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  We touch down, and the Super Puma rests on the helipad for no more than thirty seconds as we climb out into the bitter, sleeting wind. It’s so ferocious, I’m afraid that if I lose my footing I’ll be swept away, and I cling to the arm of the nearest person, who happens to be Anton. He shouts something to me, but it’s whipped away in the wind.

  We walk the length of the platform, heads down, to where three converted shipping containers are lashed to the decking with steel hawsers. Anton guides us inside the nearest of these, flicks on an electric light, and when we’re all inside, including the two men who guided in the helicopter, closes the steel door.

  It’s not much, but it’s a lot more homey than the last container I was in. Two double-glazed windows have been let in to the lengthways wall, framing views of the sea and the sky. At one end there’s a trestle table and six folding chairs, at the other a microwave, a chest freezer, and a kettle. A tray on the table holds jars of honey, Marmite, and strawberry jam. Above it, there’s a bookshelf stocked with well-thumbed paperback thrillers by Mick Herron, Andrei Kivinov, and others, and a hardback copy of Mangan and Proctor’s Birds of the North Sea.

  “Welcome to Knock Tom,” Anton says. “It was originally a Second World War anti-aircraft emplacement, built by the British to protect the North Sea shipping lanes. So if you get bored and feel like a swim”—he points out of the further window—“the Essex coast is about ten miles in that direction. But I promise that you won’t be bored. We’ve got a lot of work to do and a lot of ground to cover.”

  “So let’s get to it. First off, meet Nobby and Ginge. They are going to be your instructors and your watchdogs, so listen up and do what they say. They’re former E Squadron sniper team leaders, so they know their stuff. Lara and Villanelle, I know you have experience as solo operatives, but this project poses unique challenges. Our targets, plural, have the best security the world has to offer. Teamwork is going to be vital.”

  “Charlie. My name is Charlie. Since you’re talking about teamwork.”

  Silence. Nobby and Ginge exchange grins.

  Anton looks as if he’s swallowed a wasp. “Charlie it is, then. Moving on. We’re going to be using two teams, each with a spotter and a shooter. The window of opportunity will be small, and the weather conditions challenging, so the role of the spotters will be critical. Our shooters will be Villanelle and, er, Charlie. Spotters will be Eve and myself.”

  “So what’s wrong with these two heroes?” Oxana asks, jerking a thumb at the two instructors. “If they’re so fucking experienced, how come you need us?”

  Anton regards her with calm loathing. “Nobby and Ginge have retired from the stage. They prefer to pass on their wisdom to a new generation.”

  “It’s that dangerous, then,” Oxana says and smirks.

  “I’m not going to pretend it’s not dangerous. It’s very dangerous indeed. That’s why preparation is everything. We have a week in which we can concentrate fully on the task at hand. There’s no WiFi here, so you’ll have no active links to the outside world. We are going to be living and breathing our mission. Train hard, fight easy.”

  It’s at this point that I lose hope. There’s no way to contact Tikhomirov, and as I have no clue as to the identity of the target, or targets, there’s no point in thinking about how to do so. Anton, moreover, clearly has no intention of telling us the details of the hit until the absolute last moment. Maybe he doesn’t even know them. The fact that we have been flown all the way to the middle of the North Sea, rather than to a secure facility in Russia, tells me how concerned the Twelve are that no word of this operation should get out. We’re confined to this tiny, isolated, storm-battered platform with no possibility of escape, and no way of contacting the outside world.

  “The two teams will be training separately,” Anton continues. “Villanelle and I with Nobby, Charlie and Eve with Ginge. Neither team will discuss the details of their mission with the other team. You all have separate quarters, three in the north leg of the platform, three in the south, and there will be no doubling up.” He looks balefully from me to Oxana. “This is not a request, it’s an order.”

  Watching Anton, with his too-pale eyes, wolfish jaw and thin, fastidious mouth, I can’t suppress a shiver. He’s one of those men whose hatred of women is so deep, so central to his being, that it almost defines him. He knows where he stands with men. With Richard he’s subtly obsequious; with Nobby and Ginge matey but superior. He’s pretty sure where he stands with me, too, as I’m too much of a scaredy-cat to give him much trouble. But he has no idea how to deal with Charlie and Oxana, who are every bit as hardcore as he is, and not frightened to let him know it. I turn to Oxana but she is staring expressionlessly into space. Impossible to tell what she thinks of the sleeping arrangements.

  This briefing is followed by a meal of warm baked beans and luncheon meat prepared by Nobby, during which Oxana remains wordless and withdrawn, refusing to meet my eye. As hurtful as this is, it no longer surprises me. I’m familiar with her mood cycle. I know that when I say good night to her, she will look straight through me, and she does.

  My quarters, accessed by a vertical ladder from the deck, are a concrete-walled cabin in the interior of the north leg. Inside is a metal bunk bed furnished with a mattress, sheet and blanket, all damp to the touch, and a locker containing cold-weather combat clothes.

  I’m bracing myself for the chilly business of undressing when there’s a bang on the steel door. It’s Charlie.

  “So we’re a team,” they say.

  “Looks like it.” I sit down on my bunk, loosen my boots and kick them off. “How’s your cabin?”

  “Same as yours, but I’m in the south leg, between Oxana and Nobby. Bit like being back in Butyrka.”

  “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me as your spotter. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Are you good at mathematics?”

  “Hopeless.”

  “Because the spotter has to make all the calculations. You know: range, wind-direction, all that. And you have to keep us safe. You’re the lookout.”

  “Er, right. And you?”

  “I’m looking through the rifle scope. That’s all I see, that little circle. Until I take the shot. Then we get out of there, fast. Who do you reckon the target is?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Not you, anyway. Makes a change.”

  “Yes, there is that.”

  Charlie leans against the rust-streaked wall, arms folded. “Do you miss her? Oxana, I mean? When you’re not with her?”

  “Mmm. Yeah, I do. A lot. What was it like in prison?”

  “Really shitty. Lonely. Bad sex.”

  “Oh God, Charlie.”

  “I know. But I thought I was going to be there forever. So I was like in heaven when I learned that I was going to get out. I mean, people say the Twelve are a patriarchal organization, but I think they offer real opportunities for women and gender non-binary people. The chance to grow as a person and live your dream. Which for me has always been shooting people.”

  “Dangerous work.”

  “And I’m really good at it. I know you think I’m not, but—”

  “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t need to. Listen, I know you’re not impressed that I missed you twice, but maybe the whole situation had got too personal? Like I knew that Oxana liked you, or whatever, and that made me tense up? I have feelings too, you know. I’m not just some replicant, like Rachael in Blade Runner.”

  “I know, Charlie.”

  “But explain to me, why are you with a woman at all? I mean, you were married, weren’t you? To that Niko guy? Oxana always called him the Polish asshole.”

  “He wasn’t an asshole, he was a good man, but yeah.”

  “And that was OK?”

  “Mmm. It was.”

  “So what happened? Did you just wake up one morning and say fuck this shit, I want some pussy?”


  “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “So how was it, Eve? Tell me.”

  “I think… God, it’s so difficult. OK, to start with, Oxana—she was Villanelle then—just really fascinated me. I was stuck in this quite frustrating job, which I felt was going nowhere, and then suddenly here was this person who didn’t obey any of the rules, who made life up as she went along, and did whatever the fuck she wanted and got away with it, and to begin with that made me kind of angry, because my own life was so… not like that. I thought, how dare she? I was kind of outraged by her. And then, little by little, I began to admire her skill, and her cunning, and the whole game she was playing. It was so personal. So intimate. You remember that bracelet she bought me in Venice?”

  “Yes I remember the bracelet. I was super–pissed off with her about that.”

  “I know. And at that point I hadn’t even met her.”

  “So get to the sex.”

  “It wasn’t really about the sex. Then.”

  “It’s always about the sex.”

  “So why do you want to know?”

  “Because I’m fucking jealous, Eve. Because I want her back.”

  “Charlie, get real. Do you think any of us are going to walk away from this? That there’s going to be some kind of happy-ever-after?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No. If we fail, we’re dead. If we succeed, and the target’s as high profile as they say it is, then we’re dead too, because they’re certainly not going to want us around to tell our story.”

  “But why would any of us say anything? I wouldn’t, you wouldn’t, and Oxana definitely wouldn’t. We’d just go on working for the Twelve.”

  “Charlie, if the FSB heard so much as a whisper that any of us was involved, they’d have us in an interrogation cell in Lefortovo before you could say Baileys Irish Cream. And then we’d talk, trust me. Any one of us would talk.”

  “I love Baileys, it’s the best drink there is. And I’m sorry, but I want Oxana back. I mean, what have you and her got in common? Nothing. And this evening. She didn’t even talk to you. You’re not enough for her, Eve.”

  “Go to bed, Charlie, I’m tired. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I wake up early, and clamber down the ladder to the washroom, or “head” as Anton insists on calling it. It’s tiny but it’s private, and there’s a freshwater shower heated by a generator. I try very hard to enjoy the sixty-odd seconds of steaming hot water I allow myself. I suspect I’m going to spend most of the day feeling very cold indeed.

  At breakfast—tea, bacon sandwiches—I team up with Charlie and Ginge, a stocky, balding Welshman with a twinkling smile. “Lovely day for it,” he grins, as the wind screams across the platform deck outside. He leads us to one end of the deck, where two makeshift hides, about ten meters apart, have been constructed from oil drums and tarpaulin. On the ground beneath the tarpaulin is a low mattress, and on the mattress is a sniper rifle with scope attachment, a metal ammunition box, and a waterproof rucksack. The edge of the platform is no more than two meters in front of us. Far below, the sea churns and boils, dashing itself against the platform’s concrete legs.

  “Right now, let’s get comfy. You’re on the gun, Charlie-girl. Eve, you’re behind and to the right, and I’ll just tuck in on the left. Proper cozy, isn’t it?”

  I see Charlie tense up at being called a girl, and then deliberately relax. We settle into our places on the mattress. It’s weird to be quite so close to Ginge and Charlie, but a relief to be out of the wind. It’s still very cold, though, and my back aches badly. Will I survive long enough to have the stitches taken out?

  Ginge grins at Charlie. “Gather you’ve done a bit of sniper work before, then?”

  “Some,” Charlie answers warily.

  “In that case you’ll probably know a lot of what I’ve got to tell you, but listen up anyway. This job is going to be a very tricky one. I’m not aware of the location of the firing point, or the identity of the target. But I do know that the window of opportunity is going to be very small, probably just seconds, the target will be moving, and the range will be in excess of seven hundred meters. So Charlie, you are going to have to act very fast and very decisively, while remaining very calm. Eve, your job is to make sure that she can do that.

  “So first, your weapon. It’s a British-made AX sniper rifle with a Nightforce scope. The rifle’s light, it’s smooth-firing and it’s very accurate. Altogether a tidy piece of kit.” He opens the ammunition box to reveal rows of shining, brass-cased cartridges. “Caliber is .338 Lapua Magnum. High power. Send one of these your target’s way and he’s a mess. So, Charlie, what would you normally take into account when lining up a five-hundred-meter-plus shot?”

  Charlie frowns. “Range, wind force and direction, drag, spin-drift, Coriolis…”

  Ginge gives me an evil smile. “This making any sense to you, Eve?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “Don’t worry, it will do. Let’s start with range. The further a projectile has to travel, the more it drops in the air due to gravity, OK?”

  “Got it.”

  “Wind is also a factor. A strong crosswind will take a bullet off-course laterally, and a headwind will add drag. Cold air is denser than hot air, so that increases drag as well.”

  “Right.”

  “A bullet leaves the barrel of a rifle spinning at very high speed. This causes a very slight drift toward the direction of twist, which needs to be compensated for at long ranges.”

  “Er, OK. I think I basically get that. And the other thing?”

  “Want to talk us through the Coriolis effect, Charlie?”

  “Sure. Say I shoot at Eve, right?”

  “Again?”

  They smile.

  “Say I shoot at you at a range of a kilometer, the bullet’s going to be in the air for three or four seconds before it hits you, OK?”

  “I guess.”

  “So while the bullet’s in the air the earth continues to spin. And you’re on the earth. So even if you don’t move, you move. Get it?”

  “Um… sort of. Yeah.”

  “Righto then.” Ginge twinkles at me. I’m guessing that as a Special Forces sniper, working with Anton, he took out human targets with exactly the same merry smile on his face. “In the old days, when I was in the game, we had to calculate all of these variables and adjust our sights accordingly. Fine if time was on your side, but awkward if it wasn’t. Today we’ve got a laser system that makes all these calculations automatically. You just look through the scope, and there’s your corrected aiming point.”

  “So what am I here for?” I ask him.

  “We’ll get to that. First, let’s set the rifle up. Charlie-girl, would you like to do the honors?”

  “It’s Charlie. Not Charlie-girl.”

  “Is that right?” The smile never falters. “Charlie it is, then.”

  I’ve never thought of them as a particularly dextrous person, but watching Charlie calmly set the rifle on its bipod, fit their face to the cheekpiece, check the scope and work the bolt, I know immediately that I’m watching someone who’s very, very good at what they do. As I watch, the weapon becomes an extension of their body.

  “Eve, you get a lovely piece of kit too.” Ginge opens the waterproof rucksack and takes out an object like a truncated telescope. “This is a Leupold spotting scope, for keeping eyes on the target. It’s got much more powerful magnification than the telescopic sights on the rifle, so you can actually see, close up, where the sniper’s shot goes.”

  “Cool.”

  “So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do next. If you look out to sea, about one o’clock, you should be able to see a red buoy. It’s quite small and near the limit of visibility. Got it?”

  I squint through my glasses, which have become blurry in the damp salt air, and finally see a tiny dot of red.

  “Once you’ve got eyes on it,” Ginge orders us, “look at it through your scopes.”

 
He’s right, the Leupold is an amazing piece of kit. The buoy looks close enough to reach out and touch, as it swings from side to side on the waves.

  “OK. That buoy is five hundred meters from this firing point, give or take, and that’s the range we’re going to be looking at today. I understand that the shot you’re going to have to make on the day is at a range of just over seven hundred meters. Your target will be moving and the atmospherics will be challenging. So, shall we get to it?”

  As Charlie and I rehearse the spoken procedure, Ginge sets up the targets. In the rucksack there’s a box of yellow party balloons, a ball of twine, scissors, a bag of small plumb-weights, and an air canister. Ginge inflates a balloon, ties it off with a length of twine, attaches a weight and slings the whole thing off the edge of the platform. A minute later it drifts into view, blown by the wind toward the buoy. Ginge, meanwhile, is preparing the next balloon.

  I let the first one drift for about a hundred meters, then pick it up in the spotter scope. The waves are not high, perhaps half a meter, but the rise and fall of the water is quite enough to make the balloon a hard target. At moments it disappears altogether. Beside me Charlie seems to draw into themself, and becomes almost preternaturally still. Cheek to cheekpiece, eye to eyepiece, finger to trigger.

  “Range four eighty,” I announce. “Four ninety. Send it.”

  There’s a sharp crack, instantly whipped away on the wind. The balloon continues its dance on the waves.

  “Where did it go?” Ginge asks.

  “I didn’t see,” I confess. “There wasn’t a splash.”

  “Don’t look for the splash, watch the passage of the bullet. You should be able to follow the trace through the scope.”

  Charlie fires again, and this time I see it. A tiny, transparent trail, spearing through the crosswind.

  “One click to the right,” I tell Charlie.