The Kremlin Conspiracy

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  As Oleg’s eyes drifted downward, he intended to rest them on the ornate carpet and wait until he was spoken to, but when he mistakenly caught Luganov’s eye, the prime minister glanced at one of two large wooden armchairs in front of his desk. Tentative at first, Oleg finally took the hint and sat down, his eyes now riveted on the bank of phones and sheaves of papers spread across the vast oak desk. Oleg waited, but the man didn’t say anything. The silence grew more unbearable by the second. Again Oleg took the hint. He cleared his throat, dried his perspiring hands on the pant legs of his suit, and forced himself to look up, first at the tie, then at the mouth, and finally into the man’s piercing blue emotionless eyes.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, I just—well, thank you—I just want to say thank you, sir, for agreeing to see me, especially today,” Oleg stammered. “I know you have many—I mean, there are a great deal of—well, it’s a very sad, very difficult day, a difficult time for our country. I know you have many responsibilities, so you are most kind to make time for me, of all people, on a day like this.”

  Luganov stared back at him without comment, without encouragement.

  Oleg cleared his throat again and forced himself to press on. “The thing is, what I wanted to talk to you about, sir, is your daughter. As you know, as I’m sure she told you, we met in university almost five years ago. I was immediately drawn to her. She is, well, as you know, she’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Obviously you know that. I’m sorry. And she’s clever. And beautiful. And sophisticated and yet so kind and funny and such a great storyteller. So great with people—children, the elderly. She just has a way about her. And I just, I don’t know—well, actually, sir, I do know. . . . I—well, the thing is, I fell in love with her. Not right away. But we became acquainted. And then we became friends. And even though I was ahead of her in my studies, we continued to write letters to each other after I graduated, and in time I came to realize that I couldn’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. I was terrified to say that to her, because I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize our friendship. But in the end, after much discussion with my parents, whom you, of course, know very well, I decided—well, I knew I had to come to you and ask you for your permission to marry her. That is why I’m here. And that’s my question to you, sir. Would you allow me to present Marina with an engagement ring and a proposal of marriage?”

  Oleg was sick to his stomach. It was all he could do not to vomit on the prime minister’s desk. But at least he had said what he had come to say. He had gotten it all out. Not the way he had intended or how he had practiced it so often. But he’d done it. The question was on the table, and now he stared at his hands and waited for a reply.

  There was none. Not for some time. The room was silent again, though Oleg could hear the muffled sounds of phones ringing and hushed voices talking in the anteroom. He could feel the eyes of two plainclothes officers standing behind him boring into him. He tried in vain to imagine the expression of the man behind the desk. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he heard his name.

  “Oleg Stefanovich,” Luganov began, “do you love your country?”

  Oleg looked up, wondering if his face registered the surprise he felt, hoping it did not. How many times in recent days had he practiced this conversation with his father? They had discussed his answers to dozens of questions. Did he feel he knew Marina well enough? How did he know he loved her? How many young women had he dated before Marina? Why had those relationships ended? What were his long-term intentions—for his career, for children, for where they would live? How could he support them, and her educational ambitions, if they were going to be living in one of the world’s most expensive cities and he was fresh out of law school and barely a year into his first job? They had carefully rehearsed and revised his answers to these and so many other queries. But Oleg had never imagined one so direct and yet so profound.

  “With all my heart, sir,” Oleg replied, gaining confidence from the depth of his convictions on the matter and finally able to look his potential father-in-law in the eye without flinching. “Now more than ever.”

  “And my daughter?” Luganov asked. “How will I be sure you will never betray her?”

  “I have never loved another, sir,” Oleg replied. “She is the first and only woman I have ever felt this way about. Sir, you have my word, upon my family’s honor, that I will cherish and protect her, provide for her and nurture her, with all that I am and ever hope to be. I come from a good, honorable family. Still, I know that I don’t deserve to be Marina’s husband. I certainly don’t deserve to be your son-in-law. But I do promise to be faithful. If you will have me—if she will have me—I will never let either of you down.”

  A phone on his desk rang. Luganov did not answer it.

  There were two quick raps on the door. A general entered. “Mr. Prime Minister, your call with the White House is being placed now.”

  Luganov nodded almost imperceptibly, then leaned forward in his seat.

  “I believe you, Oleg Stefanovich,” he said. “Now I have one more question.”

  Oleg swallowed hard.

  “I am looking for a bright young lawyer to serve on my personal staff,” Luganov said quietly. “Someone hardworking. Discreet. Someone who can be trusted with sensitive information, especially now. And who can be trusted more than family?”

  MOSCOW—16 SEPTEMBER 1999

  Oleg Stefanovich Kraskin arrived at the Kremlin early.

  He could still not believe his good fortune. He was not only engaged to the prime minister’s only daughter, he was now working as an aide on the prime minister’s personal staff. He had undergone no interview. He had submitted no curriculum vitae. He had offered no references. Then again, when a man who used to serve in the Russian intelligence services—indeed, who had once been head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB—hires you on the spot, you can be fairly confident you’ve been thoroughly vetted already.

  As Oleg reflected upon the whirlwind of the past seventy-two hours, it dawned on him that the FSB had no doubt begun a meticulous investigation of him some five years earlier when he had first met Marina. He was embarrassed that the thought had never occurred to him before. But he knew he could rest assured that the background check had been thorough. Luganov was as protective a father as he was a skilled chief executive. He would protect his daughter as intently as he would protect the motherland. But he was also discreet. Not one of Oleg’s friends or teachers or colleagues from childhood up to the present had ever mentioned to him that they had been interviewed by the FSB. But surely they had been, because here he was with a provisional pass into the Kremlin dangling from around his neck.

  It was just before six in the morning. He wasn’t due in before seven, but this was his first day on the job. The previous two days he had wrapped up his work at the law firm, cleaned out his office there, and said good-bye. All of his partners—most of whom were thirty or forty years his senior—were as stunned as they were thrilled. They threw him an elaborate party, for which he was grateful, though he knew full well they were not just being nice to him; they were ingratiating themselves to the future son-in-law of the next president of the Russian Federation.

  Having cleared security and completed some essential paperwork, Oleg was directed to the office of Boris Zakharov, the prime minister’s chief of staff and most senior counselor. According to Oleg’s father, Luganov and Zakharov had been friends since childhood. The two men had served together in Afghanistan in the early 1980s and later had worked for the KGB before transitioning into politics. Many of Luganov’s senior staff, Oleg knew, were longtime, highly trusted personal friends of the prime minister. Some of them were probably unqualified to be working in such sensitive positions. But one thing was clear enough: personal relationships and unquestioned loyalty were prized above all.

  Zakharov was a large and rather gregarious man who warmly welcomed Oleg into his office and heartily congratulated him on his engagement. He asked Oleg how
he and Marina had met and how he’d courted the prime minister’s daughter without making headlines. Oleg answered the first question but demurred on the second, saying he had no idea. The truth was he suspected Luganov’s people were running interference with the press.

  “Now, I expect that Miss Marina has already told you this, but this will, of course, be no ordinary wedding,” the chief of staff said after a minute of pleasantries. “Given that it will occur sometime after the elections, we expect the prime minister will, at that point, be the president. Thus your wedding will be a state affair. As such, my office—working closely with our chief of protocol—will be handling all the details. Any specific requests you and Miss Marina have can be routed through me. We will certainly do our best to accommodate them, but do bear in mind that the venue, the guest list, the musicians, and of course all the security arrangements will have been planned well in advance—well in advance.”

  Oleg kept his mouth shut, but no, Marina had never said any such thing. Then again, he had only proposed to her two nights before at their favorite restaurant overlooking the Moskva River. When she saw Oleg on one knee, the exquisite diamond ring in his hand, and learned that Oleg had already asked her father and been given his blessing, Marina had jumped into his arms and kissed him wildly.

  “So that’s a yes?” he had asked when they came up for air.

  “Da!” she’d gushed as she began kissing him again.

  They had talked about many things. They had called her parents. They had called his parents. But the specifics of the ceremony? That the wedding would be a state affair, run not by them but by political operatives at the Kremlin? No, that had not come up.

  “The Russian people won’t have experienced a wedding like this since 1894,” Zakharov exclaimed as he buzzed his secretary and asked her to bring him “the Wedding File.”

  “1894?” Oleg asked, drawing a blank.

  “The wedding of the czar,” Zakharov replied, lighting up a cigarette and sinking into the chair behind his desk. He beckoned Oleg to take the seat across from him.

  Oleg’s recall of the history of Russian royalty was, perhaps, a tad rusty. But every Russian knew the basics. Czar Nicholas II had married Princess Alix of Hesse, who had gone on to be known as the Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, the last czarina before the revolution, when she was summarily executed by the Bolsheviks. The wedding had been held at the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The entire Romanov dynasty had attended, as had royalty from all over Europe.

  “Your nuptials will be no less grand—maybe even more so,” Zakharov explained. “But of course, unlike Nicholas and Alix, we live in the age of television. So this one will be broadcast live—the entire planet will have the chance to see Russia in all her splendor.”

  Oleg blanched. Televised? Broadcast to the entire planet? All he wanted was a simple, private affair. Immediate families. Close friends. A Russian Orthodox priest. And a honeymoon someplace sunny and warm and very, very private.

  Zakharov either didn’t notice Oleg’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction, or he didn’t care.

  There was a knock at the door, and Zakharov’s secretary entered with two three-ring binders. She gave both to Zakharov, who promptly handed one to Oleg and told him to keep it safe and show it only to Marina and his parents. He pointed to the first six pages of critical questions that needed to be answered immediately and asked that Oleg return the completed forms to him by the end of the week. At that point, Oleg would meet with the Protocol Office. But first there were more pressing matters to consider.

  Zakharov handed Oleg his permanent hard pass, an elite biometric card that would provide him access to almost every building and room in the Kremlin other than the most secure military facilities. Then he walked Oleg down the hall to the tiny work space that would now be his.

  To call it an office would be to somewhat overstate the situation. It appeared, rather, to be a converted custodian’s closet into which a small, narrow desk, a creaky office chair, and one dusty file cabinet had somehow been shoehorned. The room had no windows and little ventilation, but it was twenty paces from Luganov’s office, and Oleg had no complaints.

  Zakharov gave him the combination to the cipher lock on the door, the password for his brand-new desktop computer, and a classified directory of phone numbers for the offices of everyone who was anyone in the Luganov administration. Then he gave Oleg his own personal mobile number and home number and told him to memorize them and share them with no one.

  As the chief of staff began to introduce Oleg to key people who worked on the third floor, there was suddenly a commotion by the elevators. A phalanx of security officers got off first, followed by two men Oleg recognized immediately. The first was Mikhail Petrovsky, the defense minister. The second was Dmitri Nimkov, the head of the FSB. Just then Zakharov’s beeper began going off, as did those of a half-dozen senior staff up and down the hallway. Phones started ringing in every office.

  “Another bombing,” Zakharov said, his demeanor changing instantly. “Stay close to me, Oleg Stefanovich. Take detailed notes of everything that is said, and keep your mouth shut.”

  The previous week, Oleg had been reviewing contracts and billing statements.

  Now he found himself at the vortex of the most serious national crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Empire itself.

  As he followed the chief of staff into a conference room adjoining the prime minister’s office, Oleg vividly remembered the day the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time. Every Russian did. December 25, 1991. Oleg was still a teenager at the time. But he remembered being huddled around his parents’ television, watching the momentous events unfolding hour by hour. He would never forget his mother’s tears or his father’s dumbfounded silence. His parents hadn’t been elated like some of their neighbors were, as if the nation were somehow going to be free. Rather, they’d feared their country was going to unravel.

  For the first time, Oleg understood their emotions.

  A door opened. Prime Minister Luganov entered, flanked by bodyguards. Once the door was closed, the cabinet took their seats around the conference table. Luganov, of course, sat at the head. The bodyguards took up posts at each of the doors, in the four corners of the room, and directly behind him. Several advisors accompanying Defense Minister Petrovsky and FSB Chief Nimkov sat in a row of chairs against the side walls, behind their principals. Oleg joined them, sitting just behind Zakharov, notebook and pen at the ready.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, I regret to inform you that there has been another attack,” said the defense minister as he handed Luganov a leather dossier.

  “Where?” the prime minister asked, opening the file and sifting through its contents.

  “In the south, sir—Volgodonsk,” Petrovsky replied.

  Oleg looked up from his note taking. He knew Volgodonsk. It was near the Black Sea, not far from the border of Ukraine. His maternal grandmother lived there, as did several of his cousins. As a boy, Oleg had gone fishing along the Don River with his grandfather.

  “The initial evidence suggests this was a truck bomb,” Petrovsky continued. “It went off in front of yet another apartment building—sheared off the entire face of the building, nine stories. If you’ll permit, Mr. Prime Minister, the FSB has video taken on the scene.”

  Luganov nodded, and the video began to roll. Oleg gasped as unedited images flickered onto three large televisions mounted on the far wall. The devastation was beyond anything he had ever witnessed. Certainly images this graphic were not going to be broadcast on nationwide TV. What was visible was mostly rubble, but there was also a severed torso that the cameras kept focusing on. Ash-covered mothers clutched their crying children in their arms.

  “How many?” asked Luganov, stoic and dark.

  The FSB chief took that one. “We know of seventeen dead so far,” Nimkov replied. “But it’s early.”

  “Injured?”

  “The latest count I have is sixty, but again,
Your Excellency, we expect that number to climb.”

  “Has anyone claimed credit?”

  “No, sir,” Nimkov said. “Not yet.”

  “But the MO is the same as the others?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “Chechens,” Luganov said coolly.

  It wasn’t a question, Oleg observed, but a statement. He wrote it all down.

  “That’s our best guess, sir—yes,” said Nimkov.

  “Zakayev?” the prime minister asked.

  Oleg instantly recognized that name. Ramzan Zakayev was a fundamentalist Muslim warlord in the Russian province of Chechnya. He had become a household name during the period of 1994 to 1996, when he led a separatist movement trying to break Chechnya off from the Russian Federation. He was known for his ruthlessness and barbarism. When Russian air strikes began and ground forces first tried to retake the rebel capital of Grozny, Zakayev had declared a jihad, or holy war, against Moscow. More than a thousand Russian soldiers had lost their lives in the Battle of Grozny. Many of them had been slaughtered in a ghastly manner, and in the process Zakayev had become the country’s most wanted terrorist. He had been thirty-six years old.

  The FSB chief sat back in his leather chair, took his reading glasses off, and set them down on the notepad before him. He looked at Luganov and sighed. “Based on all we know right now, I would put the probability that Zakayev and his forces are behind all these bombings at 90 percent or better.”

  Scribbling down the conversation as fast as he could, Oleg felt his blood boiling. Like most Russians, Oleg was certain of Zakayev’s guilt—so certain, in fact, that it did not even occur to the young lawyer that no actual facts were being presented, no actual evidence was being offered by the head of the Russian Security Service. Only later would he realize that there was no discussion of incriminating fingerprints found at the scene or intercepted communications between the Chechen warlord and the men who had carried out these attacks. Nothing was being said about wiretaps or recorded conversations with Zakayev or even a single Chechen informant implicating him in these crimes.