Scorpia

opinion and the first hour had been taken up discussing the question over and over again. At least half the people in the room thought it was a bluff. The other half wanted to put pressure on the Americans—to make them agree to Scorpia’s demands.
    But there was no chance of that happening. The foreign secretary had already met with the American ambassador. The prime minister had spent several hours on the telephone with the president of the United States. This was the American position: Scorpia were asking the impossible. The Americans considered their demands to be laughable, quite possibly insane. The president had offered the help of the FBI to track Scorpia down. Two hundred American agents were already on their way to London. But there was nothing more he could do. Britain was on its own.
    This response caused a great deal of anger at Cobra. The deputy prime minister crashed his fist against the table.
    “It’s incredible! It’s a bloody scandal. We help the Americans; we’re their closest allies. And now they turn round and tell us to jump in the lake!”
    “That’s not quite what they’ve said.” The foreign secretary was more cautious. “And I don’t know what else they could do. The president has a point. These demands are impossible.”
    “They could try to negotiate!”
    “But the letter says there will be no negotiation—”
    “That’s what it says. But they could still try!” Alex listened as the two men argued, neither really listening to what the other had to say. So this was how government worked!
    Next up was a medical officer with a report on how the footballers had died. “They were all poisoned,” he announced. He was a short man, bald, with a round, pink face. He had put on a crumpled suit for the meeting but somehow Alex could tell he spent most of his life in a white coat. “We found traces of cyanide which seem to have been delivered straight to the heart. The amounts were very small—but they were enough.”
    “How were they administered?” someone—a police chief—asked.
    “We don’t yet know. They hadn’t been shot, that’s for sure. There were no unexplained perforations on their skin and there’s only one thing we’ve come up with that’s rather odd. We found tiny traces of gold in their blood.”
    “Gold?” The director of communications spoke for the first time and Alex noticed him sitting next to the prime minister. He was the smallest—and in many ways seemed to be the least imposing—man in the room. And yet, at his single word, every head turned.
    “Yes, Mr Kellner. We don’t believe the gold particles contributed to their death. But every single one of the players was the same…”
    “Well, it all seems pretty obvious to me,” Kellner said, and there was a sneer in his voice. He stood up and looked around the crowded table with cold, superior eyes. Alex disliked him at once. He had seen kids like him at Brookland. Small and spiteful, always winding people up. But running in tears to the teachers the moment they got whacked. “All these people died at exactly the same time,” he said. “So it’s pretty obvious they were all poisoned at the same time. When could that have been? Well, obviously when they were on the plane! I’ve already checked. The flight lasted six hours and thirty-five minutes and they were given a meal shortly after they left Lagos. There must have been cyanide in the food and it kicked in just after they arrived at Heathrow.”
    “Are you saying there is no secret weapon?” the deputy prime minister asked. He blinked heavily. “What do Scorpia mean by Invisible Sword then?”
    “It’s a trick. They’re trying to make us think they can kill people by some sort of remote control…”
    Remote control. That meant something to Alex. He remembered something he had seen when he’d been inside the Widow’s Palace. What was it?
    “…but there is no Invisible Sword. They’re just trying to frighten us.”
    “I’m not sure I agree with you, Mr Kellner.” The medical officer seemed nervous of the director of communications. “They could all have taken the poison at the same time, I suppose. But each one of those men had his own metabolism. The poison would have reacted more quickly in some than in others.”
    “They were all athletes. Their metabolisms would have been more or less the same.”
    “No, Mr Kellner. I don’t agree. There were also two coaches and a manager…”
    “To hell with them. There is