", was breathing fire from between his fangs, especially since the lab had proved the burned money in the car to be bogus.
In short, somewhere along the line it appeared as if C. Earle Newman had been double-dealt, further suggesting that he had to have had an accomplice. The destroyed car had been easily traced as the one Newman had bought in Los Angeles on May 25, the Friday before Memorial Day. The scorched remains of papers found on the other male in the car had shown him to be one Pepito Sanchez, Mexican Tijuana resident. He'd been a pilot, owned a small Beechcraft, professed crop-dusting, but had a mile-long record of smuggling. The wheelmarks of a plane had been found in the sand near the burned automobile. Many footprints plus an ugly pool of sand-crusted blood which had matched Newman's type had also been found, indicating the possibility of torture.
Add to that the grisly limp tube of cooked human flesh found in the mouth of C. Earle Newman's scorched skull and the picture became even more fiendishly macabre. There wasn't enough left of him to make sure, but the guess was that his genitals had been mutilated in an orgy of torture, because there'd been no question but what the charred piece of flesh in his mouth had once been a penis, and undoubtedly his own.
While Corliss Insurance Inc. was concerned only with the missing five hundred grand, the fact remained that murder had been committed, and so far the Nevada State Police were keeping the wraps on everything, which pleased Jeb Delaney no end. He liked the idea of not letting the enemy anticipate his every goddamned move, especially in a big one like this. He hadn't said much even to Old Stony, but the footprints found at the scene had shown one set as belonging to a female, and though he didn't have a goddamned thing to go on yet, he figured that female to be Tracy Newman.
She was just too sensuously luscious to be the nondescript house-frau all investigations had so far shown her to be. Not a mar nor blemish, nor even a hint of one; it simply didn't jibe for him. Newman had been a physical zero and known to kick it around on the side at bank conventions and the like, which made any personality-plus he might have wowed her with seem ridiculous. They weren't a match, and Tracy Newman had too much going for her to be content with the likes of him. Somewhere, there had to be a man in her life, and between them they had a cache of $500,000. All he had to do was just stay on her tail, not an unenjoyable task, and she was going to lead Corliss Insurance Inc.'s top-paid investigator right to her partner's door. It was that simple and he'd wager his butt on it.
Jeb reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an empty cigarette package. He'd forgotten to pick some up at the airport. There was a small neighborhood store ahead on the corner. He could walk down and still keep his eye on things. After all, he was concerned only with Tracy Newman's whereabouts at this point. It might be days, weeks, even months before she felt confident enough to make the move to contact her lover-accomplice. In the meantime, it was workday routine, he thought, climbing from the rented car.
* * *
Tracy Newman tried the phone number scratched into the windowsill several more times in the next thirty minutes, but received no answer. She couldn't leave the phone alone; it seemed like the only possible link to Crystal, wherever she might be. When her drink was gone she made herself a second and took up her window position once more. Occasionally, a car would pass below or a pedestrian would walk by to distract her attention.
Across the street she watched an attractive man of her own age step from a parked car and walk toward the corner. He had broad shoulders, was tall and very clean-cut looking, unlike what one expected to see these days in a college town. Maybe he was some sort of professor. He wore a tie and soft plain jacket, exemplifying what was now considered the old-fashioned collegiate style, and his agile gait suggested an accomplished athlete. At the corner, he disappeared into the small grocery store and the young blonde widow immediately forgot about him.
She set down her drink and went to the telephone again, dialing the number from memory. It rang several times at the other end and she started to hang up when a female voice suddenly broke the buzzing pattern.
"Hello ... hello ... hello?"
For a moment, Tracy couldn't speak. Then, she managed, "Yossi?"
"Who?" came the response. It was a young woman's voice.
"Yossi. Is Yossi there?" Tracy pressed.
A moment of silence followed. "No, he's not. Who is this?"
"Is Crystal there?" Tracy put to the voice.
"Who is this?" the voice demanded.
"Crystal Morris's sister," the shapely blonde widow answered, forcing a level tone. "I'm trying to locate Crystal or Yossi."
"Well ... they're not here, I'm sorry."
"W-When will they be there?" Tracy anxiously pursued.
"I don't expect them. They won't be here. That's all I can tell you."
"Wait! Please don't hang up," Tracy pleaded. "I-I must find Crystal. You do know her, don't you?" The blonde beauty could hear the deep breaths hissing over the wire into her ear. "Please, please help me?"
The silence of words and rhythm of breathing was almost unbearable, it seemed to go on for so long.
"Where are you?" the voice, a throaty girlish sound, questioned.
"At Crystal's apartment. Do you know where that is?"
"Yes. All right ... you stay there and I'll come over. Though I don't see how I can help you."
"Yes, you can. You can tell me when you last saw her, where I might find and talk to some of her friends," Tracy hastened. "Please come. I've got to find her. It's terribly important."
"Very well. I'll be there in thirty minutes or so," the husky voice promised. "Goodbye."
"G-Goodbye."
Tracy had no more than cradled the phone when she began to have doubts. The girl, whoever she was, would never come. And she'd sounded so-so cryptic, now that the voluptuous older sister had thought about it!
Had she had an accent? It seemed so, but Tracy couldn't be sure. God, she hadn't even gotten her name. That wasn't very smart-but then she wasn't doing the most intelligent things these days. She'd give the girl forty minutes, then call the number again if she hadn't arrived ... maybe even the police. Regardless of the consequences, Crystal's whereabouts and safety came first.
It was less than thirty minutes when the buzzer to the apartment sounded and Tracy quickly answered it. The girl standing there was sensuously attractive, perhaps twenty or less. She was lithe but not tall, though the navy-blue pants ensemble gave her that appearance. Her eyes, large, dark and penetrating, were the first feature Tracy saw, the brow-hugging bob of jet-black, pixie-cut hair accentuating them. Her mouth was generous and her face delicately slender.
"A-Are you the person I talked to on the phone?" the solicitous blonde woman asked her.
The girl nodded. "If you're Crystal's sister, I am."
"Yes, yes, please come in," Tracy invited. "I'm Tracy Newman."
"Ziona Sursis," the other replied with a definite accent, her eyes searching Tracy's carefully as she walked toward the couch.
"Please sit down, Ziona," the young widow gestured, attempting to soften the situation with a pinched smile. "That's an unusual name, Ziona."
The girl sat, crossing her legs. "I'm Palestinian," she said matter-of-factly, the huskiness of her throaty accent more prominent now. "And you ... you would be the wife of C. Earle Newman, I should imagine?"
Tracy sensed the immediate twinge flushing into her cheeks. There was a time when she would have answered with certain pride to that question, but now she never would again, would she? "Yes ... he was my husband. W-Would you like a drink or something, Ziona?"
"No, thank you, but you go ahead," the younger girl said, glancing at a large-faced watch on her wrist. "I can't stay long. I have an appointment."
"Wh-What can you tell me about Crystal? She's simply disappeared and I've got to find her," Tracy put to her bluntly.
"Why?" the sparkling-eyed young woman stopped her short.
"Why?"
"Yes. Why, Mrs. Newman? I read the urgency in your voice and see it in your face, but you haven't given me any reason for this deep solicitude as yet," Ziona Sursis spoke with an unexpected chilliness which took Tracy aback for a moment.
"Isn't it enough that I want to locate my own sister?" Tracy said.
"Under the circumstances, no," the raven-haired newcomer replied, her gaze fixed unflinchingly on her hostess's face. "Or perhaps you haven't seen today's newspapers, or heard any late news reports?"
A twisting emptiness clutched at the shapely blonde wife's belly. She shook her head negatively, almost afraid to pursue the subject.
"The so-called authorities are also looking for a woman whom they now believe was involved in the torture death of your husband, Mrs. Newman," the Palestinian girl said in a semi-whisper. "And how long do you think it'll be before they discover that the other woman in his life was your baby sister?"
Tracy gaped at her. "Y-You know about that?"
Ziona Sursis smiled. Absently, Tracy realized that the girl was quite stunning, as Ziona said, "Crystal and I were very close ... too close, I guess ... so much so that I never saw the forest for the trees."
The young widow remembered her own use of that aphorism. She studied the attractive face for a moment. "D-Do you want to tell me about it?"
Ziona shrugged slender shoulders. She began to fumble in her purse and brought out a cigarette. "Why not?" she said, placing the filter-tipped cylinder between soft, rougeless lips. "I think we'd both like to get our hands on the same people-your sister and my lover."
"Your lover? Would he be Yossi?"
"He would, the bastard. Yossi Nidam. My third cousin, actually. We've been scheduled for each other since I learned to walk, just as soon as I learned to love him," Ziona Sursis said, blowing out smoke and dropping a slim silver lighter back into her purse. "But all that jazz cuts little ice these days," she went on, her Arabic accent giving the cliches an almost burlesque quality. "In short, Mrs. Newman, there's nothing either of us can do. They're both long gone from these shores."
Again, Tracy stared at the exotic person across from her, attempting to weigh her words. "Wh-What do you mean? Gone where?"
Ziona smiled a mirthless expression. "Toward the homeland that doesn't exist for Palestinians. Israel, probably. Our passports are both Israeli. Either there or somewhere in the Middle East. Oh, I think I could find them all right if I had the money, but you see, they have a five hundred thousand dollar start on me, Mrs. Newman."
Tracy sensed the blood in her veins chilling. "Wh-What do you mean by that? Five hundred thousand dollar start? That money was destroyed...."
Ziona was shaking her head slowly. "The burned money found in the car with your husband was counterfeit, according to the late news," she said in the same low tone of voice. "Yossi and Crystal have the real money."
"But-but that would mean that they ... Crystal ... my God, she could never be a party to such a thing as ... as...."
"Murder?" the raven-haired girl finished for her with an almost nonchalant toss of her head. "I doubt if Rossi considers Earle Newman's demise as murder, and it's safe to guess that your baby sister has been fairly well indoctrinated by him. Have you ever heard of Al Fatah, Mrs. Newman?"
Al Fatah? Yes, she had, the name was vaguely familiar, but at that precise moment her sickened, whirling brain refused to cooperate. "I-I think so, yes, it's ... it's an Arab terrorist group, isn't it?"
"To put it mildly, yes," Ziona said. "Anyway, my zealous ex-lover, Yossi, aspires to becoming a member of that organization, but his half-Jewish blood bars the door. So, he must prove himself worthy, and your husband's elimination, an American Jew, plus the $500,000, will go a long way in upping his stock with Al Fatah."
Tracy could only gape in stunned amazement, her mind still refusing to comprehend. It was all too horribly outlandish to be possible-not the Yossi Nadim part of it, for she knew no such man, but Crystal, her own sister? My God, it couldn't be ... it just couldn't be!
"A-Are you saying that Crystal helped to ... to kill my husband?" she managed, her own voice hardly recognizable.
"Look, what I'm suggesting is purely speculative, Mrs. Newman. I know nothing more than you do for certain, but I'd almost bet my life that I'm right. You have only to add up the one and ones and get twos and the two and twos to make fours," Ziona Sursis said. "Someone double-crossed Earle Newman; that's why he's dead. That someone was his close accomplice, and who was closer to him than Crystal? Now, Crystal and Yossi have disappeared along with the stolen money. The other man who died with your husband was a pilot. The late news reports the wheelmarks of a plane at the scene. That plane, too, has disappeared-and Yossi has a pilot's license. Furthermore, Yossi Nidam has been connected with other Arabic terror groups here in the States. It would be easy for him to get his hands on counterfeit money through these connections. I know these things, Mrs. Newman, because I'm naturally a sympathizer with the Palestinian cause and have worked with Yossi ... and Crystal."
"Crystal? But that's ridiculous. Why should she be active in any such movement?" the confused young widow questioned.
"Two reasons. Yossi, and a bent for the wild side of life that I'm beginning to doubt you're aware she possessed. Your baby sister would have made an excellent overseer in a Nazi extermination camp, Mrs. Newman."
The horrifying insult cut into Tracy as might the thrusted blade of a saber. Her eyes narrowed into blazing orbs. "How dare you say such a terrible thing? I don't know why you're telling me all these lies, but I don't believe a word of them!"
Once more, the mirthless smile passed across the girl's exotically attractive young face. Ziona Sursis stubbed out her cigarette and rose to her feet. "I suppose there's nothing more to discuss then. I told you that I doubted if I could be of any help. I'm sorry," she said, walking toward the door.
"W-Wait! I didn't mean that. Please ... I'm so terribly upset," Tracy tried, following the younger girl.
"I have to leave anyway," Ziona said, turning for a moment to face her. "It'd be better for you to forget the whole thing, Mrs. Newman. I know that's difficult, but it'd be best if you did."
"How can I ever forget after what you've told me? I must find Crystal and help her before it's too late," Tracy desperately insisted.
"It's already too late. She's thousands of miles from here. You could never find her, Mrs. Newman...."
"But you can! You said so, and I have the money to take us wherever it is. Please, Ziona, help me find her?" Tracy pleaded. "I can't ask the police for assistance, yet what else can I do? Unless you help me I'll have to go to them...."
"That would be as useless as calling on the Boy Scouts," the girl said with a cynical shrug. "All you'd be doing is further implicating your sister in a bank robbery and murder, plus endangering her life with the group she's involved with. They're ruthless, Mrs. Newman, believe me. Let well enough alone."
"Then you won't help me?" Tracy doggedly persisted.
The Palestinian beauty sighed heavily. "You won't listen to reason, will you?"
"I've got to try and find her-at least, make every effort," Tracy whispered determinedly. "She's all I have in the world. If you refuse to go with me to Israel or wherever, then I'll go there alone. No, I won't listen to what you call reason, Ziona. I refuse to give up."
Again, the dark-eyed young woman expelled a deep audible breath. "Are you staying here tonight?"
"Yes."
"All right. I'll call you tomorrow morning," Ziona said. "In the meantime, please think over very carefully all that I've told you. Try to consider the dangers involved."
"I'm not afraid."
"No, I don't expect you are," the girl said, eyeing Tracy levelly. "But I'm thinking of Crystal when I say that, too."
"When will you call?" the resolute widow insisted.
"Before noon," the girl replied, easing open the door.
"I can give you my answer now. I won't change my mind," Tracy said.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Newman. I'll call you tomorrow."
"G-Goodbye...."
CHAPTER THREE
When eventide had settled in over the Bay Area city of Berkeley, it became miserably evident to Jeb Delaney that Tracy Newman intended to inhabit her sister's apartment for the night, and likewise, he would have to snatch a few Z's in his goddamned rented car. But he didn't intend to let the luscious blonde widow any further out of his sight than she already was.
She did him a favor, though, by making an appearance around dusk and walking toward a nearby shopping center. He left the car and followed on foot, pleased when she entered a busy restaurant and he could do the same. At least it meant that he wouldn't have to starve through the night. There was a public phone booth, too, and he utilized that to call the home office in L.A.
In short, Old Stony wanted to know what in Christ's name he was doing up there in Berkeley when the game was unfolding now in Mexico City? They'd found Pepito Sanchez's plane abandoned in a vacant field some sixty miles from the city where it had sat for two weeks. The farmer who owned the land had driven the man and woman occupying the plane to the Mexico City airport for a hundred bucks. Naturally, he saw no reason to report the incident, "they were such a nice young couple". But when they didn't come back in three days like they said, he had begun to wonder-and a half-dozen mananas later had decided he better call the policia.
"Needless to say, they were carrying a goddamned suitcase, Delaney," the master had ranted at him as if it were all his fault, "a bag full of San Regis greenbacks which Corliss Insurance better get its hands on awfully frigging soon, or it may just lose its best client. And should that happen, I need not remind you of the mayhem that will take place in this office!"
There were more such pleasantries, interjected with bits and pieces of valid information pertaining to the case rather than Cyril Stone's personal opinion of one Jeb Delaney and the rest of his "knot-headed staff of overeducated gumshoes". Among them was the juicy tidbit a green hireling had uncovered by canvassing the Newman neighbors' maids and gardeners, to wit: there'd been an affair going on between C. Earle Newman and his sister-in-law, Crystal Morris, for several years.
"Now why in Jesus Christ's name didn't you find that out, Delaney, with your 007 brain? What in hell are we paying you for?" the old man blasted. "You're out of town more than the mayor!"
On and on it went, right along with Jeb's appetite, until he'd finally broken their connection and stormed out of the booth with fire in his eyes. Why in hell he put up with that miserable sonovabitch he'd never figure out, unless it was because in his heart he knew the old bastard only meant half of what he said when he was in a stew, and he was always in a stew when it was a big one like this.
Jeb returned to his place at the counter, pushed the plate aside which had been served while he was in the booth, and ordered a wedge of apple pie with fresh coffee. While the waitress stared at him as if he was committing a breach of etiquette, he found Tracy Newman's voluptuous reflection in the mirror behind the counter. She was only picking at her food, her beautiful eyes gazing off in preoccupation. He wished to hell he felt free to walk over there and engage her in a nice conversation, maybe find out something more. But he didn't. To do that would be to ruin his cover, and he was still convinced that she and not her sister was the woman in the picture.
Damn, she was a breathtaking doll. That short, curly blonde hair-except for its shade it reminded him of Aletha's, but Aletha's had been redder. Their eyes, too, he suddenly realized ... there was a great similarity in the coloring. And the breasts, Christ yes, the breasts, full and round and lush, as if they'd come out of the same mold. Hell, she did! Tracy Newman actually reminded him of his beautiful dead wife! The way she was toying with her food, the expression of confusion, yet the determination on her lovely ovaled face that she could hold so high, even to the pose she struck when lighting a cigarette. Christ!
For a moment, it was almost like a ghost manifesting itself in another person's body. It gave the young investigator a weird sensation and left him with a guilty one. There could never be a duplicate of the magnificent young woman leukemia had stolen from him less than a year before. What the hell was he thinking of, anyway? That alluring reflection of sensuous beauty in the mirror could belong to a murderess-and if his hunch was right, which they were ninety percent of the time, that's exactly what she was!
* * *
Tracy recognized the plaid jacket as well as the confident way the man carried himself. He passed in and out of her maze of troubled thoughts subconsciously. She remembered him from the street, the clean-cut professor-type; then again forgot him as if he had never existed.
The total destruction of her own world with its unbelievable horrors and anxieties was all the young widow could think of in depth. Ziona had to help her. But if the exotic girl refused, she would hunt Crystal alone, use every last dime she possessed, if necessary, until she brought her safely home. Whatever her sister was guilty of, murdering Earle could not have been a part of it. It was horrifyingly ridiculous to even conceive of such a thing. If she were involved at all the poor girl had been duped into it, and no matter what it cost, Tracy would stand behind her!
The troubled blonde slipped from the restaurant booth and stood up, gathering her things together. The waitress came and Tracy gave her bills to include the tip, then walked out into the warm light. There was a smoky smell in the air, almost like leaves burning, but it was not the time of the year for that. Nevertheless, it reminded her of home, San Bernardino, hop-scotch, and jump-rope with Crystal and the neighborhood kids. She wanted to cry, but fought the urge by forcing every thought from her mind and walking faster. Maybe Crystal had left a sleeping pill or two around. God, she needed something if she were to rest at all tonight.
In minutes she was back at the apartment house, actually welcoming the tiring climb to the fourth floor. It wasn't exactly a decrepit building, but nothing seemed to be right. The stairs creaked beneath their thin, faded carpet. Even the doors had that extra quarter-inch space on one end in comparison to the other, and the light from Crystal's apartment seeped out from around the cracks. Tracy hadn't remembered leaving a light burning, but obviously she had.
She turned the key, followed the barrier inward and immediately felt the strong arms and hands lash out over her body. One gripped her across the waist from behind while the other clamped over her mouth. Before her aghast eyes, a small, foreign-looking man arose from the window chair and came toward her. His hair was long and greasy black, his eyes in a round face with a tulip-shaped mouth were dark and slitted as if cut with scissors, angled above a bud-nose. He smiled and his upper front teeth were missing.
"We've been waiting for you, doll," he said in a sing-song voice that sounded like a whistling top to the stunned young widow. "Don't be frightened. We only want the answers to a few questions. All right?"
Tracy gaped at him in terror. She couldn't have answered had she wanted to with the hand clamped tightly over her mouth. It smelled of garlic, and the feel of the man pressed close behind her told of his massive size. He was holding her immovable, as if she were actually a doll! The little monster before her smiled, the redness of his toothless gum leering close to her face.
"Now ... why was Ziona Sursis here this afternoon, my dear?" the small man sang out at her. "You may free her mouth to speak, Riza. She's not going to scream, are you, baby?"
"How did you get in here?" Tracy spat at him. "Get out! Get out before I call the police!"
The little man shook his head. "What a stupid thing to say," he spoke, moving closer, then slapped her hard across the cheek. Then, with the back of his pudgy hand, he slashed against the other cheek, bringing an exclamation of shocked pain from Tracy as her head whipped back. He raised the first hand again, but held it as if on second thought. "Is that enough to jar some sense into your head, doll?"
"She ... she came because I asked her to," Tracy blurted.
"Why?"
"Because she is a friend of my sister ... and I'm trying to locate my sister," Tracy said, struggling to figure out what was happening. "What business is that of yours in the first place?"
His hand, though small and soft, was as sharp as a razor-strap when it smacked against her cheek this time. "You mustn't be impertinent, Mrs. C. Earle Newman, or we're going to lose our patience. Just answer the questions. What did the lovely Ziona tell you, eh?"
"She told me ... nothing! All we talked about was my sister...."
"What about your sister?"
"None of your business!" Tracy spat at him. He could slap her face all day and she'd still answer him the same way.
The little man smiled. He was lighting a cigarette. What a repulsive character, she thought as he moved closer to her and abruptly caught the front of her dress. With those small hands, she felt him rip the bodice open to her waist, then watched him jerk down the half-cups of her white nylon brassiere until both of her angrily heaving breasts were standing out in smooth, uplifted nakedness with the flimsy garment helping to support their voluptuous undersides. Their tiny pink nipples seemed to leap into waxen hardness from the cooler air of the room brushing over them.
"Have you ever seen a girl's tits scarred from cigarette burns, Mrs. Newman?" he asked, smiling menacingly at her. "Not a very seductive sight-to say nothing of the pain at the time of infliction."
Tracy tried to speak but couldn't. She felt flushing shame at the naked baring of her breasts before such an obnoxious creature, but that was secondary to the almost stifling fear that gripped her. "I-I can't tell you any more. T-That's all we talked about, only my sister. We spoke of nothing else, I swear it!"
"You lie, baby ... or is it that your memory's short?" the ugly man said. "You talked of Yossi, didn't you? And discussed the cause, eh? You might even have made plans to try and find your loving sister, right?" He grinned widely, the scarlet gap left by missing teeth a nauseating sight. He reached out and caressed one naked breast. "Of course you did. But you see, doll, that's impossible now. Crystal Morris has devoted herself to a noble work and must not be interrupted by your selfish, imperialistic desires. That's why Riza and I have come here tonight to show you with certain explicitness the minimum penalties you will receive should you press this stupid quest. Permit me to introduce myself: I am Omar Saladin, friend of Yossi and Brother in the cause of Palestinian liberty." The lurid grin never left his repulsive foreign face. "You have lovely tits, Mrs. Newman. Go ahead, Riza, the gag now."
It happened so quickly that Tracy hardly realized what was going on. Her mouth was stuffed and another handkerchief tied around it until she could breathe only through her nose. Then the smaller man was stripping the remainder of her dress and half-slip away, jerking free her brassiere with one painful rip, while the other man continued to hold her from behind. She felt the leader peeling off her panty-hose until there was only the white brevity of sheer nylon panties left covering her trembling body.
They were going to rape her! These ugly foreign animals were going to rape her! The thought itself was physically sickening, and in desperation she sought some means of escape. The bigger one let go of her and moved around to gape as if she were on lewd exhibition. She felt herself stagger there in the center of the room, conscious of her helplessness before them. She stared up at the huge one, a tremendous, broad-shouldered hulk with a flat, cartilage-knotted face. He couldn't be over twenty! Was that possible?
"We're about to enlighten your sex life, doll." the tulip-mouthed one said. "Shall we go to the bed and be comfortable?"
Tracy bolted for the front door, but Riza's vise-like hand caught her wrist. He scooped her up as if she were weightless while the other man laughed and led the way into Crystal's bedroom.
Animals! the young blonde thought in near-panic, sobbing behind the gag as she kicked and struggled. She was tossed down onto the bed and tried immediately to roll off the other side, but suddenly the breath was knocked out of her as the little man jumped onto the bed and sank his fist hard into the pit of her stomach. The flat of his hand then cracked against her cheek with such force that for a moment she was stunned. Abruptly, he was sitting on top of her, his pudgy hands grabbing cruelly at her naked white breasts while she writhed in helpless pain beneath him. He swung off her and again she attempted to squirm across the bed out of his reach. More blows began to rain down brutally onto her shoulders and her ripely rounded buttocks beneath the thin film of her nylon panties, everywhere, with stinging power to sap the resistance from her defenseless young body.
"Go ahead and strip, Riza. I can handle the bitch," said the greasy-haired one kneeling on the bed over her, his sing-song voice searing into her brain. He leaned back on his heels and looked down at the cock-stirring curves of his young captive's soft, tempting flesh. The girl was momentarily dazed and there were angry red marks on her soft milk-white flesh, their sight and the exertion of the beating he'd given her lustfully arousing him. The yielding softness of her tender flesh beneath his punishing hands had moved an electrified weight to his loins, and his penis was bulging hotly against his tight pants. "Now," he said, "let's have a look-see at the special goodies tucked up there between your legs, Mrs. Newman."
Tracy saw the big man moving toward the bed, and her eyes opened wide in fear at his huge, shaggy body and the long, thick rod of his penis rising massively from the wiry forest of his black pubic hair. He was holding it vulgarly in his hand, and the heavy sac of his testicles swung obscenely back and forth between his muscular thighs as he walked. The trapped young widow closed her eyes to blot out the frightening sight, and felt the panties ripping and pulling around her hips. She wanted to make one last desperate attempt at resistance, but then she was stripped totally naked and defenseless before their eagerly hungering eyes, the fight draining from her body with this added outrage. Strange sexual horrors stabbed like ice-picks through her loins and quivering white body. She wondered what kept her from crying.
"Open your legs so we can see the pretty pussy beneath that blonde fuzz, baby," Omar said, smoothing his had upward along the satiny white flesh of her inner thigh. When she didn't, he nodded to Riza who moved to the foot of the bed and gripped her ankles, cruelly stretching her legs wide apart. Omar saw the tear trickle down the side of her face. "Nothing to be ashamed of here, doll. You've got a real nice little cunt."
Tracy felt his fingers on the sensitive flesh of her curl-fringed pussy mound, and her breath caught as she cringed her open loins away from him. But the fingers followed, pushing into her vulnerable flesh till the middle one found her tight vaginal mouth and shoved abusively right up into the intimate sheath, filling her with dread and pain and further shame.
"Mmmmmm, a real tight hot hole you have, Mrs. Newman. It seems your dead husband didn't hurt it much," Omar taunted. "Didn't he fuck it for you very often?"
Tracy tried to squirm away once more, and for her efforts he rammed a second finger up into her cringing vagina, moving his wrist back and forth to make his lewdly embedded fingers twist around and gouge at the resilient inner walls.
"Uugghhh!" she cried through the gag, wincing with the pain and the strange unexplainable excitement of being so obscenely fingered.
"Hurt you, did I? A pity," Saladin sang mockingly. "Turn over and show us your lovely ass."
She felt his fingers sucking back out of her aching pussy with a soft obscene ploppish sound. She clamped her thighs back together as much as she could, since the second man still held her legs apart, and lay obstinately unmoving. Then Riza jerked her ankles and flopped her over onto her stomach like a disabled fish out of water. Again, she resumed her struggle with a sudden surge of renewed determination, but two sharp blows to the back of her neck brought another stomach-twisting jolt of pain, until she lay there gasping and motionless.
"That's better," Omar said, sniggering. "You would do well to give in and enjoy it, Mrs. Newman, because we're going to be fucking you for a long time tonight, eh? That is, Riza's going to shove his big cock up your pussy-hole, but I haven't decided yet just what I will do for you. Never mind, I'll think of something."
Riza gave a moronic laugh as Tracy felt her legs jerked revealingly apart once more and a sudden heavy weight on the bed wedging between them from behind. Her heart seemed to charge up into her mouth along with the gag. She could feel the hard hairy flesh grazing roughly against her inner thighs as the man worked in tighter, spreading her legs wider open for his lewd advance.
"My friend wants you to kneel up, baby," Omar informed her. "You see, he can't speak for himself; he has no tongue. A very bad Jewish man cut it out for kicks several years ago. Sometimes, now, Riza becomes very short tempered, so I'd advise you to do everything you can to please him. Kneel up, dammit!"
Tracy forced herself flat on the bed. She was sobbing through the gag, crying in anger now even more than fear. One of them grabbed her arm, wrenching it up between her shoulder blades; then another wormed down under her loins and lifted her without effort into an obscenely slavish position. She tried to wiggle and swing her naked buttocks away, but the twisting of her arm demanded obedience, forcing her face down against the bed while her hips were lifted luridly high.
The pain to her arm and shoulder made Tracy gasp into the gag filling her mouth, and then she felt a thick, hard bluntness probing at her soft pussy-lips from behind. It felt huge, like nothing human, but a sordid cudgel menacing the small private opening up between her legs. She sensed the bloated knob splaying wide her fleshy cuntal folds, the spongy tip brushing up and down through the delicate slit. And then the distended instrument pushed forward, worming and stretching the elasticised mouth with a sharp intrusive pain that felt as if a balled fist were being crammed up into her helplessly unwanting pussy passage.
With her free hand, Tracy tore the handkerchief from her mouth and cried out for him to stop, her burning tears stinging her cheeks. "Oh God, please don't!" she rasped, her gag-parched mouth and throat adding to her misery.
"Shut up or I'll break your fucking arm!" Omar Saladin commanded fiercely. He forced her wrist upward a fraction of an inch higher, listening to her squeal of torment. "Fuck him, you bitch, if you know what's good for you. Fuck him back!"
"Y-Yes, yesss!" she winced as the brutal invasion of her vagina increased. She felt her thighs being swept farther apart from behind, until the harsh weight of Riza's hairy loins crashed solidly against her whitely yielding buttocks, searing her loins with the pain of his blood-engorged entry. Her vagina felt as if it were aflame as his unnaturally huge penis hammered its way home to the very depths of her belly. Her arm and shoulder ached excruciatingly, as did her back from the obscene position she was bent into. She felt both men's hands running eagerly over her naked upthrusted buttocks, and then one of them was probing a stiffened finger at the tight-puckered ring of her anus.
"Christ, that's a smooth little hole, Riza. Not even a bit of fuzz around it. Make a beautiful fuck, eh?"
The little monster's sordid words chilled Tracy as she felt his fingers shamelessly exploring her unprotected nether opening, until with a sudden bite of pain his finger entered her rectum, pushing part way up into the fearfully clenched orifice.
"Arrghh!" she cried. "No! Stop! Stop, please!" Reflexively, she tried to close her buttocks, gripping the man's bony finger with her tight rectal walls and unconsciously gripping his partner's invading cock stuffing her chafed vagina to the depths of her tremoring belly as well.
Whimpers of gasping breath burst from her parted lips. The finger dug in deeper, going far up into her burning back passage and smoothing around in small swirling circles before it began to saw lewdly in and out of the tight-hugging channel, matching the rhythm the other man's blood-inflated penis set as it began charging with loin-splitting force into her wide-stretched pussy-hole. Oohhh God, the young widow thought, she would never forget this terrible night if she lived a thousand years! What utter debasing shame. The sheer animalism of being raped was horrible enough, but to have a stranger's finger shoved obscenely up her anus seemed to epitomize the very depths of degradation.
At least her pussy was beginning to lubricate a little, the seeping moisture helping to lessen the pain in her vagina, but simultaneously it was aiding the deepness of his penetration, until she felt as if she would surely split wide open from the brutal jabs of his massively thrusting cock. God almighty, she could never stand it ... but what else could she do except kneel there, bent over like a subjugated serf until they were finished using her naked body in any way they chose to vent their lustful desires?
Kneeling up behind her voluptuous, submissive body, Riza Akiim clenched his teeth and fucked with powerful lunges in and out of her hotly clasping cunt, sensing the vibrations that her seething female flesh transmitted along his iron-stiff cock and through his muscular body to his passion-clouded brain. He rammed with a snap of his hips, his throbbing penis bursting in deep to her cervix each time, splattering her yielding vaginal flesh in its self-hewn path, the pulsating knob of his lust-swollen rod seeming to grow more taut with each hard battering stroke.
He was drooling, unable to control his saliva without the tongue that had been cut out from his mouth so long ago. His big hands gripped her hips and buttocks, squeezing her smooth white flesh sadistically, not caring that he was hurting her, wanting her to cry out and squirm helplessly with the pain from his hands. He watched Omar's middle finger plunging to the palm up into her little pink anus, the sight making his balls ache the more and his heavy cock tingle like crazy. Omar grinned twistedly at him and he grinned back. Omar was his friend and looked after him, made sure that he had plenty of fucking and talked for him. He'd kill anyone who ever tried to hurt Omar.
Riza began to run his hands over the woman's voluptuously shuddering flesh, knowing that her body was his to do whatever he liked with. Then, Omar jerked his finger from her tightly closing anus and moved away. Riza pulled her rounded, oval ass-cheeks farther apart, spreading them open to better reveal the tiny, puckered anal ring, which was now red and raw-looking. It felt almost nonresistant to the first finger he slipped up into it, but much tighter against the second. At the same time, his thumping cock was burying itself in her moistened cunt-hole to the hairy plane of her pelvis. Her tight pussy-walls were like a warm hand clutching his pistoning penis, its squeezing clasp making him grunt out gasps of pleasure from his tongue-less mouth.
Shamed beyond anything she had ever imagined, Tracy lay with her face pressed down sideways against the bed, gasping helplessly at the brutal raping of her obscenely positioned body and feeling now only a building frictional heat of lewd torment in her forever-stretched loins. She felt defiled, as ruined as a raped virgin, but she also felt something else a strange light-fingered trembling in her loins that seemed to increase the more she thought about it. Could she be turning on to this insane ravishment? Oh God! Oh God, no!
Tracy's lips trembled as she tried to draw her buttocks in to lessen the pain in her violated rectum and the unwanted quivering in her belly, but her movements only seemed to add to both. It was no use ... nothing was of any use ... only to endure it.
And then Tracy sensed fingers at her lips, attempting to open her mouth. Suddenly, she felt a hard, rubbery hotness brushing over her lips. She focused her eyes to see the greasy-haired man's rigid red penis with its purplish head protruding wetly from its foreskin. With the depths of torment filling her naked body, she had never noticed him crawling alongside her, but there he was, attempting to force his hardened cock into her mouth.
Tracy tried to twist her head away but he caught his hand in her hair and pulled so hard that she thought he would scalp her. Her eyes bugged in terror as he thrust his loins forward, his one hand clasping his swollen cock so that the semen-smeared tip kept wiping against her futilely resisting lips. He was sniggering, too, mocking her and making sing-song noises, but not verbally commanding her, as if he were thoroughly enjoying his silent torment and could wait until she gave in and sucked his penis for him. The sweaty smell of his loins filled her nostrils along with the strong, pungent taste of his seminal fluid that was rasping against her tongue-tip. It was useless to fight him, useless ... and as her mouth opened to protest the pain of his hand pulling her hair, his probing cock shoved right in between her soft moist lips and beyond her teeth into the warm wet enclosure of her mouth.
Her mouth seemed to salivate quickly from the feel of his driving cock against her tongue, the head of his penis round and bulbous, filling her oral cavity and making her forget for a moment the brutal fucking she was getting from behind. Her mind reeled with the total salacity of their obscene ravishment; they intended to leave her nothing, nothing but absolute debasement!
But the massive spear of male flesh tearing hotly up into her seared vaginal walls from the rear refused to be ignored as the blunt tip crashed solidly against her sensitive cervix time and again to make her lurch forward in spasms of stabbing pain. She grunted around the blood-engorged shaft stuffing her mouth and saw the trouser-covered hips behind it undulating in closer toward her face, making the veiny length of his cock slide deeper in and out of her defenseless mouth. His reaming penis never withdrew entirely, the coronal rim always remaining just within the circle of her ovaled lips.
The depravity of their bestial defilement was even further impressed on the helpless young widow at the shocking sight of his member thrusting out through his opened fly with wiry black hairs straggling around its thick base. His bloated cock-shaft grew fatter toward the glans which was filling her cheeks like a ripe plum and working ever deeper into her mouth toward her throat. The massive thickness choked her several times, making her gag and try to twist away, but his hand wound tightly in her hair discouraged that. Gradually, she became accustomed to the almost suffocating entry, learning to catch a breath on the out-take, and he began to fuck in and out of her mouth with growing enthusiasm, beginning to ram at an even faster tempo than the raping penis battering unmercifully up into her burning wet cunt from behind.
"Use your tongue, bitch," Tracy heard the tulip-mouthed one order, his hand tightening in her hair, and she responded. She knew how by instinct, not experience, for this was a horrible first for her. "That's it! Faster. Swirl that little tongue right around it! Aahhh ... yehhhh, baby, yeehhh. Omar's going to blow a big hot load in your sweet mouth in just a couple of minutes."
Oh God, not that! Not that! her mind screamed in growing panic, knowing there was no way to avoid it if that was what he chose to do to her. She was completely at the mercy of their perverted lust.
Riza, too, sensed his climax drawing nearer, and he gripped her soft white flesh in oozing handfuls. Each time he thrust up into her impaled pussy flesh and tensed his loins forward, he felt the tide of his orgasm mounting like a thunderous storm, and the throbbing heaviness in the end of his penis was the saturated, menacing cloud preparing to burst. He fucked the young blonde savagely, watching her ovaled lips --rimmed tightly around his commando-friend's cock as Omar forced her to suck him off, the sight adding wildly to the sensations pyramiding inside his own gyrating loins.
And Tracy, now docilely attuned to her obscene subjugation and becoming more wildly aroused against her will by the second, followed the directions of the hands and fingers commanding her. She sucked and licked the rigid, slippery thickness fucking vigorously up into her mouth, vaguely hoping to bring a quicker end to her terrible torment and perhaps keep herself from a shameful orgasm too! The bulbous head was wet with her own saliva which was thickening now as she sucked, as some of his seminal fluid seeped out to mix with it. The taste had become more pungent and was growing stronger with every crushing thrust of his hairy loins against her face. Then his slamming cock tensed between her lips, seeming to expand and vibrate in a burning heat as his thrusts took on an ever-increasing urgency.
Suddenly, his hands were clutching her cheeks like a tight vise, holding her head stationary while he tried to shove his rampaging cock all the way down her throat as if to meet the other man's penis racing like a battering ram up into her cunt from behind. Panic seized her as she lost her breath from his asphyxiating plunges toward her tonsils. She heard him gasping while he held her face fixed immovably to his crazily jerking member. She would have screamed if she could, but suddenly her mouth was deluged with a raging torrent of scalding hot cum that bloated her cheeks and flooded thickly down her throat as he cursed out in a foreign tongue that could only have been Arabic.
Tracy swallowed to keep from choking, realizing that he was cumming in great burning streams of alien sperm which she was forced to gulp down into her tremoring belly like a wanton whore because she could do nothing else ... and because she wanted it! On and on his penis throbbed and jerked, spewing its jets of acrid-tasting semen into her helpless mouth, finally beginning to lose its rigidity as he continued to crush his loins up tight against her face.
"Get it all, you cunt! Suck up the last drop! Oh Christ!" he roared, his small frame still wracking convulsively against her tear-streaked features. "More, bitch! It's still cummmiinnn'. Don't stop, goddamnit!"
And then he was falling away from her, his spent penis pulling limply away from her gasping lips with a lewd sucking sound. Tracy would have cried from sheer relief had it not been for the turmoil of the second man's lust-bloated cock pounding into her aching vagina from behind. Unceasingly, that huge rod of flesh rammed forward, the feel of its deep-spearing thrusts saturating her softly hungering loins as she lay whimpering before him. There was no other sensation now except the dull chafing ache of need his penis was creating in her belly, as it pushed her tender cuntal flesh before it in soft wet waves.
"Ungghh! Onhhh! Oooohhh yes, yeess!" Tracy heard herself moaning into the mattress. My God, was that her voice? Tracy could hear him husking out his breaths faster and faster. Riza had forced her knees so far apart that she thought she would rip down the middle from the unbearable stretching, and then he was lifting her right up by the hips and fucking her back onto his ever-growing penis now slamming like a ball bat up into the unreached depths of her desire-wracked vagina. Louder and faster his panting became as she felt her fleshy ass-cheeks flattening against his hips and the solid spanking of his cum-bloated balls beating rhythmically up against her cock-stuffed vaginal lips and tiny clitoris below. For one godforsaken moment she wildly wished that it wasn't about to end ... that this mute Arab terrorist would turn her on and really fuck her right ... but....
He began to grunt out moronic sounds and his cock started a series of convulsive jerks, his pulverizing pelvis doing the same against her widespread buttocks as he smashed his cock deep into her quivering belly and impaled her helpless body on the spasming rod of his lust.
"Aauuugggghhh ... oooohhhhgggg!" he roared down over her while Tracy felt his blood-engorged penis expanding and contracting in her clasping vagina, pumping staccato spurts of his boiling cum deep up into the intricate recesses of her heaving belly. And then he let go of her, dropping her ravaged loins back down onto the bed, his deflating penis pulling out of her burning loins to leave her lying there cramped and aching, the insides of her thighs warm and sticky from his overflowing semen.
Tracy lay with her face buried in her hands, hot tears flowing from her eyes once more. She heard the big one dressing and finally felt the small one's pudgy hand on her naked buttocks.
"Remember, this was only a warning of what can happen to you, Mrs. Newman, if you become annoying," he sang down at her. "Better, then, that you just forget about your little sister, eh? Sure it is. That's the nice girl."
She heard them walk to the door of the bedroom before he spoke again. "Goodnight, Mrs. Newman. We hope we won't be seeing you again ... for your sake."
And that was when the aroused young widow burst into tears.
CHAPTER FOUR
The following morning Jeb Delaney shadowed Tracy Newman to the Oakland Airport where she met a younger dark-haired woman he was unfamiliar with-or was he? Hadn't he noticed her entering the apartment building the day before? Couldn't be sure. The person he recalled had been wearing a dark pants suit, and this one in a red mini-dress made identification difficult for the young insurance investigator. He'd had to survey from too far off to be sure about facial features and her legs had been covered, that being his usual focal point on female terrain.
Damn, the little raven-haired nymph had them too-luscious, trim, and more slender than Mrs. Newman's, but nevertheless eye-catching. She appeared to be a vivacious doll and several years younger than the blonde widow. She was carrying some luggage, two rather large bags, indicating the trip contemplated was no overnight jaunt. Tracy Newman had arrived with none and was leaving, apparently, the same way.
Jeb watched them approach the Western Airlines window, check the younger one's bags through, then walk toward the coffee shop. It was a safe guess they were enroute to Los Angeles and San Regis. He phoned Corliss Insurance to have an agent waiting for them at L.A. International, turned in his rented auto, and took a cab to a nearby motel for some sleep, a shower, and a shave. Trying to relax, all knotted up in that goddamned car all night had just about destroyed his generally fine nature.
It was around eight-thirty that evening when Jeb changed clothes in his own L.A. apartment then drove downtown to the Corliss office, grateful that the old man wasn't around. Vince Shepherd, snoxxhite at forty, had picked up the tail at International and shadowed the females in question all day. Reeves was in San Regis at the moment, keeping an eye on the Newman home where the two women had retreated.
"They've been busy as hell, Jeb," Shepherd informed him, leaning back in his chair behind the small desk. "Mrs. Newman made an application for a passport this afternoon. She asked for and was granted special handling to expedite the operation. It'll be ready for her tomorrow afternoon."
"A passport, eh? So, the international aspects are growing," Delaney mused. "Any mention of destination?"
Vince Shepherd lit a cigar, a black ugly stalk with the odor of a dead cat to Jeb, who'd never understand how he could smoke the goddamned things. "They're not liberal with the info down there, you know," Vince reminded the younger investigator. "It took a bit of doing, which Old Stony saw to, and then we had some action.
They're going to the Middle East."
"Mmmm. How about the airlines, have we got a hot line to reservations if and when they make them?"
Vince Shepherd pushed a large brown-paper envelope across the desk. "They've already been made: El Al tomorrow night at eleven-twenty. Destination, Tel Aviv." He smiled broadly. "And so have yours, Delaney. Everything is in the envelope, including a voucher for cash you take to the bank in the morning."
Jeb stared at him. What the hell, he had two weeks vacation due him and had already made plans to spend them trout fishing in Oregon with his dead wife's father. Not that he wouldn't enjoy a brain-expanding tour of the Middle East, but there damn sure wouldn't be any pleasantries scheduled on this junket, to say nothing of the responsibility of bringing back the five hundred Gs.
"Now wait a minute," he began, shaking his head. "This is more Ferris' meat than mine, for Chrissakes. He's the international operator around here...."
"Save your breath, Jeb boy. The old man made the decision, and you know him when he's fixed his mind-about as flexible as the Colosseum. He said he didn't want to see your ugly mug around here again until you walk in carrying all that stolen loot. Now, what else would you like to know?"
"Jesus Christ. Sonovabitch," Delaney grunted angrily. "I'd turn in my frigging tin badge if I'd be eligible for unemployment insurance."
Vince Shepherd laughed. "You're just a lucky bastard and don't know it, Delaney," he said, and then his squared face grew more serious. He dropoed the cigar in an ashtray. "The Berkeley police wired us a further report on Crystal Morris. It seems that she's been active the last six months in some Arabic demonstrations. That jibe with anything you picked up?"
Jeb shook his head. "No, but it certainly ties in with this Middle East trip of Tracy Newman's. I was wondering where the connection was. Looks more and more as if our Miss Morris was Earle Newman's little helper after all, doesn't it?"
"Not much doubt about that, Jeb, though it appears that she was more of a bed partner than an accomplice. And on the side, she had a lover who wasn't Earle Newman, a Palestinian-Jewish radical named Yossi Nidam. Berkeley tuned us into that, too."
"And Tracy Newman's new gal friend? Anything on her?"
"Enough. She's Palestinian. Name's Ziona Sursis, twenty-three and supposedly a student of sociology in her last year. Active in Arabic causes, but no zealot. She was this Yossi Nidam's sex-mate and a close friend of Crystal Morris's. All of that add up for you?"
For a moment, the handsome ivy-league, Delaney, said nothing, then: "Yeah, maybe some of it does, Vince. Let's see how it sounds: C. Earle Newman, after kicking it around with his young sister-in-law for a few years, decides to clean out his bank and carry her off into the sunset. Meanwhile, little Crystal leads him on and at the same time plays a game with this Yossi Nidam behind Ziona Sursis' back. Nidam and the Morris girl plan a double-cross. He's waiting in the desert when Newman and Crystal arrive to meet the plane the bank manager evidently arranged for, which brings the Mexican pilot, Sanchez, into the picture."
"Incidentally, a .32 slug was found in Sanchez's remains," Shepherd said. "Did you know that?"
"No. but it figures. Yossi must have surprised and blasted him. Right?"
Vince Shepherd nodded. "That's as good a guess as any."
"So then this Yossi and Crystal proceed to get rid of Earle Newman, and not in a run-of-the-mill murder. That, I don't get," Jeb said, picking up the brown paper envelope to toy with.
"Yeah. They damned sure tortured him all right, then dumped his body and Sanchez's into the car Newman had bought, along with a bundle of bogus money and set it afire," the white-haired insurance investigator added.
"They would have to have flown the plane out of there then," Jeb said. "Is this Nidam a pilot?"
"He damned sure is. It's all there in that brown envelope for your perusal," Shepherd replied.
Delaney nodded. "It was Crystal Morris and Nidam that the mexican farmer drove to the Mexico City airport, right?"
"No question about it. That farmer identified Crystal Morris from a picture and Nidam from memory. So did the girl who sold them their airline tickets."
"Where were they headed, as if I couldn't guess?" Jeb asked.
"Tel Aviv, daddy, where else?"
Delaney sighed heavily. "Well, it's a nicely rounded-out scene, all right. Except ... something's lacking, Vince."
"Like what?"
"Like Tracy Newman's role," Jeb said. "Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't see that luscious widow as being an innocent bystander to all of this."
"You think she had a hand in the double-cross and wiping out her husband?"
"Could be. Maybe she and her sister were in it together," the younger man speculated. "Otherwise, why this trip to Israel? She certainly can't be concerned over what happens to the sister who's been playing footsie with her husband can she? I wonder, does she know Newman's nuts were hacked off and his own cock shoved halfway down his throat?"
"No. That information hasn't been released to the press and probably won't be," Shepherd said. "No reason for it. But I don't necessarily agree with you, Jeb, on a Tracy Newman tie-in. She could be merely trying to find her sister and help her. We've yet to come up with the first shady mark against the Newman widow."
"Yeah, I know-lily-white," Delaney commented with an underlying cynicism. He stood up and shoved the envelope into his jacket pocket. "Well, I better go pack a toothbrush, and read these reports over a few dozen times." He stuck out his hand to the white-haired man who got to his own feet. "If I don't see you again.
Vince, you'll know I've taken a job as a eunuch in a harem."
"God have mercy on those poor girls' backs," Vince Shepherd said with a grin.
They shook hands and Jeb Delaney walked out into the night. It was hot and smoggy, stinging his eyes. He thought of stopping off some place and having a drink, but changed his mind. Better that he finished packing and went through those reports again. Damn, he couldn't get Tracy Newman out of his head. Why? Her apparent pureness right in the midst of a cesspool? But that wasn't so outlandish. He'd come across innocents before who'd wallowed, yet emerged from the mire without a stain on them. No, it wasn't just the virtuous vibrations she presented-it was the comparison he couldn't help but make between his late wife Aletha and her. His beautiful and faithfully devoted young wife of two years, Christ how he'd loved her, and she him, he knew, or he thought he'd known, until she'd told him about Karen White two days before she died.
He'd never even remotely dreamed of such a thing, but there it had been, a lesbian affair of years finally purged from his Aletha's soul on her death-bed. It wasn't that he couldn't forgive her for the affair itself, then or now, but her absolute destruction of the word fidelity would always live with him.
And it was raising hell with him every time he thought of Tracy Newman. She looked too goddamned innocent to be for real, and before he was done he'd prove it, if only to himself.
* * *
Following her brutal ravishment by the pair who had been waiting for her in Crystal's apartment, Tracy Newman had lain in a misery of physical and mental agony for several hours before any measure of her composure had begun to return. She had cried herself into a fitful sleep which nevertheless, had rested her sickened mind and allowed her to awaken with only a dull ache left in her abused loins. It was then that her self-command began to re-establish itself.
It had been just past midnight, only a few hours since the two men had left her, and the young widow's first reaction was to call the police, but she had quickly put that from her mind. It could gain her nothing but involvement that she didn't want, plus possible publicity that she surely didn't need-and what woman wasn't aware of the embarrassment of a rape investigation? Besides, they could have murdered her as easily as raped her; they would've had no qualms about it had that been their intention. But instead, they'd chosen that brutally degrading method of warning her to forget about her sister.
That, Tracy knew, she could never do regardless of how they threatened her. She had gotten up from the bed, found one of Crystal's robes and started for the telephone intending to call Ziona Sursis. But second thoughts had stopped her there, too. Supposing they were listening, had the line tapped or something?-She knew nothing about how those things were done, but the idea seemed very plausible to her at that moment. They'd evidently been watching the Palestinian girl, since they'd known she had been to see Tracy earlier.
In the end, Tracy had done nothing but think and soak some more of the distress from her ravaged young body in a good hot bath, made herself several stiff drinks, and gone to bed hoping desperately that Ziona would call her the following morning ... and she had.
"I'm calling from a payphone, Mrs. Newman. I left my apartment taking all my clothes in the middle of the night," the girl had said in her husky voice that was tight with unhidable fear. "They came and threatened me for talking to you."
"They didn't-didn't hurt you did they?" Tracy had pressed anxiously.
"Not badly ... a little knocking around. But don't worry, I'm all right," the girl had insisted. "I'm going to the Oakland Airport right now. If you still want my help, Mrs. Newman, I'm ready."
"Good, good, Ziona. I'll meet you there as soon as I can get a taxi. Be near the information booth and I'll find you. We'll make our plans on the plane for Los Angeles."
"All right, Mrs. Newman...."
"Call me Tracy, please."
A little laugh filled her ear. "All right, Tracy," the throaty-voiced girl had agreed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Crystal Morris had never been happier. They stayed on in Rome for almost a week adjusting to the time difference and giving her the opportunity of seeing some of the Eternal City. It was like a dream come true for the voluptuous, honey-tressed young woman. She had always nourished an obsessive desire to travel and visit the exotic places in the world, and suddenly it was a reality for her.
She'd had to take her tours alone, Yossi being busy making his mysterious contacts and whatever, but she hadn't minded a bit. The privacy allowed her to get in some wardrobe shopping, and with the money he'd given her to blow, it had been super. Besides, they'd had the glorious nights together, and in the end that's where it all was for her, right there in bed with her handsome lover.
From the air, Tel Aviv had awed her, sprawled as it was over acres of sand dunes beside the ever-blue Mediterranean. It had a cream and caramel visage in the afternoon sunshine, and the beautiful greenery had amazed her. The meandering streets and avenues in the central part of town were tree-lined and heavily trafficked with autos, a luxury she somehow hadn't expected to see. But more impressive and surprising were the high-rise towers, modern structures of twenty and thirty stores which gave Crystal a feeling of brash bigness the comparatively young metropolis seemed to be almost garishly effuse. Although she had never seen the Florida city, Crystal pictured this up-thrusting center rising dustily out of the desert to be a miniature Miami Beach. Everywhere she saw construction underway, and the sound of pneumatic drills and heavy moving equipment was a far cry from the camels she'd half-expected to see.
In a way, it was disappointing to the young coed, but Yossi swore that he hated it. Perhaps not the physical aspects of progress, but everything that the sixty odd year old city represented to him. He rebuked her angrily when she mentioned its stab at sophistication, dragging her through the Hatikva quarter where he was born. It left her shocked. Never had she been exposed that close to such slum conditions where people actually existed in shelters thrown-up of cardboard boxes. Then in contrast he'd taken her to the plush suburbs of Herzliya and Savyon to see how the wealthy lived in conspicuous luxury.
"Does that give you some of the picture, or would you like more, baby?" he'd growled bitterly.
Crystal had responded with a grim expression, knowing it was what he wanted to see, but she hadn't really felt that way. To her, it was not all that grievous. The country was still in its infancy and reforms were sure to come with time. But, of course, he cared nothing about that; he saw only the worst-and she wanted whatever he wanted.
Later the same night and again the next they visited the gaudiest nightclubs and loudest discotheques, Yossi enjoying it as much as she in spite of himself. They'd seemed to drink more than everyone around them, and later when they were in bed he'd explained that Israelis drank a little and fucked a lot, but that he liked a heavy combination of both. That had been a wonderful, wonderful night.
The next, they'd spent walking the streets and talking to some of the busy prostitutes, trying to locate his younger sister Maya. Though it was unlawful for a girl to solicit, the illegality hardly seemed to slow any of them down. They were all young, pretty, and if appearances didn't lie, flourishing, Crystal noted, but she didn't envy them. It had to be the hardest and saddest life in the world, she thought, entered into at the price of a girl's very soul.
In three days and nights of searching, they found no trace of Maya. Then on Sunday, the first working day of the week in the Jewish state, while she was walking about the city seeing all that she could, Yossi had brought home a gruff, brutish appearing man named Micha to the small two-room flat they had been fortunate in finding available by the week. He knew of Maya's whereabouts, and what was more, he had been sent to find them.
Early that Sunday morning, Yossi had left Crystal lying in bed, the old uneasiness she had long since become familiar with obviously eating at him. So far they'd been lucky he told her, but they couldn't expect that luck to last. Not one little rub had they run into with customs or anyone.
It all seemed too smooth and made him edgy, he said, though she couldn't imagine why it should.
Since leaving Mexico City she hadn't questioned him once about the money or its whereabouts, even though she knew the valise which contained the packets of green dollars was no longer among theirs. That morning he had told her of his own accord: the night they'd stayed in Mexico City waiting for their flight to London, two Arabs had come to their hotel; did she remember? Yes, she had gone down to the bar to give them privacy in the room. While she was gone, he had turned all of the stolen bank cash, with the exception of ten thousand dollars, over to them. They were to handle the smuggling of it to its destination.
"Its destination?" Crystal had repeated, confused and somewhat hurt at not being at least consulted about such a move. After all, she did consider herself half-owner of the money she'd deceitfully engineered into their hands.
"Ibn Pasha," he said, brushing at his curly hair before the mirror while she lay naked and watching him from the bed.
"Y-You've mentioned him before, honey," she'd said, trying to keep the concern from her tone. "But who is he?"
"A great man ... very powerful ... and a name that you don't mention in Israel unless you want to wind up being grilled by the police." He looked at her in the mirror. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes ... yes, of course, Yossi." She had smiled. "Who would I mention him to, anyway? We certainly haven't made any friends here."
"We don't want any friends here. We're much better without them," he told her sharply. "We'll be leaving shortly, I hope. That's what I'll be doing this morning-trying to make the arrangements."
"Where're we going, darling?" she'd asked, rising to one elbow and feeling the resilient weight of her firm full breasts shifting with the tilt of her naked body.
"Stop acting like an inquisitive American broad, Crystal. You're in the Middle East now," he snapped, swinging around to glare at her as he picked up his shirt. He slipped it on and turned back to face the mirror. "I'll probably be gone most of the day. You can do what you like. I'll leave you some money. Just be careful who you strike up a conversation with, and keep your eye open for anyone who looks like they might be following you."
Crystal sat upright on the bed. "You don't think they could've traced us here already, Yossi?"
"Why the hell not? It's been over three weeks, baby, and American cops aren't exactly the dumb pricks we like to think they are," he advised with a left-handed compliment. "The extradition situation should be pretty liberal, too, it being that Uncle Sam is like a big-daddy to these six day warlords. So, just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. I'll have us out of here in a day or so, if everything goes right."
She hadn't questioned him further, especially about the money which she didn't really want to think about anyway. It only reminded her of Earle-of what they had done to him, and the sooner the lurid memory of that wild orgy was blotted from her mind, the easier her conscience was going to feel. She thought of Tracy often, too, affectionate thoughts which went back to their childhood together and bore no relation to C. Earle Newman. She missed her older sister tremendously, but that was the choice she'd had to make. Yossi and his work came first, before everything; she wasn't sorry.
All the same, the curvaceous runaway blonde felt extra morbid that Sunday morning and anxious for some sort of mental uplift. She had hopped from the bed, showered and dressed quickly, then gotten out into the sunshine.
Almost immediately her moody humor had disappeared as she ambled along at random. The vigorous city was a riot of color, bright with gardens, parks, and flower stalls to claim her attention. Even the benches along the way which were occasionally occupied by loungers, were painted gay reds, blues, greens and yellows, an inspiriting tonic in themselves.
Just off swank Dizengoff Street, she wandered along narrow passageways with all the flavor of an Oriental bazaar. They were -lined with stalls and cubbyholes displaying everything from leather goods to an unending assortment of nuts in open bins. She found deep and shaded sidewalk cafes where she sat over a Coke and watched the people stroll by.
It was a fascinating composite; young couples with their babies in prams and strollers; sweaty soldiers probably on leave; fat Israeli matrons; bearded, side-curled Orthodox men with round black hats and puritanical stares who didn't quite seem to fit in at all; but more noticeable then anything, the young blue-jeaned and gaudily plumaged set. She might have been sitting along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, these teenagers looked so Americanized to her.
Later, Crystal enjoyed lunch in a small Arab restaurant, browsed through innumerable art galleries and antique shops, then sat in three different parks while the shops were closed traditionally from one until four in the afternoon. Finally, window-shopping the colorful boutiques, she made her way slowly back to the flat where Yossi and the brutish man sat sharing a bottle of wine and smoking hash at the small kitchen table, the expression on her young lover's handsome face letting her know that he was riding high.
Grinning loosely, and with a slurring tongue, Yossi introduced the short, thick-shouldered man whose fiery, red--rimmed eyes clawed over her like dirty, probing fingers. He had a massive undershot jawline covered with a heavy black stubble, rubbery lips, and an ape-like nose. He held the flexible stem leading to the small hookah setting on the table in a huge, hair-covered hand while he mentally stripped her, then without so much as a nod, picked up his wine-glass and drained it.
"Micha knows where my sister is," Yossi told her, his eyes aglow with the effects of the wine and hash combination. He dragged from his own stem, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long moment before releasing the breath. Then: "He was sent here by Ibn Pasha himself to find us, but, of course, he's had to wait until I showed in the right place and made identification." He grinned widely. "Ibn Pasha wants to see me right away."
Crystal studied her lover's drug-slackened face, not certain whether she felt pleased or disappointed, though quite sure of the uneasiness the newcomer inspired inside her. His ravaging eyes had barely left her body a second since she'd walked in.
"W-What does that mean?" she finally asked.
"What does it mean?" Yossi repeated, as if she'd popped the most stupid question possible. He laughed then. "It means, baby, that I've arrived," he said with open pride. "It also means that we spend a few days in plush luxury with the man; right aboard the El-Ihhlil. Furthermore, that's where Maya is."
Crystal shook her head slowly. "I-I'm afraid I don't understand, darling. Where ... what is the El-Ihhlil?"
"Sit down," Micha ordered her in a guttural voice, nodding toward 'he third chair at the table. He poured wine into his glass and pushed it over in front of her. Crystal stared at him, not quite daring to refuse. She eased down onto the chair and he nodded again toward the glass. "Drink it," he said.
She picked up the glass and sipped the strong, sour contents, unable to avoid the astringent expression it caused. He laughed, showing large yellowed teeth, then called the wine by name, an Arabic sound she didn't quite catch. Yossi chuckled and handed her his stem to the hookah. That, Crystal was familiar with and welcomed; she needed something right at the moment to brace her.
"The El-Ihhlil is General Ibn Pasha's fabulous yacht, baby, and we've been invited aboard for a few days of business and pleasure," Yossi explained as she took a second deep drag then handed him back the stem. "She's at sea right now, but Micha and two others of the crew will take us there on a cruiser that's waiting right now in the harbor. So, pack everything, doll, we leave tonight at eight."
"T-Tonight?" Crystal said, hesitantly.
"Yes, damnit, tonight!" Yossi snapped at her. "What the hell's wrong with you, anyway? Aren't you hearing anything right?"
"I-I'm sorry, darling ... I didn't mean
"Never mind what the fuck you meant," he spat at her, and she realized that now he was trying to impress Micha with his masculine superiority. "Get at it ... now. "
Crystal's cheeks were burning as she rose from the table, feeling the brutish eyes of Micha raking over her body from behind. She had to bite her lip to keep from flying into a rage. Yossi had never treated her with such contempt, and especially in front of anyone. She was hurt and embarrassed, but mostly angered as she stomped into the other room-and frightened, too ... yes, really frightened for the first time since they'd left the states. God, she could still feel that ugly man's lecherous eyes lewdly devouring every inch of her thinly clad body.
CHAPTER SIX
Aboard the 747 several hours out of Los Angeles and bound for London via the Polar route, Jeb Delaney was inwardly praising himself for the cover he'd managed to maintain while Jeb was trying to figure out his next move, with Tracy Newman. The pretty young widow was now confiding in whispers with her dark-skinned companion.
"No question about it, Ziona, he's the same man I saw a couple different times while I was at Crystal's apartment. I know it sounds insane, but he must be following me."
They sat aloft in the luxurious forward lounge of the super aircraft enjoying a drink, neither of them looking toward the well-groomed man situated diagonally across from them, who was seemingly engrossed in a newspaper over a bottle of beer.
"Nothing insane about it," the dark-eyed younger woman replied in a low voice. "Remember, lady, the law is still trying to locate a certain five-hundred-thousand dollars, and it's logical for them to assume you might lead the way to it. In fact, I'd have been very surprised if they had let you out of the country without a tail."
"Y-You mean, he might be police?" Tracy questioned, astonished at the thought.
"He might be anything, but if you're so sure you've seen him before, cop is a sound guess," Ziona said, lighting a cigarette. "Only the law would be dull enough to keep the same man following you, not realizing that you might recognize him."
Tracy was silent for a moment, glancing over at him several times to reassure herself. There wasn't the slightest doubt in her mind. He was the same clean-cut professor type she'd seen walking past the apartment and later in the restaurant. He was too good-looking to miss. God, it couldn't be just a coincidence that he was on this plane, could it? And then, another more chilling thought struck her.
"Supposing he isn't a policeman-supposing he's one of the terrorists who came to the apartment and-slapped you around...?"
"No chance of that, Tracy," Ziona cut her short with a confident little hand pat. "I know every member of that fanatical crew, remember? And he couldn't possibly be connected with them. No, if he isn't law then he's from some new faction we're not familiar with-some unknown outfit who'd like to get their hands on all that cash and thinks that you can take him right where it is. A lot of oddballs come out from under the rocks at the smell of big money, dear, but don't worry, we won't let him bother us."
Tracy studied the man's attractive slender face, its resoluteness admirable, but perhaps too overconfident in its youth. "What do you mean, we won't let him bother us?"
Ziona smiled and calmly drew at her cigarette. "First, let's find out what happens after London-see if he stays right along with us to Rome. If he does, then Ziona will go to work, honey and you haven't seen anything, Mrs. Newman, until you've witnessed this little girl when she turns on the charm."
Delaney, making a good pretense at being occupied with his newspaper, wished that he could lip-read. The luscious Mrs. Newman had glanced over at him several times and so had her exotic gal-friend. Then they'd fallen into the inevitable dialogue that follows between two dolls when they're appraising the prospects. Mmmmmmmm. Could be his own best approach. He hadn't thought about that. Not hard to take either, mixing a little pleasure with business and getting in solid-maybe more ways than one.
He toyed with the idea, liking it more and more. But which one might give him a tumble? Play it by ear? Let nature take its course and all that jazz? It could put him right on top of things nicely, he thought, enjoying his own double-entendres. Not tonight, though. He'd give it a day or so to develop, cultivating at every opportunity. Tonight he'd get some shuteye.
But with the exception of a brief smile he exchanged with Ziona Sursis when they met sleepily in the aisle sometime around five o'clock in the morning GMT over the North Atlantic, he had no occasion to ingratiate himself before their short layover at Heathrow in London. But an opportunity presented itself when they were disembarking and he saw a small camera tucked in a corner of the seat the raven-haired girl had occupied. Picking it up, Jeb waited until they were bussed to another terminal building and the two seated in a cafeteria over coffee before he approached.
It broke the ice to perfection. The vivacious nymph seemed more than indebted for his kindness, and her stunning blonde companion, though much more reserved, loosened up with a smile which again sent Aletha's image flashing through his mind. He introduced himself by name, claiming to be a social psychology professor on sabbatical and en route to Israel to do some work at Tel Aviv University. He felt safe enough, having minored a number of years back in social sciences, and wanting to pretend something in common with one of the pair for a lever. Ziona Sursis, he knew from the reports, was a fourth year sociology student, which should prove challenging if nothing else. Though he would have preferred to establish the common ground with lovely Mrs. N., her vague history offered nothing he could tie a line to.
They invited him to join them and he did. Ziona carried the feminine end of the conversation, Tracy Newman lapsing into a friendly silence, which decided for Delaney where his attentions were best concentrated. They were free agents marital-wise and enjoying a long vacation, Ziona informed him with luring casualness. What good luck, Jeb exulted, personifying the naive professor as he moved in to test the trap.
"Maybe we can spend some time together in Tel Aviv, see the sights and whatnot? It's always more enjoyable with someone you know," he said, grinning enthusiastically.
"Yes, that would be wonderful, wouldn't it, Tracy?" Ziona said with her dark eyes asparkle and her accent stimulating. "I always feel better with an American male companion in the group, even though it's my homeland we'll be visiting."
Tracy smiled and nodded. She was thinking that they may well have misjudged this handsome man. His story of being a professor on sabbatical seemed very logical to her-even made the coincidence of his being on this plane quite reasonable. All the same, she would let Ziona handle him. The stunning brunette was a reassuring pillar of intrepidity, and Tracy needed that after her horrible episode in Crystal's apartment.
Aboard the Trident to Rome, Tracy Newman slept and Ziona joined Jeb. The time change had upset Tracy's stomach, the raven-haired nymph told him. She'd taken some Dramamine and dozed off.
"Doesn't it bother you, the time difference and all this flying?" Delaney asked.
"Not a bit. I guess I'm an Ironsides when it comes to travel." she replied smiling. "How about a drink before they serve the dinner?"
"You're on," Jeb agreed, trying to catch the stewardess' attention and at the same time thinking that a little tete-a-tete in the proper surroundings with this ravishing charmer would go a long way toward adding sensuous intrigue to a furtive assignment. She did things to his loins, rousing things that his time-demanding had allowed only a nebulous familiarity with lately. Christ, how long had it been? Too long according to his libidometer-but he better keep his goddamned head about it.
Ziona made that difficult. The conversation drifted, as he figured it eventually would with her skillful maneuvering, toward his background. Now, she was testing and he played right along. What in particular was the nature of his study in Israel, if she wasn't too inquisitive?
"Sex," Jeb replied with the naivete he'd opened with at the Heathrow cafeteria. "I'm working toward my Ph.D. and want to do a paper on comparative Eastern and Western sexual behavior from infancy to the grave. I know it might sound a bit rash to the layman, but when it all boils down, sex is the primary emotion of the human species."
"Right on, professor," she responded, smiling interestedly. "Sounds like a wild junket you've booked. Maybe I can help you here and there. I'm Palestinian myself."
Delaney hoped that he blushed; it wasn't easy. He assumed a simple expression, stammered a few words, then purposely made an awkward attempt at further explanation which made her laugh. Inwardly, he was quite pleased with his camouflage; outwardly, he looked like the embarrassed professor pretending not to be.
"I can't recall much of my sex life before I was twelve," Ziona said, sipping at her drink and letting those dark-eyes dance amusedly over the plastic glass rim, "but I can remember enough from that point to get you off on a running start, Jeb."
"Yes ... well ... I ... ah...."
"Seriously though, I think children in the East are thoroughly educated and sophisticated in sexual matters from their earliest years of understanding," she went on as if they were discussing the weather. "I mean, the very manner we used to speak of it in the streets, wherever, quite open and blatantly-you know, as matter-of-fact. Boys and girls, sisters, brothers, cousins, what have you, we often slept naked together in one room. There was no such thing as shame or modesty. Genital play was as natural as our meals. There were all sorts of masturbation, oral excitement, and intercourse."
Delaney squirmed. Christ, his cock was suddenly harder than a block of granite! If he had to get up now he'd rip his goddamned pants-front out. He gulped at his drink, his pulse beginning to pound at the sight of the sultry Palestinian's firmly thrusting breasts, her slender waist, and her lust-enticing hips and thighs that made the pants suit fit like a second skin.
"You know, professor, the adult Arab male is afflicted with what we call kheblhhuri, or nymph-madness. Nymphophilia and child marriages are common," she went on in that throaty tone that was nigh to temporarily crippling him. "There are very few females in the East who don't have their young vaginas penetrated at least once by an adult penis before the age of puberty, sometimes by rape, but more often willingly."
There was much more, all enlightening little sexual tidbits which she showed no inhibitions about relating, and by the time the vivacious doll returned to her own seat with Tracy after dinner, she'd left Jeb in a state of aching erection that made dozing off impossible. But her parting words also made the lusty torment bearable.
"We'll take up this subject again later, professor, if you'd like to," she'd said, those jet-black eyes whispering a subtle promise. "Say ... over a few drinks in your room when we're settled in Tel Aviv?"
Jesus, just like that, Delaney thought, gaping out at the darkness with a blanket draped over him. He had to keep his frigging head, though couldn't forget what she and Tracy Newman really were and what they were doing ... or his reason for being there, for Chrissake ... and finally he slept.
After a brief stopover in Rome, a still k-eyed-up Delaney had little contact with the two girls until they landed at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv and were taxied to a plush hotel by the sea, which Ziona recommended. It was late afternoon, and from his terrace Jeb saw the bevy of bronzed bikini-beauties banking around the Olympic-sized pool the hotel also offered. Man, what a place to be stranded for a month or so; he wasn't doing too bad for a double-dealing gumshoe just in from the States. He had a dinner date with a pair of classical lovelies, and no telling what more before the night was out.
As it happened, and he guessed that it might, the affair turned out to be a cozy duet. The voluptuous blonde widow was having tummy tantrums and had taken to her bed per the house physician's orders. Delaney couldn't say that he was displeased.
The dinner with Ziona was delightful, followed by a short nightclub stint and a few drinks in their own hotel bar. Sex was the topic, thinly disguised by the clinical cover, he'd made possible with his so-called East-West comparison study. And Ziona Sursis was loving every minute of it; he could see the generosity glowing in her eyes. He was trying to keep his head. He wanted to pump some information from her, but it'd have to wait until after he'd pumped something else into her. She'd vamped him completely, whether it was intentional or not.
She sat close to him on a stool at the bar, looking up into his face. Her skin was like olive satin begging for his touch, her perfume an exotic heady scent that didn't overwhelm, merely hypnotized. Maybe it was all an act, but she seemed to dig him and wanted him to know it. The sexy dialogue grew less clinical and more personal. It was a struggle to maintain his professor alias, and the urge to slip back into ruttish character and expedite matters kept him on the alert.
Finally, and with an obvious little sigh, she said: "How long are we going to play at teasies, darling? Let's just go up to your room, shall we? A demonstration is better than a million words, don't you agree?"
"I'm speechless," he said, unable to hold back a wide grin as he walked her from the bar, drawing envious glances from the other customers as her lusty young curves moving sensuously beneath the red mini-dress he had first seen her wearing at the Oakland Airport.
In the corridor, she took his arm and put it around her slender waist, stopped and looked up to be kissed. He did, tasting the warm softness of her open, passionate lips. Christ, she was ready all right ... but Delaney wasn't, not for what happened next.
They rounded a corner silently with feet sinking into the plush hallway carpeting just as a utility room door opened. It caught the investigator off balance to which Ziona added by giving him a shove. A huge fist smashed with sledge hammer force into the center of his face, detonating an explosion of painful fireworks inside his skull. Jeb sensed his knees buckling and at the same time vaguely saw a ham-like set of raw knuckles swooping in like a phantom jet at his jaw. He tried to twist his head and take a glancing blow, but enough of its brunt landed to unleash a second shower of mental sparks.
They were abruptly jammed into a small area of cleaning utensils, three of them and himself with the door closed behind them. Trapped like a goddamned lamb in a slaughterhouse ... that little Judas bitch! An ugly Mussolini-chinned gorilla was slamming out the torment straight to Jeb's belly with a sadistic grin, while another stood back holding a dirty looking blanket, and the third locked Jeb's arms up tight from behind.
A stiff, short-measured jab with his punisher's solid weight behind it dug into Corliss Insurance's top-paid investigator's solar plexus, making the breath rip from his lungs. Delaney choked and doubled forward, the binding arms from behind letting him slump into position for the gorilla's bent leg to lash up like a released catapult, its solid knee thudding with the ferocity of a slung boulder against his forehead.
The arms from behind caught him, jerking him upright again and two more brutal blows pounded around his heart.
"Want the blanket, Micha?" someone said.
"Naw. We don't need it with this pansy," the chin growled and the arms from behind let him fall onto hands and knees, croaking wounds rasping from his throat. "Let's finish him up and get on with the rest of the job."
Too stunned to make any sort of fight of it, Jeb was even less prepared for the vicious kick to his ribs as he sprawled on all fours. He heard his own grunt of agony and collapsed onto his side, trying to curl protectively up into a ball. Then a pair of booted kicks smashed into his kidneys from behind, accompanied by harsh sniggers, and numbly Delaney found himself struggling back up onto his hands and knees.
There was an obscene chuckle as the stubbly-chinned Micha moved behind the helpless young man weaving unsteadily on all-fours. The Arab terrorist set himself, then his foot whipped out sadistically, the toe well aimed at the soft bulge in Jeb Delaney's crotch.
"Uuuunnnggghhhhh!" the beaten investigator grunted, all sign of life suddenly drained from him at the brutal crushing of his testicles.
CHAPTER SEVEN
General Pasha was a phenomenon to behold. He stood some seven feet tall with long flame-colored hair and beard streaked with white, looking even more of a giant in the plain green uniform he wore. His eyes were like two chunks of jade glaring from their crinkled pits out of a fierce square face, and his voice like a cannon's roar sent resonant tremors rippling up Crystal's spine when he spoke.
Crystal had no idea what he said, for he looked at Yossi and addressed him in Arabic. She would have been too stunned for it to register anyway, the awed young blonde thought as she gaped around her at the unbelievable splendor of the El-Ihhlil. Yossi had called it a yacht, but my God, it was more of ocean-liner proportions. She'd actually seen a swimming pool forward when they were being led up to this, "his private deck", as Micha had referred to it, and unless she was greatly mistaken there had been no men around that pool, only girls naked girls.
It was truly a floating palace, oriental in appointments, even to the carpeted and cushioned salon she would learn was the bearded giant's sanctuary, and it struck the young American as most welcome after the tedious ten hours aboard the cruiser with a sleeping Yossi and three lecherous-eyed men. She was very tired and maybe a little seasick, but the incredible luxury of the El-Ihhlil did things to her adrenaline flow that even a handful of bennies couldn't match, and she stood a little behind her ambitious young lover in silence as he faced this "great" man. Yossi Nidam had seen his idol once before at a political rally in Beirut when he was seventeen. From that moment he had been a loyal devotee. General Ibn Pasha would be the savior of his people, and the adamant young Palestinian Jew wanted only to be a tool of the giant in the glorious accomplishment of that cause. He stood in reverence, hardly able to believe his personal audience with this Al Fatah leader, listening as the canorous voice issued abbreviated orders to Micha, instructing him to return immediately to Tel Aviv and wait for an important contact from someone code-named Incense.
The massive man had been standing when they were ushered in by a heavily armed guard in uniform at the entranceway, and now he lowered his huge weight in oriental fashion behind the low, onyx-and-ivory-inlaid table which he undoubtedly used as a desk, relaxing against the mountain of cushioned pillows surrounding him. His burning eyes never left Yossi, and the young revolutionary couldn't help but wonder what Crystal was thinking at that moment.
"So, Yossi Nidam is it?" Ibn Pasha thundered in Arabic. His Fiery eyes flicked appraisingly from Yossi to the fair-haired American girl standing properly behind him, "You're part Jew, aren't you?" he said rather than asked.
"Yes, b-but I have disowned that shame," Yossi replied, sensing a sinking point in the depths of him. "I am Palestinian, an Arab loyal to our cause. I spit on my Jew-father's grave!"
"Hmmpphhh," Ibn Pasha grunted. "And the female accompanying you?"
"She is an American sympathizer, very loyal and helpful, General Pasha. She worked beside me these last few months in the United States," Yossi informed.
The general nodded. "I know," he said bluntly. "I sit here on the El-Ihhlil, boy, but there is little which happens in the world that Ibn Pasha is not aware of. For instance, why did you see fit to hack off the banker, Newman's, cock? Are you a sadist, Nidam?"
"No, sir. He was a Jew dog. I would have done more to torture him if he had not bled to death," Yossi snapped with the militaristic mien of a G.I. singing out a general order.
The bearded, not unhandsome face of the red-haired general broke into a limited grin. "We received the American dollars C. Earle Newman stole from his bank. It was some short of the five-hundred-thousand taken. What do you have to say to that, Nidam?"
"There were expenses, general. I have more than nine-thousand dollars with me which can be added. I had to keep some to be sure I would get to you," Yossi said.
"It was that important to you, eh?" Ibn Pasha pressed.
"I've risked my life for it, sir," the young terrorist said, his eyes blazing proudly.
The huge man seemed to study him, then he smiled once more. "And now, I assume you've brought me this delicate gift in Western garb to further verify your devotion to the cause, eh? What did you say her name was?"
The young curly-haired man swallowed. He hadn't anticipated this, but ... so what? There were plenty of other girls on the general's ship.
There was nothing he wouldn't sacrifice to the cause. "Crystal Morris," he said, and felt her squeezing his hand from behind at the sound of her name.
"She is quite lovely, but the pictures from the newspapers of her sister are even more enticing," Ibn Pasha said, his flaming eyes once more raking up and down the frightened young blonde girl. "Infidel, no doubt, eh?"
"Basically Christian, General," Yossi asserted.
The bearded leader nodded, his tongue appearing to lick over his red-shadowed lips. "You've made a notable effort to be recognized, Yossi Nidam. I cannot deny you the right to offer your soul and body for the cause of our people. Consider yourself one of us from this moment, but I must further add that it is your gift to me of the girl beside you which makes me know your undivided loyalty. Though we can only use her and not adopt her into our permanent entourage because of religious aspects, your sincerity is all the more under-lined. Does she understand?"
Yossi shook his head. "No, sir," he replied, "but she will soon."
"I see. Well ... perhaps you'd rather we didn't take this young damsel from your side, Nidam? Do you love her?" Ibn Pasha put to him in his booming voice.
"I-I ... ah ... it is unimportant to me, General," Yossi heard himself say in Arabic. "Whatever pleases you. She is but another woman."
Strong teeth gleamed behind the white-streaked red beard. "You have spoken well, Yossi Nidam," he said, and suddenly the entranceway opened and the guard appeared. "Show this man to military quarters and summon the Jewess at once."
Crystal had watched the movie-like performance taking place before her eyes with her heart pounding. She'd heard her own name as well as seen the pride on Yossi's face. The giant behind the red beard sent chills up her spine, there was no denying that. The fact that she couldn't understand a word they were saying was more frightening than anything ... and then Yossi was gone! Whipped away before she could even grasp his hand! His hand ... it was almost as if that hand had suddenly shed hers...!
She gaped at the man sprawled luxuriously behind the low table. His devouring eyes were still upon her, though he hadn't moved since Yossi had been suddenly taken away. Then his shattering voice said in English: "You mustn't be frightened. You will be pleased and pampered, should you deserve it."
"Yossi ... I want to be with him! What're you doing?" Crystal demanded.
"We all have our particular task in the cause, my dear," he rumbled at her. "Yours is to please me now...."
"No! Don't be ridiculous. I want to go with Yossi! What do you think you're doing? You've got our money ... everything! Send Yossi and me back to Tel Aviv...!"
The girl entering the salon had beautiful, long chestnut hair. She might have come out of Scheherazade's imagination with the filmy flounces of harem-styled gauze she wore strategically covering her curvaceous young body. Crystal stared at her, the girl's smile and the expression in her liquid eyes captivating the bewildered blonde's very mind.
"You're lucky, darling, and don't even know it yet," a whisper spoken in vernacular English filtered into Crystal's ear from the newcomer who's hands were like butterflies darting over her, unbuttoning a button here and loosening a zipper there. The voice continued to whisper: "Don't be a fool, baby, let the general play; you can stomach that. Come on! Come on!"
"Stop! What do you think you're doing?" Crystal blurted, half grabbing at her slacks as they were tugged away from her waist.
The guard, who had stood by waiting to be dismissed by the leader, lashed out with a sudden backhand which took Crystal hard across the cheek, the force of it staggering the frightened American girl. She would have been knocked to the floor had not the chestnut-haired beauty caught and steadied her.
"Not in the face, you son of a whore!" Ibn Pasha roared at the guard. "Get out ... get out before I castrate you right here!"
Too stunned from the effect of the stinging blow, Crystal offered no further opposition to the enchanting girl stripping her clothes away and whispering phrases of encouragement in the process, until abruptly she was standing totally naked before the casually sprawled commando leader with the hungering jade eyes.
"She has a lovely body, general," the long-tressed girl said, running her hands delicately over Crystal's naked white breasts and down across her ribs to her flared hips. "Perfect legs ... and a natural blonde," she added, her fingertips brushing lightly through Crystal's silken gold pubic curls.
"Turn around," Ibn Pasha ordered.
Crystal did, with the urging of the other woman's persuading hands. She profiled briefly, the voluptuous forward jut and backward swell of firm-fleshed breasts and buttocks, the enticing S-shape of her voluptuous white body, all adding to his growing interest. Then her back was presented to him, with the curve from her shoulders into her narrow waist accentuated by the full roundness of her buttocks-soft, warm-looking milk-white ovals that were as smooth as a Greek statue. She was trembling from head to toe now.
"Very nice for an American," the general murmured. "What do you think, Maya?"
"She has all the qualifications, general ... should turn quite a performance," the young woman he had referred to as the "Jewess" answered, a little smile tugging at her lush red lips.
Crystal flashed a glance at her, looking for Yossi's facial traits in hers. The general had called her Maya. Could she be Yossi's sister? Yes ... there was a resemblance....
"I like her hair," the general said, as if he were appraising her at a slave market. "She would fetch grand prices in Mecca and Medina. Let's see how she responds, Maya. Go ahead."
Maya stepped close behind Crystal who shivered in confusion as the young delicate hands smoothed intimately over her naked buttocks, and again she heard the whisper in her ear. "Don't fight me or he'll have the hell beaten out of you. Use your head."
"Do you like her ass, Maya?" the massive leader questioned lewdly, grinning through the red beard and rubbing lewdly at the crotch of his pants. "Wouldn't it be nice to have a cock of your own to shove up into it?" He chuckled obscenely.
Maya's dark eyes sparkled. "Soft and smooth as satin," she said in a sensuous tone, passing her hands with unhidable eagerness over Crystal's shivering white flesh. Quickly, the chestnut-haired woman moved to gather pillows and strew them on the floor before the general's table where he would have a commanding view. Then: "Lie down here, fair one; the general and I want to see if you've taken the proper care of your little love-hole."
"Ooohhhhhhh please ... what're you going to do to me?" Crystal whimpered even as she lowered onto the pillows obediently, a tear of shame trickling down one soft cheek. She lay back on her elbows, holding her thighs tightly together and feeling the resilient weight of her exposed breasts swaying out ripely to the sides with the movement.
"We're going to measure you for your future, wench," Ibn Pasha growled through his lurid grin. "Open your legs so I can see what you've got there."
Crystal did but only a reluctant few inches.
"More than that, my dear," Maya ordered. "The General wants a good look at your tight little cunt."
Oh God, the runaway blonde reasoned almost frantically. What had she gotten into, anyway? Yossi! Why had he left her here this way? Suddenly, Maya grabbed her knees and pressed them sharply apart, raising a helpless cry of protest from the trapped young woman and revealing the soft pink cuntal flesh up between her legs.
"Don't pretend you haven't shown that pretty pussy liberally before, Miss Morris," General Pasha leered at her. "When I found out you were going to be my guest I had a dossier compiled on you. Rather interesting, too. It seems that you like the sadistic approach to your sex, eh? That should serve you well where you'll be going, but in the meantime this is just a little private showing for my amusement, so you mustn't get upset. It's not as if you're going to be fucked by just any old peasant prick. Relax, my dear, and show us the depths of your sensuality."
"If you want to know the truth, general, I think she will make a very passionate fuck. Look at that soft pink opening," Maya said, spreading the fleshy, curl-fringed lips of Crystal's sensitive vagina licentiously open to his eyes. "It will be getting wet and excited in a moment and then we can tell more."
Lying with her legs shamefully apart, feeling more naked and fear-filled than she had ever dreamed possible, Crystal Morris couldn't contain the tears of shame rolling freely down her cheeks. Her heart was pounding with a combination of emotions. She knew that Ibn Pasha was staring lecherously at the naked flesh of her lewdly exposed loins, and that the beautiful, scantily dressed woman who might even be Yossi's sister was kneeling above her and about to do obscene things to her. God knows, she was no child, and there was little if anything in the world of carnal lust that she hadn't sampled; but at that moment she felt like a babe in the woods, and there was nothing she could do but yield to whatever horrible thing they intended, if she wanted to be saved.
Reflexively, the naked young blonde woman cried out and lurched away as the Jewish girl's fingertips brushed delicately over the sensitive folds of hair-lined flesh on either side of her cringing vaginal mouth.
"She's a touchy bitch, Maya," Ibn Pasha said, sitting up to watch closer.
"Very responsive, General," the chestnut-haired one replied. "When her desire is aroused she will be an excellent piece. You will see. Maybe you should keep her for yourself."
"Hmmmmmm ... an infidel, Maya," Pasha replied. "Besides, we can use the money she will bring," he added in Arabic. "Never mind that, just tell me what it's like."
Crystal could only half understand what they were saying. They were treating her as if she were being examined for breeding purposes, like some bitch animal. The fingers pursued her cringing flesh, and she forced herself to lie still, fearing some worse punishment if she refused. Slyly, skillfully, two fingers insinuated themselves up between her thighs, hurting a little at first as they wormed up into her tight cuntal passage, causing the young American girl to gasp and bite at her lip. And then they were smoothing around inside her helpless vagina while a thumb tenderly stroked her tiny clitoris, and the other hand moved under her buttocks to push them upward toward the obscenely probing fingers.
"It is a lusciously soft little ass to hold, General," Maya said to feed the powerful man's obvious lechery. "It would rest like soft fluff in your big hands, one buttock in each while you pushed your long hard cock right up into this tight warm hole."
"You're trying to tease me, Jewess," he said with a grin and shoving the table out of his way. He rose to his knees and shuffled closer to note that Crystal's eyes were closed.
She opened them to see the cruel twist to his lips through the white-streaked red beard and then noticed the great erection bulging against his uniform trousers. The other girl's knowing fingers were working like flitting insects on Crystal's stiffening little clitoris, and she clamped her eyes shut once more to eliminate the general's leering face. What a shameful horror-yet even in her almost terrorized shame she sensed her vagina oozing with excited moisture. She could feel the lurid fingers slipperily massaging her erotically receptive cuntal walls. Yes, damnit. Yes, it did feel good! Abruptly, they plunged upward, two, maybe three of them now, through the elastic ring of her cuntal flesh and deep up into her hotly expanding vagina. The captive blonde whimpered in growing arousal, as her legs strained away while Maya pushed her buttocks up, persisting in the sudden penetration.
"It is very tight, General," Crystal heard her advise the huge man. "It would squeeze your big prick to loving death."
"You think so, eh? She is becoming very aroused now, isn't she," he said, sitting back on his haunches.
Crystal had begun to gnaw excitedly at the inner sides of her lips. An unexpected perverse thrill had crept over her brain at the shameful torment she was being helplessly subjected to. The general was right: She likes her sex sadistic. The fingers had moved back to her quivering clitoris and she could hardly control the urge to tense and untense her legs in rhythm with the expert caressing of her naked pussy. Her female tormentor's salacious conversation in English was having its effect too, adding to the mounting sensation of lust building inside her desirous loins. She couldn't help slithering her legs outward wide, and then wider away from her open simmering cunt.
She could hear Ibn Pasha's harsh breaths, almost feel them against her naked flesh. God, what a huge cock he must have!
"Now she is opening up wide, General," Maya spoke softly, giving Crystal's wildly fluttering clitoris a pinch to send sensual shivers of delight racing up her spine and tear an unwilling moan from her lips. "She's enjoying it too much to care about anything else. Yes, I was right. She will be an excellent fuck."
"Yes. Yes, you're very much right, Maya," the General rasped. "She's worth a fortune."
Crystal tried to regain control of herself, something in their words renewing her fears, but it was no good. Her burning pussy seemed wide-open and craving, her tiny clitoris a swollen agony of carnal pleasure. Her buttocks commenced to strain together on the soft hand under them, her thighs to writhe in sensual abandon. Little moans began to tumble uncontrollably from her parted pink lips, her mouth opening and closing even as the passionate wet passage between her legs sucked at the three stiffened fingers thrust up inside. Every lewd word they said only added to her pyramiding sexual fever.
"She is as wet as she'll ever be, General. Her cunt is a hot little fire-box," Maya said luridly, and she pushed a finger up between Crystal's widespread buttocks that were relaxed now on her hand. Before the heavy breathing leader's blazing eyes, the finger sought the soft pink ring of her puckered anus and pressed up into it, worming inside the yielding ring of flesh to the first knuckle joint, and then the second.
Crystal didn't care. It hardly pained, only increased the perverse thrill of what was happening to her. It was as if a slim, hard little penis was fucking up into her rectum.
"How is that hole, Jewess?" Ibn Pasha questioned excitedly.
"Very lovely and tight, General. It hasn't been used much, if at all. It would make you a delicious fuck, my General," the chestnut-haired young woman skillfully cooed to feed the red-haired leader's goatish appetite.
Suddenly, lips descended down onto Crystal's breasts, soft warm lips sucking at her tingling hard little nipples that were straining upward towards the sensuous torment. Her sizzling loins were squirming crazily on the hand, under the hand, around the lewdly working fingers, and she could think of nothing but the dynamic pressure growing inside her smoldering loins. Her naked body was all over the cushions, her legs now jerking abandonedly from side to side as the blonde girl moaned in uncontrollable arousal. She saw the general bend down between her legs to get a better view, and she consciously tried to strike a more obscene picture for him. the pressure in her loins was now excruciatingly intense. She had to cum or go mad ... mad!
"She is a wild one, Maya," Crystal heard the general comment raspily. "I've never seen a cunt work more vigorously."
"I told you she would be. She's going to cum soon if I don't stop now. Would you like to take her from here?"
Crystal heard but could pay no mind. Her hips were forcing themselves up and down as the Jewish girl's fingers worked expertly in the liquid heat of her clasping vagina and moved suggestively in and out of her tingling rectum.
"Yes, damnit, watching you has worked me right up to it," Ibn Pasha grunted and tore at his pants, thrusting them down to reveal the huge mast of his blood-engorged cock-flesh burgeoning forth from his hairy loins like an enormous bud bursting into blossom on the end of a thick inflexible stem. "Get her ready for me. I'm going to sodomize that tight little asshole you praised so highly."
Crystal sensed the loss of the pleasure-bringing fingers and began to plead for them to continue. The soft voice was speaking to her while those same hands guided her up and over onto her hands and knees. "Perform, baby, perform!" the voice whispered into her ear. "It's your only chance!"
"What did you say to her?" Ibn Pasha demanded.
"Only to perform well for you, General," Maya replied, kneeling beside the blonde girl bent slavishly on her knees, presenting him with the wide-stretched moons of her rounded white buttocks, her back arched and her breasts flattened down against the cushions in the position the chestnut-haired helper had placed her.
Crystal's brain was a whirlpool of weltering lust as were her wildly infused loins and belly. The whispering words of Maya repeated themselves again and again inside her passion-clouded head. My God, he was going to sodomize her ... not that she "hadn't given herself willingly to Yossi this way, but the fleeting glance at the General's brutal penis had sent cold terror racing through her naked flesh. Could she take him back there? She felt hot enough to fuck an elephant, but sodomy was another story. Still, the wanton blonde girl shivered with anticipation, too.
Twisting her head, Crystal saw Maya's small hand lewdly fondling and stroking the giant man's desire-swollen penis, and then the chestnut-haired helper lowered her pretty face and slipped wide-open lips over her leader's massive bulbous cock-head for a moment, her cheeks hollowing and bloating as s twirled her tongue around the bloated glans. Ibn Pasha grunted, thrusting his hairy loins forward to push his blood-engorged shaft farther into the young brunette's accepting mouth, the man's heavily bloated balls swaying in obscene rhythm with the effort.
It was like being an actual harem slave, Crystal realized as she felt the sensual impulses filling her belly at the sight of Maya sucking the general's massive thickness to please him before he shoved it up into Crystal's own rectum. The young girl couldn't remember ever knowing such sensations of lewd desire without the help of drugs, though stark fear churned inside her brain at the same time. And then, Maya sucked up off the glistening rod of male flesh and was guiding it between the kneeling blonde's upthrusted, trembling buttocks.
Crystal felt Ibn Pasha's huge hands close over the tops of her thighs, gripping them tightly.
"Let her place it with her own hand," the general said to Maya and Crystal obediently reached back between her spread-open legs so that she could touch the inflated sac of his testicles. She stroked gently there for a moment, then took hold of his heavily bloated cock.
It felt enormous! Much bigger than Yossi's, or any penis she had ever held. She strained her knees outward and breathlessly placed the blunt-tipped hardness at the tiny opening of her anus. It was insane! She felt him begin to prod, working against the much-too-small entrance of her rectum. An impossibility! The thing would split her in two! Now the thick hot tip snuggled against the tight aperture, pushing and worming its way as it tried to enter. "Perform ... it's your only chance ... " Yes, yes, she would do it for him ... let him fuck her there ... give him a wonderful time ... it was all right ... hurting, but she could stand it ... Oh Christ!
Suddenly, it was as if some barbaric torture were being inflicted on her. An impossibly thick log being forced up into her defenseless body! He was killing her, tearing her apart back there! Crystal tried to pull away but the general held her as if she were a tiny child, grunting and thrusting his lust-hardened rod of pulsating cock-flesh up into her painfully stretching rectum.
"Oh, no, nooo! God Almighty! You can't! You can't! she screamed back at him.
Maya's hand crashed stinglingly against the side of Crystal's head, bouncing the protesting blonde's face down against the pillows on the carpeted decking until her ears rang. Again, she was hit, the blows raining around her helpless head and shoulders until white flashes streaked through Crystal's brain.
"You stupid American bitch! Fuck him before I skin the worthless hide off you!" the chestnut-haired woman snarled disgustedly, her small hand clutching at the blonde girl's breast and squeezing it without mercy. "Push that stupid ass back onto the general's beautiful cock! Do it!"
Crystal thought she would go insane with the pain. The Arab leader's brute thighs hers forward while his arms held her hips back against his. Her head swam from Maya's pounding. They were going to kill her! Oh God, what a horrible way to die!
"Push back, I said! You miserable Yankee slut!" Maya's voice rang out again, and there were more blows until she hung on the verge of unconsciousness but couldn't tumble over into the abyss. The horrendous rod of blood-engorged male flesh was now ripping up into her tightly clamped rectum and she could feel it like a burning white-hot shaft of steel searing away the raw flesh of her rectal walls. Maya continued to beat her, demanding that she "push back" and somehow she must have, for the blows stopped, and her anus seemed to have opened beyond all human reasoning, the solid weight of Ibn Pasha's penis buried in her belly right up to her throat.
There was no comparing it; nothing could match this hellish torment. It was as if she'd suddenly been brought before the throne of Satan himself, and all of her wickedness accountable up to this moment of punishment. Earle Newman's horrified face in the last moment of his torture appeared three-dimensionally in her mind and she fought to blot it away. It laughed maniacally at her as the massive hard cock moved like a battering ram in her rectum, beginning to pulverize everything before it as the sawing motion began in earnest.
"Oh, oh, oh, oh," Crystal choked out with every in-and-out thrust of the big man's reaming penis.
Gasping and crooning with delight, Ibn Pasha fucked rhythmically into the kneeling Western girl's uptilted rectum with a passionate feeling of victory. Invariably the new cunts did this for him. He glanced over at the Jewess sitting back, watching her as she began to finger-fuck herself in time to his sodomization of this American bitch. A worthy slut, that one, and Nidam's sister; he would keep them apart ... get rid of Nidam as soon as possible. But right now...?
When the pain began to ease, Crystal welcomed it as a miracle ... or was it that her loins had grown numb? She felt bathed in her own perspiration. And still the horrible torment grew lighter, almost to the point of a diabolical stimulation! She felt burningly wet between her ass-cheeks. She was actually absorbing his bestial penis right up into her nether-hole, and that thought with all of its obscene ramifications triggered a sensation of base arousal the unscrupulous blonde American had never before experienced.
Her brain raced wildly, her thoughts scattered pell-mell by the loin-splitting thrusts jolting her forward and making her squirm eagerly back onto the general's raging member, shamefully begging him for more with her actions. Masochistic joy began to foment lustfully inside her boiling loins, the pain in its brutal weirdness becoming a fierce pleasure. She was nothing but a lowly serf, his total slave, and he was fucking her to death in her defenseless rectum! She undulated her body wantonly, trying to move her naked white buttocks in tiny circles to please him. Her excitement crept up through her lust-tingling flesh, and she reached back through the "vee" of her legs once more to scratch his cum-filled balls in mute plea to fuck her harder, turning her face sideways so that he could see the obscene delight he was bringing her.
Kneeling over her, Ibn Pasha watched the inflamed pink skin of her little anal opening draw back and cling to his throbbing penis each time he withdrew, clutching at it as if it would like to claim it forever. The general grinned to himself, intoxicated with his own importance, subconsciously watching his heavy-veined cock-shaft sodomizing the helpless American girl bent low before him. At first the pressure on his swollen cock had been almost too much to bear, but now it was a delicious squeeze, promising to draw his pent-up cum forcibly from his balls with all the erotic gratification he felt entitled to.
He watched his pistoning penis disappear furiously up into her grotesquely stretched rectal passage between her widespread buttocks with every thrusting stroke. It went so deep that no more than a brief inch of it remained yet to submerge, and he was saving that for sadistic effects. He rotated his hips, moving his rock-hard shaft around in that tight, resistant channel with the blunt, blood-filled knob of his pounding penis pulsating like a festering tumescence.
His heavy sperm-laden balls had begun to throb with the weight of their load. He gritted his teeth, holding her waist in a pulverizing grip, pushing her face deeper into the cushions, punishing the Western ass that reared up and billowed out whitely toward his bulging eyes. It's a beautiful ass, he thought in his excitement. Her sister's would no doubt be even more beautiful when Incense brought her to him. He delighted in defiling their haughty American asses, ruining them, making them his slaves until he tired of them, humiliating them and then totally destroying them. He jerked into her gaping anus with long, hip-grinding crushes, making him bite at his lips with the salacious sensations. And when he rammed, his foreskin was ripped back in a sharp torment of prickling pleasure-pain, and when he withdrew to the tip, her clasping rectum seemed to pull at his cock as if unwilling to release it.
"How do you like it, Miss Morris? Can you feel it tickling your tonsils?" he said over her groans, joggling his loins and moving his impaling cock around in her soft spongy flesh like a probing fist on a forearm.
"Oh ... oh God ... yes, yes," Crystal moaned. "Go on, do more, do anything you want to me, just don't stop!"
Ibn Pasha drew his sunken penis out to the palpitating red glans then plunged right up in again in one long, tantalizing stroke. From the corner of his eye he could see Maya Nidam frantically fingering her own moistened pussy slit and squirming her exposed loins obscenely around on those fucking fingers. The dark-haired Jewess was panting and watching with eyes glued in fascination on his rigidly sodomizing cock.
The blood-locked length of his ramming penis was tingling maddeningly now, his bloated sac swatting solidly up against the flushed lips of the blonde slut's passion-drenched cunt. He could cum now when he chose, but the secret was to prolong it so that it would build into an even greater orgasm. He began to fuck harder and faster up into her cock-stretched rectum, digging that last inch of his screaming penis up into the tight, fluid flesh of her belly to make her grunt like a groveling little animal. He battered her quivering white buttocks with his hips, gripping her waist hard with his powerful fingers, squeezing the soft white flesh into unbelievable shapes.
The blonde-haired bitch was murmuring incoherently and turning her face from side to side on the cushions. He jerked her back onto his punishing hardness as if he were thrusting his foot into a trouser leg. The flush of lust was burning his face, searing his loins and throbbing inside his sperm-inflated balls. The furor grew, and his body seemed to swell in a great burst of unearthly power.
"Ooohhhh ... God Almighty ... I-I'm cuummiinnnggg.....!" Crystal suddenly gasped beneath him, frantically throwing her rounded white ass-cheeks back onto his ravaging cock-shaft.
He sensed a sharp, exquisite pain, a tingling, wincing, heaving tumult inside his swaying testicles while his eyes momentarily misted over and the body beneath him quivered erotically. This was it, the gushing, racing, up to the brim, hesitating in agony ... and then ... the insane overflowing in a great long lasting stream of subjugating sperm shooting up into those softened depths of her rectum in wave after wave of hot drenching cum!
"Yaaaaagghhhh ... yyaagghh ... bitch! Bitch!" The red-haired general bellowed as he hammered into her from behind, crushing his heavy weight down rnto her buckling body. "Yaaaagggghhhhhh!"
After awhile his great bulk moved off her and Crystal's forever-stretched rectum felt as if cold winds were whirling around inside. Yet oddly enough, her aching loins bore a feeling of satiation the likes of which she had seldom experienced as she lay there face down on the cushions where the Arab leader had left her. She looked around to see the chestnut-haired young woman with a basin of liquid, gently bathing the general's spent loins while he lay panting back on his mountain of cushions, his strong, hairy legs spread obscenely open for her.
"Will you keep her for your own, general?" Maya questioned him in Arabic.
"Hmmmmmmmm. No, it would be too dangerous. She is a wanted figure in the United States. Best we shed all evidence of her aboard the El-Ihhlil, Jewess," he replied, laying his great head back with closed eyes. "Tonight there will be a Lebanese vessel bringing supplies. We will put her aboard it. They will see that she gets into the proper hands for Mecca. Meantime," he opened his eyes and smiled at her, "take her down to the crew quarters and let them amuse themselves. But mind you, I do not want her disfigured or maimed, eh?"
"Of course, General," Maya replied. "I will give the instructions myself."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jeb Delaney opened his eyes and looked around. Excruciating pain played havoc inside his skull. His whole body throbbed in one massive ache. He closed and opened his eyes again. A strange room and an unfamiliar bed contained him. A face-female, he thought, though it professed singular black whiskers here and there around the chin and a few more across the upper-lip-smiled down at him somewhat reassuringly.
"You will be okay," the face said in a gravelly voice as it continued to smile-no, grin was more like it. "Someone kicked the hell out of you, Mister Delaney. I found you in my utility room."
Jeb weighed that piece of information carefully, the whole pain-racked scene coming back in a sickening rush of recall. He started to sit upright in the bed, but the torment of movement of his aching body, as well as her hands, restrained him.
"Not so fast, man," she said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. "Let's get your bearings first, eh?"
Delaney fell back, his head spinning. He realized then that he was stripped naked with only the sheet over him. He saw his clothes on a nearby chair and a pan of water with white towel draped from its rim sitting on the table beside him. She'd evidently been bathing his face.
"W-Who are you, and where am I?" he managed, rubbing a hand over smarting eyes.
"Ruth Hopker. I'm a maid here in the hotel and you're in the room you rented," she said, the grin ever-present. "I saw it all, you and the girl, then the three mugs who jumped you. I'd just finished the room across the hall when it happened, started to open the door and there you all were wrecking my utility room."
"A-And you brought me in here?" Jeb questioned, amazed.
She nodded. "Found the room key in your pocket. Looked at your wallet to learn your name. You're some kind of investigator, aren't you? That's why I didn't call the police or anyone. Figured you were working on some mysterious case ... especially when I saw the three men carrying the woman out in a blanket. They used the utility stairs...."
"What the hell are you saying?" Jeb shot at her, sitting upright, the room whirling like a speeded-up carousel. "What woman?"
"The blonde American in Room 618-the friend of the dark-haired one you were with when those three mugs jumped you," Ruth Hopker informed him through the grin.
Delaney studied the squat, middle-aged maid in mild astonishment. "Go on," he said, trying to reeducate his body into responsive movement once more.
"Go on what?"
"Tell me everything," he barked. "What happened to the dark-haired one, and why the hell didn't you call the police when you saw those "mugs" kidnapping the blonde?"
The middle-aged face fell into a frown. "How should I know they were kidnapping the woman? I wasn't even sure there was anyone inside that blanket, for Christ's sake. But I knew there was something crazy going on when I saw the dark-haired one leave with all the luggage. I had to call my friend, Lucas, on the desk and find out who was registered in there. Then I let myself in and had a look. Everything cleaned out as slick as a mitten, but I'm still only guessing about the other being inside the blanket, for Pete's sake."
It was a damn good guess," for Pete's sake," Delaney was thinking, especially with what had happened to him. Little Ziona was part of a plot to get him out of the picture and at the same time get rid of Tracy Newman. But why? His head buzzed and throbbed with the effort of concentration. Whatever else, all paths led to the half-million bucks one way or another, and on top of that, things were suddenly looking bleak for the late Earle Newman's voluptuous widow. She was in bad trouble, wherever she was. And here he lay flat on his frigging back, stripped bare-ass naked and without a single lead to go on. That little Palestinian sexpot had played both of them for saps. What was her role? And who were the three apes who'd knocked the hell out of him? He had to find some answers, and fast.
Delaney looked at his sadden-faced helpmate, the thought finally occurring that she must have stripped him. He was tempted to ask why but didn't want to further hurt her feelings. She'd already gone out of her way to help him ... and then the big "why" loomed up again.
"Look, I'm sorry, Ruth," Jeb apologized. "I didn't mean to get sharp with you. We Americans are not very appreciative sometimes...."
"You don't have to tell me that, for Pete's sake. I'm from Chicago, myself," she said, the smile creeping back. "Been here in Israel for five years, though, and love it." She began to talk again, picking up momentum. "In case your wondering, I stripped you to see if you'd been wounded or had any broken bones-not because I'm some kind of sex-fiend."
Delaney laughed. She was good medicine. "How did the X-rays show up, Doc?"
"You'll live. But listen, Ruth Hopker isn't just all heart, man," the woman who wore her coarse black hair in a severe bun at the nape of her neck said. "She expects to get some compensation for her good samaritanship, eh?"
"Now, you're making sense, Ruth girl," Delaney said, tossing the sheet from him and swinging nakedly from the bed. "And seeing that you're no sex deviate, you won't notice a little indecent exposure on my part, will you. Toss me my shorts, please?"
Delaney saw her dark-eyes flash down appreciatively onto his exposed loins. She walked to the chair and tossed the white briefs back at him. "If my Yosef had been hung like you, I'd never have left the old goat in Chicago," she said, matter-of-factly. "But listen, you're in no great shape to go traipsing off someplace. You got a swollen sac between your legs the size of a melon. You looked at 'em?"
Jeb did. She wasn't lying. His testicles were puffed and painfully bruised, throbbing too, all the way up into his gut. That sonovabitch.
"If you want, I'll bathe them for you," Ruth Hopker offered, her eyes sparkling as she moved closer to examine the damaged parts between his spread legs.
"Maybe some other time, Ruth," Delaney said, half-grinning, his swollen face making it a grimace. "But right now, I've got to find out what happened to Tracy Newman. I suspect that poor girl is in a bundle of danger."
"How you going to find her?"
"I haven't got the slightest notion, but certainly not sitting here while you bathe my nuts."
The squat woman laughed. "Listen, Mister Delaney, I'm no detective, but I figure you want to find the little dark-haired one who led you into the trap, right?"
"One-hundred-percent," he replied, pulling on his pants. "Any ideas?"
"Better than that," she replied, grinning at him. "I guessed you'd want to know where she went . .,.,and we will in a little bit."
Jeb gaped at her. She'd already proved phenomenal. What now? "Keep talking, lady. I'm beginning to love you."
"My little David followed her when she left the hotel," the woman informed. "He's only twelve, but very resourceful. I gave him money for taxis. You'll have to pay all that back to me, Mr. Detective."
"Well ... I'll be damned," Delaney said, shaking his head. "You're something else, Ruth Hopker. Just name your price and Corliss Insurance will come through with it, I swear."
* * *
The competent young David Hopker, and that he was, led Delaney by taxi to an aged building near the Jaffa Gate. It was a mysterious section of town made all the more so by the shadowy figures in Arab garb squatting motionless in doorways along the narrow cobblestone way. The boy told him the entrance number and then Jeb put him back into the cab and gave the driver the hotel address where his mother would be waiting for him.
As he moved along the dark, winding passage, music sounds began to reach the shouldery insurance investigator. Ziona Sursis had gone into a stairway which led to the floor above a discotheque named Avraham's, little David had told him. The boy had stood in the street until the light went on above in front, deciding that this was where she had gone, for the taxi driver had made several walking trips to carry up the luggage. Yes, he was a damned resourceful kid, and Jeb Delaney mentally praised him.
Though his body still felt as if he'd been scrimmaging in a sweatsuit against the L.A. Rams forward wall in full equipment, being on his feet again had worked out some of the aching stiffness, but his gut and groin were a long way from shedding the agony he'd taken between the legs from that Mussolini-chinned bastard. He would have to play it cautious; he was in no condition for further athletics this night.
If it were not for Tracy Newman's whereabouts, which was worrying the hell out of him, he would've waited until tomorrow and tried to pick up this raven-haired little witch's trail ... though he didn't quite understand why he should be so upset about the blonde widow. Except that every time he thought about her, thoughts of his dead wife Aletha also flashed through his brain. It was a stupid crossover of thoughts, but he couldn't help it. He was still convinced that Earle Newman's wife had played a part in the bank theft, right along with her little sister and this Yossi Nidam character. And now it was beginning to look more and more like Nidam and Ziona might have planned a double-cross of their own. It added up. All they'd have to do was get rid of Mrs. Newman and Crystal Morris, then walk off with a cool half-million.
Well, maybe he'd know more about that in just a few minutes. He sensed his blood bubbling more angrily as he drew closer to the sounds of Western rock records straining out of inexpensive speakers. He really owed Ziona Sursis a nice surprise for her bit of education on Eastern sexual mores. He wondered if she'd be happy to see him?
Some teenagers in dungarees and T-shirts, who might have come from any American town, loitered boisterously around the entrance to Avraham's. The deafening noise of rock music spilled out through the open door. Delaney looked up to see a faint light glowing in three small front windows, and wondered idly what association Ziona, or her presence there, might have with the disco. The stairway was off to the right, hardly detectable in the shadows. Delaney took it, fumbling his way up the narrow, steep incline of tiled steps in pitch-blackness.
A narrow streak of light shown beneath a door at the head of the stairway. He paused and listened, his pulse pounding more intensely. He could hear nothing except the thumping roar of the music below. He tapped lightly against the heavy panel, the smell of a cooking spice suddenly trickling beneath his nostrils. He heard soft footfalls on the other side of the door and held his breath.
A feminine voice spoke something in Arabic through the barrier. It sounded young, throaty, but he couldn't be sure it was Ziona's. The language threw him off. He guessed at her question and answered in a disguised tone: "Yossi."
There was a clicking of bolts. The door moved inward and at first quick glance so did Jeb Delaney, forcing his six-feet, one-hundred-and-ninety pounds against it to sweep the dark-eyed, robe-clad figure back into the room.
Her mouth fell open, usual vivacious eyes gaping and stunned. Delaney kicked the door shut behind him. She took another step backward, seeming to waver unsteadily for a moment.
"Nice place you have here, Miss Sursis," he hissed levelly. "Thought I'd stop by to finish our little party which your friends so boorishly interrupted. You're pleased to see me, I hope."
"H-How did you find this place?" she half-whispered, her real fright-inspired thoughts escaping her conscious mind.
"Psychic," he spat, moving toward her. "Where is Tracy Newman?"
She retreated another step and then another. "H-How should I know? You better get out of here. If I scream twenty men will come running up those stairs. They'll cut you into little pieces, professor. "
"What've you done with her, baby? You better tell me before I start cutting little pieces off that pretty body of yours, bitch!" Delaney snarled through clenched teeth. "And I'm not in too good a humor after what your hoods did to me. So, start talking."
The dark-haired Arab girl made a rush to get past him, surprising the still swollen-faced investigator, but he caught her by the hair, a whole handful, and jerked brutally to sling her body down onto the small couch. Her robe came untied, falling loosely open to expose her naked, olive-skinned breasts and belly to the navel. They thrust forward pertly, their darkened nipples standing saucily erect. She opened her mouth as if to scream, her dark-eyes wide and frenzied.
"Go ahead. Scream your fucking lungs out," Delaney spat. "No one down in that rat-den is going to hear you. Well, go ahead!"
She didn't. She was breathing heavily, making no effort to cover the rise and fall of her naked breasts. There was something bordering on panic in her eyes. Delaney moved forward, intending to take advantage of that. He caught her by the hair again and slapped her hard across the face, back and forth, jarring her head from one side to the other with the force of his open hand. She winced with every vicious blow, her eyes glazing, but no words came from her lips.
He jerked her halfway to her feet and ripped the robe away from her. She was totally naked beneath, smooth and roundedly naked, with all of the soft young contours he'd imagined. He saw the shadowy triangle of black curly hair between her lush full thighs and felt the uncontrollable, if painful, stirring in his loins. For a moment, he damned near lost his head he might have, too, had not the particular expression in her eyes forewarned him.
Jeb wrenched his big frame to one side, the miseries his beating had left with him only vague stabs of pain as he twisted to see the clenched fist holding the shimmering blade of steel sweeping down at him. He came up beneath the lunging arm with both clawing hands and a shoulder for a wedge, catching the thick wrist to wrench it against his own body. The bone snapped like a brittle stick, a scream of agony tearing from its owner's throat. The knife fell harmlessly as Delaney carried through with the next phase of that hold and felt his assailant's arm wrench from its socket at the shoulder.
From the floor, the Arab opened his mouth to scream once more, but Jeb's crushing foot choked it back down his throat. He felt flesh and bone give way beneath the leather sole of his shoe, and then the newcomer lay still. Wheeling around, the young insurance investigator saw Ziona's small hand reaching for the knife on the floor and the same shoe came down hard to pin her fingers there.
"Aaghhhh! Oh, damn you! Get off! You've broken my fingers!" Ziona squeeled, dropping to the floor on all-fours like a hunched up little wood-nymph.
Delaney bent down and slapped her hard across her naked, thrusting buttocks. He hadn't felt this good in a long time. He reached down, scooped up the knife then stepped off her battered hand.
"You try anything else, baby, and I'll really work you over," he said, moving to the unconscious Arab.
With the man's own clothing, Jeb bound and gagged the Arab. He found a .32 Smith & Wesson revolver loaded with five good-ones and pocketed that. When he straightened, Ziona Sursis was sitting on the couch, still shiveringly naked and holding on to her injured hand.
"You ready to start telling me things, girl?" he spat, moving close to glare down at her.
"W-What can I tell you?"
"Where is Tracy Newman?"
"She's been taken away."
"Where?"
"You'll never find her, or the money!" the girl spat venomously. "You're wasting your time, fool! Stupid American fool!"
Maybe Jeb had been angrier, but the precise moment slipped his mind. He surmised that he must look like some sort of sadist from the cringing expression in her eyes. He caught a fistful of her hair and dragged her face-down onto the couch. She screamed and he dropped onto her with his knee in the small of her narrow back. He jerked the tie from her robe and bound her wrists behind her. Then ripping a strip of cloth from its skirt, he forced it into her mouth before tearing away a second piece to bind the gag.
Breathing heavy, Delaney got to his feet and twisted her over onto her back. He climbed on top of her and fumbled the cigarette lighter from his pocket.
"Now ... you listen to me, you terrorist cunt! Unless you start telling me everything I want to know, I'm going to burn both nipples of your tits until they're charred into black soot! Then I'm going to singe the hair from your pussy and fry your little pussy to a crisp! So, you decide, baby! Either talk or get a dose of your own kind of torture!"
Never had he seen a more profound sort of panic contorting a face, especially a face designed to sensually intoxicate rather than infuriate. Damn her, he would! The stealthy bitch! Stupid American fool, was he?
He flicked the lighter once, twice, a third time before the flame caught. Her rounded fleshy breasts stood erect as smooth dunes of sand after sunset, trying desperately to shrink, their tiny wine-tipped nipples defyingly taut as she writhed beneath him, gaping through terrified eyes at the slowly descending tongue of fire.
"You better listen to reason, doll, because I'm going to do it!" Delaney spat down at her, a sense of perversity beginning to flood through his gut.
Her pretty head jerked, hesitated, then broke into a wild negative shaking, dark-eyes pleading as raspy sounds gurgled up from her throat against the gag.
"You ready to talk?"
There was no further hesitation. She nodded vigorously. Jeb released his thumb and the flame died. He pulled the gag down over her chin and tugged the stuffing from her mouth. She spewed out the ravelings, moving her small pink tongue around to salivate her parched mouth.
He remained in his mounted position astride her waist while she began to reluctantly answer his questions. Tracy Newman had been taken by cruiser to sea where she'd be put aboard a yacht belonging to an Al Fatah leader. What would happen to her then, Ziona didn't know. The young widow had brought it all onto herself by coming here in the first place. Ziona had tried to keep her from it, but she wouldn't listen to reason.
Big tears welled up from the dark eyes and trickled down her cheeks. They would kill her for this, she told him. There was no other punishment but death among the guerrilla faction for one who betrayed their plans, and she had secretly worked with them since she was sixteen. Her code name was Incense.
On and on the curvaceous Palestinian beauty unwound, almost as if she were relieved to be finally purging herself, her voice picking up impetus as she went on. She told him everything, more than he wanted or needed to know, his concern ending with the half-million dollars stolen from the San Regis bank. But that was before she convinced him that Tracy Newman was an innocent party to that crime.
"She had no part in that bank theft," Ziona explained. "Her husband carried it off, planning to run away with Crystal. But that slut, with my Yossi's help, had already schemed to murder Earle Newman, and they did. What Crystal didn't realize was that Yossi wanted that money to secure him a place with Ibn Pasha and Al Fatah-and that's where the money is, Delaney, aboard the El-lhhlil. "
"What'll happen to Crystal Morris?" he questioned.
She shook her head. "I can only guess white slavery in some Arabic whorehouse."
"Christ!" Delaney swore. "And Tracy Newman ... the same thing?"
"I-I don't know. I swear it ... but I can't imagine General Pasha doing much else with her ... unless she appeals to him and he adds her to his floating entourage of pleasure girls."
Rage burned through the bruised insurance investigator. "And you betrayed her into this!" he snarled, the urge to batter the vivacious features almost uncontrollable.
"I had no choice, Delaney! General Pasha knew that Tracy was coming to Tel Aviv and that she would do nothing but stir up trouble for him and the movement, trouble that he couldn't afford," Ziona tried to explain. "My orders were to put you out of commission and deliver Tracy Newman to the El-lhhlil ... God, I'm sorry, believe me, I'm sorry."
"I'll bet you are," Jeb snapped, glaring down from his straddling position on top of her naked body. "You really looked it when you were trying to get your hand on that toad-sticker, baby. You're so sorry that you were going to try and rip my guts out."
"I wouldn't have because I couldn't!" she sobbed up at him. "I swear it. I couldn't really hurt you-I was panicky. Can't you understand that?"
Yeah. Maybe he could if it mattered a damn. What was more important now than anything else was how he could help Tracy Newman. Not even the goddamned money counted in comparison. It didn't make sense, but suddenly her being safe was the most significant thing in his life.
"Listen, I've got to find the widow and get her away from this Pasha guy before it's too late," he was saying, hardly aware that the girl under him was moving oddly, until her hands slipped from beneath her and gently took hold of his. She had managed to untie her wrists.
"I-I'll help if I can, Delaney, but I can't imagine how," she promised, moving his palms up to cover her naked full breasts and pressing them meaningfully down against the soft mounds of resilient flesh. "But first ... I want you right here, darling."
Hot sensations flashed in his loins at the warm feel of her lush breasts beneath his hands, the tiny nipples he'd been ready to burn as hard as pebbles digging into his palms, her engineering of the contact providing a lustful catalyst. Her sensual words burned in his ears.
"Have you flipped?" he heard himself, even as the painful stirring inside his pants became more than a little bit evident.
"Maybe ... you said you came to finish our party, I wanted it then ... and I want it more now, Jeb," she whispered, the firm mounds of silk-smooth flesh rising and falling deeply beneath his hands. "The time it'll take won't make that much difference. Please, lover ... I wasn't lying to you about Eastern sex desires, and this girl is crazy hot for you. It's your own fault for being so brutal with me."
Her arms slipped upward around his neck, then pulled gently at his tie and unbuttoned the collar. "Y-You're out of your mind," Delaney husked. "With that ape laying there, his face crushed in? Christ!"
"Do you think it would matter to him if he were here and you lying there?" she whispered, making the goddamndest logic as her small hands continued to undress him.
He climbed off her and went to the door, throwing the bolts home. "I must be out of my frigging skull," he rasped, beginning to finish the job she had started, tearing at his clothes.
She lay stretched out on the couch, voluptuously naked and squirming sensually as she raised her head to watch him undress. Then she sat up and finally stood, coming toward him while he kicked off his shorts, her view fixed on the rapidly rising length of his rigid cock standing out in a solid right angle from his hairy pelvis. It was as if she couldn't wait to touch it. Her small hand reached down, fingers gently wrapping around the stiffened rod to push a grunt up from his chest.
"Oh God, it's handsome, professor," she hissed, beginning to stroke his blood-filled penis with lustful caresses.
It was crazy, the most barbaric frigging thing he'd ever been a part of. There was a man half-dead on the floor! But he didn't give a fuck!
This luscious little dream ... Christ! She let go of his desire-swollen shaft, slipping her hands around his waist to link at the small of his back as she searched out his lips and claimed them with her hot opened mouth. His lips responded, his painfully throbbing penis jerking up between their bodies. She snuggled her soft abdomen tightly against his erected organ and her tongue slithered into his mouth.
Delaney forgot everything else; it would all be there when this exotic episode was outrageous history. He ran his lips down her neck, drawing little red marks to the surface of her soft skin. He moved his hands over her flawless back and down to the rounded firmness of her ovaled buttocks, letting his fingers revel in their velvet smoothness, his whole body trembling with the need and feel of her offered nakedness.
A man had to be freaked-out or perverted to do what he was doing. Fuck he couldn't help it. He moved his face down over her luscious body, finding her breasts to kiss and suck their nipples into a tingling erection. He drew his fingers around and up along their swollen sides, from her ribs around to her nipples, dragging his fingertips over the turgid little pleasure-buds. And then he bit one hardened little nipple so that she gasped and clutched at his head with the sheer intensity of her arousal.
He pressed the dark-haired Palestinian back to the couch and slithered down over her body as she slowly sat down on its edge, breathing loud with anticipation. With lips and tongue, he trailed downward over her flat little belly and lower between the heat of her thighs, his blood drumming savagely through his veins. The wispy pubic curls shadowing her pussy tickled his nose, the perfumed scent of her aroused vagina a heady stimulant as she opened her thighs wider with a little moan of anticipation.
Delaney found the fleshy, hair-fringed vaginal lips he sought and licked their flushed heat with his tongue, causing her to shiver passionately. He flicked his tongue up into her hot, liquid flesh, her cuntal moisture immediately mingling with his saliva, and she slipped forward on the couch, moaning louder as she clasped his head tightly into her simmering loins.
Delaney was beside himself. He was fucking insane, that's what he was! It had to be the perversity of their wild act, he reasoned as he licked and sucked like a satyr, finding Ziona's tiny clitoris and drawing it into a firm erection. He fastened his lips on the swollen sensation-bud and she began to wriggle her hips in wild contrasting movements, wantonly giving herself completely to her lewd passion.
Her vagina opened wide to his sensual attack, adding to the perfumed moisture coating his tongue and filling his head with the cock-inciting fragrance. Then he felt her hands trying to pull him up and he raised to his feet while she swung around and lay back on the couch, her eyes pleading as the breaths hissed out of her.
"Now, darling, before I lose my mind! Oh ... fuck me to death-pleeaaaasssee," she begged.
The wildly aroused insurance man dropped his big frame down between her thighs, his bruised cock a fiery pulsation throbbing against her dark-curled pussy mound like a searing pole of white-hot metal. Holding his breath in desire-filled tremulation, he searched with the blunt bulbous head of his cock for the tiny wet opening that would receive his erected manhood.
"Jeb ... Jeb ... it's never been like this for me," she whispered, straining to grasp his penis and place it tip-deep in the wet, fleshy warmth of her loins. "Oh darling!" she gasped as he thrust his lust-swollen member deep up into her wanting cuntal channel, a choking grunt of animalistic lust bursting from his laboring lungs.
She groaned as if in agony beneath him, digging her nails hard into his shoulders, shoving her loins abandonedly up onto his buried penis. Her buttocks undulated hungrily against the couch cushion, and she flung her legs out wide to give him greater access to her loins.
"Oh, oh, oh," she panted.
There was a place in hell waiting for him, Delaney thought, wriggling his imbedded shaft up into her tight vaginal sheath, bracing his feet against the couch-arm to drive his stiffened cock farther and farther up into the clasping hot grip pulling wetly at his loins. Her whole body spasmed and squirmed while incessant groans tumbled from her lush red lips. Her face was twisted in passion, her generous lips moving as if she were praying silently, her slender neck straining while her nostrils flared and a light film of perspiration beaded out on her forehead beneath her tangled dark hair.
He felt the burning hot flesh of her vaginal walls holding him fast inside her, breaking and pulling all around his fire-filled cock. He dug in his toes and pushed harder, sending that last fraction of an inch bursting up into her ravenous pussy and squeezing a shrill of delight from her lips as her eyes adored him with desire-filled awe.
"Oooooohhh, so wonderful, you darling ... so fucking wonderful!" she hissed luridly as he scooped up her buttocks from the couch cushion and raised his own body for greater leverage, grinding into her accepting young cunt with all the strength in his hips and thighs.
His raging penis slithered in and out of her ecstatic ally clasping vagina pistoning with a lust-hungered rhythm that was elevating them both upward beyond reach of any existence except their two entwined bodies. The lurid sight of the dark-skinned girl's full breasts swaying outward with their resilient weight on either side, their dark nipples marble-hard, made Jeb fuck into her with renewed zeal, the force of which shimmied her up on the couch and arched her neck swan-like against the armrest.
"Ohhh, my loving brute," she cried, and he watched her face, that exotic countenance drawing different expressions of passion the likes of which he had never seen. East meets West, his brain clicked as he moved his hands and fingertips greedily over her voluptuous body, unable to get enough. Exploring now, he found the smooth little ring of her tiny anus, felt it working beneath his middle fingertip in unison with her sensorially charged vaginal muscles. The crinkled circle of nether flesh resisted tightly for a moment, then gave way to let his finger finally enter, and he fucked that finger upward into her spongy rectal depths to bring new gasps of pleasure from her murmuring lips.
Delaney's battered loins were an inferno of lust, swept up in a blaze of tormenting flames that were consuming him with excruciating delight. He groaned and shivered as he fucked, reveling in Ziona's yielding flesh, the flesh of a breathtaking Middle Eastern beauty who might have murdered him not twenty minutes before!
He eased his finger from her rectum, running his hands along her buttocks to where his grinding cock was ramming in and out, feeling the clinging lips of her cuntal flesh which held his driving cock-shaft firmly as they released a copious flow of piquant moisture that ran down her widespread thighs.
Her hands came down greedily to clutch at his buttocks and draw him tighter into her voracious vagina. "Oh, my God, lover, now I can die happy!" she exclaimed, but in a whisper. "Fuck me hard, darling. Pound your wonderful cock right up into my throat!" she begged, gasping for breath as if she were on her deathbed.
She was nearing her climax now, her nakedly curvaceous body becoming obscenely convulsive in its twisting contortions, her trim legs spreading wide apart then drawing back to her shoulders to urge him toward more brutal thrusts. Her flesh was feverish and her head moved senselessly from side to side, her mouth gasping and her eyes glazed with inbred sensualism. She swung her trembling thighs down again to clasp around his waist, her calves locked over his buttocks. Her grip tightened around his undulating body and her impassioned buttocks gyrated from side to side, spiraling her sizzling cunt up and down his furiously blood-choked cock.
"Sweet fuck!" she gasped. "My lover! I-I'm going to ... to explode! Ooooohhh, harderrrr, darling ... I'm cuuuummmmiiinnnggg!"
There was a desperately intense tone of passion to her moaning, and she grabbed at his head as she came, biting at his lips like a little savage while her luscious body arched spasmodically up into his plundering member.
Her orgasmic release escaped in a deluge of steaming moisture around his drilling cock to trickle down her smooth thighs and flood his sperm-bloated balls as they rhythmically swatted up against the smooth furrow separating her ass-cheeks.
The intensity of her cumming overwhelmed Delaney. He dug fiercely into her loins, forcing her legs almost up to her neck, doubling her over and skewering into her spasming vagina like a fiend, crashing inward to her cervix with his painfully palpitating cock-shaft. She was even more excited in the aftermath of her climax and responded to his unspoken commands however he wanted her, moving with wanton, avid passion.
"Oh, my sweet professor," she purred. "You make it so good-so good. Never leave me ... fuck me forever, darling. Cum ... fill my belly now ... shoot it way up into me, sweetheart."
Her whispering, cooing voice urged him on, and the young insurance investigator listened to it as if it belonged to a saint, its sounds and words filling his loins with sharp, ecstatic sensations, making his pillaging hardness expand until he was sure he couldn't stand another minute of it. His breaths were bursting out of him as he dug into her softly jiggling ass-cheeks with strong convulsive fingers.
"Do it, lover," she murmured on. "Aaaaaahhhh ... God, so good." The dark-skinned Palestinian groaned and gasped with still greater delight as he rammed forward with the savagery of a bull, resting at the pinnacle of his thrust to rock back and forth for a moment before withdrawing and spearing upward again and again.
He could feel it, almost unendurable ... then it burst inside him. "Oh Christ! It's cummiiinnnggg!" he choked and Ziona moaned with him and wound herself tightly around his wildly ejaculating penis.
"Yes, yes!" she cried. "Pump it into me, lover!"
And then, with a long mind-bending groan, Jeb exploded inside her, spewing his scalding load of sperm high up into her open receptive vagina, far up into the smoldering depths of her tremoring belly.
CHAPTER NINE
In the ink-like darkness, the Corliss Insurance investigator never saw the three lurking figures who had been waiting for him to leave the flat above Avraham's discotheque. Though he had reason to be alert, Jeb Delaney's mind was too crammed with lusty thoughts of the bizarre event he'd just been a part of. He felt drained, anything but keen-witted, yet far from unsatisfied. He hadn't wanted to leave Ziona there with that beaten-up Arab still unconscious where he'd dropped him, but the strong-willed Palestinian had insisted that she could handle it better alone.
She promised to contact him later at his hotel, advising him not to go to the police and why. He listened, though he hadn't made up his own mind that she was right. He had to weigh it out on his own once he got his head together again, and that was what he was trying to do when unwittingly he passed the trio concealed in the murky shadows.
At the hotel, he found Ruth Hopker and asked her to let her son David keep an eye on the flat above Avraham's while he caught up on some needed sleep. Dollar signs flashed in her eyeballs, to which Delaney agreed, suggesting she keep a tab. That was all right, but she would like a little something on account. Delaney gave her five twenty dollar traveler's checks, patted her on the cheek, then lumbered to his room to strip and collapse across the bed, blotting out everything for a few hours.
But it was much sooner than that, according to his blurred wristwatch, when the pounding on his door dragged him up from an exhausting sleep. Maybe an hour or better had passed.
"W-Who the hell is there?" he grumbled, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up on the edge of the bed.
"Ruth Hopker. David is back. We've got to talk to you, Mr. Delaney," her voice came through the wooden barrier to him.
Jeb pulled on his pants and let them in. The boy's eyes were the size of silver dollars.
"Something bad happened." David Hopker said, gaping at Jeb. "The police are there now, all over the place. I stood around and listened to what the people were saying. A girl's throat had been cut, one man said. She's dead and so was some Arab. I didn't hear his name, but they called her Ziona."
Delaney sat back down heavily on the edge of his bed. Christ ... the poor doll. He shouldn't have left her there ... but damnit, she'd been so sure of herself, and so goddamned capable. Now, she was dead ... and not over two hours ago he was making love to her ... Christ Almighty!
* * *
Delaney debated for the rest of the night about going to the Israeli authorities before finally making up his mind. As Ziona had put it, this was no ordinary police matter, and it could become international. The El-Ihhlil flew a Lebanese flag in Mediterranean waters. The wrong move might conceivably set off the Middle East powder-keg. It wasn't so ridiculously far fetched when he considered it. And when it all boiled down, he wanted only the five hundred grand C. Earle Newman had skipped with from the San Regis bank, plus Tracy Newman unhurt and untouched if possible.
How the hell would Old Stony answer this one? Damn! He had about as much chance of getting aboard the El-lhhlil as a drowning ant finding a leaf in a lake. From what Ziona had told him, that so-called yacht was manned and gunned like a veritable destroyer. And considering that he should get aboard her one way or another, what then? Shit, he was helpless, totally helpless, but he couldn't just walk away and desert Tracy Newman, or go back to Corliss empty handed, to say nothing of paying off someone in kind of vivacious Ziona's young life.
It was insane. Outside of knowing that the good old Sixth Fleet was out there somewhere, he didn't have a damned thing on his side, and well did he realize that as he looked into Ruth Hopker's middle-aged face in the early morning light.
"Thanks for getting the boat and crew for me, Ruth! You've earned your reward," Delaney said, climbing aboard the weather-beaten tub. She was a twenty-eight footer called Delfin, maybe three decades old, a cruiser converted to a fishing existence. "I'll see that you're paid. Don't worry."
"Oh for Pete's sake, I don't give a damn about the money, Mr. Delaney. It's you I'm worried about. I think you're a fool for not going to the police," she said, leaning over to shake his hand.
"Yeah. You're probably right. Say good-bye to David for me. "I will. Be careful."
"I'll do my best."
"Well ... you're in good hands. You can trust my brother-in-law. Abe ain't nothing like my husband, Yosef. His Mariam had a baby last year and she's forty-eight. He's a man, Mr. Delaney."
Jeb grinned. The two man crew was casting off and the aged craft beginning to churn away from the dock. He waved at the squat Jewish maid and she waved back, then he turned away from her. Christ, he felt as if he was making a last voyage-heading toward the edge of the earth or something. He walked forward and stepped up beside the gray-bearded man at the wheel.
The man, Abe Hopker, said nothing, simply puffed at his pipe. He was beyond fifty, but as hardy looking as a sea-beaten mast. Delaney spread his legs for balance, watching the other man maneuver the boat out toward open water. Finally, Abe Hopker said:
"If the El-Ihhlil's out there, we'll find her. Why don't you get some sleep. You look as if you can use it."
Jeb nodded. He turned away and walked toward the half-deck hatch which led to the pair of bunks below. He doubted that he could sleep; he was too up-tight, but at least he could rest. He'd remember Ziona Sursis as long as he lived-which might not be much longer ... and the Newman widow was like a ghost in his brain, constantly haunting him and too often wearing Aletha's vanished face.
* * *
When Tracy Newman awoke, opened her eyes and was conscious enough to comprehend her surroundings, the frightened widow realized she was aboard a ship of some kind, and on a large body of water without any sight of land from the porthole above her berth.
Her head had cleared enough to put thoughts together. She had no idea how long she'd been out of it, but she had to have been drugged. The last thing she really remembered was Ziona giving her the Dramamine when they'd left Rome. Ziona? Drugged? This boat, or whatever it was...? My God, what was happening?
The room-a stateroom, she supposed it was called-was very small and barren. There were two berths, one on either side with just enough space to pass between. It was more like a cell ... and she was stark naked inside it. There was a blanket, but no other covering on the thin, harsh mattress, and the blanket had a musty odor. There was no mirror nor toilet facilities, nothing but a metal pitcher of water on a stand secured to the wall, which she had already tried and found stale but relievingly wet to her parched throat.
The narrow metal door was locked with no way of opening it from the inside. Tracy had never known the terrifying feeling of claustrophobia, but she was beginning to feel it now. She pounded against the thick sheet of steel and shouted until her head was throbbing again. It was as if she might have been the only passenger aboard a derelict ship drifting toward nowhere.
In those next few hours, the baffled young widow cried a great deal, but her tears were as much from rage as fear. With the foul-smelling blanket draped around her, she had sat on the berth and tried to think it out. Of course, she had been deceived by Ziona! But why? What had the dark-haired girl to gain? Was it the stolen money? Did it have to do with Crystal and this Yossi character?
The more she thought the more complex it became, her reasoning, or lack of it, a growing torment as the time dragged by and there was nothing but a dull growling sound from the bowels of the ship.
She had been totally stripped, even her watch taken, but the sun suggested mid-afternoon. How long it had been since she'd eaten, Tracy had no idea. She was hungry and had a desperate need to urinate. The thought of throwing the water out the portholes and using the pitcher was becoming more and more logical, though she hesitated to part with the drinking water.
She had finally made up her mind, tossed out the water and was about to squat over the receptacle when there was a metallic sound at the door and it suddenly opened inward. Tracy straightened and grabbed for the blanket, throwing it hastily around her.
The arrival was a woman, young and wearing what looked to be a green military uniform. The pants were bloused, tucked into high combat-type boots, and the plan tunic narrowed at her slender waist by a wide canvas belt supporting a holstered weapon. She wore a visored cap over what would be long chestnut hair when let down. The face was ovaled, attractive, and unsmiling.
"Expedient, Mrs. Newman, but not necessary," the uniformed young woman said, glancing down at the pitcher placed on the floor. "Do you think you could have hit it?"
Tracy felt the heat flushing into her cheeks. "What is the meaning of this? What am I, some sort of prisoner?" she snapped at the newcomer.
"Some sort," the other snapped back. "Come along. General Pasha wants to question you."
"Who? Question me?" Tracy repeated, unable to contain her belligerence. "I want to question someone about this outrage...."
A sharp jarring slap registered against Tracy Newman's delicate jaw, the surprising jolt spinning her around to collapse over the berth face-down, the blanket falling to the floor. Her head reeling from the shock of the unexpected blow, the blonde woman hung there for a moment, attempting to shake off the cobwebs. A loud, stinging slap slashed across her naked buttocks, stimulating the rage of a moment before.
Tracy wrenched herself up from the berth, spinning and hissing with feline ferocity, her hands clawing out like talons at the woman. The latter stepped inside Tracy's blinded, open-armed lunge with trained skill, digging both white-knuckled fists into the American widow's soft belly, her weight solidly behind the punches. Again those brutal female fists drove into the pampered body, this time in pairs just below Tracy's heart, sending shards of pain ripping through her as her full, tender breasts were pummeled without mercy.
Completely out of her element, Tracy Newman slumped naked to her knees, dreadful gasps racking her throat as she tried to protect herself by folding her arms over head and breasts. Through glazed eyes, she saw the booted foot draw back as if it were about to unleash a vicious kick to her defenseless loins, and then sparingly it seemed to pause there.
"All right? Maybe you've had enough," her tormentor said, her breathing hardly affected.
"Do we understand each other now, Mrs. Newman?"
Tracy couldn't speak. She was still fighting to regain her breath. Unknown agony tore at her belly and breasts, while her head swam nauseously. Hands wound in her short, curly blonde hair and she was jerked upward, catching hold of the berth to help pull herself erect. She was allowed to rest there a moment.
"You haven't answered my question," the uniformed punisher barked sharply. "Are you going to do as you're told?"
"Yes, yes," Tracy choked, nodding her head resignedly.
"Good. We'll go up to the General now. Wrap the blanket around you if you want."
"P-Please ... can I use a toilet, then rinse off my face first?" the blonde widow pleaded.
The other smiled, a trace of femininity showing through. "All right," she said. "Come along."
To Tracy's surprise, her guard was even more lenient. She allowed her to shower and gave her a plain white robe to wear. She even apologized for having to beat her, admitting that maybe she had lost her head for a moment. It was as if she wanted to be friends in the wake of their bizarre meeting.
Bruised and still aching, Tracy welcomed the about-face. No one had ever needed a friend more than she did now, regardless of how detached the friend might be. She began to promote the association, but delicately. Her name was Maya, the young uniformed woman said, and she had been a prostitute in Tel Aviv. She was a Sabra, a native-born Israeli, but working for General Pasha and the Palestinian cause had given back her soul. Now when she lay down it was for pleasure, not money. She owe the general more than she could ever repay him He was a great man.
Tracy attempted to learn more with careful prying and quite abruptly, Maya became the soldier again.
"You ask too damned many questions, Mrs. Newman. Come on, you've kept the General waiting long enough."
The size of the ship, the many people she saw both in Arab and Western dress, amazed a still very frightened Tracy. There were two decks above the one where she had been kept and a swimming pool along the way which seemed occupied with naked females. It might have been the floating palace of some rich and powerful potentate, she thought as she was led into the splendor of the general's private salon and saw the giant leader himself.
From his reclining position, a red-bearded Ibn Pasha glared up at her through fierce jade eyes. "You've been a long time in getting up here, Mrs. Newman," he rumbled. "What kept her, Jewess?"
"She wished to bathe first for you. General," Maya replied, the softness in her tone a quality Tracy had not yet heard.
The young widow glanced at her guard, astonished by her statement. What the hell did she mean, bathe for him?
"Hmmmmmmm. What do you think of her, Maya?" the bearded man questioned. "Does she measure up?"
"Very shapely, sir," Maya replied, then snapped at Tracy: "Remove the robe. The general wants to look at you naked."
The blonde widow gaped at her. "I'll do no such thing!" she snapped back falling a step away.
Maya's dark eyes narrowed menacingly. "I thought we had that all straightened out, Mrs. Newman." She stepped forward, reaching out to grasp the front of the robe, but it was Tracy's turn to pull the element of surprise.
With a sweeping hand, she knocked the visored cap from Maya's head and plunged both grabbing fists into the wealth of neatly piled up hair. Pivoting as the uniformed woman squealed out in amazement, Tracy both dragged and whipped the lighter-framed girl in a wide circle, then let go. The momentum sped Maya across the salon in a bent-over, off-balance stumble to crash into a small table of glassware, flooring her in the midst of the shattered glass.
Roaring like a bull elephant, Ibn Pasha struggled to his feet as Tracy raced frantically for the door. It popped open like something on cue, the guard stepping in while Tracy whipped by him, pulling at her robe and running madly toward the ship's rail. Her heart was in her mouth. In those split seconds she waited for a bullet to rip through her body from behind. She could hear the pounding feet, the yelling in Arabic as she shook free of the robe, and made a perfect bounce just before the guard rail and arched up and over it like a professional leaving the high-dive board.
Her naked body struck the cold water in little short of a perfect swan dive, the impact from the height knocking the breath from her as she surfaced gasping, looking around wildly for which direction to strike out in. The vast rolling sea suddenly registered in its monstrous endlessness. She would drown! At best, she could last only a few hours. Why weren't they shooting at her? She was sobbing and trying to swim. She could hear shouting and noises behind her coming from the ship.
It was insane; she was going to die, but better this way ... Tracy looked back over her shoulder. They were lowering a boat! Oh God! Take her own life! How ... open her mouth and breathe underwater? Crystal? She had to help her sister! Oh God ... God ... the small boat was coming toward her. There was nothing she could do ... she didn't want to die....
CHAPTER TEN
A sudden squall forced the Delfin to find shelter for two days at Limassol, Cyprus, and Jeb Dealney was about to blow his top with the waiting. As it turned out, the layover brought them a windfall of information. Abe Hopker ran into a Lebanese friend who was skippering a ketch with a half-dozen tourists aboard. They, too, had taken refuge from the storm.
Yes, the Lebanese captain had seen the El-Ihhlil the morning of the day they had pulled in at Limassol. She lay maybe ten kilometers southeast of Crete and was making toward Egypt, possibly Alexandria. Why were they looking for her?
A rough question to skirt, but Abe had managed it, he assured Delaney as he worked over his maps. Faud, the other Arab crewman, was at the wheel keeping the aged Delfin on a south-westerly course.
"I figure she ought to be somewhere right around here, Delaney," the weather-beaten fisherman said, pointing on the map. "And we should sight her along in here, if my friend was right about her course. She'd be some twenty kilometers out of Alexandria when we spot her."
Jeb nodded. Then what, for Chrissake? He'd been expecting that question from Hopker. Two hundred dollars a day plus expenses was a fine charter for the hardy sea-dog, and to this point he hadn't been inquisitive, but it was bound to come.
"What do we do when we locate her, Delaney?" He looked levelly at Jeb. "I know something of your plans and don't really care to know anymore. But the El-Ihhlil's a goddamned battlewagon, boy. I don't want her gunning for the Delfin. You understand that?"
"Of course. I won't bring you trouble, Abe," Delaney said. "But I'm not sure yet just what in hell I will do. I've got to think that end of it out today. How long do you figure before we may sight her?"
"Hmmmm. The weather holdin', another fifteen, eighteen hours, maybe."
"Fuel?"
"Adequate."
Delaney left him and went forward. He peeled off his shirt and dropped down on the deck in the hot, late afternoon sun, absently scanning the horizon. Four days had passed since they'd chugged out of Tel Aviv harbor, long hours of rolling seas, little sleep, and vengeful thoughts.
He'd come to blame himself for Ziona's murder. Had he not gone there to the flat above Avraham's and put her on the spot, she'd still be alive. She'd said they would kill her for telling him all she had, and they'd done just that.
The flat had undoubtedly been bugged, the receiving end down below in Avraham's. Al Fatah, the most ruthless of all terrorist groups in the Middle East, and she had to be connected with it.
As for General Ibn Pasha, Delaney was only vaguely familiar with him. His name, when it cropped up, was usually front-page news. A half-dozen attempts had been made against his life. The Arabian strong-man, referred to as a
"monster" by Israel, and "great" by Arabic standards, depending from which end of the spectrum you viewed, had ordered that vivacious young nymph killed. By Jeb Delaney's scale of measure the inhuman bastard was a cold-blooded murderer.
Even worse was the fate of Crystal Morris and Tracy Newman, if Ziona had been right. Maybe Crystal didn't deserve much better after what she had done to Earle Newman, but her older sister was another story. Shit, the money, as much as he'd like to take it back to set on old Stony's desk, didn't mean a damn thing anymore. Tracy Newman was all that mattered-she and a dead girl with ravishing dark eyes he would never forget.
The long hours of nothing but thinking and remembering had boiled Jeb Delaney's insides to a cauldron of hate and revenge. He wanted to hurt those murdering Arabs as the two American women were being hurt ... wanted blood to pay for Ziona's blood. But how? How?
Faud interrupted Jeb's bitter thoughts with a shout. The big American looked toward where the wiry Arab crewman was pointing off the starboard and saw the craft angling toward them. She was a cruiser, sparkling white in the sun and somewhere in the forty-foot class. The Arab came forward as Delaney got to his feet.
"She has been moving along beside us and coming closer for half of the hour," Faud said in heavily accented English. "I did not know if you see her."
Jeb shook his head. "Have you put the glasses on her?"
"Yes. She shows no flag. Her name is maybe on the stern." Delaney watched the craft for a moment. No question but what it was angling ever closer. "Where is Captain Hopker?"
"He sleeps now," said the Arab, a man in his late fifties.
Again, Jeb watched the white cruiser's slow, diagonal approach. An uneasiness tingled in his gut. "Go back to the wheel, Faud. I'll wake up the skipper."
Actually, Delaney wanted to get the .32 revolver he'd taken from the knife-wielder in Ziona's apartment. Maybe he was nuts, but he felt there was something very unkosher about the way that cruiser was tagging along beside them, yet making no attempt to show any type of signal. He stopped to pick up the glasses before going below, and trained them on the mysterious craft.
There were two ... no, three visible people aboard her: The pilot, and a pair of males just lounging in stern deck-chairs. They were all in whites and seemed disinterested as hell, not even looking his way. Could be more aboard; she'd sleep six anyway. Hell, the two in the chairs were obviously drinking and paying the Delfin no attention whatsoever. He was edgy, that was all, too damned edgy. Just as well that he hadn't awakened Abe.
Jeb took the glasses and went back forward. No need for alarm. Whatever she was, she'd changed her course now and was widening the distance between them. But he couldn't shake the tension the episode had wired inside him.
For the next thirty minutes he watched the cruiser diminishing in size off the starboard as the sun began to sink rapidly. Abe Hopker was at the wheel again and he went back.
"We better cut our speed, Delaney," he said. "We don't want to bypass the El-lhhlil in the night."
Jeb nodded agreement. "How's the barometer?" he questioned, unable to rid himself of the feeling that they were like three insects on a toothpick. They had gotten only a taste of the squall which had lain them over two days in Limassol and that had been enough for him. The Mediterranean could be a mean sea.
"Weather looks good, Jeb," the gray-bearded skipper assured. "Why don't you open us a can o' beans. There's a bottle of Scotch in the galley. Take a pull at it and pass it up. I could use a good slug and so could Faud."
The Arab made a wide grin. Jeb clapped the skipper on the shoulder and moved toward the half-deck hatchway. Already, it was dark. He swung down into the small area, one thought gnawing constantly at his mind. What was he going to do when they sighted the El-Ihhlil? He dug the revolver out of his jacket, re-checked it, then searched out the bottle of Scotch. A good belt wasn't going to bring a bit of pain.
Delaney was in the process of decapitating the bottle when all hell broke loose.
At first, it sounded as if something had gone wrong with the engine. But it came in bursts. Rat-tat-tat-tat! And then again! A human scream iced his spine as Delaney made for the hatchway, the .32 in his hand. He saw the beam of light illuminating them like some stage performance.
"Stay down!" Abe Hopker yelled and Delaney hit the deck.
Then, he saw Faud covered with blood and staggering forward with his hands on his middle. The Arab grabbed the rail and tried to straighten up while Abe screamed for him to get down.
The Sten gun blasted again, jerking Faud backward across the deck, the slugs ripping his belly and hands apart. He had to be dead before he ever hit the water. Jeb saw Abe in the light from the spot creeping toward him with blood grotesquely smeared over his face and beard.
"I'm hit, boy! Hit bad in the belly." the hardy Israeli grunted. "Grab a preserver and slip over the side ... it's your only chance."
"Hang on, Abe, for Chrissake! Make it to the hatch and get below!" Jeb encouraged, reaching out for the crippled man inching toward him.
"Don't be a fool! Ain't no use, Delaney. They'll sink the Delfin for sure!" Abe gasped, clots of blood beginning to choke from his mouth. "Get away while you've got a-a chance...."
The spotlight was sweeping the Delfin and now Delaney could see the brilliant paint job of the cruiser which had tagged them earlier moving in close alongside. He saw the male outline in white molding the Sten gun, raised the .32, aimed, and blew half of its face away. The body seemed to stand there for a second while a chunk of bone and flesh ripped off the head, then the entire entity went backwards and collapsed, the Sten flipping over into the water.
Shouts and curses reached the American before the barrage of lead was unleashed, and for a stupid moment he wondered why he was still alive. But Abe Hopker's jumping body which had crawled along beside him provided the answer. The dead skipper was taking the slugs and prolonging his life. Jeb raised up over him and wasted three shots before firing almost point blank into an Arab face as the cruiser's hull slammed hard against the Delfin and men were leaping down onto her deck.
Delaney got to his knees, triggered the .32 on dead cartridges, then threw the weapon at the first attacker. He heard the cry of pain as it bounced off the oncommer's shoulder, but still the man advanced, something gleaming in his hand. Delaney lurched to his feet in an attempt to meet the attack of the curly-haired, younger man charging him, the weapon in his hand distinguishable now. It was a straight razor! Others had jumped onto the Delfin but they were laying back, as if wanting to see this one-sided match. Then, his assailant threw a wicked grin at him and jumped up and down like a buffoon.
"You're the one I want!" he snarled. "You're Delaney, the bastard who raped my Ziona! I'm Yossi Nidam, you American prick, and I'm going to have your nuts in my hand! I'm going to stuff 'em down your filthy throat!"
Delaney's brain raced desperately. There were three other Arabs standing off as if Yossi Nidam was giving the orders. His chances of coming out of this alive were absolutely nil. He tried to think in that fraction of a moment before Yossi sallied forward, hacking frantically with the razor. The vicious blade sliced air across his middle as Jeb sucked in his gut and leaped backward several steps toward the stern for manipulating room.
Yossi's laugh was a crazed cackle as he danced in jerkily, his slim body bent forward and arms outswept. Delaney hunched down weaponless, his eyes glued to the glimmering steel in the other man's ever-harassing hand. Yossi laughed, a giggle this time, then ripped out tormentfully, as if testing Delaney's agility. His cohorts had moved in on either side of the cabin with hand guns ready, watching the ill-matched event in the eight foot square arena.
Delaney was set to make a stab at going over the side. They would probably blow him apart before he could ever hit the water, but it was one wild chance, and all that he had. He k-eyed himself for that maneuver, flicking his eyes from the razor to the rail, and it was that split-second that Yossi chose to attack.
Jeb saw only a blur, tried to wrench sideways, then felt the sting like an icicle ripping down the length of his left cheek and knew that the sonovabitch had laid his face open from eye to chin. He felt the warm blood running down his jawline and neck, streaming onto his chest as the maniac wielding the crimson-stained razor echoed another insane cry of sadistic glee and jogged back a step.
"That's enough, Yossi," a guttural voice ordered and out of the corner of his eyes, Delaney recognized the stocky, Mussolini-chinned ape moving in. "We'll take him back to the El-lhhlil. Maybe the General will want to question him."
"No! I want the prick right here and now! I want his balls ... hack 'em off and stuff 'em down his throat, Micha!" Yossi squealed. "He raped Ziona, the filthy bastard ... my Ziona!"
He charged the wounded American, brandishing the straight-razor with fierce arching passes, his blind rage destroying the caution of moments before. Delaney met the charge with one of his own, driving his shoulder into the smaller man's middle as his hand caught the deadly wrist in a grip of iron. Yossi yelped out and the others rushed in, but not before Delaney's big frame carried the terrorist backward full force against the Delfin's gunwale.
It caught the younger, off-balanced man across the small of the back, and even with the others clawing at him with rough hands, Delaney had the strength and momentum to exert the needed pressure on the victim he had trapped against the side of the boat. A feeling of savage exultation raced through the bloodied American at the sickening sound of Yossi Nidam's backbone snapping, and then the horrible scream that followed ... but that was all he remembered before something struck him on the side of the skull and he caved as if he'd been hamstrung.
* * *
Delaney was but partially back to his senses hours later when he realized someone was stitching up his face. He sat on a chair in a medicinal-smelling room with his wrists shackled behind him, the sharp pain letting him know that the grey-haired woman wearing the white coat and manipulating the sutures was doing so without benefit of anesthesia. With every insertion and drawing together of his cheek flesh she seemed to enjoy an unnecessary exertion of effort.
Her grin was more of a leer when she saw that he had come out of it. She said: "You are tough, Yankee. You have lost much blood. I would give you a transfusion, but it seems a waste of plasma-in fact, I hated to use the sutures." She shrugged. "General Pasha says to keep you alive for awhile, so I do the minimum."
"W-Where am I ... Auschwitz?" Delaney managed, all of it coming back in short memory flashes.
She didn't answer, but walked to a basin to wash her hands. He remembered that Abe Hopker was dead and so was Faud, both of them gunned down aboard the Delfin. Then, he vaguely recalled an explosion after he'd been thrown aboard the attacking cruiser ... a hand grenade, probably, to sink the damning evidence. He must be aboard the El-lhhlil, his goal when they'd set out from Tel Aviv, but never at such a cost.
A booming voice speaking in Arabic suddenly filled the room. Jeb saw the owner, a huge red-bearded man, and he recognized him from his pictures-General Ibn Pasha. The three thugs who had taken him prisoner including Micha, the Mussolini-chinned ape, were with him, still dressed in their whites.
"So, American, why the hell have you chosen to bring me trouble?" Ibn Pasha hurled at him. "Don't you suppose I have enough of my own?"
"You're going to have more when the U.S. authorities learn what you've done. Where are Tracy Newman and Crystal Morris? And where is the stolen five hundred thousand dollars Yossi Nidam brought to you? You ordered Ziona Sursis murdered and had your punks gun down two innocent men a few hours ago. What sort of fucking monster are you, anyway?"
The giant man's jade eyes glared. Without looking at Jeb, he said to Micha: "Strike him ... on the wound."
Delaney set himself as the thick-shouldered one stepped forward wearing a hellish grin. He seemed to bounce on the balls of his feet when he threw the punch, a hooking slash that sent his rock-like knuckles ripping across the freshly stitched laceration the length of the investigator's left cheek. Vicious pain tore through Jeb Delaney's head as he felt several of the sutures burst and the blood spurting down his jaw once more. Again, the gnarled fist battered and tore at the wound, the force of the blow knocking Delaney bodily from the chair to sprawl on the floor.
"Now, you have torn out all my stitches," the grey-haired woman in white said with disgust. "You see? He is bleeding again like a stuck pig."
Micha and the others laughed, while the massive leader did nothing but glare. Two of them stepped forward and jerked a dazed Jeb Delaney back up onto the chair. Raw agony raged through the young investigator's profusely bleeding cheek as he teetered in the upright position, his hands secured helplessly behind him.
"Now, I'll give you answers to your questions, Yankee," Ibn Pasha spat down at him. "The paltry amount of money you are concerned about fills my safe above. It will be used for a good cause, I assure you. As for the blonde murderess, she has brought a good price from a whorehouse cartel, but I have hopes that her sister, Mrs. Newman, will bring double the amount. As for my little Incense, you defiled her after she confided in you, betraying her own people. She knew the penalty ... and paid it."
Delaney was breathing heavily, both physical torment and mental rage keeping him from passing out again. "Y-You ... you filthy bastard!" he hissed between clenched teeth.
Micha started toward Delaney, but the General stopped him. "No. I want him awake enough to watch Mrs. Tracy Newman's initiation into her new life. Sew him up again, doctor, and do not be too gentle doing it. Give him an injection of something if necessary. I want him fully alert to witness the blonde widow's venture into harlotry."
The next few minutes were like something out of medieval medicine for Delaney. Though he didn't think she was working at it full tilt, Micha and the other two were standing close to watch, and he knew she dare not be too gentle. The General had left with two bodyguards, demanding that Delaney be brought to the "entertainment room" in ten minutes.
Forcing himself, Jeb fought to concentrate on some sort of plan of escape even though he knew such a move would be next to impossible, but it helped to take his mind from the torture to his agonized face. Briefly, the times he had been called handsome by Aletha raced through his head, along with the imagined vision of what his face would look like after this ... but that would hardly matter in the grave, would it?
They had to do away with him, destroy the evidence as they had done with Abe, Faud, and the Delfin. And for Tracy Newman, a living death in some Arabic whorehouse. Christ! And he was helpless ... absolutely helpless!
"There. Take him out of here," the doctor said, and the two with Micha jerked Delaney up onto his feet. The doctor was following. "If you knock him around anymore I will not be able to sew that cut up," she warned. "I have already used valuable sutures in nearly sixty stitches. Do not bring him back here again. It is nothing but a waste."
The three ignored her as they shoved Delaney through the doorway with the grey-haired woman crowding after them. And Jeb Delaney desperately tried to conceal the slender piece of metal someone had thrust into one of his manacled hands from behind!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
From the moment she was hauled out of the sea following her futile attempt at escape, Tracy Newman had been subjected to the most degrading treatment. The three male "rescuers" had mauled her naked body in the small boat, grabbing her obscenely between the legs, clutching at her full breasts and buttocks when they fished her from the water, continuing the outrage even as they forced her back aboard the El-Ihhlil.
But it was an enraged Maya, who, ridiculed before her "great" general, directed Tracy's painfully humiliating punishment. With the assistance of another female guard, an older raw-boned, ginger-haired woman, Tracy was made to crawl on all fours to the lavatory of the lower desk, while male and female spectators stood by laughing and taunting as she crept sobbingly past them.
In the shower room, Maya and the ginger-haired one stripped naked before shoving the blonde widow beneath a drenching flood of cold water. Then, as more uniformed Arabs drifted in to watch, a fear-stricken Tracy heard Maya order the bigger woman to soak heavy towels with water. Tracy tried to raise up to her feet, anticipating what was about to happen to her, but the first blow, taking her with vicious impact across the breasts, completely destroyed any hope of avoiding the painful beating.
The lash of the water-soaked towel against her tender breasts not only exploded the breath from Tracy's lungs, but collapsed her backward onto the tiled flooring. She lay on her back stunned, the water streaming from the shower drenching her face and body and keeping her from unconsciousness. Gasping, she saw through blurred eyes the trim curved shape of Maya's uniformed figure giving the signal for another vicious blow.
Again and again, the sodden towel rained slashing blows indiscriminately over Tracy's defenseless body. Her breasts, her belly, thighs, and abdomen were mercilessly whipped, and when she rolled over in a blind attempt to protect those portions, her buttocks, back and helpless thighs were beaten with the makeshift weapon of torture.
Tracy didn't know how it had ended. She had finally fainted awakening in the same berth and small cell-like stateroom as before. Her head swam and her entire body was in throbbing torment from the beating, but outside of a few faintly visible welts, she was unmarked.
She had no idea how long she had been out, but now it was pitch dark beyond the porthole. She sat up on the berth looking for the pitcher of water, hoping that it might have been refilled, and heard the sound of the door opening. It was Maya and another attractive, long-haired brunette, both dressed in gossamery see-through garb such as one associated with harems, their rounded young bodies sensuously revealed beneath.
"Come on, smart-ass," Maya ordered, in vernacular American, her chestnut hair falling softly around her shoulders. "It's time for your big act."
Tracy saw the small automatic weapon in the ex-prostitute's hand and offered no resistance. Only when she was made to crawl naked on her hands and knees again did she start to rebel, but her respect for the chestnut-haired woman's methods of retribution compelled her to obey. Any more punishment would be unbearable.
But what now? What new degrading torment lay in store for her? The young blonde widow looked up to see three men in white coming toward her and shoving another male before them. They were directly in front of her and the man, a big shirtless fellow whose face was streaked with dried blood, was being led with his hands seemingly imprisoned behind him. She saw the face, thought it vaguely familiar, except for the horribly puckered left side where it was swollen and newly stitched.
My God! I-It was the professor they had met on the plane ... Jeb Delaney!
"Move, bitch!" Maya snapped, cracking Tracy a stinging wallop across her bared buttocks. "Right through that door for the party."
"Goddamn, but she is a lovely looking piece, eh Yankee?" Micha said to Jeb, spitting out the words lewdly in English. "And you are going to be lucky enough to see how many cocks she can handle at one time. It's a great Arabian custom when we groom a Caucasian woman for one of our houses of pleasure."
Delaney felt sick to the depths of his guts. The sight of Tracy Newman's beautiful naked body groveling like a degraded slave as she helplessly crawled before the two guerrilla women cut deeper into his soul than had the slashing razor. But worse, he was unable to even make an effort toward defending her.
"Oh God, help me ... help me?" she pleaded up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"You filthy bastards!" Delaney roared at all of them, only to be struck a mind-shattering blow at the base of his neck from behind which drove him staggering into the small room.
His head reeling, the shackled insurance investigator was hauled down into a squatting position on the floor before a thin matting some ten feet square. The room was well lighted, and though there were enough cushions strewn around to accommodate many more, only Ibn Pasha and some ten or twelve skimpily clad young women occupied the area. Delaney remembered what Ziona had told him about the general's entourage of pleasure-girls, and guessed that these must be a part of that family.
"I like to let my women see how fortunate they are, Yankee," the jade-eyed leader boomed at Delaney. "It makes them appreciate their own pampered existence.
"You're a goddamned animal, Pasha!" Jeb spat heedlessly at the huge man, to which the latter guffawed through his white-streaked red beard.
"Your life is but a short one, Mr. Delaney, so I will allow you a few last mistakes." Then he signaled to the two long-haired young women ushering Tracy along on hands and knees, and they forced the crawling blonde roughly onto the matting in the center of the room. "You, Micha, and the two with you may strip. You've earned the initial play with our charming American guest. Decide amongst you how you will take her. Maya, you watch Mr. Delaney."
The massive guerrilla chieftain turned to grin through his red beard at Jeb. "Before the night is out she will have fucked and sucked some thirty to forty men, Yankee, the El-Ihhlil's entire crew. One might think it would harm her, but, of course, it won't. Such mass rapings only serve to subjugate the durable female body to its proper station in life, and where she is going she will be expected to handle that many men as a minimum per night."
Delaney forced himself to control his impotent rage as he tried to work furtively at his shackles with the slender piece of metal that none but the doctor could have slipped into his hand. He had found the hole where a key would open the chained manacles and was straining desperately to pick it. At the same time, he saw Tracy sprawled nakedly on her back with each of her long-haired guards on either side holding her arms secured. The young widow's eyes were agape with growing horror, her mouth partially open, uncontrollable whimpering sounds escaping her parched lips.
Micha, a hair-covered short frame of muscular power, had stripped his clothes off and moved onto the mat to stand at her feet. His thick cock poled out from his loins in a menacing erection, and while his eyes feasted on her full white breasts weighted resiliently to either side, she stared in fear-filled horror at the blunt-knobbed instrument about to penetrate her helpless body. The urge to scream out was the strongest instinct Tracy knew, yet she couldn't; her fear was choking her. She could think only of the vicious rape she had been subjected to in Crystal's apartment ... but this horror, while others looked on, defied belief.
Tracy saw the thick set, shaggy man before her begin to lewdly stroke his heavy, blood-hardened penis to the oohs and aahs of the sensuously arrayed young women seated on cushions around her. The sway of the sperm-bloated sac between his gnarled thighs added to the obscene depravity. In despair, her eyes wandered to the cruelly scarred and helpless face of Delaney watching in paralyzed fury, the sudden knowledge that he too had been tortured giving her the strength to flash him an expression of encouragement.
But it was a short-lived moment. The Arab standing naked before her barked an order in Arabic at his two equally naked accomplices. With their desire-stiffened rods bobbing luridly, they took up squatting positions on either side of her ankles.
She would have fought them had there been the slightest hope, but some bit of common sense was warning her that she was going to need every ounce of her strength before this ordeal was over. In fact, it even advised the next move she made.
"I-I'm not an animal. I don't have to be held like one!" she spat vehemently up into the stubbly-chinned face. "What can I do but obey while you use my body like thieves? Tell them to take their hands off me."
Delaney couldn't believe his ears, nor was Ibn Pasha less surprised.
"Do as she says," the towering leader ordered in an openly pleased tone, the thought occurring to him that he might be sorry later. But she was a lovely creature, and the fair pubic curls up between her legs excited him to no end. He could feel his powerful loins stirring vigorously at the mere sight of her soft white body spread voluptuously before him ... yet he couldn't forget that she was an infidel.
Delaney, working feverishly with the sturdy sliver of metal at the manacles binding his wrists, came suddenly to a halt, almost dropping the tiny instrument when he saw the hands removed from Tracy Newman's naked body and her long shapely legs drawing up and opening by her own doing.
"Is this what you want?" she hissed in angered shame, raising to her elbows so that her lush pink-nippled breasts responded with quivering resilience and the narrow cuntal split between her rounded thighs was offered in unwilling seduction.
Delaney saw Micha's erected cock shudder and jerk up higher, and felt his own penis straining into blood-rushing stiffness at the sensual sight, while the surrounding young women began to exchange glances and mumble to one another. Beside him, Ibn Pasha moved uneasily as all watched the Mussolini-chinned rapist knee forward between the blonde woman's drawn-back thighs.
"Go on, Micha. Fuck her good! Split her stuck-up cunt wide open for us with that big cock!" Maya exclaimed, leaning ahead on her knees. "The girls want to see that. Let her know what an Eastern whorehouse is going to be like."
Both Jeb and Tracy Newman heard the mumbling of agreement pass through the audience, along with the translation of Maya's English into Arabic for some. Ibn Pasha chuckled tightly, while shivers of mounting fear raced through the defenseless American widow.
Tracy gaped down at the searching length of Arabic manhood waggling ever closer toward her vulnerable pussy slit. Though she held her legs lifted and open to his advance, they were as tensed as coiled springs of steel, and she struggled fiercely against screaming at the top of her lungs and releasing those coils into vicious kicking weapons of rebellion.
"Take it in your hand and put it in place," Micha growled down into her face, forcing Tracy to reluctantly grasp hold of his blood-engorged penis and splay her fleshy cunt-lips apart with its turgid head.
She could feel the escaped drops of his seminal fluid moistening her cringing vaginal flesh and gave thanks for that, for she knew her vagina was fearful and unready. Her belly was knotted in tension, and though she lay there beneath him like some wanton slut, the prayers racing through her panicky mind were proof enough of her feelings.
Delaney, as taut as a drawn bowstring, heard the grunt of lust choke out of Micha's throat and saw him flick his muscular hips forward, the red-flushed length of his long thick cock piercing her tender, intimate passage like a knife and seeming to stab and twist in the young investigator's own stomach. He swore aloud but was unheard as lustful sighs and groans filled the room only a split-second before Tracy's cry of anguish.
"Aaaaggghhhhh!" she gasped out, twisting in torment beneath the barbaric impalement-the slow, unceasing plunge of blood-swollen cock-flesh up into the tight, resistant sheath of her unwanting vagina.
Knife-like blades of pain filled her unwelcoming loins as the massive Arab penis began immediately moving in and out of her skewered pussy with a selfish, self-gratifying rhythm. The heavy, hairy body came down to smother hers into the cushions, coarse hands clutching at her voluptuously heaving breasts, the bristly face with slobbering lips engulfing her own, making her accept the insistent spear of his garlicky tongue that plunged wetly toward her throat. Pinching fingers twisted the fear-distended nipples capping her naked breasts before scraping down over her ribs and hips to clutch roughly at her softly fleshed buttocks. Like gouging spurs, they pulled her ass-cheeks apart to the straining point, forcing her unprotected loins upward toward the battering rod of his unrelenting cock fucking hard up into her helpless cunt. It felt as if her tender vaginal walls were being grated to an agonizing rawness as the lust-bloated shaft of penile hardness rode her loins like a demon.
The rubbery head of his cruel penis was a pain-blinding club pummeling her sensitive cervix deep inside. Tracy heard her own breath ragged and choking, grunting up from her throat in raspy expulsions with his every animal-like thrust. He raised part-way up off of her, his clawing fingers digging into her hips and thighs as he ground his hairy pelvis into the soft flesh of her loins and his obscenely probing member stabbed deep into the hidden interior of her quivering belly.
There was no mercy, but then she'd expected none. He was still forcing her vaginal sheath open farther and farther to accommodate every last fraction of his furiously ramming penis. With each plunge Tracy felt his heavy sperm-bloated testicles beating rhythmically against her tiny, upturned anus. She sensed her own natural cuntal moisture beginning to flow in response to the Arab terrorist's cruel rape, and a little sigh of relief escaped her lips at the first lessening of tormentful pain. And amazingly, as the pain decreased, so did her fear, until finally she had to recognize the hot little flames licking lewdly at her belly as desire!
The sounds around her which had increased in volume registered only vaguely, but they were meaningless to the gasping young widow whose total consciousness was focused on that point up between her legs where lust-hardened male flesh was worming wetly in and out, in and out of her awakening vagina. But suddenly the room was spinning, the impaling rod spearing deeper up into the tender core of her pussy, and she bleated out her protest, feeling herself being rolled over bodily until she sat astride her muscular rapist.
Delaney winced with Tracy's every groan of torment, not realizing that the tone of her moans had changed. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead as he worked frantically with the slender stick of metal at the shackles imprisoning his wrists behind him. But it was his own shamefully erect penis straining lustfully inside his pants which had raised the sweat on his brow. The room had quickly fallen under an orgiastic spell, the surrounding women stripping away their scanty coverings from each other and squirming into lesbian acts which the "great" leader evidently permitted on special occasions such as this.
Tracy's chestnut-haired guard had crawled over between Ibn Pasha's legs and released the general's massively swollen cock. He was grunting like a bull in a pasture of cows, watching her stroke the veiny length of his uncircumcised hardness, its bloated purple head straining like an eager dog at the leash. In the passion of the moment, the uniformed Palestinian girl had left behind on the mat the automatic she'd been carrying in her hand. Another, flame-haired bitch was on her knees beside Tracy's nakedly straddling body, leaning close and watching hypnotized as Micha's ramming penis levering up in and out of the gasping blonde widow's clasping cuntal slit.
Fitfully, Jeb probed at the manacle lock, twisting and wrenching his wrists as his eyes flicked from the forgotten automatic to the salaciously engaged bevy of women losing themselves in the mutual tonguing of one another's pinkly squirming cunts, then back to Tracy's voluptuous white curves bent slavishly astride Micha's huge up-thrusting cock. He saw the female voyeur's slender middle finger move up through the smooth furrow between Tracy's widespread ass-cheeks, then down again to taunt her defenselessly exposed anal ring. Suddenly, the tip of the guard's finger was worming its way up into the tightly puckered nether opening, disappearing to the first joint, and then all of the way to the palm of her cupping hand, as Tracy grimaced in renewed pain and fear.
Delaney's confined penis lurched eagerly at the lustful sight, even as deeper sensations of rage growled in the pit of his belly. Maya, who was so busy now sucking the general's rigid cock, had signaled one of the other two naked men and he was kneeing up behind the unwary widow. A lanky, long, muscled Arab with an equally long, muscled cock, he knelt there for a moment watching the female guard's extended middle finger swirling and stretching Tracy's unprotected rectum before he motioned her away.
In an unreal world where pain and shameful abuse had become almost the only existence, Tracy Newman had chilled when she first felt the finger exploring the tightly folded skin of her anus, until with a new painful shock she felt it worm deeply up into her rectum. Though it was added degrading misery, it remained secondary to the long thick rod fucking relentlessly up into her seared vagina. The rough hands clasping her waist, lifting her and then slamming her impaled loins down onto the towering penis, abruptly brought it all to a halt. The man compelled her to remain motionless with his blood-engorged penis sunk to the hilt up between her legs, then reached up beneath her arms to haul her down onto him until her breasts were flattened against his hairy chest and her buttocks raised high behind her.
It was then that the finger pulled out from her rectum and seconds later she felt an enormous hot bulge pressing there in its place. Oh God no, she thought in fresh panic, tears forcing their way from her eyes to trickle down her cheeks. The cruel foreign face beneath her grinned lustfully as more hands caught at her hips, clasping them, digging into the soft flesh. Guttural words of Arabic passed between her assaulters. There was raucous guffaws and the hardened rod of flesh buried in her belly flexed and joggled there. The second man's hands moved back over the helpless mounds of her buttocks, clutching and spreading them even more obscenely apart until his thumbs were on the tender flesh either side of her vulnerable little anus. She felt a hard, thrusting object against the tiny hole between the thumbs trying to stretch it open.
"Oh no, no please don't!" Tracy begged, trembling now with hopeless terror. A male voice from behind growled out something in Arabic.
"Stay put you bitch!" the man beneath her snarled, suddenly clutching hold of her full breasts resting on his chest and squeezing strong fingers into them.
Her anus was being stretched as if it were going to tear, and then the obscenely invading penis pushed forward, was rebuffed, and pushed again. She sobbed out in protest, but it was as if no one heard or cared. The man's blunt bulbous cock-head began to worm up into her resisting rectum, the pain spreading and making her stomach convulse around the unwelcomed male organ entombed so deep within her trembling belly.
"Aiiieeee!" she screamed. "No, no, God, no, please stooooppppp!"
Her anus was splitting! She could feel the enormous intrusion pushing solidly up inside, widening her back passage, chafing and rubbing in jerky sawing motions against the already inflamed skin of her virginal rectum. The pain became intense and went on and on as he held her hips with savage hands and forced his ravaging hardness deeper up into her rectum from behind with unceasing motions.
As Tracy whimpered and tossed her curly blonde head to ease the pain, the jerkiness smoothed gradually into longer and longer strokes until the burly Arab was fucking the burning lance of his flesh up into her stretched rectum to its full length. She could feel his wiry pubic hair around the wide base of his cock brushing the inner sides of her ass-cheeks. She heard him gasping along with the murmurs and heavy breathing from the rest of the excitedly watching people in the room. Her mind swirled with the unbelievable torment. They would kill her ... oh God! Now, the other pummeling cock had begun to stroke fiercely up into her vagina again ... both of them moving viciously in and out of her expanded passages like pistons working to establish an obscene rhythm between them. They would kill her ... but not soon enough!
It was an insane moment for Delaney. Mixed emotions of rage, lust, and elation churned simultaneously inside him. Something close to tear-blurring madness at the dual ravaging of Tracy Newman's helpless young body, even as his own desire was reflected in the throbbing hardness swelling out his pants front. And the lurid lesbian acts, plus the chestnut-haired girl's moist lips locked tightly around Ibn Pasha's poling cock as she licked and sucked, bobbing her head lewdly up and down, only added to the hot craving the whole wild orgy had fired within him. But it was the little metallic sound of his handcuffs opening that caused the flush of success to race jubilantly through his tortured brain.
And on the floor, sandwiched between the two lewdly rutting Arabs, Tracy bit into her lip, screwing her eyes tightly shut, knowing now that she wouldn't die, or even faint, and the less she fought them, the less it hurt. In fact it was even beginning to feel ... good! Like base animals they fucked and sodomized her with their pillaging cocks hammering mercilessly up into her intimate passages, but it didn't matter. She was starting to enjoy it. With a growing sense of unfulfilled longing, the blonde-haired American widow, sensed the massive penis filling her rectum begin to grow and pulsate. He jobbled his pistoning length around in the depths of her tingling belly, grinding inward to the hilt, and then he roared, beginning to fuck his lust-solid shaft demoniacally in and out of her cock-contorted anus.
"Uuuuuggghhhh! Christ! I'm cummiiinnnggg bitch! Fuck hard, damn you!" the hairy brute beneath her snarled, grabbing her waist and pounding her up and down on his spewing cock as if she were weightless.
Tracy could feel the tremendous deluge of their scalding sperm squirting hose-like up into her seething twin passages simultaneously, and what little lustful release she was to know from her lewd double-rape filled her at that very moment. Her hips moved into an automatic grinding and humping motion, her rounded white buttocks heaving backward onto the pumping penis racing up into her rectum, then down with grasping vaginal walls milking at the other spewing shaft which was ejaculating wildly into the depths of her belly!
"Oh ... oohhhhh Godddd," she moaned aloud, certain that the tremendous explosion filling her ears and causing the whole ship to tremble was happening inside her. "I-I'm cummmiiinnnggg...!" she groaned.
Delaney did two things as the explosion rocked the El-lhhlil: He swung the manacles dangling from his right wrist up to rip with a dull thud across the red-bearded face of Ibn Pasha; then he leaped for Maya's forgotten automatic lying on the floor.
Clutching at his bloodied face with both hands while the sucking brunette still hung with her mouth locked to his flagging penis, the General boomed out something in Arabic. Delaney was a streak whipping across the floor. From the corner of his eye he saw the naked women untangling, heard their screams, then Micha and the other man shoving Tracy out of their way. On his back, Jeb fired the first shot and saw the bluish hole appear just below the burly sodomist's heart. He did nothing but sag. Micha was next, the first slug hitting him in the shoulder as he charged. It spun him around so that Delaney's second shot went through the base of his neck and out the top of his skull, as Micha's gun came flying across the carpet almost to Jeb's feet, and it was no trouble for the young insurance investigator to pick it up as he turned his attention to the general.
"You crazy Jew bitch, let go of my cock!" Ibn Pasha snarled at Maya as Delaney got to his knees to level both automatics on the half-naked Arab leader.
It was a burlesque scene with the chestnut-haired Maya fumbling at the holster the giant man wore, her teeth obviously set behind the coronal rim of his now-limp penis while he tried to wipe the blinding blood from his eyes. Before he could hit her, she jerked the weapon free and then spat out his flaccid penis.
"Drop it!" Delaney ordered her, watching the general trying to get on his feet and fasten his pants. "Drop it or I'll blast you!"
"I'm on your side, Yankee!" Maya Nidam yelled at him amidst the bedlam of naked women running from the room. "Who do you think arranged this attack? There's a squadron of Israeli Phantom jets up there ready to hit this tub at any second!"
"I don't give a fuck if you've got Moses leading them! Drop that gun!"
She did, backing off as Tracy moved forward to kick it toward Delaney and Ibn Pasha stood fast, realizing that the two weapons still in Delaney's hands were trained right on his middle.
"How are you, baby?" Jeb questioned the still-trembling blonde widow who now held the general's pistol, waiting to be told what to do.
"I'll live, professor," she replied, slowly getting to her feet.
"That's a gal. Now, general, we go up to where you've got all that money tucked away." Delaney said, moving onto his own feet. "Keep that gun on him, Tracy, and if he makes a funny move just start pulling the trigger."
"You're not using your head, Yankee," Ibn Pasha barked. "You heard the Jewess here. This is a planned attack. Let me take command of my ship or we'll all be blown to hell!"
Jeb heard them then, the screaming roar of approaching jet planes in a sweeping sortie. Ack-ack fire rumbled the decking beneath them, mingled with that of strafing machine-gun lead ripping and shattering the walls all around them.
"Then we'll go to hell together," Delaney spat. "I want that five hundred thousand and you better start moving to get it before I begin shooting off little bits of you."
"You damned fool!" the fierce-eyed man roared, stomping toward the door with the unusual trio behind him. "You'll never get off this ship alive with it!"
Delaney wouldn't dispute him there. He didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he knew that he wanted that stolen money in his hands-it was the bastardly root of this entire horror, and if he sank, it would sink in his arms.
Outside from the deck, they could see the flares which had been dropped to illuminate the El-lhhlil like a sitting duck. The ack-acks had silenced, in preparation for the next sortie. Delaney felt Maya's hand on his arm.
"That monster's right, Yankee. In exactly three minutes those Phantoms are going to sink this bark," she tried to explain. "Believe me, I know what I'm saying. The doctor who sewed up your face set off that bomb. We set this hit up. There's only one escape and that's the cruiser tied alongside. It's kept available for the brave general here to make his escape should things get hot."
"Can you get to it?" He wasn't sure why he trusted her, but he did.
"Yes, but there's no damn time to waste."
"Then take Mrs. Newman and get the hell out of here," Delaney ordered.
"What about you?" Tracy interrupted.
"Never mind me. You do as your told."
"No! I won't go unless you come with us," Tracy insisted.
"Goddamnit, take the gun for protection and get the hell out of here!" he snarled, pushing her forward with a hand on her shoulder. "Now go!" he snapped. "If you can, try to lay off to the East and wait. Use a light for signal. Flash it twice a minute. If you don't see me in an hour, head for Tel Aviv."
"No, Jeb, please...?" Tracy pleaded, never looking more ravishing to him than she did at that moment in absolute nakedness.
"And put something on," he added, leveling both weapons on the giant figure whom he'd never taken his eyes from. "Let's go, big man. I want that cash."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Two more strafing stories drove General Ibn Pasha and Jeb Delaney to cover before the giant leader unlocked the safe in his private salon and hauled out the heavy valise filled with American greenbacks. The Corliss man merely opened the case and glanced at the money to reassure himself, then he grinned at the guerrilla general.
"Fools, aren't we, great man?" the American said, the inflamed-looking wound of his stitched cheek twisting his once-handsome face grotesquely. "What we won't chance for money or power, eh?"
"There's enough in that bag for both of us, Yankee," General Pasha said, his jade-eyes flashing. "We have about a minute left ... and I have a secret means of getting us off the El-Ihhlil safely."
Delaney continued to grin as he held both weapons on the huge man. "You know you're lying, general. We haven't got a chance in hell, anymore than the rest of your entourage aboard this can. I'm only sorry for the women who were brought here by force, not choice."
"Listen to me! There's an inflated dingy with a motor covered by a tarpaulin on the first desk stern," Pasha insisted. "I had it put there for this very purpose. Let's not waste time. We've still got a good chance of getting off here alive!"
He took a step forward and Jeb raised both weapons. "What about all those young women? Do we leave them behind to die, general?"
"You idiot! Those sluts are nothing but guerrillas who are here of their own free will. They'd slit your throat for a farthing," he almost whimpered. "Riffraff, for God's sake, Yankee! Don't you understand?"
"I think so," Delaney said, sensing a cold, twisting feeling in his gut as if it were turning over. "Like Ziona Sursis, is that what you mean? And Crystal Morris?"
"Of course...." Then the general saw an out and continued hurriedly. "At a time like this, you're really concerned about that murdering Yankee bitch? Didn't she make enough trouble for you and now you want her back? Well, there were only men who knew where she was taken and you've already killed two of them. And I ... I may have forgotten the name of that filthy Arab whorehouse...."
He stopped short, reading the murderous gleam in the young American's eyes.
"At any rate," Pasha continued, "I think I won't tell you."
He took two steps backwards before Jeb fired the first shot which tore into his abdomen, folding him at the same time as the force of the bullet carried him back another series of steps.
Delaney could hear the jets again, their screaming sound rapidly growing toward a deafening roar. Ziona's vivacious face Hashed in his memory. He began pulling the triggers, watching the huge uniformed body jerk and stagger with each ripping impact, gaping at it even after the massive bulk had collapsed and begun spouting blood from nearly a dozen little holes.
And then, the first bomb hit the El-Ihhlil...!
* * *
"When are you going to tell me the whole story?" Tracy Newman asked for the thousandth time. "It seems that I should be entitled to know that much. After all, I was somewhat involved."
She wasn't angry and Delaney liked that. In fact, she was quite affectionate, and he liked that even more. He smiled over at her, glad that his good facial side was exposed to her. They were driving from Rome to Switzerland where Israeli authorities had made arrangements for him to undergo plastic surgery, and she'd been a bag of questions ever since they'd left the plane from Tel Aviv two hours before.
"A dinghy ... a little dinghy with a motor that the "great" man kept hidden for himself should the need ever arise, then a passing freighter. And that, Widow Newman, is all you need to know," Jeb said, not really caring to remember those last hectic hours.
"And General Pasha? You haven't said what happened to him?" she probed.
"He had stomach problems the last I knew. I doubt if he survived," Delaney said without looking at her. "What about Maya?"
"I-I don't know. She just seemed to disappear," the young blonde beside him replied, a catch in her voice. "Once I was in the hotel, I never saw or heard from her again. But she'll be all right ... won't she, Jeb?"
"If the weather holds and the creek don't rise," he answered, smiling over at her. "And you, Mrs. Newman?"
"Oh ... I suppose I'll go back to the States and become a proper widow. I can hardly believe Crystal was as horrible as everyone says." The young blonde shuddered with the memory. "Anyhow, she's gone and now I have absolutely no way of finding her."
"Better forgotten, Tracy," Jeb said, seeing the tears in her eyes. "What you need now is a husband."
There was no answer for a moment. Then, "I don't want a husband, Jeb ... I want a lover ... one that will last for a lifetime."
He felt her hand suddenly resting warm and inviting on his upper thigh. He glanced away from the highway ahead to see her small, tentative smile.
"That's a big order," he said, excitement racing through his loins once again. "Have anyone picked out?"
"Yes ... providing he gives up his present job," she said.
"Oh? What do you think he should do?"
"Become a gardener, or something ... less danger and fewer women involved. Then he can spend all of his time loving me," she answered, her voice trailing off into near whisper.
Jeb saw the little turn-off and pulled into it, stopping the rented car. "I always did hate these bucket seats," he said slipping his arm around her shoulder and leaning toward her inviting body.
She came to him and he kissed her, smoothing his hand over the soft swell of her breast, her own hand covering his to hold it there. She looked at him, her deep green eyes searching his. "W-Will it work, Jeb?" she whispered.
"If we want it to."
"Lovers?"
"Whatever you want, baby," he said. "After the hospital, we'll tour Europe, maybe the whole damned world. We'll know by then, won't we?"
"If we could only afford it, professor," she whispered, kissing his lips warmly. "What a heavenly existence that would be."
"Will be, is what you mean, little girl," he spoke softly, nuzzling his lips against her ear. "There's seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars in that valise, baby. The general was well prepared for that fast getaway."
"So...?" she whispered.
"So Corliss Insurance gets back its half-million ... and the residue ... it doesn't even exist, Mrs. Newman. Do I make myself clear?" he said, beginning to nibble at her ear as his hand smoothed over her soft belly.
"Y-You're beginning to come through nicely, darling."
