15.2 The Silver Fox

After two hours, he was steered to the minister’s private office. The walls of the entrance hall and the rest of the interior walls were painted in their entirety. Floors finished with ceramic, windows glazed with stained glass and ceilings ornately decorated. A style of paintings and frescos with relief décors ranging from pseudo-Baroque, Renaissance motifs and Classicism to Art Nouveau.

“Dila Mshvidobisa!” the colonel rumbled to greet the visitor, “You look familiar, Mr Salazar! Sit down!”

“Gmadlobt,” returned Salazar gripping tightly to the folder and analysed this gentleman behind the table in full MVD uniform. Ram was a man of small build with a whiff of white hair, thirty-seven years old, born before the Red Army invasion of Georgia.

“How can I help?”

Salazar sat down on the chair, “Sir! I come to ask for a favour. Tyler Friesen is an American-born writer on a mission to investigate a shipment of rutile ore halted in Armenia. To my knowledge, this consignment originates from Ukraine and arranged by Aleksandre Giorgashvili through Tiflis…Tbilisi Aircraft State Association…”

“Alexey!”

“Yes sir,” Salazar carried on tensely, “Mr Friesen was going to go to Georgia when he was abducted by the Blue Beret and now in exile at Turukhansk in Siberia.

“These photographs were taken by him while in Budapest, from documents that belong to Giorgashvili, of an airline that’s in recent operation in Skopje,” he paused to see if there was any reaction, “It seems to me that the arbitrator is Tiflis…Tbilisi Aircraft State Association and this airline is owned by Aleksandre Giorgashvili…”

“Alexey!”

“Yes sir.”

“He is a very honoured gentleman in Georgia and a senior member of the TAM Group. Let me see!”

The minister picked the folder and browsed the images, “Is the American investigating this case?”

“His main concern was the rutile ore. He did not tell me about this case but I figure it now, he knew about Macedon Air. Friesen planned this trip to Tif…Tbilisi with those addresses. He was after Giorgashvili.”

“Well, well…this looks like a Master Agreement! Where did he get all this money?”

“I wish I knew,” said Salazar. Hinting his interest, Salazar put it through, “Friesen mentioned Giorgashvili’s connection to a Spanish company called Catai Tours. Jaco Ferre was one of their representatives killed in Budapest last year.” Salazar dictated all he knew and the minister keenly listened.

Ram enquired at the end, “How much do you ask for this information?”

“Nothing, sir, nothing.”

He dropped a startling face and started to laugh like a clown. Sometimes a fox…sometimes a ram.

Surprised, Salazar insisted, “I want you to free Tyler Friesen to go home.”

This made the colonel more elated and his eyes turned watery, “Are you a dissident?”

“No,” Salazar denied but he was a CIA contact.

Finally, Ram patted his eyes with a handkerchief and said, “How do you know he is in Siberia?”

He replied, “I have certain sources to apprise. I went to Moscow three months ago and met with Colonel Ivanov at Directorate 5. He told me all notices with regard to Tyler Friesen stop at General Silayev’s desk.”

“The Sledge, UKR,” pronounced the minister of a branch equivalent to former SMERSH, “It will take some time for me to check on these activities of smuggling but I am intrigued. Do keep me informed!”

“Yes sir.”

This meeting lasted over two hours and not five minutes. Samvel Salazar left quite relieved.

Colonel Angelozzi Tetriverdzi picked the phone and asked the operator to get General Vladimir Leonovich Silayev at the Lubyanka.

“Comrade Ram!” cried the General on the phone, “I’m glad to hear you’re there, Minister! Congratulations! How is it going?”

“Not bad,” returned Ram, “Listen, General! I have a small problem to look into that of Comrade Aleksandre Giorgashvili and an American writer by the name of Tyler Friesen. I’m told you are aware of this.”

“Oh yes, Colonel Ram,” he began, “this Alexey is a quitter. Few years ago, this agent was doing us a favour. There was an American, one of his friends, who supplied us with top secret. I passed them to Comrade Yakov who analysed all that data at his factory. He says it’s first-class information. A sophisticated design of a reconnaissance aircraft, rather the tests Americans did to make it utterly invisible to radar. Photographs of the models they tested to find a match that will minimise its radar cross section, along with the diagnostic evaluation. But this guy freaked out and stopped around a year ago or two. We did not get anything useful afterwards.”

“Did Alexey supply rutile ore to the Americans?” asked the colonel.

“Of course, we did them a little favour too.”

“What about Tyler Friesen?”

“Comrade Minister, he came like a shock. He was in Budapest going after Alexey and we suspected him as a spy. His next destination was Armenia. He was after the ore that they stopped from falling into American hands. We started to believe he has links to that kind of sensitive technologies and wanted to talk, perhaps, recruit him. It turned out to be a Peking Duck…de facto,” explicated the General, “A big misunderstanding. He carried a gun, spy gadgets, a lot of money and somebody certainly sent him here. But he is not a very good actor. No foreign language skills, he does not talk, does not smoke, a very silent guy, a writer.”

“I want to question him on another matter that involves Alexey and Tbilaviamsheni. He’s running an airline business in Macedonia. Tyler Friesen has knowledge about this operation.”

“Comrade Minister! That maybe the motive. You are the golden fleece, in a good way I mean,” said Sledge, “You called at the right time with a real good reason. You can have him. I will send you a complete profile on Alexey and everything else you need to know. I have to get rid of this American off my shoulder.”

“That would be very helpful, Comrade General.”

Putting down that call, he dialled an accountant who worked at 31^st aviation factory that was established after moving N31 Aviation Factory of Taganrog and N45 Aircraft Repairing Factory of Sevastopol to Georgia at the beginning of WWII. Levan Alexidze was fifty-seven years old and currently the Chief Procurement Officer at Tbilisi Aircraft State Association. He would know the nuts and bolts and where they fit on an aircraft component though he never saw the authentic machine. He could turn on the pages of the catalogues with such accuracy every time to spot on the part number. Minister Ram assigned him to investigate this case and submit a full account on Alexey and Macedon Air.