By January 2000, with foreign investment dried up, the oligarchs no longer have any lingering incentive to treat outsiders well. Instead, they begin stealing from their own companies: “They engaged in asset stripping, dilutions, transfer pricing, and embezzlement, to name but a few of their tricks” (144).

Browder gives a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow about cheating at Yukos Oil. There he meets Elena Molokova, who works for Yukos: “I was about to rake her company’s biggest client over the coals and they had sent someone to assess the damage” (145). He feels an attraction: “there seemed to be a spark between us” (146). Later, he calls and asks her to lunch; reluctantly, she accepts.

The lunch begins awkwardly, but Browder discovers that “Elena was not merely beautiful but incredibly smart” (147), with two PhDs from Russia’s top university. He adds, “That she was working for the enemy made her fiercely attractive to me” (147).

If you were a westerner with money, “Russian girls would throw themselves at you” (147), but Elena, already well off, remains aloof. Browder invites her to dinner, where he declares that the oligarchs are monsters, but this insults Elena.