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I was free. I took hold of her arms again.
    “Where are we?” I demanded. “What have you been doing to me?”
    The young woman’s eyes bulged as I squeezed her forearms hard.
    “What’s my name?”
    She shook her head, her lips pursed. She was obviously trying to follow a procedure that she’d learned, but her wide eyes showed how scared she was.
    “Tell me,” I hissed, “or I’ll break your arms.”
    “Please,” she begged, “I can’t. They’ll…they’ll kill me.”
    I could tell she wasn’t going to talk. Without thinking about it, I swung my left arm. My fist connected with her lower jaw and she dropped like a stone. I got up and checked that she was breathing, then tied her to the bed and stamped on her cell phone. I knew the doctor might arrive any second, so I went to a cupboard against the wall. I found a gray uniform jacket and trousers, plus a pair of highly polished black army boots. The shoulders of the jacket bore red badges with the letters NANR in black. I pulled everything on as quickly as I could and headed for the door. On the way, I caught sight of the computer screen on the desk. I wondered if my details were visible and veered that way, but before I got there I heard footsteps outside. I ran to the door, the muscles in my legs tightening, and got there just before the doctor rushed in. I brought the edge of my hand down on the back of his neck and he joined the nurse on the floor. I considered going back to check the screen but decided it was more important to get moving.
    I went out, surprised by my apparently instinctive fighting skills. I found myself at the end of a long corridor. Before I got more than five yards, I heard voices behind a closed door and ducked into an alcove. That was the right move. Two men in gray uniforms like the one I was wearing came into the passage and walked past the spot I’d been a few seconds earlier. They were wearing berets adorned with the NANR badge, making me wonder what the letters might mean.
    I was about to go out into the corridor when I heard raised voices and a rush of feet moving towards the room where I’d been confined. Shit. Presumably someone was wondering why the doctor and nurse weren’t responding. I decided to make use of the staircase at the end of the alcove. It only went one way—down.
    At the bottom, a short corridor led to an open door. I inched towards it and edged my head round the frame. Two men, again in gray uniforms, were sitting at an electronic control board, their eyes fixed on the scene that was being played out in the studio beyond. The men were separated from the action by a clear glass window. I followed the direction of their gaze, and froze. A man and a woman, both naked, were being filmed. What really made my heart pound was that the man had been tied to a wooden post, facing outwards. I had a flash of having been in a similar position and heard the crash of rifles. I remembered—the bastards had pretended to execute me by firing squad.
    That wasn’t what was happening to this man. He was being savagely whipped, his face and chest already crisscrossed by bloody stripes. The woman turned towards the cameras, her lips set in a tight smile. She held the position and I realized she was waiting for something. Then one of the uniformed guys leaned forward to a microphone and said words which boomed out through speakers.
    “All right, that’s enough. Kill him.”
    I could hardly believe what I’d heard, but the order was no joke. The woman in the studio had picked up a long knife with a wickedly curved blade.
    It was time I made my entrance.

Five
     
    T he midafternoon sun was hardly strong enough to cut through the clouds over Iowa and a light drizzle was falling. Twenty miles east of Des Moines, Richard Bonhoff steered his ten-year-old Chevrolet pickup onto Interstate 80 and floored the gas pedal. He’d left the farm an hour earlier after a screaming argument with Melissa. Only now did it strike him that