The Prophet's Diamond

Daniil Verbitsky and Mark Azarov had long been preparing to display the rarest diamonds they owned in the gallery of their acquaintance. They assumed that many would want to get hold of the stones. But a chain of incidents—seemingly unrelated to each other—threw them into confusion. First, a plain schoolteacher tried to rob the cash collectors who were transporting one of the diamonds; then, with the same goal, the rich businessman’s daughter broke into the gallery at night; and after that, in a bank branch where the stones were kept, the mother of three children set herself on fire. The target of all the failed robbers was one single diamond—a yellow “Scorpion,” on whose account many lives had already been taken…