Kildar Read online

  "If there are tractors and machinery, many of them will be free even during planting," Genadi said. "Not all the young men, but many of them. By around the first of May."

  "I'll take a look at manning later," Mike replied. "But do you think we can squeeze, say, seventy percent of the men from seventeen to thirty-five, starting sometime in May?"

  "Easily," Genadi said. "If we have machinery."

  "Okay," Mike said, nodding. "I want you to move down to Tbilisi for the time being to get the machinery we'll need. I'm not sure they'll have everything we want in stock. How do we get you there? I don't want to be driving back and forth."

  "There is a bus, I can ride that," Genadi said.

  "Works," Mike replied. "That way. You'll need an SUV or pickup, your choice, for getting around. Get that first. I've got an account with the Bank of Tbilisi. I'll set up another that you can draw on. Get everything in place and we'll move it up in one load if we can. By late March, I want to be able to dump a gigaton of machinery on these folks. Let's figure out what we need, want and desire."

  It took about an hour to draw up the list. Some items could be put off and a few could be rented for specific periods, but Mike erred on the side of purchase. The final estimate was a pretty fair bite, running right at a million euros.

  "A million here, a million there and before long you're talking real money," Mike muttered. "While you're in Tbilisi, find out if there are any IMF grants for this sort of thing. Grants not loans. Check with the American Embassy as well; I know there's a fair amount of foreign aid going to Georgia. But nothing with a lot of strings attached. With Americans, there are always strings."

  "I will, Kildar," Genadi said, nodding. "This is very much money."

  "I can afford it," Mike noted. "But I'd prefer to afford as little as I can. See about a lawyer as well. A good one. They're generally up on things like that. Check with your old professors, all the usual. Use your head. On the trucks and whatnot, if it's about the same price or even a little more, get Fords if they're available. F-350s for the big ones."

  "Why Fords?" Genadi asked. "Mercedes makes . . ."

  "I like Ford," Mike said, cutting him off. "And they're bigger than the Mercedes vehicles in the same cost range. Oh, and all of them need to be four-wheel drive with the roads around here."

  "As you say, Kildar," Genadi replied, sighing.

  "I need to make some phone calls," Mike said. "Get packed and head to town tomorrow. Get yourself a cell phone when you get there and contact me so I know where to reach you."

  * * *

  Mike went back to the master suite and got the larger sat phone, bringing it into the parlor when Genadi was gone and setting it up. It had a good connection and he used the limited internet pipe to do some searching. He got a few good hits off of Google and started making calls.

  Three hours later he'd learned more about the international arms business than he liked. He was going to need an end-user license from the Georgian government, which he assumed Tyurin could arrange, and a bunchaton of money. After talking to a few brokers he'd cut to the chase and called Skoda Arms. The Czech company had been formed during the Soviet period and, even then, was noted for its high quality of manufacture and design. They still made some of the best weapons in the world and were more than willing to sell to anyone with cash and a reasonable set of documents. They'd even offered to broker secondary weapons they didn't make and ship the entire load in one shipment. He still wasn't sure what his total manpower looked like so he started doodling on a notepad until he figured it was after lunch and he could call Washington with a fair chance of getting ahold of Pierson.

  "You said you bought a house," the colonel said when the scrambler was in place, "not a fucking fortress."

  "I take it you've been talking to NRO," Mike replied, referring to the National Reconnaissance Office, the guys who ran all the satellites for the United States.

  "That we have," Pierson said. "Nice place. The President's impressed."

  "It's going to take a fair bit of work." Mike sighed. "It's so old nobody knows who built it to begin with and the interior looks it. But what I called about was the local militia, or lack thereof. This area is apparently lousy with Chechen terrorists and support structure. I'm going to try to form a tiddly little militia to cut down on that. If I do, it will take some of the heat off of Georgia with regard to the Russians. I know a border war has been a real worry in Washington for a while; any chance Uncle Sammie could, quietly, defray some of my costs? I've been doing equipment lists and, before the cost of the trainers, I'm looking at two to four mil in gear. That's a nasty bite. Then there's ongoing training costs."

  "We might be able to swing something," Pierson said, musingly. "You'll need to work through the local military attaché but we can keep your connection low-profile. A word in the right ear and all that. What are the Georgians going to think of an American warlord in their rear area?"

  "The local police chief thinks it's fine and dandy," Mike said. "I'm not too sure about the central government. I'll probably have to cross a few palms."

  "Just dialing back the Chechens should make them happy," Pierson said. "But you never know about local governments."

  "It's not like I can stage a coup," Mike pointed out. "Not with one company, more or less, of light infantry."

  "How high you going to train them?" the colonel asked.

  "As high as I can," Mike admitted. "I'd like them to be at least Ranger quality in a year. The basic material is there, I'll have to see if they can really take to the training. I've got a start on the TOE, I need to start rounding up trainers."

  "Have fun."

  "I'm buying guns, gear and soldiers," Mike said, chuckling. "Other than women, what's more fun to buy?"

  Chapter Seven

  "Frog Gear."

  "This is Mike Jenkins. I'm an advisor to a local militia in Georgia, the country not the state. I need gear. Lots and lots of gear."

  In the previous two weeks, things had started to shake out. The house was improving; there was heat at least and the whole place was now spotless. The cellars were still being emptied out, but Mike was keeping some of the stuff. There were some interesting metal trays he suspected dated to the period of Ottoman occupancy and wooden boxes of books in Russian, Arabic and even Greek that he was itching to figure out. The Keldara had turned out to be excellent craftsmen and he now had shelves in the library again as well as a desk.

  And he'd gotten a handle on his potential militia manpower. There were a hundred and twenty of the Keldara who were in the age and ability range to make decent militiamen. He suspected a few of them wouldn't have the right mindset to make the sort of soldiers he wanted, but most seemed to. The Keldara were very disciplined, but after watching a couple of fights he'd come to the conclusion that was necessary rather than normal. Aggression was the first necessity for a soldier, the rest could be trained. And the Keldara had plenty of aggression. They were very serious about how they settled arguments.

  He'd taught a few of the women to take measurements, given them a list of Keldara who were designated for the militia, and set them to work measuring them. So he had full measurements for the entire group. Putting them all in an e-mail had been tedious, the sort of reason he wished he had a staff, or even a clerk. But the order was ready to go. And after he got the weapons and equipment, he could start introductory training.

  In addition to the male fighters, there were about forty females he thought might make decent fixed-position soldiers. The Keldara women were beautiful and, on the surface, remarkably oppressed. But there was a lot of fire there. He'd seen one of the Family mothers berating one of her sons and it sounded like a drill sergeant dressing down a recruit.

  But the time had come to start putting in serious gear orders. And Frog Gear was the place, in his opinion. They could supply everything from boots to batteries with all the electronics gear, uniforms and rucksacks that would be needed in between.

  "How are you going to
be paying for this, sir?" the saleswoman asked.

  "I'll mail you a check from Citicorp," Mike said. "I want to set up the order, then I'll mail you the list. It's probably going to take a container to ship it all."

  "That much?" the saleswoman squeaked.

  "That much," Mike said. "I'm outfitting a light infantry company and I'll need both mobile and fixed communications gear. So give me an order number and I'll send you the list. You figure out how much it's going to cost, including shipping, and I'll send you a check. Works?"

  "That will work, sir," the saleswoman said, cautiously.

  "Just to give you an idea," Mike said. "I'm looking at a hundred and fifty sets of uniforms, an equal number of combat vests, an equal number of NODs, etcetera. Delivered to Georgia. And, given the quantity, I'm going to want at least some discount."

  * * *

  "Adams."

  "I heard you retired Ass-boy," Mike said. "It's Jenkins. How you doing?"

  "Jenkins, huh?" the retired master chief replied. "Nice handle. Where the hell are you?"

  "Georgia," Mike said. "The country, not the state. What are you doing these days?"

  "Watching the grass grow," Chief Adams grumped. "I've been looking for a job but what in the hell does a retired SEAL do for work?"

  "There are plenty of companies that could use you in sales," Mike said, grinning. "But I've got a contract offer you might be interested in."

  "What are you doing, headhunting?" Adams asked, warily.

  "No, this is for me," Mike replied. "I bought a farm in Georgia. It came with retainers. They need training. Lots and lots of training."

  "Georgia, huh?" Chief Adams said. "The wife is going to love that."

  "You old goat, what is this. Number six?"

  "Five," Adams said. "Going on six."

  "The girls are gorgeous and the beer is fantastic," Mike said. "And the base material is outstanding. I figure six months with some time off when they have to work on the farm. Not just you, I'll need a team of fifteen or so. Maybe, probably, more. Twelve instructors for the males, three for the females, a few specialists, notably commo and rifle, you for senior NCO and an OIC. Frankly, I'd like you to pick an OIC for it; you're more connected these days than I am. Spend six weeks taking a class in Georgian, a month or so getting to know the people, basic training period, then some stick around for advanced training. I'll need at least three females with combat experience since I'm going to want to train some of the women as well."

  "Direct fire only?"

  "No, I got permission for mortars," Mike admitted. "You think you can round up some special forces heavy guys? Oh, and there are some civil works projects I think we can throw in the mix. See if you can get a couple of Sfers with real engineering and electrical training."

  "I know some people," Adams admitted. "This is on the up and up, right? I want to be able to come back to the States."

  "Fully supported by the government of the land of the free," Mike said. "At least as long as the current government is in place. Next year's elections are going to be interesting."

  "That they are," Adams said. "Okay, I'll start rounding up a team. What's the pay?"

  "Two hundred kay for six months for the OIC," Mike said. "One-seventy for you. One-twenty for all the other trainers. Room and board provided. And, of course, seventy kay is tax free."

  "In that case I'll get right on it," Adams said. "How soon do you need them?"

  "Soon," Mike admitted. "I've been running behind the eight ball getting things in place. So the sooner you can get a team over here and learning Georgian, the better."

  "Will do," Adams replied. "See you soon, Mike."

  "Look forward to it," Mike said, cutting the circuit as Mother Savina came in the office with a distracted expression on her face.

  "There is another truck," Mother Savina said, shaking her head. "A large truck from DHL."

  "Workout gear," Mike said, happily. He went to the front and, sure enough, the usual DHL driver was standing outside his truck looking dyspeptic.

  "There is many parcels for you, Mr. Jenkins," Tolegeon said in broken English, shaking his head. "Very heavy. Very much."

  "I'll get a crew," Mike replied in a mix of Georgian and Russian. He was picking up the former more or less by a process of osmosis while his Russian was getting, if anything, more fluent. Albeit with some odd loan words. "Mother Savina, get Petro and he and I will start. But call down for a few strong backs; we'll be at this for a while."

  "You should wait until Keldara get here," Mother Savina said, shaking her head. "Kildar should not unload trucks."

  "The Kildar has done worse in his time," Mike said, going around to the back of the truck.

  He, the DHL driver and Petro had barely gotten a third of the way through the truck when some Keldara made it up the hill. Despite the climb the farmers immediately started unloading, toting the gear to the cellar room Mike had designated for a weight room. He'd decided to leave the library as a library and use one of the many rooms in the cellars for workouts.

  The truck took about an hour to unload, since most of the packages were heavy enough it took two to lift them. But finally it drove away and Mike was left looking at a room piled with large and small boxes.

  "This is going to take a while to assemble," Mike said, shaking his head.

  "You want help?" Vil Mahona asked. He was one of the Keldara Mike had mentally designated as a militiaman and given his normal initiative and "can do" attitude, Mike suspected he was going to be one of the officers or NCOs.

  "I could use help," Mike admitted. "If anybody wants to stick around, feel free. And, yes, you'll get paid."

  The Keldara had a brief discussion and Vil and two of the others stayed as Mike went to work opening the boxes. One problem that was immediately apparent was that although the assembly instructions were "international," the various languages they were printed in did not include Russian, much less Georgian. Which led to another question.

  "Vil, can you read?" Mike asked as well as he could in Georgian.

  "A little," the Keldara admitted. "We are taught some reading by the mothers. But not well. Are not many books." Vil was using a mix of standard Georgian with some Keldara words. The Keldara spoke a dialect of Georgian that was very nearly a different language. Fortunately, most of the older members spoke Russian and all but the youngest could get by in standard Georgian. However, the "Georgian" Mike was picking up was mostly Keldara.

  "Fortunately, most of the instructions have pictures," Mike said, looking at the instructions for the Nautilus equipment. "But even with the pictures, I'm lost. I'm not the world's greatest mechanic. And we'll need tools."

  "I get toolbox," one of the other Keldara said. Mike thought his name was Dutov and from his looks he was a Devlich. If he remembered correctly, he was Katrina's older brother, although with the Keldara it was hard to tell.

  Mike pulled out parts to the weight bench and started laying them out on the floor as Vil started doing the same with one of the Nautilus machines. The third Keldara, who was in his mid-teens, scratched his head for a second, then started in on one of the other Nautilus machines.

  "What are these?" Vil said after looking at the instructions in confusion.

  "They are machines for building muscles," Mike said, then looked up at their expressions of surprise. "Look, I know you guys pick rocks and throw bulls and stuff all day. But, first of all, I don't. I'm stuck in this house doing other things. Second, with these you can target build specific muscle groups so you don't just have muscles for picking rock and throwing bulls. When I have the time I like to use these machines for about four to six hours a day." He'd had to use a fair bit of Russian to get that across and Vil was forced to translate some of the words, in some places obviously looking for phrases when Georgian and Keldara gave out.

  Dutov shortly came back with a toolbox and the four of them went to work. It quickly became apparent that Dutov had quite a bit more mechanical aptitude than the other three
, especially after Mike ended up assembling half of a Nautilus backwards.

  "This is for muscles?" Vil asked, holding up a padded part. "How?"

  "That's a pec device," Mike said, holding up his arms bent at the elbows and moving them inward. "You push your forearms against the pads. There's a bar you hold with your hands," he added, pointing at one of the parts. "The one . . . son, what's your name?" Mike asked the teen.

  "Erkin, Kildar," the boy said.

  "What he's working on is a leg machine," Mike said, pushing with his legs. "For building strength in the legs."

  Dutov said something fast in Keldara and Mike couldn't quite catch it but the other two laughed.

  "What?" he asked, curiously.