by John Ringo
“Yes,” Mike said, smiling faintly.
“So, how’s the Keldara militia going?” Wilson asked.
“Slowly,” Mike admitted. “I’ve got the equipment. I’m waiting on the trainers. Time.”
“Napoleon,” Wilson replied. “ ’Ask me for anything but time.’ Did you really beat up a guard?”
“Took away his peashooter,” Mike admitted. “And, okay, lifted him up by his collar. I didn’t hit him, though.”
“All good,” Wilson said. “Spreads the myth of the American. In general it’s a problem, but in places it’s quite useful. You should have tipped the policemen, though.”
“Arrange it and bill me,” Mike said, tiredly.
“And the president wants to meet you,” the ambassador added.
“Just what I need,” the former SEAL said with a groan. “Georgia’s I take it?”
“Svasikili,” Wilson agreed, nodding.
“I still don’t have a suit,” Mike pointed out, hanging his head in his hands.
“There are tailors in Tbilisi,” Wilson said. “Hey, that alliterates.”
“I’ve seen the suits they make,” Mike said, sitting up. “Yours is nice, where’d you get it?”
“Harrowgates on Bond Street,” Wilson said, turning out the lapel.
“Think they do house calls?” Mike asked, yawning.
“You look like hell, Mike.”
“Two hours sleep,” Mike said. “And the sort of stresses I’m not used to. And I can’t believe a bed in a God damned Hilton would be that uncomfortable. The designers should be shot. No, that’s too good for them. Hung up by their balls over a shark tank and handed a rusty knife.”
“Get some rest,” Wilson said, standing up. “If you haven’t got have your health, you haven’t got anything.”
“An ambassador who watches The Princess Bride,” Mike said, smiling. “Will wonders never cease.”
“And I can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Wilson said, nodding as he left.
* * *
Mike was half asleep when he heard a throat clear.
“Kildar?” a woman said.
Mike looked up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, to see a Keldara woman loaded with parcels standing in the corridor. She could have been anywhere from thirty to sixty but she still had some of the same lean good looks as Irina overlaid with years of stress and wear.
“You would be Irina’s mother?” Mike asked, standing up and yawning.
“Yes, Kildar,” the woman said, nervously.
“I’ll take the bags,” Mike replied. “She was awake the last time I checked. She’s down the hall, second door on the left. I’ll take the stuff back to the hotel. When you get thrown out, visiting hours are almost over, get a taxi and come to the Hilton. I’ll arrange for the doorman to pay for it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Kildar,” the woman said.
“On the being alone with Irina and Lydia,” Mike said. “I’ll take it up with the Fathers. There will not be a problem or there’s going to be a huge problem. For them. Don’t worry about that.”
“Very well, Kildar,” the woman said, unhappily.
“I’ll see you at the hotel.”
* * *
“Thank you for calling Harrowgates of Bond Street, how may I help you?” a chipper female voice said.
“There are problems in life that cannot be solved by throwing money at them,” Mike said, philosophically. “And then there are problems that can. I’m trying to figure out which this is. I’m in Georgia, the country not the state, and I need a suit to meet with the President of Georgia day after tomorrow. How much money do I need to throw that problem to get one of your suits by then?”
“Sir,” the woman answered, tautly, “we have a number of clients and at the moment our wait time is…”
“Ten thousand euros?” Mike asked. “For one suit? I’ll arrange a business jet to fly in one of your tailors or whatever…”
“Haberdashers, sir, please,” the woman said. “And, frankly, some of our suits sell for ten thousand euros…”
“I’ll skip the bidding and go straight to thirty, then,” Mike said. “I’m medium build. Around a forty-four-inch chest, about thirty-four waist. Thirty-inch inseam and sleeves, more or less. I’ll put him up at the Hilton. Fly out, get me fitted, fly back. Anything you have around my size and in decent style. Thirty thousand euros. And I’ll need some more, I guess. Figure that out later.”
“I think we can arrange something sir,” the woman said after a moment’s pause. “If I could have your name and how you’re planning on paying for this… ?”
Chapter Ten
“President Svasikili,” Mike said, shaking the President of Georgia’s hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” The president was a round man, slightly shorter than Mike, with a firm handshake and affable smile that stopped at his eyes. Typical third world politician in a nominal “democracy” one each.
“And you as well, Mr. Jenkins,” the president said. “Might I present General Umarov, the Chief of Staff of the Army.”
The meeting was taking place at the presidential palace, an ugly structure that dated to the Soviet period. Since the president of Georgia regularly had to travel in a massive convoy to prevent assassination, it was a security and ease measure for him.
The American ambassador traveled in nearly as large of a convoy, but he was, apparently, more expendable. As was Colonel Osbruck, the senior American military attaché. They were both present and everyone nodded then proceeded into the conference room.
“Do you think there will be a thaw, soon?” the president asked Mike after everyone had gained their seats and tea was served. The woman doing the serving was a serious looker, like a supermodel, and had a sway to her that said that more than tea was available. The tea was served in traditional glasses with metal holders. These were silver and transmitted the heat of the tea straight to the handle making it too hot to hold. It was a silly design and Mike had always wondered what idiot came up with it in the depths of time.
“You’d know better than I, sir,” Mike replied, quickly setting his tea down and waiting for it to cool. “This is the first time I’ve been to Georgia.”
“I do hope it warms up soon,” the president said. “My old bones hate the winter. When I retire I’m going to move somewhere very warm.”
Possibly straight to hell if an assassin gets through, Mike thought. Svasikili had run on a platform of cleaning up the graft and ending the war in Ossetia. Since then negotiations had been stalled, the Ossetians were terrorizing western Georgia, the Chechens eastern Georgia, and taxes seemed to disappear into a black hole. The hole, of course, was called “Svasikili’s cronies” and funds to prop up his primary voting base, which was among organized labor. The military, despite the conditions, had just sustained another cutback. At least part of that was in fear that they’d perform a coup. It wouldn’t work out, it never did, but Svasikili had to know that if the military took over, he’d be lucky to leave with his shirt.
“But in the meantime, I’m forced to try to make bricks without straw,” Svasikili said, sighing. “This country is impossible to govern. Dozens of different interests, all vying for power, the clans in the mountains always feuding, the Ossetians, the Chechens, just impossible.”
“Lovely place, though,” Mike pointed out. “It’s why I decided to settle here. And the people are very nice as well. The Keldara are grand fellows.”
“So it was the beauty of the country that caused you to settle here?” the president asked.
“And the women,” Mike admitted, smiling at the joke. “The Keldara beer isn’t half bad, either.”
“I can call for a beer if you would prefer,” the president said, waving at the untouched tea.
“This is fine, sir,” Mike said, picking it up despite the handle and taking a sip while glancing at the ambassador. He wasn’t trained or interested in diplomacy at this level but he was afraid he’d just insulted the country of Georgia b
y not sipping the damned tea. “I’ve become quite a tea drinker since moving overseas.”
“The question, of course, is why an American would want to settle in Georgia,” the president said, nodding at the comment. “There are less than a thousand American ex-patriates in the country and almost all of those are here for one company or another. There are a scattering of people who just find this country conveniently inexpensive. But you are not short of money. Your ambassador has assured us that you are not wanted by any international agency. So the question is why you would want to settle down here. Especially in that forsaken wasteland of the Keldara. Then there’s the question of why you are forming a little army out of them.”
“Hardly an army,” Mike pointed out, glancing at the ambassador again. He should have been briefed on what this meeting was about beforehand but he felt a general trend. “They will constitute about a company in size and be designed for small-unit operations. Just a mountain militia.”
“A remarkably well-armed and equipped mountain militia,” General Umarov interjected. “When the request came through to expedite the end-user license we, of course, complied. We are as worried about conditions in east Georgia as the Russians. But when the actual lists started arriving we became… somewhat concerned. Your simple mountain militia will be better equipped than the Presidential Commandoes.”
“I discovered when I was a SEAL that good equipment helps,” Mike said. “It’s not everything, though; you have to have good training. And, I’m sorry to point out, they’re probably going to be better trained than your commandoes as well.” He didn’t have to look to know that the ambassador had just winced. “I don’t think that it would be fit to do less and they’re going to need that training to do what they’ll have to do to suppress the Chechens.
“However,” he added, as the general opened his mouth, “they are, as I said, less than a company. And they are training for open field, small unit actions. I know that there is always a fear that a particular group will… oh, become the tail that wags the dog as we say in the United States. The Keldara are going to be training in a way that makes that fundamentally unlikely.”
“Explain,” the president said, holding up a hand to cut off the general’s retort.
“There are, essentially, three types of forces in the world,” Mike said, picking his words carefully. “Field forces, regime protection forces and show forces. Show forces are very good at parading. They are trained to look good, pretty much period. Some excellent combat units are also good at showing off, don’t get me wrong. The Rhodesian Selous Scouts were bloody peacocks and marched better than the Coldstream Guards. But show forces are only there for show.
“Next, there are regime protection forces,” Mike said, trying not to look at the Chief of Staff of the Georgian army. “Regime protection forces are, essentially, very large police forces. They are trained to suppress resistance to the regime, to break up riots, to ferret out guerillas and so forth. They’re, really, peacekeeping forces in countries where peace is shaky. Due to the nature of their training, they’re very good at coups. They’re used to moving to specific places in cities and, for example, taking over broadcast stations or buildings that are important to a coup.
“Last, there are field armies. Field armies are designed to meet other forces on the field of battle and defeat them. That can be small unit or large unit, but that is their training. They may march well and they may be able to occasionally be used to keep the peace, but they’re not fundamentally trained for either. Field armies are designed to destroy other forces and when used in a coup tend to break much more than they should. They also make various mistakes, like firing into crowds indiscriminately, that make the succeeding regime, even if the coup is successful, very unpopular. The vast majority of the American army is field forces. The only units that are not are Civil Affairs and MPs.”
“I see,” the president said, nodding. “And what type of training are the Keldara getting?”
“Field force training,” Mike said, definitely. “They’re also being trained for open field combat, not urbanized combat. The Keldara, frankly, would be bloody useless in a coup. And given their training and the fact that they’re only a company, trying to stage a coup would be insane. I take it, now, that that is the subject of this discussion?”
“One of them,” the president admitted. “And I wanted to see what you were like.”
“And what am I like?” Mike asked, suddenly weary. He missed his boat in the Keys.
“Blunt,” the president said, laughing. “As I was warned. Not the diplomat at all. This is good. A person as blunt as you would, yes, be very bad at staging a coup. What do you think of the Georgian army?”
“I haven’t seen much of it,” Mike said. “From what I have seen, it’s trained as a regime protection force and not very well trained at that. It’s underpaid, so all the troops are on the take, which means anything can slip through your checkpoints with a little cash. The officers don’t understand leadership; all they understand is discipline and that badly. And for a little extra money you could have gotten much better equipment; the boots, especially, are horrible.”
“I see,” the president said, his face frozen.
“Yes, I am blunt,” Mike replied. “And you asked. If you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask me the question. Now, do I get to train my Keldara so I can do something about the Chechens in the area or do you want me to pack up and leave?”
“Oh, I think you can train your Keldara,” the president said. “If for no other reason than the fact that if they’re going to be as well trained as you say, if there is a coup, I’ll have somewhere to run.”
“Great,” Mike said. “And you can feel free. I’ll make sure you get somewhere safe. But if we can cut this short, it’d be great. I’ve got another meeting pending and it’s going to be even tougher than this one.”
“Tougher?” General Umarov asked. If he was upset at Mike’s bluntness, or his opinion of the Georgian Army, it didn’t show. In fact, he had a twinkle in his eye.
“The Keldara can be rather stuck in their ways,” Mike admitted.
* * *
Mike sat at the head of the kitchen table as the elders filed in. He had “asked” Captain Tyurin to pick them up, since for the time being he was the only one in the valley with the wheels and Mike wasn’t about to have Father Kulcyanov walk up the hill.
He waited in silence as the Six Fathers took seats and then hooked his feet on a convenient rung under the table and tilted his chair back.
“In case anyone’s interested,” he said, “Irina is doing fine. She, Lydia and her mother are in a hotel in Tbilisi. It will be a few more days before she can be driven back safely. With that out of the way, go ahead and say the rest.”
“Kildar,” Father Mahona said after a series of looks were exchanged. “You have to understand that among the Keldara, if a woman has been alone with a man she is considered… not eligible for marriage.”
“Spoiled goods,” Mike said, nodding. “Unclean. Fit only to be sent to town. She’s your daughter, and I assume we’re discussing Lydia, here, but I understand she’s promised to Oleg Kulcyanov,” Mike said, looking over at the old man. “What does the Family of Kulcyanov say?”
“Lydia is a good woman,” Father Kulcyanov replied after a moment. “And Oleg cares for her very much. But there is the problem of…”
“Of a medical emergency,” Mike said, dropping his chair to land hard and leaning forward. “Okay, I screwed up. I was in full American mode. In the U.S., there would have been no thought of this. I needed to get Irina to the hospital or she would have died…”
“The money…” Father Shaynav said.
“NO!” Mike shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “I said there would be NO debt for medical treatment! You touch on MY honor with this! As to Lydia,” Mike continued, more calmly, “nothing happened. Not in the car, not in the hotel. Think about this, Oleg is going to be one of the leaders of the militia. I
will have him at my back with a gun in his hand. How stupid would I have to be to fool around with his woman? Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“It is a matter of custom, Kildar,” Father Mahona said, tightly.
“Yes, it is,” Mike replied. “It is a matter of control of reproduction. I can lecture on it for hours. I probably understand it better than you do. There are pills and things to do it in more advanced cultures. But in your culture, for thousands of years, the only way to control reproduction was to control the body of the woman. The only way that worked, at least. But Lydia is still in the same condition as when she left. So is Irina, for that matter. In the future, I will be much more careful. You’ll have to chalk this up to the Kildar not knowing your customs as well as I should. I have been here for a very short time. But, I will not have Oleg pissed at me because I tainted his marriage, much less ended it! That is final. Is this clear?”
“Yes, Kildar,” Father Mahona said, angrily.
* * *
Snow still covered the ground thickly, but the roads were plowed so Mike used those for his morning run. He’d gotten severely out of shape but between the weight machines and running in the morning some of the old form was coming back. Every other day he’d started laying off the run and taking a heavily weighted ruck up the paths in the mountains. The first week he’d barely been able to make it a few hundred meters, but at the end of three weeks he was climbing all the way to the summit of the western mountains. The first day he made it to the top he’d had to just sit up there in the blowing cold and breathe for a good half hour. The air was noticeably thinner and the ruck march had worn him to the point he wasn’t sure he could get back down. It was late afternoon before he made it to the caravanserai and he’d been in no shape to work out the next day.
This morning he was coming back from a light ten-mile jog that had taken him up and down the hills to the north. He turned into the road up to the caravanserai, speeding up and really pushing the muscles up the switchbacks until he reached the gate, then slowing down and trotting around the gardens to the south. He was breaking snow at that point so he slowed to a walk and continued around the caravanserai until he got back to the front door.