A Very Expensive Poison by Luke Harding Page B

Scott, the customs officer, stopped them at Gatwick Airport. But their cover story had held up. Most importantly, the costly poison they had been given back in Russia was intact. This was polonium, a rare and highly radioactive substance. It is probably the most toxic substance known to man when swallowed or inhaled – more than 100 billion times more deadly than hydrogen cyanide.
    The next task was to deploy it. They had come to poison Litvinenko.
    Scotland Yard would never establish how Lugovoi and Kovtun carried the polonium into Britain. The amounts involved were very small and easy to disguise. There were several possibilities: a container with the poison administered by a pipette-style dropper. Or an aerosol-like spray. Even a modified fountain pen would do the trick. Within its container the polonium was safe. Out of it it was highly dangerous. Ingested, you were dead.
    Lugovoi and Kovtun, it would become apparent, had no idea what they were carrying. Their behaviourin Britain was idiotic verging on suicidal. Nobody in Moscow appears to have told them Po-210 had intensely radioactive properties. Or that it left a trace – placing them in specific locations and indicating, via telltale alpha radiation markings, who sat where. It was possible to identify anything and everything they touched: door handles, telephones, wash basins.
    These clueless assassins left numerous trails. The most vivid was radiation: subsequently tested by forensic experts, and turned by experts from the Metropolitan Police into colourful three-dimensional graphics. Another was financial: a series of clues whenever Lugovoi paid a bill with his Bank Metropol Mastercard. One other was cellular. Phone records, retrieved by detectives, showed who called whom, for how long, and when.
    And of course there were witnesses. They told a remarkable story: of two killers who, in addition to the business of murder, indulged in sight-seeing, shopping, boozing, fine dining – and flirting. During their trips to London they tried to pick up women. Without success. Surely, the KGB was better at seduction in its heyday?
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    Earlier that morning – at 11.49 – Lugovoi had called Litvinenko from Gatwick Airport. He confirmed they were meeting that afternoon at the intelligence firm Erinys, Titon’s sister company at 25 Grosvenor Street. They would be discussing a potentially lucrative new line of business regarding the energy giant Gazprom. Lugovoi and Kovtun travelled by train to central London. Theychecked into the Best Western Hotel on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the heart of Soho.
    The first rule of spycraft is not to draw attention to yourself. In Lugovoi and Kovtun’s case the reality was comically, even ludicrously, different. From the moment they stepped onto UK soil, Lugovoi and Kovtun attracted attention wherever they went. It wasn’t just that they were assassins: the problem was they looked like assassins, a pair of stage villains from FSB Casting.
    The two Russians walked through the main entrance of the Best Western Hotel. Its Yugoslav-born manager, Goran Krgo, was on duty. Lugovoi did the talking, he recalled. Their rooms weren’t ready until 2 p.m, so he suggested they go and have lunch in a café nearby. The two guests didn’t have much luggage, which was unusual, he said.
    When they came back, Lugovoi’s room – 107 – was ready. Lugovoi and Kovtun went upstairs. They emerged twenty minutes later, having swapped their casual clothes for ‘business’ attire. Their appearance prompted hotel staff to chuckle. Kovtun was wearing a silvery metallic polyester-type suit and Lugovoi was kitted out in checks. They had matched their shiny outfits with colourful shirts and ties. They wore chunky jewellery.
    According to Krgo, the two men resembled stereotypical Eastern European gangsters. ‘I remember these guests quite vividly. We were laughing. The girl who worked behind the desk was amused by the dress code … and making general comments.’ Krgo