The weekend was great; we just put work out of the way. I did have to go over to the Horsey Hotel to answer questions a couple of times for Bob’s crews.

The days were getting shorter and occasionally there was a little touch of fall in the air. We began to tidy up a few things in preparation for the coming colder weather.

We spent time both Saturday and Sunday evening in the hot tub. Sunday afternoon we had another cookout for just close family. Then there was the playing with the boys. The building blocks had progressed to more complex games and tricycles were giving way to little bikes with training wheels.

Monday came quickly and became complicated. Andy was at the office early and we met with Milton and Charles. When the meeting was finished those two and the five supervisors over the on call people had work to do. Contact all of the on call employees was needed to find out if they wanted to continue the arrangement, then fax or email them the forms to update HR along with the new HR policies.

One of the questions was how many and which languages are you fluent in? How soon you could be ready to deploy if called and what was the location you would be departing from? There were a dozen more questions – all important – with France, Mexico and Oklahoma City on the horizon.

After that meeting I filled Andy in on the bid awards for the MRAPs and Humvees. He and I had the same thoughts – instead of bringing them here and then shipping them to Texas, just ship them to Texas and send mechanics to check them out.

This potential operation had pitfalls that Andy and I both knew something about. Where you send men and equipment you need to send repair equipment, spare parts, fuel supply trucks, kitchens, cooks, and mechanics.

Together we made a beginning list. Jack Winslow was the foreman of our repair shop that maintained all of the airport support equipment as well as the MAAR vehicles that were assigned to Morton. When Marcy had a question about repairs done at other sites or dealers, Jack was the go to man. He had also been discussed as being the top candidate to run the truck dealership repair shop if he wanted the job.

”Jack, I have a problem. I need to send a couple of your heavy equipment mechanics to Texas and Mexico in a few weeks. Be thinking about it and I will stop by and talk about the details sometime today,” I said.

Then there was spare parts for the MRAPs that we could need. I knew the military had a recommended spare parts list for everything they ever put in the field.

I called General Ingram to see if I could get a copy of the list for the MRAPs and Humvees. We had dozens of Humvees long enough that Jack should be able to develop a parts list on his own.

In the conversation I asked if there was any way we could get a loan of the most used parts during field operations for the MRAPs until we could get spare parts from the various manufactures. His answer was vague but was not no.

Marcy could get the two service trucks and fuel trucks. I wondered about a couple of food trucks to fill the gap until a mobile kitchen could be set up. Nothing was going to be ordered until contracts were finalized and we had all the authorizations from the Mexican government.

I met with Robert, Tom and the men they had assigned to check on all things Mexico. It lasted more than an hour. The Mexican cartel in the field did practically all their business on cell phones. Tom had found email traces by back tracking suspected cocaine traffickers. I suspected those emails were between middle and upper cartel leaders.
DHS and the DEA monitored all known suspects that frequented border area. We had access to but had never needed it before. It just didn’t fit into what we were doing at the time.

After lunch is when things got hectic. President Martinez and the AG started faxing the documents we were to sign on Wednesday for final review. We faxed them to Curtis Warren so his group could go over them as well and made several copies for us to hold.

Jenny was not even finished with the first group before she called me to come to her office. We read them together along with her and Vicky comparing the documents to our notes and then the long hand versions that been transcribed and signed as the preliminary agreement at the news conference.

There were changes – significant changes. The restriction on operating area was gone – in the original document we were limited to one half mile on either side of the pipeline. It was replaced with access to all government lands and any land that bordered any right of way authorized by the government for any oil producer or refiner.
The restriction limiting us just those two grass strips were gone. In its place was authorization to use any grass strip on Mexican state property and near any pipeline, not just the Mexpo pipeline.

The limit on personnel was gone replaced with ‘This agreement authorizes the use of any and all personnel without restriction that are prudent and necessary to complete the terms of this agreement’.

Another fax was a list from the Mexican federal prosecutor Inez. It was a ten page list of police departments, police chiefs, judges, magistrates and politicians who were on the cartel take and did their bidding. They were from North Colima on the west coast to Colima east and on to the coast at Poza Rica. It covered the northern third of Mexico.

Another page was an authorization for JBG security employees or any agent of JBG to be considered legal agents of Mexican Federal Police Force. It was needed to authorize JBG or agents of JBG to pursue any individual or group anywhere in Mexico in execution of the contracts and agreements.

Another page of interest verified the payment arrangements. Invoices were to be broken down between Mexpo and Mexico City. Invoices were to be submitted every fifteen days and paid fifteen days later.

I wondered why the changes? I wondered even more about the list from Inez. What the heck were they doing?
I had a map of Mexico on my desk. I looked at the places and as I looked, the puzzle started to take shape. The lines drawn out by AG Inez – with the exception of several cities – was rural and small towns. There were few judges and police mentioned on the list in those cities.

One of the clerks who had gone to the refreshment center for one of the specialty coffees they made called, ”BJ, turn the news on channel 17 – quick.”

Channel 17 was an international news station different than the others. It presented unbiased straight forward international news without the bull and was worldwide. Since the Pact agreement and Fort Polo it was one of the stations that was on the TVs. The news was presented by each continent broken down by region.
We in the office watched as the newscaster ended the North American segment and began the Central American segment starting with Mexico.

There were five more mass graves with more than twenty people in each discovered near Guadalajara, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Senora. The reporter interviewed a government official who insisted the dead were the result of the cartel.

The government official was the spokesperson from Mr. Inez’s office. The Mexican government knew the cartel was growing, getting more violent, and trying to take more territory under its control. They were now pushing into the cities.

This was the same methods used by terrorist in any country you could name. They started in the rural areas with the same tactics. If there were elections, then intimidation and threats so their people got elected. If that didn’t work then beatings, violence, murder, arson, bombings, kidnappings, rape and threats of rape – whatever it took.

Slowly they gained one village, one community, one town, one district until they controlled one county then another until they had complete control. They would install their people into positions to demand bribes, payoffs of the police, courts and the prisons. One could name country after country in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia where the plan was used.

Mexico still controlled the industry, manufacturing, exports and segments associated with that, but the tourist industry was in trouble. Murders and gang violence in the popular resorts was killing the golden goose.

Both were in jeopardy, shipments of manufactured goods leaving Mexico were now being used to transport drugs and people both into and out of Mexico. Tourist groups were being infiltrated with drug mules.
Good paying steady jobs made it hard for terrorists. It took unemployment, starvation and crime or lots of money to turn people and lose their faith in government.

Mexico was at this point – the cities were threatened and apparently soon to be under siege. The politicians and police on the edge of the cities were disappearing, turning up in mass graves.

Mexico was proud with their history, heritage and tradition, but they were in trouble and knew it. It had asked and received assistance in fighting the drug war, cooperation in tracking the money, and mutual information swaps with the US. But all that wasn’t enough when the police, politicians and courts were lost.

The only thing left was to ask for foreign help. The proud people of Mexico would never stand for foreign armies to appear. It surely could not ask Cuba, China or Russia for help; they were as bad as the cartel.

The only thing left was the independents – Black Bear and JBG security. Someone in the US government had told them Black Bear was done – they had contacted JBG before the court hearings, they knew what was going down.
The independents were now just JBG and we weren’t interested in nationalization, international expansion or securing minerals for decades. The only thing we were interested in was getting paid for our work.

The oil pipe line issues were to get the door opened and feel us out. Sure they had a problem that needed fixing and to get us in there and fix it we would.

The cartel was going to go ballistic when the tapping revenue dried up followed by loss of territory and declining drug money. The loss of the grass strips was also going to hurt. They would retaliate in every way they knew how.

But today’s fax dump clearly indicated there was to be so much more and other questions. They had given us more than we had asked for protection wise against lawsuits and actions by the Mexican courts, basically excusing us of all possible infractions and legalities.

All this brought one more thing to light that JBG and the US needed. I dictated the rough ideas to Jenny so the experts could put it in legal language that was above my head. Then I wrote a personal note to President Martinez on the addition I wanted and why. In for a penny in for a pound – hell no this was for a whole ton.

Ed by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.