At our Friday afternoon meeting we watched the recorded mid-day news clips of the Senate hearings and the news conference. There was a discussion that followed and a bit of gentle ribbing.

“Are you ready to go into politics?” Jenny asked before she started laughing.

“The day I say that I am, you can call the docs and have them commit me to the loony farm,” I said as I threw a crumpled piece of paper at her that she promptly threw back. At least she had not lost her sense of humor yet.

Ty Deshields from the agency knocked, then walked in and handed me a folder. I had texted him while I was in Washington and he was delivering me the information I had asked for. “The best one is on the top.”

While I was listening to reports I flipped through the documents, blueprints and pictures.

Roseanne’s report was on the 30 potential employees for the rapid response team. Twenty five had responded and fifteen of them were landing at BWI Sunday afternoon.

They were to wait in the MAAR lounge until groups of four had assembled then MAAR was to give them directions and send them to the Holiday East Motel in rental cars. The other ten were close enough that they were driving on their own nickel.

They were to be at the office at 0700 Monday to begin the three part process. Interviews, a meeting with the head docs, then our new physicals, the battery of drug test, pay, benefits and job offers were to take the first two days. Then the kick-ass work was to begin.

Then it was Lorrie’s turn to layout the meeting. She went over the list of potential hires to fill the pilot gap for Jake’s new jet and the four we needed to fill the new chopper request. Luckily there were still plenty of good chopper pilots leaving the military. Jack had the list and was evaluating their records and histories. The real question was were they willing to work in some of the worst paces in the world?

Interestingly enough, the DOD had added JBG as a possible employer in the separation packet given to the pilot’s Army, Air Force and Marine pilots. HR had a list to choose from. It was too bad that we did not have F15, F16, F18, C5A, C17, or Cobra Attack choppers; there were plenty of pilots with a boat load of hours in them looking for jobs.

To complicate Monday the SWAT team from Rochester was arriving. Ching Lee and her physical training group were anxious to get them on the training floor.

The shoot don’t shoot course had been changed to different silhouettes and sequences incase the first Rochester evaluation group had spilled the beans as to the set up when they were here.

The good news was Jake, Dad and Bob’s crews has finished the bullet backstops. Tomorrow I was going to help locate them in the far end of the super hangar in the position I wanted them. The publishing company out on 301 had printed off a thousand body targets and another thousand of smaller X targets for other practice shooting. The printouts were being stored in the armory with all our weapons and ammo.

I was going to take one of the Barrett M107 sniper rifles with a dozen rounds to check out the bullet backstops and make sure they were up to the task at hand.

We were nearly done when Bob finally made it to our meeting. I was beginning to get worried that he was too busy to be involved with my latest project.

While everyone was getting coffee refilled, I ran off copies of the plans I had decided on and passed them out to everyone.

“What am I looking at on these prints?” Bob asked.

“What you are looking at is a copy of the Fort Black Hostage Rescue and Target Control training site. I want you to build me a downsized version of it. They do not need water, pluming, sewage or electric. If electric is needed we will use generators and cords.”

“Maybe a dozen buildings close together on each side of a dirt road like a third world town shown in the pictures. Only 4 need 2 floors and they will need block walls because of smoke grenades, flash bangs and possibly training hand grenades will be used. The diagrams here show how to construct the two story block buildings using a maze to direct the blast so the building will be reusable indefinitely.”

“The wall needs to be 12 inch blocks. You will find the description is on page eight. And the ceilings needs to be poured concrete so men can rappel out of a chopper onto it. Also the ceilings need to be able to take the concussion of explosives too,” I said.

“Really, most of the houses can be a square using a front wall with a window and door, a rear door, and a sloped roof and maybe one partial wall as a divider. We can use plywood for siding, either painted or covered with tar paper,” I said.

“When do you want me to start and where do you want your new theme park built?” Bob asked.

“You know me – I wanted you to start yesterday and have it finished by mid – week. Except for the block ones – do not even put them on footers, just build them on skids. It just has to be done ASAP; we need them desperately for a new training module starting soon.”

“In fact it would be better with them on skids as for the wooden ones we could move them with the big forklift or a roll back can move them. If we have to – for speed, build wooden ones in the hangar and we can drag them with a tractor” I replied. Then I added.

“Be here at ten tomorrow and you can watch the test of the bullet stops. I will show you where to build them,” I said.

“The concrete roof is going to be a problem. It takes a lot of support and bracing for the pour to make that happen,” Bob replied.

“How about doing it this way? Build the first floor building by the blueprint; use 12 inch blocks. Then pour a slab on the ground for the ceiling/floor with extra rebar and lifting eyes; do all four of them that way. After that, just set them with a crane on top of the block work then block the second floor with 8 inch blocks and place the next slab on top of that. That will make it a piece of cake,” Jake replied.

“I had not thought about doing it that way,” Bob replied. “I will be in the restaurant at 10 tomorrow morning waiting on you. I will bring a couple of the crew who worked on the bullet stops. They think there was massive overbuilding put into them.”

After Bob left the Spanish inquisition started, “What exactly is going on with this?” Marcy asked and she was not alone.

“The State Department wants us to add a basic hostage rescue into the recertification and I definitely want our Rapid Response Team to have a more advanced version too,” I said.

“I talked to Eric and Frank – initially they will supply instructors to get us headed in the right direction. Eric gave me a company that supplies pyrotechnics to police departments. Our federal ATF license will allow us to buy from them as well,” I replied.

“Marcy, because it is an addition to the contract you need to create an SAP number for all cost associated with its setup and then we can figure out a bill-back option to the department,” I replied.

This Friday was special we were all home on the weekend, for the first time in a few weeks. There was a big orgy in the basement for tonight; the first big one of the New Year. All the gang was invited – Roseanne, Corry and the boyfriends, the north six, Jeanna, Marlene with Crash, even Patti was bringing Purnell – a first. Patti said they were going to get in the mood watching from the couch and then move to one of the rooms down there tonight. Patti asked if he could stay down there overnight. I invited Jake and Mindy too.

By midnight everyone was exhausted and Patti and Purnell could be heard even with the doors closed going down stairs.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Joe H.