The Deceivers

by Alex Berenson

  Soon enough, the fight was over. He made deals with the smart ones and broke the rest. Russia was his.

  His and Nemtsov’s.

  Fedin feared no man. So he told himself. But he wasn’t sure Nemtsov was a man. The FSB director had a welterweight’s body and a full head of wavy gray hair that he wore swept back, his only affectation. He wasn’t married. When he’d been younger, there had been rumors he was gay. Those rumors had vanished. Russians spoke about Nemtsov as little as possible. They weren’t true, in any case. Not exactly. Nemtsov was neither gay nor straight. He played no favorites. Mainly, he liked to make his bedmates scream. And not with pleasure.

  Fedin learned of Nemtsov’s tastes not long after they met. The KGB residents in Prague sometimes drove their Ladas across Hungary to northern Romania, a stretch of Europe so backward it wasn’t Europe at all. Forget dollars. The East German mark passed for hard currency in those hinterlands. The officers called the excursions hunting trips. The local women would do anything for eighty marks. The gypsies made the local women look like virgins. Nemtsov invited Fedin on a trip four months after Fedin arrived in Prague. He had a fiancée in Russia, but of course he agreed.

  The station’s operations chief, a drunk named Gennady who died of exposure in St. Petersburg two months after the Soviet Union dissolved—a lot of that went around in the winter of ’92—pulled Fedin aside the day before he left.

  “The hotel’s going to be empty. Whatever you do, don’t stay next to that psycho Nemtsov.”

  “Why?”

  Gennady lifted his index finger, let it drop. “What you hear will put you off your feed.”

  Ceaușescu’s Romania wasn’t high on tourist must-see lists. Arad, a city of a hundred fifty thousand, had a single two-story hotel, the President. Fedin and Nemtsov were the only guests. The clerk gave them rooms 209 and 210, across the hall from each other. Fedin thought about asking for a different room, but he couldn’t say anything without being obvious.

  An hour after they arrived, Nemtsov knocked on Fedin’s door.

  “The women are here.”

  “What women?”

  They went down to the lobby, where twenty women waited, in all shapes and sizes. The game almost disappointed Fedin. It wasn’t even hunting, more like plucking birds from a cage. The two Fedin picked said they were nineteen, and maybe they were. They were beautiful, as long as he didn’t look too hard. He’d brought a pack of condoms, Ritexes from West Germany. He wasn’t taking chances with local rubbers.

  Nemtsov stood at the other end of the lobby, talking to a chubby woman with a boil on her nose. Not Fedin’s type, but maybe Nemtsov liked witches. Fedin wandered over, tapped Nemtsov’s shoulder.

  “See you in the morning, then—”

  Nemtsov turned. For a blink, Fedin saw something darker than murder in his eyes, something that stripped Fedin’s very humanity. Like a man looking at a bug he’s about to stomp. Then the look was gone, replaced by a plastic smile.

  “Have fun, Sergei.”

  The hotel’s walls were a single three-centimeter layer of plaster. They might as well have been cotton. Fedin and his girls were in the middle of playing when a moan from across the hall tore through their room. They looked at one another: Did you hear that? Then another moan. Louder, and definitely not pleasure.

  “Spasibo, spasibo . . .”

  Fedin had brought a Walkman with him. Gennady had told him, Bring a Walkie and you can screw the whole family and the dog, too. You don’t even have to give it to them, just let them listen. He reached for it now, but the begging stopped as abruptly as it had started. Different strokes for different folks. He went back to playing.

  A minute later: the unmistakable screech of a cracked whip. Followed by the slap of leather cutting flesh. Followed by a muffled sob. Nemtsov must have gagged her; otherwise, she’d be screaming her lungs out. The girls grabbed their clothes and ran. Fedin didn’t try to stop them.

  For the next two hours, he sat on his bed and listened to Hell’s soundtrack. Whimpers, muffled moans, begging. Slaps, punches, kicks, and the occasional low grunt of satisfaction. The whip cracked three more times. Why only three? Nemtsov must save it for special occasions. Fedin wondered if Nemtsov planned to kill her, but in that case why choose a hotel? The desk clerk stayed on duty all night, and their arrivals had been logged. Going across the hall and knocking on Nemtsov’s door didn’t even occur to Fedin. He’d have sooner booked a one-way ticket to Chernobyl.

  Finally, the door across the hall opened, and someone stepped out. The woman, probably, because the tread was slow and unsteady. Fedin closed his eyes, tried to sleep.

  The President offered a so-called full breakfast: chunks of soft gray flesh that it called sausage, brownish yellow powdered eggs, a fluorescent orange drink that was supposed to be juice. Even by Eastern European standards, the stuff was inedible. Fedin pushed it around his plate with all the enthusiasm of a line worker at Heroes of the Revolution Tractor Factory No. 6. Across the table, Nemtsov was fresh as the winter’s first snow.

  “Did you enjoy yourself last night, Comrade Fedin?”

  “I did, Comrade Nemtsov. And you?”

  “Such a treat.”

  Like they were talking about a trip to the Bolshoi. Fedin wondered if he could find an excuse to go home early.

  “Not much to do in Arad,” Nemtsov said, seeming to read his mind. “Perhaps we should drive back to Prague.”

  Fedin nearly said yes, then stopped. Nemtsov knew what he’d heard. This was a test. Fedin wasn’t sure why he cared. Nemtsov might speak perfect German and French and have a degree in physics from Moscow State University, but he was a psychopath. Maybe that was why Fedin knew he couldn’t give in. “I like it here.”

  “I knew I could count on you.” Nemtsov pulled a plastic bag from his pocket, slid it across the table.

  Inside, three pairs of earplugs. Now we’re both in on the joke. Nemtsov grinned at Fedin. He seemed to have too many teeth. If a shark could smile.

  Over the years, Fedin had learned more about Nemtsov’s tastes. He engaged in these sessions every few months. And he paid for them, though not always well. The FSB director had a cheap streak that his hidden billions couldn’t cure. Or maybe he just wanted his victims to know how little he valued them.

  He had never killed any of his conquests, as far as Fedin knew—knew being the operative word. Fedin had heard rumors of pretty Chechen fighters of both sexes captured in off-the-books FSB operations and never seen again after Nemtsov took custody of them. But no one had ever confirmed those stories. The few journalists who tried had an uncommonly high mortality rate.

  One fact Fedin did know: Nemtsov had put in a special interrogation room at the FSB’s Lubyanka headquarters with a concrete floor and a drain in its center. Agency officers called the room Nemtsov’s Stable, a name the FSB director seemed to like. Fedin had watched interrogations there and realized that the most terrifying aspect of Nemtsov’s personality was that he remained absolutely calm no matter what he was doing. He eliminated his humanity and thus did the same to his subjects. How could any human beat the Devil?

  Yet after all their years working together, Fedin trusted Nemtsov. Best to think of him as a guard dog with a nasty streak. A Doberman. Keep him fed and quartered, give him plenty of rabbits to chase down, and he wouldn’t turn on his master. He might not even realize he had a master. Plus Fedin was sure Nemtsov knew he couldn’t do Fedin’s job. He couldn’t hide who he was. Even the dim sunlight of Russian politics would destroy him. The Ivans had a taste for cruelty in their leaders, but they would recoil from Nemtsov. His darkness, his otherness.

  Nemtsov’s absolute amorality came in handy in another way, too. He would never protest that Fedin was going too far. For those questions, Fedin had other advisors. And despite his cruelty, Nemtsov was fair. He allowed everyone at the FSB one mistake, as long as it w
asn’t kept from him. He had a commitment to the truth, at least internally. Fedin understood. He lied shamelessly in public, but he demanded honesty from his advisors. In a democracy, a politician who didn’t know where he stood might lose an election. In Russia, he’d lose everything.

  As long as Fedin had Nemtsov, he had the FSB. For the simplest and most primal reason. The men inside Lubyanka saw Nemtsov up close. They feared him more than anyone else, and they respected Fedin because he didn’t fear Nemtsov.

  All this in Fedin’s mind when Nemtsov called him, asked to meet. A secret tunnel ran from Lubyanka to the Kremlin, along the way passing close to the tourists who lined up to visit Lenin’s tomb. The tunnel was lit, heated, and wide enough to accommodate two cars. During the Soviet era, the KGB joked it was really only one-way. KGB officials could use it as they pleased, but any Kremlin official sent to Lubyanka would not be coming back.

  “I have something for you, Sudar.” The word was the original Russian form of czar. Fedin never knew if Nemtsov was using it sarcastically. A question best left unasked.

  “Of course, Oleg.”

  “Four p.m.?”

  “Perfect.”

  Nemtsov was famous for his punctuality. He arrived at Fedin’s office precisely at 4. Fedin hugged him, kissed his cheeks, closed the heavy wooden double doors behind them.

  “The usual?” Fedin poured two generous shots of pepper-flavored vodka.

  “L’chaim,” Nemtsov said, their usual toast, its origins lost to history. Neither man was Jewish.

  “L’chaim.” They clinked and drank and sat on Fedin’s new couch. It was black, with subtle silver striping, made by a French company that specialized in one-of-a-kind furniture. It had cost two hundred thousand euros. It felt the same against Fedin’s rear end as every other couch.

  Nemtsov wasn’t much for small talk. The year before, Fedin had asked after Nemtsov’s mother, Martina. Nemtsov had tartly said, Yes, she has cancer, of the ovaries. They found it two months ago. She’s at the hospital in Petersburg, she’ll die in a few weeks, with all the emotion of a man talking about his dinner plans.

  “The American spy,” he said now.

  “The colonel, yes.” At this point, Eric Birman had been working for them for more than a year.

  “If his cousin Paul is president, he’ll be at the center of it.”

  “And if a horse could hire a tractor to plow, it would.”

  “The cousin can win.”

  Knowledge of democratic politics wasn’t Nemtsov’s strong suit. “The only way he gets elected is if the jihadis blow up New York, Oleg.” To Fedin’s enormous surprise, Nemtsov smiled. “Don’t tell me you know there’s an attack coming.”

  “Better, Sergei.”

  For the next half hour, Nemtsov outlined his plan. Put an FSB team of illegals into the United States with plenty of clean money. Ideally, the team would find Muslims and other Americans who could be fooled into carrying out attacks. If not, they would go ahead themselves, although in that case the attacks, obviously, wouldn’t be suicide.

  “The risks, impossible.”

  “Not if we bring the money and the team in cleanly. The Americans will be happy to blame jihadis.”

  “You think this alone will be enough to elect Birman?”

  “You’re the expert on politics. But it surely won’t help Mr. CIA.”

  That much was true. Duto’s great claim to power was the way he’d kept the United States safe from terrorism, first as the CIA director, now as president. At the least, a new wave of attacks would make him respond against Muslim terrorists. And Russia would offer to help.

  For a price, of course.

  If Duto wouldn’t cooperate? Nemtsov was right. A big attack couldn’t help but boost Birman. Terrorism was all he talked about, terrorism and Mexico. Too bad the FSB couldn’t come up with Mexican terrorists . . .

  “You’re sure they can’t trace the money?”

  “We both know there are ways to make money untraceable, Sergei.”

  True. “This team, they can pass for American? Even if they’re arrested?”

  Fedin saw he’d asked the right question. Nemtsov poured them both another shot of vodka, smaller ones. He raised his glass. Fedin didn’t.

  “In daily life, yes. Not if they’re arrested,” Nemtsov finally said. “But they won’t be. They’re too good. They find the right polezniye duraki, wind them up.” The term literally meant useful idiots. During the Cold War, the KGB had used it to refer to Communists in the West who parroted Soviet positions. “Then they disappear.”

  “Killing American civilians.” Fedin didn’t particularly care about a few hundred dead, even a few thousand. But if they were caught . . . what would the Americans do?

  “They won’t be caught, Sergei.” After so many years, Nemtsov could read Fedin’s mind. “But if they are . . . they were a rogue unit, they vanished, we don’t know who they were working for. Like the plane.” Nemtsov meant MH17, the Malaysia Airlines 777 that a pro-Russian Ukrainian militia had shot down in 2014. Two hundred ninety-eight passengers and crew had died. But no one had gone to war over MH17. No one had even stopped doing business with Russia over it.

  The Americans wouldn’t go to war either. Not without ironclad evidence. They’d be furious, yes. But these unconventional operations denied the enemy a clean answer. They provoked inquests and reports and fact-finding commissions. Not war.

  “It’ll be a treat, Sergei.”

  A treat. A strange phrase for this operation. Fedin couldn’t remember when Nemtsov had said it before. Then he could. In Romania.

  Another thought, unexpected, snuck into his mind. If everything went wrong . . . maybe the failure would give him the chance to rid himself of Nemtsov. Replace him with an FSB director who would be loyal not by choice but from necessity. Necessity was better.

  Fedin tried to banish the idea. He didn’t even like having it with Nemtsov just a couple meters away. As if the man could read his very thoughts. But there it was.

  Fedin sat back against his ridiculous couch. Raised his glass. “Don’t get caught, Oleg.”

  Nemtsov had told Fedin little about the FSB’s progress since that conversation. Fedin preferred not to know. Ignorance made his conversations with Duto easier. Besides, Nemtsov would come to Fedin only if he had a problem.

  So the attack in Dallas surprised Fedin as much as anyone. Naturally, he called Duto to offer his condolences. Duto accepted them tersely. Fedin didn’t say anything about remaking Russia’s relationship with the United States. He’d have more chances later.

  Fedin expected Paul Birman’s popularity would rise. Even so, the strength of Birman’s surge surprised him. Suddenly the Tennessee senator was the Republican front-runner. His warnings of terrorism were now prophetic, not fearmongering.

  The bigger surprise came a few days later, at what Fedin expected would be a routine meeting with Nemtsov.

  “There’s a problem with Grad.” Eric Birman. “His attitude toward what’s happening with his cousin is not what we expected.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He doesn’t want Paul to be president. In fact, his controller suspects he would sabotage Paul himself.”

  Fedin didn’t bother to ask how Eric would stop his cousin. Something sexual, no doubt. Men like Paul Birman always had histories. The more they said they loved their wives, the more sure Fedin was. Fedin wondered about killing Eric, but then they’d simply lose their source. “Can we pressure him?”

  “Controller says no. Family, you know.” Nemtsov’s tone was dull. Humans. So emotional. So difficult. “There is another way.”

  Suddenly Fedin wanted a drink. He knew before Nemtsov spoke that whatever Nemtsov was about to propose would be dangerous.

  “A surgery.” The FSB euphemism for assassination.

  “Of Eric? But he’s our source.
”

  “Not Eric. Paul.”

  “Paul—”

  “Imagine it. This man, cut down by a sniper’s bullet as he speaks about Islamic terror. His cousin beside him, trying to save him, covered in his blood. The cousin already a soldier, a hero of the War on Terror. Now he runs for president to carry on his family’s legacy.”

  “He understands this possibility?” Meaning: Is Eric Birman all right with our killing his cousin?

  “His controller thinks so. We’ll check.”

  “Madness.”

  “Eric Birman, President of the United States. Our agent. Even if he doesn’t touch any of their policies, he’ll give us every secret.”

  “And if we’re caught—”

  “If we were going to be caught, we would have been already, with the bomb. This is simple. This sniper we’ve found, he’s an ugly man. We’re giving him the sweetest honey of his life. He’ll do whatever we ask. He wants to. He’s in love.”

  “Enough to shoot a senator?”

  “Happily. His first target’s a priest.” Nemtsov smirked. “Tell you what. After he does that one, you call Duto. If he gives you what you want, forget it.”

  “I need to think about this, Oleg. Remember, we’ve already won. The Americans are furious at the Muslims. Better one step too few than one too many.”

  “As you wish, Sudar.”

  Fedin sat alone. He’d been worse than foolish to think that he could control this operation. His old friend had boxed him in like a rat. If he backed off, Nemtsov would make sure the top of the Kremlin and FSB knew, Fedin lost his nerve, missed a once-in-a-hundred-years chance. If he fired Nemtsov, he’d provoke open war inside the FSB. Fedin might win, since Nemtsov had no base outside the agency. More likely, some new shark would take advantage of the power struggle to ruin them both.

  Still. A United States senator. The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. A presidential candidate.

  Why was Nemtsov forcing this choice on him? Fedin feared the most banal of reasons. Nemtsov was bored. The Kremlin wasn’t open to him. He had long since accumulated all the power he could have inside FSB. He had no wife, no children or grandchildren, nothing to soothe his slow descent into his sixties, the sun far from set but its downward arc unmistakable. Despite his billions of dollars, Nemtsov took no pleasure in yachts or cars or art. His only hobbies were chess and making whores bleed. A false flag operation to put a Russian agent in the White House: Here was a project worthy of his talents.