Monday came too fast for me, but it was here. Flights were leaving Minnesota at seven; the planes had left Morton Field at 5 to pick up the second group of employees for training. Another plane was returning from Michigan with the last of that group to be trained here.

Any more training of those groups would be done at the respective colleges on site. Most of the training left was for the part time people.

At nine several people from the agency and the state department, plus the FBI came in as a group and requested the use of a private office. They were going to begin the top level investigations of JBG employees who were going to have access to any related documents.

Marcy had generated a list of those employees. Luckily the agency approved pilots or any of our mechanics who needed this treatment. Since our talk on Friday the scope had been narrowed down.

Marcy’s list now included, Marcy, Jeanna, Lorrie, Vicky, Ching Lee, Jason, Roseanne Cindy, and Mark, two of Marcy’s clerks and my two clerks and me. The investigators promised to have all but the in-depth background finished by the end of the week. I was to be the last one to go through the polygraph and interview process.

True to their word the, State department was finished Friday morning as I was wired up for the polygraph. I spent four hours being interviewed while wired up.

We trained very hard for two weeks; I put in 16 hours a day’ for those two weeks in the gym. For all my hard work, I started losing weight again. I increased my protein intake but that did not help, I was working out so hard.

In between the training sessions there were conference calls and updates from everywhere. Good news came from a few places. Dan called to say that Sonny had been discharged and was in good spirits. His football team had won the Thanksgiving Day game by a field goal in overtime without him and the team had been invited to a bowl game. The old doctor promised he would be able to play in it.

The MAAR manager at Cherokee County airport had sent Jason an envelope of receipts and the leftover cash that Jason had given Sonny’s dad.

Sonny’s mother has included a two page heart-warming thank you letter for all the help and assistance we had provided them.

Sam and Artie had been interviewed by all the agencies. Curtis Warren supplied an attorney to be with them through the process.

The second week of December had come to an end and training was over. All the employees were back to their respective colleges. I had a new Security Director and a second in command at each site.

East Coast Security was more than fifty percent completed with the camera and equipment installation. Marcy had the complete office package delivered to both sites. The new people had plenty to keep them busy until the students returned.

Between Christmas and New Years Day both sites would be paid a visit/inspection so things could be tweaked before students arrived. I had not decided if additional help was going to be sent there to help with all the new ID cards to be issued.

On the 15th of December the State department was satisfied with all the security checks and investigations they had done. The State Department then issued a preliminary letter of intent to award JBG the contract. That meant that it was a done deal except for official signatures.

With that in hand Lorrie purchased 6 Bell 407 TS low hours choppers we needed for the contract. Lorrie contracted with Bell to inspect the choppers at Morton Field before we would make final payment on them. It was the owner’s responsibilities to have them there on December 21 for the inspection.

A helicopter is a piece of equipment that is designed to self destruct. It simply shakes it self to death one hour at a time and requires a host of continuous inspections to find loose, missing parts and structural cracks from the vibration.

On the 17 of December six Blackhawks were posted on the government site. JBG bought all six sight unseen with Frank’s recommendation. We paid 15% of the original cost.

All six were at a marine base in North Carolina. We had four days to fly them out to Morton field. Luckily the ex-Air Force pilots we had hired with the last group had time in choppers. The pilots were being flown down in the morning to fly them back.

We only needed four but Frank arranged that we buy all six. He said we needed spares. In a video call with state and the agency I learned two were going somewhere in South America and two somewhere in Africa.

The planning was already in the works to ferry all the choppers around. The distances were too far to fly them so the plan was to remove three rotor blades and load two choppers each in the C130’s front to back to get them to their destination if it was feasible. They were to return with the junk two choppers in the round flight.

All the junk choppers were going to be kept at Morton as parts pigs. Lorrie was going to decide later if we were going to keep them whole or disassemble them and catalog the spare parts or try to rebuild them.

I argued that there should be enough good parts out of the six Bell 407s to get two flyable spare choppers. Who knows, once we get our minds wrapped around choppers we may find plenty of use for them.

There was also the possibility that she may have the mechanics rebuild two of the Black Hawks. It was something the mechanics were going to have to decide after inspecting them.

With the military downsizing because of the President’s decision to retreat from the Middle East, there were plenty of helicopter mechanics out there. We just needed to find a couple of good ones to add to Robbie’s crew. For now the mechanics we had could do double duty.

It was important to have our own mechanics. They were always busy with repairs, inspections and service work. There was no way you could run a flight service the size we had grown to without them.

Thursday and Friday I was back at KCC to finish out the December paperwork requirements. I would be finished there until after January 2 when the new semester started.

I was glad to see the Christmas weekend was a less than week away. All of us needed to finish shopping. Our close family had grown this year after the announcement that Jenny was pregnant. Jason, Lisa and Joey were household regulars now.

Crash and Marlene were always in the house. I guess it is true that old men relive their sexual youth. Marlene carried a blush most of the time and was always putting her clothes in order when one of us walked in on them in a room – not that she wore that many clothes. She was always in super short skirts with garters and hose with halter tops or something that was easy access for old Crash.

The more I thought about it, she dresses like a hot to trot sixteen year old. She was ready to fuck on the blink of an eye and dressed for easy access. Maybe she just liked to tease old men.

I was on pins and needles Sunday morning. Our best G5 was leaving Sunday night and going to LAX. It needed to be there by 8 AM. That was the time that Jake and Mindy’s flight was to arrive from Japan. Ellen Mills was the flight attendant. She was the most attractive and the best flight attendant anywhere, I suspected. Ellen had it together from A to Z and was the most requested flight attendant that we employed.

I wanted to meet them in the worst way and had planned on going, but I needed to be here for another State, CIA, and DHS meeting Monday morning. This one was in Washington. Marcy, Jenny and I were requested to attend.

I told a little white lie to Mom and Dad that a very important customer was going to be picked up at LAX. I wanted them to represent the company and greet them and make the trip back to Morton Field with them.

Jake had not told them he was coming home for the holidays; he wanted to surprise them and boy did he. We had managed to keep his secret.

Jake was going to surprise Tony and the J&J group too. Their Christmas party Wednesday night at a Ritzy Hill Valley Country Club outside of Kennet Square Pennsylvania. He was just going to walk right in.

All the J&J equipment was gone from Morton Field, their part of the job was done. Tony was going to come back to do a final inspection on the terminal building the first week of January. Bob’s Construction was putting the finishing touches on the interior this week.

Tony was also going to make periodic trips to make sure the hangar people adhered to the contract. With Jake going to stay a month, he may not have to.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.