Some victims who managed to escape—especially Europeans—tried to explain away the kidnappings as a natural outgrowth of the abuse the people of Chechnya had experienced. But that was absurd. The truth was that kidnapping became a way of life for many Chechens. Obviously nowhere near the whole population was involved, but sometimes it seemed so.
At the same time, Chechen militants fighting for a cause became interwoven with unholy characters such as Arbi Barayev, a sadistic Chechen insurgent who, among other outrages, had decapitated four Western telecom workers—three Britons and a New Zealander—in 1998 and left their heads in a sack by a road.
Now Barayev’s nephew was standing on a theater stage in Moscow, glaring down at hundreds of terrified hostages whose lives were in his hands.
Anna Politkovskaya was in Santa Monica, California, to receive an award for courage from UCLA. Swooping into the sun-drenched lobby of her hotel, the celebrated Russian journalist was handed a message: Call Moscow.
“The terrorists want to see you,” a colleague told her.
What terrorists?
Anna turned on the television and saw news of the siege for the first time. She rang her hosts to express regrets and booked the next available flight from Los Angeles to Moscow, via New York, a grueling trip. On the way, she telephoned her twenty-two-year-old daughter, Vera, in Russia.
Here is where coincidence proved difficult to believe.
Ilya, the young bassist now sitting quietly under the watchful eyes of his Chechen captors, had been a favorite of Anna’s family since childhood. She had been like a mother, someone he could turn to for advice. More than once he had slept over on their couch after a study session with Anna’s son, who was Ilya’s best friend. For a time, Anna’s daughter had been Ilya’s girlfriend.
Mother, Ilya just telephoned me from
Ilya is in
Ilya did call back. That was one of the oddities of the hostage-taking—the Chechens’ leader, Movsar Barayev, allowed his captives to make as many cell phone calls as they wished. He saw it as a way to increase public pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate. The only limit was how much power remained in one’s cell battery.
But Barayev was not one to trifle with. He was the proud heir of his uncle Arbi, whose reputation for brutality was well known. The nephew apparently had not carried out any major operations before
From where he was sitting, Ilya had almost line-of-sight eye contact with Barayev. “Can I talk to you?” he called out. The Chechen looked over and then motioned for Ilya to approach.
“I have a message from Anna Politkovskaya,” Ilya said when he reached the stage.
“How do you know her?” the suspicious Barayev inquired.
Ilya recounted his long-standing friendship with the journalist’s family.
Barayev asked for the phone number of Anna’s daughter, then sent Ilya back to his seat.
At three a.m. in Moscow, the daughter was awakened by the ringing phone.
“This is Barayev. From
Anna had his permission to enter the theater.
For Ilya, conditions improved at once. He was allowed to roam the theater aisles, no longer forced like the rest to stay seated. He took it to mean that Anna enjoyed “undisputed authority” among the Chechens.
Ilya noticed a curious thing during his wanderings. At night, when the hostages were mostly asleep, the black widows were much less menacing. They appeared rather relaxed, unlike during daytime, when they were ultra- serious and seemingly ready to set off their belt bombs at any moment.
And there was something puzzling about the belts themselves. Ilya saw one woman reflexively pushing her thumb detonator without causing her belt to explode. Screws dropped regularly to the floor from other belts. Such observations made Ilya and some fellow musicians wonder if the belts were fake.
Anna Politkovskaya arrived in Moscow the second day of the hostage-taking. She went directly to the theater, on Melnikov Street, in the Dubrovka district. She was used to danger, having reported stories in the most remote and treacherous parts of Chechnya. But walking into a hostage situation with terrorists ready to explode bombs was quite another matter. She was admittedly frightened.
The theater was not what one might call cavernous; it was more like a large cinema house, with two decks of red-covered seats set on a slight incline down to a moderate-size stage. Anna entered the lobby area, accompanied by an elderly doctor who had volunteered to check on the condition of the hostages. There was no one in sight. “Hello, is anyone here?” she called out. “This is Politkovskaya.” There was no reply. Again she called out.
At last they heard a voice. “Are you the one who was at Khotuny?” A masked man made himself visible. He was referring to a Chechen mountain village that Anna had visited some twenty months earlier to investigate the reported presence of a brutal Russian prison camp. Yes, I was there, Anna told him.
That made her welcome, but not the elderly doctor, who was ushered out after being accused of various misdeeds. Anna went on alone until she came face-to-face with a man calling himself Abu Bakar. He was nominally Barayev’s deputy. But it was clear from his authoritative manner that the relatively inexperienced Barayev relied on him heavily for most of the crucial decisions.
Here was an opportunity to try for a negotiated settlement. Anna spoke first. She assured him she wanted to hear everything the Chechens had to say, but first the children in the audience must be released. She was instantly rebuffed. Russian soldiers made a practice of arresting Chechen males as young as twelve, Abu Bakar replied, so why should we show mercy?
At least allow the hostages to have something to drink and eat. Abu Bakar gave a little ground. He would permit juice and water to be brought into the theater, but no food. The hostages could eat the same as the beleaguered Chechen people, meaning little or nothing.
Anna could understand Abu Bakar’s bitterness. She felt that Putin had victimized not only the Chechens, but also Russian civilians, by inuring them to a vicious war, and his own military, too, by turning professional soldiers into callous killers.
What were the Chechen demands? Anna wanted to know.
There were two, Abu Bakar replied. Putin had to declare the war over. And, as a confidence-building measure, he had to actually withdraw troops from one part of Chechnya. Once those demands were fulfilled, the hostages could go home.
And what about Abu Bakar’s masked comrades and the black widows?
“We will stay here, take the fight, and die,” he said.
Anna knew there was no chance that Putin would agree. Perhaps there was some other way out. But for now, the hostages needed attention.
She returned to the street and went looking for drinks. But the Russian commandos surrounding the theater had come ill prepared to satisfy such a request—there were no food supplies of any kind for the hostages. So Anna solicited cash donations from fellow journalists and some firemen—enough to buy water, juice, and candy at a nearby kiosk. The candy was not explicitly permitted, but Anna figured that it was worth the risk. In several relays, the drinks and the sweets were carried inside.
Anna felt better after having brought some relief to the hostages. But she was newly distressed by a message whispered to her furtively by one of Ilya’s orchestra mates. Word was circulating that the Chechens intended to begin shooting captives soon.
Anna telephoned a trusted friend, Dima Muratov, her editor at
