The Casbah

As she danced, Zulieka threw a scarf behind her. Her assistant caught it and bound my ankle to the rail of the chair. Another scarf, another ankle.

Then each wrist was tied to an arm of the chair. I was immobilised with my feet off the floor. Zulieka half-turned to me and stripped the scarf away from her shoulders exposing her sequinned bra. There was a gasp from the audience as they realised what she'd done. That scarf she wound round my head gagging me when her assistant finished the knot.

By this time all seven remaining dancers were concentrating on me. I was the centre of their attention with their bodies swaying against me and their arms stroking around me. Some of their remaining scarves added to my bonds.

Zulieka was down to her bra and panties. The drumming reached a crescendo. She unhooked her bra and flung it around my head. She stood poised with her arms raised as the drumming stopped.

She bowed to the audience. The eight dancers bowed, she and they bowed together. The applause was deafening. She turned round and bowed to me.

She ran forward and her legs straddled the chair. Her left arm wrapped around my swathed head and pulled it between her breasts. Her right arm waved to the audience behind her as her dancers fitted long metal poles to the chair.

The dancers picked up the chair with Zulieka sitting on me and paraded us around the edge of the stage before we all left through the curtains. I couldn't see anything blindfolded by Zulieka's breasts. We went beyond the curtain and through a corridor. I was running out of breath before Zulieka eased her position and asked me:

"Are you OK down there, Doug?"

I nodded.

She grabbed my head and I disappeared into her cleavage again.

The chair was set down and Zulieka climbed off me.

"Right, girls! Are you ready?" I heard her say.

I was grabbed by a multitude of feminine hands. They untied me from the chair but left me gagged. I was efficiently stripped despite my initial resistance. Zulieka hissed in my ear:

"Co-operate, Doug. We haven't got much time."

I relaxed as far as I could. That was difficult with her dancers' hands all over me. When I was totally naked my scarf bonds were replaced. I was a package tied hand and foot. A black garment was pulled up from my feet. It felt like a large cotton bag which had a drawstring tightened round my neck. Then I saw the next item which was a burqah. That came down over my head and internal ties bound it around my chest.

I could just see through the veiled eyehole as I was lifted on to a wheeled stretcher. I was strapped down to it. Sheets and blankets were tightly tucked in.

Zulieka's face appeared above me, incongruously framed by a nurse's headdress.

"We're getting you out of the Casbah, Doug. You're a sick woman, you know!" she laughed.

I hoped that she was on my side. I was trussed up so well that a small child could suffocate me. I'd never been so helpless since I was a babe in arms.

The stretcher began to move. I could see up but not to the sides. We were soon out of the building and I could see the scabby building walls lining the Casbah's alleys. The stretcher bumped and jolted along. If I'd been really sick I would be sicker now.

We seemed to be going deeper into the Casbah rather than out the way I'd come in. The alleys got narrower, the surface more uneven. Then the stretcher came to an abrupt halt. I heard scuffling noises but couldn't see anything. Apart from the burqah it was too dark. Street lights didn't exist in the Casbah.

The stretcher started moving again. We turned on to a wider alley with a few house lights. I glimpsed one the the women pushing the trolley. Now she was wearing a burqah too!

A hand blocked my eyeholes. We continued to move. The stretcher was lifted over a step. I heard a door slam behind me followed by more scuffling noises. The hand still covered my vision. Another door and light trickled round the hand. Then it was taken away. I blinked as I adjusted to the light. A face bent over me. I twitched. It was Hans!

The burqah was unfastened and lifted off. I looked up at Hans.

"Welcome to my home, Mr A. It isn't where you expected to come but we decided that you should pay us a visit. Your friend Zulieka and her talented troupe decided to come as well just to keep you company. Wasn't that thoughtful of them? Unstrap him!" he said to someone beside the stretcher.

The blankets and sheets were stripped off. The straps were undone and I was lifted off the stretcher. I was placed on a chair facing a blank wall and tied to it. I couldn't resist because I was still tied by the girls' scarves and bagged in a black sack. Zulieka's scarf still gagged me.

"Turn him round!" ordered Hans.

My chair was turned round. Facing me were Zulieka and her eight girls. Each was gagged and tied to a chair. They were wearing a mixture of Arab dress and nurse's uniforms which showed signs of rough treatment. They were surrounded by a horde of black burqah clad women. There were two or more to each girl. More veiled women flanked me.

"It was kind of Zulieka to deliver you to us so effectively parcelled, wasn't it, Mr A?" said Hans ironically. "And you co-operated with them so well. What a shame!"

"Now. We want only one thing from you, Mr A. Then you, Zulieka, and the girls can all go. Without that one thing I regret that you may be our guests for some time. And we don't treat our guests too well. Ungag him!"

My gag was removed from behind by female hands.

"Now you can speak, Mr A. Are you going to be helpful, or not? If not a girl or two will suffer for your reluctance."

He tweaked the cheek of one of the girls hard.

"As an English gentleman, I'm sure that you wouldn't want these ladies hurt, would you? And they are so decorative and talented. It would be a shame to scar them for life or to cripple them, now wouldn't it?"

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Nothing much. Just the location of Herr Adler and his charming girlfriend."

"I don't know where they are."

"Interesting. A tacit admission that you do know who Herr Adler is. Yet not very helpful. Try again."

"I tell you I don't know. He's supposed to contact me. That's why I went to the Kit-Kat club so openly. He would be informed. The act with Zulieka was so that my presence would be obvious."

"Obvious, yes. But why did Zulieka kidnap you? And you such a willing victim?"

"That was a way to get me back to the hotel safely."

"Not good enough. They weren't on the way to your hotel."

"They were. They didn't want to go straight there in case we were followed."

"Plausible, maybe. You still haven't said enough to save the girls from mistreatment. Shame." He pointed at one of Zulieka's girls. "Strip that one!"

A group of burqah clad women moved from behind me. They were suspiciously large women. As they passed Hans one of them grabbed him. He screamed as a knee crashed between his legs. The others produced familiar looking Sten guns. Hans was hog-tied on the floor.

While two of them covered the other veiled women, two released Zulieka and her girls. Then they unveiled. It was Selim and my bodyguards. Selim was the one who had kicked Hans.

"Girls" Selim said "We would appreciate it if you tied up these women. It wouldn't be fitting for us to do it, nor to unveil them."

Zulieka and her girls obeyed with a will. Soon the chairs were full of struggling but tightly bound veiled ladies. Zuleika untied me. The bag I had been wearing was a dress lashed tight just beyond my feet.

"I'm sorry Mr A. You'll have to resume your role as a sick lady." said Selim. "Your clothes were left at the Kit-Kat club."

"How did you get here? And why?" I asked.

"I'll tell you when we are out of this place. There are too many ears here." Selim waved his sten at the bound women. "Little pitchers have big ears."

I donned a burqah before climbing back on the stretcher. Zuleika had tidied up her nurse's outfit. So had her girls. Zulieka tucked the sheets and blankets around me. She kissed my burqah. It wasn't the same!

The stretcher was wheeled out of the house and rushed through the casbah's alleys. As before the Sten guns cleared the way. We reached the Grand hotel in a few minutes - the back door. Selim made his way inside. He returned a few minutes later.

"OK. The way is clear. We're all going to Mr A's suite. My brother-in-law will take us up in the freight lift."

It was crowded in my suite. There was Selim, his brother-in-law the barman, the bodyguards, eight girls dressed as dishevelled nurses and Zulieka.

"Can we get some drinks up here?" I asked the head barman.

"Already arranged, Sir." He opened a cupboard which was full of bottles and glasses.

"Thank you. Can you serve drinks to everyone, including yourself, while I change into more suitable clothing?"

"Certainly, Sir."

I grabbed some clothes from my suitcase and slipped into the bathroom. Zulieka followed me.

"You'll need help getting out of that dress, Doug." she said.

"I'll accept help from you any time, Zulieka."

I changed. I think Zulieka "helped" more than she hindered but it was touch and go. We took so long that when we returned only Selim and his brother-in-law were left. The brother-in-law spoke.

"I've arranged rooms for everyone tonight, Sir."

"Thank you. I have some unanswered questions." I paused. "Selim! Were you my guide by chance or was it pre-arranged?"

"There was no chance about it, Sir. I and my men were ordered to look after you before you left London."

"And if I hadn't asked your brother-in-law?"

"Any of the hotel staff would have arranged it, Sir. They were briefed and well paid."

"Zulieka! Were you "arranged" as well?"

"Yes, Doug. My part was scripted days ago."

"So I've been running a wild goose chase while you all knew what was going on?"

"Not quite, Sir" replied Selim. "Hans' intervention was unexpected. Zulieka was supposed to hide you for a couple of days while ..."

"While what?"

"While Herr Adler left Tangier, of course, Doug." Zulieka answered. "It was so helpful of you to leave their passports at the consulate. It saved us producing new ones."

"So it was never intended that I should find Herr Adler?"

"No, Doug." Zulieka came and kissed me. "You were the red herring - the sprat to catch a mackerel - the scapegoat. Call it whatever you like. You were the ruse to divert the opposition. Our Red friends followed you and left us room to smuggle Herr Adler and his girlfriend away. They're in Washington by now."

"What about those letters from the Prime Minister and the American President?"

"Forgeries!" replied Selim. "We don't just forge passports, you know."

"We?"

"Haven't you realised yet, Doug?" Zulieka asked. "I, my girls, Selim, his brother-in-law and your bodyguards - we're all part of Military Intelligence!"

"Then it's changed a lot since my time!" I retorted. "We didn't have people with such skills during the war."

"We did, Doug. It's just that you were in a different branch. I and my girls were working in Istanbul or Ankara. So were the rest of us. However this was our last mission. We're all due to be demobbed so it doesn't matter that Hans knows we're MI."

"What about the staff at the Kit-Kat club? Were they all MI?"

"No, Doug." Zulieka answered "They were the opposition - the Russians. They pulled a trick on us too. We thought that Hans wasn't one of them. Madeleine told me he wasn't. She was frightened that her bosses would find out she'd talked to me. She's a good actress. She was one of the group of veiled ladies who grabbed us. She'd fed me a line. Hans was the Russian boss."

"So that's why no one was hurt. You just tied them up and left them. Otherwise we'd have an incident with the Russians!"

"We haven't quite finished our task yet, Mr A." said Selim "We've been told to keep the Russians guessing for the rest of the week. That was the time that Zulieka was supposed to keep you hidden. We can still do that if we get you out of this hotel unseen."

"How?" I asked. Zulieka looked at me. "Not the stretcher again!"

"I'm afraid so, Doug." she said. "It'll be a more comfortable trip this time. We're going by ambulance."

"And then?" I asked.

"Then ..." replied Selim with a wink "... Zulieka has to keep you amused and out of sight for the rest of the week. You might enjoy that!"

"You will, Doug, you will!" Zulieka hugged me. My head fitted neatly under her chin.

"I suppose that your name isn't Zulieka either?" I asked looking up at her.

"No Doug. My name is ..." she whispered in my ear.

"No! It doesn't sound right for a belly-dancer, does it? Not even for the best in the world."

"No Doug. If you like I'll keep the name Zulieka. Would you like that?"

"Yes. I'd like that. Zulieka? Is there any chance you'd be Mrs A? There is a vacancy, you know."

"I know, Doug. We'll have a few days to answer that question. Get on that stretcher and we'll start to look for the answer. Oh, and by the way, Doug ..."

"Yes, Zulieka?"

"I outrank you. You won't be insubordinate in the next few days, will you?"

"No, Ma'am!"

THE END