Permanent Record(94)
“I’m his legal adviser,” Sarah answered.
The man asked me, “So you are not coming to Russia to be in Russia?”
“No.”
“And so may I ask where you are trying to go? What is your final destination?”
I said, “Quito, Ecuador, via Caracas, via Havana,” even though I knew that he already knew the answer. He certainly had a copy of our itinerary, since Sarah and I had traveled from Hong Kong on Aeroflot, the Russian flagship airline.
Up until this point, he and I had been reading from the same intelligence script, but now the conversation swerved. “You haven’t heard?” he said. He stood and looked at me like he was delivering the news of a death in the family. “I am afraid to inform you that your passport is invalid.”
I was so surprised, I just stuttered. “I’m sorry, but I—I don’t believe that.”
The man leaned over the table and said, “No, it is true. Believe me. It is the decision of your minister, John Kerry. Your passport has been canceled by your government, and the air services have been instructed not to allow you to travel.”
I was sure it was a trick, but I wasn’t quite sure to what purpose. “Give us a minute,” I said, but even before I could ask, Sarah had snatched her laptop out of her bag and was getting onto the airport Wi-Fi.
“Of course, you will check,” the man said, and he turned to his colleagues and chatted amiably to them in Russian, as if he had all the time in the world.
It was reported on every site Sarah looked at. After the news had broken that I’d left Hong Kong, the US State Department announced that it had canceled my passport. It had revoked my travel document while I was still in midair.
I was incredulous: my own government had trapped me in Russia. The State Department’s move might merely have been the result of bureaucratic proceduralism—when you’re trying to catch a fugitive, putting out an Interpol alert and canceling their passport is just standard operating procedure. But in the final accounting it was self-defeating, as it handed Russia a massive propaganda victory.
“It’s true,” said Sarah, with a shake of her head.
“So what will you do?” the man asked, and he walked around to our side of the table.
Before I could take the Ecuadorean safe conduct pass out of my pocket, Sarah said, “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to advise Mr. Snowden not to answer any more questions.”
The man pointed at me, and said, “You will come.”
He gestured me to follow him to the far end of the conference room, where there was a window. I went and stood next to him and looked. About three or four floors below was street level and the largest media scrum I’ve ever seen, scads of reporters wielding cameras and mics.
It was an impressive show, perhaps choreographed by the FSB, perhaps not, most likely half and half. Almost everything in Russia is half and half. But at least now I knew why Sarah and I had been brought to this conference room in this lounge.
I went back to my chair but didn’t sit down again.
The man turned from the window to face me and said, “Life for a person in your situation can be very difficult without friends who can help.” He let the words linger.
Here it comes, I thought—the direct solicitation.
He said, “If there is some information, perhaps, some small thing you could share with us?”
“We’ll be okay on our own,” I said. Sarah stood up next to me.
The man sighed. He turned to mumble in Russian, and his comrades rose and filed out. “I hope you will not regret your decision,” he said to me. Then he gave a slight bow and made his own exit, just as a pair of officials from the airport administration entered.
I demanded to be allowed to go to the gate for the flight to Havana, but they ignored me. I finally reached into my pocket and brandished the Ecuadorean safe conduct pass, but they ignored that, too.
All told, we were trapped in the airport for a biblical forty days and forty nights. Over the course of those days, I applied to a total of twenty-seven countries for political asylum. Not a single one of them was willing to stand up to American pressure, with some countries refusing outright, and others declaring that they were unable to even consider my request until I arrived in their territory—a feat that was impossible. Ultimately, the only head of state that proved sympathetic to my cause was Burger King, who never denied me a Whopper (hold the tomato and onion).
Soon, my presence in the airport became a global spectacle. Eventually the Russians found it a nuisance. On July 1, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, left another airport in Moscow, Vnu kovo, in his Bolivian state plane after attending the annual GECF, or Gas Exporting Countries Forum. The US government, suspecting that I was onboard due to President Morales’s expressions of solidarity, pressured the governments of Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal to deny the plane access to their airspace, and succeeded in diverting it to Vienna, Austria. There it was grounded, searched, and only allowed to continue on its journey once no traces of me were found. This was a startling violation of sovereignty, which occasioned UN censure. The incident was an affront to Russia, which couldn’t guarantee a visiting head of state safe passage home. And it confirmed to Russia and to me that any flight that America suspected me of stowing away on ran the same risk of being diverted and grounded.
The Russian government must have decided that it would be better off without me and the media swarm clogging up the country’s major airport. On August 1 it granted me temporary asylum. Sarah and I were allowed to leave Sheremetyevo, but eventually only one of us would be heading home. Our time together served to bind us as friends for life. I will always be grateful for the weeks she spent by my side, for her integrity and her fortitude.