Last Prophecy of Rome

by Iain King

  Out in the cloud-free desert of rural Libya, Juma was ready. He had sentries watching out for anything else the Americans might send, knowing whatever they tried would probably be airborne. The bright flash of a Hellfire missile igniting was unmissable in the desert sky, and several of his men raised the alarm at the same time.

  The warning went out, and Juma’s gang immediately started fleeing in all directions.

  ‘Ten seconds to impact…’

  Susan couldn’t believe what she was seeing. ‘They’re scattering,’ she whispered. ‘Why are they scattering? What the hell…’

  ‘Five seconds…’

  Susan grabbed the microphone again. ‘Disable the missiles,’ she called. ‘Disable them. Call them off.’

  There was silence on the net. Everybody knew it was far too late to deactivate the Hellfires. All they could do was watch as the rockets drove into their targets, sending up a bright plume which blinded the infrared feed from the Predator.

  Susan couldn’t wait for the image to clear. She had to know what had happened.

  There was another pause – almost a minute – while technicians checked the images from Captain Morton’s helmet cam.

  Then the subordinate military voice relayed the conclusion over the net. ‘Er, looks like we’ve lost Captain Morton, Ma’am.’

  Susan lifted her palm to her forehead, then slammed the microphone down. The base shattered with the force. She leant forward again, ‘And all Juma’s men escaped?’

  Images still coming from the Predator showed Juma’s men starting to return to the destroyed huts, and regrouping.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Ma’am… And still no sign of the Senator.’

  Twenty-Five

  JFK Airport, New York

  Myles could tell Susan was very shaken. She scratched her head again. ‘Was there anything I could have done? Could Morton have been saved?’

  ‘You did your best.’

  Susan was grateful for Myles’ support. ‘OK, so what do we do now? The CIA assessment said you were exceptionally bright: do you have any ideas?’

  Myles measured his words as he spoke them. ‘We need a different approach,’ he replied. ‘These guys may be primitive, but we won’t beat them with technology. We’ve got to out-think them.’

  ‘“Out-think” them?’ Susan said ‘out-think’ derisively, as though Myles was proposing some sort of chess competition.

  Myles tried to answer. ‘I don’t mean mind games. I mean we’ve got to work out what they’re planning,’ he explained. ‘They say they’re going to inflict on us the fate of the Roman Empire. That should give us some clues.’

  Susan nodded, then went back on the network. ‘OK, we’re going to form a brains trust to plot our next moves. Mr Roosevelt – we’d be grateful if you could be involved.’

  Richard Roosevelt’s voice came on, surprisingly unperturbed by the Hellfire strike which could have just killed his father. ‘OK, you got me,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ said Susan. ‘Then I need just one man from each unit. Don’t send me the most senior. Send me your brightest – anyone you have who can think outside the box. We’ll meet in the academy in…’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Five hours.’

  Only as the message confirmations came through did Myles realise just how many units had been listening on the net. Susan answered further questions, and took suggestions for people to attend the ‘brains trust’ meeting. It seemed to offer her consolation after the doomed rescue mission into Libya.

  Five hours later, Myles found himself in a familiar place: at the front of a lecture hall. But this was in America’s most elite military academy. He had been driven to West Point in upstate New York, where the US trained its most promising military men and women.

  If he were more sentimental, he would have revelled in the history of the place: this was the cradle of the American military spirit, the training ground for their best – and worst – military leaders over two centuries, including several past presidents. But it passed him by. History mattered much less to him now – now he was caught up in history being made, although it gave him no pride at all.

  Before him were more than forty of the military’s best intelligence specialists, covert operations experts, and military PhDs. Even some of General Petraeus’s human terrain anthropologists were there, including several fresh back from the field. Richard Roosevelt sat in the front row, still glowing with relief after his daring escape. Myles shook his hand warmly.

  Myles scanned the crowd – it was a very different audience to the university students he was used to teaching – and stood up to speak. ‘Thank you all for coming,’ he announced. ‘Here is the situation. A gangster initially from Somalia called Juma…’

  A long-distance photograph of Juma appeared on the screen behind him.

  ‘…has taken hostage Senator Sam Roosevelt,’ explained Myles. ‘Juma threatens to destroy America “as the Roman Empire was destroyed”. Our job is to stop Juma and his pirates bringing down America, and save the Senator.’ He saw a hand go up at the back of the hall and invited the bespectacled naval officer to speak.

  ‘Sir, how was the Roman Empire destroyed?’ asked the Navy man.

  ‘Good question,’ said Myles, nodding to accept it. ‘There are lots of theories – at least two hundred of them. Nobody’s really certain. There were probably several things which brought Rome down. But Juma’s wife, Placidia…’

  A picture of Placidia taken from her recent video displaced the image of Juma.

  ‘…is a top scholar on the subject. Perhaps the top scholar. It’s her opinion that counts, both because she’s probably right, and because she’s got a strong influence over Juma and his gang of pirates, mercenaries and migrants. Placidia is half-American, by the way. She knows us a lot better than we know her.’

  Another hand went up – a woman in army fatigues. Myles nodded at her. She moved in her seat as she spoke. ‘Sir, why Rome?’

  ‘Rome is the country on which the American nation was based,’ replied Myles. ‘The founding fathers deliberately modelled their experiment in government on Rome, which had, until then, led the most powerful empire the world had ever seen.’

  The army woman shook her head. Myles had misunderstood. ‘Yes, I get that,’ she said. ‘But why Rome as a threat? There are lots of ways these people could have threatened us. Why threaten us with a fate nobody really understands?’

  Myles acknowledged the point: the woman was right. ‘That’s something we need to find the answer to.’

  In the front row, Richard Roosevelt caught Myles’ eye. Myles motioned for him to speak. ‘Myles, you’ve met Juma and Placidia,’ said Roosevelt, ‘and you know Placidia well.’

  ‘Knew, Richard, knew – I don’t know her now.’

  ‘OK, you knew Placidia. What do you think they’re trying to achieve? I mean, do they really think they can take on America and win?’ The question raised a murmur around the room. Dick Roosevelt had his father’s gift for making points which won over the crowd.

  Myles recognised the sentiment and tried to give as honest an answer as he could. ‘Placidia – when I knew her at university – was amazingly bright,’ he said. ‘Probably more gifted than anyone in this room. And very idealist. So idealist she was almost naive, but determined with it. I don’t know what’s made her change, but I’m sure her husband, Juma, had something to do with it. Juma has been assessed as a psychopath.’

  Dick nodded: he thought Juma was a psychopath, too.

  ‘So, we’re dealing with an idealistic mastermind and a madman,’ continued Myles. ‘It’s possible that neither of them have looked at this situation as we would look at it. I’m not sure they’re even trying to win. Placidia will probably have a very clever motive. Juma may have no motive at all.’

  There was silence. It gave Myles an opportunity to make one last point. ‘And there’s another thing for us to consider – which is that we could concede to their demands. They want many thousands of African migrants
trapped in Libya to be allowed to settle in the continental United States. Perhaps we should let them…’

  The lecture theatre exploded into furious debate. Myles let it run for a few seconds. Then he shouted instructions over the noise. ‘Break into three teams, and come back here in one hour with some answers. We need to know how they’re going to attack us, what we should do about it, and anything else which might save America from the fate of Rome.’

  Myles allowed the groups to disperse, most of them still arguing furiously. When the last uniform left, Myles was completely alone again.

  He absorbed the silence. It helped him think. Why had Juma and Placidia threatened the US? He leant back, letting his mind muse on, trying to make progress but failing.

  Myles realised: this puzzle was like an optical illusion – the more he thought he understood, the less he really knew. Placidia’s ‘last prophecy of Rome’ – that the United States would be brought down in the same way as the ancient superpower – all depended on Placidia’s unique view of history.

  Everything he’d learnt about Rome he’d learnt with her, and he hadn’t focussed on the history during those lessons because he’d been too focussed on her. And now her puzzle was teasing him for it.

  Images of Placidia drifted back into his mind. Emotions were displacing logic: Myles was too close.

  His knowledge of Placidia, all those years ago, meant he was the worst person to work out how to stop Juma’s plans now.

  Twenty-Six

  West Point Military Academy, New York State

  After fifty-five minutes, the first team started coming back. Still discussing their conclusions, there were clearly very different views amongst them. Myles often used break-out groups in his lectures. They forced the students to think. He didn’t interrupt: he knew less thinking would be done if he interfered.

  The first team was soon joined by another, this time more confident of their material. Gradually the room started to fill up with a diverse collection of uniforms, all busily taking their places and finalising their presentations.

  After fifty-nine minutes the room was almost full, and as the minute hand hit the hour the last group rushed in, apologising for being late.

  ‘OK, let’s start,’ called Myles. ‘Who wants to go first?’

  A naval lieutenant stood up, holding a large sheet of paper on which his group had scribbled out their thoughts. Myles thanked him for volunteering and invited him to the front.

  Slightly awkward, the lieutenant held up the paper and tried to explain what it meant. ‘We looked at how the US could be attacked. Our nation’s key vulnerabilities.’ The navy guy pointed to a long list on the paper:

  Internet attack… Dirty bomb… Terrorist attack on the transport system…

  The audience nodded – they were familiar with the list. The register of US critical vulnerabilities was published every year.

  ‘Then we went through it and worked out which risks we shared with ancient Rome,’ explained the lieutenant.

  The speaker uncapped a red marker. Then he struck through the first item on the list, and the second, and the third. The audience watched as most of the list was crossed off. ‘So that left these issues for us to focus on.’

  Everybody peered at the things which remained. Just three points. The speaker used a blue marker to underline them.

  Biological/Viral attack/Plague

  Chemical attack/poisoning

  Economic attack

  Then the lieutenant explained each one. ‘For biological, we thought Juma might try to spread diseases which resist antibiotics.’ He scribbled “antibiotic resistance” next to “Biological/Viral attack/Plague”.

  Next the lieutenant reminded the audience that Colonel Gaddafi recently manufactured weapons of mass destruction – mainly mustard gas. Whether or not the stocks had been destroyed, there were still technicians in the region with dangerous skills. He wrote “gas” next to the second item on the list.

  Finally, the lieutenant wrote “oil” next to “Economic Attack”, as he explained that Juma might engineer a price spike. ‘Our economy is still vulnerable to oil shocks. Maybe the US relies on imported oil as the Romans depended on imported food...’

  The lieutenant indicated that was as far as his team’s thinking had progressed. Myles thanked him and the naval officer returned to his seat.

  The next presentation was from a woman in regulation army camouflage. She came to the front with a co-presenter who held up a flip chart. ‘OK, so in our group we looked at this problem historically,’ she began. ‘What destroyed the great Roman Empire?’

  ‘Good,’ said Myles. ‘If you know the answer to that I’m sure there are a lot of people who’ll be impressed.’

  The woman smiled, acknowledging Myles’ point, then continued. ‘We reckon the Roman Empire was knocked down by three things. First, lead poisoning – the aristocracy used the metal in sauces for their food. But these condiments literally drove them mad because lead is toxic, and causes changes in the brain. Roman leaders made some terrible decisions. So Juma might try a similar mass poisoning strategy of some sort, perhaps targeting America’s decision-makers.’

  There was a murmur of respect around the room. ‘Second, fertility levels dropped in ancient Rome just as they are dropping now in the West. Sperm counts in Europe and America are now less than half of what they were forty years ago – we wondered whether the attack might already be happening.’

  The audience could tell the woman felt slightly embarrassed talking about the reduction in male fertility. But they respected her point.

  ‘The final issue,’ concluded the woman. ‘Economic collapse. Rome’s currency lost its value. Our dollar is vulnerable in the same way. If the dollar ceases to be the international reserve currency, then our economy will suffer big time.’

  Myles thanked the woman as she returned to her seat.

  The next speaker was more confident, but also seemed less thoughtful than the other two. ‘In our team, we used a classical military approach. We started with Centre of Gravity analysis,’ he declared.

  Myles had often told his students about Centre of Gravity theory: the centre of gravity was the single thing which, if destroyed, would neutralise an enemy’s capacity to fight. It was a sensible concept – an idea developed by Clausewitz, the great military theorist on whom Myles was Oxford University’s leading expert. The trouble with Centre of Gravity analysis was that it invited military minds to think of physical things – buildings, people or communication networks. Often, the real Centre of Gravity of an enemy was much harder to pin down – a belief or an attitude which Western forces couldn’t reach.

  ‘OK, so we looked at their Centre of Gravity, and we reckon it’s their leaders: Juma and Placidia. So we recommend targeting them.’

  Myles checked he had understood correctly. ‘You mean taking them out?

  ‘That’s right, sir. Yes.’

  Myles cast around the room for a reaction. It was mixed. Most of the audience accepted that targeted assassination was more complicated than it sometimes appeared. There had to be good intelligence on where the leaders would be, an assessment of collateral damage, a consideration of the wider consequences…

  There were also moral issues, and Myles knew men in uniform often relied on euphemisms: using a word like ‘targeting’ when really they meant kill. He turned to Richard Roosevelt. ‘Dick – would you be happy with assassination?’

  The Senator’s son slowly shook his head. He carefully framed his words in his mind before he replied. ‘I’m with the sentiment,’ he explained. ‘But killing these suckers won’t solve our problems. Juma’s already set his plans rolling, and those plans will keep on rolling even if he’s dead.’

  The enthusiastic speaker understood: killing Juma and Placidia was not enough. ‘OK,’ continued the presenter, ‘so then we did Centre of Gravity analysis for the US. We reckon our Centre of Gravity is our social cohesion – in other words, how we stand together as a nation…’
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  Myles was impressed: the military planner had defined a Centre of Gravity for the US which wasn’t a physical object. Centre of Gravity analysis might actually be of some use after all.

  ‘And if social cohesion is our Centre of Gravity,’ continued the man, ‘then it can be attacked in three ways: by getting religious groups in America to attack each other, which happened in Ancient Rome. By making people distrust their rulers and leaders, which also happened in Ancient Rome. And by removing people’s confidence in their currency, which happened in Ancient Rome, too.’

  The speaker turned to Myles, asking permission to continue. Myles used his eyes to indicate the officer should talk on – this was useful. ‘So, it’s hard to see how Juma can do anything on the first two – religion in the US and distrust of rulers and leaders. Which means we reckon he’ll go for the currency. And there’s a high-level summit about the international currency system, nine days away. It’s the obvious target, because the meeting is in Rome.’

  The room spontaneously applauded: the argument was persuasive. Juma must be heading for Rome.

  Richard Roosevelt stood up to thank the speaker with a warm handshake, then interjected. ‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘As most of you know, as well as being the son of someone famous, I’m CEO of Roosevelt Guardians. What some of you may not know is that my private security firm is actually responsible for the conference. I don’t know whether to thank you for the warning or blame you for making my job more difficult.’

  The room laughed at Dick Roosevelt’s humility.

  ‘But what I think it means, is that I need help,’ continued Roosevelt. ‘I need someone to check we’ve made the currency conference safe. Ideally, one of you guys with a brilliant mind who can out-think Juma.’

  The lecture theatre was nodding in agreement: if Juma was going to attack the Rome conference then the assembled brains trust should send someone to pre-empt what he might do. But who should go?