Page 24 of Need to Know

“Hi handsome,” Jack said softly when he eased back. It was such a simple, joyful greeting, but my heart wanted to explode with all of the feelings that had lain dormant inside me. We gazed into one another’s eyes before being dragged back to the reality of our location—we were in the arrival’s hall at an airport with a crowd of people around us.

“Good flight?” Jack asked with a lopsided grin.

“Yeah, I slept for most of it,” I said as I fingered a stray frond of hair behind his ear. Now that we were touching, I didn’t want to stop. This raging lust had bloomed in me and we needed to get to the hotel so I could strip him out of his shorts and tee!

“Ready to go?” Jack asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied dazedly as he hooked his arm into mine and led me down the concourse toward the exit.

“Berlin has a very efficient transport system. We’re getting the train; it’s just a thirty-minute journey into the city centre,” Jack informed. It was then that we both halted and looked up at the huge advertising board in the arrivals area. Personally, I shouldn’t have been as surprised by what I saw. Among the ads for McDonalds, Dunkin, and the international and German clothing brands, were ads for The World Security Technology Conference, beside movie posters for Need to Know, featuring us as smouldering hot spies, standing back-to-back.

“The juxtaposition of the movie posters right beside an ad for the security tech conference is curious don’t you think?” Jack observed.

“Yeah, it kind of makes it look like we’re the special guests.” We laughed at the ridiculousness of that scenario and continued, dragging our luggage down corridors, and onto escalators with thousands of travellers who’d just arrived and were heading into the centre of Berlin.

At the ticket machine, with a few clicks and a swipe of Jack’s credit card we had train tickets. Jack then led the way towards the correct train platform and validated our tickets. It was lucky Jack was leading me because I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. With a couple of minutes on the train platform to catch our breath I sent messages to my sister, mom, and to Roz to let them know I’d arrived safely. The train pulled up and we got on. I stowed our luggage and Jack found us seats facing one another. I relaxed into my seat opposite him. It was strangely intimate and so…ordinary. It had been years since I rode a train like this, preferring to drive myself or using a car service. An elderly man sat beside me, and a young woman with green hair and piercings sat beside Jack. We travelled silently, but Jack and I shared intermittent smiles as we watched the city pass by. I wondered what his smiles were telling me. Mine were self-satisfied that I was with Jack, alone, and we had three days to kill!

As I glanced out of the train window my initial impulse on noticing the exciting mix of architecture was to send a message to Erik and share my initial impressions of a city he’d travelled to many times before without me. It was just a moment, a glitch of longing to connect with my dearest friend, and then I was overcome by a wave of sadness. Erik and I were over; and there was no friendship and no communication unless it was via our lawyers. I understood he’d betrayed me. He was a serial cheater, and he didn’t deserve my thoughts, let alone my time, but I…missed our conversations and I hated that I couldn’t call him for his opinion, or talk about art, architecture, food, or music. He’d been the central pillar of my life for eleven years and now he was gone. The grief of that loss was suddenly bewildering. I needed to come to terms with the fact that he’d made his choice and there was no point in holding onto thoughts of a man who didn’t want me, especially when, sitting across from me looking dozily out of the window, was a man who did want me. As if sensing my eyes on him, Jack turned his head and our gazes collided. Something tangible was somersaulting in my gut. This was a new chapter, and I was here with Jack, ready to embrace it.

After stepping off the train at the central rail station, Hauptbanhof, we got a taxi for the ten-minute ride to the hotel. I knew of Berlin from music, and movies, and from TV shows like the spy show, Berlin Station. That show was dark and moody, with locations exhibiting the Bauhaus architecture of the 1930s and the severe Brutalism of the 50s. But Berlin in early July wasn’t dark or brooding. There was nothing grey or foreboding. The city was beautiful, cosmopolitan, and colourful. I checked the map app on my phone as our taxi passed through the tunnel under the River Spree.

“The theatre for our première is here, in Tiergarten,” Jack said, his fingers pinched on my phone screen making it zoom to show me a building called the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.

“Can we take a walk there after breakfast and check it out?” I asked as I turned to look at my companion. The desire that throbbed low in my belly was a constant ache. I’d never wanted anyone as desperately before.

“I’m your delightful tour guide, and your wish is my command, sir!” Jack grinned with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. I longed to reach out and pull him into a kiss, but not here in this taxi!

“Seriously though, there’s so much I want to show you. Three days won’t be enough time…we’ll look at the map properly after breakfast and plan our days, yeah,” he added.

For my safety, when I travelled for premières, Roz usually keeps me sequestered in the hotel and away from fans, so arriving in Berlin early and becoming an anonymous tourist was a novel experience.

The taxi pulled up outside the five-star Adler Kandinski hotel. It was perfectly situated facing the iconic Brandenburg Gate. During our taxi ride Jack and I discovered that Maritime Studios had gone all-out with their marketing campaign for our movie, with advertising on buses, and billboards featuring our giant faces, juxtaposed beside huge ads for the World Security Technology Conference. According to my map app, the venue, the Axica Conference Centre was across the square.

The taxi driver provided a card reader and I tapped my credit card to pay for the ride while Jack helped the hotel porter retrieve our luggage from the trunk. Jack and I followed the porter as he pushed a wheeled trolley with our luggage into the busy lobby. The scents of strong coffee and pastries floated in from somewhere nearby and my tummy growled. We headed for the reception counter and lined up behind a young Chinese woman who was flagged by two older men.

“We can take the cases from here,” I said as I gave the porter a tip. He removed our cases and then returned to the entrance with his trolley. Jack and I shared glances. “This place is way swankier than I expected,” he said in a whisper. “I’ve stayed in some lovely hotels over the years, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the star treatment!”

“Get used to it…you’re running with the big boys now!” I grinned, and I meant it. Jack’s performance in the movie was world class and I wanted him to gain the global success he deserved. I knew people in the industry, and if I had my way, soon they’d know Jack Boyd.

Standee advertisements for the security tech conference were prominent in the busy hotel lobby and I figured that, with the venue being so close, the hotel would be booked out by delegates. I’d played a white-hat hacker in FBI Cyber for one season and so I’d trained with a real-life hacker who taught me basic coding and hacker jargon so that I understood the script and could deliver my lines convincingly. I was curious about the conference, the technology that would be showcased, and the kinds of people it was luring into the city. Our marketing team deserved a standing ovation. They’d chosen an inspired time and location to debut our spy movie!

When my thoughts came back to the present the young Chinese girl, with two stern-faced suited Chinese men was still being served at the counter.

“Here’s the keycard for your suite, Dr. Mai,” the clerk said in English, addressing the girl who looked way too young to be a doctor, but you never know! “If you need anything, please call, we are happy to be of assistance,” the reception clerk said cordially. The keycard was snatched from the girl’s hand by one of the men, who then said something in a sharp bark of Mandarin. The young woman scowled resentfully as she stepped away from the counter and headed toward the elevators, the men trailing with suitcases. Jack and I shared a quizzical look before we stepped forward.

“Hallo, meine Herren, willkommen im Hotel Adler-Kandinski, wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?“ the clerk said.

“Hi, we’re with the Maritime Studios party,” I began. The clerk’s name tag said Albert. He smiled, “Ah, American. I can speak English for you.” He tapped on his computer keyboard, then, his brow creased and he looked up,

“Oh, yes, we have the reservation, but it looks like you are not due to book-in until Thursday, sirs.”

Jack spoke up, “We’ve travelled on ahead. Max Travers from the Freiberg Agency in London spoke with Elsa Braun at customer relations. He reserved two executive rooms under the names Jack Timothy and Nate Hawkins for three nights with early check-in. We’ll move to the rooms reserved for our party after that.” The clerk nodded and continued tip-tapping on his keyboard. Jack leaned closer to me and said,

“I asked Lucy’s assistant to make sure we could check-in early with aliases and remain incognito during our stay.”

“I appreciate the effort, but, dude—our faces are on billboards and buses all over the city! I doubt we’ll be incognito for long.”

“Hmm…I didn’t anticipate that!”