‘The special relationship is safe’

Am I about to become the ‘Spectator One’? Having cleared the first airport-style security check at the US Embassy on Upper Grosvenor Street, I reach a second perimeter inside the building itself. This time the X-ray machine picks up a mysterious electronic device inside my briefcase which turns out to be a mobile phone I do not recognise.

Uh-oh. Here I am, on my way to interview the American ambassador, and there is a stray mobile in my case — a potential trigger device, as everyone around me is thinking, but not saying. Not good.

Hushed calls are made, a Marine frowns and a plainclothes officer straight out of 24 whisks me off to the so-called security ‘igloo’ so that every single item in my case can be checked meticulously. Well, better safe than sorry; I would have been worried if they had just waved me through. But that does not stop images flashing through my mind of orange jumpsuits, years in a Texan penitentiary and the escape scene from The Shawshank Redemption, as the unnamed officer scrutinises my pocket A–Z with evident disapproval.