To that end, Kasperov took enormous pleasure in employing hundreds of software engineers, coders, and designers barely out of college. This motley crew of pierced-and-tattooed warriors created a magnificent dorm room atmosphere that was, no pun intended, infected with their enthusiasm. They’d seen pictures of the playful Google offices in Mountain View, California, and had become, in a word, inspired. These reporters could sense that, and Kasperov played it up for them, joking around with the staff, high-fiving them like a six-foot-five rock star with unkempt sandy blond hair that he constantly tossed out of his face. His daily glasses of vodka had turned his cheeks ruddy, and last year he’d begun wearing bifocals, but he was still young enough for an American girlfriend barely thirty-two who’d modeled for Victoria’s Secret among others. Surrounded by his youthful staff and his lover, he would defy time and live forever because life was good. Life was fun.
Without question, these uptight American journalists would refer to him as an oligarch in their reports, a continent-hopping mogul who’d made his fortune after the fall of the Soviet Union. They’d say he was a wild man who had the president’s ear and was, like the country’s other oligarchs, heavily influencing the government because of his connections and wealth. He would dismiss those shopworn claims and give them something more impressive to write about that would enthrall their readers. To begin, he would discuss the ambitious nature of his new offices in Peru and the great work he was going to do there.
They stood now on a balcony overlooking the hundreds of individually decorated cubicles and walls of classic arcade games. Banks of enormous windows brought in the snowscape and frozen Moskva River beyond. “It is wonderful, is it not?” he asked.
The reporters nodded, issued perfunctory grins, then launched quite suddenly and aggressively into their questions, as though the sheen of his celebrity and success had suddenly worn thin.
“What do you think about social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, and others?”
Kasperov refilled their vodka glasses as he spoke. “Freedom is good thing. We all know this. But too much freedom allows bad guys to do bad things, right?”
“So you don’t like Facebook.”
“I’m suspicious of these websites. We have VK here, right? It’s like Facebook clone, very popular, even my daughter who’s in college has account. But these websites can be used by wrong people to send wrong messages.”
“You said freedom is a good thing. But exactly how much freedom do you have?”
“What do mean? I have much freedom!” He gestured with his drink toward the work floor. “And so do they.”
Kasperov knew exactly what they were getting at, but he preferred not to discuss it.
In Russia, high-tech firms like his had to cooperate with the siloviki—the network of military, security, law enforcement, and KGB veterans at the core of President Treskayev’s regime. Kasperov worked intimately with the SVR and other agencies to hunt down, expose, and capture cybercriminals who’d already unleashed attacks on the banking systems in the United States and Europe. In turn, the Kremlin had given him enough freedom to become the successful entrepreneur he was, but their arrangement was their business—not fodder for American journalism.
“You work very closely with the intelligence community here, don’t you?”
“What is it they say in Top Gun movie? I could tell you, but then I must kill you, right?” He broke out in raucous laughter that wasn’t quite mimicked by the reporters.
“Mr. Kasperov, there have been some allegations linking you to the VK blackout during the elections. Some say you helped the government bring down the social media website to help quell the opposition. After all, they had struck a rallying cry on social media.”
“I’ve already commented on that. I had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. We detected no attacks on VK. None at all. We don’t know what happened.”
“And you don’t find that—to use your word—suspicious?”
“Of course I do, but it’s all been investigated and put to sleep. Don’t you have any more fun questions? If not, I have some stories to tell you.”
The journalists frowned at each other, then the taller one spoke up again: “Your company is valuable to the Kremlin, so do you think you can ever really be independent of it?”
Kasperov tried to quell his frustration. He had been told this would be an interview, not an interrogation. “There’s no problem here. We work together the same way other companies work with American government. Executive orders by your past presidents provide exchange of data between private sector and government. Your Homeland Security regulates critical infrastructure, same as we do. We’re very happy in this marriage.”
He took a long pull on his vodka, then tipped his head and led them across the balcony to his office door. He ushered them inside, and they gasped over the mementoes of his past and world travels: an African lion mount from one of his safaris; thousands of rare artifacts and gem stones meticulously arranged in glass cases; walls of software boxes written in German and Chinese; Persian rugs splayed across the floor; a basketball jersey from the New Jersey Nets in a glass case, the NBA team owned by a Russian billionaire friend; photos of himself with celebrities and world dignitaries, including American President Patricia Caldwell and the pope; and finally, his dark green dress jacket from his tenure as an intelligence officer with the Soviet Army. His desk, which was loosely copied from the one located in the reception area of the British House of Commons building and cost more than a three-bedroom house in Liverpool, had an opaque glass top and a limestone front. On it sat a picture of himself with his parents before their house, a meager shack on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.
He gestured toward a sprawling leather sofa that, when the reporters sank deeply into the cushions, made them look like dwarves. Kasperov gesticulated more wildly now as he spoke: “Welcome to my life. A poor boy from St. Petersburg. I got lucky. But you know story, right?”
One of the reporters glanced at his notes. “At sixteen you were accepted into a five-year program at the KGB-backed Institute of Cryptography, Telecommunications, and Computer Science. After graduation, you were commissioned as an intelligence officer in the Soviet Army.”
“Yes, but reason I’m here is because one day, I’m like on my computer, and it’s virus there. This is long time ago, 1989. Every time I find new virus, I get more curious. I spend hundreds of hours thinking about them, working on them. This is how I made name for myself in Soviet Army.” Kasperov glanced to the doorway, where, in the shadows, a man appeared, a familiar man whose presence suddenly dampened his mood.
“Mr. Kasperov, you’ve been touted around the world as a generous and remarkable businessman, but you have to admit, you’re surrounded by others in your country who might not be quite as honest as you are. Oligarchs, mafia . . . How do you keep yourself above all the corruption?”