“I’m all right, thank you.”
“Then let me tell you the programme. Nile will introduce you to the other students who are here at Malagosto.
There are never more than fifteen and at the moment there are only eleven. Nine men and two women. You will join in with them and over the next few days we will examine your progress. Eventually, if I consider you have the ability to become part of Scorpia, I will write a report and your real training will begin. But I have no doubts, Alex. You are very young, only fourteen. But you are John Rider’s son and he was the very best.”
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Alex said.
“Please. Go ahead.” D’Arc sat back, beaming.
“I want to join Scorpia. I want to be part of what you do. But you might as well know now that I don’t think I could kill anybody. I told Mrs Rothman and she didn’t believe me. She said I’d only be doing what my dad had done, but I know how I am inside and I know I’m different to him.” Alex hadn’t been sure how d’Arc would react. But he seemed completely unconcerned. “There are a great many Scorpia activities that do not involve killing,” he said. “You could be very useful to us, for example, for blackmail. Or as a courier. Who would suspect that a fourteen- year-old on a school trip was carrying drugs or plastic explosives? But these are early days, Alex. You have to trust us. We will discover what you can and can’t do and we will find the work that suits you best.”
“I was eighteen when I killed my first man,” Nile added. “That’s only four years older than you are now.”
“But, Nile, you were always exceptional,” d’Arc purred.
There was a knock at the door and a moment later a woman came in. She was Thai, slender and delicate and several inches shorter than Alex. She had dark, intelligent eyes and lips that could have been drawn with an artist’s pencil. She stopped and made the traditional greeting of the Thai people, bringing her hands together as if in prayer and bowing her head.
“Sawasdee, Alex,” she said. “It is very nice to meet you.” She had a very gentle voice and, like the principal, her English was excellent.
“This is Miss Binnag,” d’Arc said.
“My name is Eijit. But you can call me Jet. I have come to take you to your room.”
“You can rest this afternoon and I will see you again at dinner.” D’Arc stood up. He was very short. His pointed beard only just rose above the level of the desk. “I’m so glad 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
