The dog handlers looked at each other, unsure. ‘Perhaps, about five or ten minutes past. The dogs reacted a bit but he was clean.’
Myles shook his head. ‘This would have been one minute ago or less.’
‘No, then no,’ came the dog handler’s reply.
Myles put his hand on his head as he tried to think. He became aware the Marines were looking at him strangely. Then he realised the bandages were showing from underneath his Chinese cap.
‘You OK, sir?’
Myles nodded, still trying to think. ‘Which way did the man go? The man who made the dogs react. Which way?’
One of the dog handlers leant over and pointed down a corridor.
Myles ran down where the man had pointed. More crowds. Myles tried to examine all of the faces as he passed.
No sign.
People just looked at Myles as if he was odd.
Where had Juma gone?
As he reached the end of the corridor, Myles found the conference café. He tried to check the faces of everyone there too. They all looked relaxed and engrossed in their conversations. The group in the corner laughed at a shared joke. Myles tried to see around them.
Still no sign. Juma seemed to have evaporated.
For a moment Myles wondered if he had imagined it. Could it have been someone else? After all, the man didn’t look exactly like Juma. The person he’d seen was wearing glasses and had different hair. But if it wasn’t Juma, where had the innocent lookalike gone?
He looked around the café again. He was looking for someone who was agitated, but realised the most agitated person there was himself.
He searched over the heads of the delegates, peering all the way back to the corridor. He could just see towards the dog handlers at the entrance. If it was an innocent man, Myles would have found him by now. Juma must be hiding.
Myles was about to walk back up the corridor when he noticed something out of place — something nobody owned. Hanging over the back of one of the chairs was a jacket. He looked more closely: it was the jacket he had seen Juma wearing on the CCTV.
He moved towards it and picked it up.
He held it up in the air, unconcerned about making a spectacle of himself. ‘Is this anybody’s jacket?’ he called out.
Heads turned, and for a moment the earnest conversations paused. Some men queuing for coffee wearing just shirts seemed particularly interested, but soon they dismissed it and returned to what they were doing.
Myles held it high for everyone else to see. Still no one claimed it.
One delegate looked at the jacket then at Myles’ clothes and sniffed — as if Myles was asking to take something that wasn’t his. Myles ignored the man. He felt the pockets. There were things inside. Myles delved and pulled out some car keys. They seemed normal, and were attached to a remote control locking device. Then he noticed they were for a Toyota. A Toyota Corolla. Significant, or was he imagining it?
He moved the car keys into his own pocket and kept searching through the jacket. There was a pen, which he placed down on the table. Then he found a packet of pills. He examined the box: laxatives. He looked inside — several had already been popped through the foil. The pack was half-empty.
He began to question himself again: Juma didn’t seem like the sort of man who would take pills for minor ailments like constipation.
Myles spun the jacket around to check the other side. There was a large piece of paper, which he lifted out and unfolded. This was more interesting: a map of the conference venue.
Myles studied the map closely. Had He wasn’t sure whether it was standard issue for all the conference delegates been given one? Or had maps been kept from the public as a security precaution, in which case this was more significant?
Myles was just about to reach for the final thing in the jacket, which felt like a credit-card size rectangle of plastic, when he realised eyes were focussing on him.
Myles lifted his head to see US Marines closing in on him from three directions.
Without looking down again, Myles slipped the plastic rectangle into his palm.
‘Hands up, please, sir,’ came the instruction.
Myles did as he was ordered. As he lifted up his arms, the plastic card fell into his sleeve, passing his wrist towards his elbow. The US Marine patted him down, but knew it was a formality: everyone in the venue site had already been checked for weapons. The Marine queried the Toyota car keys Myles had just found, only giving them back when he was sure they were normal. Myles’ new map of the conference venue was confiscated.
‘Can you come with me, please sir?’ demanded the Marine.
Myles nodded. ‘Certainly, but something important is going on, and we need to stop it fast.’
‘There’s already a security alert out, sir, and you match the description.’
Myles shook his head. Typical. ‘Well, where are you taking me?’
‘Follow me, sir.’
Myles found himself marched through the corridors where he’d just been running. Back to the dog-handlers, back up the stairs. Something about the calm attitude of the Marines made him relax. It was obvious the Marines didn’t really think Myles was a security risk.
Then he realised where they were taking him.
Myles continued with his escort along the upper corridor. When they reached the door to the CCTV room, the leading Marine stopped and held the way open for Myles, who walked in.
There was Dick, crouched over a different image: this time it was a live television feed.
‘Sorry for calling you back like that, Myles,’ said Dick, only half apologising.
‘I was on his case — Juma…’
Dick ignored Myles’ protests. He kept watching the TV. ‘Myles, You gotta watch this…’ he said.
Sixty-Seven
Dick was transfixed by the live feed from CNN. Myles and the Marines escorting him were immediately hypnotised by the images, too.
They showed hundreds of African refugees gathered in Rome, not far from the conference centre. They all looked tired, many desperate. One was shouting in anger about something, his face covered in sweat. The refugees were trying to get into the US Embassy, which was now protected by a single ring of Roosevelt Guardian security men. The private security guards, massively outnumbered, had their guns ready. Their message was clear: if the refugees tried to push their way into the embassy — which international law regarded as American soil — the security men would shoot.
Dick shook his head in disbelief. ‘This is wrong,’ he muttered to himself. ‘This is so wrong.
Myles tried to console him. ‘Surely the Roosevelt Guardians have been trained well enough. They’re not going to fire, are they? They’ll just keep it under control — surely…?’
‘I don’t know, Myles, I don’t know…’ He turned to Myles. ‘I’m in charge, I’m responsible. I’ve got to get down there.’
Myles could see the fear on Roosevelt’s face. ‘Can’t you just radio through? It’d be quicker — just tell them to back off?’
‘It wouldn’t work, Myles. I’ve got to be there.’
‘Then stay safe,’ conceded Myles.
Roosevelt registered the comment but his mind was already thinking ahead. The young Senator ran towards the door, clearly determined to resolve the chaos on the streets of Rome. That left only Myles to track down Juma.
Myles still couldn’t work out how Juma had managed to escape so quickly. Within a minute of seeing him at the scanner, Myles had run down to confront Juma at the entrance. But in that minute Juma had somehow made it into the conference centre, past the sniffer dogs, along the corridor and into the café, where he’d left his jacket, then disappeared. Myles had to find him. And fast.