by Iain King
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:
‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
‘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:
‘Department of Homeland Security announces it is impounding the personal computers of all members of congress and their staff. Indecent images have been found on at least fourteen machines…’
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
Western Desert, Iraq
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 fa
r 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.
