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time he had been passed over for project command. Nobody else had noticed. Their attention was fixed on the man with the silver hair and the round spectacles who had been placed, not by accident, at the head of the table.
    “I will add only that the first installment of the money has been paid into our Cayman Islands account by our client, Ariston Xenopolos,” Kurst continued. “We will receive the full amount on the same day that the so-called Elgin marbles land on Greek soil.”
    “How is Ariston?” Dr. Three asked. He was very small, like many Chinese men, and as the years went by he seemed to be getting smaller. He had recently completed a two-thousand-page encyclopedia on the subject of torture. The writing had exhausted him although he had enjoyed the research.
    “He is critically ill,” Kurst replied. “According to his doctors, he should already be dead.”
    “And if he dies before our work is complete?”
    “The money will still be paid.” Kurst blinked heavily, as if to cut off any further discussion. “But it is not just a question of money for us,” he went on. “This is a matter of great importance. We have endured two failures in a single year . . . unheard of in our long history. And I have heard unpleasant whispers, gentlemen. There are some governments and intelligence agencies that no longer trust us with their assignments. The purchase of nuclear material for Iran. A terrorist atrocity in Tel Aviv. The collapse of the banking system in Singapore. Just three recent operations that should have come to us but instead have been given to other organizations. We have to prove to our clients that we are back at full strength—and this is our opportunity! The work that we begin here today will have echoes that will be heard and felt throughout the world.”
    He nodded in the direction of Razim. “Please. Tell the committee what you have planned.”
    “With great pleasure, Mr. Kurst.” Razim licked his lips. Pleasure was not a word he used often. It was not an emotion that was familiar to him. And yet he had been looking forward to this moment for a long time, and he felt something close to a thrill to be the one holding the reins, to be in command of the entire executive body of Scorpia. “The Elgin marbles,” he muttered, his voice barely audible above the drone of the motor. “The British government has refused, time and again, to hand them back. Why? Because they are selfish and arrogant. And the question I have been asking myself for the last few months is, what will make them overcome their selfishness and arrogance? What will make them change their mind? And the answer I have come up with is a single word. Fear.
    “Somehow we have to arrange matters so that they have no choice. We have to put them in a position where they must return the sculptures . . . where their survival depends on it. But at the same time, it has to be done very delicately. For example, we could steal a nuclear device and threaten to set it off in the heart of London if they did not comply with our wishes. But this would not be easy and it might not even work. They might not believe us. They might, as it were, call our bluff. And it is not our task to turn the British into victims, no matter how pleasant the thought. It will suit our purposes more if they are hated. They are thieves and aggressors. They deserve the condemnation of every civilized country.”
    Razim drew a breath. There were twenty-one eyes in the room and they were all turned on him. Outside, the boat was cutting through the bright water, heading toward a bend in the river with the Eiffel Tower and the Fields of Mars looming up on the right. They passed underneath a bridge, the Pont d’Iéna, and a bar of shadow swept briefly across the glass ceiling.
    “I do not believe violence, or the threat of violence, is the answer,” Razim went on. “But suppose we were to arrange a trap for them. Imagine that we were to arrange a scandal so dark and so