The night was quiet followed by breakfast as a low-keyed affair. I was in my office at 0730; it felt good not to have to make the run to Washington. It allowed me to do something that I had only been able to do sporadically for the last six months.

I started down the list of embassies, video conferencing with our security team leaders at each and doing it by the time zones. I wanted to speak to the day shift supervisor. All of them were startled to find me on their VCATS screen instead of Vicky.

Vicky had kept transcribed notes of all conversations in the files for each location and if I still had questions, I could pull up the video of the original conversation from the storage servers.
In past conversations I had planned to visit embassies that Vicky or I had concerns about; then came the task force and – with an exception or two – those visits were put off. Now it could be put back on the burner, and would be as soon as Lorrie and Mindy had their babies.

I had picked out the first group of countries I was going to visit by noontime; Portugal, Spain, Israel, Egypt and Morocco. I Intended to leave on a Sunday and be back the following Sunday.

Portugal and Spain were first because they were on the outbound leg of the flight and we would need refueling. The other reason was that my security teams there had been making comments about the number of visitors who seemed to get special access, with an unusual number getting visas or seeking asylum at those embassies.

The security supervisor at each embassy was encouraged to report any concerns to Vicky using the little black book code. It was a way that we were in the loop for potential problems. They were concerned enough that they put it into writing and I was going to follow up.

Israel was on the list for several reasons, mainly because I had promised Ben-David that when I was in the area I would make a visit to the Mossad training center. The thing that I really wanted to see firsthand was the anti-terrorist training they did.

The Mossad ladies we had hired worked with me every chance they could get. It took a while; in the beginning I could only fight with them a few minutes before they bested me. Now I could hold my own for a lot longer, but I soon was exhausted and they could beat me.

It took me a while to figure out why; they never stopped training! When they weren’t doing assignments they were training like tomorrow was the day of the battle of the century and it showed on the mats and firing range. They had unbelievable stamina under pressure.

Andy had made Ziva one of the snipers after just one day on the range, shortly after we hired them. With the Barrett M99 50 cal sniper rifle she could put rounds in a Mason jar ring at a twelve hundred yards one right after another.
Me, I liked the M40 sniper rifle in the corps but at JBG we used the Remington match grade 308. Most of the guys who carried the title of sniper were good to a thousand yards with it.

Ben also said there was a group of his friends that he would like me to meet; Ben promised me they would give me an a tour of the front lines where terrorist attacks were happening almost daily; that tour included some of the most historically significant places in the world since the beginning of history.

Egypt was listed because the security there had the same complaints as Portugal and finally Morocco, because none of the executives other than Jason had been there since I was there after the attack that killed two of my employees; a follow up visit was way past due. The plan was to go the week after Lorrie delivered.

After a lunch with the girls it was time to see Robert. Tiam had been busy over the weekend and this morning posting over a dozen times. None of them were directed towards Jaed.

Tiam had placed several posts on the recruiting website; he was seeking volunteers for an Americas expansion program.
He was posting on the weapons site for a supply source for C4 and RDX; a very powerful explosive in the Americas. That told me that the Iranian operational network in the Americas was still intact even after the arrests in Canada, Mexico, and here in the US.

Maybe I should have Frank transfer the buyer of the nuclear parts to Fort Smith for a Q &A to see what he knew. I had heard no results of the interrogation.

The next thing he was posting for was in the sex slave site for American speaking women of low morals to work as informants. They would work at local adult clubs, as strippers, call girls, near military bases, diplomatic stations and military industrial complexes. Those properly dignified and equipped would work the political arena in Washington.

For years most of the massage parlors and call girl operations had been using Chinese, other Asian girls or girls from Central America. Everyone knew they were fronts for spying. The process was to get the men to come in for sex and hidden cameras took pictures of what they did with the girls and then blackmail.

The blackmail was small things first; things of little or no consequence and grew from there. Usually there was more sex offered as a reward as the demand for real information grew.

The fact that there were now far more Middle Eastern girls in the joints than Central American explained the reach of ISIS and the IRG and their quest for information.

Homeland had been assigned to investigate the clubs early in my task force days yet never seemed to be able to place anyone on the inside.

NSA was using the newest hi-tech phone monitoring devices; collecting cell phone numbers, crosschecking them against soldier’s numbers on file and then how often they visited the establishment. If it flagged a number the soldier records were pulled looking for duty assignment, security level and what they had accessed on government systems.

The system also looked for burn phones. When one was found in the vicinity, it was logged and after more than one event, it was flagged as well. There were 12 establishments that were under surveillance – either direct observation or video – in the last few weeks I was in charge.

Two were the Norfolk area not far from the Navy yard, one in Pensacola near the Navy flight training center, two in Louisiana near the big Air Force base, two in California near the bases, one in Puget Sound near the Navy base, two in Hawaii near the bases there with the others located near Army bases.

It was 1500 when Troy called, “A deal has been finalized with Mexico to send a team of investigators to interrogate the surviving cartel members and get copies of all the intelligence collected. We are hoping that the information will help close down the cocaine train coming into the US.”

“We thought you may want a firsthand look at the agreement since it may show the connections to the Prince,” Troy said.

“The announcement is tomorrow; because you are the chairperson of the oversight committee and all this was started under your watch, the President and Ambassador Francisco Garcia both want you to be at the news conference. It is at 1100,” Troy added.

“Damn, they can’t even make it a full day without calling me to do something,” I thought.
“OK, I will be there,” I replied.

I alerted Andy that we would be going to Washington again tomorrow.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.