The Kremlin Conspiracy

  Growing tensions between the first couple bothered Oleg deeply. He and Marina were invited to the official residence less and less often. His mother-in-law, Yulia, rarely traveled with her husband anymore. Indeed, Oleg couldn’t help but feel guilty that the surge in his own travels with the president was somehow responsible for the dramatic decline in the first lady’s. When Yulia came to visit her grandson, she was more often than not alone with her security detail. She didn’t say anything about her marital troubles, of course. Certainly not to Oleg. Perhaps she confided in Marina. But Oleg felt it too sensitive a topic to ask Marina about. So he said nothing, but he was not blind. He could see that the family strains were growing deeper. Remembering Yulia’s sourness at Vasily’s baptism, he suspected things had been going south for some time.

  What unsettled Oleg most of all, however, were the lies he saw the president communicate to his most senior advisors. The man was playing a dangerous double game with most of his cabinet, ordering them to pursue various foreign policies in various regions of the world while he was independently pursuing policies that were in direct contradiction. Wouldn’t all this catch up to him one day?

  MOSCOW—AUGUST 2013

  Oleg was already fearful about the president’s plans.

  But a late-afternoon meeting in the Kremlin when Iran’s new president arrived for a state visit turned out to be downright terrifying.

  “Welcome, my friend; you have journeyed a long distance,” Luganov said upon receiving the Persian leader in his flowing robes and Islamic headdress. “How can I be of service to the people of Iran?”

  “Your Excellency, you are too kind,” came the reply, “especially to receive me on such short notice.”

  Luganov nodded.

  “The supreme leader has asked me to express that he is most grateful for your growing and deepening alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Iranian president explained. “You have already done, and continue to do, so much for us—building the reactor in Bushehr, sending us technicians to get the reactor up and running, selling us the newest and most advanced weapons systems, providing political cover for us at the U.N., thwarting all the sinister tricks the Americans and the Zionists are trying to play.”

  Luganov nodded again but said nothing.

  “These are such beneficent and generous gifts,” the Iranian leader continued. “They are acts of kindness deeply appreciated at every level of our society and government.”

  Luganov’s icy-blue eyes bored into the bearded Iranian leader, but he did not shift in his seat. He did not stir. He remained impassive, sitting at an angle, leaning back slightly to the right, his legs spread, yet every muscle tensed, like a mountain lion feigning rest but ready to pounce when his prey least expected it.

  Oleg had seen this posture in countless meetings over the years. At first it had not bothered him. In the beginning of his service at the Kremlin, Oleg had thought Luganov was simply disinterested with the petty, pathetic problems of the guests who streamed through this ornate office. But in time Oleg realized this was not disinterest. In truth, Luganov was intensely interested in every thought and every comment of every mayor and president and prime minister and king who walked into his domain. He was an expert at lulling friend and foe alike into a false sense of ease, but in so doing he was watching for signs of weakness, probing for insecurities and areas of vulnerability.

  As for Oleg himself, his eyes no longer darted around the room as they did the first time he’d entered Luganov’s lair. He no longer studied the arched ceiling and crystal chandelier and the glass-enclosed bookshelves and the flags. He knew this room. He knew this man. That’s why he could not risk losing his focus. Despite the fact that it was the middle of a warm afternoon in August, despite the fact that the man from Tehran was droning endlessly on, despite the fact that the cup of tea on the end table beside Oleg was empty and that he was beginning to feel drowsy, he reminded himself that he needed to maintain optimum discipline.

  The Iranian leader shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “In light of all these acts of brotherhood and unity, the supreme leader has asked me to visit you and express a sense of urgency about two requests we are hesitant to put forward but about which we believe we have no other choice.”

  “Please, go on,” Luganov said, evincing no fatigue whatsoever.

  The Persian cleared his throat. “The first matter is the supreme leader’s outstanding invitation for you to come to Tehran for a state visit. I want to assure you, Mr. President, this visit would greatly honor our people and send a powerful message to our enemies around the world that our alliance with Moscow is strong and enduring.”

  Luganov gave no reply.

  “Yes, well, Your Excellency, I have . . . rather, I was hoping to discuss . . . well, another matter too.”

  Luganov waited.

  “This concerns . . . well, the S-400.”

  At this, Oleg looked up from his notes. Even Luganov seemed to stiffen.

  “The supreme leader understands, of course, that this is your most advanced surface-to-air missile system,” the Iranian hastened to add, appearing almost embarrassed. “But I have come because the supreme leader believes we need it. And we need it quickly.”

  “Why quickly?” Luganov asked.

  “I believe you know why, Your Excellency.”

  The tactic was a mistake, Oleg knew from experience. But he kept his head down and stayed focused on his shorthand, transcribing every word of the conversation.

  “Enlighten me,” Luganov said.

  “The Zionists, sir,” the Persian replied.

  “What about them?”

  “We believe the Israeli prime minister is actively considering an air strike.”

  “I was just with him,” Luganov said. “You are mistaken.”

  “Perhaps, Your Excellency. But we have reason to believe the Zionists are planning to attack the reactor at Bushehr—and ultimately all of our other nuclear research and development sites—before they become fully operational.”

  During his years of working for his father-in-law, Oleg had seen Luganov interact with dozens of world leaders, including Russia’s most important client states. But he had never seen anyone pursue military hardware more brazenly than the Iranians. They were as shameless as they were relentless. Now they wanted to buy a billion-dollar missile system—arguably the most sophisticated system in Moscow’s arsenal—with hard, cold cash, because they believed the Israelis were poised to attack their nuclear facilities before they could build the Bomb. They were asking even though they knew the Israeli government had promised Luganov they would not launch a preemptive strike in the next eighteen months unless Iran installed an air-defense system that would make a future air strike nearly impossible. Thus, by asking for the S-400 system, the Iranians were actually accelerating any timetable the Israelis might have for hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities.

  Oleg did his best not to laugh out loud as he waited for Luganov to dismiss such an audacious and impertinent request. Oleg had seen it happen before. Leaders would come to this office and overreach—sometimes by a little, often by a lot. Either way, Luganov would slap them down. The leaders would apologize profusely and change the subject, and all would be forgotten. Oleg fully expected it to happen again, but to his astonishment it did not. To the contrary, for the better part of the next ninety minutes, he watched as Luganov and the Iranian president negotiated a deal for Moscow to sell Tehran the S-400 system, a simultaneous deal for Iran to purchase North Korean nuclear testing data via Moscow, and a plan for Luganov to make his first state visit to Tehran. Oleg faithfully transcribed every facet of the negotiations, though with each passing minute, his horror grew. They were planning to set the Middle East on fire.

  Perhaps the only thing more egregious than seeing the president of Russia agree to sell the S-400 missile system to Iran was seeing the contours of the deal splashed across the front page of one of Russia’s most widely read newspapers the next morning.


  The moment Oleg picked up the paper at his front door and read the story, a shudder rippled through his body. He had no idea who at the Kremlin had leaked the deal, but he was quite sure heads were going to roll. As he drove to the office, Oleg listened to wall-to-wall radio coverage of the bombshell exclusive that was the talk not only of all Moscow but every capital from Washington to Jerusalem to Beijing.

  The article had been written by Galina Polonskaya, far and away the most respected journalist in the country. Now past fifty, the graying, bespectacled Polonskaya had long been one of the best-sourced political columnists in Moscow. Years before, she had been the first to report that Luganov was about to be plucked out of obscurity and appointed head of the FSB. Later, she broke the story that he was going to be named prime minister, and she was the first to profile his remarkable rise to power. She also broke the bribery scandal that felled Luganov’s first finance minister, and she exposed the multiple marital affairs and illegal financial payoffs from foreign petroleum companies that brought down the head of Russia’s biggest gas company, a scandal that allowed Luganov to install one of his closest friends—a man with no experience in the gas business—as the company’s new CEO. For the last two decades, she had painstakingly planted, watered, weeded, and protected her sources. Now all the seeds she had planted seemed to be yielding a bumper crop.

  Polonskaya struck Oleg as fiercely independent. She wasn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kremlin political machine. She was a courageous if lonely voice against all manner of corruption and shady political goings-on. Six months earlier, she’d written a column alleging that Luganov had amassed twenty palaces and villas, fifteen helicopters, a fifty-three-meter yacht, and nine luxury watches worth more than ten thousand dollars each since becoming president of the Russian Federation. Luganov’s press secretary completely overreacted, blasting the story as “malicious lies from the pit of hell.” Zakharov had publicly eviscerated Polonskaya as an “enemy of the truth and thus an enemy of the people” and had leaked a bogus story about how Polonskaya had been accused of plagiarizing her thesis while a doctoral candidate at Moscow State University.

  The only inaccuracy Oleg could see in the column was that Luganov actually owned eleven such watches, not nine. His father-in-law spoke about money all the time. More than politics. More than hockey or hunting or the Olympic Games, all of which he loved. Luganov had not been raised with money. His parents had lived a very modest life. Yet now he seemed obsessed with amassing an unrivaled fortune. Nothing was enough for him. His appetites were insatiable. Initially, Yulia hadn’t seemed to mind. At least she hadn’t voiced any objections. Neither had Marina. They enjoyed the finer things in life. So, for that matter, did Oleg, though he found himself increasingly embarrassed by, and at times even ashamed of, his father-in-law’s ostentatious displays of wealth, especially when most Russians were barely scraping by. It was bad for the image of the presidency. It was bad for Russia’s image overall. Yet no one inside or outside the Kremlin had the courage to raise concerns with the president, Oleg among them.

  Thirteen days after the article about Luganov’s wealth was published, Polonskaya’s husband, Mikhail—a renowned oncologist—had died in a private plane crash near the Black Sea. The entire episode was a mystery. The crash had occurred in the middle of the day, in beautiful weather, with an experienced pilot and copilot at the controls. Oleg was sickened when he heard the news, even more so when he saw the pleasure on the president’s face after Zakharov mentioned the story during a senior staff meeting. If such a fate had befallen the woman’s husband after she had exposed the Russian leader’s exorbitant wealth, what fate would now befall her for exposing the arms deal with the tyrants in Tehran? And what would happen to whoever had leaked the story?

  Oleg got into the office early. But no sooner had he made himself a cup of chai and begun returning emails than he was summoned to the office of the chief of staff. Zakharov’s executive assistant looked pale when Oleg came in. She immediately hit a buzzer on her desk and nodded to a security agent standing in front of the door to the inner office. The agent stepped aside and opened the door. The assistant gestured to Oleg, and Oleg entered. As quickly as he did, the door shut behind him.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Oleg Stefanovich?” Zakharov bellowed.

  Oleg stood there speechless. He’d known heads were going to roll, but he’d had no idea it would be his head on the chopping block.

  “How many people were in that meeting yesterday?” the chief of staff demanded, shouting so loudly Oleg was sure he could be heard throughout the entire floor. He did not wait for an answer. “Four. Just four people were in that room—the two presidents, the Iranian notetaker, and you. That’s it. Yet this morning Galina Polonskaya is telling the world all about one of our most sensitive alliances and arms deals. How is that possible? We trusted you, Oleg Stefanovich. I trusted you. Now get out. Leave. Go home. Reconsider your life. Reconsider your loyalties. If you were not the president’s son-in-law, you would already be in prison.”

  Mortified, Oleg did not even return to his office to get his briefcase or his suit jacket. Instead, he immediately took an elevator down into the parking garage and began driving around the city. He did not head home. He did not call Marina. What exactly was he supposed to say?

  Minutes ago he had been accused of breaking half a dozen laws, and those were just the ones the former lawyer could think of off the top of his head. He had been accused by the president’s chief of staff of leaking highly classified national security secrets. Surely a fair investigation would prove his innocence. But would it be fair? Or was someone out to frame him? But why? What had he done wrong? Hadn’t he been a loyal servant of the president?

  Oleg chewed on such questions for the better part of an hour as he left Moscow and began heading north. Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. His hands felt cold and clammy. Whom could he trust right now? Certainly no one at the Kremlin. That much was clear. Certainly not his parents. They nearly worshiped the president. In their eyes, Luganov could do no wrong. He was the guardian—indeed, the savior—of Russia, especially since the apartment bombings and Luganov’s brutal and unrelenting attacks on Chechnya.

  What about Marina? If there was one person he wanted to spill everything to—all his fears, his doubts, his myriad and growing suspicions—it was the wife he adored. But how could he? The woman he most loved was the daughter of the man he most feared.

  MOSCOW—21 AUGUST 2013

  Galina Polonskaya stepped into the sunshine.

  Throughout the morning and early afternoon, she’d had a string of television interviews via satellite uplinks with the BBC and CNN International and Sky News and even Israel’s Channel 2. Having just finished a lengthy sit-down interview about the S-400 deal with the Moscow bureau of the New York Times, she now put on her sunglasses and strolled down a crowded boulevard, heading to the garage where she had parked her car.

  When she reached the historic Hotel National, within sight of the Kremlin, she stopped for a moment and just stood there, staring at the building’s facade. She remembered all too well the bitterly cold December day nearly a decade earlier when the hotel had been the target of a suicide bombing. Polonskaya had been browsing the stores nearby along with thousands of other Christmas shoppers and was one of the first on the scene. She remembered the heavy snow and whipping winds. Much more vividly, she remembered the smell of blood and burnt flesh and the sight of severed body parts. It was another bloody day in a city that had seen too many of them over the years she had been reporting.

  Feeling spontaneous, she entered the lobby, looked around, found the café, and asked for a table near a window. She ordered a cup of chai and stared out at the traffic and the shoppers and didn’t want to go home.

  She couldn’t exactly explain why. She wondered if she simply couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in her big, drafty, empty house on the east side of the city, missing her husband and feeling sorry for
herself. She preferred drinking in the hum and rhythm of this metropolis. She sat there for close to an hour, people-watching, returning a few emails, sipping tea, and avoiding the inevitable.

  The gaping chasm in her soul was physically excruciating. She had met her husband at Moscow State. He was in medical school. She was studying political science and journalism. They had fallen madly in love and had remained so for almost thirty years. She couldn’t remember a fight and barely a quarrel. Now he was gone. His family wouldn’t talk to her. His parents had cut her off, accusing her of costing their only son his life because of what they called her “vain ambitions.” That had wounded her the most, not because she felt the stab of injustice but because she feared they were right.

  The only solace she seemed to find was not lying down and surrendering in the face of the czar rising in their midst. She had to keep digging, snooping, reporting, exposing. If she stopped now, she thought, her husband’s death—his cold, calculated, premeditated, and utterly unnecessary murder—would have been in vain. She had no doubt the Kremlin had killed him. Very likely Luganov had ordered the hit himself. She couldn’t say this, of course. She certainly couldn’t write it. She had no proof. Not enough to publish. Not yet. So she had to find other ways to punish Luganov. The man was a monster. He had to be stopped.

  Polonskaya finished her tea, paid her bill, gathered her handbag, and stepped outside. The sun was beginning to set. A full moon hung in the sky. The air was sweet and fresh with no humidity and a slight breeze from the west. She closed her eyes and drank in the moment. Then she walked two more blocks to the garage, fished her keys out of her bag, got in, and turned the ignition.