The Summer Job - 48. Grilling & Chilling

Phillip pulled the grill out and warmed it up. This was going to be epic.

Casey got to work in the kitchen with his able assistant Billy. They prepared bacon, corn on the cob, beans, peeled and sliced potatoes for fries, and sliced tomatoes and onions.

Although the crowd was much reduced from the night before, there were plenty of hungry boys.

Jack Murphy ran the city SWAT team. He, too, was a Gulf War vet; the second one in Iraq and the Afghanistan clusterfuck. His time with the Army Rangers had given him just the right credentials to run a small city’s Special Weapons and Tactics team. When Daniels had brought him into the Task Force, he was aghast.

He looked at the plans to the house and Farmer’s Army jacket and said, “This guy has been in that house for twenty plus years and has plenty of money. There could be all sorts of very unfortunate surprises for my guys in there. We’re going to need help on this one.”

Daniels asked, “What do you need?”

Murphy answered with the Ranger’s Holy Trinity, “Intelligence, recon and shooters. My guys are good, but Farmer has had a long time to think and prepare for this. A lot of SpecOps people retire and fortify the hell out of their places. What we see in the field can make a man paranoid.”

Murphy pointed at the basement blueprint and said, “Look at this— there are three cinder block walls dividing the space in the basement. That makes for four different choke points and I really don’t like the looks of these rooms in the back North corner. That smells like a redoubt to me. If he’s thinking, someone is coming to get him, we’re going to have to dig him out room by room. If he’s fortified those rooms, getting him and any hostage out is going to be a copper plated bitch.”

Callahan asked, “Who could we call on short notice to get the kind of help you need?”

Murphy said, “We train with the Sheriff’s tactical guys. They’ve got some competent shooters. If it’s OK with you, I’d like to call my old Commanding Officer at Bragg and tell him one of our tribe has gone way off the reservation.”

Chuck Farmer flipped on the whirlpool dropped his towel and got in with his four favorite boys. Their workout had been hard, but that was good. An old dog like him had to push himself to keep up with these pups, but it was worth the effort.

He sat between Cade Brock and Jeremy Aubrey. Cade was no rocket scientist, but he made up for that with being hung, sweet and loyal. Jeremy liked the idea of being a dumb brutish jock, but he might be the most intelligent of the group.

Kevin Sutton sat beside Cade who was his best friend and shared Cade’s vices and virtues.

Richard Fuller sat beside Jeremy. He was a junior and the oldest boy in the tub, but he was slight in frame looking more like an eighth grader or freshman. He was Farmer’s version of a spook. Richard kept his association with the rest of the pack quiet.

Rounding out the circle was Doug Lambert, the boy most like Chuck with a bright agile mind with a hard, pragmatic core. Doug was the leader and undisputed Alpha dog in this pack. Of all the boys, Doug got what Farmer was teaching them the best.

As was their custom Farmer asked, “So what would you guys like to talk about today?”

Jeremy asked politely, “Could you tell us what you did during the war sir? I’ve seen you plaques and awards on the wall in your study upstairs. Weren’t you a Green Beret?”

Farmer said, “Yes I was. I joined the Army right out of high school. I liked the challenge, did well, went to jump school at Fort Bragg and got my jump wings at nineteen finishing near the top of the class. That year the Green Berets didn’t have enough people, so they let me try out early. By the time I was twenty, I had a beret.”

Kevin Sutton asked, “What do Green Berets do? Are they like Rangers or Navy SEALs?”

Farmer laughed and said, “If a drunk Green Beret hears you compare them to Rangers or SEALs, you might be in trouble. Yes, the Green Berets are an elite organization like the others, but their mission and role are quite different from those units.”

“Rangers and SEALs are mission oriented. They go in to steal the widget, blow something up or take out a specific target. What the Green Berets do is longer term. They go into areas where there are conflicts and help friendly local populations fight against people that are oppressing them or causing trouble. We deployed to South America where Communist insurgents were raising hell and killing many innocent people. We trained and armed a local militia, and they ran them off. Our game plan was to help people fight for themselves, so Uncle Sam doesn’t have to.”

“Weren’t you in the Gulf War?”, Doug asked. He knew the answer but had given Farmer an opening.

Farmer said, “I was in the First Gulf War back in 1990-91. Many people confuse the two because the first one the President was George Bush senior. The second Gulf War was run by his retarded son George Junior and, it showed.”

“We were sent in to help a group of people called the Kurds who live in an area that runs from Northern Syria, Turkey, Northern Iraq and Iran. They were one of the two big groups that opposed Saddam Hussein and had been fucked over by everybody since Moses.”

Jeremy asked, “What were they like?”

Farmer’s mind went back to Northern Iraq in 1990 and meeting the Kurds for the first time. They were so poor, a few sheep and a chicken constituted a fortune for them. Kurds were so different from the Sunni Arabs.

Farmer answered, “They were friendly, honorable, smart and tough as nails.”

Farmer continued and said, “I was twenty-one when we deployed to Kurdistan in Northern Iraq. The Iraqis called it something else, of course. Chad Rider, my partner, and I were embedded with a cell of Kurds and ordered to train them up to be more effective insurgents. We brought in weapons, explosives, communications gear and went to work.”

“We were based in caves in the mountains and had a bunch of kids fourteen to eighteen to train. Back then, I didn’t even know I liked guys but, living in tight quarters with them, I figured it out pretty quick. I fell head over heels for a young Kurdish fighter named Huner Awir. He was my first love. There was a hot spring in that cave, and we often bathed in it together like we are now.”

Richard Fuller asked, “Weren’t they young to be soldiers?”

Farmer shrugged and said, “The culture over there isn’t like ours. In conflicts like that, teen soldiers are often the norm. Americans today would scream and wet their pants over it and consider it scandalous, but our own Civil War was fought mostly by combatants of that age.”

“We trained up for a few weeks, and then we started raising hell. We made it so bad for Saddam’s local troops, we were picking and choosing which trucks we would loot or just blow up. That’s when the reprisals started.”

Cade asked, “What happened?”

Farmer said, “The Iraqis sent a company of their Republican Guard in. They grabbed a bunch of kids from one of the Kurd villages, raped them all, boys and girls, and cut their throats.”

All four of the boys were clearly as disgusted as Farmer was at the time. Doug asked, “What did you do?”

Farmer said, “We set a real motherfucker of an ambush and killed them all. That was... satisfying, but the bastards sent more troops. We had a hideous little war on our hands. The boys were seriously pissed as several of them were related to the kids who were murdered. They took it personally, and we started our reprisals. We started doing to them exactly what they were doing to us. That’s when the shit got real, and they sent in helicopter gunships— the big Hind bastards. Most of our boys were killed, and I got fragged by a rocket. They pulled us out, and it was over before I recovered.”

Farmer looked grim and said, “The politicians declared victory, and fucked over the Kurds just like everybody else since Moses. I got posted back to Bragg and worked as a trainer until my hitch was up. That's when I went to college and never looked back.”

“Enough ancient history: how goes our recruiting?”

Richard said, “Not so good. We’ve lost some of our promising rookies to that guy who was on the news yesterday.”

Farmer raised an eyebrow and said, “Our person of the week?”

Richard looked disappointed and said, “Yeah. Kurt said the swimmers are all following him around like a bunch of puppies. Coach Hanson has leukemia and the Wright guy has taken over the Barracudas for the summer.”

Farmer asked, “Where did you get that?”

Richard said, “I’ve got a source that works in the office at the Y. She likes to drink coffee and gossip with her gay boyfriend. Anyhow, apparently someone has taken over their little club. They call themselves the Gentlemen’s Club now.”

Farmer laughed and said, “They sound like a strip club.”

“Kurt and Miguel are spooked”, Richard reported. “Seth has tried to get them to meet the new guy but, they’re very leery of meeting a completely unknown person. Hell, for all we know, it might be Phillip Wright. He’s hot and charismatic enough. I’d sure like to meet him in on a dark night in the park.”

Farmer said, “When they’re here tonight, I’ll give those two incentive to find out for us.”