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