What are you printing to? A printer that will print & fold is almost certainly a production level machine. You possibly have Variable Data abilities built into the RIP.
Fiery RIP?, Creo? Productivity Suite/Tools?
You have three total records (one field)? or three variable fields in the InDesign document?
For three total records perform the Data Merge in ID. Print pages 1-8, than 9-16, than 17-24.
For three fields with many records (total lines in the data file) you're going to provide more detail about where the fields are in the document.
You also need to post this in the InDesign forum