The Mingrelian
Authors: Ed Baldwin
Tags: #Espionage, #Political, #Action and Adventure, #Thriller, #techno-thriller
The Mingrelian
Ed Baldwin
Brasfield Books
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Copyright © 2014 by
Ed Baldwin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Brasfield Books
Hot Springs, Arkansas 71909
www.edbaldwin.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com
The Mingrelian/Ed Baldwin
. 1st ed
ISBN 978-0-0000000-0-0
Dedicated to Becky
“The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.”
―
Friedrich Nietzsche
Contents
Chapter 1: Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia
Chapter 3: Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia
Chapter 4: Kartvelian National Bank, Tbilisi, Georgia
Chapter 5: CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Chapter 7: Little Rock Air Force Base
Chapter 8: 15,000 ft. over Cotton Plant, Arkansas
Chapter 9: Lankaran, Azerbaijan
Chapter 10: Little Rock Air Force Base
Chapter 12: The President George W. Bush Memorial Bust
Chapter 18: The Embassy of the United States of America
Chapter 19: A Good Russian Car
Chapter 20: Another Grand Ayatollah
Chapter 22: PAF Base Mushaf, Sargodha, Pakistan
Chapter 23: The Secretary of Defense
Chapter 25: Imam Khomeini International Airport
Chapter 29: Joint Command for Global Strike
Chapter 30: Kartvelian National Bank
Chapter 32: The U.S. Attacks Iran!
Chapter 37: American Embassy, Paris, France
Chapter 40: Sheraton Metechi Palace Hotel, Tbilisi
Chapter 48: The White House Situation Room
Chapter 57: Six Months After the Crash
Author’s Note
This is a big complex story. The maps show landmarks important to the story. Characters in this story are from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia as well as the United States and the list of characters mentions only those appearing in more than one chapter.
Steve Meosky of Austin, Texas, is the cover artist. Once again, he’s produced a beautiful, interesting cover. Virginia and Barry Gilbert copy edited my story. Virginia has copy edited all my books, and her encouragement and guidance were critical to the birth of my first book, twenty five years ago.
Many of my Air Force friends will enjoy my reverential treatment of their favorite aircraft: the handsome, high performance, Lockheed C-130 Hercules.
Col (ret) Dave Mason, an old friend and C-130 pilot guided the creation of the “Herc” action sequences.
For those readers unfamiliar with this workhorse of America’s tactical military operations, close the book; it’s on the cover.
I first traveled to the Republic of Georgia in 1998 as part of a military exchange program. The country was stuck trying to decide whether it was to be socialist or capitalist. I revisited in 2013 and saw a vibrant prosperity resulting from an oil boom in the Caspian Sea and trade with Georgia’s neighbors, including Iran.
CHARACTERS
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT – himself
CAPTAIN BOYD CHAILLAND – Air Force pilot
EIGHT BALL – Boyd’s dog
DABNEY ST. CLAIR – CIA agent
NARVEL AND BETSY RHOADES – Boyd’s friends
DOC BRIDGES – Air Force flight surgeon
CAPTAIN BUD WEIDMAN-Air Force pilot
LADO CHIKOVANI – The Mingrelian
ESKANDER KHORASANI – President of the Tbilisi branch of Petroleum Bank of Iran
MAJOR GENERAL BOB FERGUSON – Director, Counter Proliferation Task Force, Strategic Command
FARHAD SHIRAZI – Deputy Ambassador, Embassy of Iran
RAT FACED MAN – Deputy Director, Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran
EKATERINA DADIANI – Lado Chikovani’s daughter, a widow
MAJOR RICK SHANDS – Military Attaché American Embassy
GRAND AYATOLLAH SAYYID ALI MOHAMMED MASHADI – Imprisoned Iranian cleric
MARIAMI CHIKOVANI – Lado Chikovani’s wife
NIKO DADIANI – Ekaterina Dadiani’s son
CAPTAIN DAVID DADIANI – Ekaterina’s late husband
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES – himself
BEHROOZ ZANDI – Iranian nuclear engineer
PRINCE COLONEL TURKI BIN MUQRIN AL SAUD – Saudi Arabian Air Force pilot
RAYBON CLIVE – C-130 pilot
DAVANN GOODMAN – C-130 pilot
EMMET BOYLE – C-130 navigator
Chapter 1: Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia
T
he Russian president did not want to be in Georgia. The trip was to Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. He had a comfortable and completely secure dacha there. But one of his political officers had come up with the idea for a quick state visit to Georgia to mend some fences, show the Georgians that Mother Russia still loved them and to re-establish diplomatic relations after that misunderstanding in Abkhazia. So, here he was in Freedom Square not 50 feet from where someone had thrown a hand grenade at George W. Bush and Eduard Shevardnadze a dozen years before.
“… and the people of Russia salute you, our Georgian brothers.” He finished his brief remarks and laid a wreath at a plaque commemorating the Russian poet Pushkin, and shook hands again with the president of Georgia. A hastily gathered crowd mustered lukewarm applause. A dozen photographers snapped pictures, three news cameras rolled. He smiled and waved, making a mental note to can that political officer.
The black Mercedes inched through the crowd, which was more curious than hostile or enthusiastic. A hundred people leaned in to snap pictures with cellphones. His armored Zil-410441 was already in Sochi, so he’d borrowed this armored Mercedes from the Georgians. He waved again as he ducked into the back seat.
“Let’s go,” he said impatiently as he closed the door. His personal driver was already speaking into his cellphone's headset. The president's other bodyguard scanned the crowd to the side and rear. A dozen plainclothes security men surrounded his car, attention focused out into the crowd, visually checking each curious onlooker for that one face taut with purpose. Motorcycle police turned on their sirens, and the crowd parted. Behind them three police cars, also with sirens blaring, pulled out of Pushkin Park into the traffic circle around Freedom Square, spreading out abreast to fill the street. A large van filled with his heavily armed Russian SWAT team pulled in front of the Mercedes, with two more behind. They were followed by more police cars and motorcycles. The show was over, time to get out of town.
The Mercedes was quiet as it smoothly accelerated and merged onto the divided boulevard of Baratashvili Street, with the bridge of the same name across the Kura River just ahead, and the Presidential Palace not yet visible on the other side. At the bridge, the motorcade made a right exit onto Gorgasali Street, running along the right bank of the river.
“The Ilyushin is warmed up and waiting at the end of the runway,” the driver said. “They estimate 40 minutes to Sochi.”
This was an unexpected detour. The usual official route was to cross the river, skirt the Presidential Palace and take the new controlled access highway out to the airport. Because of heavy traffic, his director of security had suggested an alternative. Gorgasali was longer but led quickly out of the city into the countryside.
As the motorcade swept into the right lane of the boulevard, an old blue Lada coming from the other direction on Gorgasali slammed on its brakes creating a cloud of blue smoke. It slid into a U-turn and headed back against the traffic.
The Russian president watched through the trees as the Lada accelerated, paralleling them on the other side of the
boulevard. He saw no weapons, and the car was too far away to threaten his heavily armed vehicle, even if it were packed with explosives. He glanced ahead; the road was clear. His car accelerated to 80 mph, leaving behind the motorcycles and police cars and the blue Lada. Woods flashed by on both sides.
The van in front exploded and spun in the roadway, partially blocking it. The president had seen the preceding flash from the hillside to his right – rocket propelled grenade. This was an assassination attempt. He thought about the route change. Whose idea had that been? He was set up. All this in an instant; this president had been in the clandestine service to his country his whole life. He knew assassinations.
The driver slammed the accelerator down, and the Mercedes, already going 80, swerved to avoid the spinning van. The president was glad they’d not been in the Zil; it would not have had the agility or the speed.
The launcher of another RPG flashed to their left just as the driver came around the exploding van. It hit the Mercedes on the left side of the engine compartment. The explosion breached the armor and sent shrapnel into the interior, killing the driver and the bodyguard. The shock decelerated the Mercedes and thrust it toward the right side of the road. The airbags deployed, and the Russian president was pushed back into his seat. In his dying moment, the driver yanked the wheel to his left to avoid crashing into the woods on the right. The Mercedes, now a fireball, lost traction and spun in circles, forward momentum carrying it down the road.
More RPGs were fired from the hill to their right and hit the two trailing vans, one spinning into the median and the other crashing into the leading van. Automatic-weapons fire from the hill and the median began to cut down surviving SWAT team
members as they jumped out of their burning vehicles. Some took cover and returned fire.
Two hundred yards down the road, carried well out of the intended kill zone by its speed, the smoking shattered Mercedes spun to a stop at the foot of a statue in a traffic circle. The Russian president, stunned but unhurt, deflated the airbag and looked back up Gorgasali Street. His SWAT team was losing the gun battle, and some of the black clad assassins were moving in his direction. He drew his PSM semi-automatic pistol, a trusted companion since his KGB days, and determined to fight it out from the armored Mercedes. He had eight rounds in the magazine.