The Mingrelian

by Ed Baldwin

  “Cautious fellow.”

  “With good reason,” Ferguson said. “The information he’s passing to us is so specific, it would identify the source within the Iranian nuclear program. We think it’s coming out through the People’s Mujahedin of Iran – it's called MEK in Farsi – a leftist Islamic revolutionary organization opposed to the radical Islam of the current regime.”

  “Linking the MEK with anyone in Georgia would tip the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran, the VEVEK, to their only viable opposition. They could roll up the whole resistance movement in Iran.”

  “So an Islamic organization is giving up Iran’s nuclear secrets. Why?”

  “The whole nation is Islamic, but there are a lot of people there who take a tamer view of Islam. They want to get along in the world without galloping off on a jihad mission every time someone draws a picture of the Prophet, and they don’t want to die in a nuclear exchange with Israel or the United States.”

  “It could come to that?”

  “Hell, yes, it could come to that! Boyd, the Israelis have nukes with a hair trigger pointed at Iran. One missile shot over the Persian Gulf in their direction, and the fight’s on. Our president would get a call in the middle of the night just about the time the first nukes detonated. We’ve got treaties with Israel and other Persian Gulf nations that require us to support them. We’d be in it from the first shot. Then what happens?”

  “How does this information I’m supposed to get fit into that?”

  “If we or the Israelis are to have a chance to counter a first strike, or launch a pre-emptive strike we need to know just where their nukes are and how they’re being deployed,” Ferguson said. “Once they’ve got nukes, they’re going to be much tougher to deal with. They could threaten to take out Saudi Arabia or Turkey, staunch allies of ours, if we made a move in their direction. We’d have to take that threat seriously.”

  “How close are they?”

  “Close. They have enough fissile material to make several bombs, but they don’t have a nuclear trigger yet. That’s the hard part of making a nuclear weapon. Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear triggers, and they could sell a few or teach the Iranians how to build some. That’s part of the embargo, to try to seal Iran off so they can’t import any nuclear triggers.”

  “So, the Mingrelian might not be Mingrelian at all, just an Iranian using that name.”

  “True, but Iranians who are allowed to travel freely outside Iran watch each other pretty closely,” Ferguson said. “It’s like the old Soviet Union, you couldn’t get permission to travel unless the regime trusted you, and there had to be pretty good reason for you to go someplace. They didn’t do casual travel, and the Iranians don’t either. Its diplomats, commerce and spies. That’s about it for Iranian travelers.”

  “I don’t see how I’m ever going to find this guy.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to. He’ll find you.”

  Chapter 14: A Dangerous Game

  S

  weat ran from Lado Chikovani’s armpits and soaked into his shirt, fortunately hidden by his conservative black suit jacket. That was the only external sign that his cool demeanor was a front. He was sitting in Eskander Khorasani’s office at the Petroleum Bank of Iran, just down the street from his own bank, Kartvelian National Bank in Old Town in Tbilisi.

  “And so, there have been breaches of security associated with the transportation and marketing of our foreign trade.” The speaker was a senior official with the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran, the universally feared VEVAK. Like the Gestapo of Nazi Germany and the KGB of the Soviet Union, VEVAK is the enforcer of a totalitarian regime. Deeply set, ratlike eyes peered over a long thin nose and were framed by the traditional medium trimmed beard mandated for Islamic men in Iran. He was in town to check up on the growing number of Iranian expatriates in Tbilisi, and intimidation appeared to be his favorite tool.

  “We have security issues also,” Lado said in fluent Farsi.

  It had been 20 years since his little bank, insignificant among the hundreds of other little banks trying to form after the breakup of the Soviet Union, had been given a hand by Iranian businessmen.

  “Our relationship with the current regime in Iran is being scrutinized as never before,” Lado said. Aggressive talk, but he needed to take some pressure off Eskander. Dangerous to look scared in front of this rat-faced predator.

  “Current regime?” The dark eyes searched and threatened at the same time. Lado put out of his mind the vision of Ratface driving nails into the skull of a prisoner to punish and to get a confession of disloyalty to the all-powerful Ayatollah.

  “Your political leadership has antagonized the Americans and Europeans, important trading partners for Georgia,” Lado said. “I remind you that we face ruin if our ‘special relationship’ with Iran is discovered. So, we are interested in security also.”

  Don’t give this inquisitor a chance, Lado told himself. Georgia is a sovereign nation with secure borders guaranteed by larger nations that could squash Iran like a bug.

  “We continue to facilitate your commerce in the face of certain prohibitions imposed upon you,” Lado went on, softening a bit. Let’s be strong but not enough to piss this guy off, he thought.

  “My bank is grateful for the 20 years of close association with Iran and looks forward to our continually profitable partnership” Lado said. “Issues of ideology are not as important to us here in Georgia as, perhaps they are in your country. Profit is our motive.”

  “Profit, yes,” Ratface said.

  Did his eyes lighten up a bit? Did he want a bribe? No, that would be a trap for sure.

  Eskander, looking relieved, said, “Mr. Chikovani’s bank is becoming one of our most important conduits for constrained resources.”

  “Constrained resources?” Ratface asked.

  What a dunce, Lado thought. They send this guy in here to nose about, and he doesn’t even understand what we’re doing.

  “He launders our oil money,” Eskander said, now with a derisive tone to his voice. They didn’t use that term, even here in the office, but with some people you have to be blunt.

  Lado said, “We have been given certain assurances by the government of Iran that our relationship was secure. Have you reason to suspect that trust has been breached?”

  Lado knew he was being foolhardy now, pushing this guy by suggesting that the security breach was in Iran and not in Georgia.

  “No, the security of our financial dealings remains strong,” Ratface said. “My visit here concerns issues of loyalty. We have reason to suspect some of our expatriate businessmen may have been passing state secrets to foreign powers.”

  Oh, that spewed ice water all over Lado’s bravado.

  Eskander got pale again.

  Now it was out in the open. This wasn’t about banking regulations and money laundering. Now they were playing in a game in which players are eliminated for disloyalty. Suddenly, and with a frightening vigor, friends and family are called in, imprisoned, tortured, executed.

  Lado and Eskander were both players in that game. Did VEVEK know that? Lado was suddenly jelly inside.

  Ratface said, “We feel the need to more closely monitor our expatriate workforce. For that reason, we want to have access to the account data of Iranian nationals doing business in Tbilisi. Your two banks have, I believe, the majority of that business.”

  A positive development; they didn’t know about Lado and Eskander, they just wanted to spy on their own citizens.

  “Highly unusual and completely contrary to Georgian banking regulations,” Lado said, heart still in his throat but taking an aggressive posture again.

  “Regulations you are already violating, I believe,” Ratface retorted immediately.

  “With great care and considerable effort.”

  “For which you are compensated.”

  “Yes, well, compensation is the issue then,” Lad
o said.

  Yes, let this guy think Lado is just another corrupt capitalist. Which, it dawned on him then, was true.

  “Yes, compensation does seem to come up in conversations such as this,” Ratface said. “I’m not empowered to negotiate your compensation for providing us the information we require, only to open the dialogue. As for your bank, Mr. Khorasani, you are a branch of an Iranian bank with headquarters in Tehran. Permission has already been granted and compensation, if any, will be addressed at that level. Permission has also been granted for your cooperation in assisting Mr. Chikovani in complying with our request and in transmitting that data to Tehran, if it pleases Allah.”

  “Yes,” Eskander said, looking a little confused. “I haven’t had any communication from Tehran on this matter.”

  “No, not through the usual channels on a matter this important. Perhaps the next time you visit Tehran you will be informed,” Ratface said, taking a paper out of his coat pocket and handing it to Eskander. “Here is the list of individuals we wish to monitor for unusual transactions, and the office in Tehran where the information should be forwarded each month.”

  *****

  Lado’s hands shook as he placed his fedora just so on his head, looking at his reflection in the plate glass window of the Petroleum Bank of Iran as he pushed open the door. He walked quickly to a bar across the street. He’d made it to the elevator ahead of the VEVEK minister, not wanting to appear to have any post-meeting collusion with Eskander. That would come later. The minister was just coming off the elevator behind him.

  “Vodka,” Lado said before he even reached the bar. He threw back the first shot and put his glass back on the bar. Cold and neat, he felt the vodka hit bottom. The bartender was quick with another icy shot, and he threw that down. Nerves calming, he ordered some smoked fish and crackers and moved to a table in the rear.

  Why was he risking his life and the lives of his family and friends by playing spy with Iranians? It had started innocently enough, and now he had no choice. His family’s future was at stake. It hinged on his definition of family.

  Intrigue and conflict had been a fact of life for Mingrelians for a thousand years, and it would be no different now that it was Lado Chikovani’s turn. Leaders of a small principality at the crossroads of Europe and Asia must be agile and clever. A Mingrelian prince worked with the Turks to undermine the occupation of the Persians; a later prince appealed to the Russians to expel the Turks, another abdicated and became Russian aristocracy when Georgia was annexed by the Czar. Mingrelians embraced socialism when the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar, and Joseph Stalin, a peasant from Gori, Georgia, rose to control all of the Soviet Union with his chief of the secret police, Lavrently Beria, a Mingrelian. Georgian culture is at the core of Russian literature and music, and Mingrelians are at the core of Georgian culture.

  Lado threw back another vodka and covered a cracker with a piece of smoked fish. He looked out through the windows at the street as he took it in one bite.

  A small principality on the shore of the Black Sea has an outsize influence in the world because Mingrelians actively contribute to Georgian culture and commerce, but Mingrelians marry Mingrelians, honor their history and traditions, stick together, and speak a second language only they understand. Lado considered as family anyone who could trace their bloodline back to the 17th century, honored the traditions and taught their children Mingrelian. He was their point man, the prince who would ensure their survival and success into the next generation. It was his turn on the hot seat.

  “Fight when you can win, hide when you can’t,” his father had told him. A simple rug merchant tolerated by the communists as a cultural necessity in a far-flung corner of the empire, he’d been the Godfather of Old Town in Tbilisi. He colluded with uncles and cousins working within the Soviet machine to ease the advancement of fellow Mingrelians during a 70-year Russian occupation. Hiding within the system, and with those contacts, the family had prospered. When the Soviet Union faltered, it was Mingrelians who led the overthrow of Russian domination in Georgia. And the first president of the new Republic of Georgia was Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a Mingrelian.

  Chapter 15: The Rug Shop

  “I

  ’m going to have a look over here,” Boyd said to Bud Weidman as they made their way down Erekle II Street in the Old Town section of Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. As the aircraft commander, Bud had insisted they stay together on any shopping trips. He had the responsibility to keep aircrew members out of trouble when stopping in foreign cities. They’d been told the rug shops were on this street, and they all wanted to look for that special Asian rug for their homes. Half a dozen crew members, all in casual civilian attire, ambled down the street in a gaggle, taking pictures, laughing, sampling the food carts and generally looking like the tourists they were.

  Boyd had been given a specific address, just down the street from an old church they’d stopped to photograph. The Mingrelian had been very specific. He wanted a contact with no connection to the CIA or the embassy, and he wanted to know the actual identity of that contact, and to see a picture, both formal and some snapshots. When told his contact would be one of the pilots of the embassy rotator, the Mingrelian had agreed and insisted he have the embassy run schedule so he’d know when Boyd was in town. It had all been posted on that secret webmail account set up just for him. Boyd felt naked as he crossed the street and entered a rug shop. His instructions included that he must buy a rug, and use his credit card.

  A bell on the door alerted two young women in modern Western attire giggling in a back corner behind a stack of rugs. One had a loom across her lap, and both were tying knots on a red and blue rug while they talked and watched something on a smartphone. One called to the rear in a tongue Boyd didn’t recognize.

  “I want to buy a rug,” Boyd said as an old man came from the back of the shop.

  “Yes,” the old man nodded at Boyd, pointing to a display area surrounded by stacks of rugs. His eyes searched Boyd. He nodded again and said something to the rear.

  A woman said “Yes?” as she came through the curtain, some papers in her hand.

  Boyd was stunned. He’d never seen a woman so beautiful. He’d heard of “Circassian beauties,” describing peasant women of the Northern Caucasus along the Black Sea coast; the legendary beauties of Ottoman harems and European opera houses. He’d seen pictures of the Georgian dancers in their traditional dress, with their perfect creamy skin and startling deep, dark eyes. But this woman exceeded all that.

  “Uh, um, a rug,” he said, embarrassed at being embarrassed.

  “We have lots of rugs,” she said, eyes laughing, smile breaking out. In a moment, the awkwardness had become their private joke. She knew him. He knew it. The younger girls in the back were already back into their teenage world, and the old man was gone.

  “Something like this,” he said, pointing to a mostly dark red, 4-by-6 rug on the top of a stack nearby.

  “Pakistani; cheap,” she said as she pulled it off the pile and tossed it toward the back. Her eyes challenged him. “Be a buyer,” they seemed to say.

  “I want something authentic for my home, something worthy of my journey,” Boyd said. That sounded a bit formal, but consistent with a buyer’s attitude.

  She smiled and nodded, leading him past the stacks at the front to one nearer the rear.

  He picked up the top rug, a darker, almost plum-color red with a tight geometric design.

  “Bokhara, from Turkmenistan,” she said. “This one is from the Soviet period; well made but standardized.”

  He nodded and she pulled it from the stack and set it aside. He found another, a brick-red with a less intricate but brighter design.

  “Armenian, from Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Interesting, but not well made.”

  She enjoyed being tested. The store had a thousand rugs, and no two were alike. Did she know every one? He looked closer. She remained the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen,
flashing eyes that defied color description – sometimes brown, sometimes green. The light played games with them, and the eyes played games with him. Her hair was deeply brunette but not jet black, with a few single strands of gray.

  “Your English is very good,” he said, mainly to look directly into her eyes and have her do the same.

  “It should be, I studied in London.”

  “Rugs?”

  “London School of Economics. Banking,” she said, like he’d served what he’d thought would be an ace and she’d slammed it back.

  And there was shape. She wore a black full skirt with a dark blue blouse open at the neck, and no jewelry. He dared not look below her chin.

  “Something local,” he said, dragging his attention back to the rugs.

  She threw off several rugs from the top of one stack and came to a brightly colored but mostly red geometric rug a bit smaller than the Bokhara, with a looser weave. She looked at it a moment, then spread it on the floor.

  “Borchali. It’s from the Kazak area in southern Georgia, not as fine as that Bokhara or a Persian, but typical of the area, well made and unique.”

  “I’ll buy it.”

  “You didn’t ask the price,” she said, eyes teasing him again.

  “Oh, yes, how much?”

  “For you,” she paused, looking him up and down, “five hundred dollars.”

  “Oh, I want a deal.”

  “OK. Four hundred eighty dollars,” she laughed.

  “Done.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her his MasterCard.

  She grew serious looking at it, and then looked at his face again.

  “Do you have a photo ID?” A hint of fear crept into her eyes.

  He produced his brown, official U.S. government passport. She looked at it quickly, holding it down away from the front windows, and then handed it back to him as if she wanted it out of sight. She walked to the cash register at a nearby counter.

  “There you are, Chailland!” The front door flew open, and Bud Weidman and the whole crew barged in like it was all a raucous fraternity party. “We thought you’d been abducted.”