Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [137]
“It’s Saturday, past midnight in Moscow,” observed Sasha. “Do you understand what happened? Surkov is not sitting in the Kremlin eavesdropping on Nemtsov’s conversations. That means the FSB monitors his phone in real time, not through a recording. It took only an hour between Nemtsov talking to London and Chubais calling him. Just imagine: an analyst must be on hand all the time to assess the contents of our phone calls, with enough brains to know what to report. Then it goes up the chain of command to a liaison officer in the FSB, then it’s passed to the duty officer in the Kremlin, who alerts Surkov. All via secure lines. All verbally, because there was no time for transcribing and filing. That means there is a whole team working, with standing orders to report all contacts with us as a top priority. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin runs the operation personally.”
Indeed, some time later, Nemtsov told a mutual friend in Moscow that Putin scolded him for the Zakayev appeal, saying he should be “vigilant against Berezovsky’s provocations.”
Weeks passed. The uncertainty over Zakayev dragged on, with the Danish court twice extending his remand. Finally, the gallant Danes came through. On December 3, citing “insufficient evidence,” the Danish Justice Ministry released him. A litany of protests came out of Moscow. “It seems Denmark has its own interpretation of how one fights international terrorism,” said a spokesman for the Russian prosecutor’s office.
“A Free Man in Copenhagen,” extolled the Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “The Kremlin warmongers, who have unleashed an inhuman war against the Chechen people, today are doing everything to neutralize those politicians who seek an end to the conflict,” said a triumphant Zakayev on the steps of the Danish jail before going back to London. But the Russians weren’t ready to let him remain free, not yet.
London, December 11, 2002: Akhmed Zakayev, facing another extradition charge—this time in Britain—is released on £50,000 ($80,000) bail posted by actress Vanessa Redgrave. Russia’s charges include kidnapping, torture, mass murder, and armed rebellion. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sharply criticizes the decision not to take Zakayev into custody, comparing him to Osama bin Laden.
It had been two years since the Litvinenkos had arrived in England. Their life had gradually taken on a rhythm and a routine. The rhythm came from Tolik’s school, to which Marina took him every morning. Sasha usually slept late after staying up in front of his computer or watching Russian videos. There was a peculiar difference between them. Marina did not miss Russia at all, except for her mother of course, and did not tend to cling to things Russian; she was wholly absorbed by her new surroundings. Sasha, by contrast, needed a daily fix of Russica: the latest news from the Internet, Russian DVDs, and Russian books. It was not that he suffered from nostalgia; the remembrance of the old country did not haunt him. But thanks to the wonders of the information age, a part of him simply kept on living in the old country. One of the reasons, of course, was that he continued to be a public figure back in Moscow. His fans and detractors argued about his books on the Internet. The Moscow bureaus of Reuters, the Associated Press, and Radio Echo Moscow kept calling for his comment. But in London, even his neighbors had no idea who he was.
Within the marriage, he and Marina gave each other room. Just as it had been in Moscow, Marina did not care that she was not a part of the world he shared with Felshtinsky and Trepashkin, Boris and Putin, the FSB and the Chechens.
His work was not entirely confined to the Kremlin’s wars, however. Toward the end of 2002 he told me that he became “involved” with a large security company specializing in risk analysis and overseas operations, run by ex-British secret service officers. He did not go into much detail, but