32
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.
33
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.