Last Prophecy of Rome

Thirty-Seven

Myles was jolted awake by the ferry bumping against the dockside in Belgium. He had reached Oostende. Here the port officials were more interested in the various cargoes. Myles heard a conversation close to the vehicle and imagined papers were being verified. When the back of the vehicle was opened up, he prepared himself to run. But the check was only cursory. Soon the lorry was back on the road and travelling east.

Inside, there was just enough light for him to read from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Myles knew this book had explained the end of Rome far more comprehensively than any before it. Even though many other histories of the empire had been written in the almost two-hundred-and-fifty years since, all had been based on it or reacted to it. None had bettered it. There must be something in it. Something important…

He scrolled down the list of contents, and skimmed through the sub-headings.

It was clear that Gibbon, perhaps the greatest ever scholar on Rome, traced the roots of the city-empire’s collapse right back. He was looking for causes in the Empire’s most stable period, the years 96AD to 180AD, three centuries before Rome finally fell.

Myles turned again through the pages, and came across one of the book’s most famous quotes.

Myles pondered the words, wondering what they could mean for the possible decline and fall of the United States, and whatever Juma was planning.

Jostled by the movement of the truck, he couldn’t steady his thoughts enough to crack the puzzle. He tried again, but it was no use: smuggled aboard the cramped inside of a beer lorry was no way to read a book like this. He stuffed it back into his bag.

Myles tried to work out when the lorry would next stop: the Polish lorry driver had taken a break in Oxford, about three hours before he reached Dover. He had then been able to take another break while the ferry crossed the English Channel. That meant there would probably be one more major stop before the driver reached Poland, and there was a good chance it would be somewhere in north-western Germany, roughly halfway between the channel port and the final destination.

When the stop came, Myles duly waited a few moments — enough time for the driver to move away from his vehicle — then climbed out of the hole he had made for himself among the boxes. He was in the parking lot of a large German motorway service station. With the sun already past its highest point in the sky, Myles moved over to the main building, trying to walk as inconspicuously as possible.

Myles went to the toilet block and found the showers were freely available. Unsure when the chance would next arise, he took the opportunity to get clean, washing his body with someone else’s shampoo, which had been left in the cubicle. He dried himself with paper towels, wondering how other people without a regular address managed to cope. Perhaps they didn’t.

Next to the service station restaurant was an internet terminal. He tried to log on, but credit card details were needed to buy time online. So he loitered nearby, looking at the maps and atlases in the shop. From the map, he managed to work out where he was — only about two hundred and fifty miles from the town where American Steak Sauce was produced. Then a mother being distracted by her children left an internet machine with time still running. Myles moved over to the console.

He logged onto his new email account. There was only one message, and it was from someone he’d never heard of — a Dr Neil Bheel.

Myles clicked to open it.

He looked at the name again. Dr Neil Bheel. It was a surname he’d never heard before, and what sort of cruel parent would choose a first name which rhymes?

Then he understood, and smiled to himself.

He made a mental note of the number — easily done, since 1776 was the year Gibbon had started publishing his masterpiece. 455 and 410 were the years Rome had been sacked by barbarians. Then he wrote back a quick message, saying he would call when he could, and deleted the account.

Hitch-hiking the remaining distance up to the sauce factory was harder than Myles had remembered from his time as a youth. He was older now and looked less innocent to the people who might pick him up. He had to wait almost half an hour at the service station before he was offered his first lift — a youngish-couple in a yellow Skoda — which dropped him about thirty miles from his destination. From there, he was able to take a bus, then another bus. He paid with the euros he had stolen from the luggage compartment travelling to Oxford. The last two miles he had to walk.

Eventually he reached the sauce factory and wondered at the dangers it concealed. An obscure industrial site in northern Germany seemed an unlikely base for a plot against the United States, but Myles reminded himself that he was just a short distance from Hamburg, where an unnoticed terrorist cell had planned the attacks of 9/11.

He approached.

Thirty-Eight

Myles wanted to observe the factory first. He needed to understand it, to know just how normal — or abnormal — it was. He knew he would need a good vantage point: somewhere he could wait for a long time without causing suspicion.

He walked around the factory site. There was nowhere obvious to go: no café or bar to sit and drink while he watched the main gate. There was no bus stop where he could wait for a bus which never came. Not even a telephone box.

Myles decided his best option was a newsagent. Wandering in, he picked up a German-language magazine from one of the middle shelves and pretended to make sense of it while he studied the factory gates through the windows. For half an hour he calmly observed the place, trying to work out whatever he could.

It seemed like an old-style operation. As the end of the working day approached, a few people started to trickle away. Many more followed in the minutes immediately after the shift ended. He looked at them. Several were from ethnic minorities — mainly Turkish-looking, and about two-thirds were men. Most were dressed in fairly cheap clothes, some of them had unhealthy-looking skin and many looked unfit. From their faces as they left, he could tell few of them were thinking about the work they had just finished. Instead, they were focussed on getting home or whatever else they had planned for the evening. None of them looked Somali or like they knew Juma, and there was no hint that this was the centre of a plot to destroy a superpower. He was sure almost all of them were innocent.

‘Wollen Sie etwas kaufen?’ came a voice behind him.

Myles turned to see the stern face of the newsagent. He didn’t understand what the man had said, but guessed it was a complaint — Myles had been reading magazines in the shop for too long without actually buying anything.

Myles didn’t want to be noticed, so he smiled and put on an apologetic face. Then he drew out a five euro note from the money he had taken from the bus, handed it to the shopkeeper and waited for the change.

The shopkeeper muttered a grumble. Myles pretended not to notice the comment, mainly because he didn’t understand what the man had said. If the newsagent realised he had been holding a magazine he couldn’t read for twenty minutes it might raise suspicions.

With his change and the magazine, Myles left the shop. Immediately, he faced a row of workers leaving the building he wanted to investigate.

Deciding it was best to be bold, Myles simply walked forward, towards the front gates. Several of the workers watched him but none seemed particularly interested. Myles could easily have had a purpose there. He looked as if he was about to meet someone finishing their shift.

Once through the gates, Myles got a better look at the building itself. The main doors were guarded. Without breaking step, he kept walking. He passed the main door and followed the perimeter wall around on the inside. He kept on walking around the factory buildings. Through one car park, then another…

Myles knew he had to keep walking as if he knew where he was going. To stop would arouse attention. To gauge his bearings would be very suspicious. So he just kept going, careful to duck out of view of the factory’s single CCTV camera. After the third of four sides, he wondered whether his luck was starting to fail. If he came back round to the front again, perhaps he would have to leave with the rest of the factory workers.

But then he saw the refuse centre. Four very large bins were waiting for collection, along with other waste in plastic bags. The chance was too tempting. Myles walked straight over towards them. Then he moved behind them.

Gambling that waste-unloading time had finished for the day, Myles spent a few minutes thinking of an excuse in case he was discovered, and wondering whether he could carry it off without speaking German.

But the excuse was unnecessary. Myles waited until the main gates were shut and locked, then kept waiting. He had plenty to think through, and let his thoughts entertain him as he sat amongst the rubbish, caring not at all about the smell of his surroundings.

Two hours later, he slowly emerged from his hiding place, into a half-lit area between the perimeter wall and the building itself. He watched: there seemed to be just one security guard, who loitered near the main door of the building without moving much. Myles couldn’t see the man properly, but he noted the guard looked African.

So Myles walked round to the back of the building, testing each window he passed to find one left open. The third one he came to had a small gap. Myles nudged the frame upwards, creating more space. Then, checking around again, he climbed in and closed the window behind him.

Myles was in an office. He hated these places. He tried to concentrate. What should he be looking for?

As he walked from desk to desk, he saw the standard detritus of a sales office — notes and calendars, brochures, a poorly scribbled telephone number, sales cards. All the signs and paperwork were in German. But still nothing seemed out of place, or unusual in any way. He decided to try elsewhere.

After another set of offices — equally uninteresting — he came across the main part of the factory. This was where the All-American Steak Sauce was actually made. Myles looked up in wonderment at the pipes and mixing containers. He could see where forklift trucks drove in supplies from the adjoining warehouse. He saw a giant ventilation fan.

Then he realised where he needed to go.

Following a yellow line on the floor, he walked through some large Perspex doors into the storehouse. This was where the main ingredients were kept. Myles walked along the shelves to see what was there. Glucose syrup, flour, concentrated tomato puree, all labelled in both German and English.

He walked on. A water point, salt, an unnamed type of oil…

Then he saw it and immediately he knew. Carefully, he lifted the tub from the shelf, taking a strange comfort in how heavy it was. The weight proved he was right. He put the container on the floor.

Labelled just ‘spice’, Myles put his hand in and felt the tiny particles of lead trickle between his fingers. Dark grey, the metal was in powdered form, as fine as dust. It felt like a heavy liquid washing around his hand. He could tell why most of the workers would mistake it for a spice — how were they to know the difference?

So it was that simple: the plot to bring down America like ancient Rome amounted to replacing a popular condiment with a toxic metal powder. Juma’s arrogance — throwing a bottle at Myles — had undermined the pirate’s own plan. Undiscovered, the doctored sauce could cause fatal lead poisoning in whoever consumed it, which he guessed was millions of Americans every day.

Amazed at what he had found, Myles checked that he was still alone.

He felt the burning impulse to tell someone, knowing it would be the most dangerous part of his activities for the night, but also the most important.

Myles hurried back to the sales office and picked up the telephone receiver.

He tried a ‘9’ for an outside line. The dialling tone changed. Then he pressed the twelve digit number he had memorised. It was the number given to him earlier in the email from ‘Dr Neil Bheel’.

The number rang, then someone picked up. It was a familiar voice, the confident voice of an American journalist. ‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello — it’s me,’ Myles whispered. ‘Don’t say my name, please. We don’t know who might be listening in.’

He heard Helen pause. She was surprised to hear from him. ‘Wow — er, hello,’ she said. ‘Great of you to call. I’ve just landed in Istanbul — I’ll tell you why later. You got my email then?’

‘Yes, I did: and “Dr Neil Bheel”, quite an inspired anagram.’

‘Where are you now…or don’t you want to say?’

Myles thought before he answered, not sure how much to say. ‘Somewhere in Germany,’ he offered. ‘In a factory. It’s where American Steak Sauce is being made now, and they’ve started using fine lead particles as an ingredient.’

‘Lead?’ Helen sounded shocked.

‘Yeah — the Romans used to put lead in their sauces,’ explained Myles.

‘I remember,’ said Helen. ‘And it made them go mad.’

‘Can you wait fifteen minutes until I’m out of here, please, then tell the German police?’

‘Certainly. How are you doing? Are you OK? I’m worried about you.’

Myles loved to hear Helen’s concern. It was the first consoling voice he’d heard in a long time. As he stood alone in an alien, half-lit office, on the run, he certainly needed consoling. But he also realised this probably wasn’t the place. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m OK. And you?’

‘I think I may have found the next source of trouble,’ revealed Helen, proud of her discovery. ‘We know Juma’s connected with Istanbul. Well there’s a plague pit here, where the Romans used to bury the victims of the disease — when an epidemic killed lots of them around the time the Empire was collapsing. I’ve discovered a new archaeological dig going on near the city walls. I’m about to check it out. It’s going under the official name of “Galla”.’

‘Galla?’ queried Myles.

‘Yes. I googled the name ‘Placidia’ online, and it came up with ‘Galla Placidia’ — the daughter of a Roman Emperor. She married the leader of the barbarian who sacked Rome, then tried to rule what was left of the Empire herself.’

Myles was beginning to remember his history. ‘And she almost succeeded.’

‘Galla Security, Galla Excavations — I know it, it’s them, Myles.’

Myles winced — she had used his name. He was certain the line was bugged by anti-terrorism police, so now they would have a clear fix on him. He began to wonder whether the call to the German police in fifteen minutes would be necessary — they might arrive sooner.

‘I think they might be trying to incubate the bubonic plague,’ Helen continued. ‘They could harvest bacteria from the bodies buried there.’

‘Is that possible? When the victims have been dead for a millennium and a half?’

Helen admitted she didn’t know. ‘But Juma probably doesn’t know either, which is why he might try.’

Myles nodded silently. He listened while Helen read out the address: in the Cemetery of the Emperor Justinian. ‘Do you think you might be able to meet me here?’ she asked.

‘OK, I’ll go there next,’ said Myles, wondering how he was going to evade whatever traps the anti-terrorism police set for him — they’d surely know he was coming. ‘Love you.’

‘Stay safe, OK?’ said Helen.

Myles was about to dismiss the worries when he became very aware of another person in the room. Someone was standing behind him.

Slowly, he put the phone down.

Thirty-Nine

Myles turned: standing behind him was the security guard, a man who looked like the men he had met on his ill-fated journey into Libya with the Senator. A Somali pirate in a security guard’s uniform.

Myles quickly tried to work out what the man knew. Was this security guard with Juma? Had the man been putting lead in the sauce? How long had he been listening to his phone call with Helen, and how much had he understood?

The security guard seemed as afraid as Myles. Myles wondered if that was good or bad. He concluded it was probably bad, since it meant the man might do something rash.

Immediately Myles started thinking of escape. He knew Helen would soon be calling the police. He had to be gone before they arrived. He wanted to be gone now.

He smiled at the Somali security guard, and then picked up the phone receiver and pointed at it. ‘Hello. I’m here to clean the phones…’ he offered.

It was a hopeless effort. Myles made for a very unusual after-hours telephone cleaner. But he could tell the Somali night guard was intimidated.

For a brief moment, Myles wondered about throwing the phone at the man and trying to run. But then he dropped the thought. Somehow the African looked too desperate. He wasn’t like the shift-men Myles had seen clocking off earlier. This man would probably chase him and fight him.

Myles tried to make eye contact with him, trying to befriend him. But the security guard just became more intense.

Then the man pulled a pistol from his belt and pointed it at Myles. The balance of power had changed.

Slowly Myles raised his hands. He noticed the Somali’s badge: it read ‘Galla Security’.

The Somali used his free hand to take out a mobile phone, pressing a preset number, before swiftly returning his gaze to Myles.

Myles remained still. He watched and waited, his hands still above his head, while the security guard had a telephone conversation with someone in a foreign dialect. The man’s guttural sounds were the same language Myles had heard spoken amongst the pirates when he was in Libya. The guard was linked to Juma.

Soon the phone conversation was over. The security guard pressed the ‘off’ button on his phone, then put both hands to the handle of his pistol. ‘Come,’ he said in stunted English.

His instruction, coupled with an unmistakeable pointing gesture from the gun barrel, clearly directed Myles to walk back towards the storeroom.

Now becoming nervous, Myles obeyed. Keeping his hands above his head, he returned down the corridor.

He peeked behind him: the security guard had him fully covered. There was no way Myles could run or duck away, or do anything to avoid a bullet. The Somali could choose to fire at any moment. Myles was within point-blank range of the security guard’s pistol.

As Myles arrived in the main factory part of the building, he checked that the Somali still wanted him to continue. The man gestured at Myles to keep walking, and simply grunted ‘Storeroom.’

Myles nodded, acknowledging the instruction. Soon he was passing back through the Perspex doors. Then he stood and turned where the main ingredients were kept.

Juma’s man gestured for Myles to bend down, which Myles did.

Then the security guard pointed at the lead particles — the ‘spice’ substitute. The man held out a hand and showed a big scooping motion to Myles. Then he moved his hand to his mouth. The security guard wanted Myles to swallow the lead powder.

Myles pulled a face, querying the request.

The Somali repeated it, and nodded.

Myles shook his head, refusing.

The guard moved closer, poking his gun into Myles’ cheek.

Myles froze.

The security guard pushed the pistol harder, cursing him. Then he scooped up a handful of the lead powder himself and rammed it into Myles’ mouth.

Myles choked and coughed, trying to get out as much of the lead as he could. The guard pressed it back in, and Myles felt himself involuntarily swallowing some of the tasteless metallic powder. It made him gag.

The Somali kept his pistol rammed against Myles’ face. Myles knew he had to swallow again, or he would die instantly: a lead bullet through the cheek if he didn’t accept lead powder through the mouth.

Myles reeled back, and used his eyes to talk to the guard. He conceded. He would eat the lead. He just wanted the Somali to give him time. Time to swallow. Time to think…

He gulped, and felt the dry metal powder stick in his throat, knowing some of it had gone down to poison his stomach.

Myles tried to guess how long swallowing lead would take to kill him: several months, at least. He could get medical help. If he could escape.

Swallowing lead wouldn’t kill him, but the security guard’s sidearm would. Myles had to play along.

The security guard stepped back, keeping his gun firmly aimed at Myles. He allowed the Englishman a few moments for the lead to settle. Then he indicated Myles had to take more.

Myles knew he had to think quickly now. Giving himself as much time as possible, he gradually picked up more of the grey powder.

He checked with the Somali, who still held him at gunpoint. The guard nodded in understanding, almost in sympathy. He was confirming: yes, you should eat it, and yes it will kill you.

Then Myles realised: the guard expected the lead to kill him quickly. It meant the Somali would wait for the poison to work, but then would get angry as Myles continued to survive. Angry enough to kill him.

Myles moved the powder towards his mouth. As he touched it against his tongue, he sized up the security guard. Juma’s man was afraid, and clearly wary of Myles trying to launch some sort of strike against him. He was edging back, too. Now five metres away. The man could easily fire off a shot in the time it would take Myles to pounce.

Myles looked around. There was a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, leading to a light switch nearby. Myles could see the turbines of a large ventilation machine — probably used to blow air through the factory in summertime.

He wished he could blow the Somali away, but knew it couldn’t happen.

‘Eat!’ instructed the man, his voice raised.

The security guard was becoming increasingly agitated as Myles pondered the lead dust in front of him.

Slowly, Myles put another handful in his mouth. Again, he almost gagged.

Could he wait until the police came? No. The Somali would probably kill him when he heard the sirens approach. That meant Myles had only a few minutes left.

Myles made a play of gulping hard, as an idea gradually began to form in his mind. He guessed the Somali didn’t know the symptoms of lead poisoning.

Roman aristocrats took several years to be made mad by lead… Myles had to convince Juma’s man the toxic metal was making him mad in minutes.

Myles started flailing around. In one gesture, he coughed out most of his mouthful, while pretending he had swallowed it. He clutched his stomach, mimicking great pain. He started moaning.

The Somali just kept watching him, with the gun firmly trained at Myles. Briefly the security guard looked around to check they were still alone, which they were.

Myles made a play of standing up but not being able to hold his balance. Without coming close to the Somali guard, he swayed around. Pretending to be grasping for something to hold on to, Myles clutched at the light hanging above him. He squeezed it so tightly that the bulb broke, exposing the filament inside and piercing Myles’ palm with shards of glass. Myles winced from his injury, while trying to make out it was less painful than the lead in his stomach. He fell to the floor.

The security guard stepped back again. He seemed surprised how the lead was killing Myles, but happy the deadly metal was so effective.

Gasping on the floor now, Myles tried to stand again. This time he slipped down, moving towards the ventilation machine. Pretending it was an accident, he used his elbow to hit the switch, turning it on. The turbines hummed into action, the fan blades turned, and soon huge volumes of air were bellowing out of the main tubes. The storage room was tight and confined, meaning the air swirled around, cycling and recycling like a small tornado.

Juma’s man started to look worried. He kept his pistol pointed at Myles and became even more anxious, and put both hands on his gun. The Somali’s eyes were wide with fear. The air blasting from the ventilation machine was scaring him. He motioned again at the lead powder, and this time shouted ‘Eat’ at Myles over the noise.

Myles nodded, but he still pretended not to be able to control his body. He heaved and rasped on the floor as he struggled towards the bag of lead powder.

Checking his surroundings, Myles looked around for his escape route. There was a window — closed — directly behind him, next to the light switch. Then he checked again on the Somali, who looked about to pull the trigger.

Holding his stomach as if he was very ill, Myles picked up the whole bag of lead dust. He made out he was going to pour it all into his mouth, but he missed.

The powder rained down near the ventilation machine, which whipped it aloft. Within moments the inside of the storage room was thick with the airborne lead.

The Somali protected his eyes. But he could still see Myles through the dust and levelled his pistol at him. Very close range: he couldn’t miss. An easy kill. The dust hadn’t blinded the man. Instead, he was about to fire.

Myles caught the man’s eyes through the swirling cloud and knew this was it.

He dived towards the light switch as the guard squeezed the trigger.

Forty

Helen imagined how Myles would have used the fifteen minutes since they had spoken. It was enough time to clear a scene of fingerprints and make a good escape. She pictured him, tall and strong, calmly walking away from the American sauce factory in Germany.

She took her second phone out again and dialled the code for Germany, +49, followed by 110 — the number for the emergency services in the country.

‘Emergency services — police, please,’ she said. ‘I’d like to report a major crime.’

Helen explained: the crime was being committed in the American Steak Sauce factory, which was somewhere in Germany but she didn’t have the address. Then she explained how lead powder was being added to the ingredients, and that stockpiles of the poisonous metal could be found in the food storage room.

‘Can I take your name, please?’ asked the anonymous voice on the line.

‘No, you cannot,’ said Helen. She didn’t want the tip-off traced to her too quickly. Using a pay-as-you-go phone in Turkey which wasn’t registered in her name would make it hard for the police to know it was her. But she knew all emergency calls were recorded. When the recording was played back there was a good chance her voice would be recognised. She was, after all, a frequent contributor to international news broadcasts. Once she was identified, they would ask how she found out about the sauce factory, and that could implicate Myles. In time, it would help the authorities catch him.

As the phone call ended, Helen wondered whether the police would actually investigate. Probably, she thought. And if not, she could find a German newspaper or magazine who would be very interested in the story. Either way, the sauce poisoning operation would soon be closed down.

But Helen wasn’t satisfied. Placidia’s ‘Last Prophecy of Rome’ was about more than lead poisoning. After all, nobody thought toxic metal was the main reason why the Roman Empire collapsed. She had to uncover the rest of it. That meant she had to imagine what Placidia had imagined. She had to put herself in the mind of a woman she hated.

Helen also realised she had a deeper, more personal motive for her investigation. She guessed something had happened between Myles and Placidia at university, probably something romantic. She could forgive Myles his past. But something about his involvement with Placidia meant he still had deep respect for the woman — despite what she was doing now. Helen wanted to prove to Myles that the woman was a terrorist, and that she was doing terrible things.

Helen needed Myles to abandon his feelings for the woman completely. That was why she had come here — to Istanbul.

She looked up at the majestic Roman walls which once defended the city. Orange floodlights illuminated the structure while modern roads and buildings overlooked much of the ancient brickwork. Once this had been Constantinople: the second most important place in the Roman world and the eastern capital when the Empire split. This city led a successor empire for a thousand years after Rome fell. Now, Constantinople had become Istanbul, the most advanced city in a country trying to join the European Union. Roman ruins were being overtaken by modern architecture.

If Placidia tried to come here she would surely be arrested. But Placidia could send others, and it was those people Helen had to find.

She walked on, knowing she was now close to the new excavation site. The huge city walls may have kept out the hordes from the east, but they could not keep out the plague. She tried to imagine how the Roman inhabitants had panicked as their population succumbed to the disease. Helen remembered her research — how the Romans had first given dignified burials to the victims, then been forced to place the bodies in mass graves just outside the city walls. Bubonic plague had struck several times. One wave of the illness, in 541 and 542, had wiped out half the population.

Then Helen saw the large canvas tent which was covering the earthwork. The excavation site was exactly where it was meant to be, indicating the paperwork filed in the municipal records office was correct. She watched for several minutes before she approached, pushing her hair behind her ear to listen.

Nothing was happening. It was near midnight and nobody seemed to be working on the site. Perhaps it meant the excavation was genuine, but Helen’s journalistic instincts kept her sceptical. She waited for several more minutes, until she found herself distracted by thoughts of Myles. Then she decided to approach.

The entrance to the tent around the excavations was sealed with thin rope. Looking round behind her to check nobody was watching, Helen carefully untied the main knot and unthreaded the cord until the door was open.

She peered inside. It was dark, but she could see a large hole in the middle of the tent, which looked deep. Scaffolding had been placed inside, and an aluminium ladder led down. Also in the tent she saw some benches and clear plastic bags, which seemed to be full of soil, although it was too dark to be certain.

Helen took out her unregistered mobile phone and pressed on the keypad. It glowed and she tried to direct the light towards the interior of the tent. The plastic bags did contain samples of soil.

Then she saw what looked like a large chest, connected to a cable which led back outside the tent. Helen was new to archaeology, but the chest didn’t seem like it belonged at the site. It looked too scientific: there were dials and buttons on the front.

Suddenly Helen felt herself grabbed from behind. She tried to wrench herself free, but she was held too tightly. Her mobile phone fell to the floor, and she glimpsed it being kicked into the large hole in the middle of the tent.

Instinctively she slammed a fist backwards, aiming for the genitals of whoever was holding her. She could tell her hit had registered. The grip on her slackened. But it wasn’t enough. There were more of them behind her.

She felt something being placed over her head, cutting out what little light there was. She tried to scream, but a hand was placed on her mouth, muffling her cries. She tried to kick, but felt her legs being held then bound with a cord.

She heard voices speaking a foreign language. There was more than one assailant, probably three or four. She kept trying to wriggle, but soon she was tied up — her arms, her legs, and a gag across her mouth.

Then her nostrils caught a terrible smell: something foul had just been exposed to the air. Helen didn’t dare imagine what it was. She heard more scurrying and debate between the people who were holding her. It took a minute for their voices to settle. They had decided what they were going to do.

Only then did she feel her right arm being tied at the upper elbow. Moments later she sensed a pain pierce her wrist, as she felt a cold fluid being injected into her vein.

Forty-One

The supertanker had edged along the Libyan coast for almost twenty-four hours. Its human cargo was far lighter than the oil it would usually carry, meaning it floated much higher in the water. This allowed Juma to stick to the shallows, always keeping sight of land as he sailed east.

Juma had hugged the coast for a reason: he didn’t want the ship to be challenged. He knew the European Union anti-migration police used satellites to monitor Libya’s ports, and that well-armed patrol boats were ready to intercept any vessel which entered international waters — agreed by law to begin twelve nautical miles from land. Juma knew he had to stay less than this distance from the coast. He was ready to fight, but didn’t want to fight yet.

He’d been intercepted once before, several years ago. He was a pirate then, directing a container ship from the Red Sea back to Somalia. It was an American Navy boat which had stopped him. But all they had done was confiscate his bounty. Once they had secured the merchant vessel, they had let Juma and his men go. They hadn’t even humiliated him. What sort of superpower did they think they were?

He smiled at the memory. Those pathetic Americans.

His wife, Placidia, was the only American he knew who wasn’t pathetic. But then she was only half-American. It was because of her that he had kept men on the bows, scanning the water for deadly, floating bombs, as the supertanker passed along the coast of Libya. The men had long poles to push any mines away, and radios to warn the ship’s bridge and engine room if any got near. Placidia had insisted they protect the refugees below decks, and Juma knew he had to obey.

But the ship had not been harmed. The explosives laid by Colonel Gaddafi to guard his main ports had been cleared long ago. And by the time they reached Egyptian waters they knew they were safe.

Now the ship was near Alexandria. Juma sent out a coded radio signal, which his onshore team heard and responded to. Within minutes, a fast-moving skiff was speeding out from the Egyptian coast to meet them. The small boat docked alongside the oil tanker.

Juma and Placidia looked at each other. Without words, they confirmed what they were about to do. Then Juma left the bridge, handing the controls to one of the pirates he had brought with him from Somalia.

Not far away, along a corridor and with a view of the sea, sat Senator Roosevelt. Still in chains, he already accepted he wouldn’t be able to escape as his son had done.

He could still fight, but only with words. ‘Juma — you haven’t drowned yet,’ he said. ‘Pity.’

‘I hope you’re enjoying the cruise, Senator.’

‘I never knew how sickened I could become on a calm sea…’

Juma ordered the Senator’s chains to be removed, and watched as his captive rubbed his skin where the metal had been. ‘Time to go ashore, Senator,’ he ordered.

‘So you’re going to kill me now?’

‘Not yet,’ replied Juma with a grin. ‘Probably later.’

The Senator nodded reluctantly. He shuffled along, knowing Juma’s gun was behind him, and acknowledging Placidia as she joined them. ‘Down there?’

Juma nodded, pointing to the rope ladder with his gun. The Senator peered down to the skiff, then manoeuvred his body over the edge of the tanker. Slowly, he began the long climb down. When he reached the bottom, he was helped aboard the smaller vessel by two young Somalis who made sure the Senator was comfortable but could not escape.

Then it was Juma’s turn. When he was halfway down, Placidia repeated her orders to the crew left behind. ‘Not a word to the refugees, OK?’

The crew indicated they understood.

She had been absolutely clear: the human cargo mustn’t find out Juma, Placidia and their high-value Senator had left the ship. They didn’t need to know they were being abandoned by the man and woman who had persuaded them aboard. It would frighten them. The information might even make them do something silly, something which would stop them reaching America. She had promised them America, and she meant it. Keeping her promise to them meant keeping secrets from them, too.

She quickly followed her husband down, and soon joined him and the Senator. Silently, the smaller vessel was untied. Juma allowed it to drift off for several minutes, until it was well clear of the tanker. Then he restarted the engine and headed towards the Egyptian coastline, where a small convoy of SUVs was waiting to take them much further east by land. He didn’t want the unmistakeable spluttering of the engine to alert the refugees.

But below deck, Safiq soon knew. He had heard the small engine of a skiff draw close, then stop, then start up again much more quietly a few minutes later. He felt the tanker steer round to the north soon after. And he noticed Juma’s crew had become much more relaxed, and suspected — correctly — that it was because the big man had gone.

Even though he knew, there was nothing Safiq or any of the other passengers could do about it. They remained under their polyester blankets, trying to stay warm near the air vents to the outside — the only source of oxygen not infected by the smell of gasoline which stank throughout the ship.

Whether Juma and Placidia were with them or not, Safiq still trusted the couple who had persuaded him aboard.

He still had hope.

And he still believed that staying below the decks of the supertanker was the best way for him to reach a new, much better life in America.

Forty-Two

As Myles slammed his fist against the light switch, electricity surged into the exposed filament in the broken light bulb. The coil of metal burnt out in an instant, surrounded by the highly combustible swirling cloud of lead powder. The mixture of fine dust and air ignited with a flash, filling the space between Myles and the Somali security guard with a fireball. The explosion roared, creating a shock wave far larger than Myles could ever have imagined.

Myles felt the blast lift and hurl him through the window. Broken glass flew with him, sparkling like glitter. Rolling through the night air, he tried to place his feet on the ground, but ended up skidding on the concrete car park. Large fragments of glass were stuck in his torso and left arm.

Deafened, blinded and stunned, Myles quickly tried to look back to the factory and the Somali security guard. From where he had stopped on the car park, some ten metres away, it was too dark to peer inside. The lead dust had all burnt out instantly, leaving only smoke and a few flames where other things had caught fire.

Myles imagined the blast must have at least knocked his adversary unconscious. He had been near a window which blew out to release the force of the explosion, but the Somali was right in the middle of it, and would have had much worse.

It was no time to wonder. Helen would have contacted the police, and the whole neighbourhood would be calling the emergency services after the explosion: he had to get out quickly.

Myles sprinted towards the locked gates, where he stopped to check no one was watching. Then he climbed up and over, and walked away from the factory as calmly as he could.

Within seconds Myles could hear the scream of approaching police cars. He had to lose himself in suburbia.

He crossed over the road, towards the newsagents, then followed a small unlit path which led directly away from the factory. He wanted to rest, and briefly considered waiting there. But he knew the area would soon be full of policemen, then inquisitive local residents, then journalists. He had to get much further away.

Myles kept walking through the town’s streets, staying away from main roads wherever possible. He was careful to keep the factory behind him — he didn’t want to walk round in a loop and end up back where he had begun.

After more than a mile he came across a children’s playground which had been squeezed into the housing estate, accessible only through footpaths and hidden from the main roads. He looked around to confirm it was deserted. It was. Then he hopped over the small perimeter fence and went to sit on one of the benches. Here he could gather his breath and his thoughts.

Myles ran through what he had just witnessed: a German factory which added lead powder to their recipe for an American sauce. Thousands of people could have been poisoned — mainly Americans. Most of the people at the factory seemed to be innocent — he was sure of that now — although the night guard was clearly involved.

Myles guessed he hadn’t consumed enough of the lead to have been poisoned. He’d managed to spit most of it out. But he decided that, to be sure, he would have to make himself sick.

Checking again that he was alone, Myles locked his jaw open and put two fingers onto the back of his tongue. He wretched, vomiting onto the ground between his feet. Spitting until he had cleared out his mouth, Myles breathed deeply to try to settle his stomach.

He waited a few minutes, then put his fingers into his throat again. This time the reflex yielded much less. Myles found himself coughing. Stomach acid seared the route up to his mouth.

He looked around once more. Still alone. Could anybody have known he had visited the factory?

Whoever the Somali security guard had called would have known.

The CIA back in the States may have intercepted Myles’ call to Helen. But they wouldn’t trace him here. He looked down at the vomit he had left. That was perfectly anonymous: whoever saw it in the morning would imagine a teenager had broken into the playground and been drinking alcohol.

But he had left one big clue behind: his six volumes of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was a clear link with Juma’s threat to bring down America. And if they doubted the books were his, they’d soon see the library sheets inside and realise they had been stolen from the Bodleian in Oxford. He might as well have left a signed note with his name on it.

Myles cursed himself — not just for leaving behind something so incriminating, but for having left the book itself. What lessons about Rome had Myles just lost?

A serious setback. More than ever, he needed to understand not just how the Empire collapsed, but how Placidia thought it had collapsed. Her words still haunted him: ‘Everything you need to know about Rome is in that book — and if you want to save America, you should look at it again…’

He checked his palm for fragments of glass from the light bulb, and eased out two thin slices stuck from the base of his thumb. Pulling them out drew blood. On inspection, he realised the cut was still bleeding. So he raised his hand into the air, where he held it for several minutes, until the bleeding stopped.

The clothes on the side of his torso where he had skidded and landed in the car park were frayed. He lifted them up. The skin underneath was bruised, but otherwise fine. Two shards of window glass had penetrated his flesh, near his ribcage. He drew them out. Fortunately, the incisions weren’t deep, and little blood seeped out where they had been. Myles rubbed his shoulder, which was sore, but there was no serious damage. He was probably safe. For now.

Myles desperately needed to reach Helen in Istanbul. If the plot to destroy America was about lead, then Myles had likely stopped it. But if it was about the plague, then Helen would be trying to stop it right now. And if she was only a little less lucky than Myles had been so far, she would definitely need help.

Stealing a car around midnight in the middle of Germany was easy. Myles simply walked along the road, putting his hand to door handles and pulling on them as subtly as he could. The fifth vehicle he tried — a medium-sized Skoda, parked on a driveway set back from the main road — was unlocked.

Quietly Myles climbed in, then spent more than ten minutes fiddling with the circuitry under the dashboard. He was trying to bypass the ignition switch, but it was hard because the manufacturers had clearly done something clever to stop it being ‘hotwired’. It wasn’t enough to change the way the different leads were connected.

A puzzle: he tried to break it. He could tell there was no computer involved — inserting a key and turning it must be enough to disable whatever anti-hotwiring device had been installed. He saw how the key turned from ‘off’ through two other positions before it reached the ignition setting. Then he saw each of those positions had a different cable associated with it. Eventually, by working out the order he needed to make the connections, Myles was able to make the car start. He twisted the wires to fix them in place, and moved into the driving seat. The tank was almost completely full, meaning Myles could travel far before he would need to refuel — or steal another car.

There were no roadblocks. If the authorities had decided to set them up, then they were nearer to the factory and Myles was already beyond their reach. He kept driving away from the factory site for more than twenty miles. There, driving onto the German autobahn, he turned south, then south-east.

He was heading for Istanbul.