afternoon sleeping. After dinner Richard announces a film show, and we follow him into a projection room with a screen covering most of one wall. “It’s not long, and there’s no sound,” he tells us, as we take our places. “But it’s quite an eye-opener.”
There are no titles, just a recording date and a time code. Then a silent, wide-angle shot of a hotel suite from a fixed camera, almost certainly concealed. The quality of the film isn’t great, but this is clearly a very upscale, thousands-of-dollars-a-night sort of place. The color scheme is parchment and oak, the curtains are ivory silk, the lighting is discreet. Two men in suits, holding whisky tumblers, sit in armchairs on either side of a marble fireplace. Both are immediately recognizable. One is Valery Stechkin, the president of Russia, the other is Ronald Loy, president of the United States. Both have the rouged, powdered look of the recently embalmed. A third man, with the watchful demeanor of a bodyguard, stands by a door.
“Not lookalikes?” I ask Richard.
“Absolutely not.”
Stechkin and Loy stand, place their empty tumblers on the mantelpiece, and shake hands. Loy then walks Stechkin to the door. The film cuts and then reprises from the same viewpoint with lower lighting as the door opens and three young women walk in. They’re all blond, long-legged, and spectacular in a listless, stoned sort of way. Loy leans back in his chair, nods, and issues an order. The women undress, drape their clothes over the vacant armchair, and start kissing and caressing each other’s breasts with much eye-rolling and simulated groaning.
“Get on with it,” Oxana mutters.
Eventually we’re treated to the full three-way performance. It’s pretty dispiriting. Loy doesn’t join in, but sits back in his chair, his expression disdainful. When one of the women experimentally waggles a glistening strap-on in front of his nose, he responds irritably, batting it away with a tiny, childlike hand.
The film cuts to a bedroom furnished in the same rich, fustian colors. The bed itself is enormous and covered in gold damask. The three women walk into the shot, followed by Loy. He orders them to climb onto the bed, where they bounce up and down in a desultory fashion before coming to a halt, crouching down, and as one, beginning to urinate onto the gold coverlet.
From his chair, Loy stares at the women through narrowed eyes, as if watching them was a wearisome but essential presidential duty. Halfway through the process, one of the women overbalances on her high heels and tips forward, sliding off the bed in a torrent of piss.
“It’s all in her hair,” says Charlie. “Yuck.”
“And those suede boots are ruined,” adds Oxana.
“They’re really nice. Or they were.”
“They’re Prada. In Paris, I had two pairs. One in camel and one in anthracite.”
“That girl on the left’s been peeing for almost a minute,” Charlie says. “She should go on Russia’s Got Talent.”
Finally, blessedly, the scene comes to a close.
“Oh boo,” Oxana protests. “I was really enjoying that.”
The lights come up in the room, and Richard looks at us one by one. “Villanelle, I’m happy that you liked the show but it wasn’t intended as light entertainment. That short clip has had a greater impact on world history than any political event, debate or policy decision in the last decade. Holding this trump card, this kompromat, has enabled Stechkin to steer the White House as he chooses. Not just to steer it but to throw it into a catastrophic reverse. Meanwhile the Russian Federation over which he presides like a latter-day Roman emperor is sclerotic and corrupt to the core.
“I’m telling you this because I want you to believe in what we, here, are trying to achieve. The new world we dream of will not be brought about by democratic process, that dream is dead. It’ll be brought about by decisive action, and you three are going to be the prime movers of that action. Your targets are Ronald Loy and Valery Stechkin, the presidents of the United States and Russia. They die tomorrow.”
“And the girls?” Charlie asks.
“What girls?”
“The girls in the film.”
“What about them?”
“We don’t have to kill them?”
“No, of course not.”
“Phew.”
“So when do we get a proper briefing?” Oxana asks. “Tomorrow’s cutting it very fine. We need to recce the firing points, prepare the weapons, all that.”
“Everything’s checked and ready. You don’t have to worry. You’ll be taken to your locations, where you’ll find everything you need, and last-minute details will be dealt with in situ. So