The carrier fleet had made its swing to the Sea of Japan and anchored off South Korea for a couple of days. Then it carried out a week of air operations. North Korea’s President was hemorrhaging crap, calling the fleet a major provocation and an invitation to war. He was on every media he could find, even calling into ZNN making threats.

            Today the B52s flew over South Korea and buzzed the fleet on their flight to Russia. B21s returned to their base in Japan were also flying over South Korea and buzzing the fleet.

            China’s ambassador was in the lobby – without a formal request for a meeting. ”I have a verbal message from the President of North Korea. You are to remove your fleet and bombers from the Sea of Japan or war will be immediate,” he said.

            ”You can tell Crap mouth if it is such a provocation that he needs to step up to the plate and do something about it. Otherwise he needs shut his mouth, go back to his harem and hope I don’t take offence to his statements. You can also tell him none of his scientists assisting Iran’s nuclear ambitions survived. You can also tell him that there are serious consequences coming his way. The best thing for him to do is shut his mouth or to bend over and kiss his sorry ass goodbye!” I said.

            ”Do you want me to put it in writing for him?” I asked.

            ”No, that won’t be necessary. I think I can relay the meaning of the message,” the Ambassador said.

            I spent four more days and nights on the campaign trail, then home again on Sunday night. The girls had spent the four days with me. They were spending Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at JBG. Six weeks to the election.

            The first two wells in Cameroon were productive. The next two were dry – no oil or gas. The next four were productive. The pipelines were being run down to the trunk line to the refinery. Twelve hundred JBG security were now in Cameroon and Nigeria.

            On Tuesday they had killed a ten man scouting party from one of the new groups. Elsabab had started showing up on fliers posted on poles and bulletin boards threatening local election officials.

            I read the updates from the Joint Chiefs – twenty thousand more prisoners had been released, there were seventeen hundred deemed unfit to release. The maximum prison outside of Tehran was their destiny, then advanced interrogation and execution. Two thirds of the National Guard were now on their way home.

            Last week’s campaign swing had been through the north central region. This week’s was mid central with Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. I was home again on Sunday night with the girls. It was five weeks to the election.

            The weekend’s news was on the liberals again. Tom Bennett did a naked swan dive from his twentieth floor penthouse Friday afternoon in broad daylight. Two high end call girls were found bound, gagged and dead in the living room and bedroom. The door had to be broken down to gain entrance by the police. It was double chained from the inside.

            On the coffee table were ten lines of cocaine mixed with fentanyl and evidence that at least that many had been inhaled. The call girls were killed as some part of a sexual ritual. The coroner’s report said they were so high on drugs they were unlikely to have felt a thing or understood what was taking place. The knives used to kill them were still in the bodies and Bennett’s fingerprints were on them, along with his DNA in the women.

            It was beginning to look like God had a sudden dislike for liberals the way they were suddenly dying – or was Andy involved?

            On Monday more ads were made to counterpoint what Albert Finney’s campaign was trying to exploit. The polls said I had a twenty point advantage on him. I expected the campaign to start getting very dirty. Desperate men do desperate things, including throwing caution to the wind.

            I did four more news programs that were to air during the week. The hot topic for the today’s news was that there was a large fleet presence in the South China Sea. The Philippines were building their island base that China had tried to prevent. They had dozens of ships driving pilings and pumping sand.

            China had its hands full following the American fleet as it sailed around the island of Taiwan and did aviation exercises in the South China Sea. They were not happy that the Navy was in force there.

            The East Coast heavy carriers left the fleet and headed back home through Panama Canal or to their duty stations off the east coast of Africa through the Suez Canal. One heavy carrier group was left in the Indian Ocean. One West Coast task force was to ply the South China Sea near the Philippine’s new island.

            The light carriers were to start picking up their troops and equipment and return to their home ports or assignments.

            This week’s campaign tour carried me back to states that I would have to win to carry the electoral vote; Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, California and the Carolinas. It was four weeks to the election.

            This week was the first election in the new Iran. It was for delegates to develop and ratify a new constitution. Ninety five percent of Iranians over the age of fourteen had identity cards. The voting age was eighteen.

            The girls and I were home again on Sunday evening. There was plenty of JBG business for them to catch up on. Gold shipments from Polokwane were being stacked in the secure hangar. There was simply no time to stack the bars in the basement vault rooms.

            Vicky, Ching Lee and Andy were flying to the Pack countries for more meetings on terrorism. It had been quiet for a while but a new group of terrorists were starting to show up on intelligence reports. They were former ISIS and rogue terrorist from Africa. JBG intelligence gathering stations were following a dozen other small groups.

            When they returned from Europe they had meetings with Mexico and our other Central American security customers.

            Wednesday afternoon I was on the campaign trail again, first stop Texas with four big rallies. I beat Albert Finney like he was a wet dog. From there I went back to Florida and then to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Sunday I was back at home meeting with the girls. The polls had started to do crazy things for some reason; I dropped ten points in five days without explanation. At this point I was too busy to worry about it. My campaign researchers were trying to find out why.

            Monday morning I met with the Joint Chiefs and Vice President Harrison. We made the decision to reduce the troops in Iran by fifty percent starting tomorrow. 747s would begin returning the soldiers to their home bases. China was pissed but still buying the Iranian oil.

            Congress flooded my desk with bills and then went into recess so the members could run their elections. That was one of the problems; too many of the bills were feel good special interest so the politician could go to their home and brag about all the bills passed to benefit his district.

            I vetoed more than I signed.

            On Monday afternoon Finney and his associates began personal attacks against me and my family. First he started with that I wasn’t that poor woman that I wanted everyone to believe I was. Next he challenged the medals I had earned in the war – there was no way a woman could earn those kind of medals. The Marines was just passing out feel good medals.

            Then he challenged the number of contracts JBG had with the government and foreign governments, why they were allowed and why some were listed as classified.

            Then he started trashing my mates, my lifestyle and the boys as illegitimate bastards.

            Everybody in both offices were pissed. Andy was ready to send a cleanup team after him. I shut that down immediately. Andy had two new cleanup teams at his disposal and was itching to try them out.

            They had the new Russian long range sniper rifle. It was a copy of the Barrett but had an eight inch longer barrel and was fifty five caliber instead of fifty along with a huge noise suppressor and a much more powerful scope. The bullet was the same weight as the fifty, had a slightly faster velocity, a flatter trajectory and two thousand yard plus kill range in the right hands.

            ”OK, so you want to play that game. You just went too far,” I thought.

            I had the file Robert generated on him and his VP candidate. I hadn’t read it or even looked at it for that matter. It was time to do that.

            I looked at his college grades and papers, he had been a member in good standing with the American Communist Party until his run for public office. That would have little impact the way the younger voters seemed to think. But it might make some difference.

            There was more damaging information – he had a police record that might raise eyebrows. Two drunk driving arrests in his home state that he cleared by pleading guilty before judgment – a process unheard of in this day and age for drunk driving.

            In another one of them was an investigation into a hit and run and driving under the influence. The charges were dropped by the prosecutor after he held the case past the must file date. It seemed like a normal policy for certain people in liberal circles.

            In another case the charges were dropped after the arresting officer failed to show up for the court date. The arresting officer quit the force and moved to the Bahamas a few days later. Just before his last senatorial run he had the records expunged.

            Once in the files, on computer, no matter what one does there someone can find it and Robert did. There were other incidents involving alcohol. The police were called to his home for disturbances. He obviously had an alcohol problem.

            Then there were marriage problems. His wife had a private detective investigate him for infidelity on two different times. The private detective believed in all things modern but lacking on security for his computer systems.

            There were surveillance photos of him taking his mistress out to private restaurants. There were even pictures of them kissing and then in the bedroom undressing in her apartment. The wife filed for divorce but withdrew the papers later.

            The second investigation involved call girls and prostitutes; plenty of pictures of dozens of girls – all more than once by the dates of entry. Then the investigation was abruptly stopped. The private investigators license was suspended.

            The next investigation was at the Congressional level. He had been accused of sexual harassment by multiple staff members over his years in congress. Congress had created a secret slush fund decades ago for just such instances.

            Over the years six of his female staff members had been paid off from this slush fund, signing vows of secrecy to get millions of dollars. Robert had apparently hacked the Congressional files to get that information. He found all six of them with payoffs and copies of the investigations. I had Connie black out the ladies’ names and signatures.

            Then there were pages of campaign funding violations and emails with incriminating evidence by his staff telling donors how send the funds to circumvent election laws.

            I looked at all the sheets to make sure there was nothing to implicate JBG, Robert or any sources, then using latex gloves I ran them through the fancy copier. I made twenty complete sets.

            A top sheet said, ”This pack has been mailed to twenty news outlets,” – that was so they wouldn’t try to bury it. It was signed, ”Carl Snowden the 2nd”. Snowden was the noted leaker of classified information from the past.

            Connie typed up twenty address labels for the twenty news outlets I was sending them to. It was weighed on the postal scale and five one dollar stamps were put on them so there would be no postage meter numbers to trace. The return address was the address for the British embassy.

            I sent Ziva and Abra to deliver them to two different post office drop off boxes and told them to wear a full face mask. I would know in a day or two which outlets was going to try to cover it up for Finney. But I was sure there would be several that would run with it.

            It was politics and I could have dealt with it if it was just me. When Jenny called on a video call I had never heard or seen her so mad. My other mates were not happy either.

            ”I’ll take care of it, calm down,” I said.

            I asked Troy to find out where Finney was speaking at today, I knew he was campaigning seven days a week.

            A few minutes later I learned he had a rally at Virginia Beach tonight at 1900.

            I called Donald Gardner, the senior Secret Service agent, ”I want several Suburbans sent to NAS Virginia Beach and stand by. Find out who the agents are that are providing security for Finney so you can contact them directly when we get there. I want five minutes alone with him before he goes on stage tonight and I don’t want him to know I am coming. Make it happen,” I said.

            He started to object but decided against it. Virginia Beach NAS was a little over a hundred miles – an hour’s ride in Marine One. We would leave here at 1830.

            I went upstairs and changed clothes to the camo pants and shirt and camo jacket the Secret Service had given me, then to the kitchen to eat a quick supper. Marine One was landing as I was finishing eating.

            I chose Ziva, Abra, Donald Gardner, Greg Archer and Charles Brewer for my close in bodyguards. They were the ones that I walked in center of when out and around. With the rest of the required transport group it took two helicopters. We landed with plenty of time to spare.

            Donald had sent six Suburbans so there were plenty of room from all of us. Since there was no announcement I was coming, there was no formal arrival greeting party and that suited me just fine. The pilots had flown in using the N numbers.

            They stopped at the rear door of the arena. Donald went inside to pull rank on the Secret Service agents that were guarding Finney and to run everyone out. A few moments later we went in, Finney was in a meeting room with several aides and several Secret Service agents.

            ”What are you doing here?” Finny asked.

            ”Everybody out except Mr. Finny,” I ordered.

            ”’At least one of his team and one of us has to stay,” Donald said.

            ”Okay everyone else out – Ziva can stay for me, James Street for Finney,” I said.

            James Street had worked in the White House for as long as I was at the White House and had been involved. He and I got along great; he was as hard as I was. When it came time for the Secret Service to provide Finney with Secret Service it was by draft; James didn’t want to go but was given no choice.

            After the door closed, ”It has been policy and an understood tradition almost forever that children and spouses of the candidates were off limits,” I said.

            ”Well traditions and policy have changed this election cycle, at least for you and your family,” he said as he tried to push by me to get to the door.     

            That move was the wrong one for this conversation. I grabbed his arm and turned him, then with my right hand around his throat I slammed his head into the door hard. It was a solid all wooden door. Hard enough he should be seeing stars and I squeezed. Ziva stopped James for interfering.

            ”My spouses and children are off limits and you need to remember that. When you go out there tonight you need to make a long and soulful apology that they will accept. If you have any print ads, TV spots or radio with mention of my family you need to stop them tonight. I can promise you that if you don’t you will regret it – the last thing you want is for me to come see you again. It won’t be pretty,” I said. He was turning blue – I eased off on the squeezing. I shoved him away from the door so I could walk out.

”You saw that she assaulted me. I’m going to press charges,” he said.

            ”I didn’t see anything out of the way – just a friendly conversation – and I have forgotten what she actually said,” James said as he turned to follow me out the door.

            ”Let’s go Ziva,” I said.

            Back at NAS there was a group waiting. Someone noticed the paint job on the two helicopters and knew they were assigned to the Presidential fleet – the Marine guards in dress blues was a sure giveaway.

            Flight line officers, control tower people and guards at the gate got the riot act read to them for not asking enough questions.

            Several rear admirals were in the process of trying to find out who was here and for what. The chain of command should have been notified any time anyone came in with that level of authority.

            There was a delay at the gate – this time by the guards – they asked more questions and looked into the vehicles with lights before letting us through. As we got to the helicopters a group in dress whites were headed to meet us.

            The suitcase and my personal body guards were in and seated before they arrived. I stepped back out and went through the process of introductions and salutes.

            I finally shut it down, ”I hate to run but we need to go. Get those vehicles back to Washington and let’s get in the air. I will be back for a formal visit soon,” I said and turned and climbed up the steps into Marine One.

            It had been a long day and it was not over yet. People were monitoring Finney’s campaign speech. Did he learn anything or would another visit be needed? Tomorrow it was three weeks to the election.

            Edit by Alfmeister

            Proof read by Bob W.