Cast of Characters

Bell, Lord Tim: PR adviser to Boris Berezovsky.

Berezovsky, Boris: Former controlling partner in ORT (Russian Public Television); owner of LogoVAZ (Russia's first capitalist car dealership), and co-owner of Sibneft, a Siberian oil company. Deputy secretary of Russia's National Security Council 1996-97. Current employer of Alex Goldfarb; one-time employer of Alexander Litvinenko.

FSB: Russia's Federal Security Bureau, successor agency to the KGB.

GRU: The intelligence arm of the Ministry of Defense, an old rival of the FSB.

Litvinenko, Alexander "Sasha": A former member of the organized-crime division of Russia's FSB; denounced the FSB in 1998 after he was ordered to assassinate Boris Berezovsky. Killed by poisoning with Polonium-210 in 2006.

Litvinenko, Marina: Alexander Litvinenko's widow.

Litvinenko, Tolik: Son of Alexander and Marina Litvinenko.

Lugovoy, Andrei: Former FSB officer; Berezovsky's former head of security at ORT.

Menzies, George: Litvinenko's solicitor.

Scaramella, Mario: Italian political consultant who dined with Sasha Litvinenko the day he was poisoned.

Spetsnaz: Russian special forces.

Trofimov, Gen. Anatoly: Moscow FSB chief (1994–97), assassinated in 2005.

URPO: The FSB's Division of Operations Against Criminal Organizations in which Litvinenko once worked.

Yuschenko, Viktor: As presidential candidate, felled by a dioxin poisoning in September 2004. Currently president of Ukraine.

Zakayev, Ahmed: Former Chechen minister of culture and foreign minister, in exile since 2002. Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko's closest friend in the final years of his life; responsible for Litvinenko's deathbed conversion to Islam.