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
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…’