Book 3 Chapter 5

            It was the first Monday in December after a Marine One ride to the White House I was on my way to Andrews and to the G8 conference. I had boxes of information to review on the flight.

            I thought about the meetings and the things that Marcy was wanting to do. She wasn’t going for small; she was going all in and for broke. As usual she had all the reports and numbers to argue her points in what she wanted. When she finished, there was no way but to agree with her.

            The business financial end was her ball game and she was sure she could make it happen in our favor. I wasn’t worried about that. It was the political fallout when it all went public at the end of April and the first of May. The six primary companies she wanted were very big and all had their stockholders meetings in that thirty day period.

            There were a dozen smaller companies she was going to add along the way. All of them were a fit to the communications and energy division she had created with the oil wells and refineries. They in turn would supply part of our energy needs here for the truck stops and jet fuel for Morton Field, Africa.

            The media was going to go crazy and so would the remaining liberal members of Congress. I pushed it to the back of my mind – no need to worry about it now. I needed to concentrate on government matters at hand.

            I started reading the reviews of the interviews that my staff had done for the ‘Executive Investigative Agency’ as the media was now calling it. A few had already been disqualified by the staff for one reason or another. All had been good standing attorneys or prosecutors.

            The final reviews came up with twenty that they thought would be acceptable – each; would have two clerks and two assistants. They would be divided into two teams of ten with two appointed as team leaders who could approve and issue subpoenas. They had been offered the positions and had accepted. They would be sworn in when I returned from Europe.

            The GSA was already moving offices around so they would have space close to the White House. Let the fun begin!

            The other important thing was the first draft of the base closing list from the DOD. I looked at the list and cringed. The only good thing, there were several paragraphs attached to each base with why they were on the list and where the forces would be transferred or why they were eliminated. It gave me relief to see it that way.

            The Navy had not submitted a list for review yet. I could only imagine what they would cut.

            I had finished all the work and was resting when the plane landed. I had dinner scheduled with President Orbatch and Anton Pavlenko in two hours.

            It was a working dinner with beer and conversation. I asked if there was a chance about expanding our basing agreements to include a second carrier force and bomber group on Russian soil for a couple years to add more pressure on the China problem.

            I would have an answer before we left to go home. It was the answer I was expecting. All things must be discussed with the appropriate people and I understood that. I opened the door and that was all I could do at the time.

            We discussed at length the recovery that was slowly taking place. Military production plants were being retooled into making consumer goods for consumption and export.

            The experts were back working on the oil fields to put them back into operation. The estimate was two years to fifty percent and four to full production.

            ”I have more good news for you. The request you wanted for ten thousand Black Angus and Hereford live female cattle to rebuild your herds has been approved. Have your agriculture department contact ours to set up a schedule for shipment,” I said.

            ”That’s great news. I am told that you may need to make another trip to Moscow soon. We are close to completing another benchmark on the agreement,” he said.

            ”That is good news. For that I will gladly make the trip,” I said.

            We talked a couple more hours before turning in. I spent another hour with Troy and my aides going over the latest updates. The Navy had finally sent its list of recommendations for base alignment and ship reductions. They did not want to acknowledge the growing issues in the Pacific.

            At 0700 I was sitting with Prime Minister Attenborough in the restaurant at a corner table. We were discussing possible base changes and consolidations. I told him it was too early in the process, that it would be several months before there would be any firm answers.

            I did tell him that I had instructed the DOD to get me a preliminary report in thirty days.

            ”When it arrives and I have time to thoroughly review it, I will call,” I said.

            The king arrived at 0900, just in time for the meetings to start after the customary photo sessions and musical chairs.

            It was another wasted day; so much general talk and no decisions about anything. There were proposals to give more buckets of money to some area of the world.

            I shut down US participation in any expanded G8 projects, ”The US is fully committed to the continued rebuilding of Iran including establishing a democratic government.”

            ”We were committed in and expanding our relationship with Russia in overcoming the recent disasters that had befallen it. I am committed to building a strong robust trading partner to further prosperity in both our counties,” I said.

            The luncheon was more musical chairs and photo sessions. I did get congratulated for winning the election. Every one of the country’s leaders wanted one on one time with me before leaving tomorrow. It was a long three days.

            I landed back at Andrews early Thursday morning at 0100.

My first meeting with President Santos was at Andrews when he landed at 0900. He rode  went to the White House in Marine One with me while his entourage rode in Secret Service Suburbans.

            We went through all the public nuances – the photo sessions, the musical chairs, and the VIP meetings – while behind the scenes the Joint Chiefs were reviewing all the condition reports of the bases and estimates to put it back together again. While that was going on, the State Department was looking at all the aid and financial request.

            All that meant was while Santos and I were making nice, the hundreds of people who went to the Philippines to evaluate the former Clark Field and Subic Bay Naval Base were busy. Those people were now explaining the results.

            The Navy report was better than expected. I knew it would be from the early report of General Ingram.

            The previous Philippine President had Subic Bay dredged, planning to bring in container shipping. The problem was the infrastructure was not there for necessary traffic. The intent was build the infrastructure but then terrorism and rebellion on the southern islands consumed too much money and time. Other seaports were already equipped to handle container traffic.         

            While we had been doing all that China had been getting antsy. Their fleet had been actively visiting all the contested areas, cutting fishing nets. Those areas had several anchored Philippine gunboats and fishing boats working the area.

            Philippine flags had been placed on newly installed lighted buoys on all the shallow sand bars which the world courts decades ago had said were Philippine territory.

            West Coast carrier task forces were short ported and returning to sea. The two Pearl Harbor task forces were already a thousand miles west.

            By the end of the day the DOD, State Department and the Philippine representatives had come to agreements that were acceptable.

            Tonight was the official White House dinner with President Santos and his lovely wife as guest of honors. There was champagne, caviar, crab and steak with all the fixings. It was 2200 when the guests departed for the guest house. 2300 when I crawled under the covers. It was a cold night for the first week of December and windy. The document signings tomorrow would be inside for sure.

            I was up early, wondering what was going on in the world today. The early briefing notes were on my desk. Another new terrorist group was wreaking havoc in Mozambique – it had all the appearances of an ISIS copy or a connected group.

            The staff had pictures of fifteen years of Christmas decorations for the White House. My mates were coming over Saturday and we would decide how it would be done this year by using the pictures as a guide, along with staff suggestions. The official Christmas tree arrived the day after Thanksgiving and had been decorated by the maintenance crew.

            I was going to piss everyone off this year – there was going to be a large manger scene on the lawn outside the White House.

            At 1000 all the signees were here in the Oval Office for the signing. Speeches were given, flash bulbs flashing – it was another media event Washington style.

            The rest of the media event would happen in a few days when the task force made its way into Subic Bay and planes landed on Clark Field. It would be a billed as a series of courtesy stops for now; in a few months there would be permanent base facilities there.

            I was in the fitness center working out with the Mossad ladies and a few Secret Service agents for most of the early evening. At 2000 – the agreed upon time – I went to my living quarters and did a VCATS with my mates.

            Marcy wanted to update me on the things happening with JBG. The five of them plus Jeanna had spent the last two days on Thimble Shoals, setting up the final pieces of the corporation.

            All the diamonds had been crated back up and were flown to Thimble Shoals in one of our C5M. Along with the diamonds, all the billions of cash and treasury notes made the trip. She had kept five million in currency for emergencies plus the normal working cash the business required.

            The value of all JBG’s assets had been agreed to and it was a WHOPPER in capital letters! The diamonds were going to take a month to formulate a value. All the cash and treasury notes had been done before they came home and that was another whopper in itself, without the diamonds.

            Just the oil and natural gas reserves in Nebraska, Cameroon and Nigeria, the refineries and the estimates of gold and diamond mines were valued at four and a half trillion in US dollars. That didn’t include the value of all the properties, the thousands of cars and equipment owned by MAAR, the hundreds of aircraft or the now two hundred fast boats.

            Marcy was pleased. There would be enough reserves to buy all the companies she was interested – not just the six largest ones – with plenty left over.

            The bore test results had come back on the development site. The project was a go. Modelers were building the 3D display to take to the county meeting next Tuesday. It was the last county meeting of the year and would be a humdinger for sure. Duke and Clarence were still enthused about the project.

            The building plans would be delivered to planning and zoning Tuesday morning. It would take a truck to deliver them. They required six copies of all plans. What they didn’t know and were going to find out, the plans for each building were two thousand sheets of thirty six by forty eight print stock paper. Also, there were the plans for the parking garage and site work.

            The piece that I was laughing to myself about was when the new rules were written for planning and zoning, they had sixty days to approve or deny the building permit and any denied were automatically sent to the commissioners to override their decision.

            The denial paperwork had to have a written explanation on every single page of the blue prints of what issues were denied and why.

            No longer could a few complainers stop a project. To appeal a county approval, they needed to put up ten percent of the project cost. That was to stop all those people that thought they were rich from forming a committee, claiming harm and going to court. Two hundred million would eliminate most all of them.

            But then I expected them to go to court immediately, claiming the ten percent requirement created an insurmountable burden to anyone appealing the county’s decision.

            I decided I would go with my mates to lend moral support. Let the fun begin; the circus was coming to town JBG style.

            The weekend was a blast. Workers from the GSA and White House staff did the decorating of the White House for Christmas. The boys were amazed that all those decorations came from somewhere.

            The nativity scene was carefully placed outside and was lit up by a light for all to see as was the official Christmas tree. It took exactly twenty nine minutes before the liberal media was stroked.

            The White House press phones were ringing off the wall. I told the night duty press officer to not answer any more. The liberal press could just cry in their green tea. I would deal with it on Monday.

            Monday was going to torque up the media in a big way. There were six hundred executive orders issued by past presidents that were still being used by various agencies to control policy and the various agencies’ work.

            On Monday I was signing six hundred executive orders canceling them out. I was President and there was no reason executive orders from past presidents should be interfering with policies and goals that MY administration was going to implement.

            Then I was signing many more of my own. One of them stated that if an employee was in an appointed non-federal judicial position and had been appointed to that position by a past President, they were to tender their resignation by December 28th or be terminated on December 31st.

            These people were in entrenched positions. Their affiliation with the rich or special interest groups is how they got those appointments. They had many names: the swamp, the second government, the secret government.

            Every new President had policies, programs and changes they wanted to implement and had promised. They – including me – would appoint department heads with expectations that those ideas and policies would be pushed along to be implemented and given reasonable attempts to become law.

            The swamp, the second government killed many of those plans and ideas. If you want to kill anything, just assign it to a committee to complete it. It would soon die in desk drawers and committee meetings that were postponed or canceled on hopes the midterms would change the fortunes.

            If the new department head hesitated in changing key personnel from the past – the swamp – he would get schooled quickly. I was going to attack the swamp from within.

            I was going to issue an order that every department head was to fire all managers and administrators that were leftover from all previous administration and anyone they had hired, with the exception of the Thomas administration. I was cleaning house. Let the lawsuits begin!

            On Monday morning I had the first meetings with the DOD and the Joint Chiefs about the reductions. I questioned several of the Air Force bases that were on the list as potential closing targets. One of those bases was the Dover Air Force Base. It was a Mac base – ‘Materials Air Command’ base – that has C5s and C17s. They had several on the East Coast, one in Massachusetts, Dover Del and another in Georgia plus more around the country.

            With the declining numbers of C5s in inventory and C17s, it only stood to reason that several bases for them could be closed. The Air Force was sure they could never get approval to build new cargo planes that size ever again, so the bases were expendable.

            I knew Lorrie would be interested in acquiring Dover. We were running out of room again for all the 747 water tankers we had plus more were on the way. Lorrie was working on more air freight contracts with both UPS and FedEx. Along with that, she had bought several of the later 700 series Boeings and they were being converted into freighters, some in Israel and some in Australia. Dover would be a great place to store them plus do repairs on them.

            There were lots of plusses to that thought; radar, an ILS landing system, fuel farm and massive hangars designed for repair were already there. And then there were the barracks. The downside – what to do with the world’s biggest mortuary.

            I was willing to bet JBG would be offered more cargo contracts and the approval to buy more C5s when they became available.

            In the afternoon was a meeting with members of Congress about cuts. The next few days were going to be fun.

            Edit by Alfmeister

            Proof read by Bob W.