Felice Nilsson

"You won’t make it. We’ll hunt you down. Work with me instead. The two of us together, we can..."

- Felice, trying to recruit Tucker Felice Nilsson is an ex-Swedish Special Forces freelance mercenary and an antagonist in James Rollins’ The Kill Switch. She is tasked by Russian General Artur Kharzin with acquiring the LUCA bioweapon from defecting scientist Abram Bukolov, as well as eliminating those who the U.S. has sent to help him escape the country.

She also wants to kill her nemesis Tucker Wayne for leaving her to die.

biography
Felice was born in Stockholm to wealthy parents. She graduated from University of Gothenburg with a master‘s in fine arts and music. After graduating she joined the Swedish military and ended up in the SIG special forces division. She became one of the group’s first female members and was a superb sniper. Due to boredom and a thirst for adventure, she and 6-8 other soldiers resigned and formed a mercenary group, popping up on multiple countries‘ intel radars.

Working for Kharzin:
Artur Kharzin hired Felice after learning Dr. Bukolov was escaping Russia’s with help from ex-U.S. Army Ranger Tucker Wayne. He sends her to board Tucker’s train and converse with him to find out how much he knows. Tucker, ever aware, takes photos of her and sends them to his bosses at Washington, who alert him to her real identity. He catches one of her men on the train and knocks him out in front of her, confronting her with what he knows. After trying to convince him to join her, she contacts Russian forces just as Tucker jumps off the train.

As Tucker and his military dog Kane trek across the Siberian snowfields to reach their contact, Felice tracks them. She ambushes Tucker near a frozen river and is about to shoot him when Kane charges and attacks her. The two break the ice and fall in; Kane escapes while Felice seemingly drowns. Tucker takes her rifle and assumes she died.

However, Felice’s backup Russian men found her and pulled her out, but not before frostbite destroyed most of her face.

Pursuing Tucker:
With the help of Kharzin’s GRU agent daughter Anya (who previously helped Bukolov with his research and now is with him and Tucker), Felice tracks the group down the Volga river. She uses a helicopter to ambush them, with Tucker and Kane narrowly escaping death. Later on, Tucker convinces the group that Bukolov’s lab assistant is Kharzin’s mole, as he discovered a tracker on the submarine they are traveling in. The group ditches the submarine for a plane, but Felice snipes the pilot and the plane crashes on an island. Bukolov’s “traitor” assistant runs towards the helicopter to draw fire, giving Tucker time to use a submachine gun to critically damage the heli. As it flies away, he is shocked to see Felice still alive. Only too late does he realize how the lab assistant was an innocent victim of Felice.

Felice later tracks the group to South Africa. She is not present at the LUCA cave battle with Kharzin and Tucker though- Kharzin ordered her to go to Canada to await the final part of his plan once he knew for sure he has a LUCA sample. He manages to get one from Bukolov and escapes and meets up with her in Michigan.

Defeat and Death:
Kharzin and Felice hijack a fertilizer tanker on Lake Michigan and plant the LUCA sample in the hold. Felice plans to sail the ship to Chicago, where it will unload and release the bioweapon to spread and destroy American agriculture. Tucker, Bukolov, and the group helis to the tanker to launch an assault, killing Felice’s men. Tucker and Kane fight their way to the control bridge, narrowly avoiding Felice’s sniping shots and grenade throws.

Tucker boards the bridge and shoots Felice in the hip. She has lost her scarf and her disfigured face momentarily stuns him. She uses this time to attempt to shoot Tucker, but he kills her with a single headshot (drawing on rage from the innocents she killed throughout his journey).

As a backup, Felice had programmed the ship to run aground. However, with Bukolov‘s knowledge, Tucker and him denature the LUCA in the hold, preventing Kharzin’s plan from succeeding even as the ship crashes.

Physical Appearance
Felice is 33 by the time of the novel. She is Swedish, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Tucker remarks on her beauty, and she is an excellent example of femme fatale.

After surviving her fall into the Siberian river, she loses her nose and a cheek to frostbite and is forced to wear a bandage and a scarf to cover this. When her scarf comes off during her final fight with Tucker, he is shocked by the ugly damage.

Trivia

 * It is possible that Felice was also a Guild assassin, as the Guild (from Rollins’ other books) is known to employ gorgeous female assassins in the field against DARPA/Sigma agents
 * Felice is similar to Cypher from The Fate of the Furious, as both are rogue blonde freelancers who are skilled in military tactics, use helicopters/planes, and are femme fatales. Felice also travels to South Africa, the country of origin for Charlize Theron (Cypher’s actress)