Free The Wolves by Alex Berenson Page A

not for the bribes. Better to be part of the pack. Among the hunters, not the hunted.
    —
    A ND SO THE SUMMONS the night before had come as a deeply unpleasant surprise. Buvchenko was eating dinner with his newest girlfriend when his phone buzzed, a series of zeros filling its screen. The FSB used that code when it wanted to be known and answered.
    Buvchenko waved the woman out, reached for his phone.
    “Mikhail.” The voice was slurred yet commanding, a particularly Russian combination. Like the speaker was too important to bother to speak clearly.
    “Director Nemtsov?”
    For five years, Oleg Nemtsov had been Director General of the FSB. He’d won the job the old-fashioned way, by destroying his rivals. One was now serving eighteen years in a Siberian prison for “anti-Russian activities.” Another had died in an avalanche in Switzerland.
An avalanche!
Polonium poisoning was child’s play compared to burying a target under a wall of snow in the Alps without hurting anyone else. Even the old KGB would have been impressed.
    “I need to see you, Mikhail. Ten a.m. tomorrow. At Lubyanka.” The FSB’s headquarters, a stone fortress near the Kremlin.
    Buvchenko rummaged his brain, wondering what he’d done. Nemtsov’s tone suggested trouble, but Buvchenko had no thoughts of trying to flee. Nothing would anger the wolves more.
    —
    T HE NEXT MORNING , Buvchenko arrived at Lubyanka’s main entrance fifteen minutes early. He’d driven himself at dawn to the airport. He wore his best suit, handmade by an English tailor who visited Moscow to outfit wealthy Russian men who had what the tailor delicately called “border issues.”
    In the lobby, guards passed Buvchenko through a metal detector, took his phone and his Rolex, told him to wait. An hour passed before three unsmiling minders appeared. They brought Buvchenko to a windowless room that stank of the sour sweat that came with fear. The only furniture consisted of three chairs and a bare metal table. Beneath the table, brown stains circled a drain covered by a rusty grate. Buvchenko asked no questions. The men wouldn’t have answered, anyway.
    At least they hadn’t handcuffed him.
    The deadbolt slammed as they left. Without watch or phone, Buvchenko couldn’t track how long he waited. Finally, the deadbolt slidback and Nemtsov appeared. The FSB chief was in his early fifties, medium height and trim. He wore his wavy gray hair combed back from his forehead. His face was ordinary except for his eyes, which were blue and absolutely without feeling. He sniffed as he walked in, like Buvchenko was a rotting piece of meat. He was alone, no bodyguards or aides, the day’s first good sign. A thin manila folder was tucked under his arm.
    “Director General—” Buvchenko stood.
    “Sit.” Like he was talking to a dog. “Do you know why you’re here, Mikhail?”
    “No, sir.”
    “You are so stupid.” In fact, Nemtsov used the words
dolbo yeb
, a far more profane phrase. “A gorilla in a suit.” He took a photo out of the folder, slid it across the table.
    Buvchenko’s turn to curse.
    “John Wells.”
    “You know him.”
    “Three months ago, he came to me in Volgograd.”
    “Why? Not the story you told us then, the real one.”
    Buvchenko didn’t consider lying. Not to this man, not in this building. “He asked me if I knew where he could buy a nuclear weapon, or the material to make one.”
    “Did he tell you why?”
    “Because of Aaron Duberman. That Jew billionaire who owns casinos. He thought that Duberman was behind the uranium the United States found in Turkey. To be honest, I didn’t believe him. But a woman I had dealt with before, Israeli—”
    “Her name, please—”
    “She called herself Salome.”
    “And how did you know this Salome?”
    Buvchenko sensed Nemtsov knew the answer to every question he asked. “She’d bought weapons from me. I put her in touch with hackers. She paid well. This was years before.”
    “Did you know her real