Scorpia

you’re here, Alex. Welcome to Malagosto.”
    The woman called Jet led Alex out of the room, back across the main hall and down a corridor with a high vaulted ceiling and bare plaster walls.
    “What do you do here?” Alex asked.
    “I teach botany.”
    “Botany?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
    “It is a very important part of the syllabus,” Jet retorted. “There are many plants that can be useful to our work.
    The oleander bush, for example. You can extract a poison similar to digitalis from the leaves and this will paralyse the nervous system and cause immediate death. The berries of the mistletoe can also be fatal. You must learn how to grow the rosary pea. Just one pea can kill an adult in minutes. Tomorrow you can come to my greenhouse, Alex. Every flower there is another funeral.”
    She spoke in a way that was completely matter-of-fact. Again Alex felt a sense of unease. But he said nothing.
    They passed a classroom that might once have been a chapel, with more faded frescos on the walls, and no windows. Another teacher, with ginger hair and a ruddy, weather-beaten face, was standing in front of a blackboard, talking to half a dozen students, two of them women. There was a complicated diagram on the board and each student had what looked like a cigar box on the desk in front of them.
    “…and you can lead the main circuit through the lid and back into the plastic explosive,” he was saying. “And it’s right here, in front of the lock, that I always put the trembler switch…”
    Jet had paused briefly at the door. “This is Mr Ross,” she whispered. “Technical specialist. He’s from your country, from Glasgow. You’ll meet him tonight.”
    They moved on. Behind him, Alex heard Mr Ross speaking again.
    “Do try and concentrate, please, Miss Craig. We don’t want you blowing us all up…”
    They left the main building and walked over to the nearest apartment block that Alex had seen from the boat.
    Again, the building looked dilapidated from the outside but it was elegant and modern inside. Jet showed Alex to an air-conditioned room on the second floor. It was on two levels, with a king-sized bed overlooking a large living space with sofas and a desk. There were french windows with a balcony and a sea view.
    “I’ll come back for you at five,” Jet told him. “You have an appointment with the nurse. Mrs Rothman wants you to have a complete examination. We meet for drinks at six and dinner is early, at seven. There’s a night exercise tonight; the students are diving. But don’t worry. You won’t be taking part.”
    She bowed a second time and backed out of the room. Alex was left alone. He sat down on one of the sofas, noticing that the room had a fridge, a television and even a PlayStation 2—presumably put in for his benefit.
    What had he got himself into? Had he done the right thing? Dark uncertainties rose up in his mind and he deliberately forced them back again. He remembered the video he had been shown, the terrible images he had seen. Mrs Jones mouthing those two words into the radio transmitter. He closed his eyes.
    Outside, the waves broke against the island shore and the students in their white robes went once again through the motions of the silent kill.

    Just over seven hundred miles away, the woman who had been so much in Alex’s thoughts was examining a photograph. There was a single sheet of paper attached to it and both were stamped with the words TOP
    SECRET in red. The woman knew what the photo meant. There was only one course of action open to her. But for once—and for her it really was a first—she was reluctant. She couldn’t allow emotion to get in the way.
    That was when mistakes were made, and in her line of work that could be disastrous. But even so…
    Mrs Jones took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. She had received the photograph and report a few minutes ago. Since then she had made two calls, hoping against hope that there might have been a mistake. But there could be no doubt. The evidence was right there in front of her. She reached out and pressed a button on her phone, then spoke.
    “William—is Mr Blunt in his office?”

    In an outer office her personal assistant, William Dearly, glanced at his computer screen. He was twenty-three, a Cambridge graduate; he was in a wheelchair. “He hasn’t left the building yet, Mrs Jones.”
    “Any meetings?”
    “Nothing scheduled.”
    “Right. I’m going there