Once Upon a Time in Russia

by Ben Mezrich

  The very fact that he had survived the car bombing five months ago marked him as special. By all accounts, he should have died. The explosion that had destroyed his car and killed his driver should have cooked him like a potato wrapped in foil. The FSB agent in charge of the investigation—Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko, a man Berezovsky found surprisingly sincere—had told him that he actually owed his life to the incompetence of his poor decapitated former employee. His driver had forgotten to lock the car doors when he’d pulled away from the curb; otherwise, Berezovsky would never have gotten out of that burning vehicle.

  Berezovsky had spent ten days on his back in a Swiss sanitarium, recovering from his burns and contemplating his place in the world. By the end of his stay, he had come to an important decision: simply being a businessman in modern Russia was no longer enough. In Russia, the walls didn’t hold up the roof; the roof kept the walls from falling in. Without a strong roof, no matter how lavish your house, it would eventually come down.

  Which was why, now, almost six months later, he had been spending nearly every day at the Presidential Club. The sprawling complex—Boris Yeltsin’s pride and joy, which he had modeled after a sporting resort he had once visited in the Urals—was much more than an adult playground. From the steam rooms to the indoor tennis courts, these were the true halls of power in the Yeltsin administration. You wanted to get something done, you didn’t go to the Kremlin—you grabbed a tennis racket and booked a court.

  Berezovsky continued the monologue he’d been engaged in for the better part of the morning. As the large man in front of him traded his towel for a tailored white shirt and gray slacks, he said, “So, you see, it makes sense from a political perspective. It truly isn’t about the money.”

  The man rolled his eyes as he went to work on the buttons of his shirt.

  “Boris, I’m not a fool. With you, it is always about the money.”

  Berezovsky smiled, though there was a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew what Alexander Vasilyevich Korzhakov really thought of him; not dislike, exactly, but pity. To Korzhakov, Berezovsky was a weak little man covered in bandages, a glorified car salesman. But Berezovsky also knew that, as much as Korzhakov pitied and ridiculed him, he couldn’t ignore him.

  Berezovsky was the only businessman who was an official member of the Presidential Club, and he had been invited to join just days after the assassination attempt, his burns still visible on his arms and face.

  “Eventually, yes,” Berezovsky conceded. “There will be money. But that’s beside the point.”

  Korzhakov laughed. “So you are going to run a TV station?”

  It did sound crazy set out in the open, so succinctly; he had built his fortune in cars. But now it wasn’t simply a fortune he was after. The changes he intended to make in his life meant he needed to branch into businesses that would give him power as well as cash. And for days now, he had been pummeling Korzhakov with his most recent inspiration.

  “Me? I’m a car salesman. But I’m certain that together, we can find someone who knows how to work a television camera.”

  Korzhakov grunted, but Berezovsky could see the calculations beginning behind the man’s eyes. Berezovsky did not consider Korzhakov his intellectual equal, not by a long shot; but the man had a certain animal intelligence that Berezovsky had to admire. His current status was evidence enough. If the rumors were true, Korzhakov was more than just an access point into the Yeltsin government. The president’s health had been fading for quite some time, and the vacuum of power was at least partially being filled by the slab of a man pulling on his pants in front of Berezovsky.

  The simplest description of Alexander Korzhakov was that he was Boris Yeltsin’s bodyguard. Since 1987, when he’d left his post in the KGB—forcibly retired, if some reports were to be believed, for his “liberal” leanings—he had been protecting Yeltsin, running a well-armed security team that now numbered in the hundreds. He had been by Yeltsin’s side for no fewer than two coup attempts—and he knew exactly how close Yeltsin’s government had come to falling. In 1991, when hard-line Communists with tanks had attempted to retake Moscow, it was Yeltsin who had climbed atop one of the tanks, like a white-haired beacon of freedom, rallying the people behind him; but it was Korzhakov who had helped the already ailing president onto the iron vehicle, climbing right up beside him for all the photographers to see. And in 1993, when Yeltsin had ordered the storming of the Russian White House to protect the fledgling government from the right-wing politicians who had been trying to forcibly turn back the clock to Communism, Korzhakov had again been by the president’s side. This time it was Yeltsin who had controlled the tanks: parking them in the center of the city, firing at the government building until it was reduced to rubble.

  Certainly, over the past ten years, Korzhakov had earned Yeltsin’s trust—and, more important, his ear.

  “Alexander Vasilyevich,” Berezovksy said, lowering his voice so the larger man had to lean in to hear him. “Moving forward, it isn’t tanks that will keep our democracy alive.”

  “Again, we are back to money.”

  Berezovsky shrugged.

  “Money, but more important than money—media.”

  Korzhakov ran the towel over what was left of his hair.

  “Ah, yes. You and your hippie newspaperman are going to save Mother Russia.”

  Berezovsky smiled, though he knew there was at least a tinge of venom behind the bodyguard’s words. Your hippie newspaperman. The description might have been used in a derogatory manner, but that didn’t make it any less accurate.

  Berezovsky’s entrance into Yeltsin’s inner circle and, indeed, the Presidential Club—had been the result of much strategy and choreography, the core of which had revolved around Korzhakov’s “hippie newspaperman,” a journalist named Valentin Yumashev. The young man—shy, handsome, and usually poorly attired—had been working at a liberal, youth-skewed political magazine—which Berezovsky’s LogoVAZ had funded as a location to place car ads. Berezovksy had always thought that the man’s talents were being wasted writing articles about democracy aimed at teenagers.

  The opportunity to use Yumashev’s skills for something more worthwhile had presented itself about a year ago, when he had been hired as a writer to pen the president’s autobiography after interviewing President Yeltsin for an article. Seeking a publisher for the book, Yumashev had eventually approached Berezovsky, who had realized that his involvement as publisher would bring him closer to Yeltsin and give him some level of entrance into the halls of political power.

  Even better, Yeltsin had immediately taken to the writer on a personal level—and, yet more significant was that Yeltsin’s youngest daughter, Tatiana, had struck up a relationship with the handsome Yumashev. Almost instantly, Berezovsky was able to ride upward with Yumashev’s fortune, and went from being an outsider to part of Yeltsin’s inner circle—a group of influence known outside the Kremlin as the Family. A man like Korzhakov—a product of the old world, a former KGB general who had made his bones in the military—might have blanched at the sight of a businessman and a twentysomething writer ascending so quickly into Yeltsin’s orbit, but there was little he could do. He mocked Berezovsky behind his back—but he had no choice but to listen when Berezovsky spoke long and loud enough.

  And this idea—this golden idea—was something Berezovsky knew was worth speaking about until his throat—or the bodyguard—gave out.

  “We aren’t talking about newspapers, Alexander Vasilyevich.”

  Korzhakov waved a meaty hand.

  “Right, your television station. As if we don’t have enough trouble with Gusinsky and his pornography as it is.”

  Berezovsky stifled the urge to spit.

  “Gusinsky’s swill is the exact opposite of what I’m proposing.”

  It was obvious that Korzhakov knew he’d hit a nerve, and his eyes told Berezovsky he was enjoying the moment.

  On paper, the two Oligarchs, Gusinsky and Berezovsky, appeared
to be cut from the same cloth—both were from Jewish backgrounds, both had risen from obscurity to great financial wealth by taking advantage of perestroika. But the mere mention of the rival businessman’s name made Berezovsky’s scars twitch beneath his bandages.

  Whereas Berezovsky had taken a roundabout route to his fortune, exploiting the inefficiencies in the car market, Gusinsky had taken a more direct approach, building a banking conglomerate with the help and protection of Moscow’s Mayor’s office. Once the coffers of Most Bank had made Gusinsky immensely wealthy, he had turned his attentions to the media, building an independent television station to rival the state-owned network—which, while a ratings behemoth, was still a clunky remnant of the Communist era. Gusinsky’s NTV might not have actually manufactured pornography, but its quest for popularity had led to programming that had ruffled feathers in the administration, especially when it had begun airing programs that took a critical view of Russia’s recent involvement in the Chechen conflict.

  “NTV is little more than a nuisance,” Berezovsky continued. “I’m talking about a real television network. ORT.”

  Korzhakov raised an eyebrow. Общественное Российское Телевидение Russian Public Television, the state-owned network, dwarfed Gusinsky’s startup. In fact, with almost two hundred million daily viewers, it was bigger than all the American networks combined. It was also leaking money, losing almost a quarter billion dollars a year. And, as everyone knew, it was one of the most corrupt institutions in modern Russia.

  “You want the president to give you ORT?”

  It was a blunt way of wording things, but Korzhakov had always been a blunt instrument. The truth was, Berezovsky had not invented the concept of privatization. The planned economy had vanished—and something needed to take its place. Privatization, the idea of taking companies away from the state and essentially handing them to financiers and businessmen, was technically the brainchild of an economist named Anatoly Chubais, a brilliant young deputy in the Yeltsin government. It had begun as a noble idea—a way to offer the nation’s resources directly to the people, in the form of vouchers that acted as stock certificates. But the voucher program had failed almost immediately, a victim of the massive inflation that had helped make Berezovsky so wealthy.

  This had led to a shift, from a voucher program aimed at the common man to options sold to the only people who had enough money left to purchase them—the small group of businessmen who had taken an early advantage in the new economy. The more desperate the government became to fund itself through Chubais’s program, the more leverage the Oligarchs attained. When one of the largest oil companies in the nation went into a privatization auction, a company valued at many billions of dollars ended up selling for close to two hundred fifty million. Timber, copper, automobiles, textiles—one after another, Russia’s major industries ended up in the hands of a small group of like-minded businessmen.

  “You’ve got it backwards, Alexander Vasilyevich. I want to hand ORT to the president.”

  Korzhakov looked at him, those blunt gears turning behind his gaze. In two years there would be another election; Korzhakov knew as well as anyone how fragile the fledgling government was. Having the nation’s largest television network in Yeltsin’s pocket might very well make the difference. And if it didn’t? Well, there were always more tanks.

  Berezovsky began to lay out his plan. He and a group of colleagues would put up enough cash to buy forty-nine percent of ORT at auction, leaving the government in charge of the majority fifty-one percent. They would use the network to prop up Yeltsin’s democratic ideals, everything building toward the 1996 campaign. Everyone was going to come out a winner.

  Almost everyone.

  “I can imagine how your friend Gusinsky is going to react.”

  Berezovsky shrugged.

  “Perhaps he will understand, it’s simply good business and good politics. Or perhaps he can be made to understand.”

  Korzhakov didn’t respond. This was not the first time Berezovsky had discussed Gusinsky in such terms; at some point in the past, he might even have used the word terminate in casual conversation. Always, Korzhakov, who had fired mortars at the Russian White House, brushed away his suggestions. Berezovsky saw no distinction between a political rival and a business rival. Both could have a change of heart when looking down the barrel of a gun.

  Sooner or later, Korzhakov would recognize Gusinsky—with the Moscow mayor in his pocket—as the adversary he truly was. If not, Berezovsky was prepared to go over the bodyguard’s head. Other members of the Family would be receptive. Tatiana and Yumashev could convince Tatiana’s father, if Korzhakov refused. After all, according to the rumors, Gusinsky had already built a private army of heavily armed bodyguards—some said over a thousand strong—stationed near and around Media-Most’s building in the heart of Moscow. Gusinsky was formidable, with the support of the mayor of the biggest city in Russia; but a mayor wasn’t the same as a president.

  “ORT,” Korzhakov mused. “A little bit of business, a lot of politics. How you’ve changed, Boris. And all it took was a bomb going off next to your car.”

  Then he jabbed his thick paw toward the bandages covering part of Berezovsky’s scalp.

  “You don’t exactly have a face for TV.”

  Berezovsky smiled, but, inside, his mathematical mind was already churning forward. It wasn’t his face that two hundred million people needed to fall in love with; he wasn’t the one running for president.

  “Let me worry about the business,” he said. “You take care of the politics.”

  Before either of these things, Berezovsky thought to himself, there was a goose that needed hunting.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  December 2, 1994, 11:00 a.m.,

  36 Novy Arbat Street, Moscow

  “NOW IT’S FOUR. DEFINITELY four. Twenty yards back, the gray Mercedes. Since about six miles ago.”

  Anton Gogol felt his fingers whiten against the steering wheel. He tried to keep his voice steady and professional, but his insides were growing tighter with each passing second. He could tell that his colleague seated next to him in the passenger seat was equally disturbed. Though eight years his senior, the “security specialist” made no effort to hide the trembling of his fingers as he slid a double-barreled shotgun out from beneath his seat and placed it gingerly on his lap.

  Then he nodded toward the rearview mirror.

  “And the other three? They’ve been with us since the dacha?”

  “Nearly that long.”

  Ivan Doctorow nodded, then spoke quietly into the transponder in his upper jacket pocket. Anton had no doubt that the bodyguards in the other two cars of their motorcade were already aware of the tailing vehicles. If anything, Anton was the least experienced among them, having joined their unit just a year ago—and only three years after he’d finished his training service with the now defunct KGB. Then again, he doubted that any amount of training would have prepared him for the situation that was rapidly developing around them.

  When Anton’s motorcade had left his employer’s country home forty minutes ago, there had been no indication that this would be anything more than a routine trip to the office. A blustery, snowy Friday in December, the sky the same gunmetal hue as the barrels of the shotgun that now sat on his partner’s lap. Anton had made this drive countless times in the past year, sometimes in the lead car, now fifteen yards ahead of him on the multilane highway, sometimes seated in the driver’s seat right in front of his employer—separated from the Oligarch by a deceptively thin sheet of smoked Plexiglas. He usually preferred the trail car, as it involved a relatively simple set of expectations. One eye on the taillights of the bulletproof limousine at the center of the motorcade, the rest of his attention on the rearview mirror and the highway behind them. Even in these turbulent times, a well-armed motorcade was enough to discourage even the most brazen of threats. On top of that, Anton’s employer’s reputation—and t
he small army he had built himself—had insulated him from the troubles of many of his peers.

  Which made the current situation all the more concerning.

  “FSB? Some subset of the local police?” Anton asked.

  Ivan shrugged.

  “Unmarked cars, foreign make. The windows are too tinted to see if they are wearing uniforms.”

  “How does he want to handle this?”

  Ivan showed no emotion beyond the slight tremor in his hands as he listened to the piece in his right ear.

  “It’s only another few miles to the office. Middle of the day, major highway at rush hour. Nobody would be foolish enough to try something here.”

  Anton nodded, though he could taste the bile rising in his throat. He wasn’t going to question his more experienced partner, but he certainly read the morning newspapers. His boss hadn’t hired half a platoon of ex-KGB men because he was hoping to fix a parking ticket.

  They continued on in silence, Anton trying to focus on his employer’s limousine. For all he knew, there were sniper rifles now trained at the back of his head. He reminded himself that the rear windshield was bulletproof, and that it was extremely difficult to hit a target from a moving vehicle. Neither thought gave him much comfort.

  Thankfully, after another excruciating few minutes, he caught sight of the off-white, high-rise headquarters in the near distance; the impressive complex was hard to miss, towering over a huge parking lot and the multilane highway. Just the sight of the building took some of the tension out of Anton’s body. As the first cars in his motorcade turned off the highway and into the parking area, Anton had to keep himself from pressing too hard on the gas. The last thing he wanted to do was overtake his employer’s limousine. Still, he couldn’t stifle the beginnings of a smile—until he noticed that Ivan, in the seat next to him, had turned a sickly shade of gray.

  Anton looked again into the rearview mirror—the four unmarked cars had also turned off the highway, drawing to a stop next to one another in the far corner of the parking lot. Anton exhaled. If the people following them had simply been trying to scare them, they would have remained on the highway.