Bjjonesmylife. Book 2

Book 3 Chapter 54

            Friday, Saturday and Sunday were golden; I spent all three days with my mates and kids. I took JJ and RJ back to Fort Smith Saturday afternoon. They were still collecting the empty brass shells from all the training that went on there.

            There had been changes so the collecting was not as productive as it had been in the past. All training groups now spent time picking up their empties. Vicky was now sending them to a company that reloaded them for the savings.

            Reloads were only used for training. The men in the field received only new ammo. There had been no problems with the reloads, but in life or death fight new was better – why chance it?

            Monday Marine One carried my staff and me back to Washington. None of the girls were coming over this week. The girls needed to be there to help with everything, with the new babies in the house.

            Then there were the critical meetings with the Indian and Pakistan ambassadors. Hopefully, I would have time to read the final reports before the Tuesday meetings with them.

            The media dogs were screaming about not having a news conference for them; it had been several weeks. I was going to have to have one but there had been no announcement of a date or time. The surprise was on them – it was today at the normal daily press conference.

I had several topics I was going to drop on them to occupy the media for the rest of the month. I was going to dump so many policy and agency changes in that news conference that the media would have weeks of material to discuss. Some of the things I was going to throw out were bogus and outright misinformation.

            I had to laugh after lunch; some of my staff asked when we were going back to Summers Road for another stay. In six hours, they were already fed up with the craziness that was DC.

            They didn’t know it and weren’t going to be told about it until only a couple days before it happened, but we were going to spend three weeks at Deep Water Cay. That was one thing that the girls and I had discussed while I was staying at home.

They wanted to spend time away from the Washington madness. Being shot at in the Philippines had put a new emphasis on more time together and on vacation. We were going to wait a couple of months to allow the babies and the new mothers to get a routine set up.

In an hour I needed to be at Walter Reed Hospital so the experts could look at the bullet injury on my head. It wasn’t healing as fast or as nice as the White House doctor wanted. He was concerned that the bullet might have been impregnated with some kind of poison.

I arrived at Walter Reed at 1330. What was supposed to be a short trip took two hours. They scrapped, took biopsies and cleaned the area on my head where the bullet broke the skin and gave me a powerful IV antibiotic. The process they used hurt like hell.

Then they decided they needed to do my physical while I was there. The doctors drew more blood and I was put through another series of full body x-rays. After that there were all the scans they normally did.

I left with the White House doctor and a special tube of medication to put on the area under a band aid while they waited on the results of the biopsies.

There were now new rules for my convoys from the White House. No longer would they assemble at the White House. They would assemble randomly somewhere else, then make the swing to the White House parking lot where I would get into the car. Entering and leaving the parking lot was to take no more than four minutes.

The same was to apply whenever I left an event; they would assemble elsewhere, drive up to the loading area and then leave with me without any waiting.

The first time took fifteen minutes for the Secret Service to get it right. I feared there was going to be a big learning curve with all the changes.

Andy sent a text that was coded 911 for a VCATS call.

‘’What do you have Andy?’’ I asked. Just as I did, the VCATS screen added Marcy and Vicky.

‘’Pirates attacked the US flagged tanker ‘Chesapeake Blue’ as it made its way around the island of Anor, it was a hundred miles south west of the island’’ Marcy said.

Chesapeake Blue was one of the finished product tankers JBG owned. It was a fairly new tanker. JBG had three tankers, one we owned and two we leased. All three were finished product tankers. They were smaller than the crude super tankers.

They needed to be smaller than the super tankers to get to the ‘Pig Iron Point fuel depot in the bay. That fuel depot had the pipeline to the fuel storage tanks and the pipeline to the Morton fuel farm. The fuel farm at Pig Iron Point had been expanded multiple times.

It now had enough fuel tanks to hold a product tanker of jet fuel, or one carrying a mixed load of gasoline and diesel fuel. The latest addition was those big round tanks for liquid propane. I wondered why we needed tanks for that much propane.

Marcy answered that question. ‘’It’s dirt cheap at the refinery, they consider it a waste product because there is little demand for it at those countries in that part of the world. We have high demand for it here and a reliable market for it. We had to have enough tank capacity to handle a tanker load to make the freight charges worthwhile.‘’

‘’Future investments near the refineries will create a local demand as manufacturing takes a foothold. There is also the possibility of using it to fuel several power plants that are on the drawing board; but there is strong competition from the available natural gas from the refineries,’’ Marcy said when I asked.

Marcy could always figure out a way to make money and grow the business.

The ships sailed the route from the refineries in Nigeria and Cameroon with jet fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel and now LPG.

‘’The fast escorts had been released to return to the Nigerian refinery and had only been gone twenty minutes when the pirate’s ships started showing up on radar from the north east. The tanker made a series of defensive moves until the fast ships returned to sink the pirate boats.”

I expected the State Department phones to be ringing off the wall at any time. Sinking the pirate boats in that area was a whole new ball game and opened a big can of stinking worms. There had been no international agreements and hardly any major discussions between the shipping community or the regional nations.

I left the discussions between Andy, Marcy and Lorrie. I knew the decision was going to be to put heavily armed security teams on the tankers for close in defense.

The real answer was to extend the area where the JBG fast ships provided coverage and possibly get paid for providing coverage to other tankers.

The pirates were using 12.5 mm machine guns and RPGs. The 12.5 guns had an effective range of a mile and a quarter. The chain guns had a range of two and a half miles. The JBG fast boats had enough firepower to keep the pirates away from our tankers.

With the extended stay at Walter Reed and the interruption from home, my day to jerk the media around was long gone. I made some notes for my meetings tomorrow, closed the Oval Office and went to my residential area of the White House.

I was going to the gym first, then I was going to shower and after that, see Doc to change the Band-Aid on my head and add some more antibiotic.

I was up early at 0500 so I went to the gym for an hour, then a shower and breakfast. The doctor was coming at 0700 to change the dressing on my head; hopefully he would have the reports from yesterday’s test.

I was in the Oval Office when the doctor arrived. I had him follow me back to the residential area of the White House. Back there nothing was recorded – in the Oval Office, too many things were. I knew lots of people wanted to know about the test results but it was none of their business.

‘’The results from the lab work found no poisons or strange bacteria. I guess we are just too anxious for it to heal. The doctors at Walter Reed still want to remove all the shrapnel from your body so they can do full body MRIs and other full body scans. They will not be happy until they do,’’ he said.

‘’Legally I am required to report the findings from your visit yesterday to several Congressional committees. I will leave that up to you; it is personal health information and I think none of their business,’’ he said.

‘’Until I say different, let’s not give them access to the reports,’’ I said.

I went back to the Oval Office to read the reports Robert, Frank, and Eric had delivered for the 0830 meeting with Pakistan’s Ambassador Al Farsi.

Frank and Eric’s reports could have been written by the same intelligence – they were that close in information. Roberts had a different light on the information. I suspected Mossad had supplied some of the information. It wasn’t terribly eye opening, but close.

Al Farsi arrive ten minutes early. He was not alone, with him there were two assistant ambassadors all carrying large briefcases. With the two of them carrying briefcases, I moved the meeting over to the Executive Meeting Room. I rightly assumed that they had a lot of documents they were going to use to make their case.

For the next two hours my staff and I listened to a few truths and a cover story. They were from the same group that had orchestrated the attack on me in Pakistan in what seemed like decades ago, but was only a few years ago. It was the attack that led to my transition to be Vice President.

‘’You have given me assurances several times that your government had eradiated that group, yet here they are again. From what I read out of all this, they are a much bigger group than you let on. I am also to believe there are many that have government connections and hold positions with the government,’’ I said.

‘’Unfortunately, you are correct. Many have been arrested and more will be. We wish to improve relations with your country and the Philippines and this puts another black eye on us,’’ he said.

 ‘’I have a list to give to you, Madam President, of people within your government and industry that are working with the terrorists,’’ he said as he stood to leave.

I did the diplomatic thing and thanked him for the list as Troy walked them out.

Indian Ambassador Neeraj Om Ahmed was waiting in the other meeting room. The assistant secretary of state had been keeping him occupied.

‘’Ambassador Ahmed, it good the see you after all the conversations we have had on the phone. I understand you have information for me about the group of people that attacked me,’’ I said.

‘’Yes, Madam President, all have been arrested and were subjected to enhanced interrogation. That interrogation allowed our secret police to round up the leaders as well as substantial number of the members of the group,’’ he said.

‘’The leaders and trainers were executed after interrogation at Sumal Maximum Security Prison. The members have been given lengthy sentences from twenty-five to life, depending on the crimes and terrorist activities they had been involved in,’’ he said.

‘’I want to thank you for the swift action on dealing with this unfortunate attack on me. I understand that your country has allowed and been working diligently with our intelligence agencies in this matter,’’ I said.

We talked for another hour before they left with a verbal agreement to work closer in terrorist matters.

I went to the cafeteria for lunch, then it was going to be announced that I was attending today’s White House news briefing.

Edit by Alfmeister

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.

Edit by Alfmeister

Book 3 Chapter 52

            The next morning, I was up early. Unless I touched the band-aids, I was not in pain. The doctor came in and removed the bandages to look at it. ‘’It looks fine,’’ he said then he added, ‘’It is high enough in the hairline that the scar won’t be visible.’’

            We talked about a shot for infection and other things, but after checking that all my shots were up to date, he said none was needed unless a problem appeared. More salve and new band-aids, then I ate a good breakfast.

I then did a VCATS with the girls – it was 2000 there. There was another long talk about being more careful. There was also a picture of a big logging chain with ankle cuffs by my desk and my pair of high-topped boots. We had a good laugh at that.

Troy handed a me a handful of notes, mostly general information and updates. The one I was interested in was that India’s ambassador to the US – Neeraj Om Ahmed – wanted an immediate meeting with me as soon as I returned to Washington.

The second one was that Pakistan’s Fazel Al Farsi had been to the White House personally to make the request for a meeting as soon as I returned from my trip.

            At 0900 we were to meet the Philippine delegation at Subic Bay. My security people decided I would not travel with President Ramos for fear that his security team may have been infiltrated.

            The motorcade with the beast had me to Subic Bay in plenty of time. In fact, I was early enough that I made an impromptu visit to a couple of our Navy ships that were tied to the dock. We weren’t due to visit any ships for another two hours.

            The guided missile cruiser ‘’USS Millington’’ was one of them. The Millington was one of the newer Cruisers, just three years old. Most likely, this was its first port assignment after the shakedown cruise and final fit out.

            I thought the gangplank officer was going to crap himself as three-star Admiral Horton and I walked up to him. There were also several Secret Service agents and my JBG security along.

            ‘’Permission to come aboard,’’ I said. He stood there not responding, in a daze, his right hand to his forehead fixed in a salute that I had returned.

            ‘’Ensign Fergerson, I think you should answer the CIC,’’ Admiral Horton said.

            ‘’Yes sir, yes Ma-am, I sorry Ma-am, permission granted, you may proceed,’’ he stammered.

            We started up the gangplank to be met at the top by a Commander and a seaman. ‘’Welcome aboard Madam President and Admiral Horton,’’ Commander Fred Rubble said.

            ‘’Pipe the President and the Admiral aboard, Seaman Crocket,’’ the Commander said.

            As soon as the seaman finished, Commander Rubble announce on the ship’s PA system, ‘’Attention all hands, the CIC is now aboard, attention all hands, CIC is now aboard, attention all hands, Pac-fleet Commander Admiral Horton is now aboard, attention all hands Pac-fleet Commander Admiral Horton is now aboard.’’

            There was a rumble below decks that I could feel with my feet on the steel deck and there was the slamming of multiple hatches being closed.

            ‘’Commander Rubble, can you direct me to where I can get a good cup of coffee?’’ I asked.

‘’Yes Ma-am, follow me. I will lead you there, right this way,’’ he said.

            Two down flights of stairs, several turns and a dozen salutes along the way and the galley was nearly full of men and ladies getting breakfast. The Admiral and I stood in line to get a cup of coffee that smelled like the real stuff.

Nervous sailors were everywhere, wondering what they should do. I solved that issue, ‘’Pull up a seat and join us,’’ I said.

            ‘’You know there is an officer’s galley a deck above,’’ Admiral Horton said.

            I wondered why the Commander had not taken us there, then I wondered what was going on there that he did not want us to see.

            ‘’The review board said I would never be officer material. They insisted they were never wrong,’’ I said.

            ‘’Those review boards were wrong a lot of times, and that one time for sure,’’ he said.

            We were just finishing the coffee with several of the crew when the ship’s Captain and first officer found us.

            ‘’Let’s go to the bridge and lay out some orders,’’ I said.

            Fifteen minutes later Captain Sturbridge had the orders for his Naval force of one guided missile cruiser, the USS Millington, two FFG destroyers, the USS Alexander, the USS Smithfield and two frigates – the USS Hampton and the USS Shiloh. Those ships were ordered to depart Subic Bay in two hours.

            I and my group departed the USS Millington and met President Ramos at the southern dock for a reflagging of four destroyers and four frigates that had been pulled from the United States mothball fleet. They had been listed as unneeded and scheduled for disposal.

            Normally disposal meant to be sunk as targets, sold for scrap or given to our allies. In this case they became part of the deal to allow the US access to the former US bases in the Philippines without the multi-billion – dollar annual fees of the past.

            They were sent to the shipyards, cleaned and repainted, plus any other repairs needed to make them sea worthy, somewhat dependable and install reasonable upgrades. Special upgrades would be paid for by the Philippine government.

            While all that was being done, one thousand seven hundred Philippine sailors and officers were being trained on how to use the destroyers and frigates. The Philippine navy had eighty ships in their fleet, including frigates.

The DDG destroyers we were sending them were two hundred feet longer and a different design than their frigates. They had five-inch guns on them as the main weapon plus missiles, torpedoes and the phalanx close in anti-missile aircraft defense systems. They needed training on all the differences as well as fire control

The frigates we were sending them were fifty feet longer than the ones they had and had four-inch guns, torpedoes and the defensive missile systems. They would add firepower to the Philippine Navy in its many island disputes.

            At 0900 we stood on the dock giving all the appropriate speeches as the US flags on those ships were replaced with the official flag of the Philippine Navy. The US flags were properly folded and delivered to Admiral Horton’s aide.

I ordered that the flags be properly labeled and were to be delivered to each ship’s crew members association. Many Navy ships had a crew member’s association and held reunions and get togethers.

Because of the attack on me, the Secret Service – with the JBG security agreeing – decided that me visiting any WW2 battlefields was a no go. Especially after there were rumors in the media that I was going to do just that. After an afternoon of meetings, I was going home, disappointed.

Air Force One headed east at 1600, I was flying back in time – losing the day I had gained when flying west.

Information on the attackers had finally been put together. Six of them were from Kharchani Pakistan, six more were from Lahore Pakistan and another six were from Punjab India. The remaining ten were from the Mindoro area of the Philippines. It was believed that the ones from Pakistan were the trainers.

There was little to be done – other than apply diplomatic pressure – at the current time. President Ramos indicated that there would be operations against the sects on Mindoro that were getting rebellious.

Air Force One landed at Andrews so all the Washington people would be able to go home. Marine One was waiting and crewed to take me immediately home.

The Secret Service had directed that it lands at Morton and have a motorcade to Summers Road, but I was going to change that in air. Something had been bothering me about Marcy for the last couple of hours.

I had talked to all my mates a couple hours ago. There was a change in Marcy’s voice that I detected. I wondered if she was in labor, as both babies were due any day.

Ten minutes into the flight I ordered the change to land behind the office. The senior Secret Service agent aboard threw a temper tantrum.

‘’It’s not a debate, it’s a direct order. Land behind the office,’’ I said.

‘’Yes Ma-am, behind the office.”

There were several Suburbans there to take me to the house. I was going directly to Marcy’s room but didn’t get that far. The family, including Jeanna, was in the living room timing Marcy’s contractions. Jeanna was with them and in a nervous fit.

‘’The Secret Service ambulance is on its way from Morton, should be here in a couple minutes. The medical group is with it.”

The medical group was a permanent assignment to the Secret Service ambulance and consisted of a doctor and several nurses. All in case of an emergency with the President or the family.

‘’Doctor Peterson is on her way to AAGH Jenny said.

Twenty – five minutes later we were crossing the Bay Bridge on the way to AAGH. Marcy and Ching Lee were in the ambulance. I was in the backup beast with the rest of my family including Jeanna. We were in the middle of a pack of Suburbans.

JJ, RJ, Takeo and Sara were still at home with Jason and Lisa and a nurse, and of course several Secret Service agents.

Six hours later Elizabeth Roberta Jones – 7 lbs. 8 oz. 21 inches tall – made her appearance to the world. Elizabeth was her grandmother’s name and the Roberta was of course me.

I was unsure of how I felt about that. I didn’t think I was old enough to have children named after me. But everyone was excited and happy, so was I. There were tears from all of us.

Jeanna was to the moon with excitement. Dozens of pictures had been taken and sent to her friends and coworkers. I was sure that we were going to have a house guest for a while, even though she only lived a couple miles down the road. She was glued to every word from Dr. Susan Peterson when talking about baby care.

The media was in the hospital lobby, in fact the lobby was filled with media; there was no room for anyone else.

I resigned myself to the fact I needed to go give them a statement so the hospital could return to normal operation. They were stopping everyone that looked to be a hospital worker, being a total nuisance to the hospital staff. The Secret Service led me through the medical area behind all the closed doors that exited into the lobby.

I was still wearing the gauze and covered by a bigger Band-Aid to cover the bullet graze on the side of my forehead, at the insistence of the White House doctor. It wasn’t healing to his liking. I tried to minimize it with a White House baseball cap while I made a statement to the media.

‘’At 0200 this morning, Elizabeth Roberta Jones – 7 lbs. 8 oz., 21 inches – was delivered by my mate Marcy De Stone Jones. Baby and mother are in excellent health and will be discharged as soon as the doctors give the OK,’’ I said.

The Secret Service agent handed me a couple pictures of Marcy and me holding Elizabeth and then me holding Elizabeth.

The media was shouting questions about the head wound and the baby. I answered them by thanking them for coming and that I would be unavailable for the week.

Edit by Alfmeister

I walked forward to see what all the commotion was about with my staff.

The Supreme Court had just ruled on all the lawsuits about all the past executive orders that past presidents had signed. On my first day after the inauguration, I had signed executive orders removing almost 600 orders from previous presidents.

            They had used these executive actions to radically change policy, adding all kinds of rules bypassing Congress and many times forcing agencies to alter established guidelines on many issues nationwide.

            My argument was I was now the president and why should executive orders from the past hamstring and control the actions of my administration and my agencies? If they could implement actions by executive order, I could undo those actions by executive order and issue my own, making my administration and my agencies in my vision.

            If I could not change what past presidents had done, why even have elections at all?

            Special interest groups didn’t see it that way and filed multiple lawsuits on everyone. The Supreme Court ended all of them today and did it with a sledge hammer effect. The court’s unanimous decision threw out all the lawsuits. The groups could not change a few words or criteria and then refile the suit.

            The court’s opinion said, ‘’Congress could vote to override my executive orders by the required two thirds vote in each House, otherwise the new orders stand the legal test.’’

The only stipulation was a law that was passed by both Houses and signed into law could not be changed or cancelled out by executive order. Congress had to pass a new law to remove or change it.

            My orders that had been delayed would go into full effect tomorrow. The special interest groups were furious.

            Secret Service Special Agent Greg Carter was in charge of the security on this trip. He was the first agent I met at the White House on my very first day on the Taskforce. He came walking towards me with a handful of papers and wasn’t looking happy.

            ‘’Intelligence is reporting that the terror group Abu Sayyaf is joining with Slammer terror groups on Mondano and Palawan. They are threatening to interrupt the Conference you are heading to. There is also a report that the terror groups Hiztul Ahrar and TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) from Pakistan have been and are traveling to Palawan, giving them training,’’ he said.

            ‘’What is the Philippine security saying – they are responsible for security as the host country,’’ I said.

            ‘’They have doubled security and have made about three hundred arrests, plus the roads from Mondano and Palawan are going to have check points that have started this morning,’’ he replied.

            ‘’That all good, but who knows? Maybe they have been moving into the area of the conference for weeks,’’ I said then I added, ‘’Given the security risk now, the location and the dates of these conferences need to be kept confidential between the members.’’

            ‘’Where did you come up with this intelligence?’’ I asked.

 I was curious to know if part of it was from Robert’s group. I knew JBG had no listening operations in the area, unless there had been an expansion that I did not know about.

‘’Frank’s group and working with the Philippine security group,’’ he replied.

Extra security was sent early because I was going to the WW2 American cemetery to place a wreath with many of the security teams had been there for weeks.

I also wanted to go see a couple of the WW2 battlefields that were close by. There were several that still had the relics as they were abandoned after the battle.

The flight continued on and we arrived early 0600 local time. There was time for me to freshen up in the hotel before my group and I needed to be at the Manila Hilton Grand Ballroom for the breakfast and opening statements for the world’s media.

After a breakfast where I did not like the foods and the media frenzy for best picture with choice allies and all the international politicking, we moved over to the international convention center side in the majestic side of the building.

The next three hours was spent going over changes to agreements that various state departments and negotiators had spent months working on. There were discussions that were heated at times.

At 1300 the meetings were called to a halt for today. A lunch for Kings and Queens was on the tables in the Grand Ballroom. After lunch, there were impromptu meetings of leaders in one on one and group sessions to expand on friendships and influence.

I met with Australia Prime Minister Alfred Morris and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Craven Tomou. Both governments had promised last year to expand their navies, but with all promises, work at doing that was slow in coming.

Australia had laid down the keel for one destroyer, one submarine and one cruiser. It would be a decade before either was ready for sea duty. New Zealand had laid down one keel for a frigate that was years away from going to sea.

Tonight was another feast, with speakers giving opinions and then an orchestra to soothe the soul. Gordon was along so the dancing was going to enjoyable. I had brought a couple of the dresses that I had bought for Kampala.

It was a good evening; I wished the girls could have been along to enjoy the festivities. Tomorrow morning there were more meetings to close out the official conference.

Tomorrow afternoon I had several meetings with the President of the Philippines Federnan Ramos and then I going to the WW2 American Cemetery. After that we were going to the joint Subic Bay Naval Base.

Secret planning had been carried out from the first meetings months ago when the war with Iran was in the winding down stages. The increased confrontations between the countries on the south China Sea was escalating. It was during these events that the Philippines decided they were open to allowing the United States back to the old military bases with Clark Airfield and Subic Bay Naval Base being the two most important ones of immediate interest.

There were multiple parts of the developing agreement that included more military aid, economic assistance and industrial expansion. That expansion was in heavy industries. Those agreements would allow more exports of manufactured goods to the US and allow more US companies to return to the Philippines economy.

It was 1500 when my motorcade made it to the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. It was to be a solemn affair. The cemetery was one hundred and fifty-two acres containing seventeen thousand two hundred and six graves from WW2.

Sixteen thousand six hundred and thirty-six were American and five hundred and thirty-six were Philippine. There were twenty–nine Medal of Honor recipients buried or memorialized at the cemetery.

President Ramos and I – with a host of dignitaries – walked past the visitor’s center to the Plaza and to the Memorial and placed two wreaths – one for the Americans and one for the Philippine soldiers that has perished.

We each gave a short speech honoring those that had perished in the fight for freedom in the great war that was WW2.

Afterwards we walked the circular road that made its way through the cemetery. I read the names on the memorial walls and on the marble headstones as we walked. It was a solemn walk and I had plenty of time.

Towards the end of the walk we were near the main highway, about thirty yards from that highway before the road circled back to the main memorial. Several cars screeched to a stop. A dozen or so people exited the cars. Small arms and machine gun fire came from the people.

I took several rounds in the bulletproof vest, one round grazed the side of my head near the hairline, blood was running down the side of my face.

My security teams – the Secret Service and my JBG security – returned fire and killed all the shooters. I even emptied one clip at the shooters.

President Ramos’ security team attended to several of his injured team and to him.

I sent agents to gather all the intelligence they could from the shooters – some Secret Service and some from my JBG security group. I wanted to find out where the breakdown in security happened.

The news teams went crazy at the sight of me bleeding, even though it was just a little more than a trickle that a couple band-aids would stop. Live feeds were scrambling for the best video. It was all the security teams could do to keep them back and form a protective circle around me.

Ziva cleaned up the wound and applied the band-aids from a pocket first-aid kit while the Secret Service was trying to locate the official doctor who was trapped behind the mass of agents and news people.

My face was easy to clean up, the white jacket I was wearing was not. Greg Archer, the senior agent, took off his jacket and handed it to me. I took off mine and gave it to him with instructions that the Secret Service was to maintain custody of it.

I was sure it would end up in the Smithsonian Museum in some exhibit if I let it, but it would go in my office at Summers Road with my collection of damaged body armor.

I called Jenny and the girls on a conference call to tell them I was OK and everything was fine, not to worry.

‘’We saw you giving orders on the news feed, so we were relieved,’’ Jenny said. ‘’Marcy is measuring for the log chain we are going to anchor by your desk,’’ she added.

‘’Make sure it is long enough to get to the bathroom and the coffee pot,’’ I said with a laugh.

Back at the parking lot for the Memorial we met ‘’The Beast.’’ In a changeup, it carried President Ramos and me back to the Hilton for the evening.

All the powers to be wanted a breakdown of the events for the official records of me being hit with gunfire. Eric had ordered a complete preliminary investigation before the facts got blurred. Andy ordered the same thing for the JBG group. Tonight, would be interesting, to say the least.

The White House doctor removed the band-aids and cleaned the graze wound from the bullet. Whatever he cleaned it with hurt like all hell, enough for me to tell him to stop. He decided against stiches which suited me fine. A couple of steri-strips and new band-aids was sufficient.

I spent an hour on VCATS with the girls and multiple warnings from all of them. A quiet supper and I called it a night. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day right from the beginning. I was sure today would bleed over to it, no pun intended.

I had a quiet supper with my security team that was with me today. After supper we round tabled everything that led up to the shooting and the aftermath. I was sure there would there would be plenty more behind closed doors in the next few weeks.

I took some pain killers and went to bed, ready to close out today and start tomorrow.

Edit by Alfmeister

R.I.P. Bob W.  Thank you for all you have done to help me.

1940- 2024

            Wednesday afternoon Lorrie, Vicky, Ching Lee, Takeo, Sara and I flew on Marine One to the landing pad behind the office. I wanted to spend a little time with the boys, Jenny and Marcie before I left for the South East Asian conference. I made up for being away. After the conference I was going to spend the following weekend at home, and possibly Monday as well.

            Air Force One picked me up at midnight at Morton Field and then began the long flight to Manila. It was a twenty-hour flight. Because of the international date line crossing, I would arrive in Manila on Friday at 2000 or so – depending on the winds – an hour or two either way. The first meetings were Saturday morning after an international breakfast. The meetings had been extended to Wednesday.

             All the staff was going with me as well as the military chiefs. There were big happenings after the conference that would complete the agreement for our use of the former military bases. That was happening on Thursday or Friday, depending on the conference timeline.

            It was 10,300 miles from Morton to Manila International Airport. Inflight refueling would take place just pass California. I could have landed and refueled on the ground at one of the military bases in California, but it was a time thing. If I landed, it would have required all kinds of meetings with political leaders and military leaders lest they would feel slighted.

            I would land on the way back to refuel, shake all the hands and salute the right officers. There would probably be a trip to Camp Parks and to look at some of the low-income housing that was being built to end the homeless problem that was no longer making news print.

            After reading all the updates marked urgent, I went to the rear of the plane. I took a hot shower and went back to bed on the king size bed, listening to the hum of the turbines.

            I slept very well; even the change in the turbines to slow down for the refueling didn’t wake me up. When I woke up, I noted we still had ten hours to go as I went to the cafeteria for breakfast. Yes, Air Force One has a kitchen and cafeteria. I had fresh cooked eggs, scrapple and pancakes.

There were now eight hours left and just a couple until we crossed the International Date Line. I went to the flying ‘Oval Office’ and started my day as usual, reading today’s updates. I was happy with several of them.

            The USS Missouri had been dredged free yesterday. A repair ship was inspecting the hull and making sure it was watertight for the tow through the Panama Canal to Chesapeake Bay, then to Annapolis. The West Coast states were screaming, wanting it on the west coast somewhere – anywhere on the west coast.

            Their senators and representatives had proposed all kinds of bills, motions and resolutions for that affect, some of them threatening the Navy Department. It was all set and decided and there was no changing it. It was a done deal.

            McLean Contracting was already at the Naval Academy, dredging and driving heavy sheeting, creating a place to berth the USS Missouri. The dredge materials were going to the Poplar Island restoration project just a few miles away from the Academy.

            They were going to run heavy electric service to the berth so there would be the possibility of moving the turrets and possibly a light show the same as the North Carolina. It was a popular tourist attraction. The light show simulated a night battle.

            While it’s on its way to Annapolis, the Missouri was doing a stopover at NNSB docks at Navy Yard for hull painting and upper structure cleaning and painting to repair the damage to the ship from all the volcanic ash that was on it for so long.

            The New Jersey had painting and hull work just a few years before at the Philadelphia Ship yards. The experts from that exercise were going to assist NNSB to properly positioned the ship in the drydock since they had a more recent experience.

            I had learned there was a lot more to putting a battle ship in a dry dock and pumping the water out. Blocks had to be positioned to properly support that tremendous weight. They had to be placed at strong points built into the ship during construction so the ship would not bend or sag as the water was removed. The barbettes, turrets, magazines and armor surrounding them weight thousands of tons.

Weights had to be properly positioned on deck so she settled on the keel blocks evenly. The stern was the lowest part and the heaviest. Without that as the dry dock was drained of water there was the potential that the bow would slam down hard on the keel blocks and do all kinds of serious damage to the ship.

The other note was on the removal of the artifacts from the Arizona. Initially they were going to pump the cofferdam around it dry, but smarter minds prevailed. Now they were going to lower the water level one deck at a time and remove everything of historical value on that deck.

Everything removed would be submerged in plastic crates filled with sea water until the items could be properly dried, preserved and restored. The process was going to take time – a lot of time and cost. But without it, all would be lost forever and that was close to happening now.

The National Park Service employees had watched over the Arizonia for decades. They had done many dives around the ship documenting decay and discovering new things from the attack and were on hand to assist.

Every artifact was to receive special handling as well as any remains that were found. Over a thousand had perished on the Arizona, how many were vaporized from the massive explosion was an unknown.

 How many remains would be found was another unknown, was there enough DNA to identify them, would the dog tags still be around the bones? The final resting place for them would have to be decided in the future, return them to their families or to intern them altogether at Arlington National Cemetery?

All these people were staying on a Navy ship anchored closely off shore and traveling by small craft back and forth. The broken Memorial had been lifted onto a barge for transport to Annapolis along with many other pieces of the ship for the new memorial.

There were some that even wanted the two halves of the ship brought to Annapolis as part of the new memorial. For the time being I was against it. When it was thoroughly searched, everything documented, then the decision that all of the possible artifacts had been found – even in the mud around the ship – I was for pulling for sections of the cofferdam to be removed to reflood and cover what was left.

Rains, wind and hot tropical sun was making an eerie landscape out of Hawaii. The volcano was still belching smoke and lava rivers from its summit and earth quakes were still registering on all the equipment. The experts were saying there were no signs of another major eruption building. But then again, the experts had missed all the signs of the initial pending eruption.

Bodies were still being exposed in some areas as the winds and erosion were changing the landscape. There was a graves unit on one of the ships to handle those issues. I closed that section of notes and updates to move on to the next group.

The next reports were on the electric infrastructure issues as my experts said there would be. Rolling blackouts were still continuing in the north-west and in some areas of the mid-west and south-west, although not as bad. The winter had was cold but had not been terribly cold.

 Coal and natural gas plants that had been idled or shut down were being put back online. Natural gas plants were coming on faster that the coal plants. In fact, all the gas plants were already back online. Also, most of the coal plants would be online by the end of the year.

 But nowhere near enough were saved to handle the continuing crisis created by the volcano. The real crisis was going to start during the summer heat.

 Of course, the green groups were screaming, demanding the solar panels be replaced immediately instead putting the fossil fuels back on line. The problem was that there were still no serious manufacturing plants in the US. China had the market covered and had increased the price a thousand percent.

What was first estimated to replace all the damaged solar panels was at a trillion dollars, was now at ten trillion and growing. The estimated time was now fifteen years and growing before the replacement would be completed.

Then there was the problem of what to do with the fifty million tons junk solar panels. Many were past their half life service or at the end of their service life prior to the ash damage. Now the special glass was damaged and no longer recyclable. I closed that report and moved on to the next one.

The next one was the final report on the damage to the wind power that was scattered through-out the region. The failure rate was increasing, there were two main reasons for that.

One was that the volcanic ash acted like sandpaper with the blades turning in the wind for the weeks the ash was a problem. The result was the blades no longer had the structural strength they were designed to have and now they were failing.

 Many simply broke off, throwing the unit out of balance and causing the supporting tower to crash to the ground, in some cases taking others with it.

The second cause was that ash was sucked into the generator portion of the tower. Generating electricity created heat – a lot of heat. To control that heat, fans were built into the unit to pull and push air through the fields and armature. Those fans filled the unit with ash that filled every winding, every gap or hole. All that stopped the needed airflow to cool the unit.

Because of the height of the towers, there were no air filters installed on them. There would not be any dust that high to cause any problems. The experts never figured on the one in a thousand storm scenario.

The next piece of the puzzle was that the gear boxes were humongous to hold the speeds, torque and horsepower that was developed at moderate wind speeds. Those gear boxes were filled with hundreds of gallons of gear lube that was pumped under pressure to all the bearings in the gearbox.

That oil also had to be cooled by hydraulic coolers that were made out of aluminum to reduce weight. They were not designed to be used in areas where the air contained abrasive particles. The result; the fins that were not filled with the grit were quickly worn away and the aluminum coils were worn away, then they began leaking oil. That oil spray was starting fires.

Those fires were two hundred feet and higher above ground and unable to be put out. The result was that tower loses were seventy five percent in some areas, fifty percent in most areas.

As soon as the experts were predicting this kind of failure during the eruption, I ordered a task force made up of energy supply experts. Their direction was simple; find the fastest solution to the rolling blackouts.

Those orders and the work they had done were beginning to bear fruit. One hundred Cat, Cummins and MTD2000KW and 3500 KW diesel generators had been located in a world- wide search from mining, oil and factory locations.

They had been given maintenance and testing and were being install at major substations on the transmission lines. Pole buildings were being built to give them shelter. Twenty-five were going online this week, another twenty-five the end of the month. Next month the other fifty were to be in service.

They were a drop in the bucket to what was needed, but every little bit helped.

Their big brothers were coming, the first were to be installed in two months. Monster diesel generators. Kawaski was delivering ten 10MW diesel generators. GE was delivering two used 25MW natural gas units from South Africa.

GE was also completing the build on two 50MW gas turbines to be delivered by June, according to the report. I hoped all of this would make a difference.

But I knew bigger things were in the works for the latter part of the year for next winter.

I closed the report and walked to the cafeteria for a refill, listening to the celebration. We had crossed the international date line, we had gained a day and would then lose it on the return trip.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Morning came early along with an early breakfast. Takeo and Sara were eating solid food and were nearly feeding themselves. I was missing so much with them, even though I spent as much time with them as possible. Vicky and I tried to contain our smiles as they were feeding themselves. Getting their food onto the fork and into the mouth was still a challenge at times.

            They went back to the residential area with the kids to look at JBG things and take care of business while a sitter looked after the kids. I went to the Oval Office to begin my day. There was already a stack of notes on my desk, some with red post-it notes, meaning they were at the top the list of importance.

            One was for a meeting with Eric and Marty with Mike from the FBI electronics lab. Mike had been in the original task force as the FBI representative. Marty put him in charge of the unit after I arrested Ormond Patel.

Mike had reestablished the reputation of the FBI’s IT lab as the best in the country. Of course, that was second to JBG’s EIT group but that is my opinion. But then again, Mike had been getting a lot of guidance from Robert and Burt when he had problems.

Eric, Marty and Mike were in the kitchen hitting the pastries or waiting on the chef to finish a breakfast sandwich request. I finished looking over all the notes that were on red post-it notes, made a few calls then went to the kitchen looking for them.

I walked in on a conversation that had grown by several more people. General Ingram was discussing how and when the military was to pick up all the ammunition that the agencies had collected.

One of the problems was that a lot of the ammo was soft point or hollow point that could not be used on the battlefield, that meant it could only be used for live fire training.

The military was going to get all of it. The weapons themselves and body armor was a different story. Much of the body armor was not military grade and had been personalized for the wearer’s preferences.

I understood all that and I would not want to wear used body armor myself unless it was a life-or-death emergency. It was one thing if you knew how it had been cared for, cleaned and handled. At JBG, body armor was assigned to the individual and had their name on it.

But it was a shame to throw away millions of dollars worth of equipment on a whim. Yet to send it back to the manufacturer for inspection was cost prohibitive and time consuming, especially when you added the phenomenal cost of government labor. Then there was the cost of shipping.

The M16s and the MP5s were going to the Army and Marines. The hand guns were to go to various law enforcement groups based on an as needed and by request. The FBI was going to handle all that. Many small police agencies were still using decades old revolvers and could use the upgrade.

Mike finished a conversation he was having on the phone.

‘’Madam President, we are making good progress deciphering all the texts and emails. The new computer programs that Robert and your EIT teams developed are speeding things along,’’ Mike said.

‘’The way it looks, we are going to be able to have a timeline of people and events – both text and e-mail – from the beginning as they became involved. You are going to be surprised at the scope and sheer numbers of people that had signed on to the cause. They were really close to finalizing their plans and agreeing on a date to begin,’’ Mike said.

‘’Your group wrote one hell of a program to do all this, apparently it was something they had been working on for a while. You must be paying them quite well. We offered both of them double the agency top level money and they both laughed at us,’’ Marty said.

‘’Quite well and I know you can’t touch the benefit package they are getting,’’ I said. I also did my best to hide my smile.

Andy, Robert and Burt were the three highest paid employees at JBG. I knew the FBI could not even come close to what we were paying them. And then there was the benefit package.

I went back to the work on my desk, after all the other things I still had to prepare for the Asian economic conference I needed to go at the end of the week.

I was going to leave Wednesday night, be there Thursday morning for the two -day conference and fly back Saturday. I had a day and a half to get everything done that I needed.

None of my mates were going, they had plenty to do for JBG. Many of Marcy’s plans were coming together with February into the books. Marcy and Vicky both would deliver in the next ten days if Ma Nature stayed on schedule.

All of the stock-holder’s meetings for the corporations Marcy had controlling interest in were in the three weeks, after the anticipated delivery date. I hoped she would be up to the pressure that was coming her way.

She had been working for two years to get JBG into this position. The business change and the financing from Thimble Shoals Bank was the final ace to make it work.

I knew there were a dozen legal teams making sure each step was legal. Legal teams that were the best in corporate takeovers, hostile takeovers and forced mergers. Jeanna was running herd on them, utilizing her bank’s corporate lawyers and others.

Even so, I was expecting fireworks from all sides as each as each meeting came to a close. I was also expecting Congress to go from ballistic to unprecedented levels, let alone what all the alphabet agencies would try to do. But I had plenty to worry about other than that, I was pretty sure Marcy had all things covered.

Another thing the girls had decided on was to expand the office space at the gym by finishing out the second floor, making it all offices while leaving twelve feet of clearance around the climbing wall. They also decided to expand the offices at the Horsey offices.

We had added a two-story wing to make it hotel rooms for all the training that was taking place. Then after we took over Black Bear, the first floor was changed to office space. When the Secret Service demanded rooms they were paying for half of the second floor as motel rooms.

Marcy and Lorrie had bought the lots that bordered on the south of the Horsey property and were now going to add four two-story wings to the south side of the Horsey building. Each wing was going to be two hundred and fifty feet long and all offices.

Marcy’s argument was the towers were not going to be finished for four years, possibly more. She wanted as much of the management operating structure of the businesses she was taking control of moved to Summers Road as soon as possible.

Marcy wanted to sell those corporate headquarters soon, to recoup millions while commercial property was still in demand. That demand was pushing prices to the record highs Marcy was wanting to take advantage of.

By eliminating all the executive portion and the stockholder’s portion that would no longer be necessary, operational control could be moved to Summers Road. In the process, it would be substantially downsized.

There were thousands of employees in each of those companies in those two areas and they would be eliminated along with many others who would probably not relocate.

The permits had finally been approved and Bob’s Construction was the general contractor on the project, along with using dozens of subcontractors. Parking was going to be a real issue until JBG decided on a three story covered parking garage to get the most efficient use of every square foot of the property.

I could see one massive managerial fiasco in the making. I sure hoped that Marcy saw and planned for all the potential problems and ‘fun’ with the unions she was going to have to deal with.

Pushing all that out of mind, I went back to work on presidential things.

I finished reading the expert opinions on each of the agenda topics for the summit. Then I added my thoughts on the side margins and sent it to be put in the pile of information that was to be loaded on Airforce One.

I closed down the Oval Office for the day and went to the residential area of the Whitehouse to be with Vicky, Lorrie and Ching Lee. We talked JBG business while we were waiting for the kitchen staff to get dinner ready in the dining room.

I learned that Jenny had called the medics to come over to the house to check on Crash. He was having difficulty breathing. This was the second episode in a month. The gave him an oxygen mask and the problem went away. Another trip to the doctor was on tap. Doc Burns had given him a couple of prescriptions that the girls were making sure he was taking by the directions.

Marline was beside herself. She truly loved old Crash. Crash was one hundred and two. Roger Dalton – his old lawyer – had passed last year at one hundred and one. Crash had outlived all of his friends and high school class. The older group of survivors from the Korean War from the local VFW met at the Morton restaurant once a week for coffee and lunch.

Crash made most of the lunches and Lorrie or one of her assistants always wired Crash up because war stories always became a topic before the group ended the day. I wanted to hear each and every one of them. One of Lorries clerks put the words on paper and transferred the tapes to DVD’s for me.

Crash knew the end was coming and had Jenny write him a new will and final instructions. We knew what they were because they had not changed since we had known him, although he did leave a sizeable amount to Marlene.

He still had a lot of money from war bonds when the government decided to close them out and made everyone cash them in. He regularly bought savings bonds for decades that he had converted to cash a couple of years ago. The local bank had placed the money in CDs for a higher return.

Wednesday, I did a news interview; it was one more thing I was going to have to do on a regular basis. The news group was screaming I was not giving them fair access to my administration people and there was that ‘Right to know’.

I had spoiled them by giving them so many news conferences as chair- woman of the Terrorism Task Force. It seemed that I was always giving a news conference as many terrorists were busted and arrests that the Task Force was making. Now it was biting me in the butt.

As if that wasn’t enough, Carl Esham wanted to get started on the fund raising for the congressional elections and the few senators that were in the mix this time around.

New faces needed to be elected and he insisted that we needed to get started. Two years would go fast, and the waters needed to be tested with the new faces. He had taken my challenge to heart about electing more like-minded Congressional people.

He had already started the interviewing and investigation process. The new faces would be the most investigated candidates ever. Social media would be thoroughly investigated as well as all the college organizations they belonged to. Candidates from certain colleges would be unacceptable.

There would be no more hidden criminal records and no more hidden problematic past histories on social media. And no more mistresses or mad divorced spouses or alcohol problems!

Once chosen, they would go on payroll and to public speaking classes and then a new policy training program that we had discussed. There would also be dozens of training debates and news conference training.

There was a list of organizations they would have to join and be aggressive, so they would be in the public eye.

All that was scheduled to start after the babies were born.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

By the time I finished, I had enough of news people and questions for one day. I returned to the Oval Office to start on the pile of notes that I knew to be there and growing.

            Marty and Eric followed me in the door with more notes. FBI and Department of Homeland Security investigators were beginning to put all the pieces together. To get the complete picture, it was going to take a while to decipher the hundreds of thousands of emails between the groups and people.

            ‘’We have seized all the emails and texts for the last four years. It looks like that is when all this started under President Thomas. You were chairperson of the Task Force at the time and the dates are closely aligned with the arrest of all the traitors from the various lists on the Prince’s computer files,’’ he said.

‘’People in those agencies were running scared that connections were going to be exposed to many of the things they were doing. We didn’t check the domestic traitor’s records back far enough. We were too involved in finding the international traitors to investigate domestic issues. The bribery and kickback schemes were set to balloon, but all the arrests put a damper on that expansion for a while,’’ he said.

            ‘’They all thought they could cover their tracks and not draw attention to themselves while we were aggressively fighting the war on terror. All the political and media coverage was on you and the task force. Many of the emails, texts, communications and meetings were addressed as a fight on terrorism for the records,’’ Eric said.

            ‘’They used that cover to get and justify the training and to buy all the gear, weapons and ammo. Congress simply gave them everything they wanted without question,’’ Eric said.

            ‘’It became apparent that you were cleaning all the agencies of traitors; that was all the incentive they needed. They became worried and that was when they labeled you as a threat to the status quo, to the power of the un-elected entrenched government that had been years in the making,’’ Eric said.

            ‘’Everything was kicked into high gear when you became Vice President and then President and aggressively worked to reduce the size of the agencies. The war was a minor setback – they were sure it would cause you to be defeated in the election,” Eric said.

            ‘’The computer systems have only hit the high spots in the search, but we think it is far bigger than the SWAT teams. We think there are thousands involved. We think the new programs and new computers will have it sorted out in a week,’’ Eric said.

            Allen Meadows came in and had listened to the last few assessments before he spoke.

            ‘’Given what we know and until we get a better look at it, I am going to order the Secret Service protection unit for you and your family doubled. The Vice President is also going to be doubled for a while,’’ Allen said. Eric and Marty agreed with increasing my security and then all of them left.

            First it was the war in the sand that nearly got me killed. Then a group of illegals, then a group of rapists, then the Saudi’s several times, the Pakistani’s, the Cartel, the Iranians. Now to me it looked like a group of Americans in our own government were going to try to kill or destroy me.

            I wondered how long it would be before the media put two and two together to come up with the same thing. I thought it was ironic that a mistake by one agent blew the cover off what they were planning to do. I wondered if somewhere there was a plan outline on how they were going to start this.

            I didn’t think that some agency would start to take control of the government, hoping the rest would quickly join in. There was a plan and a leader or leaders somewhere.

            I was glad that Congress had reauthorized and expanded the death penalty, trying to get major crimes under control. It looked like this was a good case to use it.

            The White House legal team knocked on the door and came in. I knew what they were going to say before they said a word.

‘’Environmental activists have filed several suits in federal court to block closing the EPA,’’ lead attorney Alfred Bostic said.

            ‘’We knew they would, so that’s no surprise,’’ I said.

            ‘’We have everything ready to counter their suit,’’ he said.

            ‘’Either way, ignore the court and continue with the closing the agencies. The court is stepping into the executive branch domain. The money is already gone, and the court can’t order money from the treasury. All budget must come from the House,’’ he said.

            ‘’Marty said they would have more of their plans uncovered tomorrow and in a formula that we can use to appeal any decision from the lower courts,’’ he said.

            ‘’This whole thing was just days of blowing out of control! It looks like it was near, based on the massive amount of texts and emails in the hours after the Kentucky incident,’’ I said.

            I needed to call Andy and then the girls to let them know what was going on. Then I needed to review all the data that the group had left me with. I could easily see that I needed to do a lot more than close the EPA and ATF.

            One thing was for sure; more agencies were going to be closed or reduced. Eric and Marty had teams of experts working around the clock trying to get answers.

Ching Lee with Takeo, Lorrie, Sara and Vicky were coming over to spend the night and possibly tomorrow. All three had texted they had things that we needed to talk about. This weekend had been such a bust with all the things happening. They would be here in three hours; I couldn’t wait. I needed to talk to someone other than lawyers and congressional people.

Carl and Kitty came in; there were more congressional people in the meeting room; I didn’t get to escape the migraine after all.

I spent the next two hours with several Senators and Congress persons. All of them were fighting for their favorite agency or project to be saved from the budget cuts after the new tax bill passed. Truthfully, I could care less about pet projects at this point. First pass the damn tax bill and then we could sort out things to save and then the changes to make. But politics didn’t work that way in Washington, no matter what.

I heard the chopper landing; work was done. I was going to walk out to the chopper to greet them but was stopped by the Secret Service. All the new agents started with the afternoon shift and they weren’t taking any chances.

I met them at the door with big hugs and kisses that they returned. Then we went to the private living area. We had a warm conversation before filling out the dinner request.

Then came the business they wanted to talk about before dinner.

‘’UPS finally sent the final plans for their building and necessary tarmac. It is for fifty acres; the building covers twenty, the rest is tarmac,’’ Lorrie said as she unfolded the blueprint on the table.

‘’The heated north-west to south-east runway will be the primary choice of runway for them. The planes will grow from the P-loop out past the ILS equipment for a thousand yards then turn left to get to their building and tarmac,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’We will need to plant trees around the Crash Hotel to help deaden the noise. The foam insulation we used when it was built will also help deaden the noise a lot,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’Their building will now have its own truck entrance a thousand yards east of Morton Lane, reducing traffic through the security gate and past the terminal building,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’We have to supply security that they will pay for,’’ Lorrie added.

‘’We are going to remodel the restaurant and cafeteria by adding more seating. It is getting used so much, it’s time for it to be replaced and upgraded. The agency agreed and is working up a blueprint,’’ Lorrie said.

“The room we left for pilots is going to be turned into a retail space with all the normal airport things. Hats, jackets, magazines, carry-on snacks, trinkets – that sort of thing. A door will have to be added,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’J&J construction is going to be doing a lot of the site and concrete work. Their building is going to be constructed by the same company that built all of our hangars. While the J&J crews are there, the P-loops on that runway are going to be replaced with a full-length taxiway one hundred and fifty feet wide,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’The Stryker fire trucks we ordered are going to be finished two months early. There is going to be a full day training school on them,” Lorrie said.

’’As it gets closer and the date firms up, we need to see if Frank’s fire group wants to sit in and also invite the officers of the two local fire companies to sit in,’’ I said.

‘’Also, we should see if the county commissioners want to show up for the PR event and if Hanna wants to cover it, which I’m sure she will,’’ I said.

‘’You could announce at that time the airport will have its own 24/7 fire department equipped and trained for aviation emergencies. And add in the UPS announcement to make a big presentation out of it. Just as well get some good media out of spending that kind of money,’’ I said.

‘’If something really bad happens, those companies would be part of the response and they should be aware of our fire department capabilities and have the ability to work with them and their equipment. They may even want to bring their rescue trucks to part of the photo op,’’ I said.

‘’How is the progress on the building for the fire group coming along?’’ I asked.

‘’Odds and ends to finish and it looks like all the permanent fire fighter positions have been filled. I decided to add a siren by the fire house to alert the whole airport if there was an emergency and to raise awareness that fire and rescue equipment would be active on the airfield,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’The Morton field radios carried by all Morton employees will have a channel added to receive emergency broadcast for the fire department and communicate with the tower should there be a fire. The tower will be able to activate all fire response systems,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’There will be enough staff to operate both Stryker and one of the Pierce trucks 24/7. It’s one heck of an expense, but with all the flights now it is a must. UPS is saying up to fifty additional arrivals and departures a day when their new place is completed,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’It sounds like everything has been well thought out and planned,’’ I said.

‘’They want it up and running in a year, J&J going to do all the site work. The portable concrete plants are coming back. A new sediment pond is going to have to be dug.”

Then it was Vicky’s turn, ‘’Andy has sent the Special Operations team to Nigeria and the Rapid Response team is also going as soon as they finish up the embassy training in South America. Intelligence’s picking up a lot of radio traffic from Boko-Haram around the oil pipeline,’’ Vicky said.

‘’Security picked up several persons who admitted under interrogation that they were advance scouts for the group and that they were planning to attack the pipeline,’’ Vicky said.

‘’I’m sure Andy will have everything under control. Did he say anything about needing more aviation support there?’’ I asked.

‘’I asked him that question, he said that he had it covered,’’ Vicky said.

‘’We are looking at a couple more colleges. They are mid-sized; six thousand students each. Marcy, Andy and I are going to do the evaluation and put together the bids next week. I will send you all the pictures, so you can add any ideas to the plan,’’ Ching Lee said.

After that we put the business talk aside. Supper was next and then play time with Takeo and Sara. After they were in bed and asleep, we got involved on more intimate things before drifting off to sleep in the super king-size bed.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I was a little past the fifteen-minute break before I was able to make it back to the news room. I had ignited a fire storm in Canada with my comments earlier. The Canadian prime minister had called wanting an immediate conference; he was going to wait.

            There was a tall stool for me to sit on behind the new podium. The podium had been changed while I was away to a wraparound one with three slightly elevated screens on it. The one on the left so my aides could update me while I was answering questions. The one in the middle a teleprompter.

And on right was a backup teleprompter. The middle section on the flat part was where I could write notes or place the folder if I was using one for a speech.

 There was also a second shelf with freshly made coffee pot with a warmer, napkins, ice bucket, hand wipes and small paper plates. There was also notepads and pens. Someone else must have been expecting the Q&A session to go long.

It had been in the hall for several weeks and I had gone through training on it several times to get the feel of it and how the things worked. I Liked some of the features, I hated some of them.

            I took one of the paper plates and started to the donut table down the level where the media was only to be met by an agent.

            ‘’Point out the ones you want boss I will get them for you,’’ he said.

            I guess I was never going to shake off the ‘Boss’ label. Everybody was comfortable with it so what the heck. I may have deserved the respect that ‘Mad-am President’ carried in a public setting. But I was comfortable with BJ or Boss with my staff and friends.

            I took a bite and a sip of the hot coffee and then several more sitting in the chair. I looked out over the media; they were waiting, getting fidgety while they were forced to wait. I was beginning to understand the power of the office.

            Were they a pack of blood hounds waiting for a bone to be thrown to them or pack of wolves waiting to pounce on the new born calf?

            ‘’OK ladies and gentlemen let’s get started. We are going to do this in segments with the first on the Kentucky incident. I’m going to start on the front row and work towards right.

            ‘’Charlie you’re first,’’ I said.

            ‘’The national desk wants to know how and where you think you have the authority to do this?’’ he said.

            ‘’Not being a constitutional expert or a legal mind, I consulted those that are. I have six of the most qualified constitutional experts that I routinely use to answer my questions on my personal staff. I made that call on Saturday when all this mess started to unfold. This time I also asked a very respected retired supreme court justice to sit in on the video calls. I said.

            ‘’The seven met at my eastern shore home on Sunday with me. I listened and learned. When the six – hour meeting was over I had two pages of instructions in an order that I had follow to be constitutionally legal’’ I said as I held up the two pages.

‘’Also, in those instructions were four emergency appeals to the Supreme court to challenge laws that past congresses had attempted to use to reduce the power and authority on an incoming president,’’ I said.

‘’Those appeals were hand delivered to the court Monday morning. The court has agreed to hear arguments on them tomorrow under an emergency request based on the events of the last couple days,’’ I said.

‘’Roger you’re next,’’ I said.

‘’There was a comment out of a Kentucky today that the agent said the gun just went off was the words used,’’ he said.

‘’No, it cannot happen that way there are several things wrong with that,’’ I said.

‘’Will a Secret Service agent bring me an unloaded MP5, please,’’ I said.

‘’An MP5 has a selector lever, one position is safe meaning it won’t fire if the trigger is pulled. The next position semi auto meaning it only fires one round when the trigger is pulled the trigger must be pulled each time,’’

‘’The next position is either a two or three round burst depending on the serial number and the agency that ordered the weapon each time the trigger is pulled. A field change of the selector can change the burst number. The final position is full auto, meaning when the trigger is pulled and held, it fires until it empties the clip,’’ I said.

‘’For it to operate there has to be a round in the chamber for the sequence of firing at any selector position other than in ‘safe,’’ I said

‘’The selector positions have a definite click that can be felt when it is changed plus the position indicator is stamped on the receiver and the safe position is marked with an S. When the selector is moved out of safe a red circle is uncovered indicating it is ready to fire,’’ I said.

The agent was back with the MP5 I double checked that there was no clip in it and no round in the chamber.

‘’If you want to see what I just stated the agent can show them to you,’’ I said as motioned the agent to the news group.

Every single reporter had to look at the markings and feel the clicks as the selector was changed.

‘’A JBG we own twenty thousand MP5’s and probably a hundred twenty thousand M16, Glock pistols and other rifles. In training the security department runs hundreds of thousands of rounds through them and to my knowledge there has never been one to just fire- go off,’’ I said.

‘’One thing that I taught to all JBG security was never use the full auto position. It is not needed unless you are storming pillboxes. It just eats up too much ammunition and most of the shots go wild. Another thing I stressed was never to ride with one in the chamber. Chamber the round after exiting the vehicle. I understand that there was a weapons discharge in a vehicle coming across the field,’’ I said.

‘’If it fires it was intentional, careless handling, or just plain stupidity,’’ I said.

I answered questions for ten more minutes on the Kentucky incident before shutting them down.

‘’The next questions are on the China Sea collision with the USS Nevada, are there any questions regarding that?’’ I said.

‘’Why was there a collision in the first place?’’ one asked.

‘’There were a couple possible reasons for that and I’m sure the investigation will give more and in more detail. What I do know was the Nevada was dealing with electrical gremlins with this voyage that were affecting various systems,’’ I said.

‘’The Nevada was traveling at that depth to take advantage of thermals that help with speed and masking abilities -all navies do not just us,’’ I said.

‘’As indicated earlier the 830.5 was a dead sub. From all appearances there were no mechanical or electronic signatures emitting from the sub. Even the newest sub emits something,’’ I said.

‘’When will a description or photographs of the debris be released?’’ one asked.

‘’That is up to the Department of Defense and the Navy, but I am sure it will only be after the investigation is completed and the final report written and released,’’ I said.

‘’How extensive was the damage and how long will it take to be repaired? ‘’

one asked.

‘’That’s being evaluated and I expect it to take a couple weeks for it to be completed,’’ I said, the pressure hull was not damaged is the important thing,’’ I added.

Fifteen minutes later there were no more questions on the Nevada.

‘’What are our options with Canada if they do not return the terrorists?’’ one said.

‘’I think that Canada will see the light and return them in a few days. To say ‘no’ is not in their best long- term interest and I am sure reasonable people will realize that,’’ I said.

‘’As for what options are available to me, I am not going to discuss that or speculate on that,’’ I said.

‘’Is this a new group of terrorists that been formed or a group that has been dormant and now coming active?’’ another asked.

‘’Pakistan is like the wild, wild west when it comes to terrorist,’’ I said.

‘’New groups are coming out of the woodwork over there weekly it seems,’’ I said.

‘’Why was the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security not included in the raids? You know they have more weapons than they need?’’ one asked.

‘’That question should have been asked when we covered that part of the news conference, but I will answer it,’’ I said.

‘’The purchase records of the FBI and Department of Homeland Security were checked. Those two parent agencies purchase for the last five years were level and consistent and were within reason when compared with previous years. There was no indication of unusual purchases of splurge buying practices,’’ I said.

‘’There has been no update in the last few weeks on the changes to the tax code. And new tax rules; are they going to be in effect for new tax year?’’ she asked.

‘’The new tax package will have to be passed by both houses to become law. Based on the input that I have and what I have seen I will sign it,’’ I said.

‘’The package is a ten percent federal sales tax eliminating all income tax brackets. The existing social security tax and Medicare tax and taxes on gas, diesel, Jet fuel and airline tickets shall be retained. Those taxes support specific necessary functions,’’ I said.

‘’The only exemptions there will be medicines and food including meals served in restaurants,’’ I said.

‘’Social Security will be revisited and there will be changes, there have been too many things shoved under the umbrella of Social security that should have been paid for from the general budget,’’ I said.

‘’Social Security was intended to be a little cushion for retirement for the poor, the self-employed who would have little or nothing set aside for retirement. As America became industrialized and mechanized there was stiff competition for skilled workers and keeping skilled workers,’’ I said.

‘’These demands led to worker benefits and labor unions that led to the major corporations and retiree benefits. Small employers and self-employed and the poor simply couldn’t afford the retirement plans especially in the early thirties and the following depression years,’’ I said.

‘’To help those that were needy Roosevelt created the social security system. The theory was everybody was to pay into the system based on income and everybody was to get a monthly check at retirement to help them survive,’’ I said.

‘’Along the way problems developed.  One was the congress started using the social security fund as a bank with the intention it would be paid back as the government had surpluses. We all know that never happens with government. If they think they have a dollar surplus they will spend twenty more,’’ I said.

‘’Then the workforce suddenly aged and a lot of people were drawing checks. How that snuck up on all those intelligent people no one knows but it did. Social security withholdings – taxes were raised for employee and employer to expand the fund. To compound the problem corporations went global,’’ I said.

‘’The benefits and union demands boomeranged. The result was jobs went to other countries with cheaper labor, no unions and few rules and regulations. Americans demanded cheap products. To add to the problem companies didn’t upgrade machinery,’’ I said.

‘’The foreign countries bought the latest machines, computer controlled, laser guided for accuracy and built for mass production as they built the new factories and ran it with cheap labor,’’ I said.

‘’Many U.S. factories today are just making the change from www equipment and technologies that they should have done twenty – five years ago or longer,’’ I said.

‘’Everyone knows the U.S. workforce and business is the most innovative, most productive in the world if government would just stop trying to fix every complaint with new rules and regulations. Companies are coming back, jobs are returning,’’ I said.

‘’But it is going to take time to replenish the social security trust fund. The new tax rules will prohibit congress from removing any monies from the fund. It also moves some of the programs being funded from the trust fund to the general fund. The social security trust fund is nearly broke. The funds saved by the temporarily closing the EPA and the ATF I have shifted to the Social security trust fund to help it remain solvent and return some of the borrowed funds,’’ I said.

‘’Changing to the new tax and eliminating most of the Internal Revenue Service will save two hundred billion dollars a year or the Washington standard of two trillion over ten years,’’ I said.

‘’There are those that say ten percent is not enough, but I disagree. Reductions in government spending, eliminating useless government agencies and outdated programs will make a major difference. Those people continue to underestimate the cash economy that under the current system pay little tax, will be paying ten percent under the new system,’’ I said.

‘’There are those that say the rich will not pay enough. Rich or middle class I don’t know anyone that does not spend all they make somewhere somehow. They are not hiding it under their mattress they are spending it on something, they will be taxed,’’ I said.

‘’As I said the tax plan still has some changes that must be investigated and tweaked along with enforcement issues to be addressed. Some of those tweaks will be in how stock sales and purchases will be handled,’’ I said.

‘’That’s all I have time for today,’’ I said.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

            It was just a few minutes before 1500 when I finished reading over all the data that Marty, Eric, AG Dunne, Phil Fitzpatrick and Allen Meadows had delivered. Connie and Kitty must have typed in the data at lightning speed. Eric and Marty were still waiting on me to finish.

            ‘’There is something terribly wrong with all this data. These agency directors and officials were planning something big. I think you know what needs to be done and what I want done, but let me reinforce it,’’ I said.

            ‘’I want all the emails and texts from these directors and managers, supervisors and any official connected to the SWAT teams. Especially, include any texts, emails between the agencies in regarding SWAT teams and all weapon and ammo purchases subpoenaed. I want a list of all SWAT team members and to find out where they were trained, if they had any specific training at all,’’ I said.

            ‘’I am almost sure that JBG did not train any of people from these agencies as a group, but I will be able to find out with the list of names,’’ I said.

            ‘’It is possible that they were part of a police department that that went through the training and moved to a government job and started in house training on their own,’’ I added.

            ‘’Take the subpoena request to Alyssa Cotton down in Section 12 and tell her I said to put a rush on it. Plus, I will send her a text,’’ I said.

            ‘’Marty, do you have investigators that can connect all the dots together once we get all the data?’’ I asked.

             I would have loved to have had more time to go over the data to develop a plan for the news conference, but it was not to be. I was going to have to wing it – off the cuff.

            A pee break and a coffee refill with a handful of notes I made it to the White House news room.

            ‘’Harry, I am sorry I am running late but I have been tied up on international calls. As soon as I make an opening statement we can start.”

            ‘’The last few days have been hectic, disappointing and tragic from many places. The first one I am going to address was in Kentucky. That said, Harry please run the film,’’ I said.

When the film ended, ‘’There are no printable words that describe my feelings about what happened. Anger, revulsion, infuriating – does not even begin to cover it,’’ I said.

‘’For a recap of events as we as we currently think they happened – as the investigation is completed it may change some of the minor details.  Seven miles southeast of Lexington Kentucky, a seventy-five-year-old farmer John Moses and his sixty-five-year-old wife Helen Moses were spreading shed-stored chicken manure from their commercial chicken farming operation.’’

‘’Their farming operation comprised of eighty thousand chickens and three hundred cattle in a feedlot operation with four hundred acres in alfalfa, corn, wheat and soybeans.”

‘’A hired farm hand did the heavy work with the cattle and the chickens and was furnished housing on the farm for him and his family.  Jim Moses did that work on the weekends, so the farm hand had weekends off. Jim also helped on the farm during planting and harvesting. Jim’s day job was in town as manager of one of the machine shops,’’ I said.

‘’The Westwood Development bordered the Moses farm and was downwind on Saturday.  One of the residents was newly elected county commissioner Gilbert Cummings, who was furious about the odor and called Paul Attworth – the local EPA office manager – and proceeded to read him the riot act. Paul and Gilbert both had sons that played basketball and football at the local school,‘’ I said. 

‘’At 1000 a forty agent SWAT team in twenty vehicles crossed the fields and stopped both tractors, one driven by John Moses – seventy-five years old – and the other driven by Helen Moses – sixty -five years old. The equipment was nearly as old,’’ I said.

‘’The agents pulled them from the tractors without allowing them to properly disconnect the transmission and PTO components, allowing the equipment to continue to move forward several feet,’’ I said.

‘’John Moses and the agent that pulled him off the tractor went under the rear wheel of the tractor, crushing both of John’s legs and one of the agents. They were pinned under the equipment for 30 minutes before they could be removed,’’ I said.

‘’Helen Moses was not as lucky. The agent had a MP5 in his hand, the selector set on full auto with a forty round clip. In the process of pulling her off the seat and the continued forward motion of the tractor and then falling, the agent pulled the trigger emptying the forty rounds into Hellen,’’ I said.

‘’She was killed instantly. All this was telecast live by the media that was alerted and accompanied the SWAT teams to the farm,’’ I said.

‘’There are multiple mistakes that happened here. First, there is no justifiable reason a SWAT team should have responded to an odor complaint. Second, why a forty person SWAT team? Third, why were the agents carrying an MP5 to begin with on an odor complaint? Why was the weapon on full auto? Why were they carrying forty round clips?’’ I said.

‘’This was no accident; it was planned from the beginning. There were discussions about the raid before they left the staging area, before the weapons were issued,’’ I said.

“There were five supervisors in the planning and on site as the plans went FUBAR.  Not one of those supervisors challenged the legality of such a massive response for an odor complaint; NOT ONE!’’ I said. ‘’To say I was angry when I found about this is an understatement.’’

‘’When I read the preliminary report, I wondered why the EPA had SWAT teams. And then a thousand more questions appeared.’’

‘’I called on the director of the GAO to run several audits,’’ I said.

‘’I learned that that the EPA, Social Security, Department of Energy, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education, The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior had purchased over five hundred and fifty million dollars in weapons, tactical gear and ammunition in the last three years,’’ I said.

‘’Why?’’ I asked the gathered media knowing I would get no answer.

‘’The EPA pushes permits and paper – why did they need one hundred SWAT teams and five and a half million rounds of ammunition for M16 and two and a quarter million rounds of 9mm for MP5 and pistols?’’ I asked.

‘’It gets worse, those eight agencies had over eight hundred twenty, thirty, and forty member SWAT teams.  Between them they had over fifty million rounds of ammunition. Why? There is no justifiable reason,’’ I said.

‘’Social Security pushes paper; they cannot justify even one SWAT team. The same goes for the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture – all more paper pushers,’’ I said.

‘’The Department of Interior and the IRS may have a need for a few armed officers, but not two hundred SWAT teams and certainly not millions of rounds of ammo,’’ I said.

‘’ATF no longer polices tobacco; it’s all done on paper with permits, applications and with computers and a mapping system for inspections and compliance,’’ I said.

‘’It no longer chases bootleggers through the hills, it’s legal to brew your own beer and hard liquor. They are never first to any criminal activity – they show up in time for the media blast after the local police and their SWAT teams have everything under control,’’ I said.

‘’The only thing they do is harass law-abiding citizens trying to exercise their constitutional rights and law-abiding gun dealers with SWAT raids to inspect paper work, terrorizing their customers and shutting down gun dealers over minor paperwork errors. Yet they return only eighty percent of the required background checks in the required time frame,’’ I said.

‘’I ordered the FBI, US Marshall service, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security to seize all weapons, all tactical gear and all ammo from those agencies,’’ I said.

‘’It just gets worse. There are over four thousand weapons – M16s, MP5s and pistols – lost, stolen or otherwise unaccounted for – and no sign of any investigations or paperwork of discipline for the assigned personnel,’’ I said.

‘’The FBI is going to investigate the missing weapons as a criminal event,’’ I said.

‘’I ordered the EPA closed and seized all funds from all accounts and had all employees terminated. Before you go screaming to the moon, the EPA will be back with next year’s budget,’’ I said.

‘’Power of the executive branch allows me to change the funding direction. The seized EPA funds were transferred to the Social Security trust fund. minus one last paycheck for the former EPA employees,’’ I said.

‘’All rules and regulations will be reviewed, eliminated or updated and all policies and procedures upgraded. All current EPA employees will not be eligible for the new department next October. I do not believe any amount of deprogramming will remove the tactics that they have been trained with for who knows how many years,’’ I said.

‘’The ATF is also closed with its funding seized. Critical parts of the ATF responsibilities will be transferred to the FBI. I can assure you that background checks will be done in a timely manner and on time and other critical issues will be corrected,’’ I said.

‘’All SWAT members and their supervisors and agency directors will be terminated in all those agencies and there will be other investigations as to how this was allowed to happen. Never again will these agencies be allowed to have SWAT teams or this kind and amounts of weapons and ammunition,’’ I said.

‘’The next item is that last week the USS Nevada – a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine traveling at fifteen knots at a depth of seven hundred feet collided with an object, causing substantial damage and injuries,’’ I said.

‘’The Nevada surfaced to inspect the damage. While surfacing, there were sounds of another vessel imploding and sinking. While they were inspecting their damage, a debris field appeared around them. They recovered some of the debris. There were no bodies in the debris,’’ I said.

‘’The debris indicated the object they had collided with was the North Korean submarine 830.5. North Korea and China had been aggressively looking for the sub several days before the collision.” I said.

‘’From evidence recovered in the debris field, we believe the 830.5 crew had been dead for several days and the sub was drifting in the thermals in the current,’’ I said.

‘’The Nevada was having electrical issues and was returning to Japan for repairs at the time of the collision. Assault landing ships the USS Wake Island, the USS Millington and frigate USS Harrington were dispatched to escort the Nevada to Japan,’’ I said.

‘’All the recovered debris was turned over to the Chinese Ambassador in Japan when the Nevada docked to be returned to North Korea,’’ I said.

‘’Are you confused yet? There is more – it has been a very busy last few days,’’ I said.

‘’At midnight Friday night two B21 bombers on a night training mission over Ohio with four other B21s crashed into each other and crashed into the Carlisle Industrial Park. There were no civilians killed on the ground. All eight crew members were killed,’’ I said.

‘’The Carlisle Industrial Park had been closed for several years. The property was being discussed for renovation either as residential development, new malls or possibly as a new home for the new and growing tech industry,’’ I said.

‘’The crew stayed with the planes, guiding them away from residential areas. All members could have ejected but didn’t. In my eyes they are heroes and will be awarded medals that will do little to subdue the grief their families are suffering.,’’ I said.

‘’The planes were hit with small arms fire from a terrorist group from Pakistan that were in an apartment building outside of Carlisle. Shortly after the crash, the group sent a message to their Pakistan controller that was broken by our intelligence services. The weapons they had used were recovered under the apartment building,’’ I said.

‘’The group was tracked and arrested boarding a direct flight to Pakistan at a Canadian airport by the Canadian Mounty intelligence forces. We have asked for them to be extradited back to the US for trial ASAP,’’ I said.

‘’However, the Canadian government is refusing at this time to do so because they are afraid those individuals may receive the death penalty if convicted,’’ I said.

‘’Obviously there are some hurdles that must be crossed. This isn’t the first time there have been conflicts with the Canadians with criminal suspects. These conflicts have the potential to cause serious difficulties to our relations and trade agreements with the Canadians,’’ I said.

Carl handed me several notes as he was direct to earlier.

‘’I need to take a fifteen – minute break at this time to deal with these notes. When I come back, I will take some questions for no more than thirty minutes, so make every one of them count,’’ I said.

‘’Harry, check with the kitchen to see if it has any fresh donuts and hot coffee for this group while I am gone,’’ I said. I knew they did as I had ordered them before the news conference started. I also ordered them to wait ten minutes to place them on the table. I didn’t want them to have too long to pig out.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I was late getting started. the girls and the kids were treated to a White House breakfast. Then I saw them off from the rear parking lot.

            People were already waiting for me in the Oval Office and there were items on my desk. The first thing I read was the National Security Alert sheet. It was always the top sheet, then there was a more in-depth report in the attached folder, if I needed more detail. Today I did not and left it on the side of the desk.

            Eric, Marty, AG Dunne, Phil Fitzpatrick and Allen Meadows were in my office next, I got the report on yesterday’s weapons collection. It was not encouraging.

            “The EPA lost, had stolen or were simply missing more than two hundred and forty weapons: one hundred and fifteen M16 assault rifles, one hundred MP5 assault rifles and rest Smith & Wesson 9 mm semiautomatic pistols and riot shotguns,’’ Eric said.

            ‘’That is an unusually high number of unaccounted for weapons, unless they are hoarding them – thinking we will just ignore them,’’ I said.

            ‘’The IRS and ATF were worse,” Marty added.

            ‘’Looks like they are trying to hold on to a few,’’ I said.

            ‘’There is a process to account for missing weapons. When you get finished with today’s confiscation, revisit all the missing weapons. They were assigned to individuals, they are responsible for them. See if there is any documentation as to when they were lost. They didn’t lose all of them yesterday,’’ I said.

            ‘’There should have been an investigation and a supervisor’s signature on a report with findings and recommendations for discipline or termination,’’ I said.

            ‘’If they went missing and there is no chain of events paperwork, I want both parties under criminal investigation and then terminated. You know the drill. That is just too many missing weapons,’’ I said then added,’’ You would not stand for it in your agency and neither would JBG.’’

            ‘’I wouldn’t doubt they are being hoarded,’’ Eric said.

            ‘’Turning the screws will find out for sure,’’ I said.

            They each left the paperwork from yesterday. I looked it over and was amazed. Why did the EPA need fifty pallets of ammo for M16s and twenty five pallets of 9mm at the central storage depot?

I knew the standard shipping pallet was 108000 rounds. Why did the EPA need five and a half million rounds of ammo for M16s? For that matter, why did they need two and a quarter million rounds of 9mm ammo?

Why did the EPA need a central storage depot to begin with? They pushed paper, why do you need a central storage depot for that? Paper gets scanned and stored in the cloud.

I wondered what else was there that needed looking at? I would send the FBI back in a couple days to do a complete inventory and audit.

            The group left to follow today’s progress. I took all the papers they left to one of my many clerks and instructed them to put it in a format I could use for the news conference.

            The next thing on my desk was the complete report from the Nevada. The damage was extensive, but not as bad as we were led to believe after looking at all the pictures and those with it high and dry in the dry dock. If it was not one of the newer subs, it would be scrapped for sure.

I sent a note to the Navy asking where would the repairs would be completed? How soon could the repairs could start, and I needed a timeline until it was back in service. I was anxious as to what kind of response I would get back.

The second group of pictures were of all the debris that the Nevada’s crew had picked out of the debris field while they were evaluating their own damage. I looked them over closely and then called General Ingram, Secretary of Defense Admiral Scott and the Sectary of the Navy Bramble to come back to my office. They were in the building for a meeting in the basement.

We discussed the pictures and then discussed getting the items back to North Korea. The items had no national security value to us. All the logs and other papers had been copied and sent to the different agencies to be studied. Everything that had any potential value had been photographed or copied.

I decided to use the Chinese diplomats to send them to North Korea. I ordered the Sectary of the Navy to have them boxed up and sent to the American embassy in Japan. Ambassador Bridgette Sloan was the US Ambassador there.

I had Connie make one more copy of everything. I called the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Guanyu Chin, to come to the White House for a meeting today before 1400. I wanted China to have it before the news conference – I wanted to make an honest statement about the incident.

Carl, Connie, Kitty and I began putting all the data together for today’s news conference. There was to be an update at 1300 from the agencies that were collecting the firearms. We would add that information then print it out and add a copy to the teleprompter for me to use.

I sent an agent to the news room to work with Harry to verify the MTAC screen was working. By going over all the data, I could see this was going to be one long news conference, but there was a lot to talk about and explain.

At 1100 Ambassador Chun was in the lobby. Kitty brought him to the Oval Office. After a cautious greeting I began the conversation.

‘’Ambassador Chin, last Thursday one of our submarines, the USS Nevada, was returning to its duty station in Sasebo Japan for electrical repairs. Its mission had been plagued with electric failures and gremlins,’’ I said.

‘’At a depth of 700 feet and a speed of fifteen knots it collided with an unknown object. It immediately surfaced to evaluate damage and make radio contact with the fleet headquarters,’’ I said.

‘’While surfacing there was sounds of an implosion. The object they hit was obviously another submarine and was settling to the deep ocean bottom. While they were surfaced and doing the damage assessment, some debris was rising all around them,’’ I said.          

‘’They were able to collect some of the debris. Most of the debris was plastic and insulation, with a few pieces of clothing and some records that we believe are ship logs,’’ I said.

‘’There were no human remains on the surface while they were in the area. They did do several sweeps of the area before they departed. The debris indicated that it was the North Korean Submarine 830.5 that you have been looking for since last Tuesday,’’ I said.

I slid the binder of the debris pictures and the copies of the pages from the logs to Ambassador Chin and waited for him to look at them.

‘’The Nevada has reached the Navy yard and I ordered all the collected debris taken to the US embassy there. We have no embassy in North Korea and a very poor dialog with them – as you know,’’ I said.

‘’I would appreciate it if your ambassador to Japan would pick up the materials and see that it gets delivered it to the North Korean ambassador stationed in your country,’’ I said.

Ambassador Chin agreed to contact Chinese Ambassador Yakui Su – stationed in Tokyo – to pick up the material and start the process to return it. The conversation lasted a few more minutes before he stood to leave. I handed him the binder that he had looked at, ‘’Take this with you. It may help answer some questions. The GPS location of where the collision happened is in the front of the binder,’’ I said.

Lunch was next on my schedule. I ate sitting at my desk in the Oval Office, listening to the noon day news of screaming reporters and news desk mouth-pieces venting.

There were pictures and videos of agents carrying cases of weapons, ammunition and tactical gear from agencies that Marty, Eric, AG Dunne and I deemed had no justifiable reason to have it.

A text from Eric indicated they would be done by 1300 and the directors would be here shortly after, with a final report and undated numbers.

I had just finished lunch when Carl brought in the report from the Kentucky EPA field office that did the raid on John Moses farm. The report that I should have had Monday morning

No matter, the EPA was done for a while. AG Dunne and Marty decided that all members of the raid were going to be criminally charged. The FBI was taking over the investigation, they were already assisting – but at 1400 were taking complete control.

One agent was to be charged with first degree murder. The rest with accessory to murder, use of excessive force, civil rights violations along with abuse of power, conspiracy and criminal trespass.

            There was simply no justifiable reason for a SWAT raid because of an odor complaint.

            At 1315 Marty, Eric, AG Dunne, Phil Fitzpatrick and Allen Meadows were in my office with the final numbers. Kitty and Connie went to work putting all the numbers together with all the pertinent information.

            Frank knocked on the door, came in and handed me several notes. The first one said that the agency had tracked the B21 shooters to Canada. The Canadian Mounties had arrested them trying to board a direct flight to Pakistan. There were ten in the group. Four were from Pakistan and six were from Afghanistan.

            The weapons they had used were hidden beneath the apartment building where they were residing, about three miles from where they shot at the plane. In a raid coordinated with the FBI and the CIA, the building was raided.

The raid netted no electronic communication devices. They were using handwritten notes to each other for communication. They are returning to the old ways of Bin Laden.

            Couriers delivered handwritten notes, sometimes several different couriers delivering pieces needed to complete one note. Short range radios were used to send codes on where to meet the couriers.

If it had not been for one of the members who had sent a bragging message to a group in Pakistan that was being watched by Robert’s group, they would have gotten away clean – at least for a while.

The group was one that Robert was watching for the agency and the Department of Defense on the dark web. Half of Robert’s group was working under contract for the Department of Defense, CIA and Department of Homeland Security. Robert’s group had been expanded several times.

The basement was full and so was the old shopping center by the narrows that we were going to use for office expansion until the towers were finished. The drug lab that Doc Burns had started for the anti-drug collocation that was originally one building, was now all eight buildings.

So many drug samples were coming in that the place was now enclosed in chain link fencing with electrified razor wire and JBG guards on duty and very limited access. Disposal of the tested materials was getting complicated. Many were having to be stored for years, based on court cases.

The girls were talking about having Bob’s Construction make the second floor over the gym larger, adding more office space down the opposite wall and end. Possibly all of it, with only a hole left for the climbing wall. The other alternative was adding another building at Morton for offices. I thought that would create problems with things too spread out.

My mind went back to the notes that Frank brought in. While I was reading them, the Canadian Prime Minister Leonel Michel called.

‘’Good afternoon, Prime Minister. How are you doing today and what can I do for you?” I said.

‘’I am well. As you most likely know, we have the ten suspects that your government believes caused the bombers to crash. We have been asked to expedite their return to your country. Several of our ministers have expressed concerns that they will be given the death penalty if they were to be convicted,’’ he said.

‘’As you know, the death penalty is against our justice system principles and was removed as an option for punishment. Those ministers are asking me to get guarantees before we agree to return them to your country,” he said.

‘’I cannot make those guarantees. I am not able to influence our justice system as I’m sure you know. That said, it would take decades for the trials, appeals and then more appeals, even without the death penalty in the mix,’’ I said.

‘’I don’t believe the justice minister will allow them to be returned without a guarantee,’’ he said.

‘’We need to question them to find out how many more are involved and how many more they have planned,’’ I said.

‘’I don’t think that the American public will take kindly to Canada if they are not expedited quickly and I know the politicians on the hill will not either. They are responsible for the death of eight crewman, the loss of half a billion in equipment and another billion in damages on the ground,’’ I said.

‘’There are several trade agreements and military agreements that are working through Congress that are important to Canada. Failure to swiftly return the accused for trial could and would derail Congressional action on those agreements,’’ I said.

‘’Another contentious subject that has the potential to raise its ugly head is your commitment to NATO. The funding you are to provide is well below the agreement level you made with the supreme council. Along with that is your defense budget. By agreement it is to be at 2% GDP. Based on even the most generous estimates, it is less than half of that,’’ I said.

‘’In the past the US has extended ship deployments and, in some cases, added ships because member nations could not or would not honor their commitments. It is getting harder to move these funds to continue that when others such as yourself are falling terribly behind,’’ I said.

Carl was standing in the doorway pointing to his watch, indicating that the news conference was to start in a few minutes.

I wrote a note, ‘’Postpone the news conference for an hour. I still have not looked over the material.’’

It was ten more minutes before I was able to end the call with, ‘’You need to emphasize that delaying the return of the accused by the ministers could have immediate and long- term effects on our relations and the agreements in Congress,’’ I said.

I hated starting the news conference late, but it had to be.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.