I awake suddenly to a slap across my face. I open and close my eyes trying to get used to the light. The room is dark but I'm brightly lit. I can't see anyone but I can hear someone walking around me. I try to move but find I can't. Some metal straps are holding my arms, legs, and neck to the chair I'm sitting on. I'm naked. As I'm looking down taking this all in I'm slapped again.

"You're John Rawls," a woman's voice says from the darkness. "You were sent by the CIA. Why?"

I think back on my mission to try to come up with a plausible lie. We've been monitoring the slavery activities of Prince Winston for some time now. We were trying to figure out a way to shut him down when we saw Laura and Peter flown in. We pushed our plans ahead, maybe even getting ahead of ourselves. I was flying in the lead helicopter when we were coming in for our approach on the compound. We were expecting some resistance but nothing like what we saw. I called for a withdrawal but our pilot was shot and we were going down. I jumped out of the helicopter into a pool just before it crashed and everything went black. The next thing I knew I was here.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "We were touring the countryside when you attacked us."

Another slap from the darkness, this time harder. "You're a terrible liar John. We found the flight plan in the wreckage. Do you want to try the truth this time?"

"That is the truth," I said. "We were flying to the plains in the hopes of seeing some..." another slap and a small trickle of blood seeps from the corner of my mouth.

From the darkness Winnet emerges to be face to face with me. She reaches down and grabs my balls in her hand and squeezes them. "I said not to lie to me John."

In the darkness I hear a door open.