Gerov shook his head. "No, that is not the plan at all."

Rachel's anger was returning, now that the fear of death had been washed away for the time being. She asked sullenly, "Well, what is the plan, then?"

"Do you know what a mannequin is?" He had checked to make sure the word in English was very nearly the same as in Russian.

Rachel frowned in puzzlement at the turn in the conversation. "Of course."

"You will be a mannequin for me. I will keep you in my office. I may also display you at parties. I have those often."

Rachel's jaw dropped. She stared at him a full fifteen seconds, and at last said, "What?"

He responded, with some degree of patience, "I have been to America, I have seen these in..." He paused, looked at the ceiling. "What do they call them? Ah, yes, department stores. So I know you have seen them. You will be a mannequin for me. You know, they bend the arms and legs, they are in poses..."

Rachel frowned, trying to understand, needing to understand, while her stomach did flip-flops. "You mean you'd tie me to some sort of frame..." Her voice shook.

Gerov shook his head, smiling in delight. "No, not like that. You would be completely free to move, if you could. But you cannot make your body work. Your own body holds you in place, like you are frozen. You will feel, you will see, you will know where you are. You only cannot move yourself."

Rachel was breathing hard in and out through her nose. Oh God, oh God, oh God, she thought. I've been in hell, but this is outside heaven and hell. This is just looniness. "You can't just... do that to somebody!"

Gerov shrugged, still smiling. "If you mean it is physically impossible, the doctor has assured me it can be done." The doctor? wondered Rachel. Oh, the professor. "If you mean I should not do it, I assure you I will."

She glared at him furiously. "And then what? You'll rape me? The ultimate unresisting victim?"

He shook his head vigorously. "Oh, not at all, not at all. That is not how I want my women for bed. In bed they should move. I can get plenty of that." He leaned forward, his smile now nasty. "I want to look at you and think: this is the American spy. She tried to destroy me. Now she is just a very pretty addition to my decorations, a nice work of art." He looked over Rachel's body again, as he had earlier. "I am talking to you now because, as I said, I want to remember that I met you as you are right now. Soon you will be very different."

Rachel stared at him, speechless. Okay, she thought, I get it. This is the ultimate power trip. To make a once-dangerous enemy completely, totally helpless, at your mercy.

Suddenly she went through an unexpected shift of perspective. There was another angle here.

I have been in hell, she thought. Hell is here, and there is absolutely no escape from it. In this prison, I will definitely be raped regularly, humiliated constantly, subjected to immediate pain for misbehavior, and even, sometimes, required to hurt, no, hurt is too weak a word, to torture my friends.

If I do what this guy is saying -- and maybe I don't have a choice anyway -- then I'll be outside the prison... and according to him, free of chains, free of handcuffs. Free to move at will, if somehow this thing he's telling me about doesn't work as well as he seems to think it will.

I think -- I can't believe I'm thinking this -- I need to do this. If I am ever to have a chance of getting free, it is by going this route. "Do I... Are you asking me if I'm willing to do this?"

Gerov laughed and shook his head. "That is not how it is with our prisoners. This is what you will do."

Rachel shuddered. Okay, so I don't have a choice, she thought. But I think I'm right: This will be better than what I have. It will leave me with some hope. Right now I have absolutely none.

She saw what was in it for him, the whole power/domination thing. But she still needed, especially knowing now it was inevitably her future, to know exactly what would happen to her. "So... You'll just have me standing there, like I'm a statue?"

He shook his head. "No, mannequin is a better word. I will pose you. Or, that is, my assistants will. You will be..." His grin expanded. "...a very erotic mannequin. The poses... you would probably not choose to do them in front of people looking at you. They would most likely embarrass you."

Rachel felt her face flush. There, she thought, you've already embarrassed me. But really, she thought as she reflected further, that doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the fact that it all gives me a tiny, tiny possibility of escaping. I want that. I must have that.

Then she remembered, and froze. Oh no!! she thought. Anya! I'd never see her again!

Rachel considered the emptiness of living without Anya. I can't think about leaving her! she moaned inside. If it comes down to living here in hell and sharing it with Anya, and being outside with hope but without Anya...

She wanted Anya.

But that was over. This man, this monster Rachel hated with all her heart, the man responsible for everything that had happened to her, for killing Mandy, now he was going to take Rachel away from the only thing in life she loved.

Rachel bit her lip, hard. I can't cry, she told herself. They love it when you cry. I can't give them that satisfaction.

Anya, ya tebya lyublyu! The words kept echoing in her head.

Through the haze of loss, she realized the president was speaking to her again. "Spread your legs apart for me. As wide as they will go."

Rachel's jaw dropped. Internally, her instinctive reaction was: Fuck you!

Gerov smiled once more. "You see, you don't want to do it. But when you are a mannequin, we will open your legs, and they will stay that way. You cannot close them." His eyes bored into her. "Show me what that will look like. Now."

Rachel was breathing hard again, her heart pounding. Whatever freedom she might have in the near future, she was still in the prison now. Of all the men here who had given her any commands and required that she obey them, this man outranked them all. The trouble she would be in if she refused now was something she couldn't bear considering.

Blinking hard, trying harder than before to hold back tears, she shakily opened her legs. They would only go so far with the hobble chain still connecting her ankles, but she spread them as far as she could.

"Stop hiding it with your hands. Move them away."

She knew what "it" was. She lifted her hands, the slipchain jingling up through the ring. She rested them on her stomach. Anticipating another command, you shifted the slipchain aside with her fingers. She knew her face was as red as a beet. She visualized the man throwing water at her face to put out the fire.

He leaned forward, staring at "it." Then he resumed his smile and sat back. "You see? You will be posed in embarrassing positions. That is what I want for you."

Yes, she thought. That is why he's doing this to me now. He wants me to know exactly how I'll be feeling about it when I'm frozen in that position.

The horror caused by that thought was dwarfed by her agony at being taken away from Anya.

Rachel remained as she was, her sex in full view. He hadn't told her she could stop.

He sat back, looking somehow wistful now, of all things. "You heard me talking to the general earlier. I was upset about one thing. There were two of you, you American girls. I had hoped to have both. It would be much better with two than one. So many more possibilities."

Yeah, well, thanks for letting me out of that, at least, Rachel thought. She remembered how strange it had been, having to do such intimate things with Mandy while trying to save her from the torture. That intimacy was probably very mild compared to what this man would have had them doing.

Gerov sighed. "I am told she was shorter than you. Well, of course, who isn't? I think the..." He frowned. "What is the English..." His mental dictionary came through again. "Contrast, that is it. Contrast in body types. That would be very nice. Two very different girls. So many more possibilities than with the same girl twice."

An electric shock ran through Rachel. An excitement she had thought she would never feel again flashed through her whole body. I cannot believe this, she thought. Are you really just dropping it in my lap like this??

A newfound instinct, developed over the weeks spent in this prison, made Rachel keep her face immobile. For the moment, she devoted all her concentration to maintaining an emotionless expression.

Rachel had found, growing up, that she had power over males to a rare degree. She had discovered that she only need hint at what she needed, or wanted, and the nearest boy or man would rush to try to get it for her.

She hadn't tried to abuse her power, or at least didn't believe she had. But it was very useful on occasion. She had been stopped by police twice in her life for minor traffic violations, but a sunny smile had warded off any punishment beyond a warning. And she understood why.

She had brought her belief in that power to Irkhetnia with her, and brought it along to the prison, where events had gradually proven to her that the power didn't exist here.

The men at this prison had no interest in pleasing her. They had nothing to gain from doing so. And their greatest satisfaction came from making her, and all other inmates, as miserable as possible.

Any hint she betrayed of what she desired would not send men scurrying to make it happen. Just the opposite. Any man here who discovered what would make her happy would go to extraordinary lengths to ensure she didn't get it.

You have to stay cool, Rachel! she ordered herself. You can't show him how much you want this! You have to look like this means nothing to you.

She worked to recapture the flat, sullen voice that had been coming out of her naturally just a few minutes earlier. She snorted, and muttered, "You ought to see this girl on my team, if you're looking for contrast."

Gerov gave her a semi-interested look. "There is a big difference? Different kind of body?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yeah, wow. She's like... up to here on me." Rachel leaned forward to give her slipchain more slack, and held her hand, palm down, in front of her nipples. "And probably..." What would it be in metric, Rachel? Twenty-five kilos lighter? She concentrated, while still trying to look bored, her mind whirling. Twenty-five, double that, and add one tenth as much. Fifty-five? Is Anya fifty-five pounds lighter than me? I think that's right. "...weighs about twenty-five kilos less than me." She rolled her eyes again. "They make me fight her sometimes. That is so fucked up. She doesn't have a chance."

Gerov leaned forward sharply, his eyes wide open now. Rachel struggled still harder to remain expressionless. Inside, she thought: He's hooked!! Fish flopping on deck of boat! He really does like that idea of his "mannequins" having different body types, and have I got a different body type for him!

Gerov fixed her with an intense look that would be frightening in any context. "Who is she? What is her name?"

Rachel shrank back, trying to look scared, which required very little effort. "I -- I hardly know any of the other girls' names. None of them speak any English. I don't know, I think I heard one of the other girls call her 'Anya.' Something like that. If that's a name and doesn't just mean 'Hey you.'"

Gerov's mouth twisted, his eyes looking at the floor, as he apparently gave the subject deep thought. He shouted suddenly, startling Rachel. "Karozki!"

Seconds later the general opened the door and leaned in. What he said, judged Rachel, must have been "Mr. President?" At least the second word was pretty obvious.

Oh shit, Rachel thought, shit, shit, double shit, triple. I didn't think this far ahead. Of course the general will know exactly what I'm trying for here. He's going to tell Gerov, and they'll share a little laugh at what I tried to do, and that will be the end of that. Rachel's spirits sank lower than ever. So close. So lost. Everything lost. She felt a tear starting to form in her eye. Stop that, Rachel! she commanded herself.

Gerov spoke to the general. Rachel made out the name "Anya."

The general looked hesitant, and Rachel held her breath. He hasn't said anything so far, she told herself. Still hasn't said anything.

The general, at the end of the pause, suddenly nodded his head, his face no longer displaying any conflict. Rachel blinked. Did it work? She heard the general now talking to another man in the room behind him. She heard the full name, "Anya Simonina."

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"Karozki, there is a girl on Miss Preston's... what did she call it... her team, named Anya something. She doesn't know the last name. Very small girl. I may want to add her to the project. Bring that girl here."

The general looked at the president, stunned. What did the American bitch do? he wondered. Try to put one over on the president? I can put a stop to...

A second thought slowed him: as he himself had pointed out to the doctor recently, if the Preston girl was going to be gone anyway, there was no need for Simonina. If the president has decided he wants Simonina for whatever reason, he thought, I don't really have a reason to object.

And then a third thought blossomed: that not only was keeping Simonina in the prison unnecessary, there might actually be a positive advantage in letting the president have her. If the president feels she's an adequate replacement for the Forrest girl, the general thought, I may be off the hook.

The general backed away and beckoned to Captain Shevchenko. He pulled out of his desk a single-sheet map of the prisoner cell blocks, attached it to clipboard, checked a master map on the wall to make sure, and marked the proper cell. "Bring this girl here for me, please. Anya Simonina."

Shevchenko saluted and left. The general smiled. Yes, he thought, this may work out very nicely.

Rachel kept her bubbling excitement below the surface, not least because she wasn't ready to believe the ploy had worked. I still haven't seen Anya yet, she reminded herself. When I do, then maybe I'll believe it.

The president intruded on her hopeful reverie. "Pull the lips apart. I want you to show me inside."

Rachel started to lift her feet to let her get her hands up to her face, and then froze, feeling her face flush again, when she realized he didn't mean those lips.

The president smiled again.

Rachel squeezed her eyes tightly shut, whimpering softly. I know what he's doing, she thought. He already told me. This is itself part of the punishment, his personal punishment for being a spy, for threatening him. He's making me picture what it will feel like when he starts posing me in these blatantly sexual positions, as if I'm offering myself to him, fully conscious but unable to move, powerless to stop him making me display myself as shamefully as his imagination allows. And he's doing a damn good job of it.

Feeling sure the two huge bodyguards would make use of those muscles in a way very painful to her if she didn't do what the president wanted, she reached down and pulled her labia to either side with her fingers. Her face burned still hotter.

Humming softly to himself, the doctor opened the door of Torture Room C.

It had taken him longer than he expected to locate exactly the camera he wanted, and then he had to find a tripod, and the right kind of cable to make the connection to the computer network. But now it would just take him a few minutes to set it up, and everything could get back on track.

The girl, a quivering flesh-colored X in the middle of the room, had gasped and twisted her head towards him as he entered, and now her eyes followed him, open wide and pleading. Her desperate "Aaaaa!! Aaaaaa!" distracted him a little, and he fleetingly thought perhaps he should give her an injection in the throat to paralyze her vocal cords, before he caught himself and told himself how stupid that idea was. She wouldn't be able to scream then.

He had the camera secured to the tripod now, and looked through its viewfinder to make sure the girl's entire body was in frame. It took a moment to get the cable into the slot, and he wondered briefly whether he'd picked out the wrong kind, but at last it slipped in, and he took the other end of the cable to a panel in the wall to plug it in there.

After taking a last look around to make sure, as long as he was here, that everything else was ready, he smiled, rubbed his hands together and walked to the door, the girl's increasingly frantic pleas following him.

Shevchenko returned to the office, unaccompanied and with a puzzled look. "She's not there, sir."

The general goggled at him. "What?"

"The Simonina girl. Her cell is empty. I checked to make sure I had the right one. Right next to Preston's cell, right? That's empty too, of course."

The general stared at him, disbelieving. And then, suddenly, he knew where the girl must be.

He snatched the phone out of its cradle, and punched in the three-digit extension. He let the phone at the other end ring five times, then slammed the handset down. The doctor always turns off his ringer when he doesn't want to be disturbed, he reminded himself.

The general ran out of the office and down the hallway, thinking Shit, shit, oh shit. I barely got the president off my back for killing Forrest, and now he wants Simonina in place of her. If I have to explain how we managed to kill her too, and I didn't even know it was happening...

At the best, at the very best, he knew his career would be over. Very likely his life, if he didn't stop this.

Where would she be?? Room C, most likely. It had already been set up as a snake pit, and probably hadn't been cleaned up after that.

The general skidded to a stop at the door of C, and then remembered he couldn't open it. He had a master key, but this lock opened with a numeric keypad that could be used manually or controlled from the doctor's laptop. The general knew he should remember the numeric sequence, but he didn't have time to keep up with that shit. She's in there! his brain clamored at him. She's in there now, and I can't get to her! DAMN it!

The breath wheezing in and out of him -- he hadn't exercised like this in years -- he forced himself into a dead run again, down corridors and around corners to the infirmary.

In his office, the doctor tapped a few keys on his laptop and brought the image from the high-res still camera to the monitor. He smiled to himself. Perfect, he thought. Time to tell the girl what he had in store for her, and send her into full panic mode. He hoped the stream of her urine didn't splash onto the lens of the camera below her crotch, but he believed it was far enough out of line. He reached to tap an instruction on his keyboard to turn on his microphone.

The general stumbled up to the infirmary door -- locked. Damn him! This I can handle, this is a lock I can open, he told himself. With shaking hands he pulled out his ring of keys, fumbled for the master, and concentrated on somehow guiding it into the keyhole. It took several tries.

The key went in and turned at last, and he batted the door open, ran through the outer room and around its beds, and burst through the door to the doctor's private office.

The doctor was sitting behind the big desk, at his laptop, his finger poised over the keyboard.

The general tried to shout, but couldn't get a word out, all his body's efforts focused only on catching up on breathing. He took two last stumbling steps towards the desk, reached for the laptop's communication cable and ripped it out of its slot.

The doctor stared at the general in shock, all sense of military protocol forgotten. "What the HELL are you doing??"

The general stood bent over, arms supporting him with his hands on the desk. He took several more deep breaths, and at last managed to wheeze out, "Is she still alive?" He looked at the monitors. They had gone blank with the loss of signal.

The doctor snapped at him, "Well, she wouldn't have been for much longer if you hadn't screwed it up. I was just about to start telling her about the snakes."

The general felt his equilibrium beginning to restore itself. Still breathing hard, he said, "We can't kill her."

"And why is that? You said I could have her if the president wants Preston."

"He..." The general backed away from the desk and sat heavily in a chair, wiping sweat from his temple with his sleeve. "He wants Simonina too. He wants both of them."

"But I need her for this!"

"Don't you think what the president wants takes precedence?"

The doctor glared at him, but finally heaved a sigh and sat back in his chair. "Okay, but you owe me."

The general hadn't experienced this from the doctor before, but didn't feel surprised by the attitude. The doctor had always sailed through his work with equanimity, but then he'd always gotten his way before, so this side of him had not been apparent. But it fit.

The general cleared his throat. "Okay, listen. You know we're still keeping a close eye on the president's daughter. If her previous snake pit training doesn't hold and she gets out of control, I believe I can talk the president into killing her. He's said he didn't want that, but I think he's already got a lot of satisfaction out of what you've done..." The general knew the quickest way to the doctor's heart was to let him have all the credit, "...and I think he can be persuaded to let her die, as long as the method of execution is sufficiently horrible. So if anything goes wrong, you can probably have her for the snakes. And we're getting new women through here all the time. You can keep testing them for sufficiently high levels of snake phobia. If you find one, you can have her even if the guards want her. How does that sound?"

The doctor smiled at last. "Well, okay."

The general closed his eyes in relief. Pleasing the president was essential, but a large part of that was also keeping the doctor happy. The president had great respect and many uses for the doctor's skill and his imagination.

The general felt ready to stand again. "Let's go get the girl."