George Foreman clambered into the Huey like a man whose parents hadn’t expected their boldly named child to stand barely 5’0″ in work boots.  Years of mockery accompanied his awkward ascent into the roar of rotating blades. He’d become something of a solemn, severe man who fit today’s mission like a tuxedo on Bond.

The world was frantic now.  It was beyond a race against time; it felt like a race against the wind itself.  With everyone panicking like a fiery eruption of despair (disguised as “Operation Hope”), few remained like George Foreman.   A swirling, thumping, cacophony of wind lifted George and his team into the promise of another scorching August day.  George relaxed.  This was a job: nothing more, nothing less.

It took about an hour to the reported coordinates. George’s mind wandered while his squad stayed alert as marines which they were. “How do they find these places?” he marveled. “That A.I. is wonderful. Could have just as easily been a satellite as a toaster oven.” He admired the efficiency of military and machine.

They passed over a hodgepodge collection of family farms and homesteads. 

Everything looks so pretty and perfect from up here.  It was a lie to the eye, and George knew it.  Get closer, and you’d see the piles of shit and scrapped machinery rusting into oblivion.

“1-minute people!” George barked at the men.

He saw, like every other visit, people scrambling, running as the chopper came into view.  The Huey dropped down at the edge of a neatly trimmed field dotted with freshly baled hay. 

A young boy disappeared into one of the dozen sheds, a pretty woman with long, unearthly red hair stood in the middle of the yard dressed in denim jeans and defiance. She stared at them, her face turning as white as the bleached laundry fluttering behind her.

Knowing that the local effort already blocked the laneway to the farm made this part of the job easier. “They’re a good team,” George thought. “Not the best, but damn good.”

George tapped his smartphone, started the timer, and nodded to the four others.  The men scrambled out fast.  George, always the last one out, staggered and fell to one knee.  A burst of the aroma of fresh cut hay and the memory of one late afternoon, a summer long forgotten, drove his imagination back to childhood and his only childhood friend.  “Not now,” he growled to himself as he stood, swiped the soil from knee and swore.  The redhead stood her ground, yelled over her shoulder and took a swing at the first of the marines. He settled her down fast as the others searched sheds.

“That’s how to settl’em down,” he thought.  Now George waited.

Most of the time, it took 5 minutes 47 seconds, an average time he was quite proud to achieve.  No other team leader’s average came close. He glanced at his watch.

6 minutes.

12 minutes.

“These farmers are a damn pain in my ass,” he mumbled to the Huey purring impatiently behind him.

At 14 damn minutes and 54 damn seconds, the team came out of the furthest shed, signaled “tunnels” and gave thumbs up.  The sergeant (whose name was too small for the monster of a man he’d become) carried the body. “Not a record-breaker at least,” George thought of another farm, the one with the record. It’d taken his best team 3 hours, 6 minutes and 14 seconds to get the target. “Farmers,” George sneered.

Sergeant Beast, still holding tight to the poor wide-eyed thing, was sobbing uncontrollably.  Sobbing Sarge (“pathetic,” George thought) tapped his headphones and beckoned George.  The vibrational, throbbing roar of blades through air muzzled the whimpering. 

“Sir, will this one be ok?” George shrugged and snarled, “Not my job.”

Bobbi watched the chopper rising over her field, tears streaming down her cheeks as she screamed in fury and defeat.

Under the Hill