Chapter 23: Two Minutes

Ramzy El-Najjar came to the Emir with an unusual request. It was from the Italian woman they were using as quarry, and who had caused such a dreadful scene last time by biting Khalid Balewa's penis so badly that he needed hospital treatment after he had half killed her in his rage. She wanted to study the hunting ground before being hunted again. This was, presumably, to plan her next attempt to avoid the huntsmen for two hours.

The Emir considered the request briefly before saying to his Master of Quarry, "That sounds reasonable to me. She could be a much better quarry if she knew the hunting ground as well as the hunters, but she must not be allowed to escape. Fit her with a GPS tracker and let her go for as long as she wants, then collect her with a helicopter. Point out that if she does not cooperate in being collected, or if she ditches the tracker, then she will not be allowed to hunt again and so will never get back to Italy. I want to give her a fair chance, but she has to play fair with us. I very much admire her spirit and would send her back home if I could, but it would only make all the other stolen women resentful. I let Davina go to New Zealand into retirement and there was so much unrest in the harem that I ended up having to have one of them strangled to calm them down. If she can win her freedom in the hunt that would solve it all."

Well pleased with his Emir's decision Ramzy El-Najjar hurried back home and immediately set about arranging the visit to the hunting grounds for Rubina, setting it for four weeks later, by which time he hoped she would be fully recovered from her beating. Care and attention from the medical staff had her training again in a week, and fully fit well within the four weeks allotted.

When he dropped her off at the meeting clearing, in a hunting suit with the tag on and the transponder working, Ramzy El-Najjar said, "We will meet you here in six hours. I trust that will be long enough for what you want."

For the first time, Rubina expressed some gratitude to him for all his efforts, "Yes, thank you. I think that if I cannot make my plans in six hours I will never do them."

When the helicopter had left, the first thing Rubina did was to walk slowly along the path, cross the ford and move up the main path looking carefully around her. She did not know quite what she was looking for, but hoped that something would catch her attention. She knew that the dogs could not track her if she went up the stream bed, because Ramzy El-Najjar had taught her that. However if she disappeared into the water and left no trail anywhere then the hunters would know exactly what she had done and would find her quickly enough. She needed to leave some trail for the hunters and their dogs to follow, but one which did not lead to her hiding place, and she would have a little over an hour to lay such trails. She had already discarded the well-known trick of working round behind the hunt and following them, because she argued that they would turn back sooner or later and she would then be very exposed.

She wandered along the path past the woods and through the northern swamp. She wondered if the dogs could follow her through the swamp, but decided that they probably could, though the horses could not cross it. Skirting the hills on her left with the cave passage through them she stayed close to the river until she came to the pool and the waterfall. Climbing the hundred foot high hill beside the waterfall was very slow and arduous, but she eventually got to the top and found that the hunting ground fence crossed the top of the waterfall and the strands of the chain link double fence were obviously set deep in the water. There was no escape there.

What she needed was a hiding place where the huntsmen could not see her and the dogs could not smell her. There were some caves high in these hills, she knew, and perhaps she could hide in one of those if she could only climb up here without leaving a trail. She climbed back down the side of the waterfall, which was even more tiring than climbing up. When she got to the bottom she slipped the hunting suit off and went for a swim in the pool to refresh herself.

Where the water actually entered the pool at the foot of the waterfall there was a small cataract which looked not too steep. Perhaps if she went up the cataract she could climb up in the waterfall and so reach the caves high above; as soon as she thought of that she swam over to the bottom of the cataract and her hopes were raised when she discovered that if she was careful she could quite easily climb it. This was because it was artificial and made in a series of concrete steps which led her under the waterfall itself. They were slimy with algae but she only slipped twice.

When she was finally under and behind the waterfall, she realised that there was no chance of climbing up it. The wall down which it fell was sheer concrete and covered in algae to boot. A few attempts soon proved to her that she couldn't get even six feet up in safety. She sat down on a convenient step and burst into tears at the frustration of having her only idea dashed.

After a little while she wondered how much more time she had left. It was impossible to tell how high in the sky the sun was from where she sat. Then it struck her, if she couldn't see out, then the huntsmen could certainly not see in. The dogs also couldn't smell her, and with all the noise of the water, they wouldn't hear her either. That was it! She would spend an hour laying false trails in the lower part of the hunting grounds then move upstream in the water, swim across the pool and hide here under the waterfall.

Quickly she swam back to the bank and walked down the path naked, carrying the suit, to let herself get dry. Ramzy El-Najjar must not be allowed the slightest hint of what she planned. The decoy trails she could plan later from the maps at Ramzy El-Najjar's harem. When she reached the meeting point she put the one-piece hunting suit back on and lay down to rest.

It was the sound of the helicopter arriving which woke her, and she realised she had slept for some time, as the sun was now low in the sky. Docilely she walked back to the helicopter and was taken back to her prison in the harem, where she settled down to the usual daily regime of exercise and training. It still amazed her that she had only been raped once by the Master of Quarry, and although the 'kill' after her first hunt had been horrific, apart from that she had not been raped or beaten for three months.

The morning of what she confidently, and as it turned out, correctly, expected to be her last hunt dawned bright and clear, as did almost any day in Kobekistan when there wasn't a sandstorm. Promptly at ten o'clock, dressed in her camouflage suit, she was released at the meeting point, and before the helicopter left the ground she was off along the path and over the ford and running as fast as she could between the woods and the first of the low hills. After ten minutes and a good mile and a half from the meet she started to lay false trails to and from the stream, and into, but not through the cave tunnel. When she had laid her trail as far as she dared into the cave, she turned and retraced her steps back to the river as closely as possible on the same line she had taken moving out to the cave. Re-entering the water she moved as fast as she could upstream to the mouth of the river, where it flowed out of the pool. As she entered the pool and started to swim across it, she heard the gun go for the hunt to move off. She had got much further than she expected to by this time, but she did not slacken her efforts. Swimming as fast as she could she crossed the small lake, disturbing the few imported exotic ducks which lived on it, worked her way carefully up the cataract at the bottom of the waterfall and pulled herself on to the rocks behind it. Now she would sit out the hunt hidden from sight by the waterfall and hidden from the dogs' noses by the fact that she had done the last half mile through the flowing stream where no spoor existed for them to follow.