The Mingrelian (11 page)

Six boys filed in just as the lights dimmed to announce the show was starting. They were dressed in matching grey
chokhas,
with full-cut black pants and high boots. They filed in straight and proud with the eldest, about 15, in front, and the youngest, about 9, last. Boyd stepped into the aisle to allow them to pass into his row. At the end of the line was their sponsor, Ekaterina Dadiani.

*****

There was a minor drama before Boyd left the embassy the following Friday on his way west to Zugdidi and Lado Chikovani’s birthday celebration. Dabney St. Clair had received an invitation to an event at the German Embassy and wanted Boyd to be her escort. When he declined due to a previous
engagement, she pulled rank.
Touchy.

Boyd had learned there were four stovepipes of culture and authority in the embassy. Most of the Americans were State Department employees and answered to the ambassador’s every whim because he controlled their performance
reports. Dabney St. Clair was the only remaining CIA employee, ostensibly working for the ambassador, but still in frequent contact with her superiors at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Boyd and Major Shands and five enlisted Marines took their orders from their respective services and from the secretary of defense. About two dozen Georgians in administrative and support roles were foreign national employees of the State Department, or contractors. Many of those were known to report what goes on to the government of Georgia and, in a couple suspected cases, to other governments.

Ekaterina had slipped Boyd another flash drive at the ballet and then invited him to Zugdidi for the weekend for Lado's 50th birthday party. Really, it was a celebration for having cheated death saving the Russian president’s life a month before. Lado was recovering from carotid surgery at his villa there. Clearly, this was a key element in Boyd’s mission in Georgia. He needed to vet Lado and understand how and why he was passing secrets about Iran.

Dabney, behind a closed door in her office, had told Boyd: “The mission of this embassy must trump whatever personal plans you might have for the weekend. I can’t just show up at the German Embassy alone, and I need to attend this event.”

Boyd had been specifically warned not to share any information about the Mingrelian and his mission with Dabney St. Clair. Sitting meekly in her office while she railed at him, he struggled to remain just another dumb airplane driver placed at the embassy for her convenience.

“Yes, ma’am,” Boyd had said. “But, really, I’ve made some plans I can’t change.”

“How dare you!” she said, eyes wide with anger, standing behind the desk in her office adjacent to the ambassador’s.

“Perhaps Major Shands could accompany,” Boyd suggested. Rick Shands was married, and his wife lived with him in Tbilisi. If he accompanied Dabney, his wife would have to stay home. Awkward.

“You owe me big time, buddy,” Shands had said with a smile after he’d gone into the lioness’ den later that day and calmed the storm. He would accompany, and his wife would stay home with the children.

Dabney’s eyes shot daggers Boyd’s way for the next two days whenever they passed in the hall.

Now headed into the countryside on a sunny fall afternoon, Boyd felt relief at being out of the cloak-and-dagger world of Tbilisi. To his right, the Caucasus Mountains rose, nearly a mile higher than the Colorado Rockies that he’d found so amazing during his days at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Just like the front range of Colorado, water from melting snow had been channeled from the Caucasus into irrigation canals so that meadows could become row crops, of corn and wheat. But the meadows were returning as most of the huge collective farms of the Soviet era were neglected, and hundreds of small family plots of corn and grapes were tilled. Cattle and sheep grazed on the hillsides, but the milking sheds needed for a large modern dairy operation were abandoned. It was mom-and-pop agriculture eking along in the remnants of agribusiness, until he got to Zugdidi.

*****

“That’s Dadiani Palace, down there,” Lado Chikovani said expansively, propped up on a couch in the sun on the balcony of his villa up the hillside from Zugdidi. He’d taken the bandages off his neck and the fresh scar from the gunshot and the subsequent surgery was red and shiny in the sun. He was pointing to an ornate stone palace in the town below. It was
surrounded by well-maintained grounds. The parking lot was full midmorning on a Saturday.

Boyd sipped coffee and enjoyed the warm fall day, eager for the vetting process to begin. Why would a man with all this risk it to get involved in passing nuclear secrets about Iran to the United States?

Ekaterina and her two brother
s were in the driveway below greeting guests arriving early to the party planned for the afternoon. Lado’s wife, Mariami Chikovani, a handsome woman of middle years who spoke no English, had just left them to assist with caterers delivering great platters of food and drink. Lado’s estate spread up and along the mountain for some distance and supported several hundred black and white cattle. Boyd noticed a modern milking house at the bottom of the hill. Vineyards occupied the steeper hillside on the other side of the house. Winter wheat was sprouting in a field Boyd estimated to be a full section of land – 640 acres – to the south. Two modern grain elevators were along the adjacent road.

“My ancestor Gen. Prince Katzo Chikovani eliminated the rabble of nobility and assumed leadership of Mingrelia during a difficult time in 1681,” Lado said. “His son George assumed the traditional name of Mingrelian rulers and became Prince George IV Dadiani. All members of the ruling family of Mingrelia who followed him are blood members of the House of Chikovani.”

Lado pulled a package of cigarettes from beneath his pillow and lighted one. He peered over the railing to be sure Mariami wouldn’t see him.

“Niko Dadiani, the last ruling prince of Mingrelia. was deposed by the Russian Czar in 1858, and Mingrelia became part of Georgia; a part of Russia, really.”

Lado hurriedly flicked the cigarette over the rail when he heard his wife coming back up the stairs. He didn’t fool her; she had smelled the smoke and said something harsh in Mingrelian, found his cigarettes under the pillow and returned to the first floor with the package crushed in her hand.

“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.”