The Mingrelian

by Ed Baldwin

  “I must see your Mrs. St. Clair,” the young officer says, returning from his phone call to superiors.

  “Certainly,” Farhad says, leading the way as the young officer steps around the barrier into Iran and follows him. He eyes the soldiers in the lead truck suspiciously.

  Sirwan has reached the redoubt and stands with three other Kurds stationed there. He looks down as the young officer approaches the limousine and looks into the back window.

  The electric window opens and cool air blows into Dabney St. Clair’s face, awaking her from slumber.

  “She is very tired,” Shirazi says.

  The young Iraqi officer bends down and looks into the back seat. The smell of alcohol is strong.

  “Infidels,” he thinks, “and their alcohol.”

  Across the back seat he sees the face of a clean-shaven man in a dark business suit. He does not recognize it.

  Sirwan knows there is a revolution going on in Iran and that these people are trying to get away from it. He knows his young officer will hesitate to admit this whole armed caravan, and if they aren’t admitted they will try to shoot their way in.

  “Open the lock,” he says, handing a key ring to the surprised young Kurd border guard leaning over the stone redoubt.

  The young guard isolates the right key and opens a padlock on the storage building behind them. He pulls the door open to reveal a dozen howitzer rounds stored there.

  This confrontation building below them can have very bad consequences when the shooting starts.

  “Load the gun,” Sirwan says, eyes on the young officer, who has just stood up from looking into the back seat of the limousine.

  Two young guards rush into the building and pick up one of the howitzer rounds and carry it to the cannon. Sirwan pulls the lever to open the breech and they load the shell. They have done this only occasionally in drills before. They have never fired this or any other cannon. Sirwan cranks elevation down to 5 degrees below horizontal, but it still points off in the distance, way above the drama playing out below.

  “Sir,” Dabney says to the officer with authority

  The officer steps back to the window to address the American diplomat.

  She vomits out the car window.

  The young officer retreats from the cascade of alcohol laden vomit.

  “I must call my supervisor,” he says, and walks back across the border.

  “Wait!” Shirazi says, following behind him. He motions to the officer in the truck to dismount his troops. They begin to climb out of the trucks.

  “Get the jack,” Sirwan tells the young guards. They rush into the storage building and return with a lowboy jack, used to lift the tail of the howitzer to attach it to a limber, a two wheeled cart that can carry the tail of the howitzer for transport. He traverses the howitzer to a point over the limousine.

  “Fool,” Shirazi says, returning to the limousine. He walks to the other side and gets in next to the Supreme Leader. They converse rapidly in Farsi.

  Dabney, awake now, is restrained tightly in a sitting position by the cable ties around her wrists and ankles and between her legs. She looks out at the border crossing and the Revolutionary Guard militia deploying along the road. Then she looks up the hill at the redoubt, but all she can see from below is the muzzle of the howitzer pointed off in the distance. It begins to turn in her direction. Odd, she thinks, that it would just move by itself like that. Then the end of the howitzer seems to nod a bit, then again, and again. Curious, she watches as the rhythmic nodding of the muzzle of the old cannon brings it down and down and down until it looks directly at her, like an owl perched on a branch.

  “Twelver Shiites,” Sirwan says, “always making trouble.”

  He pulls the lanyard and fires the howitzer. A mighty blast shakes the redoubt and the cannon leaps back 2 feet. The air fills with smoke. The projectile, containing 33 pounds of amatol, a TNT and ammonium nitrate mixture, hits the limousine. The vehicle disappears in a bright red fireball that is quickly eclipsed by thick black smoke. Pieces of the limousine fly into the air and rain down many yards in all directions. The blast blows the front truck filled with dismounting troops end over end into the closed border barrier. A van parked behind the limo evaporates with it. The driver of the truck behind the van throws his truck into reverse and spins wheels leaving the scene. He runs over several soldiers exiting the back.

  “Reload,” Sirwan says.

  Chapter 52: Mount Damavand

  T

  hey look like kids playing in the snow, but it isn’t fun. In the radiant midday sun, Boyd is harnessed to a seven-man life raft by control cables scavenged from the C-130, and one of the Marines is strapped onto it, simulating one of the wounded soldiers unable to ski. Straining, he pulls the raft across the steep hill, then turns down the hill and picks up speed before turning back across the hill. Just as he turns back across the hill the life raft overtakes him and slides down the mountain behind him.

  “Whoa!” The raft yanks him backward off his feet.

  The raft pulls Boyd down the mountain on his back for several yards before the Marine can roll off of it and jam his feet into the snow for an anchor and grab the rescue ropes along the side. Boyd rolls into the raft and stops.

  “Scratch that idea,” he says, rolling into a sitting position and looking back up the hill at the rest of the group trying restrain their laughter.

  An hour later they are back. Now Boyd is harnessed to the front of the life raft with the largest of the remaining healthy Marines behind. Rick Shands is strapped in for ballast. Boyd skis across the hill and turns downhill, the raft loses traction and begins to slide, but the burley Marine is able to hold it by digging his ski poles into the snow. They traverse the hillside and turn downhill again. This time Boyd hits a patch of ice; just a crust formed by the sun melting surface snow and then refreezing at night. He and the raft and the Marine slide down 200 yards. It takes an hour to climb back to the C-130.

  Two hours later, in the fading light a strange contraption emerges from the back of the C-130. Two skis are strapped to Boyd’s waist, their tips to the rear and resting on the snow. A harness between them allows Rick Shands to sit, balancing himself with ski poles, but bearing no weight on his legs. Ahead of Boyd are the other three Marines on skis, breaking trail and creating parallel tracks in the snow, which Boyd and the trailing skis holding up Rick stay within. They traverse the hill, turn downhill, traverse back and traverse it again. The deep tracks created by the first skiers give traction to the heavier towed skier. It works.

  *****

  “If we leave here, and get halfway down that hill, and can’t get to the rescue plane; we’re toast. So, we need to be sure this is something we can all do.” It is late when Boyd explains to the assembled group the decision they must make. They have built four of the harness seats and determined that their three invalids can ride with no trouble, and that everyone can ski at least enough to stay within the tracks made by the trailbreakers. The fourth set of harness is for a sled that will transport their two dead comrades, the Ayatollah’s secretary and Raybon Clive, now frozen solid. Practicing, they have tracked the hill around the C-130 above and below it until it looks like a ski resort in high season. Now they have to decide.

  *****

  “PECOS to JUBA.”

  Emmet jerks awake inside one of the alpine tents and fumbles for the radio.

  “JUBA.” It is hours later, and they’ve all been asleep.

  “Been outside?”

  “JUBA to PECOS, just a minute, over.”

  Rick Shands is already out of his sleeping bag and struggling out of the tent he has shared with Boyd and Ekaterina. Boyd is right behind. They pull back the tarps at the back of the aircraft. A howling wind coming up the mountain from the Caspian Sea only 30 miles away has deposited a drift of snow halfway up the high side of the aircraft. It is still dark, but when they shine a puny flashlight out it doesn’t penetrate more t
han 10 feet. Whiteout.

  “JUBA to PECOS, got some snow here, over.”

  “PECOS to JUBA, looks like it, over.”

  They had planned to set out at dawn and try to get down the mountain by noon so the MV-22 Osprey could pick them up.

  “JUBA to PECOS, what’s the weather outlook, over.”

  “Socked in all the way to Kazakhstan. Gonna snow all day, over.”

  “Tell him to scratch the pick-up,” Boyd says, returning from the back while Rick ties the tarp back down. “We’ll wait for the snowmobiles.”

  He turns to see expectant faces peering out of sleeping bags and tents. He shrugs.

  *****

  Low clouds obscure any chance of seeing vapor trails of the combat air patrol that Boyd knows is circling up at 35,000 feet. It is a comforting feeling knowing they’re there. He puts his vigil on hold for a moment as he remembers what it’s like to be up there in the sun, strapped in with helmet and G-suit, on oxygen, maintaining radio silence but listening to the AWACS vector any potential targets, watching your wingmen, the clouds, the mountains, ready to pounce on any interlopers rising up to threaten whoever you were protecting on the ground. Now, he’s here on the ground. It is the following day and the snow has stopped. They’ve been on the mountain for nearly a week.

  The C-130J Combat Talon with the six blade props appears at the bottom of the hill, higher today than the previous drop.

  “JUBA to PECOS, tallyho,” Emmet says over the rescue radio, indicating they see the rescue aircraft.

  The aircraft flies over a thousand feet above them and a drogue chute pops out the back, followed quickly by a pallet. They seem to hang there for a moment as the chute stops the pallet’s forward progress, then the pallet falls and yanks the chute fully open and together they swing to the ground. The wind blows the chute up the mountain, and it hits several hundred yards above the broken hulk of the crashed C-130B. The Combat Talon turns and circles to the north for another pass, coming in a little higher this time. Four jumpers emerge from the jump door in front of the tail and their parachutes open almost simultaneously. Floating down they turn into the wind, which is coming from the north, and drop quickly by letting air out of their canopies, then circle the pallet, descending quickly, and drop effortlessly to the ground. Each one is no more than 20 yards from the pallet. Within minutes, the chutes are secured, snowshoes deployed and the four PJs are unwrapping the pallet. Half an hour later, Boyd hears the sound of snowmobiles.

  “Welcome to Mount Damavand!” Boyd calls out gaily as the snowmobiles approach, each pulling a sled. Like dust from an arriving posse in an old Western movie, a cloud of snow follows them as they swing widely into the lee behind the aircraft. Boyd and the entire crew are standing at the back of the old C-130 in their parkas and cross-country ski boots, packed and ready to go. The bodies of Raybon and the Ayatollah’s secretary are lying together in the snow at the side, wrapped in tarps.

  “Major Chailland?”

  Boyd raises his hand. He’s just found out about his promotion, and now these PJs know it already. He feels the long arm of Ferguson. This time, Boyd appreciates knowing that Ferguson is running the show, not because he cares anything about the customs and courtesies due a field grade officer, but because if they get that little detail right, they’ll get all the other little details right.

  “Uh oh,” the PJ says under his breath as he pulls the bandage off of the wounded insurgent’s right shoulder. The bullet wound is just below the collar bone, but the whole arm is blue and cold and the fingers on that hand are turning black. He gives the man a shot of morphine, washes it with disinfectant soap, tries and fails to find a pulse at the wrist, gives the man an antibiotic shot and immobilizes it in a sling. “There, we’ll tend to that at the hospital at Kandahar.”

  The Ayatollah translates to the man in Farsi. The man nods appreciatively.

  Another PJ tends to the wounded Marine. His bandage covers a red swollen lower leg with a shrapnel wound just below the knee. He does have a good pulse in his foot, but the wound is draining foul smelling pus. He can’t bear any weight on it. He gets morphine, a washing, and an antibiotic shot, then an air splint for the lower leg.

  The third PJ examines the Ayatollah. He finds a sick old man, shrunken by starvation and abuse from what would have been a large vigorous man a year before. Scars and recent bruises are on his back and shoulders, and several fingers have been broken, then healed crookedly. He is wheezing and short of breath. He declines medication.

  “We can carry one or even two seated behind, in addition to the sleds,” the lead PJ tells Boyd above the sound of four idling snowmobiles. In half an hour, they are ready to leave.

  Ekaterina, a Marine and Emmet choose to ride behind a PJ on a snowmobile while the Ayatollah, wounded insurgent, the wounded Marine and the two frozen bodies ride on a sled. Davann, a retired Marine himself, had at first insisted he could ski down, but his fused hip made that impossible. He agrees to ride on a snowmobile, but the hip causes his leg to stick out to the side and it catches snow as they go down. He ends up supine, wrapped in blankets on the fourth sled with the wounded Marine as the little band roars off down the hill, snowmobiles breaking trail, skiers following.

  The snowmobiles traverse the hillside back and forth to break a trail so the cross-country skiers can get down the mountain in a series of controlled turns. Within an hour, another Marine is riding, exhausted by his inability to turn the skinny skis and stay on the track, causing him to fall down the hill and have to break trail to get into the snowmobile’s track on the next traverse.

  Just beyond the first ridge below the crashed aircraft, the first snowmobile falls off a crest of fresh snow overhanging a steep hillside. Emmet and a PJ cry out as the snowmobile and sled containing the wounded insurgent cartwheel down the mountain.

  Boyd skis cautiously up to the drop off, aware that the unstable fresh snow might extend back beyond where he is now standing. The other PJs cautiously approach and stand on their idling snow machines to peer down the hill. It is noon. Their pickup is scheduled in two hours. Clouds are thickening.

  “SNOWDOG one to SNOWDOG two,” a nearby PJ’s radio crackles. “Back up, you’re on an …”

  “… overhang,” Boyd hears as the snow beneath his feet gives way and he falls 30 feet. He hits on his side and tumbles head over heels a hundred yards, losing skis and poles. Then he hits a patch of ice and slides 50 more yards into a narrow chute in which he accelerates for a bit before being thrown out into deep snow on a flat.

  “In a hurry?” Emmet asks, sitting in the snow a few feet away, laughing at Boyd sitting in the snow. The PJ is repacking the wounded insurgent into the sled.

  “Fast way to go down a mountain,” Boyd says, trying to stand. There do not seem to be any bones protruding anywhere.

  “There may not be another way to get down this thing,” Emmet says, standing and looking back up the hill.

  Boyd follows his gaze. There is a steep rock wall to the east, and the shelf they are on drops off even steeper farther to the west. The only way around would be to return to the aircraft and try to find another route, not an option as Boyd and Emmet and the PJ would never be able to climb the hill they’ve just fallen down. The PJ approaches to stand and look up the hill.

  “Got any magic?” Boyd asks.

  “It’s that first 30 feet,” the PJ responds thoughtfully, looking up the hill.

  “Yeah, and then the next hundred yards.”

  “And then the ice,” Emmet adds.

  “You’ve got three skiers left. Put them on snowshoes,” the PJ says, thinking as he talks. “Then have the first snow machine run fast along the overhang. It’ll collapse.”

  “Yeah,” Boyd says, thinking the PJ exhibits a keen grasp of the obvious.

  “He can just ride it down, keep his balance and hit soft at the bottom.”

  Boyd looks at him, brow furrowed.

  “You ski?” the PJ asks.
“Downhill?”

  “Yeah,” Boyd responds, still not seeing how this could work. He’d done a lot of skiing at the Academy.

  “When you go down a steep slope with moguls , your skis kind of slide down the downhill side of the mogul. It slows you down but you maintain control.”

  Boyd looked back up the hill. It was a soft pile of snow at the top and an icy drop-off, steep but not straight down.

  “As long as he has good forward motion, he can run his snow machine down the side of the drop off just like you’d slide your skis down the side of a mogul.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  “We’d better see that. There’s no other way to get down.”

  “Can he do that with a passenger?”

  “Maybe.”

  *****

  The snowmobile bursts over the top of the crest and falls into the chasm in a torrent of loose snow. Ekaterina is clasping the PJ like a scared scooter witch on the back of a runaway Harley Davidson motorcycle. The PJ leans into the hill, throttle wide open, and the snow machine maintains its forward motion, spinning loose snow and ice behind it as it traverses the hill and falls the 30 feet at the same time. It catches traction as the slope decreases and makes a quick turn and stops.

  The sled with Raybon and the dead insurgent slides off the ledge and is lowered to the snow field below; then the Ayatollah, then the wounded insurgent, then the wounded Marine and Davann. The remaining two snow machines crash down the dropoff leaving Rick Shands and three Marines to jump into the now enhanced pile of fresh snow at the bottom. Wearing snowshoes, they tramp down the soft snow field Boyd had tumbled down, then they slide through the chute on their butts, flying out at the bottom and landing laughing in the soft snow below.

  Reunited, the merry band descends the mountain another mile to the rendezvous point.

  Chapter 53: The White House

  “L

  adies and gentlemen, the president of the United States!”