Once Upon A Time In Russia Part 6

At the time, Berezovsky had needed aid in setting up a car dealership in St. Petersburg, and the mayor of the city had handed him off to his deputy-a former long-term KGB officer by the name of Vladimir Putin. Berezovsky had been impressed immediately by the young man's efficiency, and at a dinner party, he had learned a bit more about the man's background. A child of poverty, like so many in Russia, Putin had grown up for a time in a communal apartment. He hadn't been a wonderful student, but he was an impressive athlete who had gone on to become a judo champion. After stints studying law and language, he had matriculated right into the KGB, and had then put in more than sixteen years as a dutiful agent. His main job had apparently been a.n.a.lyzing foreign agents and trying to turn them. He had been stationed in Germany, where he'd married, had a couple of daughters, and then come back home to work at the University of St. Petersburg for a former teacher-who, in turn, was elected mayor of the city. And even though Putin had spent so much time in the security agency, he had democratic leanings; in 1991, when Yeltsin took power and communism fell, he left the KGB.

His ascension to the head of the FSB had come on the heels of being brought to Moscow by Yeltsin and the Family. Berezovsky had been privy to that decision; the most important characteristics Yeltsin had been looking for in appointments had been loyalty, efficiency, and strength-and these were things that defined the former KGB man. When Putin's boss, the mayor, had lost his own election in 1996, Putin had the opportunity to work for the winning party. Instead, he resigned, remaining loyal to his mentor. That meant more to Berezovsky than all the efficiency in the world. When you were placing a man in a position of power, you wanted someone who was loyal in the best meaning of the word-you wanted a perfect cog. Berezovsky firmly believed Putin to be that perfect cog; a strongman who could be controlled, who could see the importance of not making waves.

Which was exactly why Berezovsky had brought Litvinenko to meet with Putin, now that he was the new head of the FSB. First, Berezovsky had written a letter, demanding that the FSB address the a.s.sa.s.sination order-but he had felt the extra step of bringing his whistle-blower to meet with the new head of the agency would be icing on the cake. He felt sure Putin would show them the respect they deserved.

After the brief introductions were over, Putin ushered them to their seats in front of his desk. As Berezovsky had remembered from the brief encounter in St. Petersburg, Putin was not a man for idle chitchat. He quickly steered the conversation to Litvinenko's claims and the stack of evidence the young agent had brought with them. Putin then immediately a.s.sured Berezovsky that he was taking the charges very seriously, not simply because his predecessor had lost his job, but because he was a man who believed in law and order. But Berezovsky could also see, in the way Putin avoided looking at the young agent, from the way he skimmed through the evidence without any sense of shock or disgust about what he was seeing, that his years with the KGB had made him inherently suspicious of a man who had turned on the security agency.

Putin finished the meeting on a high note, telling them both he would look into these things, and if he found any more issues that needed to be dealt with, he would make sure the right things were done.

Even so, it wasn't until Berezovsky and Litvinenko were out in the hallway, Putin's door shut behind them, that the young agent seemed to relax, if only a fraction, loosening his shoulders beneath his jeans jacket. Berezovsky could tell that Litvinenko was waging an inner battle with himself, wondering if he had done the right thing, wondering if this new FSB director was really going to make an effort to root out the bad elements in his agency-or instead root out the agent who had blown the whistle in the first place.

Berezovsky, for his part, was waging no inner war. The Oligarch wasn't going to leave these things to chance or fate or faith, or even to the efficient, loyal cog who Yeltsin and the Family had pulled from the wilds of St. Petersburg. Berezovsky had a plan. If the FSB did not act immediately to finish cleaning up its own mess, Berezovsky intended to force its hand.

November 17, 1998, Interfax Press Center, Tverskaya Street, Moscow Berezovsky watched with a ch.o.r.eographer's pride, as a palpable hush swept through the crowded conference room; the five men on the dais moved in a single file, choosing their seats behind a frenzied bloom of microphones from a dozen different news organizations-many of them owned by Berezovsky himself-and beneath the watchful eye of a pair of oversize television cameras. Flashbulbs went off like fireworks, and then the hush was replaced by an awed rumble, the gathered journalists jockeying with each other for a better view of the bizarre spectacle.

Four of the men on the dais were wearing black balaclavas, and two more had donned large, dark sungla.s.ses. Only Litvinenko himself was unadorned, dressed in a jacket with a poorly matching tie.

He was without a mask or sungla.s.ses not because of any sense of newfound fearlessness. He was out there, for the world to see, because the media had already identified him as the lead whistle-blower, shortly after Berezovsky had published his own open letter to Vladimir Putin in the Kommersant, Berezovsky's newspaper-demanding that the FSB restore order and law to the security agency. That letter had been published six days ago-but Berezovsky had come to the conclusion that the dramatic changes he was asking for demanded an even more dramatic presentation.

It hadn't been easy to convince Litvinenko and the other agents he had gathered to go public like this; but in the end, they had realized that the cameras and journalists provided much more security than a false anonymity. Did these men really think that those black masks would keep a determined FSB from exacting vengeance, if that was the route the agency intended to take? The men's only real option, in Berezovsky's opinion, was to go big and go public-an approach directly in Berezovsky's wheelhouse.

Concealing himself in a corner of the Interfax conference room, obscured by the shadows cast by the drawn shades of the long hall filled with row after row of journalists, Berezovsky listened as Litvinenko kicked off the conference-speaking carefully into the microphones, telling much the same story he had told in the private videotaping session, for the secret tape that Berezovsky still had in his possession. Detailing the orders to a.s.sa.s.sinate Berezovsky and a number of other wealthy businessmen, detailing kidnapping plots and any number of corrupt decrees from their superiors at the FSB. In the end, asking, begging Mr. Putin to clean up the agency.

In the circus-like atmosphere that Berezovsky had orchestrated, it was once again hard for the Oligarch not to marvel at the incredible changes in his fortune. Not four years earlier, when someone had attempted to take his life, he had been forced to slink off to Switzerland, wrapped up in bandages, a joke people pointed and laughed at, a man they called Smoky behind his back. Now here he was, a president in his pocket, waving a finger at the most-feared security agency in perhaps the world. How the FSB would eventually respond to Litvinenko's whistle-blowing was an unknown-many would certainly see such a public press conference as an embarra.s.sment.

Whatever the fallout for the agents, Berezovsky was certain of one thing. The world would hear what Litvinenko had to say-and that meant that Berezovsky, himself, would be untouchable.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

January 1999, Krasnoyarsk, Siberia THE MI-8 HELICOPTER BANKED low over the frozen landscape, tilting hard to the left as it narrowly avoided a sudden bristle of Siberian fir trees, rising up from the foot of a nearby cliff face. In the heated interior of the copter's leather-paneled cabin, Roman Abramovich tested his harness once again, while avoiding, as best he could, leaning with too much of his weight against the cold gla.s.s window to his side. Across the cabin, seated facing him, Badri Patarkatsishvili grinned from behind his thick, white mustache. If he thought for a moment that Abramovich was scared of either heights or unchecked velocity, he was mistaken; but being in a fifteen-year-old helicopter that hadn't seen zero degrees in months and was now flying through icy Arctic air was another story altogether.

Of course, Abramovich was no stranger to this frozen corner of Russia. He had grown up a long stone's throw from this section of Siberia, and he had built his trading business in the oil fields and refineries just a few stops down along the trans-Siberian railroad. The snowy, ice-covered mountains he could see on the horizon to his left, the thick, lush forests that seemed to rise up out of the ground like verdant brushstrokes across the permanently frozen tundra-these were as familiar to him as the heavy scent of burned oil coming from the helicopter's overtaxed, twin turbines.

"Over there," shouted Eugene, seated to Abramovich's right, hoping to be heard over the immense racket of the helicopter's rotors. "Another few hundred yards, past those trees."

The third man who had joined them on the short chopper ride from the center of the city of Krasnoyarsk, Eugene was Abramovich's most trusted employee, his business partner and right-hand man. He was the only man Abramovich would have dragged so far-the long trek from Moscow had taken them most of a day, and had involved a car, a private jet, and a train, not to mention this chopper-to contemplate something as crazy as the proposition that Badri, a.s.suredly in partnership with Berezovsky, had proposed.

To be fair, Krasnoyarsk itself was a unique and beautiful place; a sort of jewel tucked away in the Siberian tundra, a glistening, rapidly modernizing city situated right on the twisting banks of the Yenisei River. Once upon a time, this area had held Stalin's gulags-prison camps out of every Russian's nightmares, grim places in the middle of a wilderness of icy mountains and wolf-ridden woods. But in modern times, Krasnoyarsk had transformed into a place of factories, mining corporations, oil concerns, and much more; one of the three largest metropolises in the entire region, after Novosibirsk and Omsk, the cities out of which Abramovich had built Sibneft.

"Now, that is something," Badri responded, jabbing a thick finger at the window, inches from Eugene's face. "Isn't it just as beautiful as I described?"

The Georgian wasn't talking about Krasnoyarsk, the trees, the cliffs, or the mountains. Abramovich glanced past his business a.s.sociate Eugene at the low, barracks-like buildings that spread out in front of the helicopter for what appeared to be at least a quarter mile. There were low, windowless cubes and rectangles that could only be factories. Interspersed between them, smelting plants with smokestacks rising high enough to give the helicopter pilot something to test his skills against. High barbed wire topped chain-link fences around circular storage facilities and many parking lots full of flatbed trucks. Even train cars, lined up in sleek black rows, next to a very large open loading dock filled with gargantuan machinery.

But the most notable aspect of the view below was not the enormity of the factories, the smelting plants, the storage and loading facilities-it was the fact that those smokestacks were obviously dormant; no exhaust at all came from the giant plant. Abramovich guessed that the air outside the chopper was as crisp and clean as he remembered from his childhood, a wind gusting out of the Arctic Circle, cleansed by the river and the trees.

"I'm not sure I see anything beautiful about a dead factory," Abramovich responded, but his words just made Badri laugh even louder.

Abramovich had grown fond of the Georgian strongman. He was amiable and direct-and in many ways the most straightforward man Abramovich had ever met. He had a keen sense of humor, an ability to put people completely and immediately at ease; at the same time, something about him always meant business, and one look from him could send shards of terror down even a born mobster's spine. Even so, with Badri-unlike Berezovsky, who was impulsive, emotional, perhaps even bipolar-you always knew where you stood.

Over the past year and a half since the Sibneft "loans for shares" deal had been finalized, Abramovich and his right-hand man, Eugene, had gotten to know the Georgian quite well-mainly because Berezovsky, their patron, had proven to possess an appet.i.te for excess that even Abramovich had underestimated, the sort of ravenous hunger that made him think of a mythical beast from some Siberian fairy tale. Not a week had gone without a phone call requesting money for some escapade or another-sometimes involving ORT, but just as often involving some personal purchase that Berezovsky simply couldn't do without. Sometimes the call would come from Berezovsky himself, but more often, as the months progressed and the Oligarch became more and more caught up in his political machinations, the requests came through Badri; the Georgian would show up at the Sibneft offices, grinning widely behind his mustache. The demands for money ran from the ba.n.a.l-fifteen thousand dollars here, eighteen thousand dollars there-to the practically insane. Millions-one, two, ten-and usually it had to be right away, cash if possible. Often, the requests came without any description of what the money was going to be used for, but sometimes Badri would explain what it was that Berezovsky so desperately needed.

In the beginning, it was payments to keep ORT afloat; but since the election in 1996, the focus seemed to shift to keeping Berezovsky's lifestyle intact. The money had gone to purchase rare works of art for the Oligarch's homes and offices; to settle girlfriends' credit card bills; to help pay for at least one yacht, a private airplane, and even three French chteaus in the Antibes. All of it under the table, without any papers being filled out or contracts being signed. Just a phone call or a visit from Badri, followed by a suitcase full of money. There was no real paper trail, but if Abramovich had to calculate it, he believed that, in 1996 alone, he had paid at least thirty million to his krysha. In 1997, it had to be closer to fifty million. In 1998, maybe seventy or eighty million more. So much money, in such a crazy fashion: at Sibneft, they had simply begun to refer to the payments as Project Boris, which everyone accepted, if reluctantly, as the price of doing business.

It was a frustrating arrangement. At times, Abramovich had considered attempting to slow or stop the flow of cash-but the realities of the market and the business environment made any attempt to cut off ties with Berezovsky risky, if not outright suicidal. Without the Oligarch's continued connections to the Kremlin and to the Family, Sibneft would not have existed-and there was always the chance that, without Berezovsky, the company would suddenly find itself out of the good graces of the Yeltsin government. The higher Berezovsky rose, the greater his political status and, the thinking went, the better it was for Sibneft.

Abramovich simply had to accept that, often, he was writing checks that had more to do with inflating the ent.i.ty known as Boris Berezovsky more than any particular business concern. One of the oddest expenditures in the past few months, and one that still irked him, had to do with Berezovsky's role in the Chechen conflict. As the story went, after Chechen terrorists had kidnapped a pair of Brits from the capital city of Grozny in July of the year before, the Russian government had spent months trying to negotiate their release. Nothing was working, until the white knight Boris Berezovsky stepped in, like a superhero out of a Hollywood movie, making some sort of deal with the terrorists-then flying the hostages out to freedom on his own private jet.

In reality, most of the negotiations with the Chechens had most likely involved Badri more than Berezovsky. And for certain, the private jet had been paid for by Sibneft-and Roman Abramovich. The ransom that had freed the aid workers had also been paid by Sibneft-and Roman Abramovich.

But Abramovich had never wanted any press or even acknowledgment for his involvement; he had always been happy to stay out of the limelight that Berezovsky craved.

Over the past few years, the two men had developed an intricate relationship-built around payments-but also one that mimicked an actual friendship. They celebrated holidays together, spending New Year's in the Caribbean, birthdays at the Logovaz Club and in the chteaus in France and in chalets in Switzerland; they had spent time on various yachts, on beaches on Mallorca and the Riviera. But Abramovich had also spent countless hours waiting in the anteroom outside Berezovsky's office, like some sort of a.s.sistant, at the older man's beck and call. Berezovsky certainly did not consider him an equal-and what sort of real friendship could be built on an unequal footing?

Nor was he exactly a business partner; Berezovsky had nothing to do with the day-to-day business of the oil company, and Abramovich doubted the man could read a balance sheet if his life depended on it. Berezovsky knew how to work the Kremlin, knew how to leverage friendships and political power to make things happen-and he knew how to use a telephone to ask for money. His only other truly impressive skill was that he knew, better than most, how to spot and take advantage of opportunities.

"You see a dead factory," Badri responded, his deep voice like a sonic boom. "I see an invaluable a.s.set, that is getting cheaper by the day."

Even though it was Badri who had accompanied them on this Siberian excursion, Abramovich had no doubt that it was Berezovsky who had come up with the idea, having spotted yet another opportunity.

From what Abramovich understood, the situation had come about due to Berezovsky's on-again, off-again relationship with General Lebed-the military man who had been the third-place finisher in the 1996 election before going over to Yeltsin's team. Lebed, as a reward for his support of Yeltsin, had been made governor of this entire Siberian province, a resource-rich but far-flung section of the country that seemed always to be engulfed in some sort of labor or economic turmoil. Case in point-the dead factory below had only days ago been one of the largest production facilities of aluminum in the world-now frozen in place because of a labor dispute that had erupted in one of the biggest strikes in recent history.

Abramovich could still picture the crowds of angry, striking workers, the largest of which they had flown directly over during the short chopper ride to the factory. The laborers had effectively shut down a large swath of Krasnoyarsk; their demands were confusing, but had to do with better pay, safer conditions, fairer hours. Every minute they were on the streets, the aluminum industry took a major hit-but, to be sure, strikes were only one facet of the ugliness that revolved around the multibillion-dollar business of one of the most utilized and useful metals in the modern world. Abramovich was well aware-aluminum was a dirty business. The press in Moscow even had a name for the chaos that had been tearing through the industry over the past twelve months: the Aluminum Wars. A staggering number of murders had been committed in a short period of time, as different businessmen jockeyed for control, amid the labor issues, privatization attempts, and general pricing confusion. Abramovich had even read that there was a murder every three days that had to do with aluminum-from shootings in restaurants and bars to full-out gun battles at smelting plants.

In fact, the giant, dormant factory they were now flying over was run by a man who had just been arrested for the murder of two of his compet.i.tors-even though both men were reportedly still alive. Between the manager's arrest and the strikes, the company was now in complete disarray.

Chaos, murder, mayhem-and obviously, in Berezovsky and Badri's opinion, opportunity.

When the Georgian had first approached Abramovich with the idea of throwing their hat into the aluminum industry's ring, Abramovich had turned him down flat. He told Badri that it was madness, that they didn't need this sort of trouble. But Badri had persisted, saying how much money could be made if someone were to succeed in unifying the industry under one company-much as Abramovich had done with Sibneft.

Eventually, Abramovich had looked again at the situation, and then had shown the numbers to Eugene, one of the most brilliant business minds around. Together, they agreed that Badri was right, in a fashion. If they could figure out a way to navigate the dangerous waters of the metal's production, consolidate the foundries, take care of the strikes-there would be an enormous amount of profit to be made. The key would be to convince the rival groups that it would be much more profitable and productive to make deals with each other-rather than try to kill each other. Two particularly vicious groups had to be dealt with, but Badri believed he could talk to them in terms they would understand. If they needed to lock the competing gangs in a room overnight, demand that they make a deal and come out millionaires or murder each other there on the spot-well, that's what they would do. In the end, Badri believed, everyone's goal was the same-to make as much money as possible.

As for the strikes, the labor situation, the politics-no doubt General Lebed would be pleased if someone could move in and get the strikers off his streets. His relationship with Berezovsky was like the wind-you never knew which way it was going to blow. But he would be helpful, if he believed they could actually achieve some sort of unification that would stop the murders and clean up his region.

In terms of consolidating the industry, Abramovich had an ace up his sleeve: a young man named Oleg Deripaska, who had grown up in similar circ.u.mstances as Abramovich-a kid from a poor region surrounding the Black Sea. Deripaska had worked his way from the factory floor in the metal business, and had built himself into a major player in the industry. Along the way, he had survived numerous a.s.sa.s.sination attempts and violent threats-at one point, a threat to him personally had been followed by one of his managers being shot twice. Even so, he had maintained his position at the top of the business, paying off huge krysha bills to various local figures to keep his factories running smoothly.

Abramovich had gotten to know Deripaska well, and most of his knowledge of the aluminum industry came through hearing the stories Deripaska told. Abramovich had begun to believe that, with Deripaska's involvement, a consolidation might be possible.

"Five hundred and fifty million," Badri continued, still looking out the helicopter window. "You could free a lot of British aide workers for that sort of money, but I think the return on investment is much higher here."

The number was approximately what Eugene, Abramovich, and Deripaska had come up with-the amount it would take to buy their way into aluminum with enough of a bankroll to make all the elements happy enough to join together and stop killing each other. The arrangement had been made during a twelve-hour, all-night marathon session. Abramovich and Eugene had brought all the elements together in a room, and had essentially locked the doors until 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Deripaska and the other aluminum magnates essentially had to make a choice-continue killing each other over the metal industry, or settle down, stop the fighting, and make a ton of money together. In the end, the weight-both financial and political-that Abramovich and his connections brought to the table pushed everyone to make the deal-and put an end to the Aluminum Wars. Furthermore, Eugene had come up with a sophisticated, genius scheme to allow them to conjure up the more than half a billion dollars necessary without actually laying down the cash themselves: they would merge the different aluminum elements, and then use the new company's a.s.sets to cover the payment.

All of it worked out without anyone firing a shot: end the wars, solve the strikes, and put another billion-dollar a.s.set under their umbrella.

Whatever Abramovich truly thought of Boris Berezovsky, he had an eye for opportunities-even if other people had to figure out how to mine them for their value. And as long as the Oligarch stayed important and close to the people in charge of the government-as long as he was entrenched with the Family-he had the connections necessary to let people like Abramovich do what they did best in a safe, productive environment.

The question was, how long could Berezovsky remain such an important player-extending himself further and further, embroiling himself in drama after drama, controversy after controversy? Business in Russia was cutthroat-the Aluminum Wars were a prime example-but the political world could be equally, if not more, dangerous. Yeltsin, for all that he had done, was a sick, aging man-he wasn't going to last forever.

Abramovich could only hope that whoever eventually took the president's place could tolerate a man like Boris Berezovsky as Yeltsin obviously had. It took a special sort of demeanor to accept such a dramatic presence, hovering like a sputtering, loud, old helicopter around his head.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

November 27, 1999, Moscow A FEW MINUTES PAST NOON on a crisp November afternoon, one year and ten days from the bizarre and ill-fated whistle-blowing press conference-which the media and the public had written off as a dramatic farce orchestrated by Berezovsky for his own personal enlargement-Alexander Litvinenko was receiving a hard lesson in the relativity of time.

The cracked skin of his wrists rubbed raw against the cold metal of handcuffs, his body thin and pale beneath a stiff prison uniform, his shoulders hunched forward as he folded his lanky body into the narrow defendant's docket of a crowded courtroom, he was wading through what felt like forever-the longest four hours imaginable, as the judge, still in his chambers somewhere on the other side of the courtroom walls, deliberated his fate. Although Litvinenko remained facing forward, he knew that behind him, in row after row of seats in the tightly controlled courtroom, were journalists, cameramen, television reporters. They had come for another spectacle, this time arranged by the state instead of an Oligarch.

Litvinenko had been fired from his job with the FSB back in January. His dismissal had merited only a sentence or two in the local newspapers. But when he had been unceremoniously arrested on an uncharacteristically cold, snowy day in March, dragged away from his home to Lefortovo Prison-famous for formerly having been the KGB's jail-he had ended up in a paragraph on the front page, with supporting photos. The charges made absolutely no mention of his whistle-blowing or the press conference he had held for Berezovsky, but rather, accused him of "exceeding his official power and causing harm to witnesses," something his lawyers, provided by the state, told him involved the in-custody beating of a man who had been smuggling canned goods. Every journalist in the city seemed to be here at the trial that would either lead to his release or to another seeming lifetime in the soul-crushing prison. It was a frenzied feeding of the third estate.

Lefortovo had been a nightmare. Litvinenko's first lesson on the relativity of time, it was the longest eight months of his life. Separated from his wife and child, trapped in a cell next to murderers, traitors, thieves, and degenerates, he was horribly alone. Within that h.e.l.l, he'd also experienced the longest minutes of his life-beatings he had received from prison guards for reasons unexplained. Then he had been placed in solitary confinement, locked in a cage barely wider than his shoulders, for infractions that he'd supposedly committed but that also were never made clear.

Most of it felt a blur, now, as he waited in that courtroom, expecting little but praying for justice from a judge he didn't know. His krysha, Berezovsky, had done his best, working behind the scenes to try to secure his release-but even Berezovsky's power seemed to have its limits. The new head of the FSB, Putin, had deemed Litvinenko a betrayer and traitor for turning on his agency. To Putin, the corruption that Litvinenko had revealed was less important than the disloyalty he had exhibited. Berezovsky had told him on one of his visits to Lefortovo that they should have foreseen the young FSB director's opinion on the matter; the reason Putin had been brought to Moscow from St. Petersburg in the first place was his steadfast belief in loyalty.

Berezovsky would do what he could, but Litvinenko also knew that the mogul was currently embroiled in his own drama-of a political nature. In business, the Oligarch was flying high, his fingers in oil, television, and now aluminum. But another election was looming, and this time there would be no propping up President Yeltsin. Even without the const.i.tutional term limits that kept the president from running again, the man's health had deteriorated to the point that he was nearly a cadaver. After his latest heart attack-at least his fifth-the poor man now rarely appeared in public. Berezovsky and the Family were desperately searching for a replacement to run in Yeltsin's place-someone who would carry on the legacy that they, and Yeltsin, had created.

Compared to such important matters-the drama on the national stage-Litvinenko was merely a minor player, a bit part, a member of the chorus. The only person who truly thought of him as anything more was his ballroom dancer-who even now watched and waited with him from across the courtroom, her hands clasped together on her lap, helping him count down through those long, painful last few minutes.

Finally, there was a commotion from the front of the courtroom, caused by the judge's entrance. He strolled purposefully to his bench and reached for his gavel. He cleared his throat, adding agonizing seconds to the wait for his verdict-a new lesson for Litvinenko in the relativity of time.

Then, suddenly, he spat out, "Innocent of all charges."

Litvinenko's entire body stiffened as he digested what he had just heard. The courtroom erupted behind him, cameras flashing, and he could hear Marina laughing out loud with joy. One of the court bailiffs came over to unlock the docket where he was held and help Litvinenko out of his handcuffs. Litvinenko raised himself carefully to his feet and was about to take a step toward his wife, when suddenly there was a new commotion, an immense crash from the back of the long room. Litvinenko turned to see a dozen armed men burst into the courtroom. Garbed in camouflage uniforms, faces covered in black balaclavas, the men shoved the reporters aside as they moved down the center aisle, commanding the court bailiffs to stand aside. When they reached Litvinenko, two of them shouldered their automatic rifles, then grabbed him, yanking his arms back behind his back, clinking new cuffs around his wrists. Then they dragged him forward.

"You're under arrest," one of the men coughed in his ear.

"But the judge," Litvinenko stammered back, "he just said I'm innocent."

The man didn't respond. Litvinenko couldn't believe this was happening, right in front of all the news cameras. A judge had freed him, and now he was being rearrested right in the courtroom.

A message was clearly being sent. The armed men dragged him forward, roughly moving him past the reporters, who scrambled to get out of the way. As he pa.s.sed Marina, one of the camouflaged men shoved him hard, and he could hear her gasp, shouting something, but then he was being dragged to the back door, toward the waiting unmarked cars outside.

Back to prison-and another lesson in the relativity of time.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Fall 1999, The Kremlin BEREZOVSKY FELT HIS OWN heart dance to the staccato rhythm of Tatiana Yeltsin's heels against the polished marble of the floors as he followed her down the impossibly long hallway. He couldn't help but revel in the lowered eyes of the various pedestrian officials, security guards, and even members of the State Duma as they pa.s.sed. Even at his normally frantic pace, he was struggling to keep up with the young woman. She knew this place better than anyone-h.e.l.l, she had essentially grown up in the Kremlin-and obviously she had long ago filed away her route through the awe-inspiring surroundings that still tugged at Berezovsky's senses, threatening to muddle the important thoughts he was trying to organize inside his head. It wasn't merely the decor-the glittering crystal chandeliers above, the gilded ornamentation on the walls, the lavish, bloodred carpeting that covered sections of the marble floor, the doors they pa.s.sed, so baroquely ornate, leading to historic chambers and famous ballrooms. Nor was it even the idea of the place, the fact that it was surrounded by walls in some places ten feet thick, bricked in red, a triangular fortress at the very heart of the city of Moscow-at the very heart of his beloved Russia. In some ways it was the very air itself, loaded with the taste of power. Stalin, Lenin, Gorbachev had breathed this same air, felt this same marble beneath their feet.

Of course, the daughter of the president and the Oligarch who had helped keep the man in power were far from wide-eyed tourists. The Kremlin was no museum to either of them. But Berezovsky couldn't shake the feeling that every step he took toward the interior of this seat of Russian power was like a pen stroke.

He had been to the Kremlin many times before; in fact, he had often conducted business in various outposts throughout the complex, in empty offices, anterooms, even hallways. He tried to find every excuse he could to conduct his trade beneath these crystal chandeliers. As often as he could, he made his important phone calls from this place, simply to better impress whoever was on the other end of the line. He had long ago learned that the best way to end a meeting, no matter where it took place, was to pretend to take a call from the Kremlin.

But in this instance, he hadn't joined Tatiana at the Kremlin for trumped-up reasons or to impress anyone. Just as in 1996, when he and his financier colleagues had faced an existential dilemma-the possibility of the Russian government falling back into Communist hands-they were once again at a crossroads.

In 1996, Berezovsky had been able to call together the Oligarchs, who were able to work together to essentially buy themselves a government. With Tatiana's help, they had been able to steer Yeltsin's inner circle away from the threats of Korzhakov and his hard-liners-saving the democracy, keeping Yeltsin in place.

But this time around, no amount of money or maneuvering was going to give Yeltsin another term in the Kremlin. The const.i.tutional term limits were clear, and his time at the helm was over. And even if they managed to construct a new const.i.tution-something that had certainly been considered, but ruled out-the man simply wasn't strong enough or healthy enough to remain in power.

Just as in 1996, it was a dangerous moment for Russia and for Berezovsky, personally. He knew exactly how quickly things could change; and he also knew there were real limitations to his own power. Litvinenko's imprisonment was a clear indication of how even the smallest miscalculation on his part could lead to disaster.

Berezovsky blamed himself for the debacle with the young agent. Litvinenko's willingness to go public with his accusations against the FSB had saved Berezovsky from being a target for a.s.sa.s.sination, but it had also goaded the young new head of the FSB into making a show of force. Putin obviously saw Litvinenko as a traitor to the agency, his actions a betrayal to their code. Even so, firing the whistle-blower should have been enough. Having him arrested, sent to prison, and then rearrested after he served eight months, much of it in solitary confinement, seemed extreme. The dramatic scene-men in masks with submachine guns dragging him right out of the courtroom-was something directly out of the old KGB playbook.

Thankfully, Berezovsky had been able to sort out the situation, personally appealing to Vladimir Putin on Litvinenko's behalf. After a little back-and-forth, the agency had reluctantly released Litvinenko-though they had confiscated his pa.s.sport and demanded that he remain in Moscow. Perhaps they really didn't know about the second set of identifications that he'd used in his days as an agent working undercover in Chechnya-or maybe they thought a warning would be enough to scare him into staying put. In any event, there was no doubt in Berezovsky's mind that Litvinenko couldn't remain in Russia any longer. The Oligarch had already begun making financial arrangements to help the young agent when he eventually resurfaced overseas, most likely in the UK, a country that went to considerable lengths to keep exiled asylum seekers safe.

But Berezovsky also felt that the dramatic episode had had a rather interesting silver lining. Advocating for the young agent had put Berezovsky in repeated contact with Vladimir Putin, and he had used the exchanges as an excuse to begin socializing with the FSB head. Over the days since Litvinenko's release, Berezovsky and Putin had become close. They had traveled together, dined together, and Putin had even been one of the many guests at Berezovsky's most recent birthday party, a lavish affair at the Logovaz Club.

Berezovsky found Putin surprisingly bright, even though he said little. He was conservative, to a fault, and held some level of fascination and nostalgia for the strong inst.i.tutions of the old world-but he was also a true believer in the current democratic state, and the capitalistic forces that had opened up Russia since Yeltsin had taken power. Berezovsky found himself quite entranced by Putin, as he had become with Roman Abramovich, and had genuinely begun to consider him a friend. Even so, in political terms, he would most likely have still described the man as a useful cog, someone who could be trusted to behave loyally and without guile.

Still, Berezovsky had been somewhat surprised by his first inklings that the Family-most notably Tatiana, and through her, the president himself-had taken a real interest in Vladimir Putin, had even begun to consider him a potential heir to the Kremlin. His surprise had initially led him to resist the idea-not simply because of the Litvinenko affair, which was upsetting but, ultimately, something he could understand-but because he could think of other candidates who would be more malleable and perhaps more electable. But when he had sensed the wind behind Putin blowing stronger, the resolve of the Family growing, he realized that it would be in his own interests to get involved in the succession plan early. If he wanted to remain an important player in the next government, he needed to take a leading role in the efforts to plan and strategize Putin's ascension to the Kremlin. The election of 2000 needed to end, in many ways, as it had in 1996-with a debt owed to Boris Berezovsky.