Once Upon a Time in Russia

by Ben Mezrich

It didn’t matter that the two torpedoes his vessel was about to fire at the nearby battle cruiser—the Pyotr Velikiy—were actually dummy weapons, little more than fueled metal pipes that would do no more damage to the hull of the ship than a rock from a slingshot. For the men aboard the Kursk, the mission was as real as life and death.

  Approximately a minute later, when the order to fire reverberated through the intercom, Dmitri felt the vessel tremble beneath his feet. His finely trained ears could hear the whisper of the torpedoes leaving the tubes, followed by the rush of water as they tore toward their target. Dmitri allowed himself a smile as he continued checking his turbine controls. The sheer power of his vessel never ceased to amaze him, releasing a kind of primal energy inside his own veins.

  His mind was still picturing those twin mock torpedoes spiraling through the deep cold water a second later, when suddenly, there was a terrifying noise, a blast so loud that spikes of pain tore through his eardrums. The submarine—his entire world—lunged upward. Dimitri toppled forward, slamming into the hard metal floor chin first and for a brief second his vision blurred. Then his adrenaline spiked, his training kicked in, and his eyes opened.

  Everything around him seemed to slow, as the chaotic moment unfolded. He could feel a surge of the sub’s engines, as someone in the command center tried desperately to raise the ship. And then, just as suddenly, they were diving, but not in any controlled fashion, not in any manner he had experienced before in the smooth descent of the most sophisticated war machine of the Russian nation. This was a desperate, horrifying plunge. Dimitri flung out both hands, grabbing hold of one of the nearest steam pipes in an attempt to hold himself upright—and then the entire submarine somersaulted, flipping him up into the air, then sending him crashing back down again. The fluorescent lights flickered, but somehow held; even so, all he could see was pure mayhem, a blur of equipment flying through the air, other crewmen crashing into the ceiling and the walls and the floor. The air filled with screams and the horrible screeching of rending metal. Even worse, Dimitri could hear the thunder of water rushing into the vessel—but thankfully, not yet into his own compartment.

  His terror was intense, paralyzing, but Dimitri refused to give in. He concentrated on counting out the seconds as they descended, calculating depth. He had reached about three hundred and fifty feet when there was another ferocious crash, and his body was slammed upward—the sub careening at full descent into the ocean floor. Barely a second later, there were multiple explosions in rapid succession and the sickening feeling of part of the hull ahead tearing apart.

  More frantic screams and then crewmen pushed past Dmitri, rushing toward the rear compartment. Without thinking, Dmitri let his own reflexes take over, and he followed them through the vessel, shouting for others to follow, grabbing a bleeding, wounded sailor by the arm, dragging him along. Go, go, go! They raced from his turbine compartment, Seven, into Eight, and then through that into the rear and final cabin, Nine. There was an escape hatch in the back of the ninth compartment, along with enough rescue, pressure-protective suits to keep them alive, even at such a depth. He had no idea what had happened, whether they had collided with something under the water, hit an errant mine or an enemy torpedo, or whether one of the dummies had simply malfunctioned and sent them to the floor. But he was fairly certain that, once they had hit the bottom, the force had detonated their payload of real torpedoes. He could only be thankful that the sub wasn’t carrying any nuclear-tipped armament during the training session. But he had no doubt that the submarine was damaged beyond repair. From the force of the explosions he had felt, and from the way the vessel had somersaulted on its way down to the ocean floor, he believed that the front half of the Kursk had been destroyed, perhaps all the way back through the command center, to the engines themselves.

  Which meant they had very little time before power was gone, and along with it, the breathable air they had left.

  He leapt forward into the rear compartment, and went to work with the other seamen, sealing off the cabin. Then he glanced around the small confines and counted the remaining crew. Twenty-three men. The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth compartments had a crew of twenty-four all together. It appeared that almost all of them had made it to the back of the vessel. But the rest of the sub’s crew was gone. Listening at the door they were sealing, he could hear nothing behind it but creaking metal and the rush of water. He could only hope that the rest of his brothers had died instantly as the vessel had crashed into the ground.

  After they had finished sealing off the door, he turned his attention to the rear of the Ninth Compartment, to the group of crewmen milling around the escape hatch. But as he looked at the focus of their work, his stomach dropped. Even from across the compartment, Dimitri could see that the hatch was warped inward at the center—the metal curling over itself, the release mechanisms melded together in a tangle of iron and steel. The damage was severe, and with the tools they had available in the rear compartment, it was doubtful they were ever going to get through.

  Dimitri’s legs grew heavy. The men near the escape hatch spoke in frantic, clipped words, but he already knew what the others were now realizing: their situation was hopeless. He let himself drop slowly to the floor, his back leaning upright against the sealed inner hatch behind him, his breathing slowing, his heart strangely calm in his chest.

  In the weeks leading up to this mission, the twenty-seven-year-old had felt a sort of premonition. Normally optimistic and high-spirited, he had felt so strongly that something might soon go wrong that he had even given his young wife of only a few months a short poem about the fragility of life. The poem had ended quite simply, and quite sadly: I want time to whisper one thing, my darling, I love you.

  At that moment, Dmitri didn’t know how much time he had left to whisper anything. He guessed maybe a few hours of air, which he could already sense was rapidly filling with toxic levels of carbon dioxide, as well as peroxide, most likely from the destroyed torpedoes. Even though other boats nearby would have seen them go down, and a rescue effort would be waged, it was doubtful anyone would get to them in time.

  A few hours left to whisper, but maybe he could do something more significant. He crawled across the compartment, and began searching the low desks and cabinets riveted to the nearby wall. He quickly found half of what he needed—a writing instrument, but no blank sheets of paper. He grabbed a nearby book and tore a number of pages free. Then he dropped back into a sitting position, his back against a free section of the wall, and began to write.

  He started with a personal message to his wife. All the things he never had the time to tell her. And then he switched back to his official capacity—and dutifully noted what he had experienced, logging as much as he could for the rescue divers who would eventually find them. He noted the time, in military style: 15:45.

  As he worked, the fluorescent lights dimmed: It is dark to write, but I will try, I feel it seems we have no chance, I hope someone will find this . . .

  After that, he listed the twenty-three men who were in the compartment with him. And he continued writing, trying to continue as long as the air was still breathable: There is no need for despair . . .

  Then the lights went out. Still, in complete blackness, trying his best to ignore the terrified voices around him, he continued, doing his best to feel the pencil against the paper, knowing that his handwriting had become a nearly indecipherable crawl. The air grew thicker, his vision began to swirl, but still he wrote, for as long as he could.

  Before he finally lost consciousness, he found something plastic to wrap his note inside, then placed the package carefully in the pocket of his naval uniform.

  The last thing he did, before he closed his eyes, was whisper, one last time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  * * *

  Late August 2000,

  Office of Alexander Voloshin, chief of the

  Presidential Administration, the Kremlin

  PUSH AND PUSH AND push, and
sometimes a tree limb bends, sometimes it breaks. Sometimes it does neither of these things, sometimes it snaps back at you, with deadly force . . .

  Berezovksy paced across the small anteroom outside of Alexander Voloshin’s office like a caged animal, occasionally eyeing the heavy wooden door that led into the chief of staff’s chambers, wondering what he would face when he was finally allowed inside. It all seemed so ironic, how not long ago being summoned behind the red walls of the Kremlin had been such an honor. Now it was like a lead pipe against the back of his knees. He knew exactly why he was there, why Voloshin had sent him the urgent “invitation.” Berezovsky had forced his way to this moment from the very second that the first reports of the tragedy at the bottom of the Barents had become international news.

  The story had rightly gripped the nation and the world. Even now, two weeks later, the country was reeling from the loss of the submariners and the dramatic, often conflicting details of the explosion, sinking, and failed rescue efforts that had been played out like a soap opera in the national press. It didn’t matter that everyone knew that the young men were doomed; the suspense of knowing they were trapped at the bottom of the sea and then the need to recover their remains kept the tragic story front-page news for weeks.

  To Berezovsky, the event was more than a national catastrophe. It was an opportunity, an opening: the government was helpless to save the one hundred and eighteen men in the submarine, and the longer the salvage operation took, the worse the situation looked. Berezovsky had seized on the story as the perfect vehicle to go after Putin. There was nothing a man like Putin hated more than the feeling of impotence. And with the entire world watching, there was little Putin could do that would look effective. In fact, when the incident had first occurred, the president had been in the midst of a vacation in the summer resort at Sochi. Instead of rushing to the scene, and in his view causing more chaos, he had decided to remain in Sochi and coordinate the government oversight of the rescue attempts from there.

  Berezovsky had jumped on this decision as a sign of the president’s inaccessibility and weakness in the face of a tragedy. He had personally stepped in and pushed ORT to go relentlessly negative—attacking and criticizing the president at every turn. When confusing reports came out from the Russian Navy about what had caused the explosion—whether it had been an enemy torpedo or an accident—and whether or not there had been any survivors somehow clinging to life after the explosions had sunk the sub—ORT had put the blame squarely on Putin.

  For a time, Berezovsky’s machinations had seemed to be working. Using the distraught families of the Kursk sailors as fodder, he had launched volley after volley at the navy and the president. Televised protests and memorials led to critical newspaper articles, which led to even more protests.

  As Berezovsky had predicted, Putin had taken the criticism personally. Perhaps too personally. On August 22, the president had spoken to journalists and had specifically targeted Berezovsky in his response to those who had attacked him in the press: “They are liars. The television people who have been destroying the state for ten years, they have been stealing money and buying up absolutely everything, now they are trying to discredit the country so that the army ends up even worse.”

  Two days later, in the Financial Times, Putin went on the attack again, singling out “Oligarchs who have given money to the crew’s families”—a direct reference to Boris Berezovsky, the Times pointed out, because one of Berezovsky’s newspapers had run a charity drive aimed at providing aid to the victims’ kin—“who would have done better to sell their villas on the Mediterranean, on the coasts of France and Spain—and maybe then they could explain why the property was registered under false names and behind legal firms, and we should probably ask the question—where is it this money came from?”

  Berezovsky was stung by those words and realized that his campaign against Putin had perhaps been going a little too well. Putin’s veiled threat—changing the conversation from the sinking of the Kursk to looking into the finances of a certain Oligarch—immediately brought up thoughts of Gusinsky, now in exile. Berezovsky realized he had pushed the president into focusing on him personally, a dangerous situation.

  Then came the summons, barely a day after Putin’s frightening words, demanding that Berezovsky come to the Kremlin to talk. Now, pacing outside Voloshin’s office, Berezovsky’s insides were engaged in a battle between fear and anger; he wasn’t used to waiting, and a man of his status shouldn’t have been terrified to sit down with a presidential administrator. This was Berezovsky’s Kremlin. And this was supposed to be Berezovsky’s president. Certainly, he had forced Putin’s hand, he had poked at the president until the man had to respond. He should have been aware of the ramifications of steering ORT in that direction, but the way he saw it, he hadn’t had a choice. Putin had brought this down on himself.

  When the door finally opened, and Voloshin stepped out to officiously usher Berezovsky inside, the Oligarch’s emotions were almost at a volcanic level. He could barely hear the presidential administrator’s short welcome through the rush of blood in his ears. He marched past the taller man, ignoring the look of concern that spread across the administrator’s bearded face, and into the office, where his attention was immediately drawn to the second man, seated behind Voloshin’s desk.

  It almost took him a moment to recognize the president, the young man had changed so much since he’d taken office. Berezovsky felt he was looking at something he and Badri had dreamed up for a campaign poster. Immaculate, tailored blue suit, stiff, strong shoulders, a scowl across his youthful, confident face. Putin had much more presence than volume, and he projected a power that seemed to suck all the air out of the room. This was not the same obsequious, attentive young man Berezovsky had dined with, traveled with, and had even needed to convince to take the mantle of leadership from Yeltsin. This was no longer the reluctant heir. This man was born to wield power. And at the moment, his expression was both dismissive and angry. Even so, unlike Berezovsky, he was in control of his features and emotions. He was in control of everything. After a lifetime in the KGB, a childhood filled with judo training and street fighting, he exuded inner strength.

  Berezovsky realized that he had miscalculated again. First, he had put his money, talent, and media behind Putin, helping to put him in the Kremlin. Now he was facing off with a force of nature in a battle that he might already have lost.

  The door slammed shut behind Berezovsky, and Voloshin began to talk, his words rapid and clipped. Berezovsky kept his eyes on Putin, barely hearing what Voloshin was saying. The Oligarch’s emotions were so high, he would never be sure that how he remembered the scene had much to do with what had actually transpired or if it was a mingling of the conversation in the room, and the subtext of threats and accusations he believed were beneath the actual words. In the end, whatever the presidential administrator said, the real power was with the man behind the desk.

  Somewhere within his monologue, Voloshin reached the point of the summons and made an accusation that Berezovksy certainly couldn’t refute: Berezovsky had been using the television station ORT as his own personal megaphone. Despite the fact that he and his partners only controlled a forty-nine-percent stake in the network, Berezovsky had been controlling the content and programming, sticking his nose into the daily management of ORT for his own benefit. Voloshin had it on good authority that Berezovsky had been leaning on the general director of the network several times a day, forcing the man to replay negative coverage of the Kursk situation; furthermore, Berezovsky had corralled the on-air journalists themselves, guiding them to focus on criticizing Putin’s handling of the tragedy.

  Through his anger, Berezovsky waved off Voloshin. It was a big news story, Berezovsky said, and ORT was simply covering the drama from every angle. The journalists were simply doing their jobs, and Berezovsky had a responsibility to the people of Russia to help his network report the news. Berezovsky didn’t really care what Voloshin thought of
his methods, he wanted to know where this was leading.

  Eventually, Voloshin got to the point: “The government wants you to stop using ORT for your own benefit. You need to stop influencing management.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Berezovsky demanded. “What are you getting at?”

  His attention remained fixed on Putin, who was watching the interchange with narrowed eyes.

  Voloshin continued in a calm but direct manner: “From here on out, you will no longer be involved in management of ORT with regard to content. It’s as simple as that. As long as you are not in control, as long as you’re not influencing the shows that are on the air, you will not be a problem to us, and no more formal steps will be needed.”

  Formal steps. Berezovsky had a good idea what Voloshin meant by that. Berezovsky tried to control himself, but he was already too far gone. After the fact, he couldn’t be sure what was said, but he certainly raised his voice, his words rapid. In his opinion, this was an out-and-out threat. Even though he couldn’t be sure whether or not Gusinsky’s name had been used, he believed the implication was there: those formal steps could mean imprisonment, exile, or worse. Voloshin was asking him—no, was demanding—that he step back from his position at ORT and give up control of the network. Voloshin countered his angry storm with calmer statements of fact—that forty-nine percent did not make ORT his personal soapbox, that he couldn’t put on the air whatever he wanted. But Berezovsky only heard the threats, not the logic: he only understood the subtext. Voloshin was telling him to back off, and Putin was nodding along, because, no doubt, this was coming from the president, not his functionary. The same president who had recently spoken about ending the Oligarchs as a class.

  “This isn’t right,” Berezovsky heard himself fume. “On what authority can you make such a demand?”

  Putin rose from behind the desk, and Berezovsky went silent. The air in the room was like a scarf pulled tight.