Chapter 228

The afternoon that we were going to use for planning was gone. It was late afternoon by the time we made it back to the office. I expected another lecture about taking risks, but none came my way – at least not yet.

We ordered supper to be delivered and began our meeting. By having both the day shift and night shift work 12 hours (by starting 4 hours early), there would be enough coverage for both Frost Borough and Tennessee Community college. Each of those colleges had 800 students scheduled to arrive over four days, starting Tuesday.

At Johnson Tri-County, Elmira State and Blair County, our staff would work the same double shift. With 1200 students each we decided that Ching Lee and two of her clerks would go to Johnson Tri-County. Vicky and two of her clerks would go to Elmira State to help out there. Mark and two clerks would go to Blair County.

With 1700 students, Warrington would present another problem. The same double shift was going to happen there plus Roseanne, Courtney and six other clerks were going there.

Rochester with its 4000 students was our biggest problem. Homeland’s request to have undercover people working as JBG security was a blessing during the enrollment period.

They had assigned 10 people to work for us and they were all bilingual. During the enrollment they were going to work with all foreign students. A plus for them and JBG was that DHS had for almost a month with the complete student roster to evaluate risks.

A number of students had already been assigned rooms in two different dorms and I was sure that extra surveillance devices were already installed in them. The 10 DHS people were not counted in the 100 fulltime group and they were going to work 12 hour shifts, the same as our people.

After the enrollment period they were to work days and evenings plus weekends to do whatever they needed for national security. 10 extra JBG unmarked cars were assigned to them and being paid for by DHS.

Even with all our people working 12 hours and the extra 10 DHS working 12 hours, we were still sending Cindy and 4 more clerks to help keep things running smoothly.

DHS had run complete security checks on Kelly Pepper, Cindy and Mark and then held an interview session at the gym offices. Kelly was flown down for the interview session last Thursday. When Kelly asked why he needed to be at the offices, Cindy told him it was above his and her pay grade.

Jason, Marcy, Cindy, Mark and I were in the meeting and we were introduced to the 10 operatives. Eric laid out the limitations on how and when we could use them. They were essentially to act and function as our employees but also as spies for the agency.

We spent our last night together for the next 5 days. We watched the early version of the late news on 34. They broadcast highlights of the press conference with the state and federal officials and of course the Governor’s response. They ran the complete interview that I gave Hanna. I was amazed at how good it came across on the TV, let alone the fact they ran the whole thing unedited.

It was the first time that all of us were more than a day or two apart. We did not have an orgy but we had our special time together.

Monday morning we said our goodbyes and went different directions. Jenny went to Annapolis to begin all the preliminary work for the trial. All the assigned people packed bags or brought bags. Flights were scheduled all day to the various colleges. It would be Friday night or Saturday before everyone returned.

I drove with Patti in the right seat to KCC to meet with Mr. Bozman. The first order of business today was the final inspection of the dorm replacement. I had been getting daily progress updates and they were saying it was done. But every walkthrough seemed to find something else that needed to be corrected.

The first of the KCC students were to arrive tomorrow. Our 1000 students were scheduled to arrive 250 a day, with most of the freshman class coming tomorrow. That freshman class was going to get their first rape prevention class on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. The class was also going to be open to any female student that wanted a refresher.

Bob Jackson, Mr. Bozman and I did the inspection and approved the dorm for student use. J&J Engineering had installed all the bells and whistles into the replacement section. Every room had a separate temperature control that building services could monitor. Every room had an emergency pull handle that when activated allowed the security desk to talk directly to the student in the room and activate a camera in the room.

The bathrooms were top of the line for college students. It was unfortunate that this dorm was a male only dorm. I could not do anything about that but I could assign only seniors to the new rooms, who may appreciate the perks.

As soon as I returned to the office I began programming the door locks into the system; from there they could be assigned to students and onto ID cards. Then I began the task of bringing the security work force up to the necessary levels for the school year. I spent most of the afternoon with the work schedules for my employees.

I was receiving texts on my phone all afternoon. I had asked each group to text me when they arrived at their destination. By the time I left KCC, all the groups had texted me. It gave me a little piece of mind.

I met Marcy and Lorrie at the gym; they were following all the developments from each of the colleges. Everything today had gone as planned – everyone was in place for tomorrow.

We had a quick supper at the refreshment counter then went to the office. Tony and Kathy were updating the airport blueprints. They were going home on Friday and coming back on Tuesday. The wives, girlfriends and kids had all gone back in the last few days to get everyone ready for school. The men were going home to celebrate the holiday and stay a few days. The airport construction was a week or more ahead of schedule.

I finally had time to sit at my desk and listen to my phone messages. Even though I could, I never forwarded my JBG messages to my cell phone. The message I left on the machine told the caller to dial 0 if they needed an immediate response to the call.

As I listened to the calls I wrote notes on a legal pad for my clerk to deal with tomorrow. At the sixth message, I was startled to hear a death threat in Arabic directed at me in retaliation for the mall incident yesterday.

Edit by Alfmeister

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