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She couldn’t remember how she got here, she didn't remember why she was lying on this couch in this cold, majestic room, she didn't even remember why she was alone here with this nervous guy in a suit who was pacing back and forth across the room without saying a word... Her mind was completely stuck on one thing: if this guy wasn't Vladimir Putin himself, he had to be one of his best lookalikes...&nbsp;She tried to gather her wits and make a calm analysis of the situation… She was still feeling strange, as if a part of her was still asleep, or as if she was waking up from anaesthesia from an operation. But she wasn’t asleep, her eyes were open, and she consciously blinked two or three times to make sure what she was seeing wasn’t a vision. She was not feeling any pain anywhere, and she even noted that the sensation was pleasant. She was visibly lying on her side with her left elbow under her body. She then realised that up until now she had only moved her eyes to follow the nervous guy’s back and forth, so she decided to move her right arm towards her eyes… and it worked, slowly, but it worked. She guessed that this movement had been detected by the potential Vladimir Putin, because he suddenly stopped walking and was now looking at her attentively.&nbsp;She immediately thought about her appearance and in order to check how she was dressed, and without moving her head, she quickly ran her right arm over her body. She was reassured to see herself wearing jeans with a sweater over her shirt, as a dress or a skirt would have made her extremely uncomfortable at the thought of what might have happened while she was unconscious.&nbsp;Putin was still standing motionless, staring into her eyes with the cold curiosity of an ornithologist observing the behaviour of a bird.She decided to sit up in order to look back at him. She had to swing her legs off the couch and painfully pull her upper body up, using the backrest with her right hand. Once seated, she felt a slight dizziness that quickly evaporated. And as she had just laid eyes on Putin, he asked her: "Who are you?”.&nbsp;At that moment, several thoughts raced through her mind: first, the somewhat blunt intonation of the question was not English, nor British, nor even American. It was that of a non-native speaker. It could be Russian, but the sentence was too short to be sure. She was also relieved that this guy spoke her language... after all, if it was Putin, he didn't have to know any other language than Russian, and she would have been very bothered since she didn't remember having any rudimentary notion of Russian.... And then a little worry suddenly came to her mind: why was he speaking to her in English? Did he know she was English? What did he know about her? And the worry grew even more when she realized that since she herself didn't know what had brought her here with this guy who could be Putin, she had no means of defence in case she was in a bad situation!&nbsp;She closed her eyes to avoid feeling Putin's cold gaze and to stop herself from panicking. She had to quickly recap what she knew about herself.She had only ever seen Putin on television, she didn't know any Russians, she hadn't left Feltham or its surroundings for at least 3 months since her son-in-law's birthday in Orpington, the small furniture manufacturing company where she was working as an accountant had no connection with Russia, neither with its customers nor with its suppliers... In short, she was a normal citizen with normal concerns, normal joys and a normal environment.So why was she here in that room with Putin? And first of all, is it really Vladimir Putin?&nbsp;She looked him in the eye and asked, "Who…” She had to clear her throat; she clearly hadn't made a sound in a few hours... "Who are you?"Putin made an angry gesture as if he were brushing a mosquito away from his face: "Argh, you know very well who I am. Again, who are you?”.She tried: “How would I know who you are, while you have no issue to show me you don’t have the slightest idea of who I am?”&nbsp;Something imperceptible changed in Putin's face, he put his hands behind his back as he walked towards her without taking his eyes off her, and he stood less than a meter in front of her. "My dear little lady, you know who I am because you have seen me dozens, maybe even hundreds of times on television. You know my face, my silhouette, my accent, my intonations... and even my look... even the most similar of my doubles cannot imitate my look... But I am sorry to confess to you that I have never seen you on any television channel, nor among my teams, nor even in the crowds of anonymous people who rush to see me at official meetings... and I have some talent for recognizing people I have seen only once! So, I ask you again: who are you, and why are you here sleeping on a sofa in the same room as me?"&nbsp;This time she was shocked: the accent was clearly Russian, she had already heard that calm, reserved, icy voice. She no longer had any doubts: she was sitting in front of President Vladimir Putin.I'm Elizabeth Wilson, she said. But I have no idea why I'm waking up here. I don't even know where we are. Are we in England?Putin made the same gesture as if he were swatting away a mosquito: "Pfff, nonsense." He turned his back on her and started walking again.&nbsp;She was taken aback. The situation seemed absurd enough, but the fact that Putin himself seemed surprised and helpless seemed beyond what she could have imagined. Why didn't he have an adviser, a chief of staff, or even a bodyguard with him?&nbsp;If at least Putin started hovering like a seagull around the room, or if suddenly a Pokémon came out of the mouth of one of the bottles spread out on the long oval table in the centre of the room, then she would have known she was dreaming. But no, nothing like that happened and although she tried to discreetly pinch her arm, she wasn't dreaming. As absurd as the situation was seeming to her, it was very real.&nbsp;She began to stand up, with a thousand precautions because she did not know if she would be able to stay standing. The muscles in her thighs were a little sore, one of her knees cracked in the silence of the room, and she felt a sharp pain in her hip, but very quickly, she knew that she could walk. Putin had pulled a chair out from the table and sat down, one elbow resting on the table with his hand closed over his mouth. He was thinking. Elizabeth chose the chair across from him, careful to keep the table between her and him, and sat down. She had both her hands clasped together and resting on her thighs.&nbsp;She carefully prepared her question, which she tried to state softly, slowly, articulately and avoiding any sentimentality in her tone: "President Putin, why are we here?" He glanced at her quickly and impassively continued his thoughts. She asked the next question even more softly: “President Putin, could you at least tell me in which country we are?”. The answer came abruptly, without a movement of the president's face, except for his lips: "in England."&nbsp;She was in England! She immediately and almost physically felt a huge sense of relief washing over her: she had a brief vision of a wave of warm water coming to cover her body lying on a cold, grey shore. If she was in her country, then her situation could not be so bad. Besides, apart from the brutal tone of Putin's questions, she had never been explicitly threatened. At this thought, she stood up. The large rectangular room had six double doors, two on each length and one on each width. She approached a door and felt that Putin was following her with his eyes without moving. She turned the handle and shook the door... to no avail. She walked to the next door and tried all the doors again. All of them were locked.&nbsp;She suddenly had the reflex of any normal person locked up against their will: she looked for her mobile phone. But as she headed towards the sofa where her handbag had remained, she suddenly realised that before finding herself sleeping in this strange room, she had gone to the Vodafone store. She had a promotion allowing her to exchange her old phone for a much newer one; and since the salesman had offered to do the data transfer operation from the old to the new one, she had accepted and decided to do some shopping during the operation. And after that, she doesn't remember anything...&nbsp;She returned to her chair opposite Putin and mentally prepared her question: "President Putin, why are we both locked in this room?”. Putin turned his face to her and looked into her eyes, expressionless. "You, I don't know, but I know why I'm here." She was surprised: if he knew why he was locked in this room, then something was not going according to his plans. But then, was he locked here, in England, without protection against his will? And if that was the case, why was no one intervening? And above all, why was he in England?&nbsp;She looked at her clasped hands on her thighs and decided that she needed to adopt a posture more suited to that imposed by the presence of a head of state. She straightened up and put both hands on the table. Putin was still looking at her, and she thought she detected a tiny smile on his lips. The room was silent, and she could hear Putin's breathing from across the table. She couldn't help but tell him, as if to add to the rather heavy atmosphere: This room is really very quiet, you can't hear anything from outside! The president replied: "That's the point: they can't hear us from outside... and so, we can't hear anything from outside this room." She couldn't help but risk a joke: "I see, so it's a very intimate room..." For the first time, Putin smiled… He said "yes, a very intimate room"...&nbsp;She had cheered Putin up! She had forced a smile out of Putin! She suddenly felt perked up... Maybe she could even have a conversation with this guy... She had heard so many comments about him, most of them very negative, and suddenly she was in front of the man, and he had given her a slight smile. But right now, the only thing on her mind was finding a way to get out of here and back home... She ventured to ask, "I understand that no one can hear us, but why don't you call out and have someone open the door? Surely you have a phone on you?”. "Precisely, Mrs. Wilson, that is exactly what I avoid having on me.” Why is that? she asked, surprised? “Because these days, the electronic modules that we carry on our person have an unfortunate tendency to explode... And that's also the reason why I'm here…”&nbsp;She grew bolder than she thought she was capable of and said: “here in England, or here in this room?”. Putin showed no irritation and calmly replied: "I am in England on confidential matters... a head of state often has negotiations to conduct in other countries, and you see, no one can prevent me from going where I think I should go." Elizabeth gave him a big smile and said, "Except outside this room, apparently!”. Again, Putin smiled and replied: "You are right, but these doors are locked on my orders." Elizabeth looked surprised, raising her eyebrows, her eyes wide open. Putin continued: "You don't seem to realise that there were a bunch of explosions about 45 minutes ago... A lot of people's cell phones exploded... The stores that stored the phones became real bombs... The whole neighbourhood was impacted, and I lost a few men. This room is the most secure place in the entire building, and I have no idea why you were in here. I'll get out of here when my men have secured the area and arranged for my departure."&nbsp;Things were starting to make sense... She must have been blown away by the explosion after leaving her phone at the store. It didn't explain why she was there, but at least she had an idea of ​​why she had lost consciousness. She looked down at the table and said, "I guess I'm not supposed to know you're here? No, you're obviously not," he replied. Still staring at the table, she asked in a blank voice, "So I'm not leaving here alive..." Putin paused before replying, "For my part, whether you speak or not changes nothing. That'll be up to your government to decide, they also know how to do what it takes to make sure secrets are kept."&nbsp;It was then that they heard a noise at one of the doors. It opened abruptly and four men of imposing statures entered. Three of them were in dark suits, white shirts and black ties, the last one wore a khaki jacket with a fur collar. Putin stood up and walked towards them. They were about to leave the room when one of the three men in ties jerked his chin at Elizabeth Wilson with his hand ready to grab something inside his jacket… Without taking his eyes off her, he asked something in a low voice in Putin's ear. Then Putin slowly turned back to her and said to the man something that sounded like "ostafyeyo"... The man took his hand out from inside his jacket and walked back toward the door. Putin kept his gaze on Elizabeth for a second longer, and his head nodded as if to greet her. And he went out.&nbsp;The door remained open. She was there, still sitting at the table, still unable to move. Something small and shiny lying on the table where Putin was sitting caught his attention... It was a key! Certainly, the key to the room where she was. So, Putin had always had the key to this room and would only use it as a last resort! She gave a tired smile and realized she was starting to feel cold. Slowly, she stood up, resting both hands on the table, she went mechanically to the couch, picked up her bag, and headed towards the exit of the room. She walked through deserted rooms, along empty corridors and down stairs like a sleepwalker... She found without really looking for it the entrance hall of the building... The armchairs were overturned, bits of carpet had been torn off, and a kind of white foam had been thrown up in certain places. On reflection, she had noticed this white foam in certain places in the rooms and corridors she had passed through.She told herself that it must certainly have been used to hide something, to cover someone’s tracks...&nbsp;She left the lobby and stopped on the steps of the building: the street was like a war scene, there were ambulances, fire engines, police cars, smoke... There were people on stretchers, some with three or four nurses by their sides, others alone... People were running everywhere, she heard screams... screams of men, women, children... She stood there motionless, as if hypnotised, watching this terrible spectacle. She noticed that a man in the teeming crowd was waving at her as he ran towards her...&nbsp;Once near her, he gently grabbed her arm and said: "Ah, you're here! I was ready to search this whole building to find you!" But who are you, she said? “I’m the one who carried you”, he said... “You were unconscious in the middle of the street, and everything was starting to burn seriously all around, so I took you to the lobby of this building... There were a lot of men in this lobby, some were injured, others unconscious on the ground, but since there were also a lot of able-bodied men, I asked them to take you to safety while I went to look for other injured people... They seemed perplexed by my request and since I insisted, one of them said OK, we'll take care of her... but now, it seems like they've cleaned everything up and they've disappeared” …&nbsp;After a pause, he added: "You will have to register with the police, they want all the names and testimonies of those who were there at the time of the explosion; they will ask you everything you have seen since you woke up." Without taking her eyes off the spectacle before her, she said in a very clear voice: "I didn't see anything, I'm just waking up..."

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Unexpected Encounter with the Unapproachable

Jean

Artagny

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Unexpected Encounter with the Unapproachable

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