Surreal Stories from the Hidden World of Hotels
Episode 3 - Lunch with Salman - some secrets are bigger than other secrets
A literal hellscape prevented me from posting as planned this past week. Our city was under threat from severe wildfires that forced thousands from their homes and destroyed almost 200 structures. Fortunately, the situation and most of the homes have been saved thanks to the heroic response by wildfire services, local fire departments, and support personnel from around our province. The Chief of West Kelowna Fire and Rescue, who had to evacuate his home, reported today that he has enough underwear now, thanks to donations following a comment he made at a recent briefing. Normality is returning, and so will my regular updates on Substack.
I had a thirty-year career at a hotel company that didn’t want to hire me. The journey from being “too old, too educated”, and having “too many opinions” to qualify as a hotel security guard to being awarded the company’s highest individual honour, to being selected by my peers as the world’s most influential corporate security executive, was one of non-stop experiences, spanning everything you can imagine, and a lot that you can’t! From “wait, what” to “OMG” to “I’m pinching myself, but I’m not waking up”, sooner or later, a career in hotels will expose you to all life has to offer.
In this series, twice weekly, I’ll share stories from behind the scenes in the world’s greatest job in the world’s most fun and rewarding (at least educationally rewarding) industry.
By the end of the series, you’ll agree that working in security is the best hotel education one can receive, and you’ll wonder why many hotels and hotel groups are run by former cooks and accountants instead of former hotel security guards. (Yes, I’m being sarcastic… more or less)
I shall not cease from mental strife
nor shall my pen sleep in my hand
till Rushdie has a right to life
and books aren't burned or banned
Salman Rushdie wrote a novel that was published in 1988. Like most writers, he wanted his book to be widely read, thought-provoking, and to become a talking point about the world and times we live in.
It’s unlikely that he wanted to write a book that would lead to book bans, book burnings, bombings of bookstores, fatwas from religious leaders, death threats, assassination attempts on publishers, the murder and attempted murders of translators, and a life as far from the spotlight as possible for himself.
Salman Rushdie lived in hiding for a decade, moving from safe house to safe house and assuming a variety of names.
When his book was published, my hotel career was just getting started. Two years later, I was involved in one of the most covert planning operations Norway had seen since the Second World War. (I’ll save that story for another day.)
That role prepared me well for what I would experience in 1992. It was, if possible, an even bigger secret…
With our central location near the castle, the foreign ministry, and the Norwegian parliament, we hosted the majority of state visits to Norway. In the early ‘90s, that included numerous visits associated with the Oslo Accord negotiations, including Yassir Arafat’s first official visit to the country.
(Ask me nicely, and I might tell that story and why I almost had a heart attack while escorting his entourage through the lobby when he arrived…)
Often, the Norwegian Security Police, who were responsible for the safety and security of visiting dignitaries, called reservations in directly to hotel security to help preserve the integrity and secrecy of the visitors. We had a close, trusted relationship and they shared information necessary for us to complete a booking. If the booking was to be made under an alias they usually shared the real identity with us. We often booked rooms under the name of one of their commanders and we even set up a reward programme account for him… he might be still staying for free with the millions of points the account accrued!
When the booking came in this time though it was different. An officer from Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste (we called them PST, the English translation is Norwegian Security Police) came to the hotel and we sat in a guest room for privacy's sake.
“Clear the 20th floor and book all three of the big suites up there for us. Block the elevators to the floor from 0700 tomorrow morning. No maintenance. No housekeeping. We’ll need an escort or two from your team between 0800 - 0900, and we’ll need someone on the 20th all day. Just book everything in my name. I have no idea who’s coming myself. Even we are being kept on a need-to-know basis.”
He was very convincing but I didn’t really believe the last two sentences.
“The people organizing the visit aren’t telling us anything. We can’t tell you who’s behind this. It’s a private company. We think we might know who they’re bringing in, and the government at the highest level is notified, so it’s all good.”
I asked him what our role was.
“Lock the minibars in the two regular suites. Take the phones out of all the suites. Between 8 and 9 tomorrow morning, journalists and photographers will arrive. One of each per outlet has been invited. They don’t know why, but you know how they love secrets so they’ll all come. Escort them to the 20th and put them in suite #1. Maybe put a bunch of fruit and soft drinks in there, too. They might be waiting a while. Tell them if they leave the suite before being asked, they will be removed from the building without getting to know why they’re there. If anyone arrives at the hotel a nanosecond after 0900, tell them they are late and can return to their office. Don’t let them loiter in the lobby. Same thing if anyone arrives with a mobile phone. Send them home.”
In 1992, you couldn’t easily hide a cellphone in your pocket…
“We’ll call you when we’re on our way with the principal. We’ll come in through the garage. Meet us at the ramp. We’ll go up past your office. Have a service elevator ready to take us straight to the 20th and we’ll put the principal in the Royal Suite. Stay on the floor. We’ll be there, too, but the company will run the show. Journalists will be invited one outlet at a time to the big suite. When their time is up, we’ll put them in regular suite #2. Same rules. Except if they leave, their equipment and notepads will be confiscated for 48 hours. No story for them!”
“When everyone has had their time with the principal, we’ll escort him down and out through the garage. When wheels are up, we’ll call you and you can release the media from suite #2.”
So, just another day in the life of a hotel security manager… with just another day to follow.
In the days before the internet, we reckoned that the journalists wouldn’t mind sitting around in a hotel suite all day. They could start formulating their articles, but they wouldn’t be trying to rush out updates to Twitter(X) or Instagram. Life was easy in the good old days.
Our hotel, and the staff there, were well known for being exceptionally good at dealing discretely with whatever they needed to deal discretely with. (Rowan Atkinson, “Mr. Bean”, once left the hotel he was staying at and moved into ours after we guaranteed that our staff wouldn’t point and laugh every time he walked through the lobby… it’s called professionalism, folks.)
No questions were asked when I informed the front desk manager, housekeeping, and engineering, that the 20th floor was to be cleared and kept off-limits until further notice.
To be fair, they weren’t simply blindly obedient, of course, they all asked the “who” question, but when I said I didn’t know and that the person who told me didn’t know, they shrugged in disbelief and then said, “Of course”. They and their staff would respect the request and everything would be ready before the floor was sealed at 0700.
Every journalist, and some of the photographers that arrived, asked what was going on. During my trips up to the 20th, I just silently stared at the floor indicator light as it skipped along from “Lobby” to “20”. They got the picture and I’m happy to report that there were no attempted escapes… (unlike a certain corporate security executive who escaped from his hotel room multiple times during a hotel opening ceremony in Uzbekistan until he was threatened with deportation… but, again, that’s another story. This might be a long series!)
At 0945, the call came in.
“5 minutes out.”
We met the two black cars at the bottom of the ramp. The first PST officer out of car #1 smiled and winked at me as if to say “You’re not going to believe who we have brought to your hotel.”
It wasn’t disbelief that swept over me when the short, balding, bearded man stepped out of car #2. I simply had no idea who he was. My brain went into overdrive as I led the unlikely entourage past the security office, through the steel fire doors into the service area where one of my colleagues had an elevator ready and waiting to take us on a non-stop ride to the isolated floor of suites.
There were no introductions. The ride up was silent. I snuck a sideways glance at the VIP (Very Important Passenger). I think the penny dropped between floors four and five of our journey -
It wasn’t a reclusive pop star or an unpopular politician.
It was Salman Rushdie, the author so many of us in the circles in which I circulated had never heard of until he published the book that had changed his life and that would change many other lives.
One of Norway’s largest publishers had been very vocal about their support for his book. Burning books hadn’t done the world any favours in the 1930s, and banning them in the 1990s wasn’t going to either. (Side note: Today, books are being banned in a country we once thought was the leader of the “free world”. It’s a slippery slope if we aren’t careful.)
The Norwegian publisher of the book hosted the visit. When the principal was comfortably settled in the Royal Suite, an employee of the publishing company started the process of escorting journalists and photographers from Suite #1 to the Royal Suite and then to Suite #2, one outlet at a time.
Shortly after 12 noon, they decided the VIP deserved lunch. An order was placed for room service. One of my colleagues was dispatched to pick the order up in the kitchen and bring it to the 20th floor, along with a new supply of freshreshments for the other two suites.
While we were waiting for the room service trolley, the PST officer and the publisher’s employee decided they were hungry too.
“Just take the trolley into Mr. Rushdie.”, I was told when it arrived. They entered the elevator and asked the security officer turned elevator operator to take them down to the first floor so they could enjoy lunch in the restaurant.
I followed our corporate standard knocking procedure, “Knock and state your department, knock again, slowly open the door and state your department again. Ask the guest for permission to enter. Enter upon approval or, if no guest is present, enter.”
In this case, the guest gave his approval before I was able to ask permission.
He cut a diminutive figure where he stood silhouetted against the light pouring in from the window overlooking central Oslo and the fjord beyond.
I wheeled the trolley in and placed the trays on the table in front of a chair from where he would be able to continue enjoying the spectacular view while hopefully enjoying the lunch that had been ordered for him.
As I wheeled the trolley back toward the door, he remained at the window. I was just about to exit the suite when he spoke:
“It’s a lovely view. It’s a beautiful day.”
I mumbled my agreement.
“It’s refreshing to talk to people and have almost normal conversations today.”, he said.
I’d like to say, that I said something profound, intelligent, and meaningful, that he invited me to stay for lunch, that we had a deep conversation about writing and life, and that we’ve remained best buds ever since.
Instead, to the best of my recollection, I said thank you and something along the lines of hoping that he’d enjoy his lunch.
In any case, the 1992 covert visit of Salman Rushdie to Oslo is etched in my mind under the file “Lunch with Salman”.
William Nygaard, was the head of the publishing company that organized the lunch. He was born in Nazi-occupied Norway in 1943. Nygaard remains a vocal advocate of free speech to this day, even though it almost cost him his life when assassins shot him a year after his friend Salman accepted his invitation to visit in 1992. 25 years after the assassination attempt, Norwegian police finally charged suspects in the case.
Stay safe, Always Care
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, 87 Stories is a journal of how my gap year lasted four decades, made me an emigrant, an immigrant and gave me a life I never dreamed of.
This current series gives a behind-the-scenes look at the wacky, wonderful world of hotels from the eyes of a university dropout who had a storied, basement-to-boardroom career in hotel security. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the episodes in the pipeline!
Here are the links to earlier episodes:
Episode 1 - The Office on the 15th floor
Episode 2 - The CEO and the empty safe
Does anyone remember the time Mike Tyson came to Copenhagen to box Danish heavyweight Brian Nielsen? I do. Episode 4 of this series is called “If You Don’t Have a Plan, Someone Gets Punched in the Face.”
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In addition to my love for writing, I’m also a professor, an educator, and a consultant. I’ve been told that my specialty is saving bacon.
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