Friday morning I made arrangements to meet Caroline’s family in her hospital room at 10 on Saturday morning. Then my morning was normal until after lunch.

At 1 two state police officers delivered a subpoena for me to testify before a grand jury into the deaths of the Johnson Brothers taking place next Friday at 9 AM.

A few minutes later I called the Mountain County sheriff’s office looking for the sheriff. When he finally picked up I asked if the forensic investigation had been completed into the brother’s deaths, that I needed a copy for my legal department. I told him it was procedure anytime that a death occurred with JBG personnel on site and their weapons had been fired.

I then called Courtney and told her to go pick up the copy and email it to me immediately.

I would have Jenny get a copy of the police report and investigation on Monday through official channels.

I called Jenny and read her the subpoena. Jenny was not happy. With the type of grand jury that was scheduled she said I could not have an attorney with me.

Oh well, I made the decisions and followed those decisions with action where ever they may take me. The subpoena was vague; as all subpoenas are, they were intentionally that way. It stated the inquiry was into the Johnson Brothers deaths but it really was like throwing a hand full of sand into the air. Once the sand left the hand it went everywhere and so could they.

I put the grand jury out of my mind so I could deal with more pressing issues at KCC. KCC has it’s first basket ball game of the season tonight. It was an away game; I decided to keep the policies and procedures same as last year. That meant I sent armed guards and each of the busses to keep the kids, the drivers and spectators safe. Each bus carried one of security’s portable GPS units that would be monitored from the time they left today until the students returned to campus after the game on Saturday.

It took a few minutes to get everyone up to speed on policies and procedures and to refresh everyone memories from last year. By luck I had the same crews working all away games this year as last year.

With the busses on the way it was time for Patti and me to go home. I needed to be on time for tonight’s meeting and then the after meeting with Eric.

To my surprise at our meeting I learned that not only I but Courtney, Justin, Ronnie, Shelly and Sandra had been delivered subpoenas today. I remembered that I had sent Ching Lee and Vicky on to Michigan before any investigation began. Luckily they had been the last ones to get into the barn and by then the shooting was over.

I wish there had been some popcorn, it was fun watching Jason and Jenny debating on what actions we should take for the employees of JBG. Jason knew of an attorney that specialized in grand jury cases. Curtis had worked with him in the early years of Jason’s tenure on the governor’s task force. Jason was going to contact him tomorrow. The discussion had taken two hours.

Curtis Warren was the great grandson of a former Chief Justice of the US Supreme court. Lorrie recognized the name immediately as a rental customer of one of the Florida rental houses last winter and he had booked the best one for the month of January this year.

We had just finished when Eric and Frank Love entered our meeting. I was not expecting Frank. I wondered what kind of surprises were in store now.

“You came at the right time; we just finished discussing the subpoenas we received today for the grand jury investigation in to the Johnson brother’s untimely death,” I said.

“It is kind of interesting that the prosecutor rushed to make it happen just a few days before the election,” Eric replied. “Have you lined up an attorney yet?”

“I think so, I am going to contact Curtis Warren tomorrow to see if he will represent JBG,” Jason replied.

“He is the best you will find. Tell him I said, ‘Hello’ and have him call me after you talk with him; DHS will work with him on getting the jury postponed until after the New Year. McJames wants nothing to interfere with the Michigan and Minnesota college arrangements.”

“By the New Year it will be forgotten and may just disappear, Eric replied then added. “I would recommend that you contract his services with a yearly retainer. It will be well worth it with the businesses you are in now. His firm is recognized in all fifty states.”

“Ok now on to other business today there was an unpublished auction on at the Government Equipment Liquidation web site for government agency’s and selected foreign countries,” Eric said.

“Ty and I worked up a wish list of some things we knew you were going to need for the airport. This auction was announced as a one day auction or I would have contacted you to look at it,” Eric replied.

“So I took the liberty of updating the account Robbie made for the published Gov auction site by using the DHS grant number you were issued to receive the airport grants.” Eric and Frank began passing color pictures of the equipment as they talked.

“Lorrie, seeing that the Morton Airport is really your baby, here is an early Christmas gift if Marcy agrees to it.’

“As soon as Marcy writes a check, JBG will own three aircraft tugs, one for small light aircraft, another for medium aircraft and the last for heavy duty aircraft. They are painted navy gray but you will have to arrange freight from Norfolk”

You will also have an 8000 gallon jet-A refueling truck. It was completely refurbished to go to a sand box country but with the way things are there now, that was cancelled. It is Air Force silver, located at Dover AFB and is drivable,” Eric replied, and then continued.

“We found two deice tower trucks that were refurbished last year to go to Alaska. Now the base is going to have a mission change because the Russians are complaining. They are painted white and are located in Kansas; they can be driven as well,” Eric said.

“Lorrie will like the next item is a mobile passenger stairs that will allow you to load and unload passengers off larger planes. You may need it with your emergency status, along with four towable baggage trailers. You may never need them but who knows – the price was right and these are at Fort Mead,” Frank said.

“Last but not least the final two items were expensive but we will use them several times a month and more for contract flights. You should be able to pay for them in six months or less. They are two C130H models; they were to go the sand box but that also has been cancelled because of current events there. They were to go the Arizona Bone yard straight from the factory overhaul. They have 0 hours on the airframe and engines are the upgrade J engines, also 0 hours since the total overhaul.

If you need to I can arrange for a six month delay in payment to allow you to recoup the money from the leases,” Frank said. “Fill them with fuel and they are ready to fly. Some of the pilots on the fly list we gave you have plenty of hours in the C130. That is why I wanted you to have them here. I know we can work together.”

“We could not have it shown that we own them. You know the deal. The agency will accept the same markup arrangement that you use for DHS,” Frank replied then added.

“With that big new hangar that you hooked, we will be doing a lot more contract work with you. A lot of things can be out of sight and out of mind in that hangar, an option that we don’t have anywhere in the middle Atlantic area without involving other branches. Some things we would rather they not know about.”

I read the faces of the girl’s especially Marcy and knew we were in for a long meeting after Eric and Frank left.

As the pictures made their way around the table I was impressed with the condition of the equipment. The refurbished stuff looked as good as new, even the used stuff looked good. The girls were pointing out things on the pictures.

Lorrie had a magnifying glass looking over the pictures of the C130’s.

“What about the avionics?” She asked Frank.

“The top secret things were removed and replaced with newest and proven Midland and Collins. They have the works, any of your pilots will be right at home in the cockpits,” Frank said then added. “There is a recommended spare parts list for them. I put the word out to collect multiple sets of them as inventories are updated and to be shipped to the agency. They will arrive in the freight deliveries. You need to put your logos on the C130’s the day they arrive,” Frank said.

“Here is the bad news,” he said as he handed me the invoices.

I looked through the sheets and then at the total on the last sheet. I thought, “No wonder they don’t publish the results and keep it a dark secret, everybody would be upset if they knew how little things went for.”

I knew Robbie had an account for the published Gov auction site and bought shop equipment and some parts from there because the purchases came through on his corporate card. Even on that site there were bargains at times.

The whole lot was cheaper than any three of the last houses that Marcy had bought at the Florida auction. I doubted that Frank bid more than 5 % of the original cost and most likely a lot less. I wondered what kinds of cooperation Frank was looking for out of JBG as time went on. There had to be a lot of pressure to get the aircraft as cheap as the paperwork indicated.

Something was going on for sure. I wondered if the aircraft were to be simply reassigned to the agency and the sale was a smoke screen to say the agency did not own or have them.

Marcy gave Frank a check for the full amount. Frank gave Marcy the necessary paperwork to be able to pick up the equipment and then he and Eric left.

We spent an hour with Lorrie changing tomorrow’s pilot schedule around. One Cessna jet was going to Arizona with six pilots from Eric’s fly list to act as pilot, copilot and engineer on the two C130s. Lorrie made the calls to the pilots; they thought they were just shuttling planes from Easton and Island to Morton. Seven of them were in for the surprise of their lives in the morning as were a lot of JBG employees when all the equipment arrived.

The logo shop that made and installed them was sent an e-mail for four of the logos used on the planes and to be installed on Monday. With no problems, the planes should be here Sunday afternoon.

We brainstormed until Marcy had a list of contractors to have all the equipment delivered next week. Then we had the conversation I knew was coming. It was a good thing the maintenance building was in the finishing stages so we have a place to park the equipment in that was out of the weather.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Joe H.