Last Prophecy of Rome

by Iain King

  Myles did the same, but turned to check the woman was OK as he rushed past.

  American Embassy staff were blocking the road in front of the terrorist. Myles called out to them as he ran. ‘Stop him…’

  Some of the younger office workers came forward. Having watched the whole chase, they wanted to help.

  But then the terrorist slowed down and allowed himself to be caught.

  One of the Americans grabbed the man’s arm while two more patted him down for explosives. Others gathered round, cutting off any chance of escape.

  The terrorist just looked confused. He tried to talk back to the Americans in Italian, panicking but polite. ‘Dove si trova la bomba?’ he asked.

  Once Myles caught up with them he was desperate to make sure the man couldn’t use any electronic devices to set off the bomb.

  One of the Embassy men retrieved some keys attached to a small remote control transmitter from the Italian’s pocket. ‘What’s this?’

  The Italian gesticulated in an attempt to explain, but was gabbling too fast for anyone to understand. The man reached for the transmitter in desperation.

  Myles tried to grab it first. ‘Don’t let him press it!’

  But it was too late. The terrorist put his thumb to the red button and pushed.

  There was no explosion. Instead, the lights on an Alfa Romeo parked not far away blinked, matched by a faint sound from the horn.

  One of the Americans asked him about the hanging box.

  ‘Si tratta di una lavatrice,’ answered the man.

  It was a washing machine. The man had been dangling it into the building by rope because it was too big to be carried up the small Italian staircase.

  Four

  Via Veneto, Rome

  Myles lowered his head, paused, then simply sat down in the street. He tried to apologise to the man, but the blare of approaching police sirens meant nobody heard what he said.

  The Embassy staff began drifting back to their offices, and within minutes police were swarming everywhere. They checked and confirmed that the hanging box was indeed a washing machine. It was soon swung inside the house. One of the police even helped fit it into place.

  Helen put an arm on Myles’ back. Myles just sat there, thinking through what had happened. ‘I really thought it was a bomb…’

  Helen knew it was best not to answer. She just nuzzled her head onto his shoulder in consolation.

  A policeman approached and began speaking English with only a mild accent. ‘Are you the one who caused the disturbance?’

  ‘Sorry. I thought it was a bomb,’ replied Myles.

  ‘You understand you caused a serious panic. The old lady is being taken to hospital with chest pains – she could have died from a heart attack.’

  Helen and Myles could both tell the Italian policeman was playing it up, but Myles answered calmly. ‘Sorry officer. I just tried to do the right thing.’

  ‘There are professionals to deal with bombs.’

  Myles was about to answer back but Helen stopped him. This was a time for discretion. She put her hand on his arm and spoke for him. ‘Thank you officer. We’re sorry. We won’t cause another alarm,’ she promised.

  Myles wasn’t sure she was right. If he came across another ‘bomb’ he would try to tackle it again. Maybe the same way. Alone, if he had to. He still distrusted the authorities – all authorities.

  He had never trusted them, at least not since his mother had been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Myles had seen medical bureaucracy deny her the early surgical treatment she really needed. He saw her battle against authorities, both public and private, who cared only for their reputations. And he saw her fight the withering poisons of the chemotherapy they gave her. By the time she eventually died, in the week of his fourteenth birthday, Myles had no faith left in ‘the authorities’ at all. Everything since had just confirmed his view.

  Even before his mother’s death, Myles had been different. As a child, he was uniquely brilliant at most academic subjects, but unable to read aloud or distinguish his left from his right. He hadn’t been able to tie his shoelaces until he was twelve, and he had no natural ability to empathise. His condition might have been labelled as dyslexia or even Asperger’s syndrome. But there was never a need for diagnosis – Myles was nice to everyone, just a little other-worldly. He had found juvenile pleasure in performing magic tricks for people and helping them solve puzzles. At school he would happily share his always perfect answers with his many friends, none of whom were close. He learned to empathise as an acquired skill and he was soon empathising more naturally than almost everybody else.

  But he knew he would never fit in. He’d gone on to study history at Oxford – a university full of oddballs, but even there he felt like an outsider.

  In the military they’d put him in intelligence. With his overpowered brain and lack of physical skills it should have been the perfect fit. But Captain Munro could never settle into being a normal officer. Some seniors said he had no discipline. Others said he had too much sense. In the doomed war of Iraq, his military career had ended in disgrace.

  Myles had retreated into academia – where else could he go? – accepting a junior lectureship on military history back at Oxford University. There, the students loved him – partly because of his attitude, but mostly because his views were unorthodox. In his ever-popular lectures he would explain why most military historians were wrong. It annoyed the other military historians, and it gave Myles a certain reputation.

  A reputation which meant nothing to him at all.

  Five

  Wall Street, New York

  Reputation mattered to Richard Roosevelt because he knew his reputation could never be truly earned. People thought they already knew about him, just from his name.

  It wasn’t the two presidents which framed people’s impressions. Dick Roosevelt didn’t remind people of Theodore or Franklin Delano, the boldest Commanders-in-Chief of their generations. Richard Roosevelt had been eclipsed by a far more historic personality, and one who was still alive: his father, Sam.

  Even though Senator Sam Roosevelt would probably never run for the White House again – twice was enough – everybody knew of his heroism in the Vietnam War. He had been even more courageous on the floor of the Senate, where he had driven the Roosevelt-Wilson Act into law. It meant US citizens could be tried for crimes committed abroad, ‘Because the laws of the land must reach beyond the sea,’ he famously explained. The senior Senator frequently appeared on early evening news shows, talking to the ‘common American’ in straight language – often very straight language, which left interviewers shocked. Sam Roosevelt was loved by the American people. And some of that affection tumbled down onto his only son, Richard. Now aged thirty-one, Dick tried his best to deserve what people thought of him.

  ‘This way, Mr Roosevelt, sir,’ ushered a staffer.

  ‘Call me “Dick”,’ he replied.

  As Richard was led into the Treasury building opposite number 23 Wall Street, he leant over to his executive assistant. ‘Remind me of the brief. How many people do we have working here, again?’

  ‘Seventy-eight on duty at the moment, a total assignment just under two hundred, sir.’

  Dick nodded, then straightened his back. He readied himself to meet more of the men and women employed by Roosevelt Guardians, the private security company established by his father, of which he was now the Chief Executive.

  It was as he was entering the lobby that he first noticed someone in a Roosevelt Guardian uniform looking concerned. One of his security guards – alarmed?

  Dick remembered words from his speech:

  ‘Your job is to allay fear, so Roosevelt Guardians, you should appear calm and assured at all times…’

  Dick stopped to watch. His small entourage stopped with him, knowing great men often noticed important things others missed.

  The security guard had gone outside. He began pulling hard on the locked door of a delivery van. The door
wouldn’t open.

  One of the men beside Dick nervously tried to explain it away. ‘Er, routine procedure, sir, er, Dick, sir…’

  But Richard Roosevelt kept watching. The delivery van was certainly parked in an odd place.

  Then, just as the guard was about to give up in bemusement, the spectators saw another man approach. The man was foreign-looking, perhaps North African. He said something apologetic to the security guard as he took a set of keys from his pocket and went to unlock the vehicle.

  The Roosevelt Guardian stepped back as the North African man climbed into the van. ‘Thank you for moving along, Sir.’

  The North African man nodded as he closed the door, then contorted his body to reach something beneath the dashboard. Sweat reflected from the man’s forehead. Both Dick and the guard could see the driver was agitated.

  The security guard opened the door to speak to him. ‘There’s parking further down and to the left, sir,’ he volunteered. But as he said the words, the guard spotted something and began to react.

  Suddenly the driver turned and kicked the security guard in the face. As the guard recoiled, the man in the vehicle slammed the door shut and locked it.

  The sight of one of his staff being assaulted shocked Richard Roosevelt. He marched out of the lobby, and broke into a run. Roosevelt rushed up to his employee, who was reeling on the pavement with a bloody nose. ‘What did you say to him?’ he asked.

  ‘There was a bomb, sir,’ came the reply.

  Barely believing, Roosevelt looked through the van’s window at the driver. The man’s face confirmed the worst.

  Roosevelt tried the door on the vehicle, but it was locked.

  Quickly he grabbed a briefcase from someone passing by and swung it into the glass. The window shattered. Roosevelt flung the case to the floor, pulled up the lock and yanked open the door, catching the driver by surprise.

  Roosevelt climbed into the vehicle beside the man, then dragged him from the bomb, and pressed him hard against the seat. The driver tried to unpick Roosevelt’s fingers, which were grabbing his shirt. But it was no good. Within moments the man found himself flung out of the door and crashing down onto the street. He collapsed into a gathering crowd of uniformed Roosevelt Guardians.

  ‘There’s a bomb in here,’ called Roosevelt through the broken window. ‘I’m going to have to drive this someplace safe.’

  ‘But sir…’ The Guardians watched as their Chief Executive clunked the vehicle into gear and moved off into the traffic. He was soon driving down Wall Street.

  Roosevelt’s men called the police immediately. Within a minute Roosevelt was being led by a police car. Within two minutes an impressive escort had formed around the van. Loud sirens and flashing lights started clearing the traffic away, allowing the bomb-laden delivery truck to move ever faster.

  Overhead a helicopter, more used to reporting on traffic jams for the New York breakfast TV shows, started to broadcast the events. ‘This must surely be the fastest anybody’s ever driven during Manhattan’s morning rush hour…’

  As news leaked that the van was being driven by none other than the son of Senator Sam Roosevelt, the feed was piped live onto national TV.

  The first confused reports said that Richard ‘Dick’ Roosevelt was driving a bomb around Manhattan. But the rolling news ticker soon provided the clarification: he was actually driving the bomb away. Dick Roosevelt was single-handedly saving New York.

  The police escort knew where to guide him and Roosevelt followed: off Wall Street, down a side road, along another road, into an open area. About as open as it gets in Manhattan.

  As he turned onto the broken ground, Roosevelt saw a young bomb disposal expert already starting to put on his protective clothing. Over the noise of police sirens and helicopters, he heard instructions from a loudhailer. ‘It’s safe here, sir – you should leave the vehicle and run away.’

  Roosevelt saw the policemen flee their cars, not even bothering to shut their doors as they ran. So undignified. And on live television, too…

  Instead, Dick Roosevelt calmly parked the van, turned off the ignition, opened the door, and magnanimously stepped down onto the ground.

  He dusted off his hands and turned back to look at the vehicle one last time, before walking on towards the hastily assembled control area. No point running – this was his moment of majesty.

  The bomb disposal expert rushed passed him – going towards the van as Roosevelt walked away from it. ‘Can I help some more?’ queried Dick.

  ‘No thank you, Mr Roosevelt, sir – just professionals from here on.’

  It was a snub Roosevelt accepted. He had done enough already. He looked across at the crowd of policemen and agents gathering a safe distance from the van, being joined by the first news crew on the scene. They beckoned and Richard Roosevelt came. As he reached them he was mobbed by pats on the backs, applause and other praise.

  But the congratulations were soon cut short. A deep boom and a sudden rush of air knocked them all to the ground.

  The delivery van had been obliterated and the bomb disposal expert blown completely away.

  It took several seconds for the crowd to recover themselves, and realise the sky around them was full of confetti.

  Richard Roosevelt grabbed at the air and caught one of the fluttering bits of paper. He read it.

  And, like the police and the assembling news crew around him, he wondered whether the message it contained could possibly be true…

  Six

  Rome

  Helen stayed with Myles, both sitting on the concrete as the crowds drifted away.

  She had known him for less than three months – first meeting him on a training course, where he had been able to solve difficult problems but not tie his shoelaces properly.

  Straight away she’d known he was different. But it was a good sort of different: even his clumsiness had a charm to it. He had a uniqueness which she found far more attractive than his height, his looks or his peculiar intelligence. To an American working in the media, where the men wore make-up and false smiles, Myles was abnormally genuine. In all her time reporting for CNN, in many places and many tough situations, Helen Bridle had never met anyone quite so special.

  ‘Next time a terrorist hides a bomb in a washing machine, you’re the man!’ she said with a smile, trying to console him. She was disturbed by the Embassy staff reaching for their pagers. Their mobile phones all started ringing at the same time. Something was happening.

  Myles was alert again. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  Then Helen’s phone rang. She raised her eyebrows to Myles, as if to say ‘you’re about to find out’. She pressed the green ‘accept’ button to answer. ‘Helen Bridle here.’

  It was one of her producers. There had been a bomb in New York. One dead, but it could have been much worse – they’d tried to blow up Wall Street.

  Helen registered the information. Was this news? One dead in a terrorist bomb was a tragedy, and a bomb in New York was certainly a headline.

  Her producer’s voice was animated. ‘And get this, Helen. There was a sort of confetti in the bomb. And it said, “America is about to be brought down like the Roman Empire”!’

  The producer was eager to give Helen more details: about Senator Sam Roosevelt’s son Richard driving the bomb away, escorted by police live on TV. But Helen was more sombre. ‘Do people think the warning is true?’

  ‘Nobody knows, Helen, but it’s a great news story…’

  She winced to hear one dead and a threat to civilisation described in that way, putting the mobile on speakerphone. She let the producer continue talking while she summarised what had happened for Myles. ‘So, you were right about a man with a bomb. You just got the wrong city.’

  Myles was absorbing the report as the TV producer cut to the chase. ‘Helen, you’re in Rome, right? With that historian boyfriend of yours? The Brit, right?’

  Both Helen and Myles smiled at the notion of Myles being a ‘boyfriend’
.

  ‘I am, yes.’

  ‘Well, we need to interview him now – on air, to talk about the Roman Empire and the USA.’

  Helen was about to say no, to shield her partner. But Myles refused the protection. He nodded.

  ‘OK, he’s here with me now. Shall I put him on?

  ‘Yes, thanks Helen.’

  Helen passed the phone to Myles.

  Myles tried to stand straight, immediately made nervous by the prospect of a live television interview. He tried to listen down the phone, but it was silent. ‘Er, hello. Myles Munro here,’ he offered. More silence. He was beginning to think they’d changed their minds – no interview after all.

  Finally the machine clicked back to life again. Then a very professional-sounding voice spoke from the other end. ‘Myles Munro, thank you for talking live on CNN.’

  ‘Er, thank you.’ Myles could tell his voice sounded amateurish. He was no natural TV pundit.

  ‘Mr Munro, you’re a historian from Oxford University, currently in Rome, Italy. Tell me, could the USA really be brought down like the Roman Empire?’

  Myles tried to do the question justice, which meant there was no simple answer. ‘Well, yes, I suppose it could, if we actually knew how the Roman Empire was brought down.’

  Silence, while the anonymous interviewer in a faraway studio tried to come up with the next question. ‘And what do you think brought down the Roman Empire? What should people prepare for?’

  ‘I’m afraid there are over two hundred theories on why Rome fell. Some historians reckon it was lead poisoning.’

  ‘Lead poisoning?’

  ‘Yeah, the Romans used lead in a sauce for their food. Other people reckon it was the plague. Several epidemics struck the empire, including things like smallpox. But bubonic plague was the most deadly.’

  ‘And what’s your favourite theory, Mr Munro?’

  Favourite? A favourite reason for the collapse of a whole civilisation? Myles tried to remain polite. ‘Well, there are three leading theories,’ he explained. ‘First, Rome suffered a series of attacks – from Persia and from lots of tribes in the East.’