Once Upon A Time In Russia Part 4

"You have no right to take this man anywhere."

The two policemen stared at him in shock. The air in the room became tight as a coiled snake.

Then the lead officer's hand seemed to loosen against his own holster.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Alexander Litvinenko. I'm an FSB officer, and I am one hundred percent certain that Mr. Berezovsky was not involved in this tragic murder."

With his other hand, Litvinenko retrieved his official papers from his shirt pocket and offered them to the policemen. He kept his gun loose, as the lead officer inspected the doc.u.ments.

"We have our orders," the second officer tried again, lamely.

"Yes, we all have our orders," Litvinenko responded. "Mr. Berezovsky is an innocent man under the protection of the FSB. If you would like to take it up with my superiors, feel free to make an appointment."

Another moment pa.s.sed in silence-and then the two police officers turned and walked out of the room. It wasn't until their footsteps had receded that Litvinenko felt his chest relax and noticed the rivulets of sweat running down the back of his neck. FSB, Moscow Police, Oligarchs, Politicians: in a moment like the one that had just transpired, none of the labels really mattered. What mattered was that a gun, even partially drawn, always trumped a gun in a holster.

Berezovsky whistled low, and then came up out of his seat. He beckoned Litvinenko over-and then embraced him in a warm hug.

Then he reached for the phone on his desk.

"To accuse me of this tragedy, it is unthinkable."

He looked at Litvinenko as he dialed the Kremlin.

"You have shown me something today I will not forget."

Litvinenko's fingers shook as he resecured his gun.

Before tonight, he had a job. Now he had a krysha.

CHAPTER TEN.

January 1996, Logovaz Club MARINA GONCHAROVA HAD ALWAYS considered herself an extremely practical woman. It was perhaps the main reason she had become an accountant in the first place; there was something wonderfully rea.s.suring about numbers corralled into equations, and systems that functioned along logical and mathematical frameworks. That didn't mean she had an aversion to creative thinking; being an accountant in modern Russia necessitated a certain amount of creativity. But nothing in her half decade as one of Roman Abramovich's most trusted number crunchers could have prepared her for the utterly surreal moment that was now unfolding in front of her.

Which was probably why she quickly decided to approach the situation in a very narrow, practical way: a one-hundred-five-pound woman in a pantsuit, long blond hair tied up in a bun, hauling a forty-three pound suitcase up a flight of stairs.

Just getting the d.a.m.n thing from the armored car parked out front, through the back security entrance of the Logovaz Club, had taken the help of two of the bodyguards her employers had sent with her from Abramovich's offices. Unfortunately, the Logovaz's own security team hadn't been keen on letting her men escort her into the building. So here she was now, on her own, dragging what felt like a ship's anchor wrapped in polyester, step by torturous step. The Logovaz security men now standing by, gawking at her, had offered to help-one of them had even made a grab for the suitcase-but Marina had slapped his hand away. She didn't know these men, and the last thing she was going to do was let someone else handle the package she had been sent to deliver.

She did her best to tune out the men watching her, as she focused on her efforts, the muscles in her forearms and thighs straining against the expensive material of her suit. She had taken only a few steps before her progress was suddenly interrupted by a young man with slicked-back hair and a tailored blue jacket rushing down from the top of the steps and skidding to a stop in front of her.

"Excuse me, miss. Can I help you?" he asked, his voice nearly cracking.

Marina didn't know the young man by sight, but she was pretty sure his name was Ivan. She had been told that one of Berezovsky's a.s.sistants would meet her at the door-and yet, even so, she wasn't about to hand off the heavy suitcase to this kid whom she'd never met before.

"I have a package that I need to pa.s.s on to Mr. Berezovsky," she said, "And as you can see, it's rather large. So it's going to take me some time."

Ivan held out a thin, pale hand.

"You can leave it with me."

Marina shook her head, her bun bouncing with the motion.

"No. I have to transfer this package myself. I have to pa.s.s this on personally, namely to Mr. Berezovsky."

Ivan didn't seem pleased at all-but Marina didn't really care. She was an accountant, this man was an a.s.sistant-and the contents of the suitcase were well beyond both their responsibility levels. Marina knew this for certain, because she had packed the d.a.m.n thing herself. And that, alone, had been an experience she was certain she would never forget.

There was a frozen, awkward moment, while Ivan tried to figure out what to do and continued to block her progress up the stairs. Finally he shrugged and guided her forward toward the lobby of the club. At least one of the nearby security men snickered at the sight of the slight young woman towing a heavy suitcase-while the impotent a.s.sistant simply led the way-but Marina ignored him. She knew they were all bit players in this farce, witnesses who saw nothing that their employers didn't want them to see, who heard nothing but what they were told to hear.

Even so, it was hard for Marina not to feel self-conscious, as they slowly worked their way through the various floors of the Logovaz. She had never been in this place before and felt out of place in the crowded club, especially around the expensive suits of the businessmen and designer c.o.c.ktail dresses of their guests. Marina couldn't help but wonder if Ivan found the moment as surreal as she did; then again, working for a man like Berezovsky, he had probably seen many things even more bizarre than an accountant pulling a heavy suitcase.

The truth was, moments like these were part of the new way of doing business in Russia, although this instance was an extreme. As a trusted employee of Roman Abramovich for many years now-and in her new position, at the "formation in process" of Sibneft-she had already experienced her share of surreal events.

History would one day judge the goings on of the preceding weeks. A combination of applied genius, force of will, and the ability to navigate through a corrupt system-all perfectly executed by two men. While they brought very different skill sets, they had managed to create one of the largest oil companies in history almost out of thin air.

They say that in business everything is timing, and in this case, the timing could not have been more perfect; Abramovich, with his idea of combining the two state-owned businesses-the oil refinery in Omsk and the production company in Noyabrsk-had caught Berezovsky at exactly the right moment; falling directly in the midst of his privatization of ORT, in an effort to advance the candidacy of Yeltsin in the upcoming election.

The months that had followed the Caribbean cruise had only inflated Berezovsky's position and the potential of his ORT proposal-as Yeltsin's own status had grown more precarious. The president was facing a real threat in the Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov-while Yeltsin's health had begun to deteriorate at an even faster pace. There were always rumors of heart issues, even impending surgery. Without ORT and Berezovsky's promise to use the network as a publicity tool, Yeltsin might lose the presidency. And if the Communists took over, it would be a disaster for the business community.

After the cruise, it had been relatively easy for Berezovsky to convince his contacts in the Yeltsin government that for ORT to continue its operations and campaign for Yeltsin, the network would need a ma.s.sive and sudden infusion of money-especially after the freezing of advertising that Vlad Listyev had enacted right before his untimely death. Like Yeltsin, ORT was in a precarious state.

Privatizing an oil company would essentially give ORT-and Yeltsin's campaign-a bottomless war chest. Once the concept had been accepted, it had just become a matter of putting the pieces in place. The first step: Abramovich and Berezovsky had needed to convince the Red Directors who ran the state-owned refinery and the production plant to agree to the unification of the company-under new management.

Since Abramovich had previously established relationships with the Red Directors-Viktor Gorodilov in Noyabrsk, and Ivan Litskevich at the refinery in Omsk-from his years in oil trading, he began the process of convincing the two men that he could indeed run the company in a way that would benefit them all. Eventually, Berezovsky had joined in on the efforts, using his status to further push the directors in the right direction.

Gorodilov had acquiesced fairly easily, but Litskevich had resisted; at one point he seemed to be becoming a true roadblock to the endeavor. Concerned, Berezovsky had written a personal letter to the director, asking him to trust Roman Abramovich as he obviously did himself. Thankfully, the letter had been unnecessary, and Berezovsky's status and political capital hadn't been needed to convince the man to change his mind. In the sort of coincidence of timing that seemed to happen more and more often in modern Russia, at some point during the weeks the merger was being discussed, Litskevich had organized a late-night party for himself and an attractive young woman on the banks of the Irtysh River; halfway into the tryst, Litskevich decided to try to impress his date by jumping into the frozen waters in front of them-and almost instantly after hitting the 7-degree water, had a heart attack and drowned. His driver-one of the few witnesses to the event-died in a bar fight shortly afterward.

Thankfully, Litskevich's replacement had been more acquiescent, and soon both Red Directors were ready to play ball. The pieces for privatization were in place.

The privatization system had been honed through practice in the short time since Berezovsky had fought his way to a stake in ORT, beginning in late fall of 1994. Since then, through 1995 and into 1996, the Russian government, desperate for funds to sh.o.r.e up its abysmal financial situation, had embarked on what was commonly known as a "loans for shares" program. Simply put, shares of state owned conglomerates were offered as collateral for "loans" that were in turn auctioned off for cash, usually to privately held banks. When the state defaulted on these loans-which, from the very beginning, it fully intended to do-the bank either became the owner of the shares, or sold them in a prearranged transaction to a new private owner.

These "loans for shares" auctions had already transferred some of the country's largest companies into the hands of a few lucky souls. The largest nickel manufacturer in Russia had been traded for 170 million dollars-and was now a private company that would soon be worth more than one billion dollars. Mikhael Khodorkovsky, a brilliant young physicist who had gone into banking, among other things, had achieved a nearly eighty percent controlling stake in Yukos, one of the country's largest oil companies, for around 350 million dollars-a deal that would soon make him the richest man in Russia and, indeed, one of the richest men in the world. There was no telling what Yukos would eventually be worth.

At first glance, to an accountant such as Marina-a woman who understood the new Russia and what it was faced with-selling off state resources to men with money was a desperate, but not intrinsically corrupt effort. Western buyers had no interest in dealing with Russia; they found the market too dangerous. The government was nearly broke, and without a cash infusion, there was a real chance it would go belly up. Anatoly Chubais, who had spearheaded the privatization program in the first place, believed that the quicker the state sold off companies to private owners, the less likely the Communists could undo the progress they were making. He firmly believed that each sale was like a nail in communism's coffin. "We must sell it all," he had said on various occasions-believing that if they sold enough a.s.sets, the situation would be irreversible.

And the auctions themselves seemed fair on the surface-but Marina understood this wasn't truly the case. The transition to capitalism had left her country running under a system of patronage, krysha, and graft; it was not going to become an egalitarian market overnight. The auctions that decided the outcomes of the "loans for shares" offers were usually locked up beforehand.

The auction that resulted in the right to manage Sibneft was no different, and it took significant behind-the-scenes maneuvering to make sure that Abramovich and Berezovsky had been the only real bidders for a controlling situation in the newly formed oil company. As the final days approached, there had still been two other interested parties; Berezovsky sent his business partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili, the Georgian, to speak with them, and the situation was all st.i.tched up in short order. Though Abramovich carried two bids in his pocket to the auction-one much higher than he could actually afford-he was able to win right around the initial offering, for 110 million dollars.

The only problem that remained was that Abramovich didn't have anywhere near that kind of money; to that end, he had been able to convince one of his colleagues-an Oligarch by the name of Alexander Smolenski, who ran one of the larger banks in Moscow-to provide credit for the purchase-which was repaid using money from the newly formed Sibneft. In all, Abramovich had put up around seventeen million dollars of his own money-and gained control of one of the largest oil companies in Russia.

A surreal series of events that had led Marina to this even more surreal moment. She often wondered what future economists would make of the "loans for shares" initiative-would they take into account the context, the sudden transfer from one form of market to another? A setting in which the rule of law was effectively turned on its head, where the government was locked in a desperate battle for survival, where corruption ran rampant in the quest to quickly relocate a ma.s.sive amount of wealth and resources? In fact, the pairing of Abramovich and Berezovsky-the young, brilliant, creative entrepreneur and the connected power broker with fingers in the Kremlin-was uniquely designed for this context.

Marina's boss had calculated correctly when he had chosen Berezovsky to help him create Sibneft; but, of course, there was a price to be paid-and somehow Marina had found herself in the middle. She was essentially a pencil pusher-who was now pushing a heavy suitcase across the top floor of the Logovaz Club, right up to the entrance to Boris Berezovsky's office.

Once again, Ivan tried to step in front and stop her as she reached the partially open door. The two bodyguards who were stationed outside the door were about to help with his efforts-but Marina didn't give them the chance. She quickly pushed between them, yanking the suitcase after her.

She had never met Boris Berezovsky before-she wasn't even certain what he looked like-but she could easily tell that the diminutive man at the desk on the other side of the lavish office, speaking quickly and in clipped tones into a telephone-wasn't used to being interrupted. Ivan quickly came around her, obsequiously using his hands to apologize to his boss for the intrusion-an action that only seemed to make Berezovsky angrier. As soon as the Oligarch had finished with the phone conversation, he hurled the phone at Ivan, striking the young man in the chest.

Marina's face blanched-and she realized that this was a good cue to make her exit. She quickly pushed the suitcase a few more feet into the office, then turned and hurried back the way she had come. The bodyguards watched her go-and she could clearly hear the door to the office shut behind her.

She wondered what sort of reaction Berezovsky would exhibit when he eventually opened the suitcase. She had to imagine that even a man of his means would be affected by the sight of one million dollars in American currency. Marina herself had never seen anything like it-had never thought she would see that kind of money in one place. When the people from the bank had brought the banded stacks of cash to Abramovich's offices, Marina had spent a good ten minutes just looking at the piles of bills before she had begun to pack them into the suitcase.

From everything she had been told about Boris Berezovsky, she doubted he would take anywhere near that long before he dug his hands into his first krysha payment. Marina was equally certain, as she worked her way back down through the extravagant Logovaz Club, that this surreal moment was likely to be just the first of many.

The contents of the suitcase might represent a monstrous sum to a woman like Marina, but a million dollars wasn't going to satisfy a man like Boris Berezovsky for very long.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

February 1996, World Economic Forum, Annual Meeting, Davos, Switzerland TWO MONTHS BEFORE HIS fiftieth birthday, and Boris Berezovsky could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had been rendered speechless-and one of those times had involved a blown-up Mercedes and a decapitated driver. But here it was, happening again in the most pristine setting he could ever imagine: an elegant, wood-paneled conference room in an alpine hotel, hanging off the edge of the most spectacular, snow-topped mountain, the air outside so crisp and blue it was like the frozen interior of a diamond. It was a place that had been chosen-if not designed-for the coming together of the brilliant and the powerful, a place created for conversation, for a quest for common ground. And yet here Berezovsky sat, anch.o.r.ed to his chair, suddenly shocked into silence.

He was alone in the rectangular room, his back to an oversize fireplace that sent concentric waves of fragrant heat through the material of his tailored suit. The man with whom he had been meeting for the past hour had excused himself at least ten minutes before-but still Berezovsky hadn't moved, his mind reviewing the conversation he had just endured.

He knew that the gist of what had been said was nothing he shouldn't have already known; he had been having similar conversations for the past ten days in Moscow, and the man who had just left the Alpine conference room hadn't said anything Berezovsky could not have realized himself. But hearing those words, in this place, from such a source-it was beyond sobering.

George Soros, the Hungarian-born American billionaire, one of the richest men in the world-and in many ways a personal idol of Berezovsky's-was exactly the sort of man you came to the World Economic Forum at Davos to meet. To Berezovsky, he represented everything laudable about the West; Soros's opinions informed Berezovsky of the Western way of thinking about markets, business, and even politics. Berezovsky had searched him out specifically to get his opinion on the situation that was rapidly developing back in his homeland.

There was now no doubt-the political situation had gotten to be well beyond desperate. Though Berezovsky's personal status had continued to rise-both with his success with ORT and his a.s.sistance in privatizing Sibneft-his optimism about the upcoming election and Yeltsin's chances of staying president had begun to fray. The Yeltsin government was moments away from complete catastrophe. Yeltsin himself had physically deteriorated, his worsening health preventing all but a few public appearances in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, the Communists had resurged, winning a majority in the State Duma in a recent surprise election-and they had brought forth a remarkably popular candidate to run against Yeltsin-Gennady Zyuganov. At the moment, Zyuganov had a resounding lead over Yeltsin in every poll; Yeltsin was sitting at a mere three percent approval rating, the lowest of his career, perhaps a reaction to the perception that his government was corrupt, perhaps just a sign that people were terrified that his government might fail.

Still, coming to Davos, the central, most significant gathering of the international elite, where business and political leaders from all over the world came together to speak about the present and the future-Berezovsky had had reason to believe that all was not lost. He and the handful of Russian Oligarchs and politicians who had traveled to Switzerland with him-including members of Yeltsin's "Family," a group now spearheaded by Anatoly Chubais-had a.s.sumed that the Western leaders and businessmen would rally around Yeltsin. After all, the president was the only true democratic prospect in Russia, a capitalist who was trying his best to bring Russia into the modern era.

Instead, when Berezovsky and his colleagues had arrived in Switzerland, they had witnessed the unthinkable: the Western leaders had fallen all over themselves in an attempt to get close to Zyuganov and the Communists. It was almost as though the rest of the world was endorsing a fall backward to the Soviet era. Berezovsky knew the endors.e.m.e.nts Zyuganov was getting had more to do with pure opportunism-he was the front-runner, and if the West wanted to do business in Russia, they needed the support of whoever became president-but even so, he had expected the West to stand behind democracy and capitalism, whatever the risk.

So he had arranged the meeting with George Soros, the businessman for whom he had more respect than any other. He had been seeking advice, perhaps a road map to get Yeltsin back on track.

Berezovsky didn't remember every word that the Western businessman had spoken, but his most vivid remarks on the situation seemed still to be twirling through the high-alt.i.tude, oxygen-depleted air: You should think about leaving Russia, Boris. You are not just going to lose this election-you are going to end up hanging from a lamppost.

Soros had gotten one thing correct. This was an existential battle; a Communist president wouldn't just roll back the capitalistic changes of the past decade-a shift to communism would mean the end of the line for Berezovsky and his colleagues. Privatization? Gone. Sibneft, Yukos, ORT, all of it would end up back in the hands of the state, and people like Berezovsky and Abramovich might find themselves in prison-or worse.

Berezovsky felt his pulse quicken, a sudden fire rising in his veins. The last time he had experienced sensations like this had also been in Switzerland-while he recuperated from the burns covering his arms and face. He was not a man who stopped fighting unless there was no other option, and despite what George Soros and the Western bankers and politicians at Davos might be thinking, he refused to accept that this battle was over.

But he also knew it wasn't a battle he could fight alone. Which meant that he needed to make amends and befriend the very people he was in constant compet.i.tion with-the other men who had benefited from the Yeltsin era, men who had just as much to lose.

Regardless of what Berezovsky had told Korzhakov, ORT alone-even financed heavily by Sibneft-wasn't going to be enough to turn the public over to Yeltsin. One television station, even as enormous as ORT, could reach only a certain segment of the population, and it was already well known to be leaning heavily in Yeltsin's favor. Berezovsky needed more weapons in his a.r.s.enal: media, and also money, more than he alone could ever organize. The coffers of one of the biggest oil companies in Russia were one thing-but what about the coffers of all the oil companies, and the nickel companies, and the aluminum companies? What about the coffers of all the recently privatized resources of one of the wealthiest nations on the planet?

The idea grew inside of him. The press liked to call them Oligarchs, and most of Berezovsky's colleagues bristled at the name. But that's exactly what Berezovsky now had in mind, a group of Oligarchs who would turn the election on its head. Not only because it was in their best interests, but because it was in the best interests of the country, and the only real road to democracy. A happy coincidence, perhaps, but one that Berezovsky could hold aloft like a torch. He wasn't looting Russia, he was saving it.

This would mean making friends with former enemies-specifically, men like Vladimir Gusinsky, the owner of NTV and the man he'd nearly had run out of the country for good. And it would also mean confronting former friends-as enemies. Hard-liners in Yeltsin's government-a handful in the "Family"-were making a loud racket, pushing forward proposals to hold onto power no matter how the election went. Conservatives, former military men such as Korzhakov, as well as the current prime minister and a number of others in the cabinet, intended to keep Yeltsin in office using an old-school methodology-simply postponing an election that he couldn't win.

In contrast, Berezovsky found himself on the side of democracy, along with Yeltsin's daughter Tatiana and Anatoly Chubais, his brilliant strategist. The battle between the two sides had been growing more terrifying each day, as the election drew near, and there were even brewing fears of a real coup.

Berezovsky wouldn't have put anything past Korzhakov. But Berezovsky also believed that if push came to shove, Yeltsin's favor would swing toward his beloved daughter over his drinking buddy (and sometimes right-hand man and longtime head of security). Still, binding together the Oligarchs-financiers whom Korzhakov disliked, as a group-in support of democracy would fray Yeltsin's party even further.

Berezovsky did not believe there was any other choice. If he could make peace with Gusinsky, together they would control almost all of the television in the country, and most of the print media and journalists as well. Such a force launching continual, positive stories about Yeltsin while firing off negative innuendo about the Communists would have an enormous effect on popular perception. Further, if they could bring together the leading Oligarchs-the seven biggest, whom Berezovsky had already labeled in his head the Seven Bankers, though they had fingers in many, many industries-Berezovsky knew there would be enough money to run a truly Western-style campaign.

Chubais had already shown himself to be a strong leader in conversations at Davos, and the Oligarchs loved him for what he had done-creating a privatization system, shifting state businesses into the hands of the financiers. They would rally behind Chubais, and all that was needed was for Yeltsin to understand that this was the only way-the correct way-to win.

Berezovsky remained silent and seated, in that Alpine hideaway, feeling the warmth from the fire behind him, breathing that rarefied air. But his desperation began to shift into something else. Despite what George Soros might have thought, Berezovsky believed he could pull this off. He would save Russia, win an election-and, most important, safeguard his way of life.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

June 19, 1996, Logovaz Club A SCANT FOUR MONTHS AFTER Davos, the world felt like it had shifted on its axis-again-and Berezovsky had never felt more alive, pinballing through the top floor of his club while campaign workers pirouetted around him at full speed, a veritable army of young men and women continuously shuttling between the Logovaz, Yeltsin's Presidential Club, and Chubais headquarters at the Kremlin.

The political race was going better than Berezovsky could have dreamed. And even better than that, he believed he was finally on the verge of achieving the goal he had set for himself after the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt back in 1994. The most profitable and important business, he had told anyone who would listen, was politics. Through politics, he was rising like a phoenix from the flames of that bombing. And he was doing it by creating a unique marriage of finance and politics.

Berezovsky grabbed a freshly printed campaign poster off a nearby velvet-lined counter, and held it aloft toward Badri Patarkatsishvili, his Georgian partner and best friend, sitting comfortably in a leather divan beneath one of the club's many large-screen televisions, smoking a cigar. Berezovsky poked at the picture on the front of the poster-an image of the Communist presidential candidate over a slogan that read, "This may be your last chance to buy food."