The Mingrelian

by Ed Baldwin

  At the final security checkpoint, where all passengers went through a simple metal detector, he was stopped.

  “Sir, please step this way,” a uniformed security guard said and led him into a separate screening room. It contained a modern X-ray screener like the ones used at most U.S. airports.

  “Please empty your pockets,” the guard said. “Everything please.”

  They had been joined by two security officers in suits. They took his cellphone and laptop to a table at the side of the room and plugged them into a laptop that they had. Soon they were downloading everything on his cellphone and on the hard drive in his laptop. They X-rayed his shoes, belt, jacket and prayer beads separately, then patted him down manually, then had him stand in front of the X-ray machine.

  One of the security executives approached him, a stern look on his face, searching his eyes, Eskander’s laptop and cellphone still in their custody.

  “Is there anything you need to tell us?”

  “I’m about to miss my flight,” Eskander said with a casual smile.

  If he’d been trying to smuggle a flash drive out of the country they’d have caught him. He’d done it dozens of times before and never been singled out for this kind of scrutiny. Clearly, the stakes were higher now. And he knew why.

  The regime was teetering. Though still in control, the hardliners knew there was a growing faction within the government that did not want to go down the road to Armageddon with nuclear weapons just to strike Israel. Most people in Iran don’t care a whit about Israel, or restoring the Caliphate, or spreading Islam by force to everyone on the planet. It’s a big planet. Evin Prison was filling, and the torture experts were busy pulling names and plans out of the unlucky ones who had been caught. He’d been in meetings at the highest level. Trust was in short supply. Nobody knew who was loyal, who was a traitor, who was a mole.

  He was going back to Tbilisi to raise $100 million as fast as he could. The Azerbaijan-Georgia-Iran Trading Co. was moving Iranian Persian Gulf oil disguised as Azeri Caspian Sea oil by pipeline, rail and truck through Georgia and loading it at Poti and Batumi. Money paid for oil already delivered was backed up all over the world, and it was Eskander Khorasani’s job to get it into the Iranian treasury. Still, they didn’t trust him.

  “You may proceed,” the man said after a moment. He handed back Eskander's cellphone and laptop.

  The Iran Air Boeing 737 thrust into the morning air, and Eskander Khorasani sipped a cup of coffee and watched Tehran slide away. He was pretty sure he was being watched by agents on the plane, and there would be eyes on him all the way to the small apartment he rented in the Old Town section of Tbilisi. Like all expats doing business abroad for totalitarian governments, his family was kept at home, under the control and watchful eye of the regime. That was just one more assurance of loyalty. It had been exhausting, but he was learning to control his emotions and appear calm. They hadn’t found anything, or he’d be in handcuffs back at the airport on his way to prison and torture. There was nothing to find.

  Eskander Khorasani knew where the stolen Pakistani detonators were, how many and how long it was going to take the Iranian engineers to adapt their plutonium bombs to the detonators. He didn’t need a flash drive to carry that. The trick was going to be passing that to Lado Chikovani and back to the Americans. He hoped they’d do something with it.

  Eskander was risking his life, and the life of his wife and daughters, for a cause. It wasn’t money or revenge or even fear of a nuclear exchange that drove him. Like Lado Chikovani, he had a vision; a vision of Iran as a prosperous world trading partner, accepted and respected for its resources, expertise and human capital. He wanted a normal, prosperous, safe life for his children and grandchildren. His family had no future if his mission were exposed; his nation had no future if his mission failed.

  Chapter 26: Courtship

  “Y

  ou have a dinner invitation,” the ambassador’s secretary said, handing Boyd an envelope.

  Boyd had expected to get a call from Ekaterina telling him her mother had agreed and they could go out to dinner or something. He had, after all, bowed to tradition and talked to Ekateriana’s mother, with Ekaterina and her father translating. He’d told Mariami Chikovani that he enjoyed the company of Ekaterina and would like to see her socially. Thinking he’d then have a date, Boyd was surprised to learn that he was invited to have dinner with a Mrs. Gelashvili. She was Niko Dadiani’s dance instructor and a friend of the family. A widow, she’d been a star in the ballet in her youth and now taught young boys and girls the basics of Georgian traditional dance. Ekaterina would be there.

  “What do you wear to this kind of dinner?” Boyd asked, with the open envelope in his hand. He noticed it hadn’t been mailed, so the secretary was part of the process. Good.

  “That fine suit you bought would be perfect,” she said, smiling, and left.

  Boyd felt drastically overdressed until he arrived in the early evening and found his hostess and Ekaterina decked out in their semi-formal attire. Nine year old Niko Dadiani was wearing his chokha jacket with the tall boots. It was an event.

  Dinner was preceded by inane small talk as Mrs. Gelashvili spoke no English, and Boyd nothing but. Little Niko was learning but had just a rudimentary grasp, so it was primarily he and Ekaterina talking and then she translating for the other two. Dinner was formal and good, with Boyd explaining to Niko, through Ekaterina, what the “clean-plate club” was. Mrs. Gelashvili stood at the end of dinner and said something in Georgian to Niko.

  “She asked him if he wanted some ice cream,” Ekaterina said with a knowing smile.

  Niko was quickly out of sight in the kitchen, and they were alone. Ekaterina led Boyd into a small parlor and closed the doors. She embraced him immediately and whispered into his ear.

  “The Iranians have 17 nuclear triggers at Parchin.”

  The message was followed by a passionate kiss. She held him closely, her heart pounding. She kissed him again and opened the door.

  Boyd stepped quickly to sit back down as the kitchen door opened and Niko entered proudly with dishes of ice cream for the two of them. There was more small talk as they finished the ice cream. Mrs. Gelashvili brought out a small decanter of brandy and poured each of them a tiny glass. Niko was given another dish of ice cream.

  “Mr. Chailland is a captain, like your father, David,” Ekaterina said to Niko in English.

  Niko didn’t understand and wrinkled his brow. His mother explained the English translation of captain, and recognition crossed his face as he looked back at Boyd. He smiled for the first time. He was proud of his father.

  “You are a captain in the army?”

  “I am a captain in the Air Force.”

  Ekaterina translated Air Force, then added, in English, “He is a pilot.”

  Niko’s face lit up. “Zoom!” His hand swept across the table in front of him.

  If he only knew, Boyd thought.

  Niko helped clear the dishes and returned to the kitchen to help.

  “This first time we are not supposed to be alone,” she said, getting up from the table and returning to the parlor, “but I am a widow, and the rules are relaxed.”

  She smiled as she closed the door again.

  “How have you been?”

  “Waiting to see you again,” he said, putting his hands around her waist.

  *****

  A VEVAK agent was waiting across the street from the U.S. Embassy the following Friday when Boyd Chailland left the embassy parking lot driving his rented Audi at the end of the duty day. He followed Boyd into the center of Tbilisi, past the Presidential Palace to a parking lot near the Avlabari Metro Station.

  “Watch the car in case I lose him,” Ratface said into his cellphone as he parked his car and rushed down the steps behind Boyd.

  Boyd bought a ticket and got on the next train, which crossed the river into Tbilisi Old Town. Boyd got off at Freedom Squa
re and walked quickly toward Erekle II Street. Ratface was a block behind.

  Rounding a corner near Erekles Square, Ratface stopped short and turned to look into a store window. Boyd was seated at a coffee shop a half block away, talking to the waiter. When Ratface looked back, Boyd was gone.

  *****

  Walking quickly and doubling back every couple of blocks, Boyd worked his way out of the Erekles neighborhood to another section of Old Town a half-mile away. He knew it would take a determined and fit tail to keep up. He slipped through the entry gate into a cobblestone courtyard that could have been a hundred years old, or a thousand, and entered Restaurant Tamada. Standing at the open door, he scanned the two dozen tables in the main restaurant. He was late.

  “This way, sir,” the maitre d’ said quietly, as he walked by. Boyd didn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned that the man knew him immediately. He followed across the room and down stone steps into a large wine cellar furnished with only a few tables. Ekaterina waited with another young couple at a table

  “Good evening,” Boyd said, taking her hand. “I’m late.”

  “Fashionably so,” she said with a smile. “Boyd, this is my friend Nugzar Bagrationi, and his wife, Anna. Anna is, or was, my husband’s sister.”

  Nugzar stood and gave a short formal bow and said, “Sir, I am honored to meet you.”

  He was shorter than Boyd with dark hair and a mustache. His English was heavily accented, and it sounded more Spanish than Georgian.

  “Boyd has just come from America,” Ekaterina said, as Boyd sat down. She then switched to Georgian and continued for a minute or more. Anna spoke no English.

  “He has developed quite an interest in tribal rugs,” Ekaterina said, reverting to English. This went on for a polite few minutes before Nugzar excused himself and Anna and moved to another table with another party.

  “Definitely, I’m being followed,” Boyd said, looking at the menu, which was in English.

  “We have backup,” Ekaterina said, nodding toward another young couple sharing a glass of wine by the traditional stone oven in which bread is baked.

  “Backup or chaperone?” Boyd asked as he smiled at them, and they acknowledged his greeting with a smile and a nod.

  “Both,” she said. “He’s my cousin.”

  “Are you related to everyone in this country?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, invite as many as you want. I’m happy to be here. I just walked about five miles eluding at least two tails. My car is on the other side of the river, by the Metro Station.”

  “We can take mine, if you like.”

  “Yours was all shot up. Did you get a new one?”

  “A new Toyota Corolla,” she said, looking down at her menu.

  “So, can we take a drive after dinner?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “What about all this chaperone stuff. Stuffing all these people into the back seat of a Toyota sounds like what we did in high school,” Boyd said, nodding at her retinue.

  “No, after this dinner we are free to go where we please. There are some common sense restrictions, but we’re adults now. If I weren’t a widow, there would be some more sponsored events.”

  “Did all these people come down here to see me?”

  “No. Nugzar and Anna just happened to be here. I was sitting with my cousin when they came in.”

  The waiter approached and they ordered drinks and dinner.

  “Let’s get the business out of the way first,” she said, sipping a glass of dry German Riesling. “The Iranian resistance is prepared to break Ayatollah Mashadi out of Evin Prison. If they do, would the Americans send a team into the mountains north of Tehran to pick him up?”

  “Hmm. That would be a tall order,” Boyd said, surprised. He thought for a moment and sipped his beer. “I don’t think that would be possible, without starting a war. But I’m just the messenger. I’ll get that back to Washington.”

  He looked back at the menu.

  “What is this stuff?” he asked, pointing at a menu item.

  “Khinkali, dumplings filled with meat. You must start with those,” she said, smiling. “Then, have some Khachapuri, Mingrelian style. That’s really just a pizza, bread with local cheese melted on top but, like the khinkali, it goes well with beer.”

  “That would be a plus.”

  *****

  “My mother says you may see my breasts,” she said the next week, in the parlor of her grandfather’s apartment over the rug store. Her grandfather had taken Niko to the movies.

  “What?” Boyd asked, incredulous. “You asked your mother that?”

  She lay across his lap, facing up. He’d been counting her gray hairs and insisting on a kiss for each one he found. He’d found 10 so far.

  “I didn’t ask. She called last night and wanted to know our plans for tonight. I told her. Dinner here with Grandfather and Niko and then, well, television or something.”

  “I vote for the ‘or something.’ ”

  “You’re getting the ‘or something,’ and it’s these,” she said, placing his hand on her breast.

  ****

  “My mother has instructed me to examine your sexual organs,” she said a week later. They were finishing the dishes, and Grandfather and Niko had just left for the movies.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, stopping his drying and looking at her.

  “No, I’m not. We talked two days ago.”

  “Did she instruct you when you dated David?”

  “Of course, and that courtship lasted a year,” she said, placing her grandfather’s coffee cup back in the cupboard. Then she laughed.

  “Poor David. He was two years younger. It was an arranged marriage, you know. He was just 18, a cadet at the military academy. When I asked to see his sexual organs, he was embarrassed. It didn’t, uh, erect,” she giggled, like an embarrassed schoolgirl.

  “Well, that can be a problem,” Boyd said.

  “He was so embarrassed. My mother wasn’t worried, though. She said to try again the next time we were together. I kissed him and found it myself without asking.”

  “Oh, one of those fast girls,” he said, going back to the drying.

  “This is serious business,” she said, bumping him with her hip. “How else are we to find out if a marriage would be appropriate, unless we ask? By the way, the priest wants to talk with you.”

  “I’m not a Catholic.”

  “Really?” she asked, incredulous.

  “Not anything, really. I was baptized at the First Baptist Church in Kennett, but my mother died right after that, and Dad never went back. I read the Bible to him on the porch at night. That’s about it.”

  She was silent for several minutes. They finished the dishes and returned to the parlor.

  “I’m wasting my effort with this courtship ritual, aren’t I? I understand, you have a job to do, and I’ve agreed to be a part of it. My family has reasons to be a part of it.”

  She looked down at the floor as he sat on the couch.

  “It’s for appearance only,” she said.

  There was a long, awkward silence.

  “No,” Boyd said. “It’s not for appearance only.”

  It surprised him, but he’d seen what it was like to be a man in full like Lado Chikovani, surrounded by family and loved and cared for by a life partner. That wouldn’t be so bad. And, Ekaterina was the most intoxicating woman he’d ever met.

  “No,” he repeated, “it’s not for appearance only.”

  *****

  “You’re gonna get us all killed,” Boyd said as Ekaterina accelerated around a van in a no-passing zone with cattle grazing on the side of the roadway and an old man on a bicycle on the opposite shoulder. A hill was ahead blocking vision of oncoming traffic. Just as Boyd finished his exclamation, a truck crested the hill.

  “It takes five hours to get to Zugdidi if we creep along like
that van,” she said, foot holding the accelerator down, unconcerned about the truck.

  Boyd wondered whether the air bags worked.

  The Toyota achieved 110 km per hour, and the truck slowed slightly. Ekaterina occupied the center of the road, right over the solid white line. At the last moment, she flicked in front of the van.

  “I’ve driven this road many times,” she said calmly as she crested the hill, 20 km per hour over the speed limit.

  She’d picked him up on a Friday afternoon at a prearranged spot away from the embassy and the rug shop. With her son Niko, they were headed to Zugdidi for the weekend. The first time Boyd had driven this road, he’d crept along with the map spread out on the seat of his rental car. All he remembered from that trip were the towering Caucasus Mountains on both sides and the clear streams he crossed. Now he was able to see the people and the countryside.

  “During the days of the Soviet occupation, these were all collective farms,” she said, slowing down for another van. “The first thing they did when Georgia became independent was to give farm families their own land, about a hectare . Then, if they could show they really intended to farm it and not just subsist, they could get 6 hectares.”

  “Can’t do much with 15 acres,” Boyd said, remembering the 160 acres of cotton that was barely sufficient to support him and his father.

  “The really energetic farmers can lease more from the government, which still owns most of this land,” Ekaterina said.

  She honked loudly and slowed quickly as a cow slowly ambled across the road. It seemed to realize that the signs along the road showing a silhouette of a cow meant that anyone running into one would have to settle with the farmer.

  “So, the government owns most of this?” Boyd asked, indicating larger fields farther from the road.

  “Probably. Anything bigger than a few hectares is usually government land.”

  “They’re not doing much with it.”

  “My father has bought 500 hectares. That was the land we rode across last month.”

  “How was he able to do that, and these people are left with goats and a few scraggly cows?”