Christine opened her eyes but still could see nothing. She tried to move, but quickly realized that she was bound, face down, her head hooded, on a table of some sort, her limbs chained, spreadeagled, to its four corners. She could feel the cold metal against her skin and realized that she must be naked. Then she heard the man's voice. Slow, even, calm. "Welcome, my dear. I trust you rested well." She heard low tittering in the background, and realized that there were several others also in the room. Several other men.

How could this have happened? She tried to clear her head, to remember. She had, of course, been warned of the dangers of capture the first day that she had been transferred to training for Taiwanese counter-intelligence, a far more prestigious and exciting position than the training for the police department for which she had originally enlisted. One of the rewards of her high scores on the first two series of tests. That was just a month ago. Her superiors had promised that she would receive training near the end of her probation period on what to do in the case of capture and torture, but, although she had but one week left in her training, they had never followed through on that promise. So she now felt totally helpless and unprepared. She did not know what to expect. Or how should would react. Or whether she would survive. Rescue seemed impossible.

Her memory began to return. She and two other trainees, Chow and Sanja [see Christine and Sanja photos] had been instructed, as part of their final testing, to cross the 100 miles to mainland China by boat, land at a designated spot, move just 100 yards inland, find the marker that a previous group had left to prove their success, and then return. Nothing particularly dangerous, she had been told. And they had succeeded wonderfully, she remembered. They had found the marker within 20 minutes, and were heading back when ... what had happened? There had been another boat ... It gave the required signal, so they had allowed it pull along side of them, not that they had much choice since it was so much faster than theirs. And then ... she could remember nothing after that. Until now, finding herself ... She wondered if her two companions had also been captured. She assumed that they must have been.

"You have nothing to fear, Christine. As long as you answer just a few simple questions honestly." Her heart raced. He knew her name! What else did he know, she wondered. Perhaps it was as rumored, that Communist Chinese intelligence was far superior to their own. She was sure that she would soon find out.

Chapter 2

"Soon we will make you a proposition. But first we need to remind you that you are negotiating from a position of weakness." A large roar of laughter went up in the room. She was right. There were at least six or eight others there, taking in her predicament. And her body.

She heard a click as hands pushed her shoulders, and she realized that her wrists were tied to some kind of board on a track. The click had released the board so that it could slide, and her arms were being pushed back toward her so that her chest and stomach rose off the board, putting her into a position where only her legs to her knees and her arms to her elbows remained touching the table.

She knew what to expect in this position, and they did not keep her waiting long to confirm the accuracy of her expectations. She felt movement behind her, then a man's arm encircling her waist and his body pressing on top of hers. How original, she thought sarcastically. But her body had no time to prepare as the man forced himself into her while his hands squeezed her breasts much too hard. She let out an audible gasp from the combination, but nothing more.

Christine tried to send her mind far away, to imagine that the heathen thrusting into her was her beloved Kok-Weng. For a second she smiled as she remembered how she teased him about the sound of his name. But he was so much more delicate and exciting than the lunging ape enjoying her now that her charade quickly evaporated and she was back in this place, wherever it was, on this table, alone, helpless and naked. Literally in the enemies' hands.

Either he found her pleasing or hadn't had a woman in a very long time -- don't flatter yourself, Christine, it's obvious which it is -- but his increased movement and increasingly loud grunts assured her that he would be finished with her very quickly. For that she was grateful. Maybe now she would hear this proposition of theirs.

Chapter 3

But no. Not yet. She had been too optimistic.

Christine lost count at the fourth ... or was it the fifth. Always the same. Always very quick. Not so painful that she couldn't take it, although she was beginning to feel a fair amount of discomfort. Apparently they believed that this would humiliate her and break her will. They were wrong if that's what they thought. Didn't they know that whether a person felt humiliation was completely internal to the victim? A feeling that resulted from doing something foolish? But not from having things done to her that she could not control. At least that's how she felt about it. She hoped they continued on trying to humiliate her. It was a lot less terrifying to her than pain and disfigurement.

They had a proposition for her, one of them had said who must be their captain. Perhaps that was why they were trying to break her this way. Perhaps they needed her. Perhaps ... just perhaps ... there was some hope.

Christine again heard the click, and her arms were pulled along the track until her body was stretched as before on the table. This time the table provided her with support, with relief, and she was aware for the first time that she was breathing hard and sweating. They let her rest for several minutes.

Then her hood was suddenly pulled off, and, after a few seconds to adjust to the light, she could see the body of a man standing at the head of the table holding her. He grabbed her hair, and lifted her head up as far as her bonds allowed, forcing her to look at him. He was dressed in military fatigues, which did not surprise her.

"Now. Would you like to hear our proposition?" The same voice as before. Calm, even. The "Captain." Another man wheeled over to him ... she could feel it even before she could see it ... a small brazier of hot coals. The Captain released her hair, and her head dropped back onto the table. He picked up one of the two irons whose ends the coals had already heated to a glowing red. She stared at it. Without realizing it, a loud groan escaped her lips.

"Since things are now going to get very much more ... intense, if need be, I would think that you might want to answer that question 'yes.' What do you say?" He was twirling the iron in his hand as he spoke. He too was staring at it, as he knew she was.

Christine turned her head first to one side, then the other. She could see several uniformed figures on each side, standing about eight feet away. She could not see behind her, but she heard voices coming from that direction as well. Then she looked up again at the Captain, and quickly nodded her head up and down several times. She was ready to hear their proposition.

Chapter 4

"Good. Now we can talk." The Captain handed the iron to another. A few seconds passed while Christine waited to hear his proposition. But before it came, she felt pressure against the top of her buttocks, on the right side just a few inches in from her hip. And the pressure immediately turned to a searing pain.

She heard a loud scream before she realized that it was she who was screaming. She instinctively tried to pull her body up and away from the pain, to no avail. She knew that the man to whom the Captain had given the hot iron had branded her with it.

"Just so you know that you are ours, that we own you, no matter how our discussion ends. And just so you know the kinds of things that we can do to you should we decide ..." As his voice trailed off, she felt the same pressure as before from the metal, but this time against the tenderness between her legs. She screamed again in anticipation of the pain to come ... but it did not. All that came, to drown her screams, was the laughter from the others. He had used the other iron, the one that had not yet been heated. But the Captain had proved his point. She was theirs to do with what they wished, as horribly as they desired.

"I'll make it brief. You and your friends ... Sanja and Chow, I believe are their names ..." Christine startled. Was there nothing about them that he did not know? "You were all on a mission, some kind of training mission is all that we think it was. Nothing that would cause us any danger or harm. And we have now captured all three of you." This was good news and bad news, Christine thought. And couldn't help but grimace. The good news was that her friends were alive. The bad news was ... that her friends were alive ... and no doubt facing a similar type of interrogation as she was facing.

"We are making the same proposition to each of you. We want you to turn double agent. To work for us. We already have one agent in your midst. Which is how we know everything that is going on with your group. But your group is growing. We need a second agent."

The Captain continued: "Since you do not know who the second agent is, but the second agent will know who you are, we are confident that we will be able to keep you in line. But should you try to double cross us ... or would that be triple cross? ... well, be assured that we can bring you back to your present situation very quickly.

"So that is the proposition that we want you to think over. Oh, yes. There is one more part to it." How could his voice remain so calm and even, she wondered. She could only attribute it to years of experience leading to a total emotional detachment. For the Captain, this was just his job. He no longer seemed to get any excitement out of it. The same could not be said about the others in the room, who continued to chatter and jeer at her torment.

"We only need to place one more of our agents in your midst. So we will choose one from those of the three of you who agree. And the other two. Well, we will take all three of you and your smashed boat back to your shore. Two of you drowned. Fatally, I'm afraid. The third, our new agent, drowned to within an inch of her life. Whether your people conclude that you were the victim of an unfortunate accident or destruction by those brutal Chinese Communists matters not. No one will suspect that the survivor has turned."

"Now, as to your two friends, well, neither was very strong. They both broke quickly and agreed to our proposition. But since we prefer a female agent -- they have so many more ... tools at their disposal, we ruled out Chow and he is no longer part ... let's just say that he is no longer." Christine gasped loudly, and her body began to shudder. Chow. He had recently been her lover. A good lover. A gentle lover. She closed her eyes.

"So it will be Sanja. Unless you wish to consider the proposition. You have proven yourself much stronger than she, so, if you decide, well then ... Sanja will be no longer. Otherwise, well, need we say more?"

"I will give you three minutes to decide." The Captain nodded, and Christine once again felt pressure between her legs. Again, the metal was cold. Just a reminder of what could happen if she said no.

Christine found one small ray of light in all this news that the Captain had given her. If she said no, and she and Chow were the ones who were to be no longer, they would be drowned, he said, to make the scene look real. Which meant that, perhaps, their torture could not be as brutal as it might otherwise be. But then, it seemed to her that the Captain might know a lot of methods that she could not begin to imagine.

Chapter 5

Two men approached Christine, one from each side, and she could see that each was holding what she recognized as an alligator clip at the end of a long chain whose other end she could not see. She immediately looked up at the Captain, still standing at the head of the table. Her eyes were wide. "I told you you had three minutes, but none of us in the room is wearing a watch." He answered the question only her eyes had asked. "This is how we tell time."

Each of the men had reached under her and grabbed one of her breasts to move them toward the sides of her body, to make it easier for them to attach the clips to her nipples. Their task would have been easier if Christine's breasts had been larger, but the sharp pains that she soon felt signaled their success. She had played with these by herself before, and they had excited her. But when she had played, she had not set them so tight. And she had not used the kind with the needle that was pushed through the center of her nipples before the clamps were attached.

Christine then watched, her head twisting first to one side, then to the other, as the chains attached to the clamps were run through pulley-like devices that she had not before noticed were hanging down from ropes hooked through rings in the ceiling, and then down toward the floor. She realized that there must be some small weights at the other end of the chain, because she felt the chains lose all their slack and tighten, although not yet painfully.

Her attention was then drawn back to the Captain. "You see, after one minute, the pulleys turn about a quarter to a half an inch, which pulls the clamps that far away from your body." Christine winced, realizing what that meant to the sensitive parts of her body attached to those clamps.

"At the same time, the other ends of the chains are lowered by the same amount. That will allow the small weights at their other ends to drop and make contact with the metal plates resting just below them. And that ... well, can you guess?"

Christine's eyes continued to stare at the Captain. "Right! That will complete the circuit that will send electric current racing through one of the clamps to the other, which requires that it pass directly through your chest." Now Christine started to pull at the chains holding her wrists and ankles, understanding what was in store for her, but quickly found that this only aggravated the pull of the clamps even before the pulleys had turned, so she forced herself to quiet her movements.

"After 10 seconds, the contact is lowered enough to break the current, and you then have the rest of the minute to decide how you are going to answer our question. If you do not answer within that time, then the pulley again turns, and the whole process is repeated, but at an ever increasing current. Do you have any questions?"

Christine realized that her entire body was soaked in sweat now, that her heart was racing, and that she was terrified. But she said nothing, trying best ... her unsuccessful best, since she fooled no one in the room ... not to show her fear.

"After three minutes -- that's how long I said you had, right? -- if you don't answer the way we want, we gag and hood you so that you cannot change your mind, and continue the treatment for as long as we like, always with the same result. And then you will join Chow."

"So, you said you were ready, I believe. Let's begin. But I see I've already taken a minute of your time. How unfair." The Captain frowned, then nodded and the pulley immediately turned. Christine felt the clamps on her nipples dig deeper as they were pulled further out from under her body. And then the current started as the circuit was completed, surging through her body, which began instantly to convulse from head to foot. "Only two minutes left now."

Christine was sure then that she would break.

Chapter 6

"Clear your mind. Clear your mind. Think this through." Christine's mind was running at warp speed. She knew she had just a few seconds to think before the next jolt would come. "I can stop this pain. I can save my life. I can continue to live. And to love. And then I can betray this filth the first time that I get a chance. My government may hail me as a hero when I do. Or it may throw me out of the intelligence service. Or it may kill me. But it can't be worse than this. To die here in agony and be used as bait to set up a double agent. This is not what I've lived for."

She raised her head to tell the Captain her decision. But the pain and her situation had destroyed her sense of time. As she looked up, she heard the next click. "Nooo!!" she screamed as she immediately felt the clamps pull outward, and, in her present position, even the pull of a quarter or half an inch on each side brought excruciating pain. Particularly since she knew what would immediately follow. And sure enough, the weights again hit the contact points and the current surged through her, this time at the increased level that the Captain had promised, tensing and raising her body, which only pulled more on the clamps.

Her first screams had not died when her second, louder screams took their place. "AAhhhh!!!" Even above her screams, she could hear the table rattling under her shaking body. "Ten seconds," she thought. "He said ten seconds. Hasn't it been ten seconds? It must be ten ...." It ended. The tension in her body eased and she fell back to the table.

"Bastards," she now thought. "They want me to betray my country. They want me to sign Sanja's death warrant. And how do I know what they will do with me after I do their bidding? To them I will always be a Taiwanese traitor. Double agents are trusted by no one. No. That is not a way to live. I am going to die nobly. The pain may be incredible but it will only last a few minutes until it consumes me and I feel nothing more. And in a few seconds I will have no choice but to bear it until the end."

Christine raised her head. Those who were there later disagreed on exactly what she said, but all agreed that, intermingled with the spew of vulgarities, were at least two screams of "No, I won't. I won't do it."

"I understand your choice," the Captain responded. And she thought that she heard just a touch of emotion in his voice.

Chapter 7

"Christine, there will be no second chances." Two men joined the Captain at the table by her head, one holding a gag, the other a hood. The Captain grabbed her hair and forced her face toward his, to make sure she saw and understood. "Except this one." The Captain nodded just before Christine heard the small sound she had come to dread more than any other, the click that represented the end of another minute. But this time no added pain followed. As the Captain dropped Christine's head back on the table, she turned to look. A man on each side was holding the chain so that it did not pull farther as the click had demanded. And did not lower onto the contact points. Her relief, however, was short-lived.

"This second chance lasts only for 20 seconds. Yes or no?" Christine lifted her head on her own and shook it slowly. The first man forced the gag roughly into her mouth and tied it at the back of her neck. "Yes or no?" the Captain repeated. "Just nod yes. But after the hood goes on, we will not be able to see you nod. So it is now .. or it is done." Christine moved only her eyes to look up at him.

The Captain sighed and walked away. A second small display of emotion from him, Christine thought. He must admire her strength even in his disappointment at her resistance. The second man quickly placed the hood over Christine's face. The two holding the chains released the slack and she felt them violently tug her. As the weights again hit the contact points, Christine's screams were not as loud as before, but only because her throat was now hoarse and raw, the sounds emanating from deep inside her raspy and guttural.

Would it again be 10 seconds and then a minute's rest? Or would it be constant now until the end? How long would her mind even comprehend what was happening? Christine wasn't sure what she hoped for. But maybe that was because she had little hope.

The current stopped after 10 seconds. At least Christine thought that it must have been only 10 seconds. Her body crashed down onto the table, which surprised her -- she hadn't realized that she had been lifted up off it by the increased current.

Only a minute to recover, she thought. They will ask her again. They will take off her hood. She wasn't sure now what she would do. She waited. But she heard nothing except the pounding of her heart. A pounding that filled the room. And she knew that the minute had passed, and they had not asked her again. She knew because she heard the click.

Chapter 8

Christine's body had become trained to react at the sound of click. Immediately she screamed. The pain was all so consuming now that she could not really feel when the weight hit the contact point, when her body lifted from the table as far as her bonds allowed, or when the 10 seconds ended. She just knew that it would be over soon. And that she had made the right decision. She had taken it. She had shown them.

But she realized quickly that something was different this time. This time the hood was removed ... and the gag ... and she realized that her wrists and ankles had been released. She was being taken gently off the table and brought to a chair, one of the men having wrapped her body into a soft white robe. And as she sat in the chair she realized that there were now more people in the room. The same eight or ten from before, but now many more. And she recognized all of the new faces. There was Chow! And they all were applauding and cheering her, those who had tortured her so mercilessly, and those who not been there at the time.

Chow moved to embrace her. "You passed! You passed the test! This was the training test that you were told you must pass before you could be accepted." Her eyes darted to the others in the room, all smiling. Her heart was still racing, her body stiff with pain. She moved the robe away to look behind her. The brand near her hip was real. Chow noticed. "Me too," he said, and lowered the waist of his pants just enough to show Christine a brand in a similar place on his body.

Christine stared at him, still confused. Chow continued, still excited. "I passed, too. It was our own agents who rammed our boat on the way back. And tortured us. And we passed! It was our test!"

"Where's Sanja?" Christine asked. She realized that these were the first words that she had spoken at a normal level in many hours. And her throat ached as she said them. There would be many reminders of her ordeal over the next many weeks ... and forever thereafter.

Chow's eyes darted down to the floor. And the others in the room, all focused on Christine, quickly quieted. "She failed?" Christine asked after a few seconds of awkward silence. Chow nodded slowly, still staring down. "So she is out?" Christine hesitated, seeing that the subject seemed distasteful to everyone around.

"Christine." There was no mistaking the strong voice of their training leader, Shing. "Congratulations. You and Chow have proven your bravery today, your loyalty to our cause, and your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the greater good of our country."

He paused briefly before continuing. "Those who break in the final test cannot become our agents. There is too much danger that, upon capture, they will betray our secrets and our comrades. They are sent back to our regular police training unit. The one from which you were selected for this more dangerous work. We trust your life and the lives of all of our agents only to those who have displayed the same kind of courage that you displayed today."

"I understand." This seemed standard and prudent procedure to Christine.

"But," Shing continued, "those who fail even the first test ... They are so weak, and know enough about our personnel and operations just from the training sessions, that it is dangerous even to transfer them back to the police unit."

Shing took Christine's hand and helped her slowly rise from the chair. He brought her over to the window at the far side of the room. The others followed.

Christine looked down at the courtyard below, surrounded by the complex's buildings. It was empty. But soon she saw movement at the far side ...

Chapter 9

Christine stared at the scene. The movement soon revealed several distinct figures. She recognized none of them ... wait, no, she did recognize one. Sanja was walking in the middle of a group of about six men, two in front of her, two in back, one on each side. She was dressed in a blue prison jumpsuit. Her wrists appeared to be bound behind her and she was blindfolded. It was the blindfold that had made it difficult at first for Christine to recognize her.

The men marched Sanja to the middle of the courtyard, to a thin wooden pole about four feet high. The two men on the sides raised her wrists high, forcing her to bend over, and pulled them over the pole and down its other side, until the ropes holding them caught on a hook protruding from the other side of the pole, securing her to it in a standing position. She was breathing hard, but held herself erect. She said nothing.

"I thought you said she failed. Are you giving her another chance? Look how brave she is." Christine looked at Shing, but she already knew the answer to her question.

"Christine. You have shown your great courage today. Do not reduce yourself now by letting emotion interfere. Sanja believes that she is in the hands of the enemy. She believes that she is going to die a hero's death. Or she may believe that this is just part of the intimidation being used against her. Either way, she will die at peace. She will never know the truth. One as weak as she is not someone that we can keep."

Christine saw five of the six others move away from Sanja. The sixth remained close to her. He was saying something that the others in the room could not hear, and she was answering him. Last words perhaps, Christine thought. The words ended and the man, as gently as possible, grabbed the top of the prison shirt and pulled it apart down to the waist, exposing Sanja's breasts. So much fuller and shapelier than her own, she thought. She heard several of the men in the room suck in their breath. They obviously agreed.

Christine turned away and walked to the far corner of the room, where she saw that her clothes had been neatly piled. She began to dress as the others continued to stare at the macabre scene in the courtyard below.

Chapter 10

Christine put on the fresh clothes that awaited her neatly in the corner of the room. She did not see as five of the men took positions about 10 yards from Sanja, and raised their rifles. She did not see as the sixth man moved far to the side, raised his hand, and then lowered it sharply. She had just finishing dressing when she heard the loud shots, sounding as one, but she did not move to the window, where the others all stood, eyes transfixed, as Sanja's body tried to leap up and away from the pole, but, having failed, slid slowly down and back, until her feet rested behind the pole, one on each side, her knees near its base, her body hanging from her immobile wrists still held in place by the hook. The position was not one natural to any person still living.

Christine was out the door before the others began to move away from the window. She moved slowly, still feeling the great pain from her ordeal. The air outside was a refreshing relief from the staleness inside. She would walk the two miles to her apartment, shower and then sleep for as long as she needed. She noticed that, for the first time in a month, she was not being followed by one of the other Taiwanese agents. She had passed their test. She was now one of them. She was now free of suspicion. She would now be one of those asked to follow others.

Her watch said 7 p.m. It was just getting dark. The newspaper in the front window of the stationary shop told her that she had sailed to the mainland with Sanja and Chow just two days ago.

She remembered that she did have to make one stop before going to her apartment. She turned her direction, and walked several blocks, past stores and apartments. She turned down a small alley two buildings past an outdoor cafe. She did not see a man who had been sitting at a cafe table rise and follow her. But, after she had turned down the alley, she could sense his presence.

When she reached the last doorway at the end of the alley, she turned into it, out of sight of anything that might pass. He was right behind her. He reached his hand around her neck, pulled her toward him ... and kissed her hard on the mouth, his tongue immediately searching for hers. She responded, and it was he who finally had to break off the embrace.

"We've been waiting for your report." Kok-Weng's voice was gentle.

"I really couldn't get away much sooner," she smiled.

He returned her smile. Then she thought for a few seconds before giving him the answer that he wanted. "These Taiwanese are fools. They kill their own who are weak, but do not recognize the real enemy in their midst. I am now a rising star in their counter- intelligence unit. And it is an appropriately named unit. Because their minds run counter to intelligence." He laughed.

"What about .. the pain?" he asked softly.

"It was much as you prepared me. I trained my mind to believe that the situation was as they portrayed it, so I could react appropriately. But knowing the truth, and knowing when it would end, helped greatly. Without that, it might have become unbearable." She paused. "I had only one fear." He raised his eyebrows. Christine had not become a top Chinese Communist agent by admitting fear.

"Near the end, I feared that maybe they really knew what was going on. That they were wise to me. That, while I was there, chained helpless, their Captain would suddenly grin and say, 'Christine, the game is up. We know who you really are, and now you must suffer your fate,' as he turned up the electricity." She formed the scene briefly in her mind and shuddered. "But no. I needn't have worried."

She leaned over and kissed him again, but this time she ended it more quickly. She needed to get back to her apartment. "I will report as agreed." She walked back down the alley toward the street. He did not follow.

When she reached the street, she turned back toward her apartment, still walking slowly, still feeling the pain and an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. She smiled at her success of the past few days. And knew that her work had just begun.