I held the boys a little tighter when it was my turn to hold them. I wondered just what kind of world they were going to be growing up in.

To me it looked bad; the economy was getting worse for the middle class and poor. The good jobs were leaving the country at an unprecedented rate; what was left was nothing. Even having college degrees did very little when there are simply no jobs. Our current government was the most corrupt in history.

When government starts to fail, the first thing they try to do is get total control of the citizens, disarm them first, then control the money, food, land and finally total surveillance of the citizens.

They could do a lot already – phones, internet, and utilities, even to taking your money out of your bank account without due process. A bureaucrat with a lifetime job could take every penny without reason or consulting anyone.

Government could now stop your car from starting; just another bureaucrat with a terminal is all it takes. My conversation with Robert and Burt had been very informative. They had access to all the things the powers wanted to be able to control and it was everything.

JBG was doing well because we were in high demand fields because of the times and in one of the richest areas of the country because of proximity to Washington.

We went over to the gym to work out but I needed to go to the office first. I wanted to do a VCATS with Andy about Haamid; a job well done, pat on the back was in order and to tell them that we had found the financier and would track him.

The day people were still at the office. I paged Vicky, Ching Lee, Jenny, Jason, Lorrie, Marcy, Cindy and Mark to come to my office. While I was waiting I printed off the picture Andy had sent to phone on the color printer.

When all were assembled, I passed out the picture that EIT had given me of Haamid.

“This is Haamid Mohammad, he was the man that planned and ordered the attack that killed Koons and Adams.”

“Haamid Mohammad was taken out by a JBG special ops team today,” I said as I passed the other one to Jason first.

“I did not know we had a special,” Jason started to say and stopped. He had put 2 and 2 together.

“That is all I wanted to say. Nobody kills our people and gets away with it. Write it in stone,” I said.

I picked up the pictures and went to the EIT office to see if Burt and Robert were still there; they were.

“Yesterday and then today,” as I handed them the pictures, “Our special ops team took care of him today. I want to know if the prince makes any trips to Morocco in the next three weeks,” I said.

“10-4 boss, we will think about a way to entice him to go there,” Burt said as he handed me the pictures back.

“By the way, we are putting the folder together for the debate. You will have it on Monday ready to use, but they are going to take continuous monitoring, right up to the debate itself” he added.

“When you had access to Haamid’s computer, were you able to get his contact list off it?” I asked.

“Yes, we assumed you wanted us to monitor his contacts, Robert is working on that,” Burt added.

It was an aggressive hour in the gym then home for supper. A loaded salad again, minus cucumbers for Jenny – we had come to the conclusion the boys were getting cucumber in mother’s milk and bad gas with it. Pepperoni was another no-no, as was garlic.

Thursday Patti and I rode together to KCC for the first time in weeks, it seemed. She was driving so I could look at the latest alerts from the state department and DHS. There was nothing new anywhere. I looked over everything from the Middle East very carefully, especially Morocco, Libya and Saudi Arabia. It was 8:30 when I finished; time that most Washington people were getting to their offices. I wanted to inform Victor and Amy myself and should have done it last night.

I paged Victor and Amy on a VCATS call on my State department computer. When they both responded, “What’s hot in Washington today?” I asked.

“Not exactly sure, other than Washington is on a buzz. There is a 10:00 o’clock high-level meeting for all G10s and above.”

“I can tell you what part of it is about,” I sent the first picture.

“That is Haamid Muhammad taken three days ago. He is the one that planned and ordered the attack on the embassy in Morocco,” I said.

“This is Haamid Muhammad at 2:10 PM yesterday,” I sent the second picture, “A JBG special ops team took him out,” I said then added, “Nobody kills my people and gets away with it. Write it in stone!”

“JBG supplied other information to the intelligence community; that is probably what the buzz is about,” I said.

“A JBG special ops team, when did you – never mind, I don’t want to know,” Victor replied.

“Some day, over a drink maybe, you can fill me in with all the details,” Amy replied.

“You know where I live; come over some night, join us in the hot tub for a beer, wine and steak,” I replied.

I had a weeks worth of paper to deal with. Patti had everything she did in order, all I had to do was approve and sign. Then I did something I had not done in a while. That was to walk the entire college property – every dorm, every floor, every building.

That trek took me an hour and a half and gave me plenty of time to think. I did not find anything wrong, not that I was expecting to. I had plenty of suggestions for the next staff meeting with changes to the campus to improve student safety. Some would not go over very well.

When I made it back to my KCC office I followed Mr. Nobles and Bob Jackson in. It was routine; after every time I was off for a couple days or on the news for them to make a visit. They had come around one corner and I from another just a few seconds behind. They were standing at the counter with me behind them and they did not know I was there.

“Is BJ in her office?” Bob asked.

“No, she went out to walk the grounds; she should be back any minute,” Patti replied. “What can I help you with?”

“I saw her on the news last night in Washington again. This morning Washington is all abuzz about something and the reporters can’t find out a damn thing. I was wondering if BJ had ventured any tidbits,” Bob said.

“I have not seen the news this morning. But, I hear Washington is in a buzz,” I replied, causing them both to jump. Patti tried hard to contain her laughter but couldn’t.

“You are bit jumpy this morning,” Patti said while trying to hold a straight face.

‘You would almost think they are afraid of me the way they jumped,” I said to Patti.

“I think the buzz is going to be about the terror level being elevated a bit for a while,” I replied.

“Then again this may have a little to do with it,” I said as I went into my office and came out with the pictures. Patti had not seen them and had said nothing about any conversation with the girls. But I knew sooner or later she would find out. I did not want her to feel left out of the information chain.

I put the picture on the counter and explained them.

“A JBG Special Ops team successful mission; BJ, you are getting into some very serious things,” Bob said.

“For Haamid, payback was a bitch,” Mr. Nobles added.

Patti looked at one picture then the other several times before she handed them back.

The rest of the day was quiet, even the Washington buzz had petered out by the time Patti and I arrived home.

Our meeting tonight was on more planning. I still had five of the second group of the Rapid Response team working on the training program for hostage rescue. The agency and the FBI tactical team had helped all week to put the final touches on it.

Bob’s Construction had built one more row of thrown together wooden buildings on each side of the two existing rows, to give a more third world village clustered look – along with other changes. There were two streets in the village now.

When Bob had finished, the Agency, the FBI and the DHS started negotiating a contract to use the compound 10 days a month. Centrally located between Washington, Baltimore and Philly, with the reputation of the airport restaurants food was just too inviting for them not to use the compound for training.

Marcy and Lorrie began a discussion about buying the motel we and everyone else used so much, or building one of our own. I immediately shot down the idea about building it on airport property; I was sure the agency did not want public motels that close to their top secret hangar.

The five were flying out Sunday in the second part of the embassy retraining schedule. They were going to spend two weeks in Bogota and be back at the same time that the Morocco group returned.

Then things were really going to get complicated. The group of thirty would be split up into six teams sent to six different embassies for two weeks. Then there would be a one week off cycle when they came back to supply manpower for the debate. There was a lot of prep work to do for that. I needed to decide how many of the college security force would be called in to assist.

Did I need 100 or 200 or more for security? When Robert and Burt finished I would know more.

Spread out on the meeting table was a blown up blueprint of the arena where the debate was being held. Locations for security checkpoints and scanning equipment had already been penciled in. Progress was being made on all fronts. I was relieved before the meeting even started.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.