Last Prophecy of Rome

Forty-Three

Istanbul was some two-thousand miles away — impossible to drive in a single stretch, and Myles was already worn and tired. His stomach was painfully empty, and his concentration was fading. He had lost his purple bag in the factory — no more food and water. He decided he would travel only until he was out of Germany before he took a much-needed break.

By first light Myles had reached Pilsen in the Czech Republic, not far from Prague. Here he decided to drive his Skoda into a parking lot, where he climbed out and left it.

He walked for a few streets until he came to more vehicles and did the same as before. He was soon driving away in a Mercedes, which he guessed was at least twenty years old. This he drove some twenty miles, until he abandoned it too, near a farm, where he decided to sleep through the day.

Woken by deep hunger, Myles walked to a nearby village, hiding the side of his body and his torn clothes as much as he could. There he used his last euros to buy smoked meat, cheese and some bread. As he ate his impromptu picnic sitting by the roadside, Myles wondered about Helen, thinking she was probably making good progress with her investigation in Turkey. He understood Helen knew how to take care of herself, but it didn’t stop him from worrying that she might be in some kind of danger.

Myles made the rest of the journey to Istanbul through a combination of hitchhiking — with a lorry driver to the border between Romania and Bulgaria — then by stealing a third vehicle, a cheap-looking Ford.

He passed several large camps set up near the Danube for refugees fleeing from the East. The thought of warm soup and other food — perhaps even fresh clothes — tempted him inside. But, like the camps for desperate migrants set up by the Romans, he knew the authorities would try to keep him inside. He’d be kept away from Helen. They might even recognise him and send him back to court. He had to keep moving.

He drove the Ford into Turkey — the only border where they asked for his passport. When Myles pretended he couldn’t find it, he was made to wait on one side, then managed to drive through when the guards changed. He soon reached Istanbul itself, parking the car in the outskirts of the city before he enjoyed the last of his bread and meat. The thought of meeting up with Helen again made him smile.

Istanbul — he’d made it.

Stopping at a public payphone, he tried to call Helen’s unregistered mobile. No answer. He tried again. Still no response.

Next he dialled her normal mobile. That went straight to answerphone. Myles decided the phone was probably being monitored, so it was best not to leave a message.

He thought again, and remembered the name of the plague cemetery Helen had mentioned: the Cemetery of Emperor Justinian.

He found a shop which was selling guidebooks of the city. One of the books contained a map. Carefully Myles unfolded it and tried to orientate himself. From a small index in the corner of the paper, Myles found the cemetery: the excavation was just outside the city walls, probably about three miles from where he was currently standing.

Back in the car, Myles drove past the Roman heritage which still propped up the city. Temples, old marketplaces and ancient government buildings were everywhere. All empires leave a legacy. The Romans had left much more than most. What would be left of modern civilisation, if Juma managed to destroy it?

He was also puzzled by why Helen hadn’t answered either of her phones. There could be a simple explanation for it, but Myles suspected something more sinister. The joy of a reunion with her was becoming clouded by fear.

He drove on to the ancient cemetery, where he saw the canvas tent which covered the excavation site. Deliberately, Myles drove past, then parked up and watched.

Nothing seemed to be happening. So Myles climbed out, closed the car door behind him and walked towards the tent.

The entrance was tied up with thin rope. Myles listened from the outside until he was content no one was inside, then started to loosen the knot. The flap was soon undone and Myles could enter.

Despite the eerie feel, the inside of the tent appeared to be empty. Myles moved further inside. He could see a peculiar scientific-looking chest and some benches.

Then he moved towards the large hole in the centre of the tent. He leant over to look down. Some of the excavated soil surface was reflecting light, indicating it was wet. But there was something else, too. Myles squinted and saw a faint light. Something was glowing down in the ruins.

Myles quickly climbed down the aluminium ladder, to the bottom of the excavation site, several metres below. He moved towards the glow and confirmed it was a mobile phone. He picked it up: one missed call. The call was timed to just over an hour ago, from a number in Istanbul. He flicked through the call log. There had been a call from Germany, and a call to an unusually short number in Germany about sixteen minutes later. The Germany emergency services: it was Helen’s unregistered phone.

It meant that either Helen had lost it or, more likely, she was in trouble.

With only the faint light from the phone, he could see old Roman tombs and broken architecture all around him. He realised this was one of the earlier graves for plague victims. Later ones were more hurried and less ornate.

He touched the surface of the stones. Most had decayed beyond recognition. But one seemed to have letters carved into it which he could still make out. There was clearly a ‘C’ followed by ‘M’, then a space or a bump — hard to tell — but he thought it was probably an ‘X’. Next came another ‘X’ followed by ‘II’. Then a space, and three more letters: ‘AUC’. Vaguely, he remembered ‘AUC’ was short for ‘Ab Urba Condita’ — Latin for ‘from when the city was founded’, usually taken to be 753BC. It was how the Romans counted years before they reset their system to the birth year of Jesus Christ. So this tomb was from before the Empire converted to Christianity. He worked through the Roman numerals: CMXXII — nine-hundred and twenty-two. Quick maths: 922 minus 753BC made it 169AD. The numerals spelt out the year of one of Rome’s great plagues. He was touching the gravestone of one of its victims.

But something didn’t fit. He was in the Cemetery of Emperor Justinian, but this grave was about three and a half centuries older. It was an earlier plague. A half-memory from tutorials with Placidia flickered into his mind. What was he missing? He needed to remember…

Then he noticed movement on the floor of the excavation pit. He turned to look closer: it was a human body, covered in a cloth and bound in ropes, lying alone on the floor of the site.

Carefully, Myles approached. Then he saw a half-exposed face. It was a face he recognised immediately, and a jolt of horror suddenly passed through his entire body.

Forty-Four

Myles rushed over to Helen’s body, unsure whether she was unconscious, asleep or dead. He grabbed her and lifted her into his arms, shouting into her ear, ‘Helen, Helen…’

She was still warm, but her body was limp. He registered the rope tied around her wrists but ignored it. Instead, he pushed back her hair to shout her name straight into her ear. She still didn’t respond. He kissed her on the lips, pushing his mouth to hers as hard as he could. Desperate, he slapped her face and shook her.

Slowly Helen started to stir.

‘Helen — wake up!’

She half-opened her eyes and saw Myles. Her face relaxed as she recognised him. Then she gulped and looked queasy.

She grabbed his shoulder, then strained as she turned away. She was kneeling on the floor. Myles looked on, feeling helpless.

Then Helen retched. Vomit flew out of her mouth onto the dusty floor of the excavation. She tried to regain her breath while remnants from her stomach dribbled down from her mouth. Then she hurled again, expelling much less this time. She spat out what remained in her mouth until her mouth was clear. Then she wiped her face and looked up at Myles. Her expression was an apology for what she had just done.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Helen. ‘They injected me with something.’ She gestured to her arm.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’ Helen was speaking much more weakly than usual. ‘Juma’s people, I guess.’

Myles rubbed her head and neck, trying to wake her some more. Then he peeled off the tape which was binding her wrists together. He lifted up her left sleeve to see a needle mark on her arm and ran his fingers over it, feeling a bump where the skin was inflamed. Trying to disguise his reaction, he put the sleeve back in place.

After untying the cord around her ankles, he noticed Helen was shivering. Myles pulled her close and tried to warm her body with his. ‘What do you think they injected you with?’

Helen didn’t answer. But they both knew what they feared: they were in an excavation for victims of the bubonic plague. Known as the Black Death when it had struck Europe in the 1340s and killed about forty per cent of the population, the bacterial illness had struck the Roman Empire several times, often with an increasingly terrible impact. Plague helped bring down the Roman Empire. Was Juma about to unleash it into the world again, with Helen as his first victim?

Helen changed the subject. ‘I know how they did it,’ she said. ‘How they got you.’ She could tell Myles was confused. ‘The information about the Navy Seals going into Libya,’ she explained. ‘The stuff they found on your computer.’

‘They found stuff on my computer? That was their “evidence”?’

‘Yes, that’s why they arrested you,’ said Helen, nodding. ‘The raid turned out to be an ambush — Juma’s men had been warned the Special Forces were coming. So Homeland Security tried to work out how, and they found the secret plan for the raid was on your computer. But it had been planted there remotely.’

Myles paused before responding. Helen was sick and he didn’t want to disappoint her. ‘That’s good news,’ he said. ‘But we already know any information like that must have been planted somehow.’

Helen rolled her head. Myles didn’t get it. Then she coughed. ‘Myles, your computer was accessed by someone trying to set you up, and I know where it was accessed from.’

‘Where?’

‘From Iraq. One of the computer guys in the studio identified internet traffic that went in before the Special Forces raid,’ she explained, desperate to get the words out despite her condition. ‘And he got an IP address, too.’

Myles understood. ‘So you know who did it?’

‘Sort of,’ said Helen, less confident this time. ‘The IP address belongs to a Private Security firm in Iraq, based out in the Western Desert. It’s in Anbar Province.’

‘Does Roosevelt Security operate there?’

‘No. It’s a rival. A small start-up called “Galla Security”.’ Helen smiled weakly as she said ‘Galla Security’ — she’d been right about Placidia.

Myles pondered. ‘Have you found out anything about them?’

‘There doesn’t seem to be much. Probably a local militia group which got a licence to become legal. They’re not big.’

Myles put his hand on Helen’s forehead. It was cold. ‘How long ago did they inject you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘It was soon after you called me from Germany.’

Myles looked down at the patch of vomit, which was already half soaked up by the dust on the ground. If Helen did have the plague then she needed treatment fast. ‘We need to leave,’ he said. Then, more gently, he asked, ‘Do you think you can climb the ladder?’

Helen looked up at the aluminium steps. She nodded. But the way she moved her head made clear to Myles that she wouldn’t reach the top without help.

He steadied the metal frame and placed one foot on the bottom rung to keep it firm. Then he put one arm around Helen’s back and another under her knees, and pulled her close. She collapsed into him. Clutching her limp body to his chest he turned back to the ladder, and slowly started to haul himself up. He had to poke his elbows into the ladder as he climbed.

Eventually they made it to the top. Trying to climb out onto the ground he slipped, but managed not to fall. Soon he could place both her feet firmly on the earth, where she staggered and sat down.

Myles looked around the inside of the excavation tent for ideas. Antibiotics were what he needed. The plague was a bacterial disease, so it could be treated with antibiotics. But there were no antibiotics in the tent.

He stood up and helped Helen to her feet. ‘We’ve got to get you to a hospital,’ he said. ‘And fast.’

He put his arm under her shoulder and helped her stand. They started walking.

Then a beam of light shone straight at his face. Myles was temporarily blinded. He tried to shield his eyes but still couldn’t see who was holding the torch. He called out. ‘Hello?’

After a few seconds a voice replied. ‘Stand still, please, Mr Munro.’

The torchlight moved closer. Then he saw the needle of a syringe glint in the beam.

Myles knew what was about to happen. He was about to be injected with the disease too.

He had to think quickly. No way to escape. No good going back down into the excavation pit. No way to fight back…

Then he whispered to Helen. ‘Lick my hand.’

‘What?’

Without waiting for permission, Myles pushed his fingers into Helen’s mouth. Her head reeled back in shock but didn’t resist.

The torchlight and syringe approached closer. He heard someone else coming from behind, about to grab his arms.

Myles spun round. Two Somali men were there, exposed by the torch now shining from behind Myles. One looked squat, the other nervous. Both froze as Myles squared up to them.

Then Myles jabbed his wet hand straight towards them.

One… Two…

Quickly, he poked his fingers into each of the men’s mouths. The men stood stunned, unsure how to react.

Myles turned back to the man holding the torch. Although the light made it hard to know exactly where the man’s mouth was, Myles made a guess. He stabbed his fingers forward.

Myles could see the men stop. Their attack was over. They knew what he had done.

He saw the syringe fall to the floor as the man holding it tried to wipe out his mouth — desperate not to become infected.

Helen realised too, and tugged at Myles. She could see the men were distracted and wanted to use the opportunity to escape.

Myles shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If we leave to get the cure, these guys will spread the disease before they die. The plague will get out. There’ll be an epidemic.’

He could see the reaction on his assailants’ faces: they were shocked there was a cure, but terrified that they would die without it.

Two of the men started arguing in an African dialect. One pulled a knife from his belt, but the other ordered him to put it back. The third man was still wiping his tongue, vainly hoping he could remove any trace of the plague bacteria.

One of the men who had been arguing gave Myles a macho nudge. It was a way of showing he was still in charge. But Myles knew that really it meant the power dynamic had changed. They faced death in two or three days, just like Helen and him. More than that: since he had mentioned there was a cure, he had gained power over them. Time for a bargain.

The Somali nudged Myles again. It was more like a push this time, intended to provoke. ‘You give us the cure,’ demanded the man.

Myles shook his head. He could see what was going to happen next, but he needed it to play out so the three men understood the situation too. Next would be threats…

‘You give us the cure or we kill you,’ said the man.

Myles shook his head. ‘I’ve been infected with the plague,’ he replied. ‘I will die in two or three days anyway.’

The man who had held the syringe grabbed Helen, who was visibly becoming weak again. She did not resist. ‘You give us the cure or we kill her…’ said the man, smiling as if he thought he had found Myles’ weak spot.

But Myles’ logic was too robust. ‘She also has the plague. She will die soon, too.’ Myles shrugged, as if to say ‘it doesn’t matter what you do’. He had disarmed them.

The three men looked at each other. Finally, they realised: they needed to cut a deal. Eventually one of them spoke to Myles. ‘OK, what do you want for the cure?’ he asked.

Myles paused before he answered. Then he raised three fingers. ‘Three things,’ he said.

The leading Somali raised his eyebrows, stunned by Myles’ audacity. Then he motioned for Myles to make his demands.

‘First,’ said Myles, ‘I want you to agree that Helen gets the first dose. She’s been infected for longer than any of us. She needs the medicine most of all.’

‘And your second demand, Mr Munro?’

‘Do you agree to the first?’

The Somali gang men looked at each other. One of them started speaking in a foreign dialect, but the other cut him short. Then, based on only eye contact between them — eye contact which made Myles sceptical — the leading African nodded. ‘OK, we agree: she gets the first dose.’

‘Good,’ said Myles. ‘Second, I go free.

‘Agreed — on the condition that we get to go free too,’ said the Somali. ‘We’re not going to the police.’

Myles accepted the point. ‘OK, agreed,’ said Myles. ‘And third, you tell me who sent you.’

The three men looked at each other again. This was a hard one. Another foreign-language argument ensued. It began to look as though the answer was going to be no — they would refuse to say who they were working for.

Helen broke in. ‘Look, guys. We know you were sent by either Juma or Placidia,’ she said. ‘So who was it: Juma or Placidia? Or do you want to die of this disease?’ Helen coughed as she finished her sentence. It was a guttural cough and she bent over double. The men looked frightened just watching her.

Myles was sure he knew what the answer would be: plague was a mass killer. Placidia-the-idealist wouldn’t use something so indiscriminate. They would have been sent by Juma-the-psychopath.

Then the answer came: ‘Placidia.’

Myles’ eyes widened in disbelief. He tried to hide it. ‘Placidia? Really?’

The Somalis all nodded in unison. One of them even explained how Placidia had told them exactly which tomb to open, after studying some old books.

Helen glanced an ‘I told you so’ look at Myles, before coughing again.

Myles was stunned. He checked again, but the men seemed convincing enough. They were sincere. ‘Why were you so unwilling to say who sent you a few moments ago?’ he asked.

‘Because Placidia has our families and she will get them American citizenship if we succeed,’ explained one of the men. ‘But she said that if her name was mentioned then we would get nothing, and our families may die.’

Myles tried to make sense of it. Was Placidia really so sure of her plan that she thought she could promise US citizenship? And more importantly, was Placidia really planning to infect millions with a deadly illness? What had happened to Placidia to make her change?

One of the Somalis tugged at Myles’ arm, distracting him. ‘Mr Englishman. So we get the cure, right?’

Helen could see Myles was still stunned by the confirmation that Placidia was willing to commit mass murder. She stepped in. ‘Yes, you have a deal,’ she said, erupting into more coughs. She collapsed to the floor, still coughing.

The Somalis turned to Myles. They wanted him to lead them to their cure. For Myles, the power he had over the three men standing around him gave him no satisfaction at all.

Myles realised that the woman he loved was very close to death.

And the woman he had loved in the past had become a psychopathic mass-murderer.

Forty-Five

Breaking into a pharmacy in Istanbul would be easy. Finding the right antibiotics to steal would be harder. Escaping without being caught would be harder still. Doing it all with three untrustworthy gangsters before any of them weakened from the plague — or infected anyone else — was a huge challenge. Myles wasn’t sure it could be done at all. But as he looked at Helen, whose life depended on him succeeding, he knew he had to try.

He led the men out of the excavation tent, and looked around, trying to guess where in the vast city of Istanbul would be the nearest stock of emergency medicine. The light from a road lined with shops was visible just inside the city walls. He gestured towards it: they would walk through the large Roman gate, then look for an illuminated green cross — the universal sign for a pharmacy, an old symbol dating from Roman times which meant a place of healing.

Juma’s men followed Myles eagerly. Too eagerly. They were desperate. Myles wondered how Placidia had sent them here without any protection against the disease they were about to spread.

He was trying to think ahead. They needed antibiotics, but which ones? There were so many types, many of them dedicated to treating specific conditions. A normal pharmacy wouldn’t have antibiotics designed to cure bubonic plague, so he’d need to find a general one, a ‘broad spectrum’ antibiotic. It also needed to be powerful and fast-acting.

He wondered some more. If the Somalis had been sent here without a cure, did they hope to somehow spread the plague without catching it themselves? Or did they know they’d been sent on a suicide mission?

As the team of four approached the floodlit gate in the city walls, now left permanently open for traffic, Myles reflected on just how absurd his situation was. He had infected with a fatal disease the men he was now leading, yet they were following him for a cure. They had been sent here by Placidia, who knew about antibiotics — but had not bothered to supply them with any.

Myles knew he was missing something. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t work out what.

The men entered the city and started walking down the street of shops. No pharmacy was in sight. As they continued — down a hill and round a corner — more shopfronts came into view ahead of them. Still no pharmacy. Myles began to wonder how long it would take.

Then one of the Somalis tugged on Myles’ arm. The man said something in his mother tongue.

‘A green cross, he says,’ came the translation. ‘Down that side street.’

The man pointed, and he was correct: on a street which branched off to the right, partly hidden by the curve of the road and a bus stop, was the sign for a pharmacy.

Myles sensed the expectation amongst the three men. They imagined the sign meant they would survive, but Myles knew it was far too early to be sure.

The four of them jogged to the shopfront. A large window display was advertising a slimming drug. None of them could read the promotional material, which was in Turkish, but the message was obvious: these pills will help you lose weight fast. Another display was promoting vitamins at bargain prices, and there was an offer on teeth-whitening products.

Myles looked past them all, towards the back of the shop. There he saw a counter and shelves full of more conventional remedies. Vanity products at the front, medicines at the back.

Myles knew he would need to get properly inside the pharmacy to get the antibiotics they needed. ‘We need to break in,’ he whispered.

The Somalis indicated agreement. Myles checked no one else was around, then inspected the door lock while the others looked around for something to break the glass. One of them found a metal bin a little way down the street, and wrenched it from the bolts which fixed it in place. He dragged it over and threw it at the glass.

It bounced off. None of them was surprised: the glass was thick and the rubbish bin light.

The metal bumped noisily onto the ground. It rolled near another of the Somalis, who also picked it up and tried to hurl it towards the window.

Even though the throw was much harder this time, the metal bin only managed to scratch the glass a little.

‘It’s thickened glass. The bin’s not heavy enough to break it,’ explained Myles. ‘We have to use the bin with our weight.’

The Somalis looked unsure. Myles clarified. ‘We use it as a battering ram, OK?’

The men nodded. Myles told them to stand a few metres back from the middle of the largest window, then got them to link up with him, in two lines of two. Myles held the bin at the front, pointing the base squarely at the window display. ‘Three, two, one…’

The four men rushed forward, straight into the glass. The window flexed then shattered. Myles and the man beside him fell forward, their elbows caught in the dieting promotion. Broken glass was everywhere.

Then a loud alarm screeched out.

Myles tried to clamber into the shopfront window. The Somalis supported his legs, trying to help but actually making it harder. Eventually Myles was in, his ears punished by the sound of the alarm which was even louder inside the shop.

It took several seconds to get around the weight-loss pictures and signs, which had fallen on their sides. He had to wade through broken glass, then out of the window display to reach the main part of the shop. Then he rushed to the back, to the medicine counter.

Quickly he scanned the shelves for antibiotics. The labels weren’t helpful — some were in Turkish, others just listed commercial brand names.

He pulled out the drawers. The first was empty. The second one contained a file folder which he lifted out and opened. The file listed conditions and recommended medicines next to them. Myles scanned through it.

There were too many to choose from — but, of course, no listing for ‘Bubonic Plague’. He skipped forward.

The alarm kept ringing. He needed to do this faster. The police would be here soon. He thought of bringing in the three men, still waiting outside, but realised that would only slow him down. He needed to think. What common condition was the bubonic plague most like?

Myles tried to shut the alarm from his mind. Then he flicked towards ‘S’, near the end of the file.

Myles spun round to the drawers of medicine behind him. Within moments he spotted the name of the drug he needed and jumped onto a plastic stool to collect it from the top shelf. There was plenty there. He grabbed as much as he could carry — easily enough to cure Helen, himself and the three Somalis — then headed back through the shop.

The alarm had been going for almost two minutes. Outside, he could see the three Somalis waiting for him, and looking very anxious. ‘Did you get it?’ asked one.

‘Yes, I got it,’ said Myles, clambering forward.

They were blocking the hole in the window.

‘Show me,’ one of them demanded.

Myles held up the packets. There was a picture on them to indicate it was a treatment for venereal diseases. Myles had remembered: syphilis was bacterial and treatment for it was once the most common use of antibiotics.

The noise of the alarm was joined by the faint scream of police sirens — distant, but approaching fast. The four men would need to exit the scene immediately.

Two of the Somalis offered Myles a hand to help him climb through back out through the window. Myles moved towards them as best he could, hindered by a clumsy manner and his tall frame in the confined space.

Then the Somalis pushed into the window display. The display knocked him to the ground. They grabbed the antibiotics from his hand as he fell. The life-saving medicine for Helen: gone. Within moments they had run away.

By the time Myles was back on his feet and clambering out of the window, the Somalis were too far away to catch.

Worse, Myles could hear the police sirens. The authorities were just round the corner.Myles knew he had just moments to decide what to do. Should he take some more medicine from the pharmacy, or hide from the police?

He heard one of the police cars stop nearby. Instinctively, he jumped down, out of the shop window and into the street. Instantly he regretted it. He should have got some more antibiotics for Helen.

But it was too late for that. He had to hide.

Two doors down was a narrow alleyway. Myles ran towards it. There he crouched in the dark passage, hoping no one would notice him. It was a second later that he saw two Turkish policemen walk down the street, looking up at the pharmacy with the smashed window. They were adjusting their hats as if they had just come from a car.

Myles wondered what to do. He desperately needed the medicine for Helen. And every minute mattered.

The alarm stopped. Everything became quiet again.

From the gloom of the passageway, Myles heard the squelch of a radio. The policemen seemed to be reporting on the scene before them.

After a few more seconds, the radio controller came back with instructions. It was in Turkish. Myles wondered what they were being told: guard the premises? Reinforcements on the way? Myles hoped the police would just cordon off the crime scene with tape, then leave to write a report or do whatever else the bureaucrats demanded of them. He waited and hoped, desperately thinking of Helen, and wondering how long she could survive.

He wondered whether there was something else which could save her, and remembered the tomb. Why had the Somalis dug up a grave from 169AD in a cemetery that was famous for a much later plague? He hoped their mistake meant Helen had only a weaker version of the disease.

Briefly he thought of giving himself in. He could tell them about Helen and she’d get proper treatment. But they might not believe him. When he told them she had bubonic plague, they definitely wouldn’t believe him. At best there would be a delay, and to Helen the delay would be fatal.

Myles waited another minute. The problem tumbled through his mind, while he wondered how quickly the plague would weaken him. He wasn’t feeling weak yet. He still had a chance…

In the half-light of the alleyway, he searched for — and found — a way to climb up the back wall. Silently reaching the top, he peered over: parking spaces, fed by a narrow lane, only just wide enough for most cars. Since the parking spaces and lane must be connected to one of the streets, Myles decided to take the chance. He jumped down, cushioning the noise of his landing as much as possible.

He listened around him: there didn’t seem to be a reaction from the policemen. He had managed to exit unnoticed.

Bent over to keep low, Myles followed the lane. It went round two corners, then emerged onto the main street.

Straight ahead of Myles was a police car: the vehicle used by the officers now guarding the pharmacy.

Myles checked again. Still no one around.

Then he approached the car. The front passenger door was open. Myles leant inside, reached for the handbrake, then released it.

He leant back out again, closed the door behind him, and walked to the back of the vehicle. Gently, he gave it a push.

As the police car started moving, Myles darted back to the relative cover of the lane. He waited and watched. The policemen came running from the pharmacy, chasing the police car as it rolled down the hill. This was Myles’ chance.

Quickly he ran back along the side street, to the pharmacy. He crawled up through the hole in the front window, and to the back of the store. Up again on the stool, he grabbed some more antibiotics. This time he stuffed a few packets into his pockets in case he was robbed of them again. He also took some injectable vials of an emergency anti-viral drug as a precaution, and grabbed a few strips of the slimming pills advertised in the window. Not to slim, for something else…

Then he jumped down, and went as far back into the store as he could. There he found a green bar across a small door: the fire exit.

Myles pressed onto the green bar and peeked outside before stepping through: he was back in the lane and the parking spaces. Still alone. So Myles closed the fire exit behind him and made his way out, returning to the spot on the main street he’d been only a few moments before.

The Turkish policemen were within sight but distant. They seemed to have managed to climb into their car as it rolled, stopping it. But now they were arguing with each other.

Coolly, Myles ignored them. He walked out of the shadows, up the main street and towards the gate in the Roman walls. Neighbours woken by the commotion of police sirens and shop alarms may have noticed him. They may have remembered him because of his height. But none of them would have connected him with the crime scene. Only the policemen could have done that, and they were too busy quarrelling about their runaway car.

Once through the Roman gate and out of the inhabited area on the edge of the city, Myles checked no one was watching or following him. Then, confident he was alone, Myles ran the remaining distance towards Helen in the excavation tent. He knew he had to get to her as soon as he could.

As he ran, history flickered back into his mind. He tried to remember what was special about the plague of 169AD…

As he approached the tent, Myles saw shadows moving on the canvas. He could tell there was not just Helen inside. There were voices. Anguished voices. The Somalis.

Myles had to confront them. In one swift motion, he lifted up the flaps on the entrance to the tent and leapt inside.

Forty-Six

As Myles entered the tent, he immediately saw the three men who had taken the antibiotics from him. They were clutching their stomachs and arguing. They seemed to be in pain.

Beside them, lying on the ground, was Helen, who looked pale. Myles rushed over and lifted her head. He tried putting two of the antibiotic pills in her mouth and crunching them between her teeth. Then he took out some of the injectable anti-viral drugs. They were hard to use. Eventually he managed to plunge three doses into her thigh.

There was no immediate reaction. He shook her. Still no response. He couldn’t tell whether or not the medicine was reaching her bloodstream. He rubbed her leg, hoping to spur the antibiotics into her system.

‘Helen, I know you’re going to survive,’ he called into her ear. Then he lowered his voice so the Somalis couldn’t hear him. ‘You’ve got septicaemia, but not the plague…’

Then an angry voice called to him from behind. ‘You have poisoned us,’ it jeered.

Myles shook his head, still tending to Helen as he spoke. ‘You poisoned yourselves,’ he said. ‘You overdosed.’

The Somali grabbed his shoulder, pulling him away from Helen. ‘But we’re sick now. You made us sick.’

Myles could barely bring himself to answer the Somalis. They had stolen the antibiotics from him in the shop window, and left none for Helen, whom they had promised would get the first dose. ‘You’ve just taken too much medicine,’ he said. ‘It means you won’t die of the plague.’

Myles could see his response hadn’t satisfied them. The three were stirring towards him. They were about to attack.

Myles dug his hand into his pocket. There he found the slimming pills which he had taken from the shop. He held up the thin strip of tablets. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ve got medicine here which will cure your overdose.’

The Somalis peered sceptically at the packet. The writing on it was too small for them to read from where they were standing.

The three men edged closer. ‘I’ll cut you a deal,’ he offered, holding the strip of tablets higher. ‘You get these tablets if you allow Helen and I to leave.’

The men looked unsure. Myles could see them wondering: would this Englishman really trust us again? Was he a fool?

One of the men started to grin. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You give us the tablets and we’ll leave you alone.’

Another one joined in. ‘Yes. You give us the tablets first.’ The man was holding out his hand, looking up at Myles. Smug and insincere: there was no way Myles would trust them.

With a single backhanded motion, Myles flicked the packet of pills through the air as if he was throwing a frisbee. The pills flew high, hitting the roof of the tent, then dropped down towards the large excavation hole. Both Myles and the Somalis saw the last glint of light reflect from the packet as it smacked into the side of the hole, spun around, then fell down to the bottom.

Myles waved his hand towards the hole. ‘You’ve got a deal,’ he said. ‘The pills are down there…’

Myles turned back to Helen, half-expecting the Somalis to pounce on his back. But they had taken the bait. They were ambling over to the excavation hole and arguing over who should climb down first.

Taking the opportunity to go while he could, Myles put one arm under Helen’s knees and one beneath her shoulders. Then he lifted her limp body and carried her through the flaps of the tent.

Out in the night air, which was colder than the inside of the excavation site, Helen seemed to revive a little.

Myles ran holding her, stumbling over the ground where it was uneven.

‘I’ve not got the plague?’ she asked, blearily.

‘I’ll explain soon,’ said Myles, still running.

He headed back towards the old Ford parked just a few hundred metres away. When he reached it, he leant down to open the front passenger door, then manoeuvred Helen into the seat. She could barely sit upright, so he put a safety belt on her to make sure she stayed in position. A few seconds later he was driving off, back towards the Roman gate and the site of the pharmacy break-in.

The policemen were still there. He drove up to them and lowered his window. ‘Vandals,’ he told them, pointing behind him. ‘Back in the excavation tent, just through the gate over there. Vandals, destroying the Roman ruins. You should investigate.’

One of the policemen nodded as he thanked Myles in rusty English. The other was about to ask follow-up questions, but Myles was already driving away.

He watched them in his rear-view mirror as he accelerated away. They seemed to have taken his crime report seriously and would probably send someone over to the excavation tent. The trio of Somalis would soon be arrested.

Myles smiled to himself: how appropriate that they should be arrested for being ‘vandals’ — the tribe that raided the Roman Empire in its dying days.

He kept driving, looking for road signs which might point to a hospital. He glanced across at Helen, and spoke as he drove. ‘Helen. Are you awake?’

There was no answer.

‘Helen. I’m going to drive you to a hospital,’ he said. ‘You need proper treatment, but you don’t have bubonic plague. None of us do — not even the Somalis. OK?’

Helen still seemed asleep.

‘I worked it out from the tombstone,’ continued Myles. ‘They dug up the wrong plague victims. Placidia sent them to the wrong grave by mistake. The epidemic of 169AD wasn’t bubonic plague, it was smallpox. And there’s no way they’ll be able to recreate smallpox from the tombs — the DNA of the disease is too fragile to survive through the centuries. Other archaeological digs which have looked for smallpox have found only the faintest trace of it inside teeth. Your illness is septicaemia, from having soil injected into your bloodstream.’

He looked back over at Helen. She probably hadn’t heard anything he had said.

‘Septicaemia isn’t infectious, so the rest of us are healthy. But Helen, you still need treatment. Antibiotics for your blood infection, and a medical check for the smallpox,’ he explained. Then he paused: the next words were hard. ‘But I’ve still got to track down these terrorists. And if I’m with you, then I can’t do it.’

Finally he saw a road sign labelled with a large ‘H’ and the word ‘Hastane’, which he guessed was Turkish for hospital. Myles followed the arrows and soon saw a well-lit building. He moved down through the gears as he approached the accident and emergency section, where he live-parked.

Myles froze still for a moment, trying to force himself to move. His body resisted. He wanted to stay with her. But he knew he had no choice.

‘Helen, I’m going to have to leave you here,’ he whispered, hating himself for it.

Gently, he moved round to help her out of her seat. Then he wiped dirt from her forehead, and kissed it.

Lifting her up, he hugged her close, then carried her towards the reception desk. Seeing that the woman was obviously very sick, two medical professionals in uniforms moved over to take her.

‘Thank you, Myles.’

Myles just caught her words as he left the building.