CODENAME VILLANELLE
By Luke Jennings
Copyright © 2014, Luke Jennings
The Palazzo Falconieri stands on a promontory on one of the smaller Italian lakes. It’s late June, and a faint breeze touches the pines and cypresses which cluster like sentinels around the rocky headland. The gardens are imposing, and perhaps even beautiful, but the deep shadows lend the place a forbidding air, which is echoed by the severe lines of the Palazzo itself.
The building faces the lake, and is fronted by tall windows through which silk curtains are visible. The east wing was once a banqueting hall, but now functions as a conference room. At its centre, beneath a heavy art deco chandelier, is a long table bearing a Bugatti bronze of a panther.
At first glance the twelve men sitting around the table look ordinary enough. Successful, judging from their quietly expensive clothes. Most are in their late fifties or early sixties, with the kind of faces that you glimpse on the financial pages of international newspapers, and instantly forget. There is an unblinking watchfulness about these men, however, which is not ordinary.
In the 12 o’clock position, facing the curtained windows, is an ageless, darkly-tanned American with deep-set grey eyes. As few photographs of him exist, and he has never been interviewed, he is a largely anonymous figure, even in his own sphere of business. In fact, he is the president and principal shareholder of a multinational energy corporation which is by some distance the largest in its field. With operations on every continent, its newest office is situated behind an unmarked door on the tenth floor of a north Tehran tower block.
On the American’s right hand, expressionlessly scanning the room, is a Russian entrepreneur. The founder of a holding company that embraces interests in steel, petrochemicals and shipping, he is one of the few men here whose name is known to the public. Like all of those present, he arrived by Gulf Stream jet at a private airport near Bergamo in the early hours of the morning, and was conveyed straight to the Palazzo by car. A five-year-old, discreetly armoured Mercedes, as it happens. Nothing calculated to attract attention.
Beside him is an Armenian, a heavy-set man whose corporation’s worldwide aerospace, defense and security-related operations have an annual turnover of between fifteen and twenty-five billion dollars. Its most recent contract relates to the construction and running of US government installations in Central Asia. These are subject to the highest level of classification, and it would come as a surprise to many that he was discussing the contract in detail with the Chief Executive Officer of the world’s most important investment bank.
As the CEO considers the implications of the Armenian’s words, his face shows none of the bonhomie of his official portrait (‘You’d smile too’ read a caption in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal, ‘if you were taking home $58.7m.’). Instead, he is hushed and watchful, his dark eyes narrowed to near-invisibility. The Washington ‘inner circle’ has a theory that a deep antipathy exists between the CEO and the rangy figure on his left, formerly the US Deputy Secretary of State, currently the President of the World Bank. In fact this is a fiction, which both men go to some lengths to maintain.
But then most of the received wisdom concerning these twelve men is false, which is how they prefer it. Withheld knowledge is power, and power is their business. Put simply, they represent the new world order. Governments rise and fall, but it is the men in this room who control the world’s destiny. Behind each one, shadowing him, is a tidal-wave of corporate wealth. Beyond politics, beyond morality, this is a force that will not be denied.
The existence of an all-powerful capitalist inner circle, dedicated to its own secret agenda, has long been an accepted fact amongst conspiracy theorists. But then many of the same people believe that the Apollo moon landings were staged, and that humanity is under the control of shape-shifting aliens. ‘The Twelve’ are happy to have the very idea of their existence dismissed by rational folk as a paranoid fantasy. As the poet Charles Baudelaire wrote: ‘The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist.’
The morning passes in discussion, and lunch – antipasti, lake trout, chilled bottles of Vernaccia, fresh figs and apricots – is served on the terrace. After lunch the Twelve pour themselves coffee, contemplate the breeze-ruffled expanse of the lake, and pace the garden. There are no security people, because at this level of secrecy, security people themselves become a risk. Before long the men have returned to their places in the shadowed conference room. The day’s agenda is simply headed ‘EUROPE’.
The first speaker, a grave, dark-suited figure, was until his official retirement a year ago the Secretary-General of Interpol. He looks around him. ‘This morning, gentlemen, we discussed Europe’s political and economic future. We talked, in particular, about the flow of capital, and how this can best be controlled. This afternoon I want to speak to you about a different economy.’ The room darkens, and the Twelve turn to face the screen on the room’s north wall. An image of a Mediterranean port, of container ships and ship-to-shore gantry cranes.
‘Palermo, gentlemen, today the principal point of entry for cocaine into Europe. The result of a strategic alliance between the Mexican drug cartels and the Sicilian Mafia.’
‘Aren’t the Sicilians a spent force?’ enquires the American. ‘I was under the impression that the mainland syndicates ran the drugs trade these days.’
‘That used to be the case. Until eighteen months ago the cartels dealt principally with the ’Ndrangheta, from the southern Italian region of Calabria. But in recent months a war has broken out between the Calabrians, and a resurgent Sicilian clan, the Greci.’
A face appears on the screen. The features austere. The dark eyes coldly watchful. The mouth a steel trap.
‘Salvatore Greco has dedicated his life to resurrecting the influence of his family, which lost its place in the Cosa Nostra power structure in the 1990s, following the murder of Salvatore’s father by a member of the rival Matteo family. A quarter of a century later Salvatore has hunted down and killed all of the surviving Mattei. The Greci, and their associates the Messini, are the richest, most powerful, and most feared of the Sicilian clans. Salvatore is known to have personally murdered at least sixty people, and to have ordered the deaths of hundreds more. Today, at 55 years of age, his hold over Palermo and its drugs trade is absolute. His criminal enterprises, worldwide, turn over some twenty to thirty billion dollars. Gentlemen, he’s practically one of us.’
A faint ripple of amusement, or something approximating to it, runs around the room.
‘The problem with Salvatore Greco is not his predilection for torture and murder,’ the former Interpol Secretary-General continues. ‘When mafiosi kill mafiosi it’s like a self-cleaning oven. But recently he has started ordering the assassination of members of the establishment. To date, his tally is two judges and four senior magistrates, all killed by car-bombs, and an investigative journalist, who was gunned down last month outside her apartment. The journalist was pregnant at the time of her death. The child did not survive.’
He pauses, and raises his glance to the screen and the image of the dead woman, spreadeagled on the pavement in a pool of blood.
‘Needless to say, it has not been possible to directly implicate Greco in any of these crimes. Police have been bribed or threatened, witnesses intimidated. The code of silence, or omertà, prevails. The man is, to all intents and purposes, untouchable. A month ago I sent an intermediary to arrange a meeting with him, as I felt that we needed to reach some sort of accommodation. His activities in this corner of Europe have become so excessive that they threaten to impact on our own interests. Greco’s response was imme
diate. The following day I received a sealed package.’ The image on the screen changes. ‘It contained, as you can see, my associate’s eyes, ears and tongue. The message was clear. No meeting. No discussion. No accommodation.’
The men around the table regard the grisly tableau for a moment, then return their gaze to the speaker.
‘Gentlemen, I think we need to take an executive decision concerning Salvatore Greco. He is a dangerously uncontrollable force, and to all intents and purposes beyond the reach of the law. His criminal activities, and the social havoc they entail, threaten the stability of our markets in the Mediterranean sector. I propose that we remove him from the game, permanently.’
It is the single Englishman present who rises from his chair and makes his way to a side-table, returning with an antique lacquered box. Taking out a black velvet drawstring bag, he pours its contents on the table in front of him. Twenty-four small ivory fish, twelve of them aged to a smooth yellow, twelve of them stained a dark blood-red. Each man receives a contrasting pair of fish.
The velvet bag makes its way around the table, counterclockwise, as always. When it has made a full revolution, it is passed to the former Secretary-General, who proposed the vote. Once again, the contents of the bag are poured onto the dimly gleaming surface of the table. Twelve red fish. A unanimous sentence of death.
The American nods. ‘Moving on, gentlemen…’
*
It is evening, a fortnight later, and Villanelle Faure is sitting at an outside table at Le Jasmin, a private members club in Paris’s sixteenth arrondissement. From the east comes the murmur of traffic on the Boulevard Suchet, to the west is the Bois de Boulogne and the Auteuil racecourse. The club’s garden is bordered by a trellis hung with blossoming jasmine whose scent infuses the warm air. Most of the other tables are occupied, but conversation is muted. The light fades, the night awaits.
Villanelle takes a long sip of her Grey Goose vodka martini, and discreetly surveys the surroundings, particularly noting the couple at the next table. Both are in their mid-twenties: he elegantly dishevelled, she cat-like and exquisite. Are they brother and sister? Professional colleagues? Lovers?
Definitely not brother and sister, Villanelle decides. There’s a tension between them – a complicity – that’s anything but familial. They’re certainly rich, though. Her silk sweater, for example, its dark gold matching her eyes. Not new, but definitely Chanel. And they’re drinking champagne, vintage Taittinger, which doesn’t come cheap at Le Jasmin.
Catching Villanelle’s eye, the man raises his champagne flute a centimetre or two. He murmurs to his companion, who fixes her with a cool, assessing stare. ‘Would you like to join us?’ she asks. It’s a challenge, as much as an invitation.
Villanelle stares back, unblinking. A breeze shivers the scented air.
‘It’s not compulsory,’ says the man, his wry smile at odds with the calm of his gaze.
Villanelle stands, lifts her glass. ‘I’d love to join you. I was expecting a friend, but she must have been held up.’
‘In that case…’ The man rises to his feet. ‘I’m Olivier. And this is Nica.’
‘Villanelle.’
The conversation unfolds conventionally enough. Olivier, she learns, has recently launched a career as an art dealer. Nica intermittently works as an actress. They are not related, nor on closer inspection do they give the impression of being lovers. Even so, there is something subtly erotic in their complicity, and the way they’ve drawn her into their orbit.
‘I’m a day-trader,’ Villanelle tells them. ‘Currencies, interest-rate futures, all that.’ With satisfaction, she notes the immediate dimming of interest in their eyes. She can, if necessary, talk for hours about day-trading, but they don’t want to know. Instead, Villanelle describes the sunlit first-floor flat in Versailles from which she works. It doesn’t exist, but she can picture it down to the ironwork scrolls on the balcony and the faded Persian rug on the floor. Her cover story is perfect now, and deception, as always, affords her a rush of pleasure.
‘We love your name, and your eyes, and your hair, and most of all we love your shoes,’ says Nica.
Villanelle laughs, and flexes her feet in her strappy satin Louboutins. Catching Olivier’s eye, she deliberately mirrors his languid posture. She imagines his hands moving knowledgeably and possessively over her. He would see her, she guesses, as a beautiful, collectible object. He would think himself in control.
‘What’s funny?’ asks Nica, tilting her head and lighting a cigarette.
‘You are,’ says Villanelle. How would it be, she wonders, to lose herself in that golden gaze? To feel that smoky mouth on hers. She’s enjoying herself now; she knows that both Olivier and Nica want her. They think that they’re playing her, and Villanelle will go on letting them think so. It will be amusing to manipulate them, to see how far they will go.
‘I have a suggestion,’ says Olivier, and at that moment the phone in Villanelle’s bag begins to blink. A one-word text: DEFLECT. She stands, her expression blank. She glances at Nica and Olivier, but in her mind they no longer exist. She’s out of there without a word, and in less than a minute is swinging into a northbound stream of traffic on her Vespa.
It’s three years now since she first met the man who sent her the text. The man who, to this day, she knows only by the codename Konstantin. Her circumstances, then, were very different. Her name was Oxana Vorontsova, and she was officially registered as a student of French and Linguistics at the University of Perm, in Central Russia. In six months time she was due to sit her finals. It was unlikely, however, that she would ever walk into the university’s examination hall as, since the previous autumn, she’d been unavoidably detained elsewhere. Specifically, in the Dobryanka women’s remand centre in the Ural Mountains. Accused of murder.
*
It’s a short drive, perhaps five minutes, from the Club Jasmin to Villanelle’s apartment near the Porte de Passy. The 1930s building is large, anonymous and quiet, with a well-secured underground garage. Parking the Vespa alongside her car, a fast and anonymous silver-grey Audi TT Roadster, Villanelle takes the lift to the 6th floor, and ascends the short flight of stairs to her rooftop apartment. The front door, although faced with the same panelling as the others in the building, is of reinforced steel, and the electronic locking system is custom-made.
Inside, the apartment is comfortable and spacious, even a little shabby. Konstantin handed Villanelle the keys and title deeds a year ago. She has no idea who lived there before her, but the place was fully furnished when she moved in, and from the decades-old fixtures and fittings, she guesses it was someone elderly. Uninterested in decoration, she has left the apartment as she found it, with its faded sea-green and French blue rooms, and its nondescript post-impressionist paintings.
No one ever visits her here – her professional meetings take place in cafés and public parks, her sexual liaisons are mostly conducted in hotels – but if they were to do so, the apartment would bear out her cover story in every detail. In the study, her computer, a top-of-the-range wafer of stainless steel, is protected by civilian security software that a half-way skilled hacker would quickly bypass. But a scan of its contents would reveal little more than the details of a successful day-trading account, and the contents of the filing cabinet are similarly non-committal. There is no music system. Music, for Villanelle, is at best a pointless irritation and at worst a lethal danger. In silence lies safety.
*
Conditions at the remand centre were unspeakable. The food was barely edible, the sanitation non-existent, and an icy, numbing wind from the Dobryanka river penetrated every corner of the institution. The slightest infraction of the rules resulted in a prolonged period of shiza, or solitary confinement. Oxana had been there for three months when she was led under armed guard to the prison courtyard, and ordered to climb into a battered all-terrain vehicle. Two hours later, the driver halted by a bridge over the frozen Chusovaya river, a place Oxana recognised
from a long-ago summer fishing trip with her father, and wordlessly directed her to a low, prefabricated unit, beside which a black four-wheel drive Mercedes was parked. Inside the unit, there was just enough room for a table, two chairs, and a paraffin heater.
A man in a heavy, grey coat was sitting on one of the chairs, and to begin with, he just looked at her. Took in the threadbare prison uniform, the gaunt features, the sullen defiance in her eyes. ‘Oxana Borisovna Vorontsova,’ he said eventually. ‘Age, twenty three years and four months. Accused of triple homicide, with multiple aggravating circumstances.’
She waited, staring out of the window at a small square of snowy forest. The man spoke near-perfect Russian, but it was not his first language. ‘In a fortnight’s time you will face trial,’ he continued. ‘And you will be found guilty. There is no other conceivable outcome. You will spend the next twenty years of your life in a penal colony which will make Dobryanka look like a holiday resort. In theory, you could receive the death penalty.’
Her eyes remained blank. The man lit a cigarette, an imported brand, and offered her one. It would have bought her an extra helping of food for a week at the remand centre, but Oxana refused it with a barely perceptible shake of the head.
‘Three men found dead. One with his throat slashed to the bone, two shot in the face. Not quite the behaviour expected of a final year linguistics student at Perm’s top university. Unless, perhaps, she happened to be the daughter of a Spetznaz close-quarter battle instructor.’ He drew on his cigarette. ‘Quite a reputation he had, senior sergeant Boris Vorontsov. Didn’t help him, though, when he fell out with the gangsters he was moonlighting for. A bullet in the back, and left to die in the street like a dog. Hardly a fitting end for a decorated veteran of Grozny and Pervomayskoye.’
From beneath the table he took a flask and two cardboard cups. Poured slowly, so that the scent of strong tea infused the cold air. Nudged one of the cups towards her.
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