Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [59]
As they finished their meal that afternoon, his cell phone rang. After listening, he became pensive and told her they had to go.
“Where?” she asked.
“You will see.” He remained silent throughout the drive, absorbed in thought.
“Perhaps it was his tone, or facial expression,” recalled Marina later, “but I instantly realized that I was about to enter a new world, from which he had been trying to shield me all these years.” Sure enough, that Easter Sunday turned into a day and night of “big surprises” for her.
They drove to the apartment of Viktor Shebalin, Sasha’s colleague. There was another man there whom Marina did not recognize. While she chatted with Shebalin’s wife, the three men locked themselves up for about an hour. Then the man left, and Shebalin and Sasha, with Marina at the wheel, drove to Alexander Gusak’s home, where another of Sasha’s colleagues was already waiting. This was the first time she met Andrei Ponkin, of whom she had heard so much.
The men were edgy. Gusak paced back and forth, smoking nonstop. Marina wanted to leave the room, but Sasha waved her to stay. Then Shebalin made an announcement, the first of Marina’s shocks that night.
“They are going to arrest us on Monday, all of us.”
The man she had seen at Shebalin’s house was a source at the Federal Agency of Government Communications (FAPSI), the equivalent of the National Security Agency in the United States. He reported that he had eavesdropped on an FSB telephone conversation indicating that a group of suspects would be apprehended tomorrow at Lubyanka HQ.
“It all fits,” Sasha said. “Kovalev called me yesterday and asked all of us to come to his office at 10 a.m.”
Marina distinctly remembered the dynamics of the conversation. Shebalin was calm, but he kept ratcheting up the pressure on everyone else in the room. He insisted that the FAPSI source was reliable. Besides, taking them into custody now would be a reasonable thing for Kovalev to do, because later in the week they were supposed to give their deposition.
Gusak and Sasha argued, both extremely agitated. Ponkin turned his big head from one side to the other, agreeing with each man in turn.
Gusak, pale and panicky, insisted that it was not too late to call the whole thing off. He blamed Sasha for “getting us into this shit.” He yelled that going to Berezovsky was “the most stupid of all his stupid ideas.” He would never have allowed it had he known beforehand. Sasha yelled back that if Gusak had his way they would be “going around killing everyone Khokholkov wants dead,” which would only bring them into even deeper shit. They almost got into a fight and had to be restrained by Shebalin and Ponkin.
Marina listened in complete bewilderment. Although with every phrase the gist of the problem became more and more clear to her, she tried to comfort herself with denial. Perhaps it was just some training exercise they were talking about.
Finally Sasha got everyone to listen to him. Having talked to the Kremlin staff, he argued, they had passed the point of no return. There were two parties to the matter now: the Kremlin administration versus the FSB. “If we backtrack now,” he argued, “both will disown us, and we will be done for.” They had no choice but to stick with Berezovsky. Besides, he believed in Boris, who, after all, had beaten Korzhakov and Barsukov. He was confident that Boris would do it again.
That sounded convincing. But then again, if they were to be arrested on Monday, they wouldn’t be able to testify to the prosecutors on Wednesday. With everyone’s consent, Sasha called Boris.
“Come to my dacha right away,” said Boris.
It was five minutes to midnight.
By the time they arrived at the dacha—Gusak, Ponkin, Sasha, and Marina, but not Shebalin—Boris had summoned Sergei Dorenko, the ORT star anchor, with a camera crew.
Nine years later, as I watched these recordings in New York, I could not help imagining myself in the shoes of poor Marina, who was the sole audience to the