Free The Mingrelian by Ed Baldwin Page B

the information from American sources and commandeered my car at the airport.”
    They rushed through the terminal doors and walked quickly to the parking garage across the street. Lado unlocked the driver side door of an old, blue, four-door, battered and rusted Lada. He leaned across to open Boyd’s door.
    “My daughter’s car,” Lado said. “She needed my Mercedes to take my grandson and his friends to the opera.”
    Belching smoke and revving like a sewing machine on steroids, the old Lada lurched out of the parking garage, Lado jamming through the gears impatiently. He raced up the entrance ramp to George W. Bush Street, the controlled access highway into town. Lado filled Boyd in on his arrangement with the Iranians and Eskander Khorasani and the scant details he knew of the possible assassination.
    “Weird,” Boyd said, shaking his head, but he reminded himself that weird situations were his stock and trade. If this panned out the way it seemed to be going, it would be quite the adventure. That old feeling was coming back.
    “I don’t like the Russians,” Lado said, careening through the scant traffic. “They killed my son-in-law. He was a captain in the Georgian Army, and they killed him at Gali, when they took Abkhazia from us. He died defending our country, 20 miles from where he was born. But, if the Russian president dies here, many more will die.”
    They swept by the rental van with the rest of the air crew heading to the hotel. Boyd started to wave but decided against it. He could see the Sheraton Metechi Palace Hotel ahead, where he had a room reserved for the night. He hoped he’d wind up sleeping there. Lado swerved onto an exit ramp, and they crossed the main railroad line and entered Moscow Avenue, then turned into a warehouse district and burst out onto the Left Embarkment along the Kura River and crossed the Aragveli Bridge.
    “There they are,” Lado said as they accelerated up the divided Gorgasali Street. Black-clad figures lurked in the median.
    Adrenaline kicked in; the fight was on. Boyd went into high alert. There were four in the median and, as the Lada raced toward town, he saw a dozen or more through the trees on the other side.
    “You have a gun?”
    “No.”
    “A flare or something, to attract attention?”
    “A disabled-vehicle placard in the trunk,” Lado said.
    The street was blocked ahead at the point where the divided highway merged back into two-way traffic. The presidential motorcade was racing into the divided section they had just passed, moments from encountering the ambush.
    “Turn around!” Boyd shouted.
    Lado made a 360-degree turn, tires squealing, and blue smoke clouded Boyd’s vision just as the armored Mercedes limo flashed past. Lado jammed the gears and double-clutched the transmission and the mad sewing machine turned itself inside out as they turned back into traffic, tires spinning. As they accelerated, oncoming traffic pulled to the side of the road or swerved around them, horns blaring, but they fell behind the presidential motorcade, which was going all-out now.
    An explosion stopped the lead vehicle, which partially blocked the roadway. Another blast blew the windshield out of the president’s limo as it surged past the first vehicle, spinning down the roadway. The blue Lada drew abreast of the now-flaming kill zone as the third and fourth vehicles were hit and struck the first. Bullets were already flying.
    “Keep going,” Boyd said, seeing a slim chance of presidential survival in the Mercedes spinning away down the street. He could see more black-clad figures coming down the hill in a tactical advance, firing from cover, then advancing. These were not amateurs.
    The Mercedes skidded to a halt just at the end of the divided section of the road, under a statue of some long-ago hero. The left front tire, grill, fender and hood were blown away, and flames flickered from the engine, which had been blown into the front seat, crushing the driver. A