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away to developing countries. There is an ex-president of the United States. A famous Hollywood actress—Eve Taylor. She actually owns the island. And so on.” Kurst didn’t even try to keep the contempt out of his voice. “They are amateurs, do-gooders…but they are also powerful and popular, which makes them dangerous.
    “Their aim, as they put it, is ‘to make poverty history.’ In order to achieve this, they have made certain demands, including the cancellation of world debt. They want millions of dollars to be sent to Africa to fight AIDS and malaria. They have called for an end to war in the Middle East. It will come as no surprise to those of us in this room that there are many governments and business interests who do not agree with these aims. After all, it is not possible to give to the poor without taking from the rich, and anyway, poverty has its uses. It keeps people in their place. It also helps to hold prices down.
    “A representative of one of the governments has been in contact with us. He has decided that the Reef Encounter should end the moment it begins—certainly before any of these meddlers begin to address the television cameras of the world—and that is our assignment. Disrupting the conference is not enough. All eight of them are to be killed. The fact that they will all be in one place at one time makes it easier for us. Not one of them must leave Reef Island alive.”
    One of the other men leaned forward. His name was Levi Kroll. He was an Israeli and about fifty years old. Very little of his face could be seen. Most of it was covered by a beard, and there was a patch covering the eye that he had once, by accident, shot out. “It is a simple matter,” he rasped. “I could go out this afternoon and hire an Apache helicopter gunship. Let us say two thousand rounds of 30-millimeter cannon fire and a few Hellfire air-to-ground laser-guided missiles and this conference would no longer exist.”
    “Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as straightforward as that,” Kurst replied. “As I said in my opening remarks, this is a particularly challenging assignment. Why? Because our client does not wish the Reef Island eight to become martyrs. If they were seen to be assassinated, it would only add weight to their cause. And so he has specified that the deaths must seem accidental. In fact, this is critical. There cannot be even the tiniest amount of doubt or suspicion.”
    There was a soft murmur around the table as the other members of Scorpia took this new information on board. To kill one person in a way that would arouse no suspicion was simple. But to do the same for eight people on a remote island that would doubtless have a tight security system…that was quite another matter.
    “There are certain chemical nerve agents…,” someone muttered. He was French, exquisitely dressed with a black silk handkerchief poking out of his top pocket. His voice was matter-of-fact.
    “How about R-5?” Mr. Mikato suggested. He was a Japanese man with a diamond set in his tooth and—it was rumored—Yakuza tattoos all over his body. “It’s the virus that we supplied to Herod Sayle. Perhaps we could feed it into the island’s water supply…”
    “Gentlemen, both of these methods would be effective but still might show up in the subsequent investigation.” Kurst shook his head. “What we require is a natural disaster, but one that we control. We need to eliminate the entire island with everybody on it, but in such a way that no questions will ever be asked.”
    He paused, then turned to the man sitting at the end of the table opposite him. “Major Yu?” he asked. “Have you given the matter your consideration?”
    “Absolutely…”
    Major Winston Yu was at least sixty years old, and although he still had a full head of hair, it had turned completely white. The hair looked artificial, cut in the style of a schoolboy with a straight line above the eyes and the whole thing perched on top of a head