Page 45 of Need to Know

The Marine’s exchanged silent looks before Drake Jenkins scoffed,

“You been watchin’ too much TV my man! Their ain’t no separate FBI International office like in that show. The FBI does have representatives at all Embassies and Consulates worldwide, though.”

Tank then explained, “The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction here. This is our host country's territory, but there are FBI agents who work with local authorities on joint investigations, and with Europol and Interpol. But our people, when they’re not on embassy land, they got no power, they can’t even carry firearms!”

“Are you in trouble, sir?” Marine Hazel Lewis asked seriously. I noticed her gaze was on my wrist bruises…or was it the reddened stamp from SODA? I wondered if she knew what the stamp meant. I pulled my hand from the table top and rested it on my thigh.

“This is gonna sound…weird…but I need to talk to someone in authority about a matter of…international espionage.”

Tank was grinning at me, “Are you running lines from your new movie? Cos, I’m sure that line was in the trailer. If you ain’t fuckin’ with us this is a wild coincidence, my man.”

I honestly didn’t have a clue what clips were in the trailer. “I wish I was running lines, but I’m not. I need help and I didn’t know where else to go. I don’t speak German and I didn’t want to go to the German police.”

“Let me make a call,” Sinner said, before turning and leaving the break room.

“He’ll be back in a few. Don’t worry man, you’re safe here,” Tank reassured, a meaty hand on my shoulder.

Sinner was gone for ten minutes and in that time, I signed autographs for the Marines, had taken a selfie with the three of them, and made a video message for Tank’s wife Audrey.

“Mr. Linden, could you follow me, sir,” Marine Sinner said on his return. I thanked the other Marines for their kindness and then followed the hulking Sinner through a complex of corridors with closed door offices left and right. When he took a staircase down, I began to get an uncomfortable feeling in my gut. Where the hell was he taking me? At the bottom of the stairs we walked down a bare concrete corridor that led to a fire door. Sinner opened it into an underground parking garage. A black SUV waited there; the rear passenger door open.

“What is this?” I asked Sinner, my tone confused and a little scared.

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Linden, you’ll be taken to the correct office. They’ll give you the help you need. Good luck, man!” Sinner then turned and walked back the way we’d come. I pivoted to the vehicle and saw a suited driver wearing an ear piece and shades. I looked around the parking garage at the lines of vehicles, and then toward the exit. If I ran for it while still woozy and lethargic from the Rohypnol, would I even make it to the street level, let alone back to the hotel? It looked like I had no choice but to get in. On closing the door, the driver clicked the central locking so I couldn’t get out even if I wanted to. Now I was a terrified. The driver then spoke in a light, raspy voice.

“Do you have a phone, Mr. Linden?”

“Uh, yeah, but it’s turned off.”

“Give it to me, and your passport.” Numbly, I passed both items to the driver. He checked my phone was off and placed it into a pouch. He glanced at my passport and then added it to the pouch too.

“What’s that for?”

“It’s a Faraday bag to block signals.”

“Oh, okay,” I said weakly. I wasn’t dumb; I knew what the Faraday bag was for. I just didn’t understand why it was necessary! I sat back as the nameless driver moved the vehicle off through the underground garage towards the exit ramp.

On the street I stared out of the tinted window and felt a pang every time we passed a billboard advertising the movie. When I was anxious it had been a comforting ritual to twist my platinum wedding band around my finger. Without it I didn’t know what to do with my hands. There was still an impression on my finger of where the ring had sat for ten years, and my gut twisted, as on top of my anxiety about where I was being taken, thoughts of Erik’s betrayals flooded my mind. My therapist explained that giving in to negative thoughts did not benefit me. I needed to stop letting intrusive thoughts side swipe me. And so, I distracted myself with happier thoughts, like memories of Jack. Then I remembered that I’d left him alone in the penthouse and there were dangerous men after the Téng hú chips I’d put in the safe. I was spiralling. I shouldn’t have left Jack alone at the hotel. I lay my head back, closed my eyes, and focused on breathing exercises.

I must have dozed off for a few minutes, but when I opened my eyes, I forced myself to take notice of my surroundings. I looked for street signs, and one told me we were in a part of Berlin called Zehlendorf. The vehicle paused at traffic lights and to my left I saw a long, flat-roofed, two storey building that seemed to take up a lot of the block. A US flag flapped in the summer breeze. The sight of my national flag comforted me a little. I checked my watch and it had been twenty minutes since we’d left the embassy on Pariser Platz. When the lights changed, to my confusion we drove past the building I saw labelled as the US Embassy and Consulate. The driver took the next left onto a wide boulevard named Saargemünder Strasse. A few hundred meters down the road he made another left turn, and after pressing an ID pass onto a card reader, gates opened and he drove down a curved roadway that led into an underground parking facility beneath the embassy complex.

The driver parked up, then collected the Faraday pouch containing my phone and passport, got out, opened the passenger door for me and in an emotionless tone said, “Follow me please, Mr. Linden.”

I did as he ordered; trailing the driver down a rabbit warren of corridors, upstairs and through doors where his security pass allowed us entry. The driver paused outside a door and opened it. Inside the plain, windowless room there was a table and two chairs.

“Wait in here; someone will be with you soon.” I stepped in and the door was closed behind me. I waited by the door, listening for his fading footsteps. Then I gripped the door handle and slowly depressed it and pulled. The door didn’t budge. I was locked in. Shit!

****

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Nate

The interview room was mundane with cream walls, and homogeneous commercial blue-grey linoleum floor tiles. Time passed slowly and to stop my brain spinning off into a maze of unhelpful thoughts I religiously checked my Rolex, watching the small hand as it relentlessly took another inexorable rotation of the dial. It was just after midday. There was, of course, a security camera in the upper far corner of the room, a small red light blinking to tell me I was under constant observation. Even though I was an actor and was comfortable being on camera, this one made me twitchy. The person on the other side of that lens wasn’t on my side, filming my performance. They were categorizing me, judging me. Would they find me wanting? Who did they report to? Had I made a huge mistake in coming here? I should have called Roz back first? She would have found a solution to my problems.

I stood and paced the room for a while then tried some yoga stretches to calm myself. The door was finally unlocked while I was in a wide-legged forward bend pose, clutching my feet and focusing on my breath. I opened my eyes and looked up to see a pair of black leather ankle boots standing in front of me. I eased up and took in a statuesque redheaded woman in a charcoal trouser suit, her arms crossed, and an unimpressed glare in her green eyes. I was anxious, thirsty and confused, most certainly not in the mood to try the charm offensive, but I offered her my hand, “Nate Linden, and you are?” I said, putting on the fake smile I used for red carpet interviews.

“Special Agent Hadley Porter?” she said, in a tone that told me she believed she’d chosen the short straw by coming to talk to me. She didn’t shake my hand, but turned and walked around the table, then gestured as she said, “Take a seat Mr. Linden.” Hostility radiated off the woman. Okaaay! I guess Special Agent Porter wasn’t a fan! I pulled out a chair and sat. Special Agent Porter didn’t sit. She glared at me for a long moment, her jaw clenched before she placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. My hackles rose immediately. In a measured, firm tone she said,