“So,” says Villanelle, her face expressionless.
“So we meet again.” He gives her the ghost of a smile. “I apologise for failing to identify myself in London. The time wasn’t right.”
“And now it is?”
He looks at her, assessingly. “We were impressed by your handling of the Kedrin action. And now we are faced with a situation requiring your assistance.”
“I see.”
“You don’t see, but you will. My name is Anton, and I’m a colleague of the man you know as Konstantin.”
“Go on.”
“Konstantin has been abducted. Taken hostage by a mafia gang, based here in Odessa.”
She stares at him, speechless.
“And yes, we’re quite sure. The gang is called Zoloty Bratstvo, or the Golden Brotherhood, and it’s headed by a man named Rinat Yevtukh. According to our information, Konstantin is being held in a well-secured house in Fontanka, a half-hour away from here. The house is owned by Yevtukh. The gang’s intention, apparently, is to demand a ransom.”
Her expression remains neutral, but alarm is jolting through her with nauseating force. Is this a set-up? An attempt to panic her into revealing who and what she is?
“You have to trust me,” he says. “If I was a hostile, you’d be dead already.”
Still she says nothing. Even if he’s telling the truth, and Konstantin has been abducted, she’s still lethally compromised. If they—whoever “they” are—can get to Konstantin, with his serpentine wariness, then they can get to her.
“Tell me,” she says eventually.
“OK. We’re certain that the kidnappers know nothing about Konstantin’s connection to us, or even that we exist. As far as they’re concerned, he’s just a visiting businessman, whose company will pay up in the usual way. What concerns us is that Yevtukh’s organisation has, for some time, been under the control of the SVR, the Russian secret intelligence service. And the SVR have wind of us, as MI6 do. They don’t know who or what we are, but they know we exist. So the question is, have they organised this abduction with a view to interrogating Konstantin about us? We’re not sure. We’ve got our own people in the SVR, naturally, but it’ll take time to find out what’s really going on. And we don’t have time.”
He pauses as bowls, spoons and a steaming casserole of borscht are placed on their table, followed moments later by a plate of pirozhki—small buns filled with minced meat. As the waitress shuffles away, Anton ladles out the beetroot soup, splashing the front of Villanelle’s cheap sweater with spots of dark purple.
“Konstantin’s tough,” he continues. “But even he can’t beat an SVR interrogation.”
Villanelle nods, dabbing absently at her sweater with a paper napkin. “So what do you propose?”
“We get him out.”
“We?”
“Yes. I’ve assembled a team of our best people.”
She meets his gaze. “I don’t work with other people.”
“You do now.”
“I’ll be the one who decides that.”
He leans in towards her. “Listen, we don’t have time for this primadonna shit. You’ll do what you’re told. And there’s a good chance we can all walk away from this.”
She sits there, motionless. “I’ve never taken part in a hostage-rescue.”
“Just listen, OK. You have a very specific role to play.”
She listens. And knows that she has no choice. That all that she is, all that she has become, hangs on the success of this mission.
“I’ll do it on one condition. That I’m not recognisable. I don’t want anyone else on the team to see my face. Or find out anything about me.”
“Don’t worry, the others feel the same. You’ll wear full-face masks throughout, and communication will be limited to an operational minimum. Afterwards, when the mission’s completed, you’ll be returned separately to where you came from.”
She nods. There’s so much about him that she distrusts, and from which she instinctively recoils. But she can’t, at that moment, find fault with his plan.
“So when do we go in?”
He surveys the cafe, and takes a mouthful of soup. The rain beats harder against the glass frontage.
“Tonight.”
Niko doesn’t raise his voice, but Eve can hear that he’s upset. Two of his colleagues from the school are expected for dinner, Chilean Pinot Noir has been bought, and a small but expensive shoulder of lamb is waiting in an oven-proof dish, stuck with cloves of garlic. The subtext to the evening is that Eve will make herself look nice, and wear the St. Laurent scent he bought her, and her prettiest earrings, and when the guests have gone they will make slightly drunken love, and things will, one way and another, be OK again.
“I can’t believe that it—whatever it is—really has to happen tonight,” he says. “I mean, Jesus, Eve. Seriously. You’ve known about Zbig and Claudia coming over for weeks.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, conscious of Billy listening to every word. “I just can’t do tonight. Nor can I discuss this on an open line. You’ll just have to apologise for me.”
“So what am I going to say? That you’re working late? I thought all that finished when you…”
“Niko, please. Tell them whatever you like. You know the situation.”
“No I don’t, actually, Eve. I really don’t. I have a life, in case you haven’t noticed, and I’m asking you, just this once, to do something for me. So make an excuse, do whatever you have to, but be there this evening. If you’re not…”
“Niko, I—”
“No, listen to me. If you’re not, then we need to think very seriously about whether—”
“Niko, it’s an emergency. There’s a threat to life, and I’ve been ordered to stay.”
Silence, except for the rise and fall of his breathing.
“I’m sorry, I have to go.”
As she breaks the connection Eve catches Billy’s eye, and he looks away. She stands there for a moment, dizzy with shame. This is not the first time that she’s avoided the truth with Niko, but it’s the first time that she’s straight out lied to him.
And for what? Billy and Lance could handle this just fine without her. In fact they’d probably prefer to, but something deep inside her, something savage and atavistic, wants to run with the pack. Is it worth it? Turning her life into this furtive twilight, and testing the love of a good man to destruction? Is she onto something with Dennis Cradle, or just forging imaginary links to deceive herself she’s making progress?
If they find nothing on Cradle, she’ll take time off. Make things right with Niko, if it’s not too late. All the longer-serving officers at Thames House said the same thing: you had to have a life outside. If you didn’t want to end up alone, you had to tear yourself away from the sleepless intoxication of secret work. All it offered was an unending series of false horizons. And no closure, ever.
Thinking of Niko at home without her, laying the table, setting out the wine glasses, carefully placing the lamb in the oven, makes her want to weep. The temptation to ring him, to say that the situation’s resolved and that she’s coming straight home, is overwhelming. But she doesn’t.
“Have you got a girlfriend, Billy?”
“Not as such. Chat with this girl on Sea of Souls.”
“What’s Sea of Souls?”
“Online role-player game.”
“So what’s she called?”
“Her user name’s Ladyfang.”
“Ever met her?”
“Nah. Was thinking about pushing for a date, but she’d probably turn out to be really old, or a bloke, or something.”
“That’s a bit sad, isn’t it?”
Billy shrugs. “To be honest I haven’t got time for a girlfriend right now.” There’s a brief silence, broken by the buzz of his phone. “It’s Lance. He’s parked up, with eyes on the house. No sign of any occupants.”
“They won’t be back from work yet. And my guess is that they’ll both go straight to the rest
aurant. He’ll be coming from Thames House. Her firm’s based out at Canary Wharf. But we can’t count on it. Our clock starts at eight, when they meet the others at Mazeppa.”
“I’ll ring my mum. Tell her not to wait up.”
The forward operating base is a disused farmhouse two miles north-west of Fontanka. The assault team is gathered in a rectangular outbuilding housing a rusting ZAZ hatchback and an assortment of mud-caked agricultural implements. Temporary spotlights illuminate two long trestle tables bearing maps, architectural plans and a laptop computer. Metal boxes containing weaponry, ammunition and equipment are stacked on the earth floor. It’s 10 p.m., local time. Beyond the farmyard wall, silhouetted against the darkening sky, Villanelle can see the rotors of a Little Bird military helicopter.
In addition to Anton, the team numbers five. Four assaulters, of whom Villanelle is one, and a sniper. All five are wearing black Nomex coveralls, body armour, and close-fitting balaclava masks. Villanelle has no idea of the identity of the others, but Anton is conducting the final briefing in English.
The building in which Konstantin is being held, they learn, stands in grounds of half-a-dozen acres. Photographs show an ostentatious three-storey palazzo with pillars, balustrades and a steeply pitched tile roof. A chain-link fence surrounds the estate; entry is by means of a guarded electronic gate. To Villanelle, the place looks like a fortified wedding cake.
The assaulters can expect a fight. According to intelligence gained by surveillance, there’s a permanent armed security detail of six men attached to the house, of whom up to three, at any one time, are patrolling the exterior. Given Yevtukh’s reputation, and the probability that most are ex-military, they’re likely to mount a strong resistance.
Anton’s plan is simple: a surgical strike of such savagery and intensity as to leave the hostage-takers incapable of coordinated response. As the assault team clears the house, the sniper will seek targets of opportunity. Speed will be of the essence.
Villanelle looks around her at the other masked figures. The Nomex suits and body armour give them all the same bulky profile, but the sniper has the body-mass of a woman. They will be known to each other only by their call signs. The assaulters are Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta, the sniper is Echo.
With the tactical briefing completed, the assaulters move to the weaponry boxes. After some thought, Villanelle arms herself with a KRISS Vector sub-machine gun, a Glock 21 handgun, several magazines loaded with .45 ACP rounds, and a Gerber combat knife. Then from one of the trestle tables she takes a fibre-optic scope and viewer, and the helmet carry-bag marked with her call sign, Charlie. Slipping the scope into a thigh pocket, she takes the helmet outside into the darkened farmyard to check the intercom and night-vision goggles. Around her there are brief illuminations as the other three assaulters test weapon-mounted torches and laser sights.
Lifting off the ballistic helmet, she watches them. There’s a tall guy, Delta, with dark-skinned hands, who’s shouldering a heavy combat shotgun. Bravo is a wiry figure of medium height, wholly anonymous, and Alpha is bullish and compact. Both are carrying short-barrelled Heckler & Koch sub-machine guns and multiple bandoliers of ammunition. All three are, without question, male, and she’s aware of them checking her out in return, eyes expressionless behind their face masks. Half-a-dozen paces away the sniper, armed with a Lobaev SVL rifle and night-scope, is measuring crosswind vectors with a velocity meter.
Inside the farmhouse the team finalises communications and radio procedure. The voices of the others are unrevealing; all speak fluent English, although with differing accents. Alpha sounds Eastern European, Bravo is definitely southern-states American, and Delta’s first language is probably Arabic. Echo, the woman, is Russian. And to these faceless creatures, Villanelle muses, I have to entrust my life. Fucking hell.
Smoothing out the maps and architectural plans, Anton beckons to them.
“OK. Last run-through, then we go. I’d have liked to hit the house some time before dawn tomorrow morning, but we can’t risk leaving the hostage there that long. So listen in.”
As he speaks, Villanelle is aware of the sniper, Echo, standing beside her. Their eyes meet, and she recognises the slate-grey gaze of Lara Farmanyants.
Yet again, Villanelle feels her bearings shift. Lara naked and supine beneath her is one thing, Lara hefting a high-precision rifle quite another. Is she there merely to take out the guards, or is she part of some unfathomably devious plan of Anton’s?
The two women regard each other for a moment, expressionless.
“Nice weapon,” Villanelle says.
“It’s my favourite for this kind of work. Chambered for .408 Chey-Tac.” Lara works the Lobaev’s soundlessly smooth bolt action. “I’m not so easily distracted from my aim, these days.”
“I’m sure you’re not. Good hunting.”
Lara nods, and a minute later climbs into the SUV which will take her to her firing position.
The minutes creep past. Villanelle fits the ear cups of her helmet, adjusts her microphone boom, and tightens her chinstrap. Finally, a signal from Echo informs Anton that she is in position and ready. Anton nods at the four assaulters and they make their way through the darkened farmyard to the matt-black Little Bird. The pilot is waiting in the unlit cockpit, and readies the craft for take-off as the assaulters take their places on the outboard fuselage platforms. Seating herself on the starboard platform, with the KRISS Vector slung across her chest, Villanelle clips on the retaining harness. Next to her, Delta is holding the shotgun across his knees. His eyes narrow, and they exchange wary nods.
There’s a muted roar as the Little Bird’s engine engages, followed by the accelerating whump-whump of the rotors. The craft shudders, Delta extends a gloved arm, and he and Villanelle bump fists. For now, whatever the future might hold, they’re a team, and Villanelle forces her apprehensions to the back of her mind. The Little Bird lifts a few metres and hovers. Then the ground falls away as they climb into the night sky.
The helicopter approaches the villa upwind, then angles in fast, skimming over the chain-link fence before dancing in the air a metre above the lawn to the east of the main entrance. Releasing their harnesses the assaulters jump down, weapons levelled, and seconds later the Little Bird lifts and swings away into the darkness.
As they sprint for the cover of the side of the house, high-intensity security floodlights bathe the area in dazzling white. Two figures race towards them across the driveway. There’s a wet smack, then another, and both go down on the gravel. One writhes like a pinned insect, and the other lies still, all but decapitated by the silenced .408 sniper round.
“Nice shooting, Echo,” murmurs Bravo, his Southern drawl pin-sharp in Villanelle’s earphones, and with a series of aimed shots, begins to knock out the LED floodlights mounted on the lawn and the front of the building. Alpha runs to the rear corner of the building to perform the same operation there. Villanelle watches and waits. Muted by her helmet’s noise-suppression system, the shots sound distant and unreal.
With only the far wall of the house still spotlit, the western portion of the grounds is thrown into sharp relief. Villanelle risks a quick glance round the angle of the building and feels the air ripple as a round passes her face. The shooter must have betrayed his position because Villanelle hears, once again, the meaty thwack of a sniper round finding its target. In her headphones, Lara’s voice is calm. “Echo to all players, you are now clear to breach. Repeat, you are clear to breach.”
What follows is a study in time and motion. Alpha runs out to the large central front door, places shaped explosive charges against it, and rejoins the others. The front door blows with a deafening whoomph, but this is a diversion. The real assault is through a small side door, which Delta blows off its hinges with his shotgun. The assaulters pour through, into the deserted kitchens.
There’s a formal choreography to house clearance. It’s a self-propelling process that cannot and must not be halted. The team moves from
room to room, with each member assigned a quadrant, sweeping, clearing, moving on. Villanelle knows the dance well, has rehearsed every step in the killing house at Delta Force’s training facility at Fort Bragg. The instructors there knew her as Sylvie Dazat, on secondment from the GIGN, France’s National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, and in her final assessment described her as an exceptionally fast learner with instinctive weapon skills, but with a personality so antisocial as to rule her out of any teamwork role. Her hostile behaviour had been deliberate. Men make themselves forget women who are unimpressed by them; Konstantin had taught her that. And no one at Fort Bragg remembers Sylvie Dazat.
They’re in an anteroom now, full of overstuffed furniture. On the wall is a vast painting of Michael Jackson fondling a chimpanzee. From somewhere in the interior of the building comes the muffled thump of feet on stairs. A security guard edges into view levelling an assault rifle, and Villanelle spins him to his knees with a three-round burst from the KRISS Vector. He balances for a moment, blank-eyed, and falls face down. As she fires a double tap through the back of his skull, spattering the deep-pile carpet with blood, Bravo throws a stun grenade through the doorway towards the main body of the house.
A tidal wave of sound rolls over Villanelle, punching through her helmet, and Alpha and Bravo race past her. As she and Delta follow, leaping over the body of the guard, her ears sing. They’re in an oversized hallway, which is hung with a pall of oily smoke from the stun grenade. For a couple of seconds the place appears unoccupied, then there’s a fusillade of automatic-weapon fire, and the assaulters dive for cover.
Villanelle and Delta are crouching behind a large Chesterfield sofa upholstered in turquoise calfskin. Behind them is the main entrance, now open to the night, with the heavy front door sagging on its hinges. To their left, on a marble plinth, is a life-size statue of a ballerina naked except for a thong. A burst of fire rakes the sofa, tearing into the scatter cushions. If we stay here, Villanelle thinks, we’re dead. And I really, really don’t want to die here, among these criminally ugly furnishings.
Codename Villanelle Page 17