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You know how, in all the spy movies, when an agent is kidnapped by the enemy, he comes to in a bare, windowless cell, with a bulb hanging down? I came to in a four-star hotel room.
Seriously. There were chocolates on the pillows.
The mystery men had apparently administered something to waken me. There were several of them leaning down over me. I felt bleary and cotton-mouthed.
An older man with bad breath spoke first. His voice had the ring of authority.
“Mr. Love, I am an agent of the government of the United States of America. You are in our custody to answer some questions regarding homeland security and the welfare of the United States and its citizens. You will be released, unharmed, when you have satisfactorily shared the information that we require. If, however, you are uncooperative, or we have reason to believe that you are a continuing threat, we will detain you indefinitely. We have the authority to do so, so we do not make this threat lightly. Do you understand what I am saying to you, sir? Mr. Love?” He was frowning down at me. I had the feeling that I ought to be very afraid, but I still felt a bit odd from the drugs they had given me.
I tried to gather up my senses. I would intimidate them with my journalistic knowledge of my own rights. This is what I was trying to say: “You have no right to hold me. Are you arresting me? Where is the warrant? And I want a phone call right now.” That is not what came out.
They all looked quite perplexed at my slurry mumblings. A younger man angrily hissed at another, “Shit, Frank, you gave him too much stuff! He can’t even talk, for Chrissake!”
As the man prepared to retort, the older man in charge stifled him with a glance. He drew himself up taller, overcoming the embarrassment of this little miscalculation. “Mr. Love,” he spoke quite slowly and clearly for my benefit, “it appears that you are feeling quite sleepy right now, but we need you to be alert for our interview, so we will be giving you a little something to help you to wake up, alright?”
When that injection kicked in, I felt myself improve rapidly. In fact, I felt really good. Sooooo good.
“Mr. Love, we are recording this interview. Please answer the questions directly, thoroughly, and honestly. As I have informed you already, your failure to do so will ensure that you will be in our custody for an indefinite period of time. Now,” the older man began, glancing at a laptop screen, “when did you last see Steven McCartney?”
I felt fear leaping about inside my stomach. The last time that I had answered honestly, it had gotten me nowhere. What should I say?
I decided to tell them to screw off. I mean, what could they do to me, really? I was a Canadian citizen. They had no jurisdiction over me. Hey, they had drugged and abducted me! That wasn’t legal, except in the movies. And this was no spy movie. Clearly. Good God, there were imitation Louis XIV armchairs in this hotel prison room!
As I opened my mouth, my brain moved with alarming speed to images of other men who were not Americans, either. Men who, even now, were wasting away in Guantanamo Bay, or in mobile CIA torture units flying over undisclosed European countries. Men whose countries’ governments could not, or would not, do anything to rescue them. Hey, I watched espionage movies. I shut my mouth rapidly. I had a child. A wife. I had to be sensible about this.
The young man who had lost his temper about my drug dosage was now staring at my legs. In curiosity, I glanced down, too. My legs were jumping up and down like loosed firehoses. My fingers also had a mind of their own. They were twisted up in a kind of sign language for the insane.
“What the hell’s wrong with me?” I croaked, frightened. My voice was cracking. “Make ‘em stop!”
Cursing under his breath, the young man was running toward a black case on the table. He grabbed a needle and a small bottle and came running back. Meanwhile, two other agents had grabbed my wildly flailing limbs and were forcing them down until the shot could be administered. I felt a strange, crazy laugh erupt up out of my throat involuntarily
“Heeeee-heee-heeeeeeee-heeeee,” I wheezed. The wildest laughter flew out of me in endless spirals. I saw one of the men twitch at the mouth, then catch himself in alarm. Just the sound of my own shrieking made me want to laugh, the way that kids get each other going at a party. “Hawrrr—HHHawreeeeee!——” I guffawed.
“Give him the shot fast, before we all lose it, Davis!” one of the men muttered, between strange hiccupping breaths. He kept his face turned away from me as he ground down on my jimmy legs.
“No names!” the older man reminded him, angrily.
The younger man bent towards me, preparing to insert the needle into the bottle. At that precise moment, the man holding my legs lost his grip, and my left leg flew up ward spasmodically, knocking the bottle from the agent’s hand. It shattered against the far wall. The agents stared at me, mouths open.
Thrusting my legs back down, one agent struggled to keep a high-pitched giggle down. My own laughter showed no signs of slowing.
“Agent!” the older man said in a warning tone.
“Sorry, sir,” was the muffled reply.
“Please make it stop!” I gasped. “It’s killing my stomach. Owwww—eeeheeeeheeeee!”
Over the din, I heard the older man’s cell phone ring. He stepped back into the bathroom to speak into it. When he came out, his face was black with barely-controlled fury.
“Agents, our interview with Mr. Love is over. We are to hand him over to CSIS immediately.”
He held up his hands against the volley of frustrated shouts. “I know, men, I know, but I don’t make these decisions.”
“Where do we have to take him?” asked the young agent. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the sound of my shrieking.
The older man looked sour. “They’ve apparently been waiting outside this door for the last twenty minutes.”
They had a bit of a time getting me over to the door. I couldn’t really walk on my jimmy legs, and they couldn’t really carry me because I was spasming about so much. In the end, I was dragged to the door in a rather undignified manner. I would have been embarrassed if I hadn’t been too busy laughing like a psycho.
Agents Smith and several colleagues looked very grim indeed when the door opened. In fact, there were thunderclouds all round. I guess that, in the game of high stakes intelligence, nobody likes to look like they’ve lost.
“Would you be so kind as to tell us what you have poisoned him with, so that we can help him?” said Agent Smith through gritted teeth.
“That’s classified information,” smirked the leader of the Americans. “We’ll get him next time.”
Agent Smith had already turned heel to follow the men who were struggling to drag me down the hall. He looked really furious. I tried not to laugh too loudly as we careened down the hall and into the elevator, but at least one hotel visitor got an earful.
I caught an alarming glimpse of my wild, flailing self in the smoky mirrors of the beautifully appointed hotel elevator.
It really was a very elegant hotel.
