WOMAN I’m not very good at this.
ANDREW You know I betrayed my entire country in an act that means I could be electrocuted and killed by my own politicians, I then flew to Hong Kong where I recorded an interview which was broadcast around the world, spent two days hiding in a pod-style hotel in Moscow Airport, before being smuggled onto a plane as luggage then back off the plane, and eventually across the Russian border, but despite all that circus or strangeness, I’d say this, you, this moment now, is head and shoulders the weirdest part of it. You are a fucking nutfuck.
Pause.
Isn’t there anyone else to talk to?
WOMAN You speak Russian?
ANDREW No.
WOMAN You should learn.
ANDREW Let’s wait and see if I need to.
WOMAN Well while you’re waiting… I’m the only person to talk to.
ANDREW Shit.
WOMAN Yeah.
Beat.
Nightmare stuck in the room with the nutjob nutfuck. You sure you don’t want a drink? Do you miss her?
ANDREW What?
WOMAN Your girlfriend. What’s her name again?
ANDREW I didn’t tell you.
WOMAN Oh. Yes. Sorry. What’s her name?
ANDREW Cindy.
WOMAN No come on her real name.
ANDREW What?
WOMAN Oh, you mean… you mean it really is? Wow.
ANDREW What?
WOMAN Well. You’re, like, American? And your girlfriend is like, called Cindy? Isn’t that, like, oh my god? Like… weirdass?
ANDREW Why?
WOMAN Cindy. You know, like the doll.
ANDREW It’s not like the doll. The doll is Sindy with an ‘S’.
WOMAN Makes no difference
ANDREW And also Sindy was British, not American. America had Barbie.
WOMAN How do you know this? How long have you known her?
ANDREW Cindy.
Beat.
ANDREW Since I was seventeen.
WOMAN High school.
ANDREW Right.
WOMAN High-school sweethearts.
ANDREW Well.
WOMAN That’s so cool dude, that’s like, so rad.
ANDREW Enjoying yourself?
WOMAN Do you miss her?
ANDREW Of course I miss her. I miss everybody… and I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s happened to them, if they’ve been called in for questioning –
WOMAN They have.
ANDREW And I don’t know by who…
WOMAN The CIA.
ANDREW And where they are and what they’re being asked…
WOMAN They’re being asked if they had any notion of what you planned to do, whether they had anything to do with it, whether they currently have any contact with you, whether they have plans to join you, and if they have any sense of what your future movements might be, I would imagine that assuming neither your girlfriend, your friends or your parents say anything even slightly incriminating they’ll be let free from questioning in two maybe three weeks.
ANDREW Okay.
Beat.
WOMAN I mean what you did is big.
ANDREW I know.
WOMAN Off-the-scale massive.
ANDREW Yeah.
WOMAN And the thing is that as we now know they can get access to all your emails web-browsing phone lines, and it’s been a few days so any encryption you used, I’d imagine they’re through that, so they don’t really need to ask those people anything, if they go through the files they probably have it already.
ANDREW Yeah.
WOMAN So why are they bringing them in like that?
ANDREW To put pressure on me.
WOMAN Correct, they’re actually hoping that you do still have some kind of contact with Mindy –
ANDREW Cindy
WOMAN – or your parents and that by bringing them in and cutting them off and making their lives hell, you will break and snap and get on a plane and give yourself up, driven by the innate national pride that’s been bred in you from the moment you were born in the USA. This is why all the kids in your weirdass motherfucking country swear allegiance to the flag and all that shit. Precisely to ensure that you don’t do things like this.
ANDREW They won’t hurt them.
WOMAN You don’t think?
ANDREW Will they?
WOMAN I don’t –
ANDREW I’m asking you.
WOMAN Oh. I don’t know. No. Can they? No. Surely that’s illegal.
ANDREW But – there might be psychological –
WOMAN Oh sorry well yeah psychological stuff absolutely, isolation, intimidation, lies, deceit and a slow breaking-down of self-esteem they’ll try all that, they’ll do that to them but that’s okay because none of that stuff is real or hurts or has any long-lasting effect, oh wait – it does.
ANDREW You find this funny?
WOMAN You know I actually don’t find any of this funny at all no.
Pause.
ANDREW Okay.
Pause.
WOMAN You want to pick up that phone and call Sandy?
ANDREW That’s not her name.
WOMAN You’d like Susie to hear your voice?
ANDREW We were together twelve years of course I want to pick up the phone and speak to her.
WOMAN But you understand you really shouldn’t?
ANDREW Yeah.
WOMAN Try it.
ANDREW What?
WOMAN Try and pick up that phone and call Lindsey.
ANDREW Cindy.
WOMAN Go on.
ANDREW I don’t want to.
WOMAN I know but try it.
ANDREW You’re getting really fucking irritating.
WOMAN Yeah I know so go on just go over there and try and call her.
He does.
You see?
ANDREW No dialling tone.
WOMAN You know why?
ANDREW What?
WOMAN We had it disconnected before you got here.
ANDREW Okay.
WOMAN You know why?
ANDREW …
WOMAN We don’t trust you. For all we know this could be some kind of infiltration, you could be someone actually working for the FBI, the CIA, the British Secret Service, the British Metropolitan Police, they all conduct secret operations lasting years we know this now, and there’s no real limits in practice on what they can do, on the situations they can get themselves in so we now have everyone under suspicion the whole time because in the end we can’t know. None of us can know. The only way we develop trust in the end is… well… time.
ANDREW …
WOMAN Time.
ANDREW …
WOMAN Because you only have one life. And every week, every month you’re stuck in undercover work, you’re using it up, and most people aren’t prepared to do more than a few months of that, so by the time you’ve been with the movement for years, like me, people pretty much know that I am who I say I am.
ANDREW George.
WOMAN Exactly.
ANDREW Which is not your real name.
WOMAN You’ve been with us three days Andrew, of course it’s not my real fucking name.
Pause.
ANDREW I’m not with you.
WOMAN Yes.
ANDREW I’m not.
WOMAN According to the entire world’s press you are, you might be having this meeting, where you’re staying, this has all been arranged by us, you’re with us.
ANDREW I’ve said nothing about what you do, I’ve made no commitments.
WOMAN You’ve been willing to take advantage of our expertise.
ANDREW You said you valued what I’d done and you offered your help.
WOMAN And you quickly took it.
ANDREW I know I’m associated but I don’t think I’m part of anything right now. Right now I’m pretty much on my own –
WOMAN Well. Yeah. You are. No one else has ever done what you’ve done.
ANDREW No.
WOMAN In the history of the world, it’s simply not been possible, to release as much as you have so quickly. With such effect. You have leaked such a huge amount of metaphorical fluid, it’s like a tsunami of liquid just sprayed over them, covering them –