At 1700 Marine One left the White House lawn for Summers Road. We were landing behind the office and the helicopter was flying to Morton to the hangar, in case it was needed for emergency travel.

            Getting into the house was like walking a cornfield maze with all the construction equipment and materials. The contractors were ready to go with the changes that the Secret Service wanted.

I was glad that Bob’s Construction was supplying several engineers and Andy were going to make sure that nothing they did would damage the house or the tunnel. Both of them had the authority to shut the project down. Robert was going to do checks that they did not install any eavesdropping equipment during the construction.

My mates had been packing for a couple of days, so most everything was ready except for the things Jenny, Ching Lee, and I needed. There had been plenty of things to pack. We were going to stay there for two weeks and then go to England. We were going to start our trip Sunday morning. Saturday morning was going to be tied up with the airport rescue truck demo.

I had a wonderful evening with my mates; we spent the maximum time in the hot tub. We talked about how we were going to handle tomorrow. Mom, Lisa and Mindy, along with two sitters were going to handle all the little ones. The two boys were going with us to Morton, they were big enough that they could eat the free meal that JBG was paying for.

We arrived at Morton at 0700. None of the other invites had cancelled out – in fact we gained some. We had invited the three volunteer companies that we used often. Jason invited two more from the island and Hill Church, also the Ridgley fire company and the one from C-town.

I guess Marcy and Lorrie wanted a PR blast, the more the merrier and a bigger PR blast. All the local politicians were there – you know politician’s never miss a free meal, heck I was even in that group now. Hanna and Elmo were in also in line as were all the big dogs from the 911 center.

Even though it was buffet style, the restaurant cooks kept fresh food ready; eggs, ham, sausage, scrapple, sausage gravy, biscuits and plenty of coffee, orange juice and soda.

At 0815 Jody Sweet – the Oshkosh trainer – and his group asked if everyone had enough food? You can continue eating while we run a slide show.

‘’JBG Morton Field fire department has purchased two Oshkosh Striker ARFF firefighting and rescue trucks to go with the two Oshkosh Pierce fire trucks they already have. The slides are rolling on the big screen of the meeting room, giving a complete 360 of the exterior and interior of the truck.’’

They are Stryker 8 by 8 meaning they are four axles, driving from all axles. They weigh 90 thousand pounds with a one thousand horse power engine capable of 0 to fifty miles per hour in twenty-five seconds. I may be biased – that’s getting it done for ninety thousand pounds,’’ he said.

‘’JBG wanted the 8 x 8 configuration because this is a large growing airport with a lot of unpaved areas. That configuration would allow these trucks to assist local fire companies and go off road in some circumstances,’’ he said.

‘’The all-axle drive with the last two axles having on demand Detroit locking differentials plus the high clearance give excellent off- road operation,’’ he said.

‘’The engines are German built Deutz with one thousand horsepower and extremely high 1500 foot-pounds of torque for lugging ability, if needed,’’ he said.

‘’The Stryker 8 x 8 carries 4500 gallons of water and 600 gallons of foam fire suppressant. It has the ability to pump both water and foam with a pump on the roll without limitations. It gives these trucks the ability to lay down a curtain of foam for planes having landing gear issues to do a gear-up, if necessary,’’ he said.

‘’These trucks have a center driver position for a 254 degree of visibility through 98 square feet of windshield. JBG ordered a couple more options that make these stand out as aircraft fire fighting trucks.’’

‘’The first one of these was 1200 PSI pumps. You guys that are firemen know that you are not going to grab a nozzle on a hose reel and open it full force with twelve hundred pounds of pressure, without getting seriously hurt,’’ he said.

‘’Why that kind of pressure when the norm is 250? It gives the deck guns the ability to cover the entire fuselage of a very large plane with water or foam from one position,’’ he said.

‘’The next option was a sixty-five-foot HRET snozzle. The snozzle has the ability to puncture the fuselage and containers on an air freighter up to thirty-six inches and deliver high pressure water, water mist and foam where it is needed. HRET designation is – high reach, extend and turret mounted,’’ he said.

‘’All the switches and controls in the cab are grouped by the functions they control. All the chassis controls have the dominate position on the panel for easy access by the operator. All the pump controls are in another group together. The snozzle master controls are grouped together. The snozzle – after activation – is controlled by a pistol grip joy stick,’’ he said.

‘’When the snozzle is activated, a fourteen LED camera screen goes live on the dash that gives the operator a live view of the business end of the snozzle. That business end has the piercing spear as well as a deck gun capable of putting one thousand gallons a minute on the target,’’ he said.

‘’For maintenance, the Stryker has a maintenance port where all fluids can be checked and all filters can be changed as needed. It also has a computer port so the maintenance team can run diagnostics and do upgrades,’’ he said.

‘’JBG also bought a training simulator to run a continuous training program for all the potential operators to keep them familiar with truck operations.

‘’Open the curtain and let’s look at the simulator while we get the real thing up here to look at,’’ he said.

‘’The two tractor trailers that have been loaded with flammables are back at Fort Smith for us to play with,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’Morton ground control, truck 3 and truck 4 requesting permission to use the taxiway to the terminal and then cross the runway to the terminal.’’

‘’Morton ground – to trucks 3 and 4 – proceed on the taxiway, hold up short of the runway, there is one plane on final approach. Once it passes, cross the runway to the terminal tarmac,” control said.

The plane was one of our C5s back from another secret mission to somewhere unknown. It had been gone four days. Lorrie said earlier while we were eating that two of the C130s had been gone almost a week flying for the CIA.

I stood back and watched as all the fire fighters were crowded around the simulator. Fire fighters were like security and policemen; continuous training was a priority. They were all wanting their turn in the million-dollar toy.

Even volunteer fire fighters had a required number of training hours to be certified. The state even had a training facility located outside the town where all the fire companies were required to take lessons. They did active fire training and fighter down rescues with fire and smoke.

Lorrie and I talked about the progress on the new UPS and FedEx hangars that were in the process of being built and the taxi way and runway extension. Both were being extended another five thousand feet across the Ratz property.

The markings on the runway near the terminal and the ALS refigured to make the landings and the takeoffs further from the terminal and the highway was a plus for everything. It would also allow for the larger passenger planes to be able to do more loading at the terminal and with safer conditions.

At that angle it would take most of the plane arrivals and departures away from Fort Smith, the fuel farm. And away from Dad and Jason’s goose pits and the scrub brush where they always killed deer.

We also talked a bit about the bid I had put on Dover AFB if the Department of Defense went through with their plans to close it. The final say on that would depend on several committees in Congress.

The base closing list was being debated in multiple committees in both the House and Senate.

The Department of Defense was evaluating the terms I had put in writing and the General Accounting Office was doing the same thing. I had received dozens of emails from both to clarify various points in the last few days. The city of Dover was already trying to get their claws on it for free. One of those things that only time would tell.

The two trucks were now parked on the tarmac for a walk around description of them and all the gizmos. My mates and I walked out with the fire fighters to look and listen. The truck was even more impressive as I looked at it. As I listened and looked, Duke and Clarence came over to stand with us.

‘’These are impressive looking trucks, I’m sure they were terribly expensive, but did you really need two?’’ Duke asked.

“Redundancy, the ability to fight a big plane fire from both sides. The cheapest planes on the field are the crop dusters and they are ten million now, the Black Hawks have a replacement cost of fifty million. Everything else is a hundred million plus. At eight million each the trucks are cheap insurance and it made the insurance company very happy,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’The real bite is the staffing for the four fire trucks twenty-four seven. Three shifts of ten plus four more to make up for vacations, holidays and sick time adds up to big dollars But UPS and Fedex and the other lease holders are verry happy. Fire protection was high on the list when they agreed to expand here,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’I was surprised that the county didn’t fight to stop us from putting the Ratz farm and the adjoining Huckleberry farm as one property on the Morton farm deed,’’ I said.

‘’There were some serious discussions but everything you have done has helped the county in one way or another. With the amount of property tax those two buildings are going to pay, sealed the deal, ‘’ Duke said.

‘’Speaking of property tax, I would like to have a meeting with you about getting started on the infrastructure for the new towers. The contractors are saying that in five years some of it is going to be inhabitable,’’ I said.

‘’JBG is willing to work out an advance property tax payments on the towers to help with the necessary infrastructure, but I want input on the projects,’’ I said.

‘’Another project I want to talk about is getting the ball rolling for the Eastern shore to become a state. For all the reasons you can imagine JBG and I can’t appear to have anything to do with it. I’m looking for people to be the leaders and the face of the movement,’’ I said.

The trucks were heading to Fort Smith for the fire fight demo, all the guests were loading up in the buses to take them there. The Secret Service would not allow me to ride on the bus, so I and my mates went in the Suburban.

‘’I was finally able to ask Vicky what did she and Andy do with the men?’’

‘’They were carrying gas cans and jugs of acid; the acid was the kind that if dumped on hydraulic hoses, cylinder shafts and cables – it would destroy them. They didn’t want to answer our questions at first,’’ Vicky said.

‘’After we walked the first one up the steps of the gallows and put the rope around his neck, they could not stop talking. The union president solicited the enforcement response team from New York. The union vice president and the grievance manager were actively involved,’’ Vicky said.

‘’How did putting one on the gallows and the rope convince them to talk?’’ I asked.

‘’With one on the gallows, the trap door trip rope was tied to the neck of one of the others. We took the shoes off the one on the ground, forced him to stand on his toes and pulled the trip rope tight around his neck. Then we explained to him what was going to happen,’’ Vicky said.

‘’When your arches hurt so bad you cannot stay on your toes anymore and drop to your heels, you will pull the latch on the trap door and hang your buddy. He will drop low enough that if his eyes are open, you can watch them turn black as he dies,’’ Vicky told them.

‘’All of you are going to get to stand on the trap door and all of you will get to have the trip rope around your neck until there is only one of you left, and then he will also die,’’ Vicky said. ‘’To walk away from here, answer all of my questions.’’

‘’They told us everything,’’ Vicky said.

‘’The union financial accounts were hacked, drained and the money deposited in a Russian bank in his name so the trail would be easy to follow. Tickets were bought to Moscow using the union account from his computer. Confirmation emails were sent to his email. The union hall had a gas explosion,’’ Vicky said.

‘’The ten were carried back to their boat and told never to come back again. But – only after we took complete ID info, pictures, finger prints and DNA,’’ Vicky said.

All the fire fighters got their jollies playing with the trucks and putting out the two trailers filled with flammables and pallets.

Edit by Alfmeister