The Plot to Kill Putin

by Max Karpov

  Russia’s brutal incursion into Georgia in 2008—the scope of which took US intelligence by surprise, although the conflict had been building for months—should have been ample warning about how far Russia would go to keep its former republics in line. But the US underplayed the threat, despite the forecasts of several analysts, among them Christoper Niles.

  Chris spoke with Anna before going to bed on Sunday, playing the role of a college teacher visiting Moscow on a research trip. He knew that the hotel room was fitted with cameras and listening devices. Hearing her voice, he regretted again how Martin’s assignment had separated them, and he lay awake afterward, trying to will himself to sleep, consumed by an emptiness that he couldn’t quite shake. He thought of all the years he’d given to the agency, the precious time he’d spent doing the wrong things. He could never get that time back, of course, but there was a value in understanding those mistakes, he told himself; a lesson for how to live the rest of his life.

  In the morning, the bad feelings were all gone. Chris wandered through the medieval side streets near the hotel again. He joined a tour of the five-domed St. Clement’s church, with its glittering Baroque interior, staying to chat afterward with the tour guide. He ate lunch at an outdoor café on Stoleshnikov Lane and then walked to Tretyakov Gallery, where he spent much of the afternoon observing the religious art. Art that Anna would have loved, particularly Rublev’s great Trinity icon in the Hall of Old Russian Art.

  Late in the afternoon, he took a cab past his former office, at the American embassy, where a crowd of weary-looking anti-American demonstrators were milling on the sidewalk. Someone had pelted the building with eggs earlier, and no one had gotten around to cleaning it. Upstairs, on the top floor, was where Chris had worked for eighteen months.

  Seeing the building stirred contrary emotions, reminding him that he might still be working here if his last job hadn’t gone bad. If he hadn’t discovered details of a Russian disinformation plot against neighboring Estonia, and tried to pass it on to his government. The plot had involved the arrest of an Estonian border guard on charges of espionage and sexual misconduct—then using that arrest as propaganda to inflame anti-Estonia sentiment among the country’s twenty-five-percent-Russian population.

  Christopher’s source was a Russian asset named Marina Vostrak, a diplomatic aide he’d begun to cultivate months earlier. Marina wanted to deal, she said, but was becoming nervous about their arrangement. Chris took her concerns to the chief of station, who asked him to wait. They couldn’t risk compromising “a larger case,” the COS said. Several days later, Marina Vostrak went missing. And three days after that, Chris watched the news from his embassy office as an Estonian guard was arrested and the campaign began. He was still waiting to hear about the “larger case.”

  Washington’s failure to prevent the Estonia operation was disheartening but hardly surprising. What happened to Marina Vostrak, though, was. The day after the border guard’s arrest, Marina was found strangled to death in a garbage bin in Tallinn. Chris felt worse than devastated; he also felt responsible.

  He’d gone to war with the Agency briefly after that, as he had several times in the past. But it was shooting spitballs at a battleship. He’d ended up quitting the government soon afterward, to become an independent contractor. The whole business had cost him income and prestige. But he’d also met Anna, and that made it worthwhile.

  The cab carried Christopher past Turov’s headquarters, a kilometer from the US embassy, a nondescript office building where troll and bot factories operated on the sixth floor, he had heard. Turov lived in the country now with his daughter Svetlana and his grandchildren, supposedly. Turov’s gatekeeper, Anton Konkin, lived there too, as did a girlfriend, Olga Sheversky.

  He channel-surfed Russian state television that night, searching for an objective discussion about last Friday’s attack. But there wasn’t any. In the more than three years since Chris had last been in Moscow, several of Russia’s best-known journalists had fled the country. Many prominent intellectuals had left as well.

  Instead of discussion, he found “news”: more US documents had been leaked, indicating that a Ukrainian SBU officer named Mikhail Kolchak, one of the August 13 “co-conspirators,” had met with American CIA officer Gregory Dial in Kiev last month. Further “evidence,” the news reader said, that the US had been behind Friday’s attack.

  The Russian foreign minister was being interviewed on another channel, calling this latest leak “an incredible development” and “a declaration of war.”

  “Our president’s high approval ratings show one thing very clearly: that Russians are united,” he said, gesturing like an orchestra conductor. “Americans, needless to say, are not.”

  This was Turov’s credibility equation, Christopher knew: Russia gains by August 13, the US loses; they were the same story, two ends of a seesaw. A new, more effective means of warfare. Instead of taking lives and destroying property, which was the old way, you won by simply changing what people thought about the United States.

  His cell phone rang. Christopher reached for it and checked the message screen. It was a pre-arranged, coded text from Martin Lindgren: Jake Briggs had just contacted Ivan Delkoff in France.

  The first connection was made, then. The second would come tomorrow.

  The last thing he did before going to bed on Monday was call Anna. They spoke a little longer this time, and a little less self-consciously. Christopher told her about seeing Rublev’s Trinity icon, how he wished she could have been with him to see the Russian art. It was 2:30 in the afternoon in Washington. Anna was in her tiny unmarked “hideaway” office in the basement at the US Capitol, she told him. She missed him very much.

  Chris lay awake afterward again, feeling a little better than he had after their talk on Sunday. But their life together felt faraway again, a boat against the current . . . He thought of Anna’s steady eyes on the beach in Greece as he’d walked toward her from the sea, ready for their long-delayed “conversation”; the way she reached for his hand without hesitation as they strolled through the village in the afternoon, and how they had talked themselves to sleep that night, lying in the dark with the windows open . . . But eventually Chris’s thoughts drifted back to Andrei Turov. If his instincts were wrong and he didn’t hear back from Turov tomorrow, or the next day, then this job would be nothing more than an aborted two-man black ops mission. Chris would write a report, it would be filed away, and he would get on with his life at the university. It was SOP for Martin’s division, anyway: consider scenarios no one else was looking at. Being wrong was built into its charter.

  But there was another idea that Christopher began to entertain as he lay in this nineteenth-century-style Russian hotel room waiting for sleep. An idea that had first come to him in Greece, what seemed like the small voice of his wilder instincts: what if the meeting with Petrenko in London had been a part of Turov’s deception? What if the real reason he was in Moscow tonight was that Turov had called him here?

  There was no empirical evidence to support the idea—or even much logical rationale for it. Except that Christopher knew how Turov’s mind worked. It would be interesting to see what happened tomorrow.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Tuesday, August 17. Moscow.

  He ate a small, late breakfast in the elegant Moskovsky Hall dining room, with its panoramic views of Red Square. Afterward he crossed the Patriarchal footbridge to the magnificent Cathedral of Christ the Savior, stopping midway across the Moskva River to take in the view. It was stunning in the late-morning light: the Kremlin in one direction, the three-hundred-foot statue of Peter the Great in the other. Cathedral of Christ the Savior was the largest church in Russia and the tallest Orthodox Church in the world. It had, like much of Moscow, a strange and broken history: constructed originally in the nineteenth century, the cathedral was destroyed by Stalin in 1931 to make way for a grand Palace of the Soviets, which Stalin envisioned as an enduring monument to socialism. But, for vari
ous reasons, Stalin’s palace was never built. In the fifties, Khrushchev turned the site into the world’s largest outdoor swimming pool. In the late 1990s, with the Russian Orthodox Church in ascendance, the cathedral was rebuilt, resembling in nearly every detail the building Stalin dynamited in 1931.

  Christopher spent half an hour marveling at the interior rooms of the Cathedral—the marble chapel, the frescos, the shrines of the Temple—making sure that by 11:20 he was in the gift shop. He selected two books about the church’s history and a medallion to take home to Anna. As he was paying at the register he spotted Amira Niyzov lingering by the exit, wearing a long skirt and thin black sweater, which seemed to blend with her untamed black hair.

  “Want to get lunch?” he said, his eyes adjusting as they came out onto the street alongside the river. The clouds were white and glowing with sunlight. “My treat,” he said. “You choose the restaurant.”

  Amira Niyzov was a slight woman in her early forties with large brown eyes and hollow cheeks that gave a false sadness to her face. “So you are a history professor now,” she said, as they walked the narrow stone street to the restaurant.

  “Teacher, actually. Guest lecturer.”

  “Teacher, then. And we have a common interest again after all this time,” she said, speaking with her precise diction and cultured English accent.

  “Do we?”

  “You’re here writing about the Russian Orthodox Church.”

  “Ah, yes.” Chris smiled. It was possible sometimes to miss the trace of humor in Amira’s words. Outwardly, she was a waif, but there was a tough, unyielding quality at her core. Fifteen years ago Amira had been active in a now-defunct liberal political party—back when Russia still had real political parties—and she’d been friends with Anna Politkovskaya, the courageous—reckless, some said—opposition journalist who’d been shot dead in her apartment elevator in 2006. Amira had always been careful, in her way. Raised a modest, moderate Muslim, she had distanced herself as a teen from her parents’ religion, using journalism to cultivate broader interests in religion, politics, and Russian culture. She’d been through a bad marriage and a divorce, but it was part of her life that she didn’t talk about, as if it had never happened. Even when she was politically active, Amira always presented herself first as a culture and religion writer, an objective journalist.

  Chris hadn’t spoken to Amira in three years, but they’d remained connected by a bond of respect and occasional emails. And by something else: a shared understanding of who Andrei Turov really was and what he could do. In the late 2000s, Amira had briefly pursued Turov, intending to write a story on his donations to the Orthodox Church. Turov agreed to meet with her at his Moscow office. But then he’d insisted that she not write about him, claiming that he wasn’t important enough. Amira accepted that, but didn’t believe it. Her real interest in Turov was the same as Chris’s: the secret work he did for Russia’s president, not his donations to the church. Later, they would compare notes, although she had made the unusual request that they never use Turov’s name in any of their conversations. He became “the crow,” because “crows are an especially smart bird, and he is that,” she’d said.

  The fact that she had accepted Chris’s invitation to meet today told him something, although he wasn’t sure what. Amira was living under cover now, in a sense, abiding by the country’s increasingly restrictive rule book.

  He opened the door and they entered the small, familiar Georgian restaurant, taking a table in a private, parlor-like room by the front window. A waiter brought them a pot of tea.

  “It’s not such a good time to be an American in Moscow, is it?” Christopher said, after they ordered—pelmeni, dumplings filled with onions and mushrooms, borscht soup. “Both of my interviews canceled yesterday. You aren’t worried about meeting me?”

  “To talk about the church? No, of course not,” she said, her eyes staying with his. “It’s become an important topic in Russia. I’m happy your country has at last taken notice.”

  “It’s interesting how things have changed, though,” Chris said. “In the eighties, going to church was how you stood up to communism. Now, the church seems almost a branch of the state.”

  Amira looked away. “It’s true,” she said. “Ninety-five percent of the churches in Moscow were destroyed in the twenties and thirties. Communism left us an atheist country for seventy years. But over the last two decades, 23,000 new Orthodox churches have been built. And seventy percent of Russians now call themselves Orthodox Christians.”

  “Quite a role reversal,” Christopher said.

  “Yes.”

  Chris glanced out the window and recognized the same stocky man he’d seen following him on Tverskaya Sunday night. “The only reason we adopted ‘In God We Trust’ as our motto in the 1950s, you know, was to draw a line between our country and yours,” he said.

  “Yes, I think the line’s still there, we’ve just sort of switched sides.” Amira reached for her tea. There was an ambiguous, slightly off-kilter quality about her that he liked.

  It felt safe sparring with Amira about the church, and they carried it on through the meal, discussing the United States’s drift toward political correctness, its legalizing of same-sex marriage, and Russia’s ambition to become a “traditional values society,” the moral alternative to the West. Amira spoke with a professional detachment, causing Chris to wonder if maybe she had missed his email reference to the “crow” and really was here just to talk about the church.

  They were finishing their meal when he pointed to a man holding an English language paper outside. In the headline, he saw the words “No Fingerprints” in quotes.

  “The news is all about last Friday now, isn’t it?” he said, in a quieter tone. “It’s going to make your president more popular than ever, I’d imagine.” Amira shrugged a perhaps. “And make things tougher for the opposition.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no.” They were testing each other, Chris sensed, circling the topic for a way in. But this was where he needed to go, if just briefly: there was a network of opposition forces that was still very much alive in Russia, waiting for something to join them together and light them up again. Amira was a link to that network. There was also a shadow society in Russia, sponsored by the exiled businessman and Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. His Open Russia foundation had for months been recruiting political and business leaders who—in theory, at least—could take over when the current regime finally toppled, although no one expected that to happen soon.

  “You planned to write about him. Several years ago,” Christopher said. “The crow.”

  Amira moved her hand dismissively on the table. “There wasn’t much to write. He convinced me he was like hundreds of others in Russia. I never saw a story there.”

  In fact, no one had ever written a story on Turov, as far as Christopher knew. “Supposedly, there’s been some kind of falling out now with the Kremlin?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe he just wanted to retire. Actually, what I hear is that he’s concerned about his family. About nevyezdniye. Do you know what that is?”

  “It’s the policy that prohibits people with access to state secrets from traveling to countries that have extradition treaties with the US, isn’t it? Something like that?”

  “Something like that,” she said, a subtle smile briefly lighting her face. “Four million Russians are on the list now. He’s very much a family man. He’s more concerned for them, I suspect, than for himself.” Chris could see that she was privately energized by this turn in the conversation. She leaned forward, adding, “You think he had something to do with last Friday?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “The story I’m told, and it’s well-sourced, is that the missiles were Ukrainian military. Purchased by Hordiyenko for a private militia. The missile battery was seen in Ukrainian territory that day. Last Friday. There are supposedly photos that match up.”

  “Yes, most of that’s been reported,” Chris s
aid. “But where did the backing come from? Who ordered it?”

  “Well. From what I’m reading, it came from Washington.” She gave him a calculated look, not quite smiling. “Why? What do you think?”

  “What I think,” Chris said, “is that the crows always return to the cornfield. Metaphorically speaking. I think the whole thing could’ve been pulled off with a very small number of people—ten, maybe. Only three or four of whom knew what they were really doing.”

  “And one of those three or four—?”

  “Had to be the top, yes,” he said, meaning the Russian president.

  Amira drank her tea and set the cup in the saucer. She took her time responding. “Even if that’s true, it would be almost impossible to prove.”

  “I understand that,” Christopher said. He glanced outside and then leaned closer. “But my question is: What if you had some evidence? Theoretically. Could you do anything with that?”

  Her dark eyes gleamed with a new interest, but in the next moment she looked away. Chris knew that Amira blamed the Russian president for the loss of several good friends in the opposition movement. But she wasn’t stupid. Everyone knew that the Russian president’s loudest critics had short life expectancies. “Theoretically, I would be skeptical,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Because, even if true, there’d be layers between the crow and those who carried it out. Just as he keeps layers from his business with the Kremlin. That’s how he’s survived.”

  “Until now, anyway,” Chris said. “But what if one of those layers contained the details about what actually happened?” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “If you had those details, you would still have access to the network, right?”

  Amira didn’t answer right away. “What do you have?” she said finally.

  “Right now, nothing. But it exists. If I were able to broker something, would you be interested? Or would it just put you in jeopardy?”