Instead of a Foreword:

UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES

I learned that Sasha Litvinenko was in Turkey from the oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

A call woke me up in the middle of the night on October 20, 2000. Cursing myself for forgetting to turn off my mobile phone in the evening, I felt for it and pressed the button.

• Hello, - Boris said. - Where are you?
• In bed, at home in New York.
• Sorry, I thought you were in Europe. Is it night there?

I looked at the clock.

• Four in the morning.
• Well, sorry, I'll call back later.
• No, go ahead, what happened?

Boris was calling from his home in Cap d'Antibes in the south of France, where I had recently visited him on my way back to New York from Moscow. By that time, he had already completely fallen out with Putin, resigned his seat in the State Duma, and announced that he would not return to Russia. The conflict between him and the President over control of the ORT television channel was in full swing.

• Do you remember Sasha Litvinenko? - Boris asked.

A year before that, FSB Lieutenant Colonel Litvinenko became famous throughout Russia by declaring at a press conference that his superiors had ordered him to kill Berezovsky. After that, he was kicked out of the agencies and spent about a year in Lefortovo. I met him shortly after his release at Boris's Moscow office.

• Yes, I remember Litvinenko, - I said. - That's your KGB guy. A very nice man for a KGB guy.
• Well, he's in Turkey, - Boris said.
• You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that?
• You don't understand, - Boris said. - He ran away.
• How did he run away? Wasn't he released?
• They were going to lock him up again, and he fled while under a travel ban.
• Good for him, he did the right thing, - I said. - Better in Turkey than in Lefortovo. Although, sitting in Lefortovo is better than in Turkey. I hope he's not in prison?
• No, he's not in prison; he's in a hotel in Antalya with his wife and child. He wants to go and surrender to the Americans at the embassy. You're our old dissident, and an American to boot. Do you know how it's done?