What he did remember—what he would never forget—was the deafening explosion behind him as the taxi gained speed along Guryanova Street, heading to Domodedovo International Airport. He remembered the searing fireball. He remembered his driver losing control and crashing into a lamppost. He remembered his head smashing against the Plexiglas screen dividing the front seat from the back, and the ghastly sensation of heat as he kicked open the back door of the cab. He remembered jumping out into the street, blood streaming down his face, heart pounding furiously, and looking back just in time to see a secondary explosion as his home—the drab nine-story apartment building at 19 Guryanova Street—collapsed in a blinding flash of fire and ash.
2
RUBLYOVKA, RUSSIA—13 SEPTEMBER 1999
Oleg Stefanovich Kraskin awoke in a pitch-black room.
Alone and disoriented, he was covered with perspiration. His heart raced. His hands shook. His sheets were soaked through. He could not see or hear a thing nor even remember for several minutes where he was as he tried to shake off the ghoulish images of what was only a nightmare. But what a nightmare it had been.
The great hall in which he stood—once so elegant and grand, even opulent, with its massive archways and precious oil paintings and glittering chandeliers and glorious circular staircase going up, up, up—was ablaze, shrouded in thick, acrid smoke. His eyes stung. His lungs screamed for oxygen. His skin crackled from the blistering heat as the flames raced through the structure, greedily consuming everything in their path. Walls were collapsing. Beams from the ceiling crashed to the floor. Oleg could find no path of escape. He tried calling for help but could make no sound. Yet he could hear the bloodcurdling screams of others. And one voice he recognized immediately—it was Marina, his beloved Marina. She was suffocating. She was burning. And there was nothing he could do to save her.
Oleg pushed the covers away and jumped to his feet. Standing, trembling in the utter blackness, he felt around for his glasses. When he found them and put them on, he grabbed his watch and learned that it was not yet six in the morning. Only then did he remember that he was not in his modest downtown flat but at his parents’ palatial home in Rublyovka, the tony gated enclave of Moscow’s wealthiest and most powerful families.
Stumbling to his left, two meters and then three, he reached the far wall. Then he groped about until he felt the drapes and pulled them away from the bay windows. Fresh, soft morning light flooded the room. No longer was Oleg staring into the fiery abyss of his deepest fears but into the wooded glade in the rear of his parents’ estate. With the house so still in the early dawn hours, he could hear the swallows chirping and the buzz of insects flying about.
Oleg finally began to breathe normally again. Wiping the moisture from his face and neck, he fought to regain his equilibrium. This was not a day to dread. To the contrary, it was one for which he had planned and prepared meticulously. He went back to the nightstand, fished out a cigarette from a pack he’d bought the night before, found his lighter, and took several drags until his nerves settled. When he was finished, he took a long, hot shower, shaved, and dressed in his best suit and new leather shoes. Now he could smell breakfast. He could hear his mother padding around in her slippers, and when he emerged into the kitchen, she greeted him with a kiss and a big smile.
“Come, Oleg, sit—make yourself comfortable,” she said, handing him a steaming cup of chai. “Your father wanted to join us. But you know his work. The board meets in two days. He left before dawn. But he’s proud of you, Oleg—very proud—and he cannot wait to hear how it goes. He wants you to call him the minute you have your answer. I’ve actually never seen him like this. He’s almost giddy.”
Giddy? It was not a description Oleg had ever heard applied to his father. But it made him feel good. At the same time, he was far too anxious to eat, for reasons that had nothing to do with his dream. So he apologized to his mother, kissed her on the cheek, grabbed his overcoat and briefcase, and dashed to the garage.
Moments later, he was sitting behind the wheel of his gleaming new silver Mercedes, lighting another cigarette, gunning the engine, and racing down the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway, heading east for the grueling two-hour slog through morning rush-hour traffic. Trying to get his mind off the night terrors and off the day’s business, which alone would have made him jittery, Oleg switched on the car radio and tuned in to a news station.
The news anchor said an eight-story flat along the Kashirskoye Highway had been obliterated. Oleg could scarcely believe it. How was this possible? Three bombings in ten days? By whom? And for what? The attack had happened just before sunrise, while most of the building’s residents were still sleeping. Already the hospitals were filling up with the wounded. The morgues were filling with the dead. Local authorities were telling reporters that more than three dozen bodies had been pulled from the wreckage already. Oleg had no doubt the death toll would climb throughout the day. A spokesman for the Moscow police being interviewed live at the scene said the explosion had apparently been caused by a large bomb that had been placed in the basement, near the furnace, though he cautioned the public not to jump to any conclusions before a full investigation could be completed.
It was too late for that, Oleg thought. His hands gripped the steering wheel until they were white. He was not scared. He was furious. His country was under siege, and the military would soon be striking back. That much was certain. What wasn’t clear was who the enemy was and what their motives could be. The Cold War had been over for nearly a decade. This wasn’t the Americans. It wasn’t the Brits or anyone in NATO. Then who?
Oleg’s legal training began to kick in. As the youngest partner in one of Moscow’s most prestigious law firms, he was used to asking questions, collecting facts, sifting and analyzing dates and times and places and details large and small. What exactly was known for certain? What was speculation and what was really true? What were the connections between each of the attacks, and what could they reveal about potential suspects and motives?
The first attack had occurred on 4 September in the city of Buinaksk, near the border with Chechnya. It had involved a truck bomb, not one placed inside a building. But there, too, an apartment complex had been the target. Oleg had seen pictures of it on the evening news. A five-story flat had been reduced to rubble. The TV had shown flames and smoke and charred human body parts and screaming children, faces bloodied, desperately searching for parents they would never find. Sixty-four people had been killed, and yet Oleg was ashamed to admit that at the time the whole thing had made little emotional impact on him. To Oleg, it had all seemed so far away. It was terrible—unfathomable—to be sure. But it happened in the Caucasus. What could one expect? The province of Dagestan was an unstable, war-ridden hornet’s nest. He had two cousins who had fought the Chechens in Dagestan. There was never good news from the Caucasus. So Oleg had winced but moved on.
The second attack had happened just five days later, on 9 September. It had occurred on Guryanova Street, in a poor but quiet neighborhood in the heart of Moscow, only a few kilometers from Oleg’s own flat. This wasn’t a crime in some far-flung, godforsaken outpost of the Russian Empire. This was a dagger pointed at the heart of the Russian capital.
Vasily Malenchenko, a prominent investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta, one of the city’s most influential newspapers, reported that the explosion had been caused by a large bomb in the building’s basement. Malenchenko was well-known for having excellent sources inside the police department and other state security services. He reported that the bomb had been attached to the gas furnace. He also reported that there were no solid leads yet as to who was behind the attack, but the working theory among senior officials was that this was the work of Chechen rebels.