Book 3 Chapter 53

            I had planned to stay home at Summers Road and out of sight of the media all week, much to their disappointment. The normal people of my staff were staying in the Island Hilton to be close and reporting to the meeting room in the basement at 0800.

            On Monday afternoon, Vicky started having contractions – she had been uncomfortable for the last couple of days. She had been to see Doctor Peterson each morning at the doctor’s insistence. Not only that, the White House doctor checked her every afternoon.

Oliver and Lisa, her parents, were staying in one of the upstairs rooms. To say there was excitement in the house was an understatement.      

All those plans went to hell at 0300 Tuesday morning; Vicky went into labor at 0600 – her water broke. The Secret Service ambulance carried her, Marcy and the White House doctor to AAGH. Dr. Peterson was going to meet us there. Marcy was her breathing coach.

The rest of us, including Mom and Dad, followed in the beast and two Suburbans. Oliver and Lisa Snow, Vicky’s Mom and Dad were in the second Suburban. They had flown in to Morton just two days ago. They were on pins and needles when Vicky started in labor with all the commotion in the house and when the water broke, they were nervous wrecks.

At 1000 Adam Oliver Jones made his appearance to the world. He was another big boy – 9 pounds 4 ounces, 21 inches tall. It had been an easy birth, if there was such a thing.

Adam was Vicky’s grandfather’s name; her dad was on Cloud Nine over the name. He had indicated he did not want there to be a JR for some reason.

Jake and Mindy arrived in time to see the birth and get a chance to hold the newborn. Adam had Jakes full head of dark hair. Jake was all smiles. Jake had gone from no prospects of having children to being the father of eight in just a few years.

Vicky was going home late this afternoon. The in-house doctor sealed the deal, even if he did work for the White House.

Things were halted for the day; there was another media release with pictures all of us holding the baby to fuel all the evening and morning talk shows.

It was a short night with two newborns in the house; needing clean diapers and nipples had us up several times.

The Washington group had also started early this morning. They were going to the basement through the tunnel from the house after stopping for breakfast.

They were parking on what was once our lawn which was now millings and crusher run mix. It had been rolled tight and then seal coated. Then we had a canopy covering the parking lot so all the suit and tie people could stay dry in bad weather.

The Secret Service twisted arms at planning and zoning. It did give us two dozen more parking spaces close to the house. In reality – with our growing family – the parking spaces would be handy.

It only took the landscaping contractor thirty minutes to cut the grass now and run the weed eater. The Secret Service insisted I was not cutting grass – too many people had been injured by lawnmowers and it also made me an easy target, plus it gave the Secret Service someone else to checkout, investigate and give their blessing to.

I wondered why they needed a parking lot so big near the house, then I realized that it gave my staff and Secret Service access to the kitchen and free food. That was why all those people readily agreed to come to Summers Lane and stay in motels.

That was why one bay in our garage was set up with tables and linens all the time. When the kitchen was expanded there was an access hall to the garage without going through the house. There was no DC traffic and there was free food, free motel and the government picked up the tab for all of it.

Jenny had signs made up making the main part of the house off limits except to personal staff and family; we were getting too many nosey wanders. All the doors that led outside our living quarters now had card control locks and timers on them.  

I was continuing my schedule, with the exception of meeting the Indian and Pakistan ambassadors. I was giving the agencies time to do more investigations. I was using my JBG office on the second floor over the gym for some meetings and the meeting room in the basement or the command center for others.

With the command center links, I could hold classified meetings with anyone, anywhere.

            There were Secret Service agents and uniformed military guards everywhere; stationed at both elevators. The Secret Service agent was limited to staying in the elevator, he could not be in the gym for fear of making many of the gym patrons nervous.

            Storage sheds had been placed at all four corners of the property – armored, heated and manned twenty- four seven. There were additional cameras everywhere.

Since the Manila incident they were taking no chances. There must have been some royal ass chewing at all agencies. My schedule and movements were no longer were to be published anywhere at any time for anything. Any foreign trips that I needed to go on were to be listed as under debate by security agencies and the Vice President was listed as a replacement.

            The Secret Service was contracting for an armored fence to be built next to the highway, fearing drive by trouble. As if that wasn’t enough, military units in tactical vehicles made routine patrols on the highway and on Summers Lane with several units parked on the dual Highway in front of the house.

They were even parked in the median strip between the two highways after taking down the guard rails along with State police and sheriff cars. The speed limit was being strictly enforced. It gave the cameras scanning the tags and facial recognition cameras more time to work.

The Coast Guard had two twenty-eight-foot armed rapid response units tied by our boat and dock. We had fought with the state EPA and the federal group to be able to dredge the tidal creek that was behind the house. It was now going to be dredged wider and deeper.

They weren’t telling me if there had been more threats, but it sure looked like there had been with all the security changes. There were even discussions about remodeling the sides and front of the house with armor plate and replacing the windows with bullet proof windows. I overheard that contracts had been approved for the upgrade.

I even made a trip to see Robert and Burt to see if they had gathered any information from the agencies about all the changes. Couriers from the agencies were making daily drop offs of reports to them and to the EIT teams.

They were also picking up new reports from them that were deciphered from the JBG listening stations and embassy groups.

The Air Force had taken over and leased two of the side hangars at Morton, and there were armed F37 and F18 fighters in them with the crews on standby. And that was in addition to the normal aircover.

The Army had taken over another and did the same thing with several attack helicopters in theirs. Not to be left out, there was a Marine detachment at Morton. The Marine detachment fell in love with the air tractor ground support units we had.

That was a story in itself. The Marines had the newer Osprey and a couple of Blackhawk aircraft in their hangar. But in their off time the pilots were inquisitive. They convinced Lorrie and Jack to try out the air tractor after the normal check ride and signoff by an instructor – of course they paid Jack’s fees.

The gun club had added several old busses, almost a dozen since we had taken it over. The gun club bordered our own property now as Lorrie added a couple more farms on the back side of it.

The busses were away from the main portion of the gun property and they were fenced off completely. The reason for this was so we could test the miniguns on the air tractors before they were shipped to the deployed aviation units.

Our miniguns were wearing out even though they had the titanium upgrades. They needed to be double checked out from the manufactures rebuilds, it seems there were occasional problems with a few. The Marine pilots did the testing on the old buses.

There were now agency and military manned guard houses at the entrances to Morton airfield and the exits from the terminal to the runways.

After the suicide attack at Morton Lane several years ago, Lorrie had decided to add another entrance for emergencies. It was a heavy industrial gate that was kept closed and locked.

With the new UPS and FedEx hangers now under construction, that would be the entrance and exit for all their trucks and the construction trucks. It would now have a Department of Homeland Security screening site for all the vehicles entering Morton from that entrance.

            The White house chefs and the waiters that were manning our kitchen were being kept busy feeding all the extra people that were making the rounds from the White House. Another big walk-in refrigerator and a walk- in freezer was being added to our kitchen, making two of each. I was sure more changes were coning.

            I took turns holding Elizabeth with my mates and Jeanna. Marcy was back at her desk in three days checking things out, even if it was just for a little while each day.

            And then I was swapping off holding Adam. All the extra people in the house gave Marcy and Vicky welcome breaks with the new kids. Both were repeatedly asked if they needed anything.

            Thursday, I spent all day in the command center, trouble was brewing in several spots. One of them that was of interest was that pirates had started operating in the northern part of the Gulf of Guinea near Seria Leone and the Atlantic Ocean.

            They were using the port city of Monrovia Liberia as home base, attacking international shipping. Freighters, tankers, car carriers and container ships were all targets.

            Marcy had fast boats in the Bay of Cameroon and Nigeria patrolling the bay and docks as part of the pipeline and refinery contracts. A lot of fast boats were in the area.

            I had not asked how many JBG owned now, but I had not heard of the contract with the manufacture being cancelled. The last I knew, they were still producing twelve a month, which would have added another one hundred and forty-four to the initial one hundred we had before the war.

            I knew there were twenty-five in the Gulf of Mexico for that part of the contract to protect the Mexican oil infrastructure and twenty in the Pacific to protect the shipping terminals there for Mexico.

            JBG had ended almost all of the drug problems coming from the cartel, but now it was coming from further south – from Central America and South America. Also, there were the drugs coming in shipping containers from international shipping.

            I closed the reports for today to go find my mates and hoped I could get a few minutes to hold Adam and Elizabeth. There was plenty of competition.

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