Monday morning started off with a bang. The second pot of coffee had just finished percolating when Troy and the President walked in.

Troy was holding a folder that he put on the table while he filled his coffee mug. After he and the President had taken a seat, he slid the folder to me. It contained pictures from the Ambassador’s Ball. There had been flash drives given to everyone as we left.

I looked through them, realizing that I needed to do the same; print them off and write on the back who all the important people were to reminisce about if I lived long enough to get old.

The last dozen or so pictures were of me dancing with my mates, “Beautiful ladies indeed! I’m so lucky they are with me for life. It must drive some men mad that they are so beautiful, so wealthy, have no interest in men and are totally off limits,” I said.

“I was thinking the same thing; I hear they are driven and as determined as you” the President said as he closed the folder.

“All the feedback we have heard has been positive. You said the right words at the right times to people that make a living out of skewing one’s words for political or personal advantage,” Troy said. “Obviously well done.”

The President had only been gone a few minutes when Agent North called, “We have an attorney here from the DC center demanding to see the Muslim detainee to ensure that his religious needs are being properly supplied.” Nort replied.

“No name?” I asked.

“No Ma-am,” North replied.

“Tell him that our detainee is Catholic and the Cardinal is attending to his needs; then tell him to go pack sand in his ass and not to let the door hit him on the way out,” I replied.

“Ma-am, are you sure you want me to tell him that?” North replied.

“Do I need to repeat it for you?” I asked.

“No Ma-am!” Agent North replied.

I turned my attention to Gitmo and Agents Croft and Doyle with an MTAC call.

“How is the prisoner doing? Have you learned anything worthwhile?” I asked.

“Yes we have learned a lot of things, it is all written down. We stopped recording the interrogation after your instructions and put all of it on paper. The recordings were destroyed as per your instructions,” Croft replied.

“Good job. You read the meaning I was trying to give,” I replied.

“The C130 from Morton should land in a couple of hours; pack everyone up. Clean up the prisoner, put him in a new jump suit and bag him. All of you will accompany him back to Morton. At Morton you will be met by an intelligence team that will take custody of the prisoner and all documentation you put together. I state again, ALL documentation,” I instructed.

I called the Doc, “You need to do a physical to evaluate the suspect’s condition to make sure he can handle the first session tomorrow night,” I replied. The Doc and I decided we would string this out to make sure there would be ample time to extract every bit of information this time.

It would be after dark when the C130 returned; it was still too risky for me to be out and about. Andy, Vicky and only a select few men would know the Colonel was here; Vicky was going to have to do the honors tonight and monitor things for me and learn from Andy.

I spent the next two hours going through the data that had been filtering in all morning from all the warrants that had been executed Friday and over the weekend. We had another dozen people in custody under terrorism or conspiracy charges.

The whole thing was ballooning out of control. With the arrests over the weekend, since my start as chairperson of the Task Force, over five hundred had been arrested for terrorism or terrorism related charges and were awaiting prosecution or had been convicted.

There were another two thousand persons who were now under surveillance or investigation for various terrorism related activities or suspicion of terrorism.

With all the terrorism things going on the House and Senate had passed the bill authorizing a separate agency independent of the Justice Department; cabinet level to be filled by the President to fight terrorism.

The layout was to be unique compared to the other agencies. The Director was to be appointed by the President. The Senate and the House anti-terrorism committees were each to appoint two assistant directors as well as the FBI, CIA, DHS and the NSA as an advisory group to the Director. The Director was to report directly to the President.
The final makeup for the agency was being debated behind closed doors today. Both Ben and I were to assist in developing that final makeup and that was to start after lunch today. In the days to come, we were to help write the guidelines, protocols and other boring things that I had thrown out the window.

Bill and my security team picked me up early today. Ed was somewhere over the Atlantic headed towards South Africa with team four. They would be there tomorrow and were to pick up the guides for their hunt two days later.

Robert, Andy, Vicky and I had a long meeting in the command center putting together more of the plans for when the last team and I were to arrive at Polokwane.

Elaborate cover and deception had to be put in place and working. To deal with the hotels security systems and communications, Robert was going with several computers.

Planes to get everyone out had to be in place at other airports. They all could not fly directly to the United States. Teams one and two would fly to Rio de Janeiro then on to Colombia before returning to Morton, a trip that would take a week.

Teams three and four were flying to Windhoek, then on general aviation to Madrid, finally on to Morton on a JBG plane. Past those plans, it was going to be seat of the pants planning.

I had just left the command center when my phone rang. Just when I thought things should be mellowing down, the US version of European street terror attacks hit. A car driven by a recent Sudanese immigrant drove onto a busy New Orleans street party at high speed. Dozens were dead and tens of dozens injured.

The Task Force had been expecting that kind of attack to show up here soon and I feared it was only the beginning. Worse, there was little that could be done to prevent them. Worse again, our own government may be an accomplice in a future mass casualty attack.

Task Force investigations found out that the Department of Immigration and the Department of Labor entered into an agreement to train men from the Middle East to be truck drivers. Thousands had taken over the taxi business and now the Department of Immigration felt their skill levels qualified them to be truck drivers.

Not just any truck drivers, but tractor trailers carry hazardous materials including fuels, explosives and nuclear waste. They trained them to be class A drivers with all the certifications and even found them jobs. The Department of Immigration even paid for the training through one of its many special programs.

I ordered the program stopped. One by one, they were being investigated; we had a long way to go. So far, twenty four were found to be visiting radical sites or active in radical groups.

The driver of the car in New Orleans had been on the waiting list for truck driver training. You win some and you lose some. I hated to lose any.

The next few days were more of the same; planning and double checking plans. Robert was reading the Prince’s emails and tracking all the crazy banking things he did.

I was better and the four Mossad ladies were putting me through the ropes in the gym. I warmed up with Kathryn and some of the Feds and then a couple hours with them. I was relearning how to do self defense and offense even better.

I soon learned why Mossad were considered one of the best trained there was. They never quit training.

I had already spent several hours at the gun range’s indoor range. It had been weeks since I was able to do that. Andy and the Mossad ladies insisted that I spend time there.

I have to admit I had gotten a little rusty, soft government jobs will do that to you. It took 500 rounds through the weapons that I normally practiced with to get back where I was.

Then Andy threw a wringer on me. We were not taking our weapons. Ben-David had sent another pallet of goodies after his last visit; there was also a pallet located near the airport at Polokwane.

There were Russian and Iranian pistols along with full auto assault rifles. We could leave them behind to throw anyone looking afterwards a curve, especially the spent casings. It also meant less risk returning home on general aviation with weapons for the men.

It was one of many pages from the Mossad covert operations manual we were putting into use on this operation.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.