Scorpia

the machinery will be delivered later today.”
    “Will Invisible Sword work?”
    It was typical of Levi Kroll to be blunt and to the point. He had joined Scorpia from Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and still thought of himself as a soldier. For twenty years he had slept with an FN 9mm pistol under his pillow. Then, one night, it had gone off. He was a large man with a beard that covered most of his face, concealing the worst of his injuries. An eyepatch hid the empty socket where his left eye had once been.
    “Of course it will work,” Mrs Rothman snapped.
    “It’s been tested?”
    “We’re testing it right now. But I have to tell you that Dr Liebermann is something of a genius. A boring man if you have to spend time with himand heaven knows I’ve had to do plenty of that. But he’s created a brand-new weapon and the beauty of it is, all the experts in the world won’t know what it is or how it operates. Of course, they’ll work it out in the end, and I’ve made plans for that eventuality. But by then it will be too late. The streets of London will be littered with corpses. It’ll be the worst thing to happen to children in a city since the Pied Piper.”
    “And what about Liebermann?” Dr Three asked.
    “I haven’t decided yet. We’ll probably have to kill him too. He invented Invisible Sword but he has no idea how we plan to use it. I expect he’ll object. So he’ll have to go.”
    Mrs Rothman looked around. “Is there anything else?” she asked.
    “Yes.” Max Grendel spread his hands across the surface of the table. Mrs Rothman wasn’t surprised that he had something to say. He was a father and a grandfather. Worse than that, in his old age he had become sentimental.
    “I have been with Scorpia from the very beginning,” he said. “I still remember our first meeting in Paris. I have earned many millions working with you and I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done. But this project … Invisible Sword. Are we really going to kill so many children? How will we be able to live with ourselves?”
    “Rather more comfortably than before,” Julia Rothman muttered.
    “No, no, Julia.” Grendel shook his head. A single tear trickled from one of his diseased eyes. “This will come as no surprise to you. We spoke of this the last time we met. But I have decided that enough is enough. I’m an old man. I want to retire to my castle in Vienna. Invisible Sword will be your greatest achievement, I am sure. But I no longer have the heart for it. It is time for me to step down. You must go ahead without me.”
    “You can’t retire!” Levi Kroll protested sharply.
    “Why did you not tell us about this earlier?” another of the men asked angrily. He was black but with Japanese eyes. There was a diamond the size of a pea embedded in one of his front teeth.
    “I told Mrs Rothman,” Max Grendel said reasonably. “She’s the project leader. I felt there was no need to inform the entire board.”
    “We really don’t need to argue about this, Mr Mikato,” Julia Rothman said smoothly. “Max has been talking about retiring for a long time now and I think we should respect his wishes. It’s certainly a shame. But, as my late husband used to say, all good things come to an end.”
    Mrs Rothman’s multimillionaire husband had fallen to his death from a seventeenth-storey window. It had happened just two days after their marriage.
    “It’s very sad, Max,” she continued. “But I’m sure you’re doing the right thing. It’s time for you to go.”
    * * *
    She went with him down to the jetty. The motor launch had left but there was a gondola waiting to take him back down the canal. They walked slowly arm in arm.
    “I’ll miss you,” she said.
    “Thank you, Julia.” Max Grendel patted her arm. “I’ll miss you too.”
    “I don’t know how we’ll manage without you.”
    “Invisible Sword cannot fail. Not with you at the helm.”
    She stopped suddenly. “I almost forgot,” she exclaimed. “I have something for you.” She snapped her fingers and a servant ran forward carrying a large box wrapped in pink and blue paper, tied with a silver bow. “It’s a present for you,” she said.
    “A retirement present?”
    “Something to remember us by.”
    Max Grendel had stopped beside the gondola. It was bobbing up and down on the choppy surface. A gondolier dressed in a traditional striped jersey stood in the back, leaning on his oar. “Thank you, my dear,” he said. “And good