Mike Bartlett - Wild

ANDREW Yeah.

ANDREW takes it, and eats it .

MAN So. I need to assess you for help.

ANDREW Have you got any identification?

MAN What?

ANDREW You’re saying she could have been anyone and I should have asked for identification so have you?

The MAN reaches into his pocket and gives ANDREW his passport .

This is your passport.

MAN Right.

ANDREW Well no, that just tells me who you are –

MAN That’s what identification means Andrew.

ANDREW I need to know who you work for. If you’re really acting for him.

MAN What you mean… like… a membership card?

ANDREW No.

MAN We’re not a gym .

ANDREW I don’t know – papers.

MAN Papers?

ANDREW Something.

MAN Well I suppose the passport is who I am, and you could google me or something and that would tell you – or call someone.

ANDREW I can’t call someone.

MAN Why not?

ANDREW They disconnected the phone. They – the woman – the phone was disconnected.

MAN No it isn’t.

ANDREW What?

MAN The phone’s working. Call someone if you like and check me out.

ANDREW stands and goes to the phone. Picks it up .

See?

Puts it down again .

ANDREW I can’t think of anyone I could call that you couldn’t have influenced. I don’ t think there’s really any way of me knowing who you are. For sure. Any more than with her.

MAN Andrew –

ANDREW Is there?

MAN Maybe not. And that’s because you don’t have a team. You don’t have resources. You have your journalist friends, and they help you get information but they can’t look after you not in the end. They can’t look at someone and say yes, that is who they say they are. We can do that for you. I can do that. I’m not him but I’m his right-hand man with the same resources at my disposal. I can protect you.

ANDREW But only if you are really working for who you say you are.

MAN Yes.

ANDREW So how do I know?

MAN It looks like you’ve reached the point where you’re going to have to trust someone.

Beat .

You don’t have long, Andrew. You realise that? This is causing all kinds of problems and the Russians want it fixed by tomorrow. If not, then they might hand you over. They don’t have a good relationship with the United States, but there’s many other factors in play here, and if they bargain you against something else…

ANDREW starts to make something with the wrapper from the chocolate .

Do you really have any idea what you’ve done?

ANDREW Yes, you’ve seen the interview, I’m fully aware of what I’ve done, of the importance of it –

MAN But are you aware of how unbelievably dangerous it is. Not just for you – I mean it is dangerous for you, I’ll come onto that in a minute – but dangerous for the United States of America. For western civilisation. For all the things you hold up as being important. Freedom. Democracy. How can we have these things if we don’t have security?

ANDREW What? – Wait – what are you saying?

MAN I’m making the case that from their point of view. You are a child. You may have a noble cause, as you see it, but you are thinking short-term, the next year or two, maybe the next decade, you’re not thinking of the broader Churchillian sweep of history. And in that sweep, the institutions which you have cracked open, and sought to destroy, are the very foundations of the society you rely on.

ANDREW Those institutions mean nothing if… oh god… look, I’m really sorry but I’m not going through all this again, these arguments, I’m tired and we can do this another time.

He carries on making the model …

Pause .

The MAN watches him .

MAN There are people that want to cut your head off.

Beat .

There are people that want to cut my head off too.

And the only thing, in the end that’s stopping them cutting all our heads off, or setting off a bomb full of nails right next to us, is the security services. Is their ability, essentially, to predict the future.

ANDREW You can have a drink if you want.

MAN No thank you.

And you, by doing what you’ve done, have torn that system open. Every American citizen, every British citizen, every two-year-old child in those countries is going to become more vulnerable to attack because you will have taken away their ability to protect their own people.

ANDREW I thought you said you worked for him.

MAN I do.

ANDREW Then why are you making this argument, surely –

MAN There are things that have to be done in the dark.

ANDREW Is this a lesson or –

MAN There are things –

ANDREW A tutorial – cos I’m not as young as I look – I am aware –

MAN That have to be done to protect society, to enable society to function that society doesn’t like, doesn’t want to know about, doesn’t want to see, wants to just be done, while we go out for the weekend, order a new kitchen, watch Netflix and look the other way. Drone attacks by our forces that render human beings to soup, interrogation techniques we know are effective but that could potentially be labelled torture if you were so-minded, and also the ability to see and hear everything . That last one has genuinely stopped terrorist attacks.

ANDREW There’s no evidence for that.

MAN There is. But it’s classified.

ANDREW I’m not getting into this –

MAN My point is that what you’ve done is dangerous, but you think you can avoid the cost. What we do is dangerous as well. But we’re aware of the cost and we think it’s worth doing it anyway.

ANDREW I’ve been very careful about how this information is released, it’s not like how you did it, I went to journalists and even now they’re going through it, carefully redacting names.

MAN There will be a mistake.

ANDREW No, they’ve reassured me –

MAN There will be a mistake, there always is. At least one person will die because of what you’ve done.

ANDREW I don’t think that’s inevitable at all.

MAN And the terrifying thought for you to contemplate right now is.

That person could be you.

ANDREW finishes making the model. It’s an intricate star .

The American people didn’t know that the United States was involved in torture, until it was revealed.

Or mass surveillance, until you made it public.

Perhaps there’s other things they don’t know about.

Like assassination. Like sending someone to another country to take out a problem.

And Andrew, you are one of your country’s biggest problems at the moment.

ANDREW They wouldn’t dare kill me. That would be too obvious –

MAN It would look like you took your own life.

They would send someone in. Who was experienced. And who could pretend to be someone you wanted to be close to.

An associate.

Then that person would, who would be an experienced professional, would arrange your death in such a way that it would look like all the attention, everything you’d done, had become too much, and so – now the work is over – you’d ended it all.

And were now dead. You now didn’t exist. Those thoughts in your head, that you’re thinking right now, would stop.

Reality would cease. Everything you did this for, wouldn’t matter, because the world would to all intents and purposes, to you, finish.

ANDREW What are you… are you threatening me?

MAN I’m saying the current danger level, to you, is very high.

I’m saying I could be anyone.

I’m saying perhaps I’m not working for him. I only said that so you’d let me in.

Perhaps I’m working for someone else, and you are about to die so quickly that you’ll never know the truth.