Last Prophecy of Rome

Forty-Seven

Safiq knew the supertanker was approaching land. Italy, someone had said. Safiq’s chance to settle in civilisation was approaching…

One of Juma’s crew came down into the oil storage area, where the smell of faeces had displaced the whiff of gasoline. The pirate explained what was going to happen.

Two groups, he had commanded: young men with weapons to lead, and everybody else to follow.

Safiq was one of the first young men to be offered a gun — an AK-47. He remembered his father had once been given a Kalashnikov too, and had cherished the Russian-made weapon, even though he never had any bullets for it. Safiq accepted both, half nervous, half excited by what was to come.

As he followed the others onto the deck of the tanker, he saw how police boats were trying to block the port entrance. Loud speakers were blaring across the water in a language Safiq didn’t recognise. Port workers were running away. The tanker was approaching them fast.

Too fast?

Then Safiq realised — it was meant to go fast. The supertanker would ram into the dockside so that none of the Italian police could stop it.

The pirates were pushing the young men with guns to the front. But Safiq reckoned anyone near the bow would be hurt when the ship crashed into the port. He moved through the crowd to avoid an argument with the pirate crew, who were becoming angry. As the dockside of Europe came closer and closer, he barely had a chance to look forward. He was still trying to get to the middle of the ship.

Safiq tumbled over when the tanker hit, his ears deafened by the crunch of metal against concrete. He heard the people around him roar — first in fear and confusion, then in celebration. They had landed in Europe — now they would reach America.

The crowds streamed off, jumping down from the buckled deck onto the harbourside below. They cheered as they ran. The men with guns fired into the air. The families followed, carrying whatever they could and taking much longer to climb down from the ship than the young men at the front.

Safiq realised the great mass of people was moving forward. They knew where they were going. Safiq followed.

Jostled by the crowd, Safiq’s AK-47 was knocked and the magazine fell to the ground. He picked it up but it was dented. Still running, Safiq tried to clip it back into place again but it wouldn’t stay. He tried holding it there, until he decided he didn’t really need it — the gun already had a bullet in the chamber, and that was enough. He allowed the magazine to drop again, and left it this time.

He saw some of the men with weapons taking aim. A rocket was fired at a tower — but missed. A burst of gunfire hit the outside of a house. They were scaring the local people away so they could reach their destination. Threatening civilisation so they could join it.

Safiq pointed his AK-47 at an empty car, holding it from the hip, and pulled the trigger. The single bullet pumped out. Metalwork near the wheel hub buckled. But the gun was much louder than Safiq had expected and the recoil frightened him. He didn’t want the weapon. He let it fall on the roadside and ran along with the others.

He could see people watching the crowd from windows. They were afraid — good. But not that good — Safiq wanted to be like them. To enjoy a home like theirs, food like theirs, a life like theirs…

He kept running with the crowd, all of them desperately hoping they could reach the centre of the city before they were blocked or captured… Then Safiq truly understood: he and the African migrants around him weren’t running for their lives. They were running for a good life.

And they knew where they were running: to America.

Via the American Embassy in Rome.

Forty-Eight

Myles slumped. Deep tiredness infected his muscles. His whole body was exhausted. Three days ago he had sprinted for more than a mile to escape the gunman in London. He couldn’t do that now.

Once he had driven clear of the hospital, Myles parked up and tried to think through his next steps. He knew he had some nasty choices to make.

Should he stay near Istanbul? That way he could check on Helen — perhaps visit her in hospital in a day or two, when no one was expecting it. Desperately, he hoped she was OK. Septicaemia, he tried to convince himself, was quite common. The medics would diagnose it quickly. She’d get the right treatment, whether Myles visited her or not. There was probably nothing more he could do to make her safe.

Should he hand himself in? After all, he’d stopped an attempted poisoning in Germany and now a plot to spread the plague — even though the bungling grave robbers had only dug up smallpox. Police would have seen his work in both places and known that Myles had foiled two terrorist plots within a week. They might even let him stay with Helen.

But it wasn’t enough. Myles was convinced that Placidia was planning more. The Roman Empire had been weakened by lead poisoning and the plague, but it had not been destroyed by them. It was barbarians running through the streets of the capital — desperate and hungry, but also jealous and resentful, which had defined the ancient civilisation’s final days. The barbarians had ransacked a culture they envied but couldn’t understand.

How could Placidia make that happen to modern-day America?

There was more going on here. Far more.

He felt sure that if he gave himself up to the authorities they’d quarantine him, or find some other excuse to keep him away from what was happening. Myles would have to keep running. And the best thing he could do for Helen would be follow the lead she’d given him — to Iraq.

He lay back on the car seat. As the back of his scalp hit the headrest he recognised just how tired he was. He was hungry and thirsty, too. His whole body was a wreck. He needed downtime, and he needed to spend it away from danger.

He also realised that he needed to change his car. The Ford had been seen by the policemen near the pharmacy break-in, and also at the hospital. Turkish police were probably looking through CCTV footage to find him while he rested.

Summoning his energy, as if a long-planned lie-in had been cut short, Myles climbed out of his vehicle and walked along the street until he found another row of cars. As before, he checked the doors of several of them until he came to one which was open — a white Fiat. He climbed in, tore open the cardboard hiding the electronics, and again hotwired the ignition. He was able to do it more quickly this time, now he understood how the circuitry in modern cars was arranged. But he still found it exhausting.

He drove on about three miles, until he found a parking lot near a supermarket. Here he parked, and lay in the back of the car under a blanket laden with pet hair he found on the back seat.

He was woken by the morning light, feeling groggy and thirstier than ever.

He opened the glove compartment in the car: insurance documents, a torch, an adjustable spanner, receipts, and an out-of-date coupon for something. No money.

Myles looked up at the sign for the supermarket: they would have food.

He checked himself again: was it really OK for him to steal, just so he could remain on the run? He already felt bad for taking the cars, rifling through the luggage on the bus going to Oxford and breaking into the pharmacy. Each time he had broken the law he could justify it: he was protecting the public…

But stealing food from a supermarket seemed harder to justify somehow. The thought of it made Myles despise himself. Crime rose when Rome declined… If everybody stole — even to save America — the America they saved would be very different. Did he really have to steal?

He thought again and realised, yes, he did. If he was going to have a chance of confronting Juma and Placidia and stopping the plot to bring down America like ancient Rome, he needed to get some food and drink.

Reluctantly, Myles slumped out of the white Fiat and ambled towards the store. It was still fairly early in the morning and there didn’t seem to be many customers inside. But he was conscious of his clothes — the tears and faint scorch marks drew attention to him. Myles was used to being a misfit, but standing out had just become dangerous…

He wandered towards the double doors, which opened automatically as he approached. A security guard was waiting as he went in. Myles tried his best to ignore the man. The guard appeared to be only half-interested.

Never having shoplifted before, Myles decided it was best to look as though he was browsing normally. He picked up a basket and surveyed the vegetables near the entrance, plucking a cabbage from the rack to check it for quality. Occasionally he picked more things up to inspect them, trying to sense whether anyone was watching him. There were no cameras in the ceiling. He felt confident he wasn’t being observed.

On the corner of an aisle, he found some cartons of milk. In a single swift motion, he bent down and moved one into the inside pocket of his jacket.

Next he came to some cans: tinned meat and, a little further along, baked beans. Again, he made a point of putting them in his coat as nonchalantly as he could.

Finally, he found some cheese. This was easier to take, since the slices of brie were thin. Myles leant over and stuffed several inside his sleeves.

He had what he needed. It was time for him to go.

As he walked back towards the double doors, he wondered how ironic it would be if he were arrested for shoplifting — a small but real crime — after he had just uncovered plots to spread poison and plague in the world.

He continued towards the exit, trying to avoid catching the attention of the security guard. He knew leaving the store with an empty basket was bound to raise concerns. He just had to keep walking.

‘Affedersiniz, Efendim…’ called a voice. It was the security guard. Myles turned to him, unsure what the man had just said. The guard realised Myles was foreign and offered him the same phrase in English. ‘Excuse me, sir…’

Myles nodded. He moved over to the man, trying to smile, and wondering if he was about to be arrested. He started thinking through what he could do. Run — but where to? He couldn’t make a fast getaway in the car. Pretend to know nothing about the stolen goods? Not credible. Hand himself in… Maybe.

Myles approached the security guard. ‘Yes?’

The man pointed down, his eyes lowering towards Myles’ coat pockets.

Myles frowned, pretending to understand what the security man was saying.

‘Your laces, sir.’

Myles looked at his feet: his laces were untied. He relaxed his face in understanding.

Bending down subtly, Myles tried hard to keep the cheese slices hidden in his sleeves. Kneeling on one knee at a time, he refastened each lace in turn. One, then the other, making sure to pull them tight. ‘Thank you,’ he said, weakly.

Myles smiled at the man, who tipped his cap in response. Myles replaced the empty basket by the door and walked out of the store as confidently as he could.

He retreated to his car. Checking again that he hadn’t been seen, he collected his takings beside him on the passenger seat. He waited a few more minutes to check before he ate the cheese slices, washed down with the chilled milk. Then he took the adjustable spanner from the glove compartment and used it to squeeze the tin of meat. As he tightened, the metal buckled then split. Myles scooped out what he could, catching his finger at one point, causing a small cut. The cold baked beans opened more easily, but some oozed out of the can before he could eat them. His clothes had become messier than ever.

The food satisfied only his stomach. The fact that it was stolen made him feel sick.

Doing the right thing had been important to Myles ever since his mother had died. As a fourteen-year-old, he’d decided that his extraordinary brainpower would be wasted on maths problems or the puzzles of physics. Perfect solutions lost their appeal. It was the human world which mattered: accepting it could never be perfect, the right thing to do was to make it better. Was Myles doing the right thing now?

He wondered. Justifying theft in an effort to stop a terrorist plot was a bit like taking up Juma’s deadly offer from when they had first met at the Libyan border: kill one man himself to stop Juma killing more. It might be the best thing to do, but did that make it right? Myles couldn’t work it out.

The puzzle was as nasty as Myles’ current situation, although now even more was at stake. Much more. He cursed himself, and tried to rest.

After several hours in the car, interrupted only by a toilet break, Myles was confident he had no contagious diseases. Placidia’s mistake in picking a grave from the Antonine Plague of 169AD — rather than the much more lethal Justinian Plague of 541-542AD — was lucky for him.

He remembered Placidia at university. She would have never slipped up like that. It was a relief to know Placidia was making mistakes now.

He wondered where to go next. His only lead was from Helen. She had identified the IP address of a computer which had placed files on his laptop, files which detailed the Navy Seal rescue operation in Libya, files which had led to his arrest in Rome. He had to track down the address. That would clear his name, and might help uncover more of the plot to destroy America.

He remembered Helen’s drowsy words: the IP address belonged to Galla Security, based near An Nukhayb in Anbar Province, Western Iraq.

So Myles connected the ignition on his Fiat, moved into gear, and prepared himself for a day and a half’s drive to Turkey’s south-eastern border with Iraq.

The first half of the drive was uneventful. Myles had enough fuel to drive past the modern capital, Ankara, and along the highway into the mountainous central region of Cappadocia. There he decided to abandon the Fiat, parking it on the roadside, and begin hitch-hiking. He didn’t have to wait long in the sun: he was offered a lift by an elderly couple from Denmark who were touring the area. They took him to Diyarbakir, where he managed to get picked up by a long-distance haulage lorry about to go over the border into northern Iraq.

At the Iraqi border post, Myles noticed the signs of recent renovation. A new shiny metal roof now shaded part of the road. The gates and bollards were clean and had just been installed. The entry system was computerised. There was even high-powered air-conditioning for the offices. Myles knew where the money for the upgrade had come from: it was American money.

There was also a deeply sinister presence overshadowing the border post: the threat of Islamic State extremists. It meant Turkish military hardware was on hand, and stationed in depth, in case the jihadis tried to stream across. The barbed wire had been strengthened recently, and there were new CCTV cameras covering all the crossings. Several men loitered around, probably Turkish intelligence staff, gathering whatever they could find. Myles tried to avoid them all.

Getting to Galla Security near An Nukhayb involved crossing from the benign Kurdish-dominated northern part of Iraq to the much more volatile western area, where Islamic State held sway. Anbar Province was dominated by Sunni Arabs, who had a reputation for taking up arms against the Americans and, more recently, official government forces. The west of Iraq was wild.

Myles was taken by the lorry driver into Iraq and as far as Zakho, the border town in the north. There he found a pool of long-distance drivers all working for firms which had won large contracts from USAID, the American international development agency. One of these was driving to Al Kut, and offered to pass him to someone else driving towards Jordan. Myles accepted, and the driver duly did as he promised. In return for what the driver called, in broken English, Myles’ ‘honourable nature’, he gave Myles some water and much appreciated food — chunks of chicken meat in pitta bread sandwiches.

The last lorry driver was a former dentist from Mosul called Mustafa, who had four children. He took Myles to the outskirts of An Nukhayb where he wished Myles farewell with three cups of tea, consumed by the busy roadside. Myles tried to be as generous as he could in return, although he had nothing to repay him with other than good company.

After shaking hands with Mustafa, and watching as his lorry drove away on the dusty tarmac highway, Myles walked along the road, conscious that his height, skin and features marked him out as a Westerner. Anyone wanting to act out their grudge with America might see him as a legitimate target.

But again, Myles was lucky, or at least it seemed that way. He was able to walk for more than a mile without any attacks or other violence from vehicles passing by. He also found the place he was looking for. Corralled by an unfinished breeze-block wall which defined the very large perimeter for the site, Myles could see the buildings and the offices of Galla Security in front of him. He wondered whether the premises had ever been inspected by a government official and guessed they probably hadn’t.

It was from here that someone at Galla Security had sabotaged his computer.

Myles sensed much worse things had been done here, too.

Forty-Nine

Myles paused to survey the outside of Galla Security. Built on the edge of the town, the site seemed to consist of a few low buildings by the road, then a long and fairly thin sliver of land leading off into the desert. The breeze-blocks which defined the perimeter were unpainted and uneven. Myles guessed the whole structure was less than three months old.

He pondered climbing into the site, but it was daytime, and he suspected there would be security cameras. Even if he waited until dusk, it looked as though there was no cover inside the breeze-block walls except the buildings themselves. Breaking into the premises without being caught would be far harder than the factory in Germany — and he had been caught there.

Myles brushed the dust from his clothes which had been gathering since he entered Iraq. He pulled his collar taut and tucked in his shirt, trying to hide the tatters on one side. Unusually for Myles, he wanted to look smart, even though there was little he could do about it.

He walked on towards the metal front door of the walled compound. There he found a small plastic button connected to a painted wire leading inside. He pressed it firmly.

After a few seconds he heard a sharp voice with a thick Arabic accent. ‘What is it?’

Myles cleared his throat. ‘Er, hello? I’d like to have a look at your premises.’

‘American?’ queried the voice.

‘English.’

There was a pause. Myles eventually heard the squeak and clank of a gate opening in one of the buildings. Footsteps, then the metal of a bolt was slid back, and the door in the perimeter wall was opened enough for a face to push through. The man looked aggressive, and had an AK-47 on his shoulder. Myles could tell the man wasn’t local. He looked East African. Myles guessed he was from Somalia, like Juma.

‘Hello,’ said Myles, trying to be respectful. ‘I’d like to look around your site.’

The Somali guard clearly understood but didn’t know what to make of the request. ‘You want to hire our security men?’

‘I may need you for some work,’ lied Myles. He tried to look as agreeable as he could.

The guard still looked sceptical. ‘You are alone?’

‘Yes, I am alone.’

The guard peered behind Myles to confirm he was telling the truth. There was no car waiting for Myles, and no burly mercenaries with their weapons poised. Although this made things safer for the guard, it also made him more suspicious. The Somali gunman frowned and squinted at Myles, noting his tattered clothes. The man was wondering whether Myles was mad or just naive to travel in this part of Iraq without protection.

The Somali decided to frisk Myles for weapons. Myles held his hands up, so the guard could pat him down and, once he was satisfied Myles was unarmed, allow him through the metal gate. Myles had to duck his head to get inside.

Ahead of him was a newly built office building. The security guard led Myles to a walk-through metal scanner, which wasn’t working. Hardly the grand entrance of a major security company…

Then Myles was invited to sit in a reception area. There he was brought tea, heavily laden with sugar, by another Somali-looking man, who soon disappeared again. The security guard seemed to lose interest in Myles, too, focussing once more on the perimeter gate.

Myles waited. Several minutes passed. As he drank his tea, Myles wondered if he was being ignored or forgotten. But the tea was very refreshing. Myles realised there was no reason to hurry his hosts for their attention.

On the table in front of him was a brochure. Myles picked it up and started browsing.

It was the company report for Galla Security. He flicked through the pages. The document had been produced cheaply, and probably printed locally. Myles saw the posed photographs of security guards aiming their guns into the distance, as if they were defending against an unseen foe. In poorly translated English, it listed ‘Services Offered By Us’:

Protecting People

Protecting Sites

Other Services

For this third category, clients were invited to telephone a number or send an email with their request, explaining what their ‘other service’ was. All prices were negotiable.

Myles flicked to the back, where there was some detail on ‘company information’. It said that Galla Security was certified by a trade association. There was a poor quality close-up of a signature, with the name of an official underneath. The document seemed to imply that this was a sufficient guarantee of quality. Then there was a reference to the ‘Alliance of Iraqi Private Security Firms’. Apparently Galla Security was owned by this conglomerate.

Myles logged the information in his mind. The amateurish nature of Galla Security was oddly comforting. It made the firm seem genuine. And that made his question more puzzling: Why would someone from this firm upload files onto his computer? And how would people here get the information in the first place — information about a Special Forces raid into Libya?

Myles turned back again to look at the security guard. Myles could easily imagine the man was connected with Juma.

Then he turned back to the pages of the brochure. The security men in the first picture looked like oversized cops from the southern states of America, probably retired. Other photos showed more beefy Westerners. He saw a few home-grown Iraqis with guns on other pages. None appeared like the men in the building with him now. Even the picture of the offices looked like it was staffed by Iraqis and white men, portrayed as working harmoniously together. He peered closer. Half-hidden by an outstretched sleeve in the office picture was a logo. Myles could make out some words: ‘Alliance’, ‘Iraqi’ and ‘Security’.

The Alliance of Iraqi Private Security Firms.

The brochure had been compiled by the conglomerate which owned Galla Security. They’d even used their own picture library to put it together.

Myles wondered why Helen hadn’t discovered the link to the holding company, the Alliance, when she’d first investigated the firm. Helen would have been thorough, so Galla probably kept their link with the Alliance of Iraqi Security Firms off their website. Was that deliberate?

It was still possible it was a genuine private security firm, perhaps set up by amateurs and bought out by the larger ‘Alliance’, whatever that was. But it could also be a money-laundering front, pretending to receive revenue from clients when really their cash came from more sinister sources.

It could even be worse.

Myles was caught up in his thoughts. He went to take another sip of tea, but realised he had already drunk it all. He wondered what to do next.

The man who had brought him the drink appeared again, poking his head around a pillar. Myles tried to catch the man’s attention, but he was gone before Myles could speak to him. Something about the man’s movements made Myles think he was checking up on him. Myles looked down again at his empty cup. Clearly the man hadn’t come to offer him more tea.

Then Myles saw a door open at the back of the office. A woman appeared, completely shrouded in a translucent birka, her head bowed as she approached.

Myles recognised the figure immediately. His eyes widened in alarm, and he sensed his pulse pump fast in his neck. Despite the air-con, he felt sweat break out all over his body.

Reflexively, Myles stood up to hug her.

But the woman lifted up her veil to confront him. ‘You made a mistake coming here,’ she said.

Placidia’s eyes were as fierce as ever.

Fifty

Myles tried to hide his reaction. He forced himself to remember what he had learned from the factory in Germany and the excavation site in Istanbul: Placidia had sent several men on missions which were sure to kill them. She had tried to poison the world with lead, and infect it with a deadly plague. He was standing in front of a ruthless woman — a woman who had committed herself to destroying America and crippling civilisation.

But the sight of her face also reminded him how he used to feel. He remembered their long conversations, and sharing coffee with her. He remembered trying to make her laugh, and trying to distract her from her high-minded causes.

Placidia kept staring at him. Myles returned her gaze. They stood opposite each other for several seconds, neither of them speaking.

Then she touched him on the shoulder. With a tilt of her head, she indicated they should walk towards a more private inner office. Myles was unsure whether he should accept her invitation, but found he was already following her.

The inside of the office was plain with the rough walls painted white. Myles realised it had no outside windows — only a skylight. There was one desk in the room, which had three computers on it, all plugged in with several cables.

Placidia closed the door behind them as they entered. Two sofas faced each other, divided by a low coffee table. She directed Myles to sit in one seat while she sat opposite.

They were alone.

Myles realised this was the first time they’d been alone together for almost twenty years. His head started calculating exactly how long it was — how many years, months, days, retreating for protection into a world of numbers.

If Placidia had found more time to be alone with him all those years ago things could have turned out so differently…

Placidia sat looking at him, still silent. She was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, her head on one hand, while she rested her elbow on the back of the sofa. It was how a Western woman would sit.

‘So, Helen Bridle is your partner, now?’ she asked with a faint smile.

Myles nodded.

‘She seems nice,’ said Placidia. ‘I knew you’d do well for yourself, Myles.’

The conversation was making Myles uneasy. He wanted to fire back, but knew he shouldn’t. He spoke as casually as he could. ‘And you’re married?’

Placidia nodded.

‘How long have you known Juma?’

‘A few years, now,’ she replied, briefly looking down at her wedding ring.

Myles knew he ought to compliment her husband somehow — to be polite, and to show he respected her choice. But he couldn’t — there was nothing pleasant to say about him.

Placidia filled the silence. ‘I know what you’re thinking Myles: he’s not the sort of husband you expected me to pick at university.’

‘That’s true.’

‘You’re surprised?’

‘I’m sure he’s…’ Myles struggled for a nice word. ‘I’m sure he’s…capable.’

Placidia leant back and laughed. It was a strained laugh. It soon stopped. ‘Yes, he’s very capable. Capable of killing, piracy, terrorism. Torture every now and then.’ She spoke with a resigned smile, still staring straight at Myles. ‘And before you ask, yes, he’s very good at what he does.’

The next question was obvious. For Myles, the ultimate puzzle. His pulse still racing, he couldn’t resist asking. ‘So, Placidia: why did you marry him?’

Placidia remained silent.

‘Love?’ suggested Myles, offering her a get-out.

She shook her head. Her smile faded and her gaze turned down. This time she resisted eye contact with Myles as she spoke. ‘I’ve always tried to do what’s best. Marriage offered me a chance to do just that.’

Myles listened as Placidia slowly raised her eyes to meet his.

‘Myles, you know at university I was committed to changing the world for the better, right?’

Myles found himself nodding involuntarily.

‘Well,’ she explained, ‘what better way to make a positive difference than to find a powerful man and persuade him to do good?’

Even though her thought process was bizarre, Myles sensed Placidia was being sincere. ‘So you married Juma hoping to change him?’

‘To change him and a part of Africa where hundreds of people die each day — yes.’ She shrugged.

Marrying a psychopathic pirate chief to make the world a better place would be absurd from anybody else, but from Placidia it was logical. Myles knew she had a habit of taking morals to their extreme and beyond. Perhaps she was naive. Myles accepted Placidia really did think she was doing the right thing.

‘And have you saved lives, by marrying Juma?’

‘Yes, I think I have,’ replied Placidia, nodding. ‘He’s killed fewer people because of me. I’ve made him help poor migrants from all over Africa. I’ve done far more good than if I’d stayed on the East Coast of the States working for some charity, or complaining about things.’

She could see that Myles was unconvinced.

‘Think of it this way, Myles — other people work for NGOs like Doctors Against Disease, or Mothers against Drunk Drivers,’ she explained. ‘Well, I’ve created Pirates against Poverty, and it’s saved many, many more lives.’

The conversation fell silent while they both thought.

Placidia moved in her seat, putting her hand through her hair. ‘So Myles. This is a historical question, and you’re a historian, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Do you think we might have become a proper couple at university?’

Myles squinted, trying to understand where Placidia was coming from. ‘Historically, Placidia, I wanted that,’ he said, trying to be honest while he hid his emotions at the same time. ‘As I remember, it was you who didn’t. You never had time for me. Your campaigns to change the world were always too important.’

‘Sorry.’

Myles shrugged, pretending it no longer mattered to him. But he still needed to say more. ‘You know, when I read about you leaving Oxford I wrote you letters, but you never replied.’

Placidia shook her head blankly. ‘I never received them.’

Myles raised his eyebrows, surprised. Part of him wanted to tell her what he’d written. To replay his emotions, now he was finally with her. But he couldn’t. ‘If you had received them,’ he asked, ‘would you have behaved any differently?’

She paused before pulling a face which said she probably would have ignored the letters anyway. ‘I was an arrogant young girl in those days, Myles. We only recognise our flaws after they’ve done their damage.’

‘Sometimes our flaws keep doing damage.’

‘Sometimes,’ she accepted, pausing again. ‘Did you really send me letters?’

Myles didn’t need to answer her question — his face had answered already. Yes, of course he’d sent them.

Placidia looked mournful. For the first time in their meeting, Myles felt truly sorry for her. Had her entire life turned on a failure to receive his messages? Perhaps — many other people’s lives turn on less. But someone as gifted as Placidia? Someone with all the wonderful opportunities she had? Could she really have been that vulnerable?

Placidia moved her legs in a gesture which was half flirtatious, half hopeless.

Myles wanted to hold her. But he still couldn’t forgive her for what she was doing now. ‘Placidia: was it you who planted files on the Special Forces raid onto my laptop?’

Myles looked straight at Placidia, who stared back in return. They gazed at each other for a long time, both refusing to surrender.

Then she broke off the competition and turned to her desk. Pulling open a drawer, she removed an old scrap of paper, which she carefully unfolded and passed to Myles. Myles read the handwritten words. It was his handwriting.

He remembered that piece of paper. He couldn’t really argue with it. She read it out, just to make her point understood. ‘“Doing the right thing can sometimes be wrong”.’

‘Yes, Myles, those files passed through this computer,’ she admitted. ‘We had help from a computer guy in Las Vegas. It was wrong, but it was done for very good reasons.’ She could see Myles was sceptical. ‘You don’t believe me?’

‘No, Placidia, I do not,’ answered Myles, his heart still pumping too fast for him to behave normally. ‘Those files caused me to be arrested, questioned, shot at in court…’

‘I didn’t send the hitman.’

Myles stopped. He checked her face. She seemed to believe what she was saying.

‘So who did send him?’

‘My husband, Juma. I didn’t want you to…’

‘To die? To be killed?’ Myles offered.

‘No. I tried everything,’ she pleaded. ‘I tried as hard as I could to persuade Juma not to send that man. But Juma sent him anyway.’

Myles understood. ‘So marrying a powerful psychopath doesn’t always allow you to do good, then?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ she accepted. ‘Not always, no.’ She changed her tone, from defensive to apologetic. ‘I’m glad you managed to escape, Myles.’

‘I’ve been on the run ever since. Almost a week now.’

‘Myles, you do understand: if I hadn’t uploaded those files onto your computer, you’d be in even greater danger. Probably dead.’

Myles looked at her squarely. ‘Explain.’

Placidia shook her head. ‘If I did that, it would cost more lives.’

Myles squinted sceptically at her. ‘So you’re saying, you can’t tell me who wants to kill me because it’ll cost lives.’

‘Yes.’

‘My life or the lives of others?’ asked Myles.

‘Both.’

‘How many others?’

Placidia shrugged. ‘I can’t say.’

‘Can’t say or won’t say?’ asked Myles, frustrated.

‘Both… Look Myles,’ she said, trying to level with him, ‘there are just some things it’s best not to know. This is one of them.’

Myles shook his head — he wasn’t letting it go. ‘Tell me: who wants me dead?’

‘OK. My husband wants you dead,’ Placidia admitted.

‘Why?’

‘Because it’ll make him look strong to his men. Because we knew each other at university… Because he’s mad, I suppose,’ she shrugged again. ‘There might be other reasons, too.’

‘Thank you. Why couldn’t you tell me that before?’

‘Myles, there are more important things than this.’ She was pleading now, desperate to be believed.

‘More important than someone trying to kill me?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She was nodding, and her face seemed very sincere. ‘Don’t you see? The whole of civilisation really is at stake here.’

‘From Juma?’

Placidia refused to answer directly. ‘All I can say, Myles, is that this is the most idealist cause I’ve ever worked for.’

Fifty-One

Myles realised Placidia was serious. ‘OK, Placidia,’ he said. ‘So what’s the most important thing, then?’

Placidia invited Myles to come towards the desk, while she turned on one of the computers. Slowly the machine made noises to indicate it was booting up.

‘This is just a normal PC,’ she said. ‘We got the software from the man in Las Vegas. It’s all quite easy, really.’ She clicked the mouse over to an unnamed folder, which opened. Inside she clicked on a file marked ‘Senate Dump’. ‘This programme…’ Her words trailed off as she concentrated on the keyboard. A box appeared on the screen with the options ‘Start’ or ‘Cancel’. Placidia moved the mouse over to ‘Start’ and clicked.

She paused to check the programme was working, then seemed satisfied that it was. ‘Done,’ she announced. ‘I’ve just started a programme which puts images of naked children onto the personal computers of fifty-five US Senators.’

Myles was aghast.

Placidia offered to explain. ‘It’s not all the Senators. Just those who voted against the recent immigration bill — the ones who made it harder for Africans to settle in the United States. In a few days I’ll let the media know and they’ll investigate.’

‘But nobody’s going to believe half the US Senate is into…’ Myles could barely bring himself to say it, ‘…into that.’

‘You think? They believed the files about the Navy Seal operation on your computer.’

‘But that was just me,’ said Myles. ‘Not a bunch of highly respected Senators.’

Placidia shook her head. ‘Myles, Congress is decadent. Everyone knows it.’

She could see Myles was still in shock.

‘You don’t understand how bad it’s got, do you?’ said Placidia. ‘Like ancient Rome, America started as a republic and a democracy. But they’ve been bought. Senators spend their time sucking up to people with money who can fund their campaigns. Like Rome, the system has become corrupted.’

‘But Placidia…’

‘Power without responsibility,’ insisted Placidia, refusing to allow Myles to interrupt. ‘Just like Roman senators before their empire collapsed — decadence comes before decline.’

‘They’ll trace how the files were uploaded — just as Helen found the files on my computer were from here,’ said Myles.

‘I’ve found ways to do it differently now. There are better ways to hide the IP addresses. It’ll look as though the Senators browsed the web and downloaded the files themselves.’

Myles still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Look, Placidia… I know you have a…a very unique sense of right and wrong. But what can be right about putting sexual images of children onto the computers of Senators? Some of them are good men and women. If they’re found with child porn they’ll be locked up.’

‘You were locked up because of what I put on your computer and, believe me, it saved your life,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s true, Myles. Putting child porn on Senators’ PCs will save lives too.’

‘Someone’s trying to kill the Senators?’

‘No. Other people’s lives. The lives of African people, who die every day. The reputations of a few Senators for thousands of lives. African lives — I know they count for a lot less than American lives…’

‘But, Placidia, that’s…just wrong.’ Myles was struggling. He tried to define exactly what was bad about Placidia’s ‘Senate Dump’ programme: ‘OK. Let’s just suppose that this plan works,’ he said. ‘The fifty or so Senators who voted to keep immigrants out of their country get discovered with child porn on their computers. They have to resign and new ones come in. It doesn’t mean new laws will get passed.’

‘No, but it makes it more likely.’

‘What would you say to a Senator who worked really hard for the people in his state? He’s done nothing wrong, no scandal, nothing. Then he has to resign over child pornography.’

Placidia raised her chin, looking unashamed. ‘I’d say, he shouldn’t vote to condemn many thousands, perhaps millions of people, to their deaths, by denying them the right to settle in America. Sometimes you have to break a rule to save the system of rules — to save the principles which made Western civilisation.’

Myles shook his head. He just couldn’t accept her logic. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to exhale deeply. Fury and long-buried emotions made it hard for him to focus.

Placidia looked at him, concerned. Her voice became quiet again. ‘Myles, there’s more at stake here than even the lives of thousands of people who want to become US citizens. Do you know what happened to the Empire’s population when Rome collapsed?’

Myles looked blank — he didn’t know.

‘The population collapsed, too,’ explained Placidia. ‘To just one-twentieth of what it had been. Nineteen out of every twenty people just couldn’t survive any more. And the end of the Roman Empire brought about the Dark Ages. Knowledge was thrown away,’ she said, using her hands to emphasise the point. ‘Cities disintegrated. Life everywhere became more basic, more brutal…’

‘And you think that’s about to happen again now?’

‘It’s happening already. Myles, I did a lot of research to find out what brought down the Roman Empire.’

Myles nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I tried to get hold of your thesis, but couldn’t.’

‘There’ll be a reason for that.’ She smiled. ‘Look at this,’ she said, turning to the computer and double-clicking on another icon. This time a home-made video appeared. It started with Placidia walking around some Roman ruins, then faded to black as nine words appeared on the screen:

The Decline of America and the Fall of Rome.

Myles peered intently at the screen. It was another of Placidia’s public broadcasts — half history lesson, half taunting terrorist propaganda. ‘Is this going to be released soon?’ he asked.

‘In a few days,’ said Placidia, her eyes fixed on the screen.

The words faded and the picture returned. Placidia was stepping between fallen stone columns in an abandoned Roman town. Apart from some weeds which had taken over the collapsed architecture, she was the only living thing in the picture. She began speaking to the camera. ‘When we look back at history, we try to explain what happened,’ she said. ‘Rarely do we ask how things could have been different. The people who went through the amazing events of the past were often surprised by them. Most people thought things would continue as they always had done. Then, as now, most big changes were only visible with hindsight — after they happened.’

Placidia turned to Myles for approval. Myles was too engrossed to return her glance. He kept watching the video.

The Placidia on the screen was opening her arms, pointing at the collapsed architecture around her. ‘This used to be a vibrant Roman city,’ she explained. ‘It had commerce and government. It could afford great monuments. The people had baths and public games. It could even afford to send its sons off as soldiers to fight in the Middle East. Rome — like modern America — had the greatest army on earth.’

The video cut to some graffiti on one of the Roman stones. Placidia’s voice continued as voiceover: ‘None of these Romans expected their civilisation to collapse. But collapse it did, suddenly and completely.’

Then Placidia spoke squarely to the camera. ‘I’m warning you that America could very soon face the same fate.’

The picture cut to a graph labelled ‘US Share of World Trade’. The line peaked in the late 1960s at just over half, then tumbled down in the subsequent years. ‘Just like the Romans, you are losing your dominance of world trade…’ came the voiceover.

A second graph labelled ‘US Social Mobility’ appeared. Again, it showed a clear downward trend. ‘The Roman Emperor Diocletian passed laws which made men take on the same occupations as their fathers,’ the voiceover continued. ‘In modern America, it is college fees and the who-you-know economy which mean the best jobs stay in the same families more than ever.’

Next came a graphic labelled ‘US — real median income’. It was a bumpy flat line, declining slightly since the late 1970s. ‘Rome, just like modern America, used to say it was getting richer every year. But towards the end, only the rich got richer in Rome, just like in modern America. To buy a home and a car and their groceries, most Americans now need to work harder than they used to thirty or forty years ago. And it’s going to get worse, not better…’

The video cut back to Placidia, walking pensively through the Roman ruins. ‘Some people think that Rome was brought down by lead poisoning or the plague, or by barbarians rampaging through the streets of the capital. Some say it was a costly war with the Persians in Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq and Syria. Some blame the decision to make Christianity its official state religion, because until just a few years before it fell, the Romans had been careful to separate Church and State…’

Then Placidia spoke straight to the camera. ‘But what really changed was its people. Roman people became different. Rome was built by citizens who were prepared to sacrifice everything for their empire. By the time it collapsed, crowds were pleading for permission to eat human flesh. The Romans had become cruel and selfish. Some said they deserved to die out…’

Pictures of great Roman buildings appeared like a series of holiday photographs. ‘It is my belief that most Romans would have become better people if they knew what was coming to them,’ she speculated. ‘And the same is true of America today. Most Americans are addicted to things they don’t need — huge houses, holidays, take-away food. And they’re determined to keep out non-Americans who are prepared to work really hard for just a small part of what Americans can enjoy. You’re not even helping us enjoy an American way of life in Africa. Just condemning us to death. And what you don’t realise is that really you’re condemning yourselves to death.’

Placidia reappeared on the screen to conclude her remarks. ‘There are lots more similarities between the end of Rome and the forthcoming end of the United States. You’ll find out the biggest one in just a few days. My point is,’ said Placidia, her tone making clear she was about to conclude, ‘it’s not inevitable. You can change it. Tell your Senators to reach out to people like us. Please, help us survive. Because, if you do not, then your country will die next.’

Placidia’s haunting image slowly disappeared from view as the picture faded away.

Myles silently watched the video close, stunned by what he had seen.

Eventually he turned to Placidia. ‘So that’s why you think the Roman Empire collapsed? The people just became too cruel and selfish?’

Placidia tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. She was pondering. ‘It’s a big reason,’ she accepted. ‘Look at adverts on American TV today — and in Europe, too. Most of them ridicule someone and say ‘buy this product to feel superior’. No advertiser could sell something because it was good for civilisation. Even patriotism has gone out of fashion. And when they sell something that’s good for charity or the environment, they just offer to make people feel smug. “Ask what you can do for your country” became “ask what your country can do for you”,’ quoted Placidia, well aware she was reversing one of President Kennedy’s most famous phrases.

‘And it was like that in ancient Rome?’ asked Myles.

‘Yes. In the early days, people were proud to fight for Rome. People made sacrifices for their civilisation. By the end they were cutting off their thumbs to avoid the draft. Everybody felt they deserved wealth and security, but no one would work for it.’

Myles was still sceptical. There was something she wasn’t saying. ‘So you think that by doing all this — sending a car-bomb to Wall Street, poisoning people, digging up the plague — you can make Americans come together again?’

‘It wasn’t the plague,’ interrupted Placidia. ‘I made sure those men dug up something else — an illness they had been vaccinated against. And it was a disease which wouldn’t have survived underground anyway.’

‘It was deliberate?’ queried Myles, confused.

Placidia nodded as she confronted him. ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ Her eyes were wide, like a teenager desperately trying to be believed. ‘Look, America is in serious danger. Really, it is. Believe me, I can’t tell you exactly why, but if you don’t help me…’ She leant forwards, about to make a gesture to Myles. She put her hand on his cheek. Myles wondered whether she was about to kiss him.

Then they were disturbed…

Fifty-Two

Myles and Placidia turned to see Juma swagger in with a grin on his face and an AK-47 in his hands. Juma made a point of leaving armed guards at the door, which he closed behind him. ‘Hello, ladies,’ he mocked.

Both Myles and Placidia nodded respectfully, acknowledging his presence.

He turned to his wife, looking cocky. ‘So, has your history-professor man agreed?’

Placidia’s eyes turned down as she shook her head. ‘I’ve not asked him yet,’ she said.

Myles checked both of their faces. ‘Asked me what?’

Placidia paused before she explained herself. ‘Myles, you know that Rome was besieged before it was first ransacked in 410. The Goths who stormed the city that year just wanted a homeland, like us. They surrounded Rome for almost two years, stopping food going in and people going out. As the city began to starve, the Senate of Rome agreed to pay off the Goths in return for them lifting the siege. But the Senate couldn’t raise the funds because the rich people in the city just hid their gold and silver, so there was no wealth to collect. Most of them buried it.’

Myles found himself nodding. ‘That’s why archaeologists still find treasure buried in central Rome.’ He saw Placidia nodding, and began to imagine what she had in mind. ‘But Placidia, people have paper money now, and stocks and shares. You can’t bury that in the ground.’

Placidia was about to reply when Juma interrupted her. ‘It’s like this,’ he declared. ‘I’ve got hundreds of people who need to be paid off. This private security company, for a start.’

‘Your mercenaries, you mean?’ asked Myles.

Juma smiled and started speaking more slowly. ‘Placidia’s already given me my own personal history lesson. She told me that the great Roman military which won an empire was gradually replaced by mercenaries, but they eventually lost it.’

‘Paying for mercenaries pretty much bankrupted ancient Rome,’ confirmed Placidia, underwriting Juma’s words and nodding as she spoke.

Juma began to grin. ‘See — it was private security companies like mine which came to rule the Roman Empire.’ He poked a finger towards Myles’ face, then slowly dragged it across his chin. Myles’ chin was covered in hair and stubble. He hadn’t shaved for several days. ‘So Myles, I need you to become our fundraiser.’

Myles didn’t answer with words, although his body language was responding with a very clear ‘no’.

Juma turned to Placidia, mocking surprise. ‘The professor doesn’t like the idea?’ he said. Then he caressed Myles’ jaw again, slowly rolling his fingers around Myles’ face. Suddenly, he grabbed it firmly, and thrust his face towards Myles. ‘Would you prefer a bullet in that beautiful head of yours?’

Myles took Juma’s hand away, then tried to defuse the situation with his humour. ‘I’d be a hopeless fundraiser — I can’t even get myself a pay rise.’

Juma grinned, exposing his rotten teeth.

Placidia stepped in, more serious than ever. ‘Myles, the stakes are high here.’

Myles remembered what she had just told him: Juma wants you dead. The stakes were very high.

Juma started lecturing him. ‘Myles, as the Roman Empire weakened, the imperial mint started putting less and less gold in their “gold” coins. A few emperors tried to stop it, like bringing in fixed prices for basic foodstuffs or decreeing how much gold there had to be in the coins. But it didn’t work. The Romans had to establish what’s called a “fiat” currency — a currency which only had value because the government said it did…’

Myles could tell Juma was just reciting what Placidia had taught him, but he didn’t want to interrupt.

‘Well, America is like that now,’ said Juma. ‘Forty years ago the dollar stopped being exchangeable for gold. Now they just keep printing dollar bills. Congress can’t raise taxes, and they can’t afford to spend less on the military or other federal programmes, so the deficit just keeps growing.’

Placidia was nodding along. ‘It’s even worse than in ancient Rome,’ she explained. ‘In Rome, only the Emperor could mint coins. But in modern America, the banks create money and they’ve bought off the government. The system’s already out of control.’

Juma grinned again. ‘And we just need them to print a little more for us. Easy.’

Myles shrugged in resignation. ‘You know, ever since the Boston tea party, the Americans have taken badly to Englishmen asking them for money.’ He squared up to Juma. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

Placidia interrupted before Juma could answer. ‘Myles, you don’t have to do much. There’s the big currency conference coming up. You just need to explain the history of Rome. Tell the rich bankers and the governments to offer up some cash. Make them do what the Roman Senate and the Emperor failed to do and put the future of civilisation before themselves. Please, Myles.’

‘You want me to help blackmail the world economy?’ said Myles. He shook his head. Whatever was at stake, he just couldn’t do it.

Juma smiled — the Englishman was as straight-talking as he was. Then the Somali pirate grabbed a tuft of Myles’ hair and pulled it sharply to one side. ‘That’s OK, Myles,’ he said. ‘That’s what we thought you’d say. I can deal with the currency conference without you. I’ll go there alone. It’s not a problem.’

Placidia glared at Myles, desperately urging him to reconsider. ‘Myles, think about what you’re saying. Could we reach a compromise on this?’

But Juma had already swung his gun into Myles’ ribs.

Myles bent over and stumbled, almost falling to the floor.

Juma cocked his weapon. ‘It’s OK, Placidia. Time for me to give this man a history lesson of my own.’

Juma quickly lifted his gun onto his shoulder, then grabbed Myles’ shirt. Myles felt himself flung against the wall.

Placidia tugged on Juma’s arm. ‘Let him go,’ she pleaded.

Juma shook his head.

Placidia tried again. ‘If you kill him, they’ll try to kill us.’

‘They’ll try to kill us anyway,’ replied Juma. He whipped his hand over Myles’ face. Then, with Placidia watching in shock, he kicked Myles — a high kick, in the stomach.

Myles bent double, then felt himself flung out of the room. He caught a last glimpse of Placidia — she was almost tearful — only the second time ever that Myles had seen her show real emotions. Myles could tell: Placidia really believed his life was in danger.

Juma slammed the door behind him, then stood over Myles. Three of Juma’s men came in, clearly knowing what was going to happen. Myles heard them boasting to each other in their African dialect, taking pride in what they were about to do. Juma took command. ‘Stand up, Englishman,’ he bellowed.

Half frog-marched, half jostled, Myles was taken through the remaining offices of Galla Security towards an exit at the back. The door opened out onto a bright car park. Juma directed him towards a white Toyota Corolla. ‘Sit,’ he commanded, as if Myles were a dog.

He was manoeuvred into the back section of the vehicle, where grinning Somali gunmen sat either side of him, with a third opposite. Juma took the driver’s seat and turned on the engine.

Myles sized up the men around him. One of them offered qat leaves around. Myles declined, but the other men gladly grabbed some. Tiny pieces of half-reduced leaves stuck to their teeth. They showed decaying gums when they grinned. Qat, Myles knew, took two hours to have maximum effect. In two hours, these men would want to demonstrate their machismo. He had just two hours to escape.

The Toyota Corolla drove through a back entrance in the breeze-block perimeter wall, leaving Galla Security behind. The vehicle bumped the passengers as it started to accelerate, making its way onto the highway.

Myles was surprised when, after less than half a mile, the vehicle turned off the main route. The gap in the kerbstones led to a vague side road. Soon they were completely off-road. No more buildings from here. Juma was taking Myles into the desert.

Myles could not react and began to wonder if he was there at all. It was a sensation he had read about: an out-of-body experience. As danger increases, people begin to imagine themselves from a distance. The mind detaches from a frightening situation, trying to take the body with it. Myles was mentally removing himself from the car now.

Snap out of it, he thought. But he couldn’t snap out of it. He sensed the bravado of the men beside and opposite him. He looked at one of them, who grinned back.

The men leant and lurched as the Corolla started to reel over the uneven ground. When the front wheels impacted against a bar of half-dirt, half-sand, Juma’s men whooped in delight. For them it was like a fairground ride, or a hunting expedition. A hunting expedition with a guaranteed kill.

Myles tried to focus on what could well be his demise. How could he save himself? He knew that, because he was cooperating, they weren’t guarding him as tightly as they might. He kept trying to think through his situation. If he tried to escape and failed, he wouldn’t get a second chance.

He would have to play along until a good chance came. To stay obedient until he knew he could escape.

Was there any chance to fight back? No. Was Juma going to try to kill him? Probably, but it wasn’t certain. What could Myles say which would make Juma think twice?

After a couple of minutes where the track had become rougher, the Toyota halted. Myles heard the engine stop and the vibrations cease. Juma was instantly out of the door, standing close to where Myles was sitting. He dropped the back flap of the vehicle.

‘Down,’ instructed Juma.

The Somali gang men obeyed instantly, and jumped down. Myles had no choice but to follow.

He was poked in the back by the barrel of a gun, and found himself led towards a slight slope in the desert. He tried briefly to look around: nothing but dirt and sand in all directions.

‘On your knees,’ barked Juma.

Myles turned to Juma and tried to talk. ‘I can help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve,’ he offered.

Juma rocked his head back, laughing. ‘I know, Mr Munro. You’re about to. Down.’

‘Juma…’

‘Down.’ Juma’s instruction was absolutely clear. Myles started opening his mouth to offer more but was immediately deafened by a burst of automatic gunfire. Bullets drilled into the ground in front of him, spitting dirt onto Myles’ shins.

Juma leant close to Myles, and looked at him wide-eyed. Then he slowly mouthed the word again. ‘D-O-W-N.’

Reluctantly, Myles started to put his knees on the slope. He tried to kneel facing Juma and his three accomplices, but Juma made clear he wanted Myles to be facing away. Myles swung himself around until he was looking at the sand.

There were a few moments of silence. Then Myles felt the nuzzle of a gun barrel pressing on the back of his neck. It was pushing his head down. He duly lowered his face, until his nose and chin were firmly against the slope in the desert.

Then Myles felt the pressure of the nuzzle pull away. He understood he was expected to stay in position. He’d been lucky so far — could he be lucky again?

Some distance behind him, he heard quiet words being exchanged between the four Somalis.

The discussion stopped, followed by almost ten seconds of silence.

Very slowly, Myles tried to lift his face from the slope. Deep down he hoped the men might have departed. Perhaps he had been left alone in the desert.

He turned to look. He wasn’t alone.

Juma’s gun was raised to his shoulder, and Myles was looking down the barrel.

He saw a flash leave the end of the metal tube, and sensed a huge noise as a bullet shot towards him.

The last thing he felt was the pressure from the pulse of air which accompanied the bullet as it left Juma’s gun. He never felt the bullet hit. Instead, he slumped lifelessly into the dirt slope.

Fifty-Three

As a journalist, Helen used to keep away from press conferences whenever she could. It was a statement of independence: she didn’t like being summoned by a public figure, and she hated to help them promote themselves. Press conferences were old-fashioned and pompous. They were for losers.

But now her lover’s reputation was at stake. He had saved her life in Istanbul. She had to do all she could for him.

Myles needed her. Even though press conferences were for losers, it was better to be a loser than to lose him, she thought.

And so, through a contact, she booked a meeting room in the Senate. She called her colleagues in the press corps, and prepared all the information a journalist would want to cover the story.

When her friends arrived, they were given a pack of evidence: the material found on Myles’ computer, an affidavit from a respected Silicon Valley tech firm saying how the files had been planted, and details on exactly where in Iraq the files had been sent from.

She knew it was a good story — if she were a journalist, she would have covered it. Except, she was a journalist, and she couldn’t cover it because she was part of it. That was why it felt so odd to walk into a room full of her colleagues and sit in front of them. It made her less of a journalist than she used to be.

‘Thank you all for coming,’ she began. ‘You know, I used to avoid press conferences like the plague. But since I almost caught the plague recently, I thought I’d give press conferences a go, too…’

There was a little laughter around the room. ‘You better not be contagious anymore!’ heckled one of her friends.

‘Thanks,’ acknowledged Helen, accepting the joke. ‘Actually, it turned out to be a blood infection, and I’d like to express my respect and gratitude to the highly professional doctors and nurses in Turkey, who gave me such excellent medical treatment.’

She began going through the evidence in the information packs, holding up each piece of paper in turn. ‘Myles Munro has been trying to save America, not destroy it,’ she explained. ‘He’s done all he can and he’s not even from this country…’

Hands went up. She picked someone from the front row. ‘Helen, who do you blame for all this?’ came the question.

‘Well, it looks like someone in the Department for Homeland Security made the wrong conclusion about the information on Myles’ computer,’ said Helen, trying to be fair.

‘So you blame Homeland Security?’

‘This isn’t about blame. It’s about tackling threats to America. For that, Myles Munro needs to be able to work with the authorities. He shouldn’t have to run from them.’

Several journalists shouted at once. Helen chose a woman reporter from a rival network. ‘Do you think Homeland is doing enough to stop Juma’s plot?’ asked the woman.

Helen nodded. ‘I think the plot is real. Juma is ruthless — we know that. And his wife is absolutely crazy. She may be clever, but it’s an evil sort of cleverness. She’s an expert on ancient Rome. Perhaps she’s the greatest threat here.’

‘But do you think Homeland is doing enough?’ repeated the questioner.

Helen shrugged. ‘I don’t know what Homeland’s doing,’ she admitted. ‘Apart from keeping Myles Munro on the run.’

The rival reporter looked down to write notes. Her face was dismissive.

‘Where is Myles Munro now?’ asked a print journalist.

‘I don’t know that. I’m sorry,’ said Helen.

‘But you were with him in Istanbul…’

‘Yes, he saved my life there,’ acknowledged Helen. ‘He may have been heading to Iraq. But I don’t know whether he reached the country.’

‘So he could be working with Islamic extremists in Iraq?’

Helen shook her head. ‘No,’ she insisted. ‘And the headline which called him a “Runaway Terrorist” is about as wrong as it could be.’

She was beginning to feel outnumbered. Even though she knew many of the journalists, it didn’t stop them asking nasty questions.

Then a tall frame entered at the back of the room. Helen saw him first and smiled as if she had just been saved. The press pack saw she was distracted and turned to see who it was.

The man strode towards the front of the room, bypassing cameras, careful not to knock any of the broadcast equipment. He wore cowboy boots and an open-neck shirt.

If this press conference wasn’t news already, it was now.

Helen welcomed him to the front. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ she announced, the relief obvious in her voice. ‘The Chief Executive of the Roosevelt Guardians and son of the Senator in whose name this room is booked. Dick Roosevelt.’

Roosevelt junior knew how to make the best of theatre. He held his hands up in a ‘you got me’ gesture as the media shouted out to him.

‘Any news on your father, Richard?’

‘Do you agree with Ms Bridle about Myles Munro, sir?’

‘Your Roosevelt Guardians are managing security at the currency conference in Rome — will it be attacked?’

‘How safe is America, Dick?’

Instead of answering the questions, Dick Roosevelt just let them come. He had a natural ability to relax in the spotlight — just like his father. It’s the picture that matters.

He made a point of allowing each person in the room to speak, pointing at them in turn. Only once the press conference had exhausted itself of questions did he volunteer some words of his own. ‘More questions than I ever got in school,’ he quipped. ‘I’ll try to give you more right answers than I gave my teachers.’

Some of the journalists chuckled.

Then Roosevelt became more serious. ‘Look, I’m helping out this fine woman here because our country is in trouble,’ he said firmly. ‘There is a plot to destroy America as Rome was destroyed, a plot led by some very mad and bad people — hell, I should know, I’ve met them. And we’re not doing enough to keep America safe.’

He paused to find one of the broadcast cameras. He levelled at it. ‘Now there are two brave men out there. They’re in harm’s way. They’re missing in action. They’re probably suffering big time. Myles Munro is a hero, and so is my father. America needs to find them, and we need to help them.’

A journalist interrupted him with a question. ‘What do you think about the African refugees in Italy, Mr Roosevelt? Should we let them into America?’

Roosevelt tried not to be fazed by the question. He paused and looked thoughtful. Then he began to recite something:

‘That’s the poem on the Statue of Liberty,’ he explained. ‘The words which greeted our great-grandparents arriving in America, right?’

There was much nodding in the room — they recognised the quote.

Roosevelt carried on: ‘Well, sometimes America is a victim of American values,’ he said. ‘Our hospitality can be abused. Our doors have opened so wide we’ve let in people who aren’t really poor. We’ve even let in terrorists. And — hell — we’re already full up.’

‘But is that a Christian attitude, sir — “No room at the inn”, sir?’

Roosevelt smiled again. He made clear he didn’t have much respect for the questioner. ‘Look, I’m a Christian,’ he said, nodding. ‘And I want this to be a Christian country. I believe Christian values ought to be taught in schools — that was the one mistake our founding fathers made, and we’re suffering for it now. But being a Christian does not mean letting an alien religion invade our country…’

Suddenly Roosevelt lost his audience. He wondered whether it was something he said, but realised he was being upstaged.

Helen noticed it too: it was something else. All the mobiles in the room — switched to silent for the press conference — seemed to be vibrating.

The reporters at the back immediately started talking on their phones, breaking the atmosphere of the event. A few dashed out of the room while others started to pack up. In just a few seconds Helen, Myles and the Roosevelts had gone from being the lead story to old news.

Dick Roosevelt put up his hands again — his ‘you got me’ gesture seemed particularly appropriate. Roosevelt caught Helen’s eye — no point continuing until they had the journalists’ attention again.

Helen agreed, suspecting she had been right about press conferences — they were for losers after all. She asked one of her journalist friends what the breaking story was, and was shown the message which had just come through:

Dick Roosevelt saw it too, then quickly whipped out his phone and dialled one of his contacts. ‘Get Susan, the Homeland Security woman who used to work for my father,’ he commanded. ‘Tell her to find out what the hell is going on.’

Fifty-Four

Myles had always been curious about religion but never attracted to any particular one. He loved the thought of an afterlife. He longed for a place beyond the world as explained by science. He always wished for a fundamental reason to do things, and hoped religion might be able to deliver.

There is no afterlife.

But he had always been disappointed. Religions might offer comfort, but that was all. To Myles, it was all just empty calories. Why believe in a religion for a spiritual world when you could just believe in a spiritual world anyway?

There can be no afterlife.

And did God, or a spiritual world, or an afterlife, make sense? Could they ever? Since death was by definition the end of life, ‘life after death’ was a contradiction. If there was such a thing, it couldn’t be his life which was continuing.

There is no such thing as an afterlife.

And yet Myles sensed something. Not with his eyes: they were blurry. Not with his ears: they were recoiling. He had even lost his sense of gravity: he no longer knew which way was up. But somehow he was still aware.

Myles foundered. Where was he? Not heaven. Not hell…

Vaguely he became aware of voices. Laughing voices. Male voices.

No holy book described where he was now.

He found his lungs straining, and reflexively pulled back his head. He gasped for air, then tried to spit dirt from his mouth. He was alive.

Myles’ eyes began showing him the bank of dirt. He was where he had been before he had been shot.

Someone grabbed at one of his legs. He felt his arms being pulled taut. He was being tied up.

He understood the laughing voices now: Juma and his acolytes were prostrate in hysterics. A mock execution. The bullet had missed. Deliberately.

Myles bent over to see his wrists being bound with cheap wire. The Somali man who was doing it looked up at Myles, still intrigued by the Englishman’s reaction. The man opened his mouth, revealing gums covered in half-chewed qat.

Only as his ankles were tied did Myles feel he was back in the real world again — half happy to have survived, half terrified by the knowledge that the mock execution might be repeated at any time, perhaps next time for real. He was completely at Juma’s mercy.

Juma slung his weapon on his shoulder, moving his gun as if it completed his display of marksmanship. ‘It’s all right — you’re still alive,’ hissed Juma. ‘For now.’

Juma’s men laughed again. Myles refused to react.

Myles’ height meant it took all three of the Somalis to carry him out from the dirt and back into the Toyota Corolla. They didn’t offer him a seat this time. Instead, they just lifted his body onto the metal floor of the pick-up and pushed him forward until they could shut the flap at the back. Juma’s men climbed in, glaring down at their prey.

One of them kicked him and sniggered, as if he were a plaything. Again Myles refused to react. Then the vibrations of the vehicle’s engine started again, and the pick-up started rolling.

Unable to see in any direction other than straight up, Myles didn’t know where they were going. From the position of the sun in the sky, he guessed they were travelling north or north-west. But it didn’t really matter. It was all desert round here. He was just being driven even further away from any sort of habitation. Even less chance of escape than before…

As the vehicle bumped and rocked on the uneven desert terrain, Myles was jostled around on the floor of the pick-up. He tried to test his bindings, disguising each movement as an unavoidable jolt from the journey. Both his wrists and ankles were very tightly secured. No way to loosen them.

The butt of an AK-47 was just inches from his head. He considered trying to grab it and use it somehow, but it was hopeless. Myles couldn’t even get to his feet. It was no way to escape.

The journey lasted about half an hour, although the timing was hard to tell. The Somali gang men passed drinking water amongst themselves several times — water Myles desperately wanted for himself — before the vehicle stopped and the ignition ceased.

Someone bent down to cut the binding on Myles’ ankles. His legs were released. Myles didn’t know whether to thank the man or kick him, but he quickly realised the three Somalis guarding him weren’t interested in him anymore. They seemed to be looking around. It was as if they had found some scenery in the desert. Myles could only imagine.

They followed the same routine as for the mock execution: Juma out, the back flap down, and everybody else out too, with Myles being dragged off last of all.

But this time they were definitely somewhere. This wasn’t just a random spot of desert. This was an abandoned town. An old Roman town.

Myles had read about these: there were several of them throughout modern-day Syria and Iraq, most of them well preserved by the dry desert climate. Settlements like the one he was in now had been created by the ancient empire and thrived for several hundred years. Then they had been left — either when the ground was lost to the Persians in the eastern wars between 200AD and 350AD, or when the Roman Empire itself collapsed in the century which followed. They had been abandoned ever since.

Myles squinted as he looked around: fallen columns and carved stones lay everywhere. The Toyota Corolla had parked on the remnants of an old Roman road. He was not far from a circle of stone benches, a mini-amphitheatre where ‘games’ had kept people entertained almost two thousand years ago.

Suddenly Myles recognised where he was: it was where Placidia had filmed her second video — the video she had shown him earlier, which explained how the Roman Empire had died.

As he blinked in amazement at his surroundings — a response which made Juma lean back with a grin — he turned to see the one modern structure in the whole area. It was a tent, just like the one over the excavation site in Istanbul.

Juma saw Myles had noticed it. The pirate leader made a gesture to someone. Myles didn’t know who.

Then the tent flap opened from the inside, and an old man was forced to march outside, into the light and heat of the desert afternoon.

Myles and the old man stood staring at each other. Like Myles, the man’s wrists were bound. The man had not shaved, and his sunken cheeks suggested he had not been given the food and water a 69-year-old needed to remain healthy in the desert heat.

As the man walked up to Myles, lifting his face in defiance of Juma and ignoring the Somalis who stood around with their guns, Myles greeted him with respect. ‘It’s good to see you, Senator,’ he said.

The Senator nodded and clenched his jaw against the desert heat. Although the man had been weakened by his captivity, Myles could tell Sam Roosevelt had lost none of his will.

Myles and the Senator tried to shake hands, but the wire around their wrists made it difficult. They managed as best they could. Myles noticed the Senator’s forearms: they had become thin, almost skeletal.

The Senator squinted up at Myles. ‘I thought they’d let you go,’ he said. ‘Did they double-cross you, too?’ Roosevelt emphasised the words ‘double-cross’, accusing Juma and his team as they listened in.

Myles thought of explaining everything he’d been through — in New York, his arrest in Rome, his escape in London, the factory in Germany and the excavation site in Istanbul. Then he decided there would be better times for all that. ‘They did let me go,’ he acknowledged. ‘Then they tried to kill me a few times, then they captured me again.’

The Senator smiled. ‘So we’re captives again.’

Myles nodded. ‘The only difference is that this time we’re in Iraq,’ he said.

Without dropping his outward show of confidence, the Senator was clearly struck by something Myles said. He turned his face and lowered an eyebrow. He leant in to Myles and spoke more quietly. ‘Iraq? You sure?’

Myles nodded again. Briefly he explained how he knew they were in Iraq’s Western Desert. They couldn’t have travelled long enough from An Nukhayb to have crossed a national border.

‘How come there’s no military presence?’ asked the Senator. ‘We trained Iraqi troops. They should be here. I’ve seen Senate papers on this.’ The Senator slumped. His life’s work in the Senate had just been devalued. There was more evidence from the Romans two thousand years ago than of Americans who had just left. ‘So this is what we leave behind when the United States retreats?’ he lamented.

‘Where did you think we were, Senator?’

‘They took me on a boat to Egypt, then east through the Sinai. I assumed we were in Jordan or Syria. These guys must have gotten into Iraq without even climbing over a fence.’

Juma came over and imposed himself on the two Westerners. ‘Gentlemen. I’m sure you’ve got lots to talk about.’

‘We have, Mr Juma,’ retorted the Senator, ‘but not with you.’

‘That’s OK,’ gloated Juma. ‘I’ve brought you both here to give you even more to discuss.’

‘We’re not running out of material.’

Roosevelt’s caustic defiance was missed by Juma, who had already turned to some of his men. They started opening the doors of an SUV with blacked-out windows, which had been parked for some time behind the tent. A Somali man was dragged from inside. Like Myles and the Senator, his wrists were bound.

Myles recognised him at once: the security guard from the factory in Germany. Somehow, despite the explosion, he must have survived. But Myles couldn’t tell whether the man had escaped to Juma, or been captured by him.

Juma turned back to Myles. ‘Englishman — you’ve met this man before,’ he said.

Myles confirmed that he recognised the man.

‘Then you know how useless he is,’ huffed Juma. ‘You know what the Romans used to do with people like him?’

Myles didn’t respond. The Senator answered for him, kicking back his head as he spoke. ‘I know what the Romans would do with people like you, Juma.’

Juma laughed. ‘Except that the Romans respected power, Senator. And that’s what I have and you do not, gentlemen.’

‘For now.’

Juma shrugged. ‘Yes, but when else matters?’

The Somali pirate wandered towards the hapless guard, who was now shaking. ‘Senator, the Romans would have used this man for entertainment,’ he explained. ‘They put slaves, Christians and criminals in a ring and made them fight to the death. It was a spectator sport. If death fights were shown on American TV today they would draw in huge audiences.’

Juma turned to Myles. ‘This man almost killed you. Do you want your revenge?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘That’s very Christian of you,’ mocked Juma. ‘Maybe I should put you both in the ring and just let him have the weapon. Give him a second chance. What do you think?’

Myles remained silent.

‘Senator, you’re in favour of capital punishment,’ said Juma. ‘This is your chance to be an executioner.’

‘It’s too early for capital punishment,’ replied the Senator. ‘He’s not been on death row for fifteen years.’

‘Former Navy Seal and super macho Senator Sam Roosevelt — afraid to kill?’ Juma said his words with a taunting tone, teasing the Senator for a reaction.

‘Juma, there are lots of people here I’m not afraid to kill at all. It’s just that he isn’t one of them.’

Juma ambled away, smiling thinly to cover his lack of a reply. ‘OK, so neither of you will help me entertain my men by killing this man?’

Myles and the Senator refused to respond.

Juma ignored them. ‘Then I’ll have to make him die myself.’

The Somali gang leader lifted his Kalashnikov and aimed it at the man, who collapsed to his knees. The prisoner was whimpering, begging Juma not to fire.

Myles called out as Juma cocked his weapon. ‘Don’t, Juma.’

Juma looked at Myles with a sarcastic expression on his face. ‘Of course I wouldn’t kill him with a gun. Where’s the entertainment in that?’ Juma shook his head. ‘My men have seen thousands of fatal bullet wounds. No. I want to offer them entertainment. Just like the Romans: entertainment.’ He emphasised the word ‘entertainment’ as if he was reciting it from a textbook, as if he had done the research himself. Myles had seen many academic pretenders at Oxford. Juma’s words confirmed how little the pirate leader really understood — except about killing.

Juma’s men brought out a cloth bag. This was placed over the man’s sobbing face, down as far as his nose. They pulled it tight and tied it at the back, leaving his mouth exposed. Then he was fed what looked like a string of four yellow sausages. An instruction — a single word — was yelled at him, and he began to eat them. Although he tried to chew and swallow, the soft sausage-like tubes were hard to consume. When he gagged, he was kicked until he continued. Terrified, the Somali security guard kept going for several minutes. Finally he finished the ‘meal’.

‘Good. Now, take off his hood,’ ordered Juma.

The hood was untied and lifted off.

Then Juma called out some words. The men who had fed the guard the sausages understood immediately and ran away as fast as they could. The guard himself looked wide-eyed in a mix of disbelief and terror. Then he tried standing up, desperately looking where to go.

Juma laughed. ‘Gentlemen, I’ve explained to this man that he’s just eaten a remote-control bomb…’

The terrified man started running around, at first not sure what to do. Then he decided it was best to go near to some of the other pirates. He hoped that Juma wouldn’t trigger the device if it meant killing some of his other men at the same time.

Myles protested. ‘Let him go, Juma.’

‘I have, Mr Englishman. Look — he’s running free!’

The man tried to clutch one of Juma’s men, but the Somali drew his AK-47 and fired it into the desert ground to keep the man away.

The man tried to approach Juma, but Juma just laughed and spat at him.

Finally, in absolute desperation, the man decided to run away as far as he could, hoping either that Juma was bluffing or that he could get out of range of whatever device the pirate warlord was planning to use.

While Juma’s men laughed at the man’s efforts to escape, Juma was handed a small radio-like transmitter. He offered the button to Myles and the Senator. Both refused to press it.

Finally Juma laid his thumb on the button and looked up as he pushed. Instantly the running Somali exploded into a red cloud. The spectators, both voluntary and captive, crouched in reaction to the blast.

When they looked to see where the man had been, there was hardly anything to see. Just one limb and half a torso seemed to remain visible. Every other part of him had disintegrated in a mist of tatters and debris which would soon be covered by the desert sands.

Fifty-Five

Even though Paul Pasgarius the Third had heard nothing more from ‘Constantine’ for well over a week, he guessed the caller would contact him again.

This time he was ready with special software, so he might have a chance to locate the anonymous voice. After all, if the voice tried to blackmail him again, he guessed his best hope would be to try to blackmail Constantine in return.

So when his computer flashed that there was another incoming call, again from an ‘Unknown Caller’, he switched on his tracking programme before he answered.

‘Paul Pasgarius the Third speaking,’ he said with false confidence, one eye on the location programme as he spoke.

‘Good evening, Paul,’ came the voice.

‘Constantine — hello,’ replied Paul. ‘I hope you’ve called to report one hundred per cent customer satisfaction.’

The heavily disguised voice seemed to chuckle a bit. ‘Yes, it worked,’ said Constantine.

‘Good,’ said Paul, guessing the voice was more male than female. And whoever it was, they sounded more commanding than they had last time. It was a voice of authority.

‘Now there’s one more thing for you to do,’ continued Constantine.

‘You can’t blackmail me now,’ said Paul, chewing his gum near the microphone on his headset. ‘Haven’t you seen the news? Half of congress has been doing what I’ve been doing.’

‘You’re right, Paul,’ replied Constantine. ‘Which is why this time I’m going to pay you. Cash.’

Paul hadn’t expected that. He chewed his gum more slowly. Perhaps he was lucky to hear from Constantine again after all.

‘What I want you to do, Paul, is help me clean up a few computer trails. There are some tracks which need to be covered.’

‘And the cash?’

‘I’ll be giving that to you in person.’

‘How much?’

The garbled voice laughed again. ‘You don’t get to ask how much. More than enough is the answer.’

Paul stared hopelessly at his software programme. It had stopped searching, and simply come up with the answer ‘Source location unknown’. He shook his head, annoyed. ‘Where will I meet you?’ he asked.

‘In Rome,’ came Constantine’s answer. Then he commanded, ‘Buy your own air ticket.’

Fifty-Six

Myles had been briefed about ‘consumable’ bombs when he was with military intelligence: as deadly as a suicide vest but much harder to detect. Al Qaeda had sent a man with a bomb inside him to assassinate an important Saudi royal in 2009, and he had managed to detonate himself in front of his target. It was just a technical flaw with the bomb which had allowed Prince Mohammed bin Nayef to survive. Now it seemed that Juma had adopted the technology. Worse, the Somali gang leader had made it work effectively.

Juma was still grinning. ‘It’s good, huh?’

Myles and the Senator glanced at one another, each inviting the other to speak. The Senator offered the first retort. ‘So good, Juma, I think you ought to try it yourself.’

‘Thank you Senator. I’m glad you found it entertaining.’ Juma gave a false laugh as he swaggered around. ‘You know what this place is?’

‘Tell me, Mr Juma,’ asked the Senator, his tone making plain that he didn’t care for Juma’s games. ‘What is this place?’

Juma didn’t answer immediately. Instead he redirected his question towards Myles, feigning an overeducated accent. ‘Mr Oxford Academic, sir. Do you know what this place is?’

‘Looks like an abandoned Roman town,’ offered Myles.

‘Correct. Well done — you’ve done your reading.’ Juma’s voice was overloaded with sarcasm. ‘Yes,’ he said, talking as much to his men as to Myles. ‘This rubble used to be one of the last outposts of the Roman Empire. The Persians did to this town what I’ll do to America. The Romans had to abandon it. And do you know what they did here?’

Myles didn’t respond.

‘You don’t know, Englishman?’ taunted Juma.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘The Oxford brainbox doesn’t know? I’ll tell you what the Romans did here,’ said Juma, ambling closer. ‘They kept eunuchs here.’ Juma put his hand on his crotch and jumped around howling. His men all laughed at him, reacting from fear as much as humour.

Then Juma swung round and grabbed Myles’ crotch. ‘And are you a eunuch? Mr Myles, sir, Mr Munro? Mr Oxford University?’ Juma’s voice had become serious and threatening. He pushed his sweating face into Myles’ and breathed his words at him. ‘Is that why you didn’t “do” my wife? Huh?’ Juma tightened his grip. ‘You couldn’t do it for her?’

Juma pressed hard. Myles suddenly bent double — he was no eunuch.

The Somali warlord lifted his knee into Myles’ face, knocking him to the ground. Myles rolled on the desert scrub. His wrists still tied, it was hard for him to recover his balance.

Then Juma stepped towards the Senator. ‘You won’t go down as easily as him, will you, Senator?’

Roosevelt was opening his mouth to answer when Juma swung his forearm back, and punched squarely into the Senator’s stomach. The Senator, like Myles before him, bent over. Then Juma pushed him onto the ground too. Roosevelt landed awkwardly on his side.

Juma stood over them both, watching them writhe and gloating at them. ‘Gentlemen, it seems you both like the floor,’ he teased. ‘The Romans used to teach their gladiators how to die. When a gladiator had suffered a fatal wound, he was expected to drop to his knees then fall to his right. It let spectators know when to look away. Isn’t that thoughtful?’

Myles and the Senator were recovering, but there were still guns pointed at them. There was no chance of them being able to take Juma by surprise.

‘Drag them into the ring,’ Juma ordered to his men. ‘Time for some fun.’

Myles and the Senator were both grabbed by their bound wrists and pulled across the rough ground. A ridge of stone bumped out of the desert floor. The two men were dragged across it. They were dropped in the middle of a broken circle of old Roman limestone.

They were in the arena.

Juma was still feigning a half-laugh. He nodded to one of his men who flicked open a cheap handheld video-recorder. A small red light appeared on the front of the device, which was pointed at Myles and the Senator. Myles noticed Juma’s men had pulled back.

Slowly Myles started to stand up again. Once on his feet he offered his bound hands to the Senator, helping the frail man to stand beside him.

The pirate leader giggled in expectation, but it was clear that little was happening. Juma’s men were hoping to watch something violent, but there was no sign of it yet. He called out to the two Westerners, trying to mock them with his sarcasm. ‘Time to fight each other — if you please, gentlemen.’

But Myles and the Senator refused to perform.

Juma raised his gun and fired a burst of bullets into the air. ‘Fight!’ He shouted his demand towards both men, but neither had any inclination to obey.

The Somali warlord was beginning to look powerless in front of his men. He lowered his gun barrel and pulled the trigger again. This time a splattering of metal skimmed off the ground near the Senator’s feet.

Myles and the Senator recoiled from the noise, but still refused to move.

The pirate marched over to them. He grabbed each man by the neck and pushed their heads towards his. Then, speaking through his teeth, he said in a quiet but chilling tone: ‘If you’re lucky, I’ll let one of you out of here alive,’ he said. ‘But unless you start fighting each other, I’m going to have to kill you both to keep my men happy. And if you just pretend to fight, or try to fix it so you both survive, then I’ll make sure you both die. Do you understand?’

Myles and the Senator shared a glance. Just by their exchange of eye contact, it was clear that neither of them had any intention of following through with Juma’s request. No way would they fight each other.

But Myles also knew how dangerous it would be to disappoint the Somali psychopath.

Fifty-Seven

With a sense of ceremony, Juma knocked the two men’s heads together. He was looking as confident as ever: finally, the two men would obey. Then he raised his voice to the sky and shouted as loudly as he could. ‘Fight!’

As his men started to cheer, Juma eyed Myles and the Senator in turn. His gaze underlined his threat: ‘And if you both survive, then both of you will die.’ He turned his back on the two Westerners and started to walk to the edge of the arena. Myles and the Senator were left isolated in the middle.

The Senator murmured to Myles. ‘Got any ideas?’

‘Only that we’ve got to get out of here.’

‘Agreed,’ said the Senator. ‘Then we pretend to fight until we can think of something.’

Myles nodded.

As Juma reached the edge of the stone circle, he turned and stared at the two men.

No one was moving. Then Juma fired another burst of gunfire into the air. ‘Only one of you can leave that ring alive…’

Finally, Myles and the Senator rammed into each other. Because their hands were tied, as their shoulders collided they both lost their balance. The two men spun down to the ground.

Juma’s men cheered.

Myles and the Senator scrabbled around in the dirt. Slowly they began to get back on their feet.

Myles looked around as he stood up again, keeping his voice down. ‘Could we run into the desert?’

‘Not fast enough,’ whispered the Senator. ‘Could we steal some of Juma’s weapons?’

The men slowly wheeled around, pretending to spar. Really they were scanning all around them, looking for something — anything — which might help them. Myles eyed Juma’s Toyota. ‘His vehicles?’ he suggested. ‘We’d need to distract his men, though.’

The look on the Senator’s face said he agreed. The old man was recalling his combat experience. Myles could tell he was trying to imagine solutions. There was nothing obvious.

The two men charged into each other again. They had less energy than before. Again they tumbled to the floor. The audience enjoyed it less the second time. They were running out of time.

The Senator whispered to Myles while they were in the dust. ‘Juma doesn’t care which one of us comes out of here alive,’ he said. ‘The survivor won’t be ransomed or released. He’ll be killed. Juma wants us both dead.

Myles nodded: he agreed with the Senator’s analysis.

As the two men were returning to their feet they were both distracted by a cry from the audience. ‘Fight like you mean it!’ came the call, followed by a laugh. It was Juma’s voice.

Then the pirate lobbed a bayonet into the ring. Myles had to side-step fast to avoid the falling blade. It landed near the Senator’s feet.

Myles and the Senator both looked down at the weapon: Juma wanted to speed things up. Whoever picked up the knife would be able to stab the other.

The Senator bent down and grabbed the handle of the bayonet with his tied hands. But he refused to attack Myles. ‘Our wrists,’ he said.

As he slowly moved opposite Myles, the Senator spun the blade in his hands until it was pointing towards him. He sawed away at the bindings on his wrists for several seconds. Eventually the wire was severed and fell onto the arena floor.

The spectators started to whoop as the Senator brought his hands apart. They could see him about to attack Myles, whose wrists were still bound.

The Senator threw the blade from one hand to the other, catching it easily each time. ‘Run at me,’ he said.

Suspicion flickered through Myles’ mind. Run at a man holding a knife?

He hesitated. The Senator repeated himself. ‘Come on, man. Run at me. I’ll drop the knife and you pick it up. Run at me.’ The Senator was holding the knife down, ready to impale Myles as he approached.

Who was the Senator trying to fool — Juma or Myles?

Would Sam Roosevelt kill Myles to survive, or drop the knife as he promised?

The Senator could see Myles was unsure what to do. ‘Myles, you gotta trust me,’ he said. Then he turned on his convincing voice — the perfect all-American accent that had won over millions of voters and almost won the US Presidency. ‘We’re all going bust if we ain’t got trust.’

Roosevelt was speaking like an old-school politician. A statesman who really cared for more than himself. Something about his manner was convincing.

Gradually Myles nodded. The Senator braced himself. Then Myles rushed.

The two men collided. The Senator fell backwards. Pretending to be caught off guard, he let the bayonet fall from his hands.

Myles quickly rolled on the ground and returned to his feet. He rushed for the bayonet and grabbed it. The Senator barely moved — there was no contest for the weapon. Roosevelt had been true to his word.

As the old man stood back up, Myles quickly rubbed the blade against the wire on his wrists. He was too clumsy to break through easily. He tried to push harder, but it only meant the knife slipped out of his hands. It fell to the dust. The Senator gave Myles space, allowing him to pick it up and try again. Eventually Myles cut through and, as with the Senator before him, the binding dropped away.

As the audience saw Myles’ hands were also free they cheered again. The contest had become even more exciting.

Myles held the weapon while he stood opposite the Senator, both men still circling slowly, pretending to look for a weakness in the other.

The Senator wiped sweat from his face. He was trying to hide his moving lips. ‘OK. I’ve got a plan.’

‘Tell me, Senator.’

‘There are rocket-propelled grenades in the back of that vehicle, right?’

Myles checked behind him to confirm which vehicle the Senator was talking about. ‘Yes. Go on.’

‘OK, then you chase me over there. I’ll grab an RPG while you escape. I’ll be able to hold them off long enough.’

Myles didn’t quite understand what the Senator was proposing. ‘But they’ll kill you. While I’m driving away, they’ll kill you.’

The Senator gritted his teeth and spoke with his best sarcasm. ‘Son, in case you hadn’t noticed, they’re going to kill us anyway.’

Then Myles realised: the Senator was offering his life for Myles’.

Myles gulped, slowly accepting it was the best course of action. He mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to the Senator, who accepted them graciously.

‘Just swear to me you’ll bring this guy down.’

‘I will, Senator,’ Myles promised.

Carefully, Myles advanced, pointing the knife towards the Senator, who stepped back. The audience were enthralled.

Myles walked forward again. Again the Senator withdrew, his face bearing the expression of someone who was prepared to die. The Senator turned to check his bearings. To Juma and the men watching it looked like the glance of a desperate man trying to see how much further he could retreat. But Myles and the Senator both knew he was working out how far he had to run to get to the Toyota Corolla.

The Senator turned back to face Myles. He knew where he needed to go. Through his eye contact he indicated he was prepared. The Senator controlled his breathing, as if he was gearing up for his last fight. He was ready.

Myles’ face thanked the Senator again. It was time.

Then Myles raised the bayonet and started to lurch toward the Senator. Roosevelt turned his back and ran away as fast as he could. Straight towards the vehicle.

At first the audience cheered. Myles had run the Senator out of the arena. They watched as the Senator jumped over the stone boundary which marked the edge of the decaying Roman circle. Roosevelt seemed to be fleeing for his life. Close behind was Myles, holding the bayonet firmly in his hand and thrusting it towards the Senator. The old American had been beaten by the young Brit.

They hollered and whooped.

Then they started to realise: the two men were not just running out of the arena. They were running towards the vehicles. Their vehicles.

Myles maintained the pretence of chasing the Senator for as long as he could. The Somalis were checking themselves. Had the Westerners tricked them?

The Senator just reached the Toyota. Myles was yards behind.

Then gunfire scattered towards the two men, just missing them and kicking up dust from the desert.

Myles turned to see Juma’s men running towards him. Most were lowering their AK-47s, ready to fire.

Juma himself was the only one not moving. He seemed to have been most shocked by Myles’ and the Senator’s trick. ‘Kill them both,’ he called to his men.

Myles ducked into the cabin of the vehicle as fast as he could. Keys were dangling from the ignition. Myles fumbled with them before he managed to turn them. The Toyota’s engine whirred into action.

He was about to crank the gearbox when the windscreen was shot through and shattered in front of him. Myles had to shield his eyes as glass exploded all around him.

Then a single word cut through the noise. ‘Juma.’ It was the Senator’s voice.

Myles turned to see the old man standing behind the rear wheels of the Corolla. Roosevelt was holding a rocket-propelled grenade to his shoulder.

Juma’s men paused. The pirate who had been firing at the windscreen relaxed his trigger hand and looked uncertain. Most of the others just stood still. They were waiting to see what the Senator did with his weapon, or whether Juma would renew the order to attack.

The Senator called over the chaos. ‘Let’s talk this through, Juma,’ he said.

Myles could see that Roosevelt was sweating. He had repositioned the sight of the RPG launcher to his eye, trying to ensure he had a clear shot. He flexed his fingers on the trigger mechanism.

Juma’s voice shouted out from the back, hidden by a wall of his men. ‘We can talk if you want to.’ His voice sounded as though he was still gloating. ‘Do you have any final words, Senator?’

The Senator’s breathing was strained. He kept the rocket trained on the bulk of Juma’s men as he prepared his reply. ‘Juma, I’ll let your men live if you let me and the Englishman go,’ he bargained.

There was a silent pause. Then Juma replied with a phoney laugh. ‘So you want to negotiate with us “terrorists”, Senator?’

The Senator called back, shouting over the back of the Toyota. ‘Juma, this is your last chance. Let us go or I’ll fire.’

Juma paused slightly before he replied. Eventually he came back with, ‘Will you let us settle in the United States?’

The Senator paused also. ‘We can talk about that,’ was the reply.

‘We’re talking about that now, Mr Senator Roosevelt. Yes or no — will you let us settle, Senator? If you won’t give a clear answer now, when we have you at gunpoint…’

Juma’s words trailed off, overtaken by a bizarre whooshing noise.

It was the sound of a rocket-propelled grenade shooting through the air. The Senator had fired.

The RPG blasted into the ground in front of Juma’s men. Myles and the Senator were knocked back by the fireball. Fragments from the casing of the rocket flew towards them. Instinctively they ducked, allowing the vehicle to take the shrapnel.

Smoke and flames caused chaos. Myles glanced towards the crater where the grenade had exploded. Dead bodies and limbs were mangled with screaming flesh: but some of Juma’s men were still alive. Myles could also hear the clatter of automatic weapons being cocked.

Myles turned back to the car, but the engine had stopped. He turned the ignition again — nothing.

He tumbled out to see the Senator had almost fitted another rocket onto the launcher.

Then, behind the Senator came a voice they all knew. ‘Stop now.’ It was Juma.

Although Myles could not see Juma himself — the car was in the way — he could see the Senator, and could tell the Senator was facing him. Juma’s voice was even and unstrained: he had not been hurt by the explosion, and Myles guessed the pirate leader’s Kalashnikov was pointing straight at Sam Roosevelt’s head. Juma was probably twenty or thirty metres away, but it was close enough to be sure of a kill.

Senator Sam Roosevelt looked down at the rocket-propelled grenade launcher he held in his hand. He hadn’t had time to fit the new missile head on properly. The grenade was only loosely attached.

Slowly, the Senator rotated the launch tube until it was upside down. He was pointing the missile towards the ground.

The Senator turned to look at Myles. He had a resigned look on his face, but also a sense of urgency, as if he was warning Myles. There was something he wanted Myles to do.

Myles tried to understand, but the Senator couldn’t use words to say what he meant — he would have been heard by Juma. The Senator was trying to point somewhere with his eyes. What did he mean?

The Senator made the expression again. Myles tried desperately to make sense of it.

Then the Senator squared back to Juma. ‘You asked me whether I had any last words,’ he said. ‘Well I don’t. Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough during their lifetime.’

Something about the Senator’s tone and manner had changed. The power balance between him and Juma had tipped again. Myles knew what the Senator was about to do.

In those last moments, Myles crouched. He tried to protect himself. He was tense with anticipation, unsure whether he would survive what now seemed inevitable. Was there anywhere he could hide?

He looked around. Finally, he saw where the Senator’s eyes were pointing…

Moments later came the explosion — far larger than the first. The Toyota was tossed sideways. The survivors of the first grenade, and the bodies of those whom it had killed, were blown into the air. Even Juma was knocked off his feet, and the gun flew from his hands.

But the sixty-nine-year-old Senator, war-hero and twice Presidential hopeful, who was far closer than anyone else to the centre of the blast, knew none of this. He had finally escaped his captives. Indeed, he had killed many of them off.

His last act had confirmed his refusal to give in to terrorists.

The Senator had proven his determination with his life.

Fifty-Eight

Juma was dazed: he had been thrown down against the desert floor by the blast. His body was still in shock from the pressure of the explosion. Air had been forced from his lungs and it took him time to recover his breath.

But he had been lucky: he had just been far enough away when the grenade detonated. Although fragments from the outer casing had shredded some of the warlord’s clothes, his wounds were only superficial. One side of his body was grazed and bleeding, but that was all. Once he had gathered his senses, Juma was largely unharmed.

The Somali pirate chief got back on his feet and surveyed the aftermath of the rocket-propelled grenade. As with all explosions, the impact of the Senator’s second munition seemed to have been random. Devastation was interspersed with areas which remained untouched. Some of the desert floor was torched and charred. Other parts looked exactly as they had before. Dead bodies from the first explosion had shaded some areas from the second.

Juma looked down at his men. Several bodies were in pieces. Charred limbs and torsos were mixed with broken weaponry and tatters of clothes. It was hard to know exactly how many people had been killed.

Juma noticed one Somali pirate near the middle of the crater who was missing a leg and arm. The man started to howl for help as he recovered consciousness and recognised his leader. Juma stomped towards him, lifted his head and shook it, then put it down again, swiftly concluding that the man had no hope of surviving. When the man called out again, Juma returned to him, then kicked him hard in the face. The man lost consciousness once more, never to regain it.

Two other men appeared to be alive but severely wounded. They were careful to remain quiet. Two more, who had not been with the main group, were on their feet by this time. Like Juma, they were largely unhurt, and explored the wreckage with him.

To check both his captives were dead, Juma was keen to examine the Toyota: it had been blown upside down and landed on its roof, which was crushed. The African gang leader bent down to check no one was alive inside. There was certainly no movement. No one could have survived, he concluded. Although he couldn’t see properly, Juma was content to leave the vehicle containing Myles’ corpse where it was.

Juma missed the satisfaction of killing him, but knowing the Englishman was dead was almost as good. He shrugged, then turned away.

Then he saw the Senator’s body, which had massive wounds to the chest and neck. Sam Roosevelt was definitely dead. Juma called over to his two surviving accomplices. When he had their attention, he put his boot on the old man’s face and stamped it into the dust. The pirates laughed as Sam Roosevelt’s head was pressed down, deformed and bloodied. Juma stepped away satisfied.

Content that he had surveyed the danger, Juma replaced the magazine in his AK-47 and made the gun ready to fire. Then he levelled the barrel at the bodies of the men near the crater. He aimed at the two who were alive but severely wounded. Although they tried to ask for a chance, Juma shot them through with bullets. They died instantly.

Juma stepped back, and fired a short burst into the Senator’s body near his feet. Then he clambered back over to the wreck of the Toyota.

Once more he examined the twisted remnants of the vehicle. Juma couldn’t see the Englishman’s body. He was beginning to doubt his earlier conclusion. Could Myles have survived?

To make sure, he readied his weapon for a final time, and sprayed the whole front section of the Toyota Corolla with bullets. He exhausted the whole of his magazine, and his gun clicked to let him know he was done. Then he crouched down to examine the bullet holes. A good spread: there was not a single space within the mass of the vehicle which hadn’t been hit. A cat couldn’t have avoided the bullets, let alone someone as tall as Myles.

No movement from inside.

Juma waited. Still no movement.

Finally, he was convinced: wherever Myles Munro’s body was, there was no way he could still be alive. His limbs must be amongst the twisted and charred cadavers near the crater of the explosion. Juma was content. He stood up and chuckled at his work: he had killed both of his Western hostages.

He beckoned over to his two fellow survivors, who came in beside him. The three men walked away from the wreckage, careful to step between the corpses rather than on them.

With their guns slung back on their shoulders, Juma ordered his men into a second car, parked further away from the main scene. They climbed inside, Juma enjoying a last glance at the scene of the Senator’s demise so far from the American soil that he loved.

Soon Juma and his men were away, and the pile of wreckage and dead bodies was left behind in the cooling desert afternoon sun. Within hours the scavenger animals of the desert would pick at what was left. Within days it would be half-covered by desert dust. Perhaps some of the scene — the twisted metal of the overturned vehicle and the Somali guns — would be preserved for as long as the Roman ruins of the abandoned town. But to Juma, it didn’t matter. He was heading off to rejoin his people. Placidia’s people. The last obstacle had been overcome, and he was about to achieve his grand ambition.

Fifty-Nine

Safiq had arrived, but what sort of civilisation had he reached?

He was in a fine street, with rich architecture and lovely trees, somewhere in the centre of Rome. It seemed like a wonderful city. He and a mass of hundreds of other Africans, a few of them still armed, crowded outside the American Embassy.

But the embassy was protected by a strong fence. They knew the fence was strong because they had attempted several times to knock it down and failed. Someone had been badly crushed when they tried. Safiq understood: there was no way in.

In every direction, including the route the throng had taken from the ship, roads had been blocked. The Italian police were containing the crowds. Safiq was wondering whether the Italians would advance — for now, they were just waiting. Waiting, he guessed, for the Africans to tire and give up.

Like the Africans, a few of the Italian police had guns; Safiq had worked out the armed ones wore special ‘Caribinieri’ uniforms. He made sure he kept his distance from them.

Safiq had no food and, like the others, he was hungry. The only nearby café had closed and been locked up. They’d all managed to drink from a water hose when they first reached the embassy, but now even that had been turned off.

So here he was, in the middle of civilisation but still desperate. He was standing right next to the US Embassy, which someone had told him was officially American territory, but his American dream was further away than ever.

Life was still harsh, like it had been on the windy dockside in Africa.

And he knew that soon it would get even worse.

Sixty

Myles waited for more than an hour before he moved again. When Juma had fired bullets into the overturned Toyota, he had cowered. He had strained to hear the distant sound of the Somali’s vehicle driving away. But he needed to be sure it wasn’t another of Juma’s games. He had to know Juma wasn’t waiting for him.

Blood had trickled into his hair. Myles silently walked his fingers up his scalp to trace the source. There was a sensitive spot near the top of his head. Probably just a small cut, he told himself. Head wounds give out a lot of blood.

Although it was dark, Myles felt sure he wasn’t concussed. He was too alert to be dazed. He would deal with his head wound later.

Myles listened again. Still no noise from above. Had all of Juma’s men gone?

Or had the pirate left a watchman to make sure there were no survivors?

Slowly Myles edged along the mosaic floor, sticking tightly to the walls. He looked at the overturned Toyota suspended over him, blocking the way he had come in — half dived, half fallen, at the moment the Senator had pulled the trigger. Unless Juma and his men deliberately moved the vehicle, they would not find Myles’ new hiding place.

He felt safe from them.

The Toyota pick-up had given Myles the cover he needed to slip down a hole into this buried Roman room. The underground room which the Senator had seen — the last act of the great Sam Roosevelt had been to save his life.

But the day was ending, and the dim light in the space where Myles was hiding was becoming dimmer. Myles knew he could not stay underground forever. He needed to escape. He also needed food and, more urgently, water.

Drops of clear liquid were falling from the front of the vehicle onto the mosaic floor. Myles looked down at the dusty puddle. He held out his palm and caught some drops, then put them to his tongue. Immediately he spat it out: it was soapy windscreen fluid. Nothing he could drink.

He moved back into the Roman room. Was there anything here he could use?

The paved floor of the chamber depicted a well-dressed Roman man — perhaps an emperor — holding a sword at the neck of another man, who had a dark face and was kneeling in submission. The body of a beheaded man lay on the ground beside them both. The emperor seemed to have taken the throne. Given there was blood on his sword, he may have killed for it. Myles marvelled at the image — the beheaded man reminded him of the Senator.

Myles stamped on the floor: it was solid. The room was professionally built — probably by artisans who expected their civilisation to survive for many more centuries.

He walked around the walls of the room, thumping them with the side of his fist, looking for a way out. Nothing presented itself.

The only item in the room was at the end furthest from the entrance, and so furthest from the fading light. Myles’ eyes had to adjust to see what it was. There seemed to be a stone bench with a head-shaped indentation, and space for chains in case someone needed to be tied in position. Above the indentation was an iron spike mounted in a large stone, itself attached to a rod. The rod reached down into an axle through the bench. Myles touched the stone, then pushed it gently. As the stone tipped forward, it began to accelerate with its own weight, forcing the metal spike to crash down onto the head-shape indentation on the bench.

Clang.

Myles looked behind him, worried that the noise could have alerted Juma’s men. He waited, listening in the dark. Several minutes passed, but there was nothing.

Myles was definitely alone.

He returned to the device. The head-shape indentation, around where the spike now rested, was slightly darker than the rest of the bench. Very old bloodstains.

Now Myles recognised what the machine was. He remembered reading about them when he had studied with Placidia. Wounded or defeated gladiators would have been brought down from the arena and their head laid on the bench. Then the spike would have been allowed to fall, piercing their skulls. For mercy killings…

This was how the Romans dealt with their entertainment after it no longer entertained. Far easier to use than a sword, this was a Roman killing machine, the pre-industrial equivalent of a guillotine.

Myles withdrew his hand, leaving the spike where it was, and trying to respect the many people whose lives had ended here. Ancient Rome had become truly brutal before its collapse.

Myles looked around the remainder of the chamber, checking it again for nooks and weak points. He pressed and checked every surface he could reach, especially where the stone crumbled. But there was no way out. The only exit was the entrance, and that was covered by the Toyota.

He stood again below the overturned vehicle, and tried to work out how he could climb up into it. The crushed roof was almost within reach. He jumped and grabbed the engine cover, but it came off in his hands, and Myles fell back down onto the floor.

He looked up again: the engine block was above him now. No way through it. And round the sides the Toyota had wedged itself in solidly.

Again, Myles jumped up and tried to grab hold. He swung his legs up and tried to kick through.

No use. He wasn’t even close: the Toyota was very firmly in place and there was absolutely nothing he could do to move it or get through it.

He felt a chill. The temperature was dropping, and he wandered whether he would catch hypothermia. Dehydrated, he knew he’d succumb more quickly.

He jumped up and grabbed a seat belt, then pulled himself towards the dashboard.

He checked the radio — dead.

He checked the fire extinguisher — empty.

He checked the battery — useless.

Nothing. With each passing thought he also felt himself weaken. His arms were losing strength and he had to allow himself to drop back to the floor.

Daylight was almost gone. He felt the wound on his head again: it was still bleeding. His thirst was beginning to subside as his dehydrated body started to shut down. He felt faint.

He tried to tighten his muscles, forcing his body to keep up his blood pressure. He was trying to think of ways to escape, almost as a distraction, knowing that he needed to keep his mind busy, knowing that to fall asleep might be deadly.

He tried to imagine Helen, the best reason of all to escape. She should be cured of septicaemia by now, he thought. She should be safe — probably back in America. He wanted to be with her. Would he ever see her again?

He still hoped that, together with Helen, he could stop Juma. If only he knew how they were planning to bring Rome’s fate onto America. If only he could get out of here.

As the last glow of sun disappeared from the chamber, Myles found himself immobile on the ancient mosaic floor. Involuntary shivers twitched through his body.

His last image was of the killing machine used by Romans for fighters who, like him, had been defeated. And like all those exhausted gladiators so many centuries ago, his resistance had left him.