My family wanted to go out for supper to the inn, although I would have rather have had the time at home with them. But they had talked about this all week for this time together.
As usual we were well protected. The Beast number two was on hand – it was now a fixture in the parking garage. The Secret Service had commandeered four bays and had block walls and garage doors installed. A dozen Secret Service Suburbans were in the line.
The griping and complaining from the Secret Service had ended after our first visit to the inn, when they found out they were to eat steak, crab and lobster with us. It was just an East shore thing; I treated them as family.
Marcy had rented the largest room at the inn. My family and I were seated at one table near the wall while agents were at tables away from us and at the door. We were able to carry out reasonably private conversations.
At home I sent the agents to their respective places – out of our living quarters. Contractors had finished expanding the kitchen out the west wall of the house over objections of the county planning and zoning.
It took a visit from a senior DHS official and two federal marshals to convince them they had the authority to make changes to our house for security, without the delay of permits and inspections.
Not only did the agents have fresh hot coffee, there were chefs on duty twenty-four seven to fix meals for them and us when we wanted. That required a big walk-in freezer and walk-in refrigerator; no wonder planning had a fit.
Bob’s Construction did the emergency work. I made sure that Marcy paid for all the work and equipment. The last thing I needed was the liberal media bloodhounds on the trail of – in their eyes – questionable expenses. The pundits would make days of prime time rubbish every chance they could.
The hot tub, cold drinks and family was a fantastic stress reliever. We had no plans to be separated this weekend. All of them were going to with me to Saturday night’s fund raiser at Topeka Kansas.
On Monday Lorrie, Sara, Jenny, the boys and Marcy were coming over with me. I was not coming back for home until Monday morning. Then on Wednesday they were swapping with Ching Lee, Takeo and Vicky who were staying until Friday when all of them would join me again.
The night was fun, affectionate and loving. All my mates joined in – it was in the wee hours of the morning before we went to sleep.
Two little boys crawling on the bed were my alarm clock. They were hungry and then wanted to go to Fort Smith to find some more brass shell casings. Truthfully, I wanted to go there to make sure things were being kept up.
Hot coffee was waiting and breakfast was soon on our plates. I read the updates handed to me by agents between coffee and food.
Iran was still conducting their massive military exercises; all US installations and troops in the Middle East were up one alert level. The Generals and State Department thought that was all that was necessary. The CIA satellites were trying to watch everything in close-up living color to see what we could learn.
Frank Love and Art Cummins wanted a MTAC ASAP. I walked through the tunnel to the command center with a couple agents. I wondered how past Presidents handled these types of communications without a communications center and a wide screen? I would hate to think I would be left to do it with only a phone.
The Boko-Haram was on the move towards the villages in the direction we thought they would go. The CIA wanted authorization to hit the group with drone strikes.
The Predator and Reaper drones had been replaced with the Gladiator and Maximus – shortened to Max. They were more of everything.
The plan they decided on was to coordinate with the JBG team, hit the terrorists with the drones and then allow the JBG team to conduct cleanup operations with JBG aviation support. I called Andy and Vicky on a conference call before I approved the clandestine mission.
Many would die today on my orders, it was not the first time nor would it be the last. I pushed the thought from my mind and went to rejoin my family and start with our plans for the day.
With Ziva, Abra and a couple agents we spent two hours at Fort Smith. The boys were running around the live fire designated areas picking up casings; by now they should have had a bucket full.
While they did that I walked and checked out things. When they were finished we walked together to the jail and interrogation rooms behind it. By looking at the equipment I could see it had been used often since I was there last.
Vicky, Ching Lee and possibly Andy were continuing interrogations, if they were necessary. I wondered if they were using the chipper or the Doc Burns crematorium. I hoped it was the crematorium; there was a lot less chance of any usable DNA left. The cells where the Iranians had been kept were cleaned and unused.
Back at the house I did something I had not done in weeks; I helped the girls clean the house.
Air Force One was already waiting at Morton when the Beast drove through the gate. All my family was going; Mom, Dad, my mates and my two little men. Takeo and Sara were too little to attend the fundraiser but were staying on Air Force One with a sitter while we were there.
The fund raiser was another barn burner. Excited people filled the place. They were looking for a leader for the next eight years to continue the prosperity. I could see the hopes in their faces and hear it in the voices of the big donors.
We were back at Morton at 2400; it had been a long day, but overall a fun day.
A few more days and April would be in the history books. The G20 conference would finish it out.
Sunday was laid back. I read the intelligence reports before breakfast. Breakfast was nice – in my own dining room with my immediate family.
The White House camera people and the clerks who logged every word I said were out of luck unless they were called in to document something in particular. My entire house and JBG offices were off limits to them. That was until someone in Congress decided I wasn’t complying with the Records Preservation Act enough to suit them.
We worked at getting things ready for the trip to Amsterdam late Sunday afternoon. I had to make sure I had enough high end pant suit outfits to attend all the fancy affairs.
There were meetings and photo ops at every turn. Then there were the lavish meals that were photo ops again.
The State Department people had spent days arguing about the agenda for the various committees. My place on them had already been fixed; I was to replace President Thomas. Part of my reading materials had been his position on matters before the G20 members. I needed to make sure any decision I made was in line somewhat with previous agreements and not a radical departure, other than the funding cuts to the world agencies.
All that was nothing compared to the fiasco with the seating order for the photo ops, and heaven forbid – the seating order for the fancy meals. I didn’t know seating at the meal table could start international conflicts.
My staff and the State Department people were on Air Force One when it landed at Morton to pick Lorrie, Jenny, Marcy, the boys, Sara and me with my security detail. It only took a few minutes to load up the baggage and fill the fuel tanks for the long flight.
The 747 can take off with full tanks but cannot land with nearly full tanks. Should an emergency occur there are provisions to dump a lot of fuel quickly. Altitude is important when this happens so the fuel can evaporate before it hits the ground and cause damage.
It was a long flight to the Netherlands; thirty eight hundred miles in seven hours. We had left at four and landed at midnight Eastern, but with the time change it was 2000. It took another hour to get checked into the five star Waldorf Astoria for the evening.
The Secret Service had a complete floor for my group. My mates and I had adjoining rooms with a walk-through door between them. The two boys could each have a bed and there was a crib for Sara. The other room had two king beds that my mates and I could share.
The breakfast was at 0700 and the first meeting was at 0900. Getting to the meeting venue was a fiasco, demonstrators were everywhere. Thousands of police lined the routes to keep them from blocking the roads. There were burning tires on the sidewalks and destroyed barricades in piles.
Thousands of the demonstrators were hiding behind masks and parkas, afraid to be seen, so they could commit crimes without fear of being identified. They were left- wing and Anarchist groups.
The G20 was nineteen countries plus the EU. The EU was represented by the European commission and the European Central Bank. There were invitees who were permanent guests; the UN, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the African Union, the Association of South East Asian Nations, International Monetary Fund and International Labor and Financial Stability Board.
The President’s term lasted one year and he could invite one or two guests from his region.
`The meetings started off cordial enough with a welcoming speech by the G20 President and then statements by the charter members. The guests gave no opening speeches.
Many of the main topics on growth and free trade were already hammered out by flunkies from all the departments from each country.
The arguments came in voting funding for the UN. It hit a brick wall when I announced that the US was reducing funding for the UN and a list of groups, including the financial aid to multiple agencies associated with it. The arguments lasted until lunch.
Lunch was another photo op and musical chairs – everybody wanted to sit beside me for the pictures and bend my ear about the cuts. I held my own, countering every argument every time.
World problem discussions took up the afternoon. There was an extended break then another photo op with a lavish meal for supper, complete with an orchestra to sooth shattered nerves from the day’s discussions.
Back in the motel room I did a VCATS with home and then an MTAC with Washington. The CIA had a lengthy report from the Nigeria operation that took place today in cooperation with the JBG forces there.
The messengers that were captured confirmed our suspicions that Iran was funding the Boko-Haram in the area. Not only funding but sending trainers and technical people. Iran had just lost some more people – another bad day for them.
Tiam and the General confirmed through repeated radio requests and then through open channel attempts to contact their people.
The General was pissed again when the word came that JBG was responsible for the demise of his trainers and experts in Nigeria – again. Tiam posted a two page letter the next day from the General. It was fire and brimstone, urging the followers to take up arms against all JBG personnel with special purpose worldwide.
He raised the bounty on my mates – this time adding our children.
The third morning after breakfast – the final day – there was social time before adjournment and a final photo op. Saudi King El Damon Elaud made his way over to my table. He was the king who broke all the traditions when I signed the contracts for the fast ships for the OPEC group.
The waiters had just cleared away the dishes. I was working on the daily intelligence reports with a couple aides.
He waived off his accompanying detail as I stood to shake his hand. I waved mine away as well and then we sat at the table.
”I see that you have upset our mutual enemies – again,” he said with a broad smile. Evidently his intelligence was working – as I suspected it would be.
”Every chance I get, I rub more salt into the wound,” I said.
”To irritate the wound a little more and prepare for the eventual issue, I would like to pre-position several hundred tanks and trucks in your country.”
”We can announce that we are preparing to hold joint desert armor and infantry in the sand war games training – say in August,” I said.
I knew that ever since Kuwait and the beginning salvos in the Iraq war, Iran had been adamant that there be no infantry or armor from any nation other than token amounts based on pre-Kuwait agreements and no military ships in the upper Persian Gulf.
”That sounds like an old mixture my father’s men used in the dungeon – salt, sand, acid and a wire brush. I think it will have the same result. I like it a lot,” he said.
”I think we should write the agreement now so that there is no mistake in our intentions, before the pencil pushers distort our intent,” I said.
”I agree,” he said.
Thirty minutes later there were two copies – one in English and one in Arabic – both signed.
Four hundred M2A2A battle tanks and two hundred fourth generation MRAPs along with two hundred JLTV – Joint Light Tactical Vehicle – would arrive in June at a new temporary US military base at Al Qaysumah, just five miles from the Kuwait border and less than one hundred miles from Iran. They were going to be pissed!
Al Qaysumah was home to a Saudi armored division and a now little used Saudi airbase – they were going to train with the US armored division. The air base was built for American bombers during the Cold War.
The hour we were talking and writing was closely watched. Security kept anyone from getting too close and they were all trying. They were all curious what the hell was taking place – especially Russian President Orbatch. Putin had mysteriously died in his sleep two years ago.
Orbatch was struggling to keep Russia together after the death of Putin. The member states had had enough of being plundered with thousands disappearing in the dark of the night. Their oil and gas production had collapsed from no maintenance – the same was true with their mining industry. Equipment was abandoned all over Siberia.
Putin had tried to build new aircraft carriers – at least for show – to counter the influence and prestige of the Chinese. Four new nuclear carriers were ordered. To prove the productivity of the Russian ship yards they tried to copy the Newport News Ship Building model. Two new carriers went to sea trials together.
Four months into the trials one carrier disappeared in a massive nuclear explosion, its sister a mile away was all but obliterated in the blast but did stay afloat – on fire – for a month while drifting helplessly towards Norway,
After removing the sailors who were left alive, it took Russian destroyers a week to sink it with torpedoes.
With no answers as to the explosion, the work on the other two carriers was halted. They lost two one hundred thousand ton carriers that were estimated to cost twenty billion each. Twelve thousand sailors, and over two hundred of the latest planes plus six escorting frigates and destroyers destroyed or sunk was just too much.
Russian morale plummeted and head hunters were out in force. While they tried to investigate, there was nothing left of the carrier to find but molten metal and the bow and stern sections of the keel.
Our nuclear experts believed that Russian nuclear weapons had the same problems as some of our older weapons. The insulating material separating the components had deteriorated. The rocking of the bombs on the ship in rough water caused the materials to mix and in the process triggered the implosion that started fission.
The photo op ended and an hour later the wheels of Air Force One left the runway and we flew west. The wind was against us; it was going to take an hour longer to get home.
Instead of landing at Morton we needed to land at Andrews or I was not going to make the state dinner for the Emir of Nigeria in time.
Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.