Yelena sat glumly on the examining table in the infirmary, her legs dangling over the sides.

She watched silently as the doctor removed a small assembly of leather straps from a drawer, and turned back to face her. Cheerfully, he said, "Here it is. Probably much simpler than you were imagining."

Yelena sighed as he began fitting it onto her left hand. He slipped the two small loops of leather, at the end of the device, over the middle and ring fingers of her left hand as if they were rings -- he was so ceremonious about it that Yelena nearly smiled at the thought that the doctor believed he was marrying her. Two sets of straps hung down from either side of the loops, reconnecting at the sides of a watchband-like wrist strap. He extended one of the sets of straps along the back of her hand, the other down the length of her palm, and wrapped the band to which the straps on both sides attached around her wrist, buckling it firmly in place.

The straps along her palm met once, at the center of her palm, before attaching to the wristband farther down, and at this junction of the straps there was a coin-sized disk of metal, most of its face occupied by a red button. Under the red button, the disk contained a tiny battery. When the button was depressed, the disk put out a low-powered electrical signal.

General Karozki, observing the procedure, commented, "There is no need to lock the device onto your hand. You could remove it if you want, but I'm sure you won't want to. Doing so would jeopardize your ability to play out your role."

Yelena held up her hand and twisted it in various ways, finding that the device in no way interfered with her movements. She sighed again, heavily, and spoke at last. "General, I have quite a lot of money in Swiss accounts. What amount would you be interested in?"

The general gave her a you-should-be-ashamed smile. "A bribe, Madame Gerova, at this late hour? But you should know that I already have everything I could want, the foremost being the right to serve your husband, as he determines his needs and the needs of our country. Please make no further attempts to alter or evade the course of the punishments both you and your daughter have earned. There are only a few hours remaining in the twenty-four you requested, and I would think you should be in character by this time."

Yelena smiled sourly. "I would be, but we're backstage now, so to say, aren't we? My character wouldn't be having this conversation to begin with."

"Well, certainly not the most recent part of it. I trust you will be ready when the time comes?"

Yelena squeezed her eyes shut tight. "Yes. I will be ready. My daughter needs me to be ready." She could not clear her mind of the image of that other poor girl, the assassin, suffering agonies of torment beyond any the Devil himself could devise. I will save Marya from that, Yelena told herself once more.

The doctor broke in. "You understand how the device works, from your reading? It's really quite simple. Why don't you try it now, just to make sure your fingers will reach."

She looked at him sharply. "It won't do anything right now, will it?"

He shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no. You need to be in the same room with the girl."

Yelena curled the fingers of her left hand inward. The middle one depressed the red button on the disk in her palm.

The doctor smiled. "There, a perfect fit. As you should know, the electrical signal you have just generated would, if your daughter were in proximity, have caused the collar around her neck to emit an electrical pulse that would shock her and temporarily paralyze her. If she is standing when you use it, you should be prepared to catch her when she falls."

"Will it be... painful?"

The doctor gave her an impatient look. "Of course it is painful. But the paralysis is also useful. In the event of any act of defiance, this will enable you to regain control of the situation. And the pain will discourage future defiance."

Yelena squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them quickly. That is, the character she was to play opened Yelena's eyes. Yelena knew, from the outline she had been given, that pain and fear were to be the primary motivating forces on Marya's actions.

The doctor went on, "Now, you will need to have that battery replaced every other day. You understand how the collar is recharged?"

She nodded, silently.

The general broke in, "You do not give the appearance of being ready. Will you be able to go ahead with this?"

Her character spoke for her, in a strong voice with a touch of eagerness. "Yes, I will."

The general nodded. "That is fortunate, because we ended the injections keeping your daughter unconscious some time ago. She should be waking up quite soon. You may have the remaining time you requested, but..." He stroked his chin. "Doctor Tourachev, can we look in on the girl now?" Seeing Yelena's startled look, he explained to her, "On camera, I mean. We have a monitor here, and I have one in my office. You have one on the wall of your room as well, as you may have noticed. We will turn that one on for you. And the president may be watching now also. If not, it is all being recorded for him." The general reached out to push a button on a flat screen on the wall. In a moment, a high-definition image appeared.

Yelena gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Her character departed her for the moment. She saw Marya through a mother's loving eyes.

On the screen, filling the lower half of it, was a four-poster bed, seen from above and to its left. Beyond the bed, against a far wall, a toilet, sink, and bathtub were visible. Off the screen, Yelena knew there was a cabinet full of ropes, chains, and other items of restraint.

On the bed, Marya lay, inert and unconscious, as she had been since falling asleep against Yelena in the helicopter, after consuming the drugged soft drink. She was as naked as she had been when Yelena had last seen her yesterday. Yelena, as before, felt more infuriated at the state of Marya's undress than her own. I have to stop feeling that way, Yelena told herself. My character doesn't feel that anger. Yelena worked to push the anger away, and to look at her daughter without the emotion.

At present, bright silvery bands of metal circled Marya's wrists and ankles. Yelena knew that each band consisted of semicircles fitted together to form a whole, with nearly invisible breaks between the semicircles, one break hiding the hinges, the other the internal locking mechanism of prongs fitting into thin slots. The bands seemed almost a fashion choice, like jewelry. Each had a half-ring rising from its surface on one side, for attachments. At the moment, each ring had a chain attached that ran to one of the bedposts, holding Marya in a taut spread-eagle on her back. She was nearer the foot of the bed than the head, and her legs were spread apart nearly as wide as the bed itself.

Marya's entire head, down to her neck, was enclosed in a form-fitting black leather hood. Yelena had seen the hood before it was put to use. It had a zipper down the back, and air holes below Marya's nostrils. It did not have any other openings. Attached to the inside of the hood, Yelena knew, a large leather gag filled Marya's mouth.

Even stretched out on her back, Marya's breasts were firm mounds rising from her chest. She had inherited from Yelena there, along with many, even most, of her other features. The screen's definition was sufficient that Yelena could even make out the darkened stubble of Marya's pubic hair, not recently shaved. She probably was in the habit of shaving it before dates, thought Yelena grimly, in case the date led to sex. Yelena had been unhappily sure that Marya had been sexually active. Now, thought Yelena, I'd give anything to her if we could just get free of this place, even permission to sleep with as many boyfriends as she wants.

On Marya's neck, just below the fastening of the hood, was the collar whose properties the doctor had just been discussing. A wide circlet of metal of just sufficient diameter to fit her neck, the collar had electrodes on its inner surface, surrounded by padding that kept the collar snug and the electrodes in contact with her skin. At its side, the collar had an attachment for a chain that led to the wall at the head of the bed. It was not an ordinary chain; running through the links were wires that ran from collar to wall and served as the system for keeping the storage batteries in the collar charged.

As Yelena watched, Marya began stirring. Her hooded head moved slightly, her right arm twitched. The general said in a low voice, "Oh, we're just in time!" Marya flexed her left leg, as if trying to raise it, and encountered the resistance of the chains.

This, Yelena thought to herself, is Marya's very first hint that something is wrong. She's been asleep since the helicopter ride. I've known where we are since that awful first interview with the general yesterday, since seeing Dimitri's fury on the video. But Marya knows nothing of that.

Obviously confused, Marya swung her head from side to side, and jerked suddenly each of her limbs in turn, then all four together.

In panic, Marya began writhing on the bed, her torso rolling back and forth to the small extent it could, pulling on every chain again and again. The chains were sufficiently taut that she could barely raise her knees or bend her elbows. Her piercing cries of "Mmmmmmmgf!!!! Mmmmmmmmmgf!!!!" tore at Yelena's heart.

Yelena knew what must be going through Marya's mind, and with a mother's empathy could experience Marya's terror as her own. At one moment bored and irritated, riding in a helicopter beside her mother. In the next instant, without transition or explanation, finding herself on her back, stretched out in a taut X, naked, unable to move, unable to see, unable to ask what was happening, not knowing who was present watching her and what they would do to her.

And almost certainly, her plaintive mmmmmm's were attempts to call for her mother.

Stop it, Yelena told herself again. Once again she forced her natural emotions down, and worked to put the small, anticipatory smile of her character on her face.

On the screen, Marya was jerking her hips repeatedly, pushing off with her buttocks to bounce her hips into the air, jerking hard against the chains at the height of each bounce. Her body was glistening with sweat from both effort and fear.

In a hoarse voice, Yelena said, "I will be in my room, general." She looked him in the eye. "And I will be ready."

Shakily, she stood, and left the infirmary. Two doors down was the room set aside for her own use.

In the room, Yelena sat heavily in the chair in front of the desk. She glanced briefly at her notes, then pushed them aside. I shouldn't need those now. It should all be inside me.

They had indeed turned on the monitor in Yelena's room. Yelena could avert her eyes from her daughter's struggles, but couldn't avoid hearing Marya's panicked cries.

Yelena sat with her elbows on the desk, her head in her hands. She closed her eyes. Working to summon the character she called Bad Mother. I'm not Yelena anymore, she told herself. Keep Yelena down in the cellar. I am Bad Mother.

She sat motionless, seeking within herself.

At the buzz, Rachel opened the door, trying to fix in her mind the strategies she wanted to try for oral sex.

And stopped dead, with a gasp.

The man entering the room, in pajamas, with a smile of anticipation, was the guard who had whipped the Amazon last night, the woman who had been bound in place, helpless to defend herself, gagged and unable to beg for mercy or ask how she could earn it, with no clothing to cushion the sting of leather slapping against her skin.

Fear shot through Rachel's body. She suddenly couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.

She had seen the man as an animal. A monster. A sadist with no feelings, no concern for the pain of another human being. Knowing only the joy of inflicting it. And now Rachel was expected to offer herself to him, as if she were in love with him. Taking joy in his company, in his body, sharing smiles and intimacies with him.

She was surprised to find there were no actual audible sounds in the room. The clamor in her head overwhelmed all, so that she felt sure it was spilling out of her and could be heard all through the building.

One voice within her was screaming, Move! Cover your hesitation! Pretend it didn't happen. Pretend that you accidentally tripped over your own feet. Laugh. Run to him, take his hand. Another voice shouted that she was in the presence of the most dangerous man she had ever met. Surely he had killed people without a thought. Run away! Don't let him see you!

The battle for her motor controls froze her in place. Frantic signals for her feet to move went unanswered.

The guard's smile went away. In its place, a frown. His lips weren't parted, but somehow it was a signal to Rachel equivalent to a wolf baring his teeth. Still not breathing, she took a step back.

His mouth a thin, compressed line now, he took a step towards her.

The voice within trying to get Rachel back on track for giving sexual service lost the battle. She turned and groped blindly for the doorknob, opened the door and shot through it. It wasn't locked from the inside.

Above the roaring in her head, she barely heard Alina shouting, "What are you doing? Go back! Take off robe and go to him!" She pulled off Rachel's robe herself, then reached for the door, just missing it as it sighed shut. She twisted at the doorknob, and found that the lock had re-engaged.

Rachel doubled over, her hands covering her ears. "Stop, just stop! Everything stop!"

Alina lifted one of the slats of the blind and peered through. She uttered a one-syllable Russian exclamation in a tone that made its meaning clear in any language. "He is gone! Out of room. Rachel, I don' know how you fix dis!"

Still hunched over, Rachel moaned, "It's... I saw him... whipping another girl. He's mean, he's an animal..."

Alina stood in front of Rachel, put her hands over Rachel's covering her ears, and lifted Rachel's head to look her in the eyes. "Rachel, dey all use whip! You saw him. It could be anot'er. Dey all do dat. In here dey don' have whip. Dey are just men who want sex."

Rachel, tears streaming from her eyes, said, "I couldn't, I just couldn't. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"You got to tell him sorry. I don' know if dat is enough."

The door opened, and the guard entered, fully dressed in his uniform now.

Alina spoke to him in rapid-fire Russian, gesturing at Rachel. He snapped back at her, also pointing to Rachel.

Alina turned her head slightly in Rachel's direction, her eyes flicking to Rachel and then back to the guard. "I tell him dis all very new to you. You want to learn, to do good job. Is very hard, you don' do dis before. He say he take you back to cells now."

Rachel's arms folded in against her body, her hands clenched. It wouldn't just be a repeat of last night's horror. This time, Rachel knew she would be a major player in the guards' games -- with one of them furious at her. "No!! Please, tell him I'm sorry! I'll do him right now! I'll give him the best sex ever! Please, please, tell him I'll do it!"

Alina looked at her wide-eyed. "Rachel, he is not in mood!"

Last night Rachel hadn't known how tall the man was. She saw now that he stood more than half a head taller than Rachel, rare enough in itself, and with enough mass, all of it muscle, to make nearly two Rachels. She was terrified of being alone with him.

The guard had already turned to the shelf on which Rachel's restraints sat. Rachel shook her head violently. "No! Nyet! Nyet! Please! Alina, what's the word for 'please'?"

Alina took both Rachel's hands in hers, then reached up with one to stroke Rachel's hair. "Shhh. You must calm down. He will put cuffs on you now. If you be very quiet, do not resist, maybe he get less mad. You understand?"

Her lip quivering, Rachel nodded at last. She wanted so much to fight, to prevent the guard putting her back in that same bondage as before, but she had seen last night the result of any such resistance. She imagined, once more, the pain of the whipping the Amazon had taken for trying to defy the guards, a whipping administered by this same man standing before her. And it would be so stupid to incur that kind of punishment, when she knew they would be made to release her soon, perhaps not tonight, but certainly no later than tomorrow. It made far more sense to submit now, and wait for the freedom she knew would come soon.

She held up her hands in front of her, and stood with feigned patience as the guard first removed the green alarm bracelet, then put the heavy iron bands around her wrists and locked them in place. Inside, she struggled to hold herself in position, wanting instead to turn and run to... nowhere. Anywhere safe, away from all of these monsters. She couldn't believe she was helping them take away her freedom of movement again. But she lifted each foot in turn for him as he restored the ankle bands, working to calm herself with steady reminders that she should be out of here, safe and on the way home, by tomorrow. But tonight... She knew tonight would be a time she would want to forget. But she knew she'd always remember. She sighed heavily, seeking internal strength as the guard fastened her chains and locked them in place. Last of all came the hated collar, and with it the feeling of being no longer human, merely a dog in a kennel.

A single tear ran down her cheek as he clipped the leash to her collar, unlocked the door to the bedroom with a key from a ring full of them in his pocket, led her through the bedroom and into the closet-like outer room.

Her mind dwelling on images of what tonight would be like, assuming she was not rescued by the diplomats she knew must be lighting up telephones on both sides of the world on her behalf, she forgot until too late to watch as the guard punched in the keycode to open the outermost door into the hallway. Well, it doesn't matter, she thought. I'm not going to be coming back here. I won't see Alina again... or any other friendly faces here. The last realization brought another tear to her eye.

The thought suddenly struck her that she could free Alina! When Rachel got home, if she were to make public the information that Alina... Rachel struggled to remember Alina's last name. It doesn't matter, she told herself. How many famous European models named Alina could there be who had "died of a drug overdose" two years ago? People would know who Rachel meant, and that a woman they had thought dead was in prison for no valid reason. Rachel could help get her out!

As Rachel shuffled her bare feet, in the short steps the hobble chain allowed, along the corridor and turned into another behind the guard, her chains clinking, the guard half-turned his head and said, "You lucky girl, we pick you for dat. Now you not lucky."

Rachel gasped. "You speak English!"

The guard smirked. "Little bit. I can say you bitch, in your words and in my words."

Rachel desperately tried to remember whether she had said anything to Alina in front of the guard that would make her situation still worse. Playing the last few minutes back in her mind, she decided she had not. She would have addressed the pleading she had done to Alina more directly to him if she'd known, but it didn't really matter. On the other hand, the question of whether he was still angry with her was clearly answered.

The guard at last turned towards a double swinging door, closed at present, and pushed through the right-hand one. The long, wide room behind the door was cool and humid. Based on the wet, slightly scented soapy smell, Rachel decided it was a shower room. Along one wall stood a set of short-handled mops behind an equal number of buckets. There was a line of what appeared to be shower heads hanging from a pipe that ran just below the ceiling, along the center of the room, above a shallow trough about a yard wide and a few inches deep, which ended in a drain at its far end.

Just in front of the opposite wall, across from the one with the mops and buckets, there were several raised, flat-topped platforms, cubes of about eighteen inches in dimension, made of what appeared to be rough stone, all in a line and close together. Rachel counted eight of them. The guard led Rachel to the nearest of these, and said tersely, "Sit." Rachel quickly seated onto the uncomfortable platform.

The guard knocked brusquely on a nearby door, waited impatiently, and knocked again. At last the door was opened by an elderly, kind-looking man with a patient smile. The guard spoke to him in Russian briefly, and the man nodded, disappeared momentarily, and reappeared to emerge from the room with a small device in his hand. Rachel, suddenly breathing hard, wondered if it was some torture implement. It was good that the man looked friendly. Rachel wondered if it was the same man who took care of supplying Alina's room.

The guard said to Rachel, "You stay. I come back," and went out through the swinging doors.

Rachel watched him leave in surprise, and wondered whether she could overpower the older man and get away. Chained as she was, it seemed unlikely, but as old and small as he was, it didn't seem impossible. But she had no idea how long the guard would be gone, and knew she would be in still more trouble if she resisted. She decided to wait and see what was happening, and reserved the right to fight the old man off if he did anything painful.

The old man, with a beatific smile, raised the device he was holding, and flipped a switch. A loud buzzing ensued.

Somehow, within the context of the row of rough seats lined up like those in a salon, together with knowing what sort of grooming the authorities here used on the girls, Rachel figured it out before he made a move towards her: he was holding a battery-operated hair trimmer.

No, Rachel thought, oh no, please no. She began breathing hard and shaking her head, her eyes pleading with the old man. To Rachel it was not only an assault on her self-image as a woman; it would also signify her deeper descent into the world of the girls imprisoned here.

The man spoke softly to her in Russian, in a slightly amused, grandfatherly voice, and cupped the top of her head gently with his hand. It wasn't a tight grip, but, together with Rachel's current strategy of not fighting and getting herself in deeper trouble, it was enough to stop her.

With her lip quivering and eyes streaming tears, Rachel sat still as the old man moved his hand down, scooped up and handful of hair on the right side of her head, and brought the trimmer up underneath it.

As the trimmer began cutting away long handfuls of her hair, the old man continued speaking reassuringly, and without being able to understand him, it nevertheless calmed Rachel somewhat. It wasn't painful, aside from the trimmer grabbing at bits of her hair on frequent occasions. Rachel winced and moaned as she began seeing more and more thick swatches of long blonde hair piling up in drifts on the floor around her. My hair will grow back, she told herself, repeating it over and over. And this will prove they mistreated me. Admittedly it was a benign form of mistreatment as these things go, but Rachel retained dim hopes she could get through her prison experience without being raped or whipped, and this would serve as a painless replacement.

As the old man worked, the big guard returned, holding something Rachel couldn't make out through the veil of tears.

After probably less than five minutes, the guard stepped back and switched off the trimmer. In the silence afterward, Rachel could clearly hear a single drip of water from one of the shower heads, striking the puddle on the floor of the trough underneath with an almost musical tone. The old man reached out and stroked Rachel's head with an air of satisfaction. It felt so, so strange to Rachel to feel his hand directly on her scalp. She was sure she wasn't bald -- she hadn't seen any women like that, and the trimmer didn't look capable of such a close shave -- but it felt as though she was. Rachel was momentarily nauseated, and concentrated on holding onto the contents of her stomach.

She looked up at the guard, and saw that what he was holding was something familiar and appalling to Rachel: that penis shaped gag of the sort she had worn for a time yesterday.

She shook her head quickly. "No, please! I'll be quiet. You don't need that."

The guard smirked. "Da, yes. I know you be quiet." He held it in front of her and Rachel, still following Alina's advice of non-resistance, opened wide to let him put it in.

Rachel nearly choked, but gradually readapted to its presence again, without growing at all fond of the feeling. She hated the gag, loathed it. It held her tongue down, and her saliva flowed out around her lips and streamed down her chin. The guard finished buckling it in place, then tugged on Rachel's leash. She rose, moaning very softly, and followed him out through the swinging doors.

She felt a disorientation that she traced to the lack of the familiar feeling of her hair brushing the back of her neck. She wore her hair up on occasion, but she had no sense now of the weight of it, or the tension of it pulling at the roots, that usually went with wearing it that way. She could also feel a slight itching on her shoulders, from the short bits of cut hairs that had fallen there, and wished she could brush them off.

After a few turns, they came into familiar territory. Rachel had known they were headed back to the cells, but still her heart sank as she saw the doors, which she now knew to be drawbridges, lining the walls of the corridor on both sides.

By Rachel's count of the doors, the guard stopped in front of the same one as before, and she waited as the drawbridge lowered, then followed the guard across it, her spirits falling farther with every step.

As yesterday, there seemed to be no other girls in any of the cages, or anywhere else in the room. No dogs, no other guards. Based on what Alina had told her, she understood that the girls must at present be participating with their "work teams," at whatever hard labor they had been assigned. At some point, like yesterday, their work day would be over, and they would all return to the cell block again.

The guard stopped in front of the same cell, fifth on the right, that Rachel had occupied the night before. She sighed miserably, and started to go down on her knees to wait for the guard to open the door, but stopped when the guard suddenly said, "Nyet... no!"

To her surprise, the guard took out a key and opened the padlocks holding her wrist cuffs to the chain that connected them to her hobble chain, and said, "Put stomach on top of cell."

She spent just a moment puzzling out exactly what he was looking for her to do, and realized he wanted her to bend over and rest her upper body on the roof of the cell.

She began trembling again, feeling sure he was going to rape her now. But she knew fighting would be pointless and only make things worse.

Her nausea returning, she did as commanded. The guard, still holding the padlocks, now used them to secure the wrist cuffs on her outstretched arms, spread in a wide V, to iron rings at the back of the cell's roof -- actually above the cells on either side of Rachel's, not her own. She had no doubt the rings were there exactly for this purpose.

She let out another in a seemingly endless string of moans when he bent down and unlocked her ankle cuffs from the hobble chain, then took her right ankle and pulled it as far to the right as it would stretch, securing it to one of the bars in the door of the adjacent cell with the padlock that had held it to the hobble chain. As Rachel expected, he took her left ankle and stretched it similarly far to the left, securing it to a bar in the door of the adjacent cell on that side. Rachel could only just touch the floor with her toes, and couldn't put any weight on her widely spread legs, resting all of it on her stomach. She closed her eyes tight, knowing the rape must be coming now.

Astonishingly, she heard the guard walk away, down the row between the cells. She opened her eyes in time to see him walk across the drawbridge, reaching towards the wall just before exiting through the door. The lights went out in the room, and Rachel realized he had flipped a light switch -- she hadn't known there was one, since the lights had been left burning all through last night. As the drawbridge began its clinking ascent towards closure, Rachel mmmmm'd in desperation -- her fear of rape was suddenly replaced with fear of being alone in the darkness, bound by her metal cuffs in such a painfully stretched position. The guard ignored her, and as the drawbridge closed the light from the corridor became a thin glowing slit, before vanishing altogether. Rachel was left in utter blackness.

She struggled to try to get any one of her limbs free, finding immediately that it was hopeless. She knew she would have to wait here, blind, deaf to any sounds from the outside world, unable to beg for help or for mercy. A feeling of isolation, of being totally alone in a hostile, threatening world, grew until it threatened to overwhelm her entire being, driving out all other perceptions.

And she knew, now, that unless her rescue came very soon, she would be here to face the return of all of the guards who worked in this room, at the end of the workday, that she would be a major feature of the entertainment for them tonight.

Please, she thought, please, please, hurry up with those international phone calls. Get me out of here!