Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 21

AD 37, Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri, Rome

Rashim could hear Stilson’s voice over the comms-channel, guffawing like a frat-boy with a hall-pass. ‘Just look at ’em!’

Dreyfuss was grinning too. Drinking in the spectacle of the arena.

The combat unit leading the platoon, Lieutenant Stern, barked some orders to his men and they dropped down from the hulls of both MCVs on to the hard sand, setting up an ordered circular perimeter, kneeling, weapons raised, around both vehicles with quick, well-practised efficiency.

‘Can we cut this wretched noise now?’ said Rashim. ‘I can’t help but think we’ve made our point!’

Forty feet away, standing on top of the weapons turret of his MCV, he saw Stilson nod slowly. ‘I guess these dumb suckers have heard enough AC/DC. Yeah, OK, you can cut it.’

Rashim ducked down inside and gestured for the unit manning the console to turn the music off. He flipped a switch… and all of a sudden they were engulfed with silence. Complete, hear-a-pin-drop silence.

Stilson’s voice quietly crackled over Rashim’s earpiece. ‘I think we got their attention, eh, Dr Anwar?’

Rashim nodded. Yes, I think you could probably say that.

‘Have we got that recording ready to go?’

Dreyfuss had worked with Stilson last night, taking the vice-president’s scribbled words and translating them into Latin then reading them aloud and recording it. He’d fussed and fretted for endless hours over the various versions of the recording, worrying about the precise pronunciation of the language. ‘No one knows for sure how some of these words were actually spoken!’ had been his repeated complaint. But he’d done it… eventually settling on one particular recording as the best he was ever going to get.

‘It’s good to go,’ said Dreyfuss over the comms-channel.

‘Then let’s play it!’ said Stilson, hopping down from the weapons turret, walking across the sloping hull of his vehicle and standing proudly on the front of it, hands on hips like some Shakespearian actor centre stage.

The complete silence was broken by the booming sound of Dreyfuss’s voice over the two vehicles’ synced PA system.

‘CITIZENS OF ROME! We come in peace!’

Rashim shook his head. Only a pompous idiot like Stilson would start with a line as cheesy as that.

‘We have come down from the heavens to be gods among mortals! We are here to show you new ways, to share our knowledge and our wisdom with you. We are here to educate this dark world, bring peace to every land and… prosperity to you!’

He looked at the crowd. The panicked stampede from the stalls had stopped and all around them, on the four sides of the Statilius Taurus, ten thousand faces stared in silence at Stilson… assuming the voice they could hear was his. The members of Project Exodus, crammed down inside the MCVs, began to emerge warily from a ramp at the rear of each vehicle.

‘We… are all gods in human form. We are all from the heavens, a place that we call… America. And we are here to bring you our way of living. The “American way”!’