by Ben Mezrich
Berezovsky knew how to live in style, that was for sure. The Oligarch had set himself up in a twenty-million-pound mansion in Surrey and surrounded himself with a phalanx of bodyguards that followed him everywhere. He was renting an office in Mayfair, and traveled in a six-hundred-thousand-dollar, bulletproof Maybach. They both knew that being in London didn’t make either of them safe. There was nowhere that was entirely out of reach of the FSB. But with the right security, and a careful eye for detail, Litvinenko felt sure that the two of them—Oligarch and “ex”-agent—could find a way to thrive.
To this end, Litvinenko planned to continue living the way he always had—in the gray edges, where his particular skills made him valuable. Since arriving in London, he had searched out as many like-minded actors as he could—ex-agents, Russian ex-pat “businessmen,” black marketeers, and even political refugees—including one high-profile Chechen leader who had once been labeled a terrorist by Litvinenko’s former employers. These were Litvinenko’s colleagues, his dark coterie of friends. With them, he felt at home, and through them, he was finding his way in his new environment, socially and financially.
At that particular moment, he was on the Serpentine Bridge waiting for one of those ex-agents—one of the handful of contacts he had developed, whom he never called by name—who would soon be arriving to trade information. Information, in the gray world where Litvinenko plied his trade, was the truest form of currency. It could be exchanged for real wealth, and when applied correctly, it could mean the difference between life and death. Litvinenko saw himself as an expert at procuring information—and he had no doubt, sooner or later, the right information could make all the difference, both for himself, and for his generous patron.
Looking up from the dark water, out across the sparkling lights of Kensington, the brightly burning facades of the various expensive hotels and high-end shops, Litvinenko’s smile widened. Some aspects of the Western world fit his personality even better than the East. Certainly, Berezovsky too had to feel at home, in a place that seemed to live and breathe capitalism, pulsing in its incessant quest for money. But in the end, it was beyond Litvinenko’s pay grade to try to understand what really made the Oligarch tick.
Marina still liked to joke that Litvinenko and Berezovsky were from different worlds—that the ex-agent was a member of the chorus, while Berezovsky was one of the leads—but in London, in the West, that division seemed to mean so much less. Litvinenko and Berezovsky both had opportunities ahead of them—as long as they learned how to correctly apply their particular skills.
Another car passed behind Litvinenko, throwing up dust and gravel—and then he heard footsteps on the bridge to his left. He gazed through the growing darkness as the shape of a man in an overcoat pulled tight at the neck and waist emerged. The man carried an attaché case of his own somewhere inside that coat, and Litvinenko felt that old tingle rising inside his veins. It didn’t matter where he stood on a map, this, in itself, was home.
He laughed, wondering what the handful of tourists in the distance, wandering through Kensington Gardens, might think of the two men on the bridge trading cases.
Most likely, they would think nothing at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
* * *
January 10, 2001,
Megève, Rhône-Alpes Region, France
BORIS CROUCHED LOW IN the backseat of the armored limousine, his face inches from the bulletproof side window, to stare up at the gunmetal canopy of clouds. He couldn’t be sure how long the car had been parked in that spot; he had spent the first few minutes simply gazing at the crown of mountains that surrounded them, his thoughts lost in the swirl of snow that seemed to be blowing through the heliport from every conceivable angle.
Megève was beautiful and foreboding. Berezovsky had never seen anywhere quite like it. The tiny resort town perched at the very top of the French Alps, a frozen, high-altitude junction between a half-dozen ski resorts known only to the wealthiest. A desolate, yet somehow charming quaint little town that felt like it was situated at the apex of the world, with air so thin, it made him dizzy just rising to his feet.
It had taken a drive up the side of a mountain, along a narrow, sometimes single-lane road, looking out over sheer drops and hairpin turns stacked on top of each other, just to get there. Their progress had been so slow at times, and Berezovsky had been certain he would be the last to arrive at the summit. But somehow, he was now alone at the top, his only company the swirling snow. Only the soft purr of the limousine’s engines broke the monotonous silence. Twice, his driver had gestured toward the small, enclosed café attached to the main building of the heliport, wordlessly asking if Berezovsky would be more comfortable waiting inside. And twice, Berezovsky had ignored him, his gaze pinned to the sky.
Even so, he heard their approach well before there was any change in the thick canopy of clouds. It began as a low throb, barely audible over the car’s engine. Second by second, the throb grew into a low thunder, the unmistakable sound of oversize steel rotors fighting their way through moist mountain air.
It was another minute before the first helicopter burst through the clouds, curving down toward the nearest snow-covered helipad, bright red landing lights flashing like hungry irises, intent on nearby prey. The second helicopter swooped down out of the gray just a few minutes behind the first, touching down while the initial chopper’s rotors were still spinning. A few more minutes, and finally the two sets of rotors had slowed enough for the helicopters to release their cargo. Almost in tandem, the passenger doors swung upward. Badri hopped out first, from the closest of the two, his head topped by a high, mink Cossack-style hat, most of his ruddy face obscured by the collar of a matching fur coat. Behind him, out of the second helicopter, came Roman Abramovich’s party.
Berezovksy had expected that the young businessman would come alone, but the first person out of his passenger cabin was Abramovich’s twentysomething Austrian chef. After the chef came Abramovich and his wife, Irina, each holding a hand of one of Abramovich’s young children. A true family affair. In retrospect, Berezovsky shouldn’t have been surprised. Abramovich was on holiday, and he had flown in from the Château Sevan in Courcheval, where he often spent his winters. They had, in fact, chosen Megève because it was central to the vacation spots of the Alps. Although it now felt a little off: Berezovsky here in exile, Abramovich here in the midst of his family vacation.
Berezovksy watched from the car as Badri greeted Abramovich and his family. Then the small group headed together toward the warmth of the café. Only when they had reached the door, Badri holding it open for the handsome family, did Boris finally signal to his driver that it was time to escort him along.
• • •
The café was small and quaint, walls mostly windows, tall glass panes looking out over the cascading mountains. The interior was filled with small metal tables surrounding a counter where you could order croissants, coffee, beer, and little else. But it was more than enough for their purposes. As Berezovsky entered, he saw that the chef, the wife, and the children had taken a table close to the window facing the two parked helicopters. Abramovich and the Georgian were on the other side of the café, far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard.
Berezovksy took his time reaching the table, and the conversation was already in full swing before he even sat down. Both sides had made it quite clear in advance that the meeting would be brief. Abramovich didn’t want to take much time out of his family vacation, and Badri and Berezovsky weren’t in Megève for a drawn-out negotiation. All the negotiations had already taken place; once again, Badri had been the go-between, traveling all over the world to meet with Abramovich and his bean counters. In Munich, Paris, London, they had worked over the numbers, back and forth, until there was nothing left to do but finalize the proposition. Perhaps this could have been done over the phone or on paper, but this uniquely Russian situation meant it should be done in the uniquely Russian style: face-to-face, not in a c
ourtroom with lawyers, not with papers and signatures, but between men. Unlike what had transpired at the château in Antibes, this was truly a negotiation to end a relationship.
A uniquely Russian relationship.
“One billion, three hundred million,” Abramovich said, as Berezovsky took his seat, and it almost seemed that the young man was tripping on the words.
It was a massive amount of money. At that moment, it could have been compared to the entire pension fund of the Russian Federation—maybe a quarter to half of the capitalization of Gazprom, the biggest gas company in Russia, and perhaps more than the entire current valuation of Sibneft itself. A king’s ransom, an amount that would make Berezovsky one of the richest people in the world.
Berezovsky could tell by the way Badri’s hands shook, clasped together in his lap, and the way a smile played at the corner of his lips, that his friend was equally affected by the amount. Badri had helped come up with the number, in consultation with Abramovich and Abramovich’s right-hand man, Eugene. From what Badri had told Berezovsky, the number had been conceived by adding together the payments Abramovich had been making to Berezovsky each year, projecting a decade into the future, and then taking that calculation and massaging it into something that seemed fair.
The fact that Roman was willing to hand over this enormous lump sum, a historic amount by any consideration, was, in Badri’s view, a testament to the younger man’s respect and honor of their relationship, of what they had accomplished. Because, in Abramovich’s mind, this was not a payment for future work, this was not a payment to purchase anything that Berezovsky now owned, it was a payment intended to dissolve their relationship.
What that meant, in a legal sense, was a matter of opinion. There were no official documents, there was no true paper trail that solidly defined what Berezovsky was owed or what part of Abramovich’s empire he legitimately owned, but Abramovich had come up with a number he felt was fair, a payment he believed Berezovsky should accept, in return for the ending of their partnership, for lack of a better English word. One billion, three hundred million, to never owe anything again, to end all the payments, to end their business association.
Did Abramovich also see it as an end to their friendship, too, if that word meant anything in their relationship?
Berezovsky guessed that Abramovich would not have seen their friendship, now or before, in the same terms that Berezovsky had. To Abramovich, it had been a friendship built on payments, built on krysha. Berezovsky had been Abramovich’s protection and his liaison to the Kremlin. He had helped Abramovich build an oil company. Was there a way to put a price on that? This wasn’t an English or Western partnership, there weren’t contracts or lawyers or signatures. Abramovich, in real, provable terms, wasn’t buying shares—he was buying his freedom. And he was willing to pay more than a billion dollars for it.
The conversation shifted from the amount to the mechanism. A billion dollars was not an easy amount of cash to transfer; this was not going to be a matter of overstuffed suitcases delivered by little blond accountants.
Abramovich intended to make the payments from his aluminum profits, which brought in a steady cash flow. The payments would be made in bearer shares, exchanged through a Latvian bank.
As Badri and Abramovich worked out the details, Berezovsky was unusually silent. In the past, other than at the meeting at the château, when the three of them were together, Berezovsky would dominate the conversation. Never a man to stay in the background, he had always been described as a person who loved the sound of his own voice. But in this moment, he was swept up by complex feelings.
One billion, three hundred million. He should have been ecstatic, he should have been contemplating the future with a bankroll that seemed nearly bottomless. He could live like royalty for the rest of his life, his family would be wealthy for generations. He had gone from being an outsider, born a Jew in an anti-Semitic culture, relegated to special institutions on the outskirts of Russian life—to this moment, on the verge of becoming one of the wealthiest men alive. And yet, he couldn’t feel happy.
Just as Abramovich had bought Berezovsky’s share of ORT, Abramovich was now giving him this huge sum of money to make him go away. He wasn’t offering him a billion dollars because he was significant or important—quite the opposite. He was giving him this money because he was no longer relevant.
For Berezovsky, it was the ultimate dishonor. He had always needed to be in the center of things, a lead actor, a major player.
If he wasn’t important, he wasn’t alive.
In the past, his enemies had tried to kill him with bombs, with FSB assassination orders, with criminal charges. He believed that now, they were trying to kill him with a big fat check.
And Berezovsky truly didn’t know what he was going to do next. It was a strange feeling, being without a strategy, without a mission. It felt . . . wrong.
As the meeting drew to a close after less than an hour—one billion, three hundred million dollars offered and accepted—Roman Abramovich rose, signaling his family to put their coats back on for the short walk to the helicopter. Before he followed them outside, he paused to give both Badri and Berezovsky a final, warm, Russian embrace.
In the younger man’s mind, perhaps, they were ending a business relationship, a krysha relationship, but they were parting at the same level of friendship they had always shared.
Abramovich would head back to Russia, his vacation over, and continue building his empire.
But where would Boris Berezovsky go next? Where did a man in exile go, after he was just handed a billion dollars?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
October 25, 2003,
Novosibirsk, Siberia
BARELY TWO MINUTES AFTER five in the morning, the private Tupolev Tu-154 jet was coming down fast, its engines running on near fumes, as the pair of pilots in the cockpit searched for the strip of runway, through the thick, strangely orange fog of a predawn Siberian morning.
The flight from Moscow had been uneventful, and both pilots were extremely experienced, after multiple years in the private sector, and before that, stints in the Russian Air Force. But the refueling stop in such a heavy fog at this airport at the far edge of nowhere, a well-maintained set of runways laid down over a heavy, slick permafrost, bisecting the short distance between a fuel depot and a maintenance office, would have even the most experienced pilots’ hearts pumping.
Nearby Novosibirsk was a burgeoning city, the third-most-populated metropolis in the country, after Moscow and St. Petersburg. But the Oligarch owner of the private jet—the pilots’ boss—had chosen this particular airfield specifically because it was out of the way, and thus a little more protected. To the pilots, the team of heavily armed bodyguards taking up most of the jet’s passenger cabin should have been protection enough, but this refueling stop was what the boss wanted, and thus it was what the boss was going to get.
After all, Khodorkovsky wasn’t the richest man in Russia by accident. He had built his empire from nothing, in banking, oil—God only knew what else—and in the process had become one of the most well-known names in the country. That he was now on the government’s shit list, for challenging the new regime at every step, meant little to the two men at the airplane’s controls.
Like most people the pilots knew in these uncertain times, their political loyalties lay with whomever best filled their bank accounts. At the moment, they were happily pro-Oligarch, even if it meant the slight risk of ending up in a fiery ball in the middle of goddamn Siberia.
Thankfully, both pilots spotted the stretch of runway through the heavy fog at about the same moment. The lead pilot made the necessary adjustments to their descent, and they continued through their landing ritual. A few moments later, the tires touched concrete, coughing up a thin spray of ice and burning rubber. The engines slowed, the brakes kicking in, and the plane smoothly decelerated, as the pilots steered the plane toward the refueling station. Five more minut
es, and they came to a complete stop. Outside on the tarmac, a gaggle of maintenance workers instantly moved into action.
“That’s quite a crowd out there this morning,” the copilot noticed, gesturing toward the view outside the cockpit.
The lead pilot squinted through the glass, realizing that his copilot was right. It seemed like almost three times as many refueling specialists as usual.
“Maybe it’s the night and day shift, working together. A little bit of good luck, eh? Should have us out of here in no time. The boss will be happy about that.”
“I’m not sure he has a happy setting—” the copilot started to say, but he never got the chance to finish.
There was a loud, sudden crash from behind the cockpit door at their backs, followed by intense shouting. Most of the words were muffled because of the thick reinforced door, but the lead pilot was certain he heard at least three words he understood: Drop your weapons!
And just as suddenly, a barrage of spotlights exploded across the tarmac in front of them, blasting everything in harsh, artificial light. The pilot covered his eyes with one hand, as the copilot hastily undid his seat belt.
There were more crashes from behind and then a pounding on the cockpit door. Someone was yelling for them to open it—immediately.
The lead pilot didn’t see what choice they had. His hands were shaking as he reached for the door, and it took him an extra moment to finally get it open.
The two men standing in the doorway were large, wearing black masks, but all the pilot could see were the pair of submachine guns aimed at his chest. He quickly put his hands over his head. Then one of the men had him by the hair, and he was dragged out of the cockpit. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see at least a dozen of similarly clad aggressors, crowding into the jet’s passenger cabin. All the bodyguards were on the floor or seated, held at gunpoint. And at the very rear of the plane, being led out of his seat by more masked agents—the richest man in Russia.
