My night with Harrison Ford

I don' t know about you but I'd never won anything. I'd bought
raffle tickets, and even when I was running the raffle I'd not won. I
wasn't the kind of person who did win. But I still entered competitions
hoping that I'd win. It didn't have to be money, though that would have
been nice it could have been anything. And then one day I received a
letter that wasn't junk mail. It was from a magazine about a
competition I'd entered months before. To my utter surprise it told me
that I'd won. I was THE winner. I won a dinner with a film star. Who
would I choose? That was the question I was asked. My mind went blank
who should it be? I think most people would go blank, there were so
many to think about but I'd just watched "Air Force One" starring
Harrison Ford so guess what? I said his name. I didn't think that he
would agree but to my complete amazement he did! So I was flown out to
Los Angeles and went to the five-star hotel where I'd be staying for
the night, and also for the rest of the week. As if a holiday mattered
when I'd be seeing Harrison Ford. The next day was the day I would be
meeting him.

Part of the prize was a trip to a top hairdresser and to be honest I
was so nervous of meeting him that I don't really remember much about
it. I do know that my hair looked nice, for the first time in months,
if not years. I went back to the hotel with butterflies in my stomach.
I felt so sick that I nearly turned around and walked away but the
person from the magazine who was to introduce us took my arm and walked
me to where he was sitting waiting for me.

I needn't have been nervous. He was so nice and so kind, and I think he
knew how nervous I felt as he started to tell me jokes and funny
stories. Before too long, the magazine rep went away leaving us alone.
They'd been taking photographs, and we looked as if we'd known one
another for ages. We went to a restaurant for dinner, and we spent most
of the time laughing and talking. The evening sped past and it was time
for us to leave the restaurant. Mr. Ford walked me back to the hotel
and it turned out that he was staying there that night as well, as he
didn't live in Los Angeles. We got into the lift and pressed the button
for the third floor but when we got there the whole of the floor was in
darkness and the silence was startling. I didn't fancy getting out of
the lift in the dark so we went up to the fourth floor. Getting out of
the lift we were confronted by a masked man who pointed an automatic
gun at us.

"What are you doing here?" he growled at us.

"We have rooms in this hotel," said Harrison Ford.

The man motioned us towards a room with his gun. We went into the room
and there was a young woman there. Her hands were tied behind her and
she'd been crying. The man pushed us down and left the room, locking
the door behind him. I went over to the girl and tried to untie the
knots that were binding her. The rope was attached to a cord, which led
to a package. " I think it's a bomb," whispered the girl.

I'd read a lot of book about this kind of situation and I thought that
I might be able to free the girl.

"I'll be careful, try not to move until I tell you."

I looked at the bomb and saw that it was simple one that would explode
if she moved away from where she was sitting. We moved away from the
girl, and Harrison Ford asked me if I knew
anything about bombs. I didn't actually know, but I thought that
between us we could get her out. I couldn't let the poor girl just lie
there terrified of moving. If we loosened the ropes holding her we
could slip her out of them without moving the bomb too much. If he
substituted a pillow or two for the girl there might be a chance of it
working! Especially if I held the bomb without letting it move there
should be a chance of success. We went back to the bed and told the
girl what our plan was, and although she was plainly terrified, she
agreed to let us try. I told her it would be me that ran the biggest
risk if the bomb went off.

It did work much to our surprise. We tied the pillows and the bomb
together and wedged it so that it was in the same position it had been
when tied around the girl. The girl told us that her name was Evita and
she was the personal assistant to the President of a South American
country. He was here on a private visit but the gunman had taken him
away. She thought that they were "Freedom Fighters" from his homeland.
Just as she was telling us that, we heard the key being turned in the
door, and Evita went back to where the ropes were. At first glance, she
looked still tied. A man was roughly pushed into the room and a gunman,
not the one I'd previously seen told us "Stay here and be quiet." Then
he made his first mistake he left locking us into the room. I went into
the bathroom and after a bit Harrison came into the room. "What are you
doing?" " I'm looking for anything we can use as a weapon. Razor
blades, bottles, anything"

"Right, I'll ask those two, see if they can help."
I found a pack of blades, but now I had to find something to give them
a handle. I took the toothbrushes and looked for something to bind them
with. There was a box of tooth floss, so I made a couple of rough
knives. They would do if we could get close to any of the men.
Going into the main room I saw Harrison holding a bottle of champagne.
"Hey, that's great. We can use that, especially if it is full." "It's
full, what do you want to do with it?" " Hit one of them, on the head,
hard" "How do we get one of them in here?"
I turned to the man " Are you the President?" " Si. What do you want me
to do?"

" Mr. President would you pretend to have a heart attack? Lie on the
floor groaning, or something? And if Evita screams loudly that should
bring one of them in."
The President agreed to this and he lay on the floor moaning and
groaning. He'd have convinced me. Evita started to scream and calling
for help and a gunman came rushing into the room. He bent over the
President and Harrison Ford hit him over the head with the full bottle
and he fell to the floor pole-axed.

We took his guns and his bulletproof jacket, I think it's called a
Kevlar jacket. I gave this jacket to Harrison Ford, I had to protect
him, even if we all were injured or maimed I couldn't let him get
injured.

"If you wear that and take one of the guns we might be able to get out
of here."

The gunman had a short submachine gun, a hand pistol and a variety if
knives and a grenade. He was a walking armory, or rather a supine
armory. The small submachine gun looked like one of the toy models I'd
seen children playing with. I think it was an Uzi. Evita tore some of
the bedding into strips and we bound and gagged the ex-gunman. Harrison
Ford took the submachine gun and we shared the knives out. I took the
grenade and the handgun.

It was then that we heard the incredibly loud noise of a helicopter. "
It sounds as if it's landing on the roof," shouted Evita. I looked at
the handgun it said it was a P5 made by Walther and as I had found a
silencer in the gunman's pocket I tried to fit it onto the end of the
barrel of the pistol but it didn't seem to fit. Leaving the silencer on
the bed I cocked the gun, after a couple of tries and went to the door.
Opening the door a little I looked along the hall there was another
gunman there. I closed the door and we pushed the prone figure out of
immediate sight of anyone coming in through the door. I opened the door
again.

" Hey you come here, your mate needs help with the President" I called
to him.

He came into the room to be met by a submachine gun pointing at
him.

"Take off your bullet-proof jacket and give it to the President." I
said as I approached him holding a pillow over my gun.

"What if I don't?"

"I'll shoot you"

"Yeah" he looked as if he was going to shoot me.

You know I could never stand cheeky people, and I'd had a fabulous
evening spoiled by these people, so I shot him in the leg. I hadn't
been aiming at the leg but that's where I hit him. The pistol had more
of a recoil than my air pistol had and the effort to pull the trigger
had made me pull downwards. Still the man was alive but injured. He
went down clutching his leg and swearing.

" Be quiet or else I'll do it again. Take off the jacket and give it to
the President."
This time he did what he was told to do. The president put on the
jacket and we tied and gagged the gunman as best we could. Putting him
near his semi-conscious team-mate and taking all his weapons we left
the room. Cautiously we made our way to the roof where we prevailed
upon the pilot, by sheer dint of our weapon power, to leave the
helicopter, after all Harrison Ford could pilot the thing, after all he
is a qualified pilot.

Eventually, we made a safe landing and were met by the police. They
closely questioned us as to the situation at the hotel. I told them as
much as I knew, and the President added what little he knew. He had
seen two more gunmen, one of them had asked him to give them three
million dollars and then they would let him go.

" Thanks to this lady and her friend I am now free. I am eternally
grateful to them both. "

He turned to me " I must reward you."

" Your thanks is reward enough Mr. President." I said knowing that a
fraction of what the terrorists had demanded would pay off all my debts
and leave me with money in the bank.

He turned to Harrison Ford and shook his hand.

" Look after this lady, she is one in a million."

" I intend to Mr. President."

" If you would like to visit my country you will be welcome
guests."

So saying he turned to Evita and they left with a police escort.

Harrison Ford looked at me, then said

" Somehow I don't think we will be going to his country for a holiday
do you?"

I shook my head. " I think I've had enough of terrorists for the
moment, thank you very much. I suppose we can go back to the hotel
now?"

"I'll book us into another for tonight, that way the police have plenty
of time to sort things out there."

Us, Harrison Ford had said US! We went to a hotel, not far from ours
and Harrison Ford booked a suite for us.

" After all we've been through I think we can share a suite, don't
you?"

I could hardly speak my heart was beating so fast. I nodded and moved
towards him as he reached out for me. Harrison Ford was just about to
kiss me; he was holding me in his arms and bending his head towards me,
when I heard. "&; this is the seven-o-clock news from the BBC"
It was all a dream. Broken by my clock radio telling me it was time to
wake up and get dressed. So I'll never have the undying gratitude of
Harrison Ford, I'll never be held in his arms and have the thrill of
the expectation of being kissed by him. Oh well, perhaps
tonight.....