Free The Mingrelian by Ed Baldwin Page A

Square.
    “Now,” Dabney said with authority. She didn’t need an insolent secretary questioning her instructions. She was going to act decisively, just in case this was real. She could point to her fast action in elevating her concerns to the highest level in the land. She’d get someone on the phone, whoever was manning the office over there, and convey her concern. Then, if it proved to be a hoax, they could deal with it. No egg on this face, she thought.
    “… not the ambassador, the deputy chief of mission, yes, that’s the second-in-command.” The secretary, speaking in Georgian, worked through the secretaries and administrative assistants at the president's office.
    Dabney returned to her office and closed the door to wait.
     

Chapter 17: A Change of Plans
    “T
    hat’s the Russian president’s aircraft,” Boyd observed as his C-130 lumbered in on final. The big white Ilyushin II was parked on a ramp at the end of the terminal, surrounded by security vehicles.
    “Good thing we got in now, they’ll probably shut down for an hour when he gets ready to leave,” Boyd said.
    “Maybe longer,” Bud Weidman said, leaning over to look out the side window.
    They landed and taxied to a ramp at the other end of the terminal, shut down the aircraft, locked it up and walked through the crew door to the terminal and their waiting rental van. The embassy would deliver the diplomatic mail and any passengers in the morning.
    “Captain Chailland?” a voice behind him asked, causing Boyd to turn. A man he’d never seen before was hurrying to catch up. He was middle-age, well dressed in a business suit and wide-brim fedora. He had dark hair and looked anxious. The rest of the aircrew walked on.
    “Please, a moment,” the man said.
    “Yes?” Boyd slowed, and the man came alongside.
    “I am the man you know as the Mingrelian,” he whispered. “You bought two rugs from my father’s shop. You met my daughter, Ekateriana Dadiani.”
    The man was breathless, sweating.
    Boyd stopped. The other crew members, now 20 paces farther along stopped, and Bud Weidman looked back. Boyd motioned with his hand for them to go on.
    “We must move,” the man said, turning to follow the others. “We are on television.” He nodded to video monitors in the terminal. “Something terrible is about to happen. We must do something.”
    “What?”
    “Look,” he pointed to a monitor, which showed the Russian president, flanked by Georgian dignitaries, making a speech. “The television just announced his route back here to the airport. He’s going down Gorgasali, that’s the road of assassination.”
    “Assassination?”
    “The Chechens are going to assassinate the Russian president.”
    “How do you know that?” Boyd asked. He was suspicious, yet, this agitated man knew his name, the code name he’d been instructed not even to mutter in his sleep, and the name of that fascinating woman he’d met on Erekle II Street.
    “I’ve just come back from Tehran,” he said as he ushered Boyd into a small lounge with lockers along the wall. “My contact there, the man who gives me the information I give to you, has told me.”
    Sweat was popping out all over the man’s face, his eyes, strikingly similar to Ekaterina’s deep, dark eyes, were wide with fright. “I am risking everything. Help me!”
    “OK.”
    “I called your embassy. Nothing happened. I just called the police, and they wanted to know who I was. I cannot tell them. Nothing happened.”
    “It’s probably a hoax.”
    “It may be, but we have to do something.”
    “What?”
    “Stop the motorcade before it gets to Gorgasali.”
    “You pull in front of the Russian president’s motorcade, you’re gonna to get shot,” Boyd cautioned.
    “There’s an intersection by the Metechi Monastary. They will have to slow down. If we can get there first, we can signal them. Come, I have a car.”
    “Why do you need me?”
    “They will arrest me. You can tell them you got