The Site

The Assistant Deputy Director sighed deeply, grasped his mouse, and clicked one more time on the Play button. The girl was young, not much older than his own daughter. At that age, their bodies are always beautiful. The camera zoomed in and he gazed again at the grain of the skin and the little blond hairs on her breasts, which seemed to swell slightly in the soft sunlight. Her nipples were lovely things, the lightest shade of pink, blending into the small round areolas. Later, he knew, the camera would focus on her face, on the sensuous lips, the soft blue of the eyes. Then they would begin the work this site was so exasperatingly good at: the hesitant touchings, the slow caressing, delicate explorations, some oh-so gentle licking and sucking and nipping, the thoroughgoing and unrelenting exploitation of every inch of this beautiful girl, tip to toe, until every part had been exposed and fondled and possessed to the hilt.

It was yet another site preying on innocent Americans abroad. There seemed to be more and more of them these days. They had had it under observation for two months now, ever since it had suddenly sprouted from a small, amateurish page of smut to a fully-fledged and sophisticated porn site, well-designed and sharply focussed. It had just four sections, each one with a little introduction, and a set of appealingly labelled videos and photos depicting nice young Americans made to do the bidding of a small group of foreign-looking men. The videos were of high quality, and the sound was excellent. The subjects, nearly all of them young, white and attractive, had apparently been captured in some jungle setting. They were clearly amateurs, unwilling participants, forced by the unknown men, all seemingly native Indian. It was impossible to tell in what country the events took place. It was tropical, that's about all you could know for certain, probably somewhere in South America.

The Assistant Deputy Director sighed again and looked through the window at the reflections in the windows of the offices on the other side of the courtyard. Why was it that this site, among all the other awful sites they monitored and tried to shut down, haunted him the most? Was it these girls who looked so much like his own daughter, what he supposed his daughter looked like under her trainer bras and clean white panties? Was it the reality of it all, the fact that the participants were clearly not actors playing a part, but real people. Was it the way the men were able to enjoy their wildest fantasies with impunity? It might be that, in part, but it probably had to do mostly, he thought, with the inventiveness and cleverness of the people behind the operation, the movie directors as it were, because these videos were just as carefully scripted and edited as real movies. The images they provided were disturbing, but they were also uncomfortably compelling. Instead of the usual stupid rapes and penetrations and ejaculations, dehumanizing and out of context, this site had you participating in the exploitation yourself, and you didn't seem to be able to get onto the right side. The Indians, unlike your stereotypes, seemed gentle and sollicitous, more like hesitant young Mormons than violent savages. There seemed to be a genuine attempt to get the victims' collaboration, to push them slowly into pleasure. You were involved despite yourself, and you kept finding yourself the caresser, willing the victim to just let go and enjoy. The Assistant Deputy Director had not always been in complete control of himself as he had watched the videos in the privacy of his office, his left hand resting impatiently on his mouse, the door locked carefully from the inside.

They had discovered the server and arrested the owners. However, it had quickly become obvious that those arrested had no idea where the videos came from. They simply left money in an envelope in a predetermined place for each set. Within a week of the arrests, another site was up, in another country, featuring the same content, with exactly the same pages and layout. Those responsible, whoever they were, apparently provided design, text, and maintainance for the whole site, not just the photography.

Apart from the Seduction section, to which the Assistant Deputy Director found himself returning, there was a section called Couples, which contained, predictably, stills and videos of young couples. They would be apprehended, their captors dramatically waving guns, and taken to a clearing where they were made to remove their clothes. Refusals were dealt with by threats to castrate the man, which were invariably effective, though some couples hardly protested at all, already intimidated no doubt and not wanting to anger the dark-skinned bandits who looked so fierce. It was usually at this point that the relationship between the two participants would become clear. Real couples, although uneasy with the demands made of them, ended up accepting fairly readily to make love in front of the camera, probably through fear of their captors and because the threat of castration was so extreme. After the initial couplings, which the captors required them to prolong and repeat, one of the two would then be hogtied and subjected to various forms of sexual stimulation and agression, while the other watched helplessly. The videos usually ended with the captors raping the woman one after another in front of her enraged boyfriend, whose reactions were documented in artfully edited crosscuttings.

However, in most of the videos in this section of the site, the two or three people detained did not include a real couple. They were friends or acquaintances, not spouses or lovers. Their protests when told to remove their clothes were invariably more vocal than those of the real couples, though the end result was of course the same, the threats terribly effective. Knowing that the reticence was real, and that this was the first time these people had seen each other naked, or touched each other sexually, or made love, was horribly stimulating. Occasionally, when nothing could persuade them to actually have sex, the man would be tied up on the ground, and the woman trussed up and lowered from a branch onto his erection, guided by smiling bandits who gleefully felt her up. The man always had an erection - though of course if he hadn't, the scene would have been cut, the Assistant Deputy Director reasoned. Again, the woman would be raped by the captors afterwards.

Another part of the site was called Incest. Here were videos of forced incest, most commonly between a father and his young daughter. The protests of both parties were heartrending, though the editors had sensibly faded out many of the hackneyed phrases, substituting carefully chosen flute music, with the aim of complementing, rather than clashing with the visuals of beautiful young bodies. The Assistant Deputy Director was often drawn to this part of the site despite himself, almost as much as to the Seduction section. In most of these cases, it was impossible to get the father to penetrate the girl voluntarily, so to speak, in any of the natural ways. It wasn't the erection itself which was the problem, of course, it was simply that the father didn't wish to use it in the usual fashion. As in the Couples section, there were two main techniques used to bring about the desired result . One involved suspending the girl by her wrists from an overhead branch, with her legs pulled up high and apart so her vagina was nicely open as she was lowered onto her father's erection, while he was restrained by his captors or tied spreadeagled on the ground. This had the advantage of showing off the girl's body rather well. The other technique was a variation on the castration threat. A captor would produce a key ring to which a severed scrotum or sometimes a hardened penis was attached, in the same way plastic or leather fobs with publicity messages were often used back home. The different sized penises and scrota, the latter complete with manipulable balls, and all apparently quite genuine, were waved in the faces of the young girls close to the camera, accompanied by slitting gestures with a knife and wide grins. Horrified by the implied threat, the girl would tell her father to go ahead, that she wouldn't blame him, and the "Come on Daddy, fuck me" that resulted seemed highly satisfying to the onlookers, whose English, although not good, obviously extended to certain key words and phrases.

Despite his attraction to this part of the site, the Assistant Deputy Director was aghast at the close-ups of the remarkable preserved genitals hanging from their key rings, key rings which were of course completely useless in the jungle, and he supposed might come from a commercial operation selling them off somewhere to American drug traffickers or screwed up tourists. God knows there were a lot of twisted Yankees who would find such a toy appealing. As a normal man, the Assistant Deputy Director felt physically sick at the idea of castration. The site showed no examples of the castrations actually being carried out, thank God! but he knew it was a technique commonly used in these parts to intimidate and punish those who opposed the rebels, or sometimes the government. He wondered if the girls' disgust at being raped by their father could be as great as a man's horror when faced with the possibility of castration, and found himself pitying the men considerably more than the girls. As in the Couples section, there was never any difficulty with erections in these cases. All the fathers were visibly aroused by their naked young daughter's nearness, whatever her apparent age, and many of them, knowing or believing them to be virgins, were generous with their preliminary caresses, to the delight of the captors, whose appreciative faces would be shown. However, the fathers' reactions, when the poor girl was then gang raped by four or five men who had just apparently promised to leave her alone if the father did his stuff, were a study in almost unbearable horror.

There were also a few mother-son videos in this part of the site and many family groups. The preferred configuration here was a couple with a son and a daughter. The daughter, made to submit to both her father and her brother, would then be gang raped as usual, as was the mother if young and attractive enough. Both father and son would always, despite their protests, be physically capable of rape. In one case, the Assistant Deputy Director remembered, the father was still in a state of high excitement after penetrating his daughter and then watching his son and the captors all do the same. Delighted by this sign of machismo, the captors obliged the daughter to perform fellatio on him a second time, and then they made him sodomise her, which he was again able to do successfully. The mother, clearly not unaware of his endurance, looked on in resigned, or perhaps disgusted, silence. Of course, some families had more than one daughter. In the case of one couple with three attractive young girls, the father was sufficiently aroused by the situation to be able to penetrate all of them, one after the other, beginning with a well-developed teenager whose response seemed to betray not a little experience with lovemaking, and ending with a pre-pubescent youngster with little bumps of breasts who submitted expressionless and without a word to his extensive caresses and thrustings. As often, this father was exceptionally sollicitous when preparing his children for penetration, hoping no doubt to lessen the pain, though the long-drawn out foreplay also served to maintain his own excitement, making possible the second and third acts, and maintain the Deputy Assistant Director's - and no doubt other clients' - own interest. The mothers appeared stunned by these events, and rarely protested, even when raped by their son.

The final section, Other, was a pot-pourri of groupings that were neither incests nor couples nor the seduction of specially selected females. There were a few male on male and female on female groupings, which the Assistant Deputy Director rarely went back to. One of the more unusual videos he had seen involved a middle-aged scout leader and his flock of seven or eight scouts, all dressed up smartly in shorts and woggles. The young boys apparently found undressing in public to be an exciting experience, and after a few blows on their rear with a light stick were made to perform fellatio on each other with a minimum of resistance. They then took it in turns, again with the encouragement of the stick, and less enthusiastically, to rape their older leader, suitably restrained, who might have hoped for better treatment from them. They themselves, or at least the most beautiful ones, were then made to perform fellatio on their captors.

For reasons which the Agency couldn't quite fathom, the participants in all the videos were made to give their names and place of residence, which were always in the United States. The Agency was therefore able to trace them down, confront them with the evidence and sollicit their cooperation in pursuing the attackers. In the case of families, only the parents were interviewed of course. However, the participants refused to help bring their captors to justice, citing their right to privacy and their very understandable desire to put all this behind them. Despite the threats, and the unspeakable acts they had had to commit, no one had been castrated or physically injured in the incidents. The least said, the better. It was put to them that a neighbour might come across the site and discover what had happened to them. This seemed to them relatively unlikely. Their neighbours were not the sort of people to frequent such sites, after all. The Agency also wondered about the possibility of pregnancy, but most participants refused to talk about this. Although it was never completely confirmed, it seemed likely that some of the girls or women might have had abortions. The Assistant Deputy Director, an Evangelical Christian, was aghast at this, but there was nothing to be done about it at this point. About the only useful thing that was learned from the interviews was that all the abductions and filming had taken place somewhere on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, during hiking trips organized by a local Japanese firm, Kinki Outfitters.

Based on this evidence, the agency mounted a sting operation in which a carefully prepared and well-armed young couple went to Ecuador and signed up with Kinki for a hiking trip. They spent a couple of days sightseeing in Quito, then took off for the province of Sucumbíos, on the border with Colombia, where the hikes took place. The trip went off without incident, and no other clues could be found to link Kinki with the videos, despite extensive illegal wiretapping and the cooperation of the local police. However, a week later, a new video did appear on the site, documenting an abduction carried out during the same period the agents were in Quito. This led the Assistant Deputy Director to suppose that the sting had not been successful because the other couple and their particularly appetising young daughter had already been targeted. It was obvious that not every hiking group was abducted: the rate seemed to be about one every two or three weeks. This provided sufficient material for several new postings to the website during the period, but wasn't frequent enough to frighten off new subjects who'd signed up for the Kinki trips.

The Assistant Deputy Director reported his findings to his superior, and suggested a second attempt with the same couple. The Deputy Director, however, felt that other things were involved. His analysis of the failure of the operation targeted the agents themselves, who he thought did not constitute a sufficiently attractive group for the bandits, or rebels, as the local people apparently called them. The woman was pretty, but she was in her late twenties, her breasts were of medium size, and her hair was brown. According to the Deputy Director, who was acquainted with the website and apparently familiar with the tastes of the native Indian population of Ecuador, it was large-breasted American blondes that attracted the bandits. Of course, they were also very fond of young girls, so ideally they should have sent in a group with a daughter and her supposed parents. However, after giving this option serious consideration, and a short consultation with the Director himself, sending in a very young girl was rejected as an unacceptable risk.

The Assistant Deputy Director therefore looked around for an attractive younger, fuller-breasted, blonde woman with slim legs, who would offer them better chances of succes. Discreet enquiries turned up a girl with the desired characteristics who had just been hired by another division. She was willing, apparently very bright, and still in training. She appeared flattered by this sudden attention from her superiors. In addition, she spoke fairly fluent Spanish, having spent a year abroad in Salamanca when doing her anthropology degree. The Assistant Deputy Director still believed that his Director's analysis of the failure of the previous mission was incorrect, but he had to admit that if anyone represented the sort of bait they should dangle in front of the bandits, this girl, whose smile alone had an immediate and spectacular effect on the male ego, was probably it.

He was a clever, persuasive man, which is why he was the Assistant Deputy Director. He interviewed the agent alone in his well-appointed office, wearing his Armani suit and a tie that was just flashy enough. He was able to impress her with the importance of the mission and the wonderful opportunity for promotion it represented, without dwelling too much on the risks. Charmed no doubt by this older and more experienced man, she accepted on the spot, signing the waiver which had been prepared and previously witnessed. Upon hearing the news and seeing the girl, more than one agent indicated his willingness to fly out to the dangerous territory with her. Indeed, the Assistant Deputy Director was very tempted to go himself. As a father, the girl's smile and almost childish enthusiasm had affected him deeply: she seemed to cry out for his help and protection. However, there were rules and protocols, and since he was now so close to his goal of becoming Deputy Director, he had to demonstrate responsible leadership, and not rush into dangerous situations himself, so he chose one of his best young agents, recently married but who claimed that he had no problems with the assignment. Of course, his wife would not be told the details. The couple trained for a short period, then took a week-long tour package, which included the Kinki jungle hiking experience, and flew off to Quito where they booked in at the hotel Amaranta, discovered each others' tastes in pajamas, ate American breakfasts, soaked in the sauna - an unusual feature of this hotel which prided itself on its modernity - and waited for the hike. They set off on the third day, first in the company of some other tourists, but soon alone, since they were much fitter and quicker, and in any case had wanted to go further. They were of course armed and dangerous like the first couple who had been sent, and in addition they carried tiny transmitter devices implanted under their scalp. Several groups of undercover military personnel followed the trail, to come to their assistance as soon as they were attacked. Despite all this, they disappeared without a trace. The military unit immediately following them, at a supposedly safe distance, was mysteriously attacked by a large swarm of killer bees, which caused so much havoc that the group was rendered completely hors de combat, and two men, skinnier than the others, died as a result of the great number of stings.

As soon as it was determined that the couple had been taken, a large-scale search was undertaken, but to no avail. Items of clothing were found strewn along the path, but nothing else. Much faith had been placed in the transmitters, which were invisible and virtually undetectable, but after an unbelievably complicated pursuit, they were both discovered attached to a small monkey, whose erratic movements through the forest had kept three dozen men busy for several days. The local police and military were sympathetic, but it was obvious they considered the whole operation a stupid gringo scheme which had never had the slightest chance of success. They could not understand how the Americans expected to find and detain these rebels when the local police and army had given up on the whole idea of even patrolling in that part of the country. And as they said repeatedly to their frustrated colleagues, anyone who was stupid enough to go hiking in that admittedly beautiful region deserved whatever they got. The Agency was not amused.

A week after the disappearance, the website announced it was opening a new section, with an additional subscription fee, though at a remarkable discount for the first week, containing a series of special videos which told the fascinating story of some very special young people. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, and an extra firm grip on his trusty mouse, the Assistant Deputy Director clicked to subscribe and discovered that, as he had suspected, the special videos, which were to be released at the rate of one every two days, documented the capture and susequent travails of an attractive American couple he knew only too well. It was obvious that the bandits had known who the agents were and had been expecting them. They had even known about the transmitters and the military escort. Ensconced in his office, the Assistant Deputy Director watched the first video in a silent rage, studying the surroundings though he knew there was no chance of identifying the place, plotting revenge on the shifty Japanese and the cruel Indians, and staring with horrified fascination at the body of the beautiful young woman he had sent into all this.

The first video detailed the capture. The couple were filmed as they were surrounded by eight or nine men with guns - far more than normal - and overpowered quickly and ignominiously, their hands lifted into the air, without a shot being fired. They were disarmed, their hands handcuffed behind their backs, the woman's blouse left in disarray, then led away as usual. They put up really no resistance at this point and seemed strangely resigned to their fate. Close-ups of the female agent showed her to be really very pretty, even without the smile, which had disappeared. Right from the start, you could see that these videos were different from the others. It seemed for example that at least two or three cameras were being used. The films were also more carefully choreographed and edited, and they played heavily on suspense, though you kind of knew what was coming. Considering the high quality, the number of videos that were promised, and the attractiveness of the girl, the extra fee was probably justified, and the Assistant Deputy Director fumed at the knowledge that those responsible would be earning large sums of money from his fellow Americans at his agency's expense.

The first video, after the capture itself, showed the couple being marched along by the rebels. At a series of convenient stops or stations, during this march, their captors stripped them happily and systematically of their clothes, which were thrown away with abandon to litter the forest and be found by the search party. This exotic jungle strip-tease was admittedly well-planned and effectively choreographed. The female agent's beautiful breasts were quickly revealed, bobbing attractively as she walked, and it was clear as soon as they were both completely naked that her attractiveness was not lost on the hopeful male who had volunteered to accompany her and was now following closely behind her very pretty ass. His erection bobbed for a while in unison with the woman's breasts, and the editors made effective use of cross-cutting with the close-ups.

The Assistant Deputy Director watched this first video several times in an attempt to find clues, but in vain. When he got home that evening, he was in a fine rage. His wife was used to his moods, she knew the stress his sort of work involved, and she was supportive, even to the extent of submitting patiently to violent sexual onslaughts every time, or so it seemed, that something went badly for him in the Agency. She allowed him to use her as he wanted that night too, knowing that reticence - refusal was out of the question - would simply excite him more and prolong and worsen the humiliation. His daughter was less understanding. As usual, he had come home, stomped around, drunk whiskey and wine, eaten and stormed off to the bedroom without even acknowledging her presence. He was impossible. Useless. He just wasn't interested in her or her life. He might be a big important man, but as a father, he was a complete failure.

The second video was, if anything, of better quality than the first. The bandits, or rebels, were clearly in high spirits, because the woman spy was young and beautiful, because they'd outwitted the Americans, because they were being filmed. And it seemed they really enjoyed the woman, the word rape appearing somehow inappropriate for what was, at first at least, far from brutal treatment. As they had done previously with some of the young girls, they had decided to create a slow, sensual experience for themselves and the viewers, the whole thing very carefully planned, perhaps based on feedback culled from the enthusiastic emails received from their American clients. Four of them tied her up, spreadeagling her on a large blanket of the traditional kind in a clearing on the jungle floor. They tied her colleague to a tree a couple of feet away, tapping happily on his erection and smiling and nodding at him. Then they sat around on their haunches in a wide circle for the spectacle. Apparently the order of their enjoyment had been agreed on previously. A tall man moved forward and began touching her, to appreciative and jealous murmurs and whistles from the crowd. He was a handsome Latin-looking hunk who belied the reputation for disappointing performance his type enjoyed. He knew his stuff. He began by slowly caressing her body, her legs, avoiding the sensitive breasts and lips, running his elegant dark fingers over her beautiful white skin. He kissed her sensuously, caressed her breasts longingly, opened her sex delicately for the video cameraman, tickled, licked and sucked it until she actually came in a great groan. He looked up, smiling at the camera, satisfied he had done a good job. Then he undressed, and his large hairless member was filmed in close up as it approached the agent's face. When she was reluctant to lick or otherwise play with it, the man drew back, took a bunch of long thin twigs from one of the spectators and slashed them once, but hard, across her breasts, leaving little trails of blood. The woman screamed. He handed the twigs calmly back to a colleague and stood there admiring her for a while, a flicker of a smile on his bronzed, handsome face. Then he knelt down over her again and presented her mouth with his heavy balls. She licked them carefully and long while the others whistled and waited their turn.

The video, half an hour long and very professionally edited, again appeared to have been shot using at least two cameras. There was no camera jitter, and the zooms and pans were smooth, showing that the video team was not only well-trained but well-equipped.

A series of subsequent videos showed essentially the same thing, but with different captors, sometimes more than one at a time. The captors were much more numerous than in previous cases, perhaps because they had been afraid the couple would be more dangerous than normal tourists, or simply because the woman was so attractive. The irony of all this was not lost on the Assistant Deputy Director. After these initial videos, all devoted to rapes of the female agent, a pleasantly varied set followed, at a rate of one every two days, as promised, in which the agents were involved with other captives and sometimes with each other.

Exhausted and slimmer, but otherwise unharmed, the couple reappeared almost two months later, after figuring prominently in thirty-three videos. They were discovered in the trunk of a battered Ford at the Quito airport, naked of course, and bound closely together with a totally inappropriate amount of duct tape. Once their identities had been established, they were taken to a private clinic and checked for injuries, physical and psychological, then flown quickly back to the States, in Business Class and conservative new clothes. From the airport, they were taken directly to a debriefing facility, their friends and family still unaware of their safe return.

The Assistant Deputy Director felt it necessary to do the debriefing himself, though he knew it would probably not produce much useful information, and he feared that the female agent in particular might well harbour a certain level of resentment against him.

The male agent, as expected, was unable to provide much more information than they already had. He didn't know how far they had travelled after the capture, except that it was a three day walk. He didn't know in what direction, because in the jungle he couldn't see where the sun was. He didn't know where the rebels' camp was situated, all the country there appearing to him to be the same. It was definitely in the jungle, not in any large cleared area, which of course made it impossible to find from the air. It could have been in Ecuador or in Colombia. Apart from fairly regular outings for the filmed episodes, of whose number he had only a vague recollection, but which went on for the full two months and were all fairly close to camp, he had been kept inside a sort of hole with hardly any light, so he knew pretty much nothing about the rebels, their numbers, their equipment, their plans. Whatever little he had heard them say had been completely incomprehensible because despite having a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, considered an asset when he took on the assignment, he had no knowledge at all of Quechua, the language spoken by the rebels and most others in that region. He was able to describe the food and drink he had been given, almost exclusively beans, rice and acrid water, which might or might not indicate something about supplies or resources. He had also become moderately addicted to coca leaves.

The Assistant Deputy Director then required him to describe the sexual ordeals he and his partner had endured in as much detail as possible. Forcing him to relive these events was of course distasteful, but comparing his version of events to the actual videos, with which he was well acquainted, would allow the Assistant Deputy Director to check the agent's memory and reliability and infer from them the probable accuracy of the other information he provided, however little that was. As it turned out, thanks to the rice, beans and acrid water, which had apparently kept him in good physical shape, his memories were quite accurate, as well as, maybe thanks to the coca, remarkably vivid. Although the scenes tended to blend into each other, and their sequence and number was uncertain, he was able to recount in considerable detail the multiple rapes, gang bangs and sundry humiliations suffered by his partner and himself, as well as other captives who later joined them. The Assistant Deputy Director had seen all of these events on the website, including those involving a charming young girl and her mother, whom the agent had repeatedly raped and sodomised. However, essentially, and as expected, the debriefing revealed nothing new, except that the agent and his partner were always kept apart after the events, and that she had seemed strangely indifferent both to his personal ministrations, when they were coupled, and to his fate. More importantly, there was absolutely no clue as to how the rebels were so well-informed about the agency's activities.

The Assistant Deputy Director dismissed the agent with the usual reminders of the importance of secrecy, and sent him off to reunite with his delighted wife. In theory, she was quite unaware of the details of the work her husband did, of the website, of the exact nature of his mission this time, or of what had befallen him. Since the agency had expected the agents to be returned eventually, they had not even notified her of their disappearance. She just knew that the mission had been extended and was now happy her husband had returned safely to her. Whatever unexpected or unusual aspects their lovemaking now involved she put down to the urgency of his need for her and the fantasies that had perforce sustained him in her absence.

Contrary to expectations, the female agent showed no sign of anger or resentment against the Assistant Deputy Director when he debriefed her. She described her ordeal objectively. What she said corresponded well with what her colleague had already revealed, though she had been able to see more of the camp than he had, and so was able to add some important details, such as the presence of a considerable number of English-speaking rebels. The reason for her better knowledge was that apart from the horrendous sexual exploitation she had suffered, she had been treated far better than her colleague, living in a fairly comfortable hut, with clothes, fresh water, and more varied food than he had had. This was no doubt because she had been adopted, so to speak, by one of the leaders of the rebel group, a man called Atau. She had become his concubine, subject to his desires, when not needed for video performances, but also privy to some of his thoughts and ideas, since he spoke very good English as well as Spanish and Quechua. The Assistant Deputy Director grew excited as the extent of her conversations with Atau became apparent. Perhaps this was a way to understand how these people's minds worked, why they were doing this, how they knew so much about the Agency and its activities, and eventually figure out how to get to them.

Not surprisingly, Atau turned out to be a Marxist. His parents, devout Catholics, had made enough money from their shoemaking business in Popayán, to send him to Georgetown University, in Washington, where he had taken lessons to improve his English and enrolled in a program of Catholic Studies. After the first year, however, he had become enamoured of an attractive young girl studying Political Economy and after sitting in on lectures by her side and engaging in exciting discussions with her and her friends, he had changed his major and also become militant in the low-key and somewhat dejected local Marxist group. Then he had returned to Ecuador and soon joined the rebels, first in Colombia, then in the region on the border with Ecuador where he was now. The Assistant Deputy Director made a mental note to check some records and find out more about this man as soon as the debriefing was over.

The most interesting thing about Atau, for the Assistand Deputy Director, was that he was apparently strongly opposed to the pornographic entrepreneurship of his fellow rebels. Of course, the website made money, lots of money, which was used to buy arms and supplies. It was also fine, from his point of view, to take advantage of Americans. However, he had inherited from his Catholic upbringing and strengthened with his Marxist fervour a strong moral sense coupled with a distaste for smut and lust. He was horrified at the declining moral standards in the United States, as shown, he said, by the pedophilia of the Catholic hierarchy, the proliferation of polygamous fundamentalists like the Mormons, and websites like the one his group was helping to foster. But he also took you as his concubine, objected the Assistant Deputy Director, wasn't that a sign that his morals were rather less than strict? And if they didn't get money from porn, what about cocaine? Without exactly defending Atau, the agent pointed out that taking a wife or a concubine with whom you would live and share was a little different than producing pornographic websites or systematically forcing young girls to wed older men. When pressed, she admitted that Atau had been very gentle and kind, and that their living arrangements were to a large extent by mutual consent. He had in fact been of considerable comfort to her and she was grateful to him. She denied falling in love with the man, but admitted she held him in high regard. As for the income the rebels got from cocaine, Atau was strongly opposed to that too, although again the fact that the people who suffered were Americans apparently made it somewhat more palatable to him.

The Assistant Deputy Director thought that Atau must be a very smart talker, but also that his female agent was disappointingly naïve, though god knows he knew what stupid things love could make you do, and she was definitely in love with Atau, he judged. A case of the Stockholm syndrome if ever he'd seen one. In every other respect, though, her report was perfect: precise, sober, to the point, thoroughly professional. He would have to recommend her for the promotion he had promised, though with a proviso that she be watched carefully for signs of marxist sympathies or other deviations. When the debriefing was over, the agent made a suggestion which left the Assistant Deputy Director bemused. She believed that a meeting between Atau and him could move things forward in a way that might profit them both. It might be possible, she suggested, to make certain compromises which would lead to the website being abandoned, or at least to Americans ceasing to be its fodder. What those compromises were she didn't know, or preferred not to say, but it seemed that Atau had encouraged her to bring up the possibility of a meeting, which would of course have to be in Ecuador. The Assistant Deputy Director acknowledged the idea was interesting, and promised to give it some thought.

After the agent's departure, and later that night as he tried to get to sleep, after a frustrating bout of sex with his stupidly pliant wife, he turned the idea over in his head and tried to convince himself that it was crazy. It was true that the Agency often negotiated with rebels and criminals and made deals and compromises in its pursuit of justice and democracy for all. It had supported rebel groups in foreign countries before, too, though that sort of thing was more difficult these days. But he couldn't imagine what Atau wanted from him, or what he himself could offer. On the other hand, the idea of going to Quito with the female agent, who would be needed to make the necessary arrangements for him and Atau to meet, was immensely attractive to him. He had fantasized about her before, of course, when she had been chosen for the mission, and after her capture when he often imagined what must have been happening to her. But since seeing the videos of her, since listening to her describe to him the details of her sexual experiences, since noticing how much she seemed to look up to him, whereas he had worried she might reproach him with sending her on such a disastrous mission, a veritable infatuation had begun to form, and it seemed to him that his hesitations were really not reasonable after all, that a breakthrough with Atau was quite possible, that his advancement, already fairly certain, would be helped by such a coup, and that he should really get things moving right away, so as not to lose the momentum.

Over the next few days and weeks, the Assistant Deputy Director made enquiries about Atau's stay in the U.S., which all checked out, looked at his photo to see what was so special about his rival, had his agent's phones bugged and emails scanned for any unauthorized communications, and made tentative arrangements for a visit to Quito with her. He also reviewed the videos of her on the website on an almost hourly basis, and fantasized frantically about the two of them, getting both behind and careless in his work, to the point that his staff began to notice and wonder what had gotten into him. The day before the planned departure, after yet another difficult day at the office, he drove home thinking of his agent, opened his big steel automatic gate, parked in his integrated triple garage, walked into his beautiful home and was confronted in the corridor by a huge armed man who shouted "Police, you're under arrest, get down, get down". Knowing the happy-go-lucky nature of the local police, who would sometimes shoot before asking too many questions, especially officers with an accent like this one, he got down on the floor with his hands over his head and allowed himself to be frisked and handcuffed before attempting to explain calmly to the officer that this was a mistake, that he was an Assistant Deputy Director... The man put away his gun and laughed at him, then other men appeared and they took him into the sun room where his wife, plastic ties around her wrists, was sitting uncomfortably on the sofa. Several men were busying themselves with camera equipment and heavy tripods, and the Assistant Deputy Director knew at once that something had gone horribly wrong.

Once the cameras were installed, they were both stripped naked, and the men led the wife away, jostling each other happily as they felt her up. The Assistant Deputy Director had been protesting loudly and, he thought, articulately, but the men had taken no notice of him and had not even bothered to answer his questions and complaints. He wondered how much English they knew. Finally though, the big man addressed him and explained what they wanted. In a way, he had known this was coming. Nevertheless, as he listened to the instructions, he felt faint, and his head was reeling with conflicting emotions. When they brought in his daughter, desperately trying to hide her nakedness from him, at the same time as she stared in horror at his, the tie around his wrists was cut and they were pushed together in the middle of the room, between the two cameras, pleasantly lighted by the late afternoon sun, and surrounded by a profusion of Boston ferns and six or seven armed men.

Honey, he said hesitantly… Honey… He wasn't used to talking to his daughter, and he knew this really wasn't a good place or time to start. He felt he should put his arms around her, but they never hugged, and the closeness of her naked body had already had its effect on him. He had to talk to her first. She glanced down and then looked quickly away. Honey, these men are forcing us to do a horrible thing, but if we don't do it, they're going to … to castrate me. Her head jerked up and her eyes locked onto his. What do they want? They, er, they want us to have sex. You must be joking! With you? He was irritated that she didn't seem to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, her disgust with him and his body more important to her than the threat to castrate him. It was true he was a little overweight, his hairy skin was an unattractive washed-out white except for the big red v under his neck, and he had rolls of flesh around his waist and his ass that he was not proud of. But castration! His worst nightmare! And he knew they were deadly serious. My god, she had to understand. He began to sweat profusely, beads forming on his forehead, adding to his physical unattractiveness. Honey, we have no choice, we have to do it. He put out his hand tentatively. She pulled away in horror. Dad, you can't be serious. She was looking around at the men now, noticing their smiles. It was true they had stripped and pawed her, and that was terrible, but they didn't look like really bad people, they wouldn't hurt him, not really. No way! She flopped down on the sofa.

He looked around at the men, hoping for some help. The big guy took out a wicked looking knife and waved it around meaningfully. Dad, they wouldn't… I'm afraid they would. They've done it before. What? You mean you know them? I don't know them, but they belong to a group that does this sort of thing. I don't believe this. How can you do this to me? As if it was his fault! Her distress was heartrending. But at least she seemed to be getting the idea. Come on, honey, let's get this over with. Get it over with! You can't be serious, dad, you don't realize what you're saying. You can't have sex with your own daughter! It's against the law, it's disgusting, it's forbidden, think of the Bible, god! She paused, staring at him humiliatingly as if he was some sort of retarded freak. She shook her head. Come on, Dad, get real! It's not going to happen. She looked away, while he digested this. They were a religious family, that's what kept them together of course. He wondered what the Bible really said. He vaguely remembered some goings-on with maidservants, and Lot offering his daughter and his wife wasn't it? to visitors, though there was nothing about lying with your daughter as far as he could recall. And I'm a virgin! she shouted, as if she'd just remembered. Nobody's ever even seen me like this. She began to sob uncontrollably. Ah, so she was still a virgin. He'd had his doubts. Kids start so early these days, and she was very well developed for her age. Her breasts were just out of this world, he'd never imagined them so beautiful. He'd thought maybe she'd done something with that Arab guy she seemed to hang out with a lot. But now she sat there sobbing on the sofa, staring into space. He looked around, completely at a loss, waiting for the next move. After a while, the big guy said something to the others and they came forward and pulled her off the sofa onto the floor, spreadeagling her, pulling her legs wide apart, as they'd done to countless other girls in the videos. Come, said the big guy with a grin. The Assistant Deputy Director hesitated. He couldn't let them castrate him, it was inhuman, it was impossible. He'd have to rape her. She wouldn't cooperate, he'd have to rape her. He got down on his knees between her legs and began licking, slowly, as instructed.

When it was all over, she'd stopped sobbing and just stared blankly out into space. He had the awful thought that maybe she'd never speak again. The shock. They'd made him penetrate her deeply, lifting up her legs to facilitate the process, and made sure he'd come inside her. What a feeling! She'd screamed, but there was hardly any blood, and he felt he'd prepared her well. Then they'd forced her to suck him off. He'd come again, in her mouth, and she'd choked and screamed some more, her teeth nipping painfully at his shaft. Then, one after another, they'd all had her, even the cameramen, pawing at her breasts, kissing her neck, thrusting, while he'd watched, tied up again, his ankles too now, from the sofa. They'd all put on condoms, for some strange reason. He'd never seen that on any of the videos so far. It didn't seem in character somehow. Did they think he was infected? Or did they want her to have his baby, make sure it was his, the humiliation complete? Surely it wasn't likely that she'd conceive? They couldn't know when her period was… My god, where did they get their information?

When they'd done with her, they sat her down again, still silent, and brought back his wife. Thank god she hadn't seen him do it! Of course she'd find out. Her daughter would tell her. He could imagine their stares. But he was intact, they had to understand. But suddenly the men had seized him again, looped a thin cord around his balls and tugged it tight. He screamed. It hurt like hell. They gave the end of the cord to his daughter with instructions to pull. She pulled, halfheartedly at first, but soon, either sensing revenge or because of the cigarette hovering near a bruised nipple, she began pulling like a trooper, the men holding her dad back, his balls shining in the video lights, his scrotum stretched impossibly long.

Still naked, and screaming like a banshee now, his daughter was bracing herself against the sofa so she could pull harder, her knees falling wider and wider apart. As he began to pass out, hallucinating, the Assistant Deputy Director's eyes fixed themselves on the gaping sex before him, and in slow motion, relentlessly, the end of the story played itself out before him. The lips slid aside, the belly distended now; the vagina opened up, and two huge and horrific heads appeared, covered in a bloody slime. A knife flashed, the two bodies separated, and the heads turned towards him, morphing into the faces of his agent and her lover Atau. She was grinning at him, happy and carefree in the bright sunlight of a tropical paradise. And in the final image, before his eyes lost focus, and consciousness slipped away, he saw, twirling between the fingers of the beautiful young woman he had so shamefully manipulated, a pair of balls and a rigid little penis, dried up and unfeeling now, dangling forlornly from a useless key ring in a far-off land.