Luke Jennings: Codename Villanelle

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.

Delta points at a gilt-framed mirror reflecting the far end of the hall. In it, a figure is just visible behind a large, ornate desk. As one, Villanelle and Delta rise from each end of the sofa. As she gives covering fire, he blasts the desk with the shotgun. Wood chips fly, and a body pitches heavily to the floor. Four down. There’s a movement in the opposite corner, and a rifle barrel shows above a white leather armchair. Bravo smacks a burst into the upholstery, and a mist of blood reddens the zebra-print wallpaper. Five.

Ducking back behind the sofa, Villanelle changes magazines and runs for the stairs. The remaining hostage-taker, she guesses, is waiting on the first floor.

She inches up the stairs, and cautiously brings her eyes level with the first floor. A figure appears in the nearest doorway, she fires, and her head is whipped back with such force that, for a moment, she’s certain that she’s been shot. She falls to a crouch, her ears ringing, and is steadied by a hand to her shoulder. Pinpoints of light are bursting in front of her eyes.

“OK?” a familiar voice asks.

Villanelle nods, too dazed to wonder why Lara’s there, and reaches a hand to her helmet. There’s a deep furrow scored through the armoured plastic; a centimetre lower and it would have been her skull.