The Mingrelian

by Ed Baldwin

  “As part of the Soviet Union, all land belonged to the state. This was a collective farm,” he said, motioning to the land around them. “The Dadiani Palace became a museum.”

  He stood to wave at some new arrivals.

  Driving here the day before, Boyd had followed the map Ekaterina had given him and been stopped at the gate down the hill. Two guards had taken his official U.S. government passport and compared the name to a list they had. They were not locals, and their weapons and the ease with which they held them indicated that this was a profession and not a part-time job. They spoke to each other in Russian. Traffic was backed up on the road below, and now six guards were checking credentials.

  “We Mingrelians were good Russians, dedicated to socialism and the worker’s paradise,” Lado said, resuming his story. “But, we Chikovanis have been traders for hundreds of years, buying rugs from Iran, Armenia and Turkey and selling them in Europe and Russia. I learned Russian in public school, Mingrelian and Farsi at home. My first trip to Iran was when I was 12, and we bought that beautiful Mashad that Ekaterina showed you on the floor of my father’s shop.”

  “Ekaterina seems to know her rugs,” Boyd said, remembering the two he’d bought from her.

  “She has a good eye,” Lado said. “She worked in the shop when she was young, but she works in the bank now. She was there to meet you. I was being watched.”

  Lado stood to peer over the railing. Seeing no interest in his activities, he pulled another package of cigarettes from his robe and lit up.

  “My grandfather was a minor government functionary in this district, and my father ran the family import business in Tbilisi. I went to Moscow University. But we remained Mingrelians.”

  Lado sat back down on the edge of the couch and looked intensely at Boyd.

  “We’ve been here, on the Colchis Plain, on this land and in these valleys in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains at the eastern end of the Black Sea, for 3,000 years. We’ve been occupied by the Greeks, the Romans, Turks, Mongols, Persians and the Russians. But we’re still here!”

  “And you’re still Mingrelian.”

  “Yes!” Lado said triumphantly. Then he stood and called some instructions to his older son, Giorgi, below.

  Within minutes, Giorgi came with a bottle of wine and three glasses. He opened the wine and poured them each a small glass. It was, after all, still midmorning.

  “It is from here,” Giorgi said in faltering English. He pointed to the vineyards on the other side of the house. “Good, no?”

  “Yes, very,” Boyd said. It was a heavy red wine, sweeter than he expected.

  A tirade in Migrelian came up at them. Mariami had heard about the wine. Giorgi hurriedly finished his glass and retreated down the stairs. Boyd could hear him catching grief from his mother for giving his father wine so early in the day. Lado lay back on the couch, cigarette undetected, and enjoyed a long pull.

  “There were no banks during the Soviet time,” he said. “Marxism doesn’t permit finance capitalism. When the Soviets left, I wanted to start a bank. It was a natural extension of our trading business, and I went to London for a semester to study finance. My father had some money saved, very little.

  ”We started it there, across from the palace,” he said, pointing down to the town of Zugdidi. “We made loans to people to buy cows, tractors, fences. The government wasn’t sure how to handle banks, so the rules were loose. There were hundreds of little banks. It looked like we’d better get big quickly or we’d be swallowed up. Many of the other banks took in foreign partners and were soon bought out. I wanted to keep my bank for my family. I moved to Tbilisi to open a branch. I met an Iranian businessman through contacts we had in Iran. He was my first foreign depositor. My business with Iran grew, and today …”

  He paused to take a sip of wine and look down to see guests still arriving and being greeted.

  “Today, we are very successful, and we are still independent.”

  “So, why do you ...” Boyd started.

  Lado held up his hand before Boyd finished his sentence. He nodded. He knew he was being vetted, but even here, 180 miles from Tbilisi and in as controlled an environment as one could imagine, he was careful when speaking of what he had done. He looked over the railing again.

  “There is a resistance movement in Iran,” Lado said. “They are people of commerce, like we Chikovanis, who wish to continue their traditional trade with the rest of the world. Iran has much to offer – carpets, oil, industry, agriculture. They are hiding within the bureaucracy, like we did during the Soviet time, looking forward to the day when Iran will be free from the mullahs. Some brave people are risking their lives to keep the dream of a free Iran alive. I have agreed to help them.”

  “Do you know what is being passed?”

  “No details.”

  “Do you trust your contact?”

  “I do. My contact is very afraid right now.”

  Boyd leaned in toward Lado and whispered, “It isn’t just nuclear weapons. There is another ayatollah.”

  “Yes, Ayatollah Mashadi. He is very well known in Iran,” Lado whispered.

  “So you knew about that part?”

  “Oh, yes. Ayatollah Mashadi used to be on television in Iran. He drew large crowds when he spoke, filled stadiums, had a popular website to answer questions about the Holy Quran. Then, one day last year, he disappeared. He’s in jail.”

  There was a commotion downstairs as a group of men arrived and were greeted loudly by Giorgi and Ekaterina.

  “I must meet these people,” Lado said, standing and waving over the rail. “Do you ride? Ekaterina is a very good rider and we are proud of our horses.”

  *****

  She wore riding breeches, high leather boots, and a loose peasant blouse cinched with a wide leather Cossack belt. After hearing of Boyd’s limited riding experience, she selected a large bay gelding for him, while she took a black Arabian and bolted out of the riding stables across the pasture, her shoulder length hair trailing in the wind.

  Struggling to hold on, Boyd caught up when she reached the fence a half-mile above the villa. He’d been afraid she would leap the fence, and he knew he wasn’t up for that.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said, catching her breath.

  They looked out across the green valley and the town below.

  “You grew up here, in this villa?” Boyd asked.

  “No. Our business at the bank has been very good just the past few years. We had a house in town and one in Tbilisi when I was young. This,” she said, waving her arm toward the pasture, vineyard, and fields, “is all new.”

  She dismounted and opened the gate. Boyd led her horse through and she closed it. They walked their horses through the brush on the hillside above the pasture.

  “There was no financial infrastructure when the Russians left,” Ekaterina said. “Nobody had any money, and all the land belonged to the government. It took a dozen years for our political situation to work out whether we were to be a Marxist state, socialist or capitalist. We’re a hybrid right now. The government has encouraged investment in land and equipment, and with our success with the bank, it seems logical.”

  “You’re becoming farmers, then.”

  “No. My father brought in a successful farmer from Zimbabwe as a partner to run our farms. He is very capable.”

  “Pretty ambitious,” Boyd said, curious at the complexity of all this.

  “My father,” she said, stopping for a moment and looking back along the trail toward the villa, “is a dreamer.”

  She sat, pensive for a moment. The moment passed and they rode on.

  They toured the farms and the vineyards and returned just as the music started. A large, festive crowd filled the yard. Cooks were grilling pieces of meat over an open fire, wine was being opened, beer was flowing, a receiving line snaked onto a wide patio beside the house where people paid their respects to Lado Chikovani.


  “I must hurry,” she said, riding back to the stables.

  In the few minutes it took to water and feed the horses and take a quick shower, the crowd had doubled. Tables groaned with platters of food, including one on crushed ice mounded over with fresh caviar flown in from Moscow that afternoon.

  The music paused, and Ekaterina walked to the stage in front of the musicians and spoke to the crowd in Mingrelian. They applauded, and the youngest of the boys Boyd had seen at the ballet appeared from the side, dressed in the gray chokha. Straight and proud, he walked toward the stage. He was met by a girl, a year or two older, dressed in the white dress and veil he’d seen on the female dancers at the ballet. The music started and they circled, beginning the traditional dance.

  Ekaterina found Boyd at the edge of the crowd.

  “My son, Niko Dadiani.”

  *****

  Dabney St. Clair, dressed in an evening gown, swept into the German Embassy on the arm of Maj. Rick Shands, who was dressed in his Marine Corps mess dress uniform. She felt it was quite an entrance. They were formally announced as they came to the head of the receiving line and were introduced to the German ambassador and his wife.

  “Some wine?” the major asked, nodding toward the bar.

  “Something light,” she said, eyes scanning the crowd. She’d had a couple glasses at the embassy while getting dressed. Farhad Shirazi smiled from across the room.

  “Delightful to see you here,” Shirazi said as they met in the middle.

  “Yes. This is such a lovely evening.”

  Shands approached with her wine. She took it and introduced him to her Iranian counterpart. Shands took the hint and excused himself. His only remaining responsibility for the evening was to be sure she got home.

  “So much excitement at your embassy last week,” Shirazi said as they moved to a corner of the large room. “I hear you’ve enlarged your security team.”

  “Enlarged? Oh, Chailland, yes. He’s the new deputy chief of security.”

  That wasn’t classified, was it? She would need to be careful here.

  “Was that before the, ah, excitement?”

  “No. He just got here.” She wrinkled her brow. When did Chailland show up? She suddenly recalled an image of a bloody Boyd Chailland passing quickly through the embassy after the ambulance that Rick Shands had called whisked the wounded man away, yet it was days later that he showed up with all his gear on the regular embassy run. It just now dawned on her that her feeling that she’d seen him before was true. It was the day of the shooting.

  “The ambassador was out of town, I’ve heard,” Shirazi said, studying her face carefully while he changed the subject.

  “Yes, left me in charge and waltzed off to a vacation with his family.”

  “I saw you on television.”

  “Yes, well, that was my responsibility, to control an unexpected crisis.”

  Dabney looked out across the room, exuding confidence now. She’d proved herself in a sudden, trying situation and felt entitled to gloat a bit. She was willing to give Shirazi some bits of inside information; after all, she expected this meeting to result in a significant diplomatic contact.

  “So, you gave the order to your Marine guards to shoot those people in the street?”

  “Shoot what people?”

  “The bodies, they were on television. There were three men in a Mercedes.”

  “Uh, well, there was some shooting.”

  “Yes.” Shirazi held his cup of tea and looked at her, as if he expected some additional response.

  “They fired at our embassy,” she told the lie quickly, struggling to recall exactly what had happened after Shands had rushed into her office with news of a “high-value asylum seeker.”

  “You were certainly prepared,” he responded quickly, “with a machine gun on your balcony.”

  “Yes. Major Shands felt it best to be prepared, uh, for the unknown.”

  This was going badly.

  “He was expecting trouble?”

  “I think there was a call, uh, just before.”

  “Yes,” Shirazi said. “The first reporters on the scene said there was a wounded man in the car with the Russian president.”

  “Oh?” She wasn’t going to give him anything more.

  “It seems to have turned out well, for you. Congratulations.” Shirazi backed off the questioning.

  Dabney felt relieved. She took a sip of her wine.

  “This is very good. Do you take wine?”

  “It doesn’t agree with me,” he said pleasantly.

  They walked around the room to another corner and looked at a large painting.

  *****

  “How tall is he?” Shirazi asked. A picture of Boyd Chailland was on a computer screen in the Iranian Embassy later that night. A nearby computer was playing a repeating loop of a cellphone video of the blue Lada at the Gorgasali Street intersection and two men running toward the smoking Mercedes and the Russian president. Ratface tapped quickly on the keyboard. Soon, they had it: 6 feet 2 inches.

  “So, the tall one was Boyd Chailland.”

  Chapter 22: PAF Base Mushaf, Sargodha, Pakistan

  C

  apt. Ghafoor Khan waited in the predawn darkness, smoking a cigarette and contemplating eternity. In less than an hour, the eastern sky would show a glow, and the miracle of another day would begin, a gift from God. An educated man, he did not believe that dying this day in the service of Allah would guarantee him heaven and the services of dozens of nubile virgins. He had no interest in virgins. He thought of the passage in the Holy Quran that said, “… and the life of this world is nothing but an illusory enjoyment.” That about summed it up for Ghafoor Khan, 35 years old and widowed with no children.

  Many would taste death this day. Some would be prepared. Most would meet it with surprise on their faces. He was neutral. He’d been entrusted with devising the actual plan, and had done so first as a planner and later as a participant. A graduate of the Combat Commander’s School, at this base he was certainly qualified. As an ethnic Pashtun of the Bangash tribe from the Kohat Valley and an observant Shiite Muslim, he was tired of the infidel presence in his land and longed for the stable, quiet, religious existence promised when the land was returned to Shariah, God’s law. If he perished executing his plan, all the better. He was lonely and bitter, hollow. If he succeeded, the warriors of Islam would have a powerful weapon to use against the infidel, a weapon equal to the weapons the Americans used to threaten the world, unfettered by the treaties and alliances negotiated by the Punjabi rulers of Pakistan. It was time to suit up and bring it all to the test.

  The first explosions across the runway startled him. They shouldn’t have; they were right on time. The guards in the heavily guarded compound containing the nuclear weapons were killing their supervisors. It wasn’t a matter of breaking into the compound to steal the weapons, because all the guards inside today were devout Muslims intent on making those weapons available for immediate use against the infidel, this very day if possible. The explosions and automatic weapons would draw the roving security guards, and the fight would be at the compound gate. Heavy, crew-served weapons were being brought out of storage at this moment. When the armored personnel carriers arrived carrying the SWAT team reinforcements, they would be met with heavy machine guns, thoughtfully provided by the Americans to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

  He walked to his aircraft. The Dassault Falcon 20 was supposed to have a crew of two, but he could fly it himself. No need to add the uncertainty of another pilot. If he got off the ground and up to altitude, they’d never catch him. And if he didn’t get off the ground and up to altitude, another pilot would make no difference. He unlocked the aircraft, and the door descended quietly, steps extending. He finished a quick walk around and climbed into the pilot’s seat to begin the preflight checklist. It would take 10 minutes.

  An alarm sounded atop the headquarters building acro
ss the runway. That would draw the garrison to battle stations. He’d exercised the drill dozens of times. It would take them half an hour to get together and mount any kind of assault on the fortified weapons-storage area, and he’d be gone by then. The plans for the security force were all directed outward, to thwart an assault from outside the base. Foolish, he’d always thought. Allah’s most faithful warriors were the enlisted Pashtu’s right here on the base.

  He overrode the navigation lights coming on when he turned on the electrical system. They’d see that from the tower and know someone was starting the aircraft. They could put barriers up to stop him from getting to the runway, if they thought of it. He skipped checking radio frequencies and activating the transponder, which would alert the tower. The first engine started on battery power.

  The Americans had first wanted to provide to Pakistan a Permissive Action Link security system for the nuclear weapons but changed their mind because it would expose their own systems engineering to potential adversaries. A PAL would have had the weapons assembled with redundant, encrypted security built in, another downside in the American’s thinking. With the PAL, a couple of officers with the right codes and keys could activate the weapons. Instead, the Americans had insisted on storing the weapons and detonators separately. That way it would take a team to assemble them and, hopefully, the rush to use them might cool off with the passage of a little time. Perfect, because Ghafoor Khan’s team didn’t want the weapons, only the detonators.

  The second engine started. He eased the throttle forward, and the still dark aircraft began to roll toward the taxiway. The weather report had stated the wind was from the east, so he’d need to taxi the length of the runway, past the tower, to the west side of the runway to take off into the wind. In actuality, there was no wind and he was near the eastern end of the runway. He paused at the end of the runway as a light truck burst through a back gate from the weapons storage area and raced in his direction. Explosions and heavy weapons fire were lighting up the night on the other side of the compound. He set the parking brake and opened the side door of the 10-seat executive jet. Two men wrestled a wheeled cart stacked with wooden boxes to the side of the aircraft. He helped them lift the boxes into the aircraft.