Once Upon a Time in Russia (26 page)

Back and forth they went, sifting through the stories of their parallel rise. Listening to the stories, retold in their own words and through numerous witnesses—everyone from Abramovich's cook, who had been on that helipad in Megève, to an esteemed professor of Russian history, whom Berezovsky had called on to explain the Yeltsin regime in the context of the fall of the Soviet regime—often filled Berezovsky with sadness. That same loneliness he had felt outside of Badri's home the night of his death plagued him; the Georgian's missing presence tore at him, especially when his friend's deposition—taken in the months before he died—was read aloud in the courtroom. Even when it diverged from Berezovsky's own memories, it took Berezovksy back to a time when everything seemed possible, when he was important—when he truly was at the center of it all.

Nine months.

And yet, as the trial moved through the decades, time traveling from point to point in the timeline, cherry-picking the intense, sometimes surreal, sometimes even comical moments that best illustrated the two opposing points of view, Berezovsky began to notice, more and more, that the stories—which were gleefully picked up by the press, fresh carrion laid out for gorging vultures—weren't painting him as important, but rather, as ludicrous. One story revolved around a meeting at the Dorchester Hotel in March of 2000, attended by Berezovsky, Badri, Roman, Eugene, and aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska. There, Berezovsky claimed, a deal was struck outlining his ownership in their combined aluminum company, which he believed should have held under English law—but this
argument was overshadowed by the salacious detail that Berezovsky had apparently shown up for the meeting in his bathrobe. At another point in the trial, Berezovsky inadvertently mentioned that he had offered some of his called witnesses one percent of whatever he won in the case—a comment he quickly tried to take back. And in another line of questioning, he told the court that he'd purchased a secretly taped conversation between himself, Abramovich, and Badri for fifty million dollars; but when questioned again about the tape, he explained that he hadn't had the fifty million dollars available, so instead he'd given his source a yacht.

Worse than being called a gangster by Abramovich's side, more and more he was being made to look the fool. Instead of the gravitas he'd hoped to achieve, he felt himself being mocked. When a text he'd sent to an associate was offered into evidence—supposedly signed “Dr. Evil”—he could see the opposing side's plan for what it was: an effort to make him appear like some sort of outdated godfather figure, an absurd mobster who had already been paid billions in what was essentially a protection racket.

In the end, Berezovsky tried to convince himself that the judge would see through these machinations. He had played a significant part in Russian history. He had put two presidents into the Kremlin, and he deserved respect—and a much larger piece of Abramovich's billions. If Badri had been next to him in that courtroom, his friend would have calmed his fears, played the part of anchor, as usual, and kept him from coming even more unhinged. But Badri wasn't there; Berezovsky was forced to rely on his legal team, his girlfriend, and his experts. He truly hoped it would be enough.

Hell, nine months was time enough to turn a single cell into a human life. It was certainly time enough for an English judge to understand the importance of a man like Boris Berezovsky.

•  •  •

When the moment finally came, Berezovsky did his best to control his expression as he stared intently at the judge. He was trying to read her face, trying to see through the curvature of her eyes as she read through her notes at her bench, to the intent inside, trying to prepare himself for whatever verdict she gave. In his heart he believed she had only one choice: she had heard his story and now she was going to give him what was rightfully his—money, but also validation. The trial had laid bare the corruption of modern Russia, and the uniqueness of the Russian business environment. It had shown the world that a man from nothing, from nowhere, had used his brilliance and innate talents to build himself into the ultimate power broker—and how it had viciously been taken away by a tyrant and a former protégé, a former friend.

When the judge finally raised her eyes, a hush swept through Courtroom 26, and Berezovsky leaned forward in his seat, his heart pounding in his chest. She began to speak, legalese, first, English words that might as well have been Martian. Berezovsky found himself smiling; he could see, out of the corners of his eyes, both his team and Abramovich's team looking around at each other—everyone but the lawyers, who understood what was happening—but he kept his attention focused on the judge. Eventually, she began to make sense, her words shifting to something he could comprehend—and suddenly his entire face froze, the smile still in place, but behind it, only pain.

“On my analysis of the entirety of the evidence,” she said, “I found Mr. Berezovsky an unimpressive and inherently unreliable witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be molded to suit his current purposes. At times the evidence
which he gave was deliberately dishonest; sometimes he was clearly making his evidence up as he went along . . . at other times, I gained the impression that he was not necessarily being deliberately dishonest, but had deluded himself into believing his own version of events. I regret to say that the bottom line of my analysis of Mr. Berezovsky's credibility is that he would have said almost anything to support his case.”

From there, she continued to the details of the case. For twenty minutes, maybe more, she spoke, but Berezovksy was already gone, his mind swirling away from that courtroom, away from the pain of what he considered a personal attack on his character, on his memory, on his life. Abramovich had won the trial, that was obvious. But it was almost irrelevant. The judgment was not only about billions—money that Berezovsky desperately needed to support his lifestyle—but about how the world would see him from this point on.
Dishonest, unreliable, a gangster, a liar.

Worst of all, the word that struck him like a blow to his very soul:
unimpressive.

As the judge finally finished speaking, as Courtroom 26 began to clear, Berezovsky remained still as stone, rooted to his seat.

It was clear to him now. He had truly lost everything.

March 22, 2013,

Four Seasons Hotel, Park Lane, London

F
ROM WHERE BEREZOVSKY WAS
standing, in a darkened corner at the very end of the long, black-lacquered bar, half leaning against the edge of a chest-high chair paneled in a deep crimson velvet, he could just make out the pianist's fingers as they trickled along the ivory keys, following the pattern of notes behind a tune decidedly jazzy in nature, something Western and light and airy, but still with a hint of depth, lilting scales that went on forever, rising above the noise in the crowded, elegant lounge, above the clink of glasses and the clang of silverware, of couples chatting, businessmen discussing deals, tourists consulting maps and considering museums, churches, restaurants. Music that should have been nothing but background, somehow elevated to the point where it was all Berezovsky could hear.

He wasn't certain why he was still in the bar. The Four Seasons was quite close to his office, easily within walking distance; even so, of course his car was waiting outside, engine running. He could also have headed home, to his mansion in the suburbs, or perhaps to the flat he kept in the city. He could have headed out of London, to any
number of places. Well, any number of places that didn't have any sort of extradition treaties with Russia, that weren't in the midst of the relentless machine gobbling up more of his assets, confiscating his houses or boats or cars.

But the engine that had powered him for so long—the adrenaline that had kept him running at such incredible speed, rushing from one thing to another, a bullet train, a man who couldn't keep still within his own skin—had finally seized, shut down, gone cold. And here he was, standing in a bar just a few blocks from his office, thinking through the short interview he had just given moments before.

It had been the first time he'd spoken to anyone in the press since the trial. In fact, he'd essentially hidden himself away for the past seven months, since that horrifying verdict, refusing most visitors, not answering any mail, even changing his phone number. He wasn't sure why he had finally relented. Maybe he'd realized that at the very least, he needed to try to put his thoughts out loud; maybe, somehow, speaking would organize the swirling chaos that now dominated his mind.

The reporter, a native Russian, a competent, intelligent journalist by the name of Ilya Zhegulev—had, ironically, been from the Russian edition of
Forbes
—the same magazine Berezovsky had sued for libel for suggesting that he was some sort of gangster. Since then, Paul Klebnikov, the journalist who wrote that piece—and coined the label “Godfather of the Kremlin”—had been gunned down outside the
Forbes
office in Moscow. On July 9, 2004, he'd been shot nine times with a semiautomatic pistol, then taken to a nearby hospital in an ambulance that didn't have any functioning oxygen tanks—only to bleed to death in an elevator that had somehow become stuck for over fifteen minutes in the hospital basement. Klebnikov's murder
remained unsolved, even though many fingers had pointed at Berezovsky.

But Berezovsky was beyond caring about irony; he wasn't sure what had made him finally acquiesce to speak with the Russian writer—and, in retrospect, going back over what he had said, he knew that it would have taken more than a quality journalist or an experienced linguist to decipher what he'd been trying to say. From the very beginning, he'd realized that maybe he'd been wrong to think he was ready to make any sort of statement. Throughout the interview, he'd continually asked that it be off the record.

If he remembered the conversation correctly, he'd started off by both attacking and praising Badri; trying to explain recent press reports that he and Badri had gone through some sort of financial “divorce” before Badri passed away, which had resulted in the lawsuit and settlement with Badri's widow. And then the conversation had shifted quickly to his own despondence at his current state—the mistakes he'd made, the miscalculations that had led him in the wrong direction since he'd left Russia. He'd told the reporter how much he missed his homeland, and how badly he wanted to return. Not to the political world, not to challenge Putin or fund a revolution or fight for democracy. Just to return home.

It wasn't simply an old man's musings after a year of tragedies, financial, personal, and legal. At some point between the end of the trial and that night at the Four Seasons, Berezovsky had taken this idea—this sudden dream—and had tried to find a way to make it a reality. To that end, he had shut himself into his office on Down Street, had sealed the double doors and set the combination, then had sat at his desk and written a letter—to Vladimir Putin.

In the letter, he had pleaded his case directly to the president. He had asked the man—the same man he had spent the past thirteen
years vilifying, attacking, threatening, and blaming for countless murders—to forgive him for his actions in exile, to allow him to return to Russia. To pardon him, as a Christian, to allow him to spend his remaining years in his homeland. In the letter, he promised to stay out of politics, to be a simple mathematician. Perhaps to teach at some university, inspire a new generation to think mathematically. Even in this letter, he hadn't been able to resist offering up his services—if the president should need them—as an adviser, to help with running the country. But in the end, it was a simple request to let him come home.

He had sealed the letter in an envelope, and had passed it along to a person he knew would be able to deliver it—and had waited for a response.

As of that evening, he had heard nothing back.

Exactly, he thought, what he should have expected. A powerful man like Putin, receiving the letter of an
unimpressive
man.

Perhaps he should have ended the letter the same way he'd ended the interview with the young journalist from
Forbes
.

“I don't know what I should do,” he'd told him, seeming to sink beneath his black scarf and into his dark turtleneck sweater, like a turtle into its shell. “I am sixty-seven years old. And I don't know what I should do.”

I lost the meaning, he had said. The meaning of life.

Maybe he hadn't understood what he had meant. Maybe the only people who could truly understand were those who had been there, throughout it all. The players, big and small.

Alone in the bar of crimson and black, he closed his eyes and concentrated on those fingers against ivory, the scales that seemed to go on forever.

March 23, 2013,

Ascot, Berkshire, England

S
EVENTEEN MINUTES PAST THREE
in the afternoon.

A carpeted hallway bisecting the second floor of a sprawling, gated mansion in one of the most exclusive suburbs of London.

A man in a dark suit took the last few steps of the hallway at a near sprint, then hit a locked bathroom door shoulder first. The wood splintered like a bomb going off, and then the man was inside, shoes skidding against the tiled floor.

Almost immediately, he saw the body. Fully dressed, splayed out across the tiles, slight of frame but already beginning to bloat. Even from across the room, the man in the suit could make out the intense bruising around the corpse's neck, as well as the ligature digging into the skin just above the mottled throat.
A dark scarf, his favorite, according to his family, which he wore almost daily, whatever the weather.
Similar material hung from a metal shower rail, directly above.