The Baku Boy Scouts

By Lloyd Sparks

Ollie wants to lead a Boy Scout troop. Wade wants to lead soldiers into combat.
Dr. Snider just wants to go home and retire. The three men find themselves
taking a group of reluctant teenagers on a campout in the wilds of Nagorno
Karabakh, where the get hopelessly lost. They wander into the no-mans-land
between Armenia and Azerbaijan and find themselves caught up in a small war.
To make things worse, the US has lost a nuclear warhead in the area and the
Russians and Iranians want to find it as badly as the Americans do. The kids
come upon it first and only the Baku Boy Scouts and their arch-rivals, the Math
Genies, can avert a major international incident.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9781440101120

Lloyd Sparks

Lloyd Sparks is a best-selling author of science adventure novels and winner of Writer’s Digest’s Best New Author of 2006, category Young Adult Fiction. He is best known for his work in fiction reflecting a well traveled and widely diverse background of experience. Dr. Sparks lives in Massachusetts.

Book preview

Chapter 1

J. Carvel Snider hated kids.

He hated all kids. Especially teenagers. He even hated himself when he was one.

He hated their endlessly repeated expressions they think are so unique. He hated the way they wear their non-conformist clothes in order to fit in. He hated their hostile, thumping grunts that pass for music. He hated their mind-numbing video games. And he especially hated the cynical way they can’t find anything good to say about anything.

So when Wade invited him to teach his boy scouts first aid, Snider reluctantly accepted it with mixed feelings: fear and loathing.

You see, Wade is Snider’s boss, so he didn’t have any choice.

Worse still, Wade invited him home for dinner on the night of the scout meeting. Snider neither liked family life nor admired those who had one. And Wade was above all a family man. To Snider, Wade’s life was chaotic and out of control. In Snider’s opinion, this was because Wade is the kind of person who can’t say no, who takes on more than he can handle and is therefore a victim of his own lack of discipline.

Though Snider assured him he would be happy to meet at the school for the scout meeting, Wade insisted on dragging Snider home, subjecting him to a meal of uncertain quality, and generally inflicting his family on Snider and Snider on them.

Snider expected the worst and was not disappointed.

He had worked hard to make a life for himself that was as near to perfect as possible. Everything was just the way he liked it. Until recently he had been a research physician with a well-paying, highly respected position as Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Washington. No wife or children to upset things. Not even a pet. He had managed to earn the respect, and, (who could deny it?) the admiration of his peers in the difficult world of psychiatric research and patient care.

He would not mention that to boast. Honors and praise were nothing to him. He did not expect to win the Nobel Prize, though lesser men had. No. His life was devoted purely to the untiring pursuit of solitude and tranquility. In any case, appreciation for his accomplishments would be beyond the narrow universe of those who worked with him at the American embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Dr. J. Carvel Snider considered his less-than-voluntary year in the office of the Defense Attaché in Baku a waste. It was one more example of the military’s inability to make proper use of its resources. His job was nothing a trained chimp couldn’t do. Failure and success were absolutely indistinguishable.

In addition, Baku offered none of the attractions of civilization. Public services were unreliable. Food and water were unsafe. The Azerbaijanis cared nothing for Western ideas of social order. Traffic was downright dangerous.

Now, to add to this cross he shouldered, Snider had to endure dinner in a typical American home grotesquely transplanted at the farthest corner of the planet.

And on top of it all, J. Carvel Snider hated kids.

After work on Thursday, Lieutenant Colonel Wade Poole personally drove Snider to his family’s home, the official residence of the Defense Attaché. Although Wade had a personal chauffeur and could have an embassy car take him anywhere, he insisted on the independence of owning a car and driving himself.

Wade threaded the moving maze of Baku traffic, easing the car into nonexistent lanes and dashing into openings that suddenly appeared. Cars rolled by just inches away. Horns blasted out a constant din. In Baku, even private vehicles had sirens and boat horns. Snider made most of the journey with his eyes closed and his fists gripping the seatbelt and armrest. His legs ached from pressing his feet into the floor.

There must be some regulation against making Americans do this, Snider thought to himself. This isn’t safe.

To stay safe, you’ve got to be unpredictable, Wade explained.

As Wade drove, he lectured Snider on safety and security. You have to vary your routes. The way people get killed abroad is by being predictable. The terrorists always study your patterns to plan their attacks.

It seemed an unnecessary concern to Snider. Even planning a routine in Baku was hopeless. No terrorist could possibly expect any attack to come off as planned in Baku’s frustrating gridlock. Just driving in Baku presented vastly more danger than any terrorist cell did.

Although driving in Baku requires one’s complete concentration, Wade insisted on talking the whole time about military matters, which he took for granted Snider could understand. After all, Snider was a non-commissioned officer. A sergeant. A fellow warrior. They shared a bond of brotherhood civilians in the embassy could never fathom.

Wade was sure he and Snider would work well together.

Snider was sure they wouldn’t.

Here we are! Safe and sound at home sweet home, said Wade, driving up over the curb to avoid a car partially blocking the gate to his house. Though Wade had run the gauntlet of Baku traffic hundreds of times, Snider nevertheless considered their safe arrival at the Poole home a miracle.

This home, rented by the US government for its overseas staff, was another outrageous waste of taxpayer’s money, Snider could see. For the cost of rent, upkeep and security, the US government could have built and maintained several such houses on the embassy compound. With the added benefit of not making its staff drive to work in Baku traffic.

But that’s not the way Uncle Sam does business. Money is budgeted and every penny is spent every year, spurred by the panic that sets in around August as the end of the fiscal year approaches. Any department that does not spend every cent risks having its budget cut the next year, so any money that might be saved is washed down the drain to justify demanding an increase for the coming year.

The result in this case was this ridiculously expensive chateau staffed by a chauffeur, a gardener, a housekeeper, a cook and a babysitter. Unseen, but present, were several security personnel to protect the family of the Defense Attaché, as they do every person who represents the government of the richest and most powerful nation on earth.

After entering through a locked gate, a locked garage and doubly locked front door, Wade introduced Snider to his wife Marlene.

Honey, I’m home! This is Sergeant Snider, my assistant. He’s coming with us to scouts tonight, so I brought him home for dinner.

Nice to meet you! she called from the kitchen, then appeared with a baby on one hip and offered Snider a wet, sticky hand she wiped with a dishcloth. I’ll set another place.

Snider’s initial impression was that Wade’s wife was a harried, bedraggled woman doubly trapped in a world of raising a family while her husband throws even more anarchy into the mix by bringing home unexpected guests. To add to the insanity, she taught at one of the international schools as well. She struck Snider as a person on the brink of collapse and would gladly have died if only she could afford it.

She squeezed Snider into the corner of the table between her second child, Swaim, and the baby’s high chair.

The infant, like all babies, had as much fun playing with his food as eating it. Almost before the meal had started his tray was smeared with a delightful orange, green and white collage of cooked carrots, peas and mashed potatoes. Food flew everywhere, splattering people as far away as the other side of the table.

Snider, being closest, got the worst of it.

Sorry about the mess, said Mrs. Poole. You got a piece of carrot on your tie.

Don’t worry about it, Snider mumbled, gingerly wiping it off with his own handkerchief. (Don’t they have any napkins?) I can get it cleaned tomorrow. What’s his name?

Otto, she replied. And Dwayne over there is our third little one, she said pointing to the tyke sitting next to her whose best friend appeared to be a banana.

Snider sensed a pattern.

Middle initial ‘D?’ he asked.

I got the idea from my mom, Wade explained. People who are forgettable get forgotten. We gave them all names people would never forget.

No matter how hard they try, Snider thought to himself. Wade N. Poole, Daven D. Poole, Swaim N. Poole, Dwayne D. Poole, Otto D. Poole…

Their third little boy Dwayne was a kid for whom early life had been difficult. An ear infection had left him almost deaf during the years most kids learn to speak and he was catching up. He had a tendency to speak too loudly, but showed no shyness in expressing himself. What he needed more than anything else, apart from an understanding and knowledgeable parent, was social interaction, which the Poole family provided in abundance.

Here’s banana-man, he said to Snider, showing him a man he had made by sticking four forks into a banana."

What’s banana-man’s name? Snider asked.

Banana-poop! he said with a laugh. Is that funny?

Some might think so, Snider said. Why don’t you show ‘banana-man’ to somebody else?

The child was at least interested in the same things other kids his age were. That, however, was wasted on Dr. Snider. Though he studied the brain, he preferred books to the real thing. Especially when it belongs to kids who can’t speak below volume of a respectable artillery piece.

Is that funny? Dwayne barked again, two feet from Snider’s left ear.

It was when I could hear, he answered. Ever consider a career as a siren?

The only two kids he had any intention of interacting with were Daven and Swaim, the scouts. Daven, the oldest at 13, looked like he would present the least difficulty, but Swaim was trouble. Daven was quiet and serious