"Take off her gag," the doctor said. "I need to examine her arms and legs for signs of infection and circulatory or nerve damage." Isabel tried to flex her fingers again and was able to move only the small fingers of both hands. She slowly lifted her arms and was able to rub lightly the welts on her wrists and elbows but they were still too painful.

Omar went outside and rifled through Bruce's pockets and produced two small keys for Isabel's shiny steel head harness. Returning inside, he fiddled clumsily with the locks at the back of Isabel's head and pried the device off her head and face.

The harness, which left red marks across her cheeks, nose and chin, fell with a metallic clunk on the dirt floor and, moments later, the doctor had experly snipped away the tape and bandage from her face. Isabel spat out the sponge and worked her jawbones and facial muscles with her stiff hands and fingers for the first time in six hours.

Her heart was pounding as she looked at the two African professionals and the three soldiers who had wandered back into the shack, one carrying the valise of British 10- and 20-pound notes now splattered with Bruce's cranial fluid, blood and small skull fragments.

"So, Isabel," Omar began again, you are going to become a slave for us - a guinea pig, so to speak - in that you will have sexual intercourse with selected African male specimens in the hope, in the expectation, of producing genetically-modified offspring that will market well as future slaves."

Sheikh, the doctor, spoke up: "Many, but not all, African males fantasize about having sexual relations with Caucasian women who are bound in chains. Something of a historical role reversal, when you think about it; after all, thousands of African men, and women, were taken off the continent in chains to be sold as slaves centuries ago.

"Well here we are, re-living that experience, in a sense, although you are now to be the slave about to be bred with a selected group of African males who have volunteered for the experience."

"You're mad," Isabel cried. "This will never work, I'll never cooperate. I am talking about kidnapping, torture, rape and now, murder, and by God when I get the chance - and I will - I'll make sure you are charged, tried and convicted and that the full weight of the criminal laws of my country will be brought to bear on you." She stamped her left foot for emphasis but the chink of chain deflated her. The two African gentlemen looked at each other and Omar clapped in mock applause for Isabel's little speech.

"Thank you for your edifying remarks, Ms. Metcalfe," Omar said, "but I scarcely think you will have the opportunity to report us to Scotland Yard, Interpol or your local constabulary while you are in chains here in the desert. Look at this table. This pile of chain will soon adorn your body. You will be weighted down somewhat but you will still be able to move about, even have sexual intercourse in your chains.

"We are informed you already have some experience in this latter area. Our late courier, who has left to join his ancestors, advised us you apparently enjoy going about publicly - even to pubs - in ankle chains and that you have been in bondage for quite some time now, for recreational purposes."

"For two days." Isabel replied semi-truthfully. "And you'll be glad to know you can't get these off," she said, nodding at her feet. "In fact my husband (she lied) and I were at the University of Edinburgh the other day to see if they could be removed and they can't. So there."

"Well, that's just fine, Ms. Metcalfe. We'll just work around them," Omar said. "I've always wanted to put chains on a white woman who's already in chains; now, here's my chance.

"Now, please stand up and accept your shackles. It's pointless for you to attempt to fight or flee. You have nowhere to run; in fact, you would probably find running exceedingly difficult, bound as you are; as well, you're hundreds of miles from anywhere and you don't speak the language.

"In this context, then, please look at the chains about to be applied to you as symbols of your new station in life. The chains, of course, will slow you down somewhat, as I said, but they will not harm you physically - we will ensure that - and my medical colleague will monitor you for any detrimental psychological symptoms. The latter effects will remain to be seen; however, the fact you already have bondage experience suggests to us you should tolerate these shackles well."

Isabel looked at the heap of chains and sighed.

"Very well, put them on," she said finally, as she heard the familiar pop sound of an oxyacetylene torch being lit behind her. One of the soldiers knelt at her feet and attached a heavy, three-in.-diameter steel ring to the centre link of her ankle as a second man hunched down in goggles with the lit torch to weld it closed. Smells of burning welding rods and steel rose from her ankle chains and soon the ring was attached securely.

"This way, please," Omar said, leading Isabel to an anvil and forge at one end of the shack. Please kneel beside the anvil for your wrist shackles."

Two semi-circular bands, two-in. wide and 1/8th-in. thick , with a 12-in. silver chain, were closed around her wrists and another man, in blacksmith's apron, reached with tongs into a small hearth and withdrew a red-hot rivet which he placed into two perfectly-aligned holes in the flanges of her right cuff. Two careful blows with a small, heavy hammer flattened the hot rivet which was cooled quickly when he applied a soaking heavy rag. He repeated the process on her left cuff and she lifted her arms to test the weight of her new shackles. She saw that another, longer chain was attached to the centre link of her wrist chain and this was passed down to her ankle chain, through the centre-link ring and back up to her waist where it was locked with a small sturdy padlock just above her hips.

"You can take that loincloth off and pass it through your waist chain if you like," Omar said. "It will help keep the chain off your skin at your belly and in your back."

"Like hell I will," Isabel called back. Omar whipped it off her unceremoniously and cut off her little gold cord with a sharp knife he produced out of nowhere.

"Do it!" he ordered, handing Isabel her little garment. Isabel complied. "Now your collar," Omar said. "Please kneel down again and put you head across the anvil. Smith, do your duty."

Again, two semi-circular pieces of grey steel were placed around her neck and rivetted closed with next to Isabel's left ear three solid bangs of the hammer against red-hot rivet, steel and anvil.

It was all over in less than a minute and when Isabel rose the second time, with ringing ears, she knew herself to be solidly and inescapably chained. The only way these were coming off would be through a return visit to the blacksmith. Or with a cutting torch.

She tried to lift her hands to feel the collar round her neck but could only lift them to the level of her breasts when the chain connecting her wrist chains to her waist through her ankles snubbed her arms short.

She took a couple of steps away from the hearth and the clatter of chains from her wrists and ankles was heard by all.

"Now," Omar said, "let's get out of the desert to somewhere more comfortable. This way, please." The doctor and the economist walked outside, the soldiers threw Bruce's body into the rear of their jeep and climbed in the little army vehicle. Isabel, still inside and alone, walked out in a rattle of chains into the dry African heat.

A shiny-new, black limousine pulled up from behind the tin shack and Omar motioned Isabel to get into the back seat. She clambered in with difficulty, her chains catching a wrist or ankle at virtually every turn; Omar went around to the left side and the doctor got in the right and Isabel made herself reasonably comfortable for the first time that day on the cool leather upholstery of the air-conditioned, black limo.

Her trip into slavery was to begin in style.

As the sleek, expensive Cadillac moved away in a cloud of dust and the doctor reached into a black medical bag to look for antiseptic and antibiotics to tend the welts on her elbows, wrists, knees and ankles. "These should be better in 3 - 4 days," he said. "I'll look after them for you; in the meantime, try to relax and get over the shock and trauma that you have just gone through. Nothing will harm you just now; just the realisation you have a new life ahead of you. This small pill will help you relax."

Isabel nodded, opened her hand for the little white pill and swallowed it dry as she tried to find comfortable places for the little pile of chain that had collected in her lap.

Warm, pink clouds of sedation soon overcame her. She felt her head nodding - then blackness enveloped her and she saw and heard nothing except a muffle clink of chain as she passed out for the second time that day.