CAMP RUSSELL, TARIN KOWT
‘JJ, are you in there, brother?’ Matt said, knocking on JJ’s door.
A banging came from inside the room, and then a crash as a wardrobe door was slammed shut and something heavy fell on the ground.
‘Hang on, just a second.’
JJ opened the door about a minute later, dressed in nothing more than cut-off cargo pants. ‘Sorry, I was playing chess online,’ he said, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Matt took a step back from the door as the overpowering smell of something similar to old socks followed JJ out into the hallway. ‘Shit, dude, turn on your air conditioner, it’s like a bloody oven in there.’ He smiled at JJ. ‘Seriously, mate – chess? I don’t even want to know what you were really doing.’
‘Whatever are you implying, my good man,’ said JJ in a mock upper-class British accent.
Matt pointed through the open door to the bottle of Nivea hand cream lying on the desk beside the computer.
JJ shrugged innocently.
‘Anyway . . .’ Matt said, remembering the reason he’d dropped by the sergeant’s room in the first place. ‘I’m off to go and see this American guy, the commander of the Green Berets – Todd someone.’
‘You mean Todd Carson, boss?’
‘Right, Carson, that’s it. I was talking with Craig Reilly this morning and he told me we should expect to do some operations with the Green Berets in the next few months, so it’s probably a good idea to get to know him. What have you heard about this guy? You’ve been training with his blokes, right?’
‘Yeah, they’ve rocked up to a few of the sessions. Apparently he’s a monster of a guy – some big square-jawed blond dude from Minnesota.’
‘So, he’s pretty much Canadian then,’ said Matt, distracted by a low moaning coming from JJ’s computer.
‘I don’t get the reference, boss,’ JJ said as he slowly inched backwards into the room to close the lid on his laptop.
‘It’s just that Minnesota is a long way north – oh, forget it. Anything else?’
‘His guys told me that he was selected to play professional hockey days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Instead he went to West Point, and a few years later he was in Iraq running a platoon. Pretty cool, don’t you think?’
Matt laughed. ‘Sounds like you have a bit of a man crush, JJ.’
‘Whatever, boss – I just do my homework. Besides, he’s a big dude and doesn’t talk smack, unlike half the guys on this base, so it’s easy to not be a hater.’
‘All right, all right, I was just joking. Any idea about his combat credentials? I mean, is the guy the real deal?’
‘How does Ranger Course, qualified Special Forces, three tours of Iraq and two tours of Afghanistan sound? I’d say he’s legit!’
‘You really did do your homework. You know about the restrictions that have been applied to the Green Berets? They can’t actually target any individuals without gaining permission from the commander of Regional Command South, so I’m not sure what use they’ll be to us anyway.’
‘Shit, that’s almost as bad as being forced to drive everywhere using our own tyres to search for IEDs. Oh, and boss, don’t call them Green Berets. They’re ODA guys now: it’s short for Operational Detachment Alpha. No one calls them Green Berets anymore.’
‘Yeah, right. Well, their missions are restricted to mentoring the Afghan partner force and conducting village security operations. It would be like being stuck in a remote village and getting attacked for nine months straight.’
‘Poor pricks,’ said JJ, kicking the Nivea bottle under his bed.
‘The Taliban are actually winning the hearts and minds of the locals due mostly to targeting errors by the Afghan army, but they put all the blame on the US Special Forces. So the Green Berets have become risk adverse and we have the situation we have now. As I said, mate, I’m not sure we have much to gain from working with them on any operation. Perhaps we could use them as a blocking force or leverage their air assets. I don’t know, to be honest.’
‘We could always just send them out as bait and then when they get in a fight come in and thump the hell out of the Taliban,’ said JJ.
‘Ha – you’re terrible, JJ.’ Matt started to laugh then stopped abruptly as he was struck by something. It was like there was something teasing at the corner of his mind but he couldn’t quite grasp it.
‘Hey, I was only joking,’ said JJ.
Matt waved a hand. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know – it’s just that at times I feel like that’s exactly what’s happening to us.’
‘We’ve had a rough trot, boss, there’s no denying that, but don’t you become the pessimist – that’s my job.’ JJ picked his t-shirt up off the floor and pulled it on. ‘Someone’s gotta stay above that shit, boss.’
‘Yeah, you’re right, JJ.’ Matt shook his head to dispel the strange feeling that had come over him. ‘I’ll drop in and see you when I get back from Echos, mate.’
Matt turned and walked down the hallway towards the exit.
JJ, the grand chess master – I’ll have to remember that one, thought Matt with a chuckle.