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After the CIA jet pulled into a private hangar, Hoskins, Frank Prescott, Brad Spencer, and David Gorridge exited the CIA jet, and carried their luggage and gear toward a small bus. A man who was awaiting their arrival quickly approached them.
“Mr. Hoskins, I’m Deputy Chief of Mission John Evans from the American Embassy, I hope you had a nice flight.”
“As well as could be expected.”
“Ambassador Ganley sends his regrets, he’s at an OSCE Conference in Istanbul and hopes to return before you leave Georgia.”
“Please, tell him not to hurry on our account, Mr. Evans, we don’t plan to be here very long.”
“I have pre-cleared all of you through customs as you requested,” Evans said, “We could be at the Embassy in fifteen minutes if we leave now.”
“Since time is not a luxury that we have, let’s move, Mr. Evans,” Hoskins said as they boarded the mini-bus.
After the short trip from the airport to the American Embassy the minibus pulled up to a security gate where a camera screened the occupants of the minibus before the gate opened. The mini-bus proceeded down a driveway and into an underground garage where they parked close to a lower-level entrance to the embassy.
As they got out of the mini-bus, Evans said, “Mr. Hoskins, we have the vehicle ready that you requested, along with all of the necessary clearance papers and visas. If you are detained for any reason, you are American farm researchers who are here to check on imports and exports from the Republic of Georgia.”
Evans walked them over to a black Mercedes and he opened the trunk and pointed inside.
We got each of you a local cell phone and radio and the other equipment that you requested. This is my cell number and radio address should you need to contact the embassy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Evans, you’ve been most helpful. If you don’t hear from us in six hours, call this number and tell them to send out a search party.”
Hoskins, David and Brad got into the Mercedes where Frank was already behind the wheel.
“Okay, David, which way to the farm?” Frank asked as they pulled out of the Embassy driveway.
“We need to go straight through the downtown area, so just keep following the trolley tracks south. The farm is only a few miles south of Tbilisi.”
“What does Tbilisi mean?” Brad asked as the CIA car moved through the winding tree lined streets with old stone houses on the sides.
“It means warm, as in warm spring. There’s a legend of a King who shot a deer and it fell into a spring. To the King’s amazement, the deer leaped out of the water and ran away as swift as an arrow. The water in the spring was warm and appeared to possess a healing power. The King then had a town built here and they named it Tbilisi.”
“I could see why you would never forget a place like this,” Brad said as he looked at the beautiful stone courtyards off the streets that were draped with vines giving the city a Mediterranean flavor.
Hoskins turned around and looked back at David from the front seat and asked, “There’s no ethnic tension or religious problems here that you’re aware of?”
“Not that I’ve heard of. My sister and I are Christian, but we’ve always had friends in town that were Jewish and Muslim, and I still keep in touch with some of them. In this country, a person’s life is judged by the number of friends he has, not by the number of dollars in his wallet.”
“If only it were like that everywhere,” Frank said.
Brad saw a statue on top of a hill overlooking the city and asked David what it was.
“That is the statue of Mother Georgia.”
“What is that she’s holding?”
“She has a sword in one hand for the enemies of Georgia, and a bowl of wine in the other for guests.”
The CIA’s Mercedes left the city on a southern road and entered the rural farm areas.
“This is how I want to play this, gentlemen, David will tell the farmer that he has inadvertently heard about the canisters from some local friends and that we are buyers who are prepared to pay for the canisters at a very high price. We’ll negotiate at any cost,” Hoskins said.
“What if they insist on taking us up on our offer?” Brad asked.
“Don’t get excited, boys, but we have a half million American Dollars hidden in a secret compartment in the trunk of this car.”
Brad and David just stared at each other.
After they drove a few more miles past some of the countless orchards and acres of cropland that surrounded the city, David said, “That’s the farm up ahead on the left.”
The car pulled into the dirt driveway and drove up near the large white farmhouse.
“Brad, you wait in the car and watch the phones and radios, come out and get me if anything urgent comes in,” Hoskins said.
David, Hoskins, and Frank walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. The farm owner came to the door and was barely visible through the screen.
David peered through the screen and said, “Mr. Shengelia, it’s me, David Gorridge, I’ve heard about the radioactive canisters and I brought a merchant who wants to buy them from you at a handsome price.”
Shengelia slowly opened the door and came out. The three men where surprised because his face was bruised on the one side.
“Mr. Shengelia are you alright? What happened to you?”
“The canisters are gone,” Shengelia said, “The bastards swindled me. I gave them half the cans and they paid me half the money up front yesterday. They came back today and loaded the remaining cans in their truck. Then they beat me and stole back all of the money threatening to kill me if I told anyone.”
David pulled Hoskins to the side and said, “He’s really hurting, could we do anything for him?”
“What would you like me to do?” Hoskins asked, “You don’t owe him anything, if we’re lucky enough to catch these bad guys, there’s a very good chance that he’ll go to jail for aiding and abetting them.”
Hoskins saw the pitifully concerned look on David’s face and he looked over at Shengelia who was sitting on his porch step with his head in his hands.
“I’ll tell you what,” Hoskins said, “Tell him that if he cooperates with us we’ll try to help him pay for his damages. Tell him that we’ll send a representative over from the embassy to take his statement and review the situation. He must give us any information that he has on any other farms that may have the radioactive canisters. And you’d better tell him to get a lawyer.”
“Thanks, I’ll tell him that.”
After David told the farmer, he acknowledged gratefully, and said that he will help.
“Ask him if the crooks gave any hint as to where they were taking the canisters,” Hoskins said as David helped interpret for the farmer.
“They spoke of meeting a ship in Batumi, the first load went there.”
“The second load went in the direction of Tbilisi. They used rental trucks to haul the cans from here,” the farmer told David.
“Did you get any names or could you tell what country they were from?” David asked the farmer.
“No, part of the original deal was that I didn’t ask questions. But I would definitely say that they were Mid-Easterners,” the farmer said.
Hoskins turned to Frank and said, “You’d better get on the phone to our team in Batumi and tell them to check every rental truck entering the ports.”
“Okay,” Frank said, “And I’ll call the Embassy and tell them that we need to secure permission to search every ship bound for the Mid East.”
Hoskins turned his attention back to David and the farmer.
“From Tbilisi, they could go in any number of directions, is there anything else you could tell us about the trucks, the cargo, anything? Did you hear them say anything at all about their final destination?”
David took Shengelia aside to see if he could learn anything else about the terrorists.
“He can only say that they packed the canisters in citrus fruit crates,” David said as he and the farmer walked back over to Hoskins who was standing by the car.
The farmer stopped suddenly as he recalled some more information and relayed it to David.
“Azerbaijan”, David said, “He says he heard them say that the truck heading north, is going to Baku, Azerbaijan.”
“Well, things just keep getting better,” Hoskins said, “Approximately what time did the second truck leave here?”
“He said they left about four hours ago.”
“Any idea what route they would have taken?”
David conferred with the farmer and then said, “The quickest and best route out of Georgia is the western route to Lagodekhi that is on the Azerbaijani border.”
Hoskins dialed a number on his satellite phone to the home office in Langley, Virginia to talk to his assigned in-house support agent Donald Nelson.
“Hello, Nelson, I’m calling from the Republic of Georgia, and within the hour we may be in high-speed pursuit of a truckload of Level A contaminant. We’ll be moving through Georgia and into Azerbaijan. I need you to make every immediate preparation to give us air surveillance the minute we need it.”
“Sure, Jack, I’ll start gathering all of the info we have on available resources in Eastern and Western Europe. I should have the ETA on the closest units for you in ten minutes.”
“That’s good to hear, Nelson, I’ll be calling you back shortly.”
Hoskins hung up the phone and said, “David, take one last minute and get the best description of the trucks that you can from the farmer.”
Hoskins got into the car and said to Frank, “Tell our team at the shipping ports in Batumi that the canisters are probably hidden in citrus crates. We’ll be heading from Tbilisi to Baku, Azerbaijan and we’ll stay in touch with them every step of the way.”
David said good-bye to the farmer and got into the car and said, “They used blue trucks with a sign on the door for Caucasus Rental.”
The black Mercedes sped away from the farmhouse and back to Tbilisi.
As they drove through Tbilisi, Hoskins satellite phone rang.
“Nelson, how did you make out?”
Nelson was looking at the dispatch screen on the wall of the control room and said, “The nearest available helicopters are in Germany, I would say it’ll be at least four hours before I could get one down to you.”
“Damn, by the time it gets here and refuels, it’ll be too late,” Hoskins said.
“Are you only looking for recon and close air support?” Nelson asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”
“Then I may have something else you could use, do you know Leslie Jones?”
“Yes, but the last I heard, she was with the London office.”
“Well, fortunately for you, she was sent to Azerbaijan almost a year ago. Leslie could give you predator surveillance during this operation.”
“That’ll work, and where could we find her?”
“I’ll arrange for you to rendezvous with Leslie in the Azerbaijani village of Oghuz. I’ll have her contact you within the hour.”
“This should be interesting. I hope this predator unit has already been field-tested. I don’t want to be a guinea pig while I’m chasing radioactive materials around Eastern Europe.”
“We’ve had incredible success with the predators on every mission that I’ve been assigned to,” Nelson said, “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, Jack.”
“I’m not going to thank you until I see the results.”
“That’s quite all right, one of the pleasures of my job is telling people ‘I told you so.’”
Hoskins hung up the phone.
“Are we going to wait for a chopper?” Frank asked.
“I’m afraid not, we have to track these guys ourselves until we get into Azerbaijan. Let’s get on that western road and see if we could catch that damn truck.”
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