Death of a Dissident (2 page)

“Yes, I remember Litvinenko,” I said.

“Well, he’s in Turkey,” said Boris.

“You call at 5 a.m. to tell me that?”

“He’s fled.”

Sasha was hiding in a hotel on the Mediterranean coast with his wife and son, preparing to hand himself over to the Americans. Could I be of help, Boris inquired, as “an old dissident, and an American to boot? We believe you’re the only one who can help him.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you have the right connections.”

A few hours after Boris’s call, and after I had spoken by phone with Sasha himself, I walked into the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., for a meeting with an old friend, a Russian specialist who worked on President Clinton’s National Security Council.

A relaxed policeman briefly glanced at my ID. It was still almost a year before September 11. The U.S. presidential elections were just two weeks away and nobody in Washington cared all that much about Russia. I made it into the building in a few short seconds.

“I can give you ten minutes,” my friend said. “So what’s the urgent matter you can’t discuss over the phone?”

I told him about Litvinenko and that I was planning to go to Turkey and bring him over to our embassy.

“As an official of the U.S. government, I have to tell you that we are not in the business of luring Russian agents into defections,” he replied. “As your friend, I’ll tell you: don’t get involved. Such matters are for professionals, which you are not. There’ll be unforeseen circumstances, trust me. It can become dangerous. Once you get into this, you will not be in control. One thing will lead to another, and there’s no telling where you’ll end up. So my advice to you: Go home and forget the whole thing.”

“And what will happen to Litvinenko?” I asked, remembering Sasha’s anxious voice on the phone.

“That’s not your problem,” he replied. “He’s a big boy and he knew what he was doing.”

“What would happen if he walked into our embassy on his own?”

“First of all, they won’t let him in. They have serious security issues there. Ankara isn’t Copenhagen. By the way, what kind of documents does he have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Second, even if he does get in, he’ll be talking to consular officials whose job”—he smiled—“is to keep people out of America.”

“But he’s not an ordinary applicant for a tourist visa.”

“Well, if he can prove that, then maybe”—he hesitated, picking the right word—“
other people
will talk to him. In theory, they could put in a word for him, but that would depend …”

“On what he can offer them?”

“You got it.”

“I have no idea what he could offer them.”

“There, you see, I told you: you’re no professional.” My friend smiled at me as I got up to leave.

I had already decided not to take his advice. I had once been a dissident, a Jewish biologist in Moscow who agitated against the Soviet
regime. I had gotten out in 1975. My father, also a scientist, was a well-known refusenik who could not get permission to leave for another decade after me. Helping people escape the clutches of Moscow was in my blood. I was soon on a plane to Turkey.

If you didn’t know better, the Litvinenko family, staying in a small seaside hotel, looked like Russian tourists, typical of those who crowded the south coast of Turkey. The fit paterfamilias took his morning run on the beach, his pretty wife sported a week-old tan, and their mischievous six-year-old boy raised no suspicions among the locals, for whom tourists from the north are the main fuel of the economy.

But a closer inspection revealed the strain affecting the fugitives. It was in the way Sasha peered at every new person around, in Marina’s tear-puffed eyes, and in little Tolik’s need for constant attention from his parents.

Turkey is one of the few places where visitors from Russia can enter without a visa, or rather, by buying one for $30 at the border. Marina and Tolik had entered on ordinary Russian passports from Spain, where they had gone on a tour. Sasha’s documents were false; he showed me a passport from one of the ex-Soviet republics, with his photograph but a different name.

“How did you get it?”

“Have you forgotten where I used to work? A hundred friends are worth more than a hundred rubles, as they say.”

“But how do we prove that you’re you?”

He showed me his driver’s license and his FSB veteran card as Lieutenant Colonel Litvinenko.

“Tell me, have your watchers in Moscow discovered that you’re gone?”

“Yes, they’ve been looking for me for the past week.”

“How do you know?”

“We called my mother-in-law.”

“If you called from here, then they know you’re in Turkey.”

“I used this,” he said, showing me a Spanish calling card. “You go
through an access number in Spain so the call can’t be traced. They are thinking that we are in Spain.”

“You shouldn’t have called. I would not be surprised if they have already reported you to the Interpol for robbing a bank.”

“Listen, I had to let our parents know we’re all right. They didn’t know we were leaving.” Sasha’s light gray eyes momentarily flashed with defiance. “Damn the bastards, they’re chasing us like rabbits!”

Marina and I exchanged glances. This was his first emotional outburst over several hours of conversation, but I could see that staying calm was an effort for him.

The next day we rented a car and drove north to Ankara. We sped along the empty highway through a cloudless night in a rocky desert, and Sasha told me stories about the FSB to keep me awake at the wheel.

In Ankara’s Sheraton hotel, we were met by Joseph, a small, punctilious American lawyer, a specialist on refugee matters whom I had contacted before leaving for Turkey. Boris Berezovsky was footing the bill, so Joseph kindly agreed to fly in for a few hours from Eastern Europe, where he was on business.

Joseph explained that to claim asylum Sasha should have entered the United States first. Outside America, he could apply only for a refugee visa, and there was an annual quota. He would have to wait for months, maybe years.

“In their day, Soviet refugees were allowed into America easily,” I said.

“Well, that was the cold war,” Joseph explained. “In theory, there is an expedient form of entry, which we call ‘parole for reasons of public interest.’ You need a top-level decision for that.

“In any case, I recommend that your friends apply formally for admission as refugees, so that the documents are in the system, and then have them wait in Turkey while you go to Washington and try to pull some strings.”

“Joseph, after all, Sasha is a KGB officer and not some ordinary refugee.”

“I can tell you a secret,” the lawyer said. “The CIA keeps a stash of clean green cards. All they have to do is fill in the name. If they
need the person, he ends up in Washington in a few hours, bypassing all the immigration procedures. But that’s a deal you have to make. You give them goods, they give you protection. You have to decide: either you’re fleeing from tyranny, or you’re dealing in secrets. It’s hard to combine the two.”

I translated for Sasha.

“I have to review my portfolio,” he said sarcastically.

Joseph gave Sasha one final warning before saying good-bye. “In any case, if it comes to horse trading, be firm: your visa comes first, then you give them whatever they want.”

In the late afternoon of October 30, as the holder of an American passport, I led the Litvinenkos to the citizens’ entrance of the American Embassy in Ankara, past the line of less fortunate humans stretching along the embassy fence under the supervision of two police cars.

I had given the embassy several hours’ advance notice, so they were expecting us. A young man said, “Welcome to the United States Embassy. I am the consul. Please let me have your documents, Mr. Litvinenko.” A marine took away our mobile phones and handed us guest passes on metal chains.

We were led through an empty courtyard. Our host entered a combination into the digital lock, the metal door screeched open, and yet another marine led us into a strange room without windows. In the middle was a table with chairs, with a ceiling fan rotating overhead. A video camera stared at us from the wall, with a monitor underneath. Sasha and I exchanged glances. This was “the bubble,” the type of soundproof room that appears in countless spy novels. As soon as we sat down, the door opened and another American, around forty and wearing dark glasses, came in.

“This is Mark, my colleague from the political section,” the consul said.

Just as my Washington friend had told me, I thought. People from the consulate and “other people.”

“Well, Mr. Litvinenko,” the consul said. “How can we help you?”

The rest followed our lawyer’s scenario. Sasha told them his
story and asked for asylum for himself and his family, and the consul replied that he understood their situation and he sympathized, but embassies don’t grant asylum. As for a refugee visa, that process takes time, please fill out the form, we’ll try to speed it up, but the decisions are made in Washington.

I said that I would try to get advanced parole for them in Washington.

“That makes sense,” agreed the consul.

Despite the fan, it was hot in the bubble, and we were thirsty. Tolik grew quiet, sensing that something very important was happening. Fat tears rolled down Marina’s cheeks.

“In view of Mr. Litvinenko’s special circumstances,” I said, “there are reasons to fear for their safety. Could they be settled in some secure place, perhaps where embassy personnel live, while their case is being considered?”

“Unfortunately, we cannot do that.”

“Which hotel are you staying in?” Mark spoke for the first time.

“The Sheraton.”

“I think you’re exaggerating the danger. The Sheraton is an American site, and we are in a Muslim country. There is a threat of terrorism, so they have decent security at the Sheraton. I’d like to have a few words with Mr. Litvinenko alone.” And before I could even ask the question, he added, “We won’t need a translator.”

Sasha nodded, and we left. The consul led us to the gate, returned our passports, and wished us luck. I took Marina and Tolik to the hotel. We walked in silence past the handrails for visa seekers; by now the lines were empty. The street was still blocked off. There was no traffic, and the air was still. I glanced at high-rise buildings visible over the tops of the trees. Behind one of those windows Russian agents must be lurking, aiming their binoculars, taking pictures of us. I hoped the Americans would at least have the sense to escort Sasha back to the hotel.