Once Upon a Time in Russia (21 page)

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 courtroom 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?

October 25, 2003,

Novosibirsk, Siberia

B
ARELY 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 minutes, 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.

November 8, 2003

7 Down Street, Mayfair, London

“That's the war we're fighting,” Berezovsky nearly shouted, slamming a hand down against his desk, in his elegantly decorated office in Mayfair. “Khodorkovsky thought his billions would keep him safe, and that his popularity made him untouchable. And you see what happened? They took him right off his plane, and directly to prison. Do not pass go, do not collect your billion dollars. Money laundering, tax evasion, they are the bullets, but we all know who is holding the gun.”

Berezovsky pointed at his own face, covered by a unique, somewhat obscene rubber mask with Vladimir Putin's face on it. To his surprise, the American journalist sitting across from him didn't smile at the display; in fact, she looked uncomfortable, if not a little bit terrified. Her own fault—she had been the one to ask about the mask, and Berezovsky had only put it on as a favor.

The likeness wasn't perfect, but the countenance was clearly recognizable. That he had been able to find a Putin mask in a local novelty shop had been a minor coup; maybe it showed that his new, adopted homeland truly did have a growing obsession with all things Russian. Likewise, Berezovsky had been amazed at how many newspapers his picture had made it into when he had donned the mask on his way out of a local courthouse, after one of his many extradition hearings.

The list of crimes he had been accused of back in Moscow seemed to grow every day he was in exile. Even though the American journalist had listed them twice already during the interview, Berezovsky himself couldn't even keep them straight. His exile had protected him. Sadly, his friend Glushkov, from Aeroflot, couldn't say
the same thing. Selling ORT, then being paid off to “disappear” at the Megève heliport had done nothing to get his friend released. In fact, in a surreal state of affairs, just a few months after the Megève payout, Glushkov had found himself in even hotter water. During an approved visit to a hospital for blood work, he had reportedly staged an escape attempt, involving associates in phony guard uniforms; the escape had failed, and Glushkov had been grabbed by FSB agents. After this, he had been thrown back into jail, along with one of Berezovksy's security employees from ORT, Andrei Lugovoy, who had supposedly been helping Glushkov with his escape.