Bjjonesmylife. Book 2

Friday morning I went straight to the IRS building with the business name of the shop Jaed had made Thursday’s stop at. It was an excuse to sign the next batch of seizures – in fact I signed the rest of the four hundred and fifty that were left.

I instructed Hap to pull another thousand for collection action next week. I planned to sign them on Monday, explaining that I would be out for the rest of next week and I wanted collections spread over the week.

I left with the information on the business that Jaed spent time at. In the office Ben immediately assigned someone to work on it. They were added to the OSHA inspection list.

I was disappointed at the snail’s pace that the OSHA inspections were going and let it be known. The Labor secretary Harvey was going to send a person over after lunch to explain the process and the delays.

I met with Ben and the task force and listened while he explained today’s difficulties.

The satellite that the CIA had moved over the Harrisburg area was an old one on life support. Life support failed to keep it alive after the second day. Three days of worthless pictures and video was all Ben was going to get from it. The CIA was trying to improve the quality of the pictures but there was little hope.

There were no other satellites that could be repositioned over the US for our intelligence use. Sure, there were plenty of satellites but they were all communications or weather or dedicated to military specialty functions. To reposition one from Asia or the Middle East would take weeks.

Putting a military drone overhead for that length of time was a possibility but that was some of the most congested airspace in the country. To get a larger drone high enough not to be seen would put it in heavily traveled air space that would be a nightmare for air traffic controllers. There were over a dozen major airports with flight routes over the area.

We could use the smaller drones and would be, starting on the second if all else failed. The water park had a strict and much published policy against drones, but then I would twist arms to stifle opposition – if necessary.
Robert sent this morning’s Harrisburg reports with the GPS map. Jaed did take the truck home – home was eight miles away from the water park on Holmes Road.

This morning after Jaed left for work Burt Slade of the Harrisburg group drove past. After verifying there were no more autos there or signs of life, Burt called for the drone to inspect the place. One of our small camera drones was carried there to do the job.

The flyover by the drone only proved Jaed was a junk rat with household trash dumped everywhere. There were no storage sheds or anything else large enough to store anything in nor were there any bikes anywhere on the property. One more dead end but at least it answered a question or two.

After lunch Neil Elliott from the OSHA enforcement and Director Harvey came to explain why the audits of the selected businesses were moving at a snail’s pace.

“We have to enter the business and announce what we are doing there. Then we have to wait until someone from management approves a voluntary audit. If they refuse, we are done until we get an enforcement order.”

“First there is a records compliance phase and then a verification of safety meetings and safety equipment. Then is the inspection of the shop area, storage and yards. The process can take two men a day to do a large one site business, even if they voluntarily comply with the request.”

“We have our entire Pennsylvania office working on the request; it s going to take a month,” Neil said.

“You don’t have a month; you have ten days. Pull teams from Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Ohio; send them there – put them up in motel rooms but get this job done. Tell them what we are discreetly looking for and not to acknowledge they have seen it if they do but report it immediately. It is imperative that their visits look like a normal inspection,” I said.

Ben and Eric had so far put about twenty percent of the names through the terrorist list and Interpol with no real success. There were one or two expired visas and green cards but none that seemed to be connected to our problem.

Tomorrow the number of people working on the list would be doubled. Ben and I both wanted all the names run through the system by noon on Monday.

After a quick visit to the Oval Office to hear more questions about the IRS seizures, my security carried me home. I took my place in the meeting room while the girls told me about their day.

Bell was finished with the upgrades to our 406 and 407 helicopters and had finished with the last of the Hueys. Progress was being made on both the truck stop building and the dealership building.

Q-town had hired a contractor and the state had approved all the permits to run the pipes along RT 301. The engineering plans for the overpass were in the hands of the State Highway Department. All were good things in the short time that had passed.

Robert had nothing new from this morning and the group had left at the normal time for the first time this week.

The weekend was spent – for the most part – with the family and time in the gym. Family time was meaning more to me and the girls all the time. I played with little Robert and Jacob several different times to give Jenny a break.

Those little rascals were getting to be experts at building log cabins. Jason had bought each of them a farm set with farm animals and fences. They had added them to the log village on the living room floor.

The only time I spent on work was reading the CIA and Mossad folders on General Kedar.

It was interesting reading and confirmed some things I knew, but left a lot of questions. It gave me some things to think about. One thing I knew for sure – he was a beast of the worst kind.

Monday morning the shrinks – doctors Rich and Moore – were coming to give the men who were injured a group session. I met Dr. Rich in the elevator and took her to my office.

“If I give you access to a couple of folders can you do a profile on a man for me? I want to know how he thinks, why he acts the way he does and what stimuli provokes certain actions,” I asked.

“It may not be precise but I can do that, the least I can do is look it over and give you some pointers,” Dr. Rich replied.

“See Cindy before you leave. I will have her make a complete copy of the folders. It is classified information,” I said.

“I understand completely,” the doc replied.

Monday was a repeat of Friday, only more Senators and Representatives were screaming about the IRS seizures. I told Troy “Let them holler.”

After reviewing the GPS track of Jaed’s weekend drive, Ben thought he had enough evidence to put more things in play – truthfully so did I.

And for once we both agreed on a course of action. DHS was going to send a utility company bucket truck to hang another transformer close to all the stops Jaed spent any time at.

At least it looked like a regular transformer but it was not. DHS had taken the guts out and replaced them with video cameras and a long distance wireless transmitter. The three cameras could give a one hundred and eighty degree view of the establishment 24/7.

Ben, Eric and I were on the same page when it came time to raid the group and that was to wait until the next to the last day. All of us wanted as much intelligence collected and accomplices as could be caught.

When that meeting was finished I went to the IRS building and signed two hundred and fifty more seizures. The rest were under the threshold that needed my signature. Hap could sign them and I was happy about that.

I was back in Section 12 when I was paged to the Lincoln meeting room for a meeting. Senators Harrison and Whitby were there with Troy.

“You read our minds about getting aggressive on delinquent taxes and I hear you are doing a good job. There is one other area we want you to look at and that is the Hollywood movie accounting scheme,” Senator Harrison said.

“They make hundreds of millions of dollars and pay little taxes, even after years of making money on movie syndication and cable channels. Here is a copy of the tax code passed by Congress and the rules the IRS developed to allow the scheme to prosper. The back four pages contain the rules we think you should amend or change and update to recover that lost tax revenue,” Senator Whitby said as he handed me the papers.

I thumbed through them looking at the suggested changes and immediately knew it was way over my head. But I knew someone who could explain it to me in plain English. I had Bobbie scan it and fax it to Lexi Morgan. I called Lexi to tell her it was coming and what I wanted after she read it.

I left shortly thereafter and headed home. Vicky and I were going do most of the packing tonight. We were flying to Portugal in the 737 with enough room to carry the rest of the security, their gear and everything Vicky and I needed to carry. I needed to be in Washington until noon; Vicky was going to see that everything was properly stored on the plane.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Back in Section Twelve I used MTAC to page Robert.

“We got a break – in fact, a couple of breaks. Team Harrisburg placed the GPS unit on the vehicle today and we have tracked it to several stops. The longest was the water park, as we suspected it would be this soon.”

“The second was at a shop on the west side. They stayed there about thirty minutes, but the rest of the stops were short; ten minutes or less. The satellite photo of the shop is on its way to you. It’s not on the list of shops from the Labor department or the OSHA list so it may – just may – be a normal stop.”

“Next on the list is the French connection. There were several messages from Tiam to a new contact in the French group. Twenty of the girls are coming in two weeks – ten to the Norfolk Hampton Roads area. The other ten are going to the to Louisiana area near the Barksdale Air Force Base. They already have partial ownership in the establishments there if I understand the lingo correctly.”

“And get this – the French contact is going to send Tiam all twenty girl’s information. The girls are coming in on French student exchange visas. Each group of girls is coming with two female chaperons, ” Robert said.

“A couple days of tracking and we should have where the bikes are being made or stored, or at least his regular travels unless he is not using the truck after hours,” Robert said.

“If he doesn’t take the truck home, he has a car of his own parked close by. Send the Harrisburg team a couple more GPS units just in case they need them,” I said.

“I can read between the lines. The Iranians want the information first hand and not after ISIS has had a chance to filter it. They will have someone making the rounds to those establishments to collect it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Iranians don’t take over the thing shortly after everyone is in place. The chaperons will be found dead or not found at all when it happens,” I said.

At 1530 the girls and Jeanna were waiting for me in the White House lobby. We were going to pick up new clothes for the fancy dinner in Portugal since it was described as a State dinner and I had received a list of the VIP attendees for the event.

The best pant suit I owned – Marcy had paid almost five thousand dollars for – had two bullet holes in it and was bloodstained. The girls were determined that Vicky and I were not wearing a pant suits to an official State dinner, even if it was in Portugal.

When you are outnumbered by determined partners and lovers you throw in the towel and say, “OK.”
With my JBG security and a few Secret Service agents we went to the most expensive dress shop in Washington DC. Jeanna had made the arrangements so I knew I had to go with the flow and shut my mouth.

In the shop I changed into the new bullet resistant gear sent by our supplier. It was the new one, an upgraded version of the one that had the bullet holes in it.

It was like a thin sweatshirt made of woven Kevlar, fine woven stainless steel wire and several layers of other top secret materials.

Unlike the first one – which was more like a men’s armless tee – this one has short sleeves to prevent bullets from entering under my arms. This gear also had a tight pair of women’s high top briefs. By design, the two were to overlap by several inches giving complete coverage from my neck to the crotch.

As many times as I had been shot wearing the traditional style vest I had been extremely lucky that none of the rounds had been low enough to penetrate my lower abdomen, an area not covered by the body armor.

I was dreading putting on the briefs, I could just imagine how Kevlar and wire was going to feel in the sensitive areas, but all the girls were there standing and waiting for me – so I did.

I was surprised at how comfortable the two garments felt – I thought they would be movement restricting but they weren’t – and the bloomers did not press pinch or bind. Vicky was satisfied with hers. Then it was on to the dresses. Vicky and I tried on about two dozen before there was a consensus on the right one.

It was by a famous designer, although it did require a few slight alterations. It was well below my knees, flowing when I turned and I was assured it was the dress for official functions and the favorite style of the well to do for the most important functions. Vicky’s dress was similar but in a different color.

The dress was long enough that it could easily conceal the inner thigh holster that I was going to carry.
I didn’t know that I needed new jewelry to go with new dress. A major international jeweler who was in the store next door had things the girls wanted to look at and me to try on.

First was a watch; I didn’t need a watch – I had a phone that gave me time.
I knew that objecting was futile when the salesman said “These are the pieces Marcy ordered.”

The watch was a Jaeger LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Tourbillion – the fanciest thing I had ever seen. Then there was the special made bracelet for my other hand. It was at least one inch wide and thick solid gold with a ring of rubies around the center; on each side of the rubies were rows of diamonds. It was hinged with a double snap so it could open up to go over my hand and fit snugly near my wrist.

As if that was not enough there was a new necklace with six strands of gold chain woven into it – a mighty fine necklace. A single gold pendant hung from the chain, wide and long enough for the birth stones for all of us and the boys surrounded on each side by diamonds. I felt like a walking gold and diamond showroom. But there were bright smiles, ahs, and grins so I said nothing.

Vicky’s was similar and the watch was different – it was a Calibre de Cartier. I was sure I didn’t want to know the price either. Her necklace was almost the same but had lockets instead of the pendant.

The salesman continued to bring out boxes of nearly the same items for each of the girls. They had decided to go on a spending spree for all of us, something they rarely did. Especially Marcy – normally if it didn’t make money it was a no-no. That only meant that she saw all the jewels as an investment or at least someplace to change laundered ‘prince’ money into hard items.

I knew right then we were going to spend time this holiday going to the Washington elite parties that I had carefully avoided last year.

I was glad we had security with us! I would have hated to carry all this down the street in DC as crime-ridden as it was.

We stayed in the store until all six of the Suburbans stopped in the traffic lane as a group in front of the store. With the sidewalk blocked to foot traffic, we were ushered into the Suburbans and left.

At home in the den we laid out the next two weeks; tomorrow was Friday. Tuesday night Vicky and I were flying to Portugal for three full days of meetings and finishing up Saturday mid-morning. The state dinner was Saturday evening and then we were flying back on Sunday. The following Thursday was the Fourth of July; that gave us three days to put the screws on Jaed and his merry men. Plans rarely come together, but I hoped this one did and that Jaed would make a mistake or two before then.

Howie was waiting for me to call. Howie was our pyrotechnics expert. When I needed him for special projects he was there. When he was not working for the special ops team he was working on special projects for me.
The special projects were every single design that showed up on the dark web of explosive devices, every bomb found. I had him make several copies and test them.

I wanted to know how difficult they were to build with limited resources, how effective they were and most of all – countermeasures.

I also had him work on more elaborate designs from his and my imagination and do the same kinds of testing. If we could think of them so would someone else sooner or later. Terrorists were getting sophisticated we needed to as well. We had to try to stay ahead of them.

Howie had taken samples of everything we had collected and the things we had made with the necessary equipment to give demonstrations without the explosives. He was already in Lisbon with the ops team.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

“Jaed – if that is his picture – is not in the immigration system anywhere. The only place we found a likeness is in the secret file that Mossad gave us months ago. He was suspected of being a spy and operative for Iran in Syria,” Robert said.

“Why am I not surprised?” I said.

“There is one thing that may interest you that was posted today for about four minutes. We did a screen copy before it was taken down,” Robert said.

I looked at the document and realized what it was immediately, even though it was written in Arabic. Somehow someone – either General Kedar or Tiam – had inadvertently posted Kedar’s travel itinerary for the next 60 days.

I wondered if it was the real thing or posted as a trap or way to see if their system had been hacked. For now we would just try to verify his travels to see if they matched.

In another post to Jaed he was told there were no more ingredients available to him and they could not get more to him by the deadline. He was to complete his assignment and let nothing interfere.
That was one post I was glad to read.

After an update on the rest of today’s important intercepts, I joined the girls for their meeting.

“The first C5 is on its way to Turkey for the Air Force. It is stopping off in Portugal to drop off the eight Suburbans for your visit there. The second flight leaves on Monday and will carry the four helicopters, pilots and part of the ops team for your visit on Wednesday,” Lorrie said.

“Thad Jennings has the keys and information for the hangar. I had to rent it for three months. That should be long enough for them to decide if they want a security contract; if not, then time enough for us to get the equipment out,” Marcy said.

I agreed with that opinion as we looked over the information Andy had put together from Prime Minister Aleixo Cordeiro. Counting himself and the vice prime minister, there were a total of ten persons who wanted 24/7 protection, including their homes.

Andy was going with us because there was a lot to evaluate on the residential part of the contract. Biff Leland had replaced Bill and was also going.

It was down to the gym for a while then supper and little boys. I even got to hold the two new little ones for an extended period of time.

We were getting ready bed when the duty man called from EIT, “Make sure you stop by in the morning before your trip to Washington. There are some reports you may want to take with you,” he said.

At 0730 I was speed reading the two reports with Vicky waiting for Robert to come in for the day.

Tiam was pushing for pictures of the completed bikes and pictures of the water park. The general wanted to pick locations or else was just plain nosey – I was willing to bet on ‘nosey’.

The Mossad folder on the general was to be delivered today and I was going to pressure the CIA and General Ingram for anything they had on him.

Vicky went to deal with embassy things and I rode to Washington.

The media was waiting at the fence and there were more than usual. They were yelling questions and insults along with a few threats. The White House had not given a real answer to explain the actions that I took and I was not going to either.

The first hour was with Ben and the committee. We had just finished our meeting when the IRS courier delivered the first business employee list from Harrisburg. The agents were going to be busy a while. Bobbie sent a copy to Robert for a more thorough search than the committee would do.

At 1000 Andrew, Anne and I spent another hour reviewing other work essential to their new positions. At 1100 I went to the cafeteria for an early lunch.

Troy came in and quietly said, “You should bring your lunch to the Oval Office; we need a couple of answers.”

The news was on the TV and the reporter was interviewing a senator who was ranting about the IRS’s sudden change in policy about collections without consulting Congress.

“You would not know anything about that change in policy, would you?” the President asked.

“Sure would, I cleaned off the desk; you know how I hate a cluttered desk. It was there in a stack of papers that I signed. I signed the first one hundred enforcement actions and I’m going to sign one hundred more today.”

“There is almost one trillion dollars in delinquent payments over the one hundred thousand dollar mark; some are twenty years old. I thought the treasury could use it and I gave orders to start collecting it,” I added.

“You did tell me to keep the agency on its toes and not to let the agency get complacent,” I said.

“That is true but I am not sure we wanted you to be that aggressive right off the bat,” Troy said.

“Harry would like you to make an appearance at his briefing; he is exhausted ducking eggs and rotten tomatoes,” Troy said.

“OK, but they are going to be disappointed. I’m going to limit what I say. I’m going over to the IRS building for a few minutes but will be back in time to rescue Harry,” I said as I stood to leave.

Hap met me at my office door. That told me that there were individuals who were notified by security when I came into the building. Were they afraid or just being cautious?

He gave me the number of assets seized so far today.

“Not bad for a start, unfortunately there are screaming senators who I have to address later today. Let’s go find the Judge and get another one hundred in the works for tomorrow,” I said.

The judge quickly signed the one hundred orders, probably to get me gone as quickly as possible. Hap had his work for the rest of the day as did the task force and Robert.

I was carrying the last of the machine shop employee lists for them to work with. When Hap said he would put people on the project he was not kidding.

I went back to Section Twelve to deliver the list, then went to meet with Harry and plan the news conference.

Harry and I carried the donuts and coffee to the table. “Who wants to deliver the first question?” I asked.

“Two days ago you applied the TCIA – a law designed to be used in the fight on terrorism – against the IRS commissioner and removed him from the agency. Can you explain your actions?”

“Melinda, I can only say a couple things about the change. As you should know, terrorism changes day by day. Technology today allows it to move at warp speed sometimes and we are always catching up, rarely getting ahead of them.”

“The IRS has always been extremely slow working with the agencies fighting terrorism, hiding behind antiquated rules. In some cases they were allowing the terrorist to make substantial gains. We don’t need much information from them but when we do it has to be fast.”

“That was the case the day I invoked the TCIA act on the IRS; critical information was needed and fast for a pending threat on the Pacific Coast. The commissioner dug in his heels one time too many,” I said.

“Sherrie Odell WITV, just how does the task force use information from the IRS and what does it ask for from the IRS?” she asked.

“What we ask for and how we use it to build a case that will hold up in court is classified information and process,” I said.

“Will Commissioner Campbell regain his job?” Melinda asked.

“No, because it is a personnel issue I cannot comment on the reasons at this time,” I said.

“James Hawk KTCC. You were installed as temporary IRS commissioner, was that by the design of the law?”

“No it was not, that was a surprise,” I replied.

“Albert Finn KCCJ. There are some citizens and senators that are upset by changes at the IRS, can you explain the changes?”

“The policies and procedures I put into force have been there for years, just not acted upon because of other priorities. The papers to begin this round of enforcement were on the commissioner’s desk and when I cleared the desk I signed them,” I said.

“Is this just a onetime surge on collections?” James asked.

“No. I have authorized the process to continue, there are thousands of delinquent accounts to be collected. If you owe the IRS back taxes pay them now. If you are unable to pay in full, call the agency and work out a 24 month payment plan. Don’t miss any payments and the interest and penalties will be waived. If the agency starts collection procedures, interest and penalties will not be waived,” I said.

“Are we winning the war on domestic terror?” Albert asked.

“As the saying goes, we are holding our own. Active investigations continue and grow daily. The current hot spot seems to be the west coast and the southern border. I see no real win any time soon. There have been isolated attacks, ‘the lone wolf things’ that are nearly impossible to stop but there have been no mass casualty attacks in quite a while. I view that as a win, at least for now,” I said.

“If you are making arrests at the border, why haven’t there been news releases about them?” Melinda asked.
“Sometimes we learn more by being quiet about what we do and how we do it than telegraphing our successes with publicity,” I said.

My phone signaled a text, “Call me ASAP, Robert.”

“Ladies, gentlemen duty calls. Harry it is all yours.” I picked up one more glazed donut before I walked out.
Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Book 2 Chapter 21
At 0730 I was in Robert’s office with Andy listening to him explain yesterday’s intercepts and what he thought they meant. There was good news from my group assigned to the RV park at Harrisburg.

The group there had decided on several suspects in the mystery of Jaed. There was a vendor that was there three days a week. The service he allegedly worked for had the contract to repair the water park equipment and swap out all the parks rides as the needed.

Every time they came there were different individuals with him and he seemed to be explaining a lot of unnecessary things to them in Persian. My team there wanted specialized listening equipment as soon as they could get it. Andy agreed with their request and so did I, if it could be used without giving away their assignment.

They had sent pictures of the one they thought was Jaed along with all his different helpers. Yesterday he had made three trips into the water park but there had been no bikes brought in.

The good thing was we had a name of a business and a tag number on a truck. The good was only temporary. The bad thing was the name and phone number were fakes and went nowhere. The tag number was issued to a vacant lot outside Philadelphia.

The lot had over two thousand tags listed as their home address. Illegal’s used that address to secure IDs, drivers licenses, and tags. It was just inside the sanctuary city lines. The address was passed around like candy by activists and interpreters. It seems like everyone knew the game and profited by it.

At least the pictures were something to work with.

I also sent two GPS tracking devices. I was hoping that one of my agents could install one, if there was an opportunity to do so. The new ones we had were small and magnetic; small enough to fit inside the frame rail of the older Ford van they were using. It was a boosted antenna model, both on signal reception and in transmit mode.

In the other messages, Tiam demanded assurances that everything was on schedule. That could have only come from General Kedar.

Jaed promised that everything was progressing and would be completed two days before the celebration. Jaed asked if there were any more of the important ingredients available. There were several other sites that could be very productive the same night.

It was not good news that Jaed was looking to expand in one way. But in another; time was running out, he would have to move fast if his plan was to include more locations. He would need more bikes and more machine work. All of that could lead to mistakes that would give him and his helpers away and more importantly, where the explosives and bikes were.

Robert and his helpers had been working, trying to get into the Kadar’s server rather than just monitoring it. We had both become afraid that we could trip a safety and shut down that avenue of information. Robert shut down that effort for a while.

I did want one thing and that was to know everything that could possibly be known on General Kedar. I would call Ben-David on my way to Washington for their file on the General. The man had to have a weakness and I wanted to know what it was.

After a walk through the office and quick conversations with the girls, I donned the heavy vest to leave for Washington. Duke Justice and Clarence Hallworthy were just coming in to the lobby.

“I just wanted to let you know Matt Monroe has not only been fired, he is under investigation by the county prosecutor. We commissioners ordered an audit and his affiliation with the union and the school board weren’t the only things that were underhanded and illegal.”

“There was a fraudulent vendor account that paid for an apartment. His girlfriend and he visited there often as did several other people, sometimes all at the same time, according to video at the apartment complex. She is an employee of the union and married. To complicate matters, the union has also ordered an audit of its books. They are either covering their ass or trying to throw Matt under the bus,” Duke said.

“The school board has asked for a meeting; they are upset that they received a subpoena for their books for the last three years from the prosecutor. This could get nasty,” Clarence added.

“Usually when there is one snake in the hay, there are more in the barn,” I said before I turned to leave.

I went first to Section Twelve to share some of the information I had learned this morning from Robert.

Ben’s group and I had a discussion and while we were waiting for the pictures that I had from Harrisburg to run through the scanner. I made it perfectly clear there were to be no moves to arrest the culprits until we had a chance to identify all his contacts and helpers. That and possibly the explosives and bikes, it was going to take more time to do that and any moves could let most of them to escape unnamed.

Labor and OSHA had sent the names of the Harrisburg businesses by courier.

It was time for me to make the trip to the IRS building and see if they still remembered who I was, not that I was worried.

After I went through security and by the time I walked to the commissioner’s office, people walking my way with folders. The first in the door was Hapfield McCoy.

“I have the two lists you wanted – look them over and tell us how you want us to proceed. I have been trying to get something going for the last two years,” he said.

“I have the list from Labor and OSHA; I need all the names ASAP,” I said.

“No problem, I have a team of agents ready to pull the information from the files for you,” Hapfield replied as he took disc from my hand and walked out the door.

While he was gone I looked at the list starting with the one that listed the most owed with the highest amounts first. There was plenty to look, at with plenty of documentation. I was astounded at who some of the biggest debtors were to the government. They were not poor- by any means – the first fifty pages were some of the wealthiest individuals and companies in the USA.

Even more disturbing was how old some of the taxes owed were. One was 20 years old and the tax bill was a billion dollars from an international industrial and investment company that was worth almost two hundred billion. Why weren’t they collected? A closer look at the names may answer that question.

With Hap sitting at my desk he tried to explain why, “They took deductions and write offs they were not entitled to by law and tried to pass them off as gray area tax rules and got caught.”

“With lots of lawyers they challenged the amount owed, taking years for each challenge. When it comes to the point a settlement says they have to pay, the lawyers are replaced. The new lawyers want to start at the beginning, dragging it out for years again.”

“They have done this five times. The case is at that point again – the lawyers canceled the last hearing where the final amount was to be agreed upon: the original one billion with no interest. In a phone call to reschedule the hearing, we found the lead attorneys are no longer on the case.”

“They can do this because this type of challenge is done through the IRS appeals court system. Once the IRS final appeals judge rules against them they can then carry the case to the regular courts. None of the delaying tactics work in the regular courts. And each appeal gets more expensive and the decisions can be the final word,” Hap said.

“What has to happen to seize funds from a delinquent taxpayer?” I asked.

“The agents on the case determine there is no effort on the payer to satisfy the tax due and request seizure. The forms go the IRS judge for his signature; on an amount that large the commissioner [currently that is you] also has to sign off. Once signed the funds – if available – are seized immediately or other assets, if they can be found to fulfill the amount of the seizure,” Hap replied.

“How would the taxpayer get his funds back?” I asked.

“Well, he has to prove that he doesn’t owe the money for one thing and then go through a process that can takes months,” Hap replied.

“OK, here’s what you do. Go back to the original tax return due date and calculate the taxes due with interest and penalties compounded as you normally do. Get the judge to sign the papers today and seize everything at 0800 tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Interest and penalties will make it three times the amount,” Hap replied.

“Good, make sure it takes years for them to get any funds back. Make sure the agency attorneys are booked and the court dockets full to drag it out. Use the same tactics they used. After a year or so they will be ready to accept your original offer,” I said.

“The judge will not sign for seizures of the wealthy or influential people,” Hap replied.

“The agent, you and I will appear before the judge for his signature. After yesterday I have a reputation that now precedes me – bigger than life – based on rumor. The judge may not want to challenge that reputation today,” I said.

“Are the agents here to be able to work on that today?” I said.

“I can find plenty,” Hap replied.

“In that case, let’s flag more for seizure,” I said.

When I finished we had flagged 450 individuals and companies for asset seizure over the next few days. We still had not touched anyone owing less than ten million.

Hap, senior agent Helen Wescott and I knocked on the door to the judge’s chambers and walked in. IRS judge Murray Kline was straightening his robe as his rear office door clicked closed.

“I have here one hundred seizure files that we need signed. New commissioner Ambassador Jones is aware that because of the dollar amount that she needs to sign them as well,” Hap said.

He looked though the files then said, “I’m not signing these! We traditionally do not seize the property of clients like this, never more than one or two a year,” he said.

“Well traditions were changed yesterday and they will be changed again today by whatever means necessary,” I replied.

“Just leave them here and when I get time I will look through them and make a decision,” Judge Kline said.

“That’s not good enough – everything is ready to go and I am here to sign them as you do,” I said.

“Like I said, when I get time,” he said.

“According to the organizational tree of this agency you report to me and I say you have time NOW. Start signing,” I said as I signed the first one and moved the file to him and reached for the next one.

He just looked at me like I was from outer space.

“There are four things that can happen here; one – you sign the papers. Two – you resign effective today. Three – you retire today. And four – the one I actually prefer – is I fire you today for a list of things that start with insubordination and an explanation of what that court clerk was doing in here that you needed to straighten your clothes,” I said.

He started signing off on the files as I did the same.

As I was leaving Robert called, “See me as soon as you get back to the office.”

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Since this was the first use of TCIA against an agency, there was going to be a learning curve and I had no time to learn.
Isaac was escorted off of the White House grounds and carried to clean out his office by the US Marshal. The President, Troy and the other directors left quickly, not giving me a chance to ask questions. Hanging on to the cliff by my finger nails came to mind.

Senators Harrison and Whitby both stayed and when the door closed Senator Harrison spoke, “Since you’re not a politician – as if I really believe that – there are some things I would like to discuss with you about the IRS procedures that I’m sure you can expedite changes to. Call me when you have things sorted out and we will talk; in the meantime, Hank and I will try to keep the wolves at bay.”

“I’m sure I will be calling; I have a lot of questions. I suspect that pack of wolves is going to grow fast,” I said.

I went to my office to give orders to Anne, Andy and Ben on what I needed to be done. Forty five minutes later we had a plan worked out. OSHA and Labor were already working on the puzzle and had called Ben for guidance.

Maybe shaking one tree hard rattled some others. Calls were coming in from several other agencies that had slowly developed a ‘ho hum – so what’ attitude when replying to requests from the task force since Ben had taken over.

Frank called to tell me the CIA was in the process of redirecting a satellite over Harrisburg but not to expect a continuous feed until tomorrow morning.

I was just stepping into the Suburban with Secret Service special agents Greg Archer and Donald Gardner to go to the IRS building when my phone rang.

“What the hell have you done now? The TV news is continuous coverage on you. The reporters are furious – calling what you did a breach of government and demanding a federal investigation. Some of them are Senators and Congressman. The phones are crazy with the media wanting statements and interviews. ZNN is lining up senators for comments,” Jenny said.

“I will fill you in when I get home; it may be a while – make no statements to the media. Obviously I am busy; I have to run,” I said as I hung up.

On the way to the IRS I turned on the TV to see what ZNN was saying. Harry was making the official statement. The media was not nice to him. It had already turned into an ‘oh crap’ afternoon for him.

I walked into the IRS building as Isaac was walked out, “I should have known better than to tangle with you. Foolishly I didn’t believe all the rumors. They were obviously not rumors. Good luck,” he said as the door closed.

Greg, Donald and I walked to the security desk, “I need to go to the Commissioner’s office and meet his staff,” I said.

“Yes ma-am, follow me, by the way my name is agent George Conrad. Ma-am what should we call you, Commissioner or Ambassador?” he said.

“Ambassador will be fine,” I replied.

The other agent at the desk must have called ahead; when we walked through the office door, there were four secretaries standing waiting.

Susan Fisher introduced herself as Isaac’s personal secretary and the other three as general secretaries, Della Street, Sue Albertson and Mable England.

“I’m Roberta Jones – my friends call me BJ. In the public government arena most people call me Ambassador; BJ is fine behind closed doors. I need to see Isaac’s calendar for the next thirty days. Where is the assistant commissioner – I need to see him in thirty minutes,” I said.

Susan and I went over the calendar of meetings before Hapfield McCoy made his appearance.

We went through the calendar again with all speaking appearances canceled. There were several meetings that were reassigned to Hap as I assumed – probably wrong again – that he would be promoted by the President to the top spot. There were several we would attend together and several I would attend myself.

There were several meetings listed as ADP that caught my eye, “What is ADP? Sounds like a kinky sex act,” I asked Susan.

“Assessment of Delinquent Payers – it is where updates are given on delinquent taxpayers who owe more than $100,000.00 for extended periods and the negotiations to collect those funds. They have been given a free ride – mostly for political reasons – in the past. It was started years ago and expanded under the previous administrations,” Susan said.

“Why should there be negotiations? They owe so pay up or else. Put together two printouts, one starting with the largest amount and one with the oldest and I will look at them. I have to pay and be current, they should too,” I replied.
To end the meeting I explained what I expected Hap and all the secretaries to do and when I should be consulted. I also gave a brief overview of why Campbell was ousted.

“When we get the list of businesses, I want a rush put on it from this agency to supply the task force with the names. Please remember; this is classified and there will be severe consequences if it is leaked,” I said.

“On another matter the daily news releases from this agency are canceled until further notice,” I said.

“What about public relations?” Hap asked.

“The only public relations I want to see are by word of mouth expressing fear of the IRS knocking on the door collecting back taxes. That will happen as soon as you go after the wealthy, movie stars and politicians – they are not exempt and are to be the first.”

“The days of special people and special privileges are over. Get aggressive on unpaid taxes starting with the largest amounts first. Get me the list to review tomorrow,” I said.

There was no peace even in the helicopter flying back to Morton. On the way back to the White House I was on my phone continuously, everybody was wanting a piece of me. The important ones I answered, the rest went to voice mail.

The girls were going to meet me there. Since it was so late we had decided to have supper in the restaurant for a change.

I expected media to be there in force and was pleasantly surprised to see only Elmo and Hanna Page. Those two I could handle – in fact, we chose a table big enough for them to eat with us.

The special tonight was Texas fire grilled steak with all the fixings, rolls, mashed potatoes, salad, soup and one of those Texas style deep fried onions – we ordered three of them.

Little Jacob was sitting on one leg sampling my food as we ate. Little Robert was not going to be left out and took my other leg. Jenny was helpful and cut my food in little size bites.

It was a wonder the girls were able to eat anything because of the comedy. Both little boys were trying to feed me and themselves. At least the oversize bib that our waiter brought out saved my pantsuit from a disaster. They ate well, leaving nothing on my plate.

Jenny had ordered for them and their plates were clean too; the restaurant made the best Mac and cheese and chicken tenders. There were pictures – plenty of them – for the family album.

Hanna took a few that I was sure would end up in one of the family segments or be sold to other stations, but that was OK.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched ZNN on the TV. There were a lot of startled senators and representatives demanding hearings so I could explain my actions.

There would be no appearance at any congressional hearings any time soon. Or at least until the Harrisburg and ISIS/Iranian spy issues were settled.

There were no calls from Robert’s group, so I would wait until tomorrow morning to check my box and discuss the reports tomorrow morning with Robert.

I was tired, wore out and needed some private time with the girls to explain today’s events. After the boys were in bed we talked, among other things, about today. It was nearly midnight when the thoughts and fears had finally been put to rest.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Ben called the meeting much earlier than I expected at 1300; I had just put copies of everything into a folder when his call came in. The only way I was going to be on time was to helicopter over to the White House lawn. I put in a call to the Secret Service White House control room to tell them I was coming and to get the landing information.

I was flying over in one of the new Bell 407s that had been added to the fleet. Marcy and Lorrie had come up with a replacement schedule for some of the older helicopters; this was one of this year’s group. We had some that were at the end of air frame life. The inspections were starting to find cracks in places where they should not be. We were going to keep this one for executive use; today I was the lucky one.

Troy and the President met me after the rotor stopped turning. “Looks like a new toy,” the President said.
“It is; just fifteen hours on it,” I replied then I added, “The pilots have just about cleaned and waxed the new smell out of it.”

The President and Troy both climbed in and checked it out from one end to the other. They were in it long enough that the Secret Service came out in force to see what was going on.

“What is the meeting about that Ben called on such short notice? Some of the directors are fuming,” Troy asked.

“Terror attack in the near future, we need to use more to data from certain agency files to gather information to find the terrorists. We are not making the progress we need to be able to stop the attack. I have to get more agencies involved and I suspect one of the agencies is going to resist. You may want to call both Senate and House leaders so I can put them on the spot too,” I said.

Troy did one of those raised eyebrows look, then smiled, ” OK – you call them!”

” OK – after we review what I have,” I said as we walked to the White House side door.

On the way to Ben’s office I called the FBI explosives agent, “Come to the White House, NOW, expedite the trip and bring your explosives calculator,” I said.

Ben, the President, Troy and I went over the information that I had received from Robert. I felt the President needed a private briefing before the real meeting. First to allow him to see what we were working against.
I explained the avenues of investigation we wanted and why.

“Moving the satellite over Harrisburg and concentrating its cameras there should not be a problem. The IRS director is a whole different thing – he is as hard headed as you are but digs in his heels deep and likes to use the threat of media releases to stifle any opposition, no matter how wrong his position is,” Troy said.

“Do you remember the charter and organizational documents for the oversight committee I am in charge of?” I asked the pair.

“Vaguely?” the President answered.

“Part 4 paragraph 1 sub-section 10A – if necessary I will exercise that option today,” I said.

I was reading the documents and had marked the page in the manual during the flight over. I opened the book and slid it over to the President.

The President read and then slid the book to Troy.

“If that is what it takes, go for it. But you are right- call the House and Senate leaders and get them here. They have the necessary clearances to see this and have influence in the final outcome. This action may not be a smooth ride.”

“I do remember that a majority vote by the four of them and you can overrule actions I take under that section. That is why I want them here at the beginning; I don’t want to have to go through this twice,” I said.

I called the two leaders of the Senate – Colin Harrison and Hank Whitby – and the two House leaders – Rhonda Hall and John Lee.

I told them all the same thing, “There is an emergency meeting of the Terrorist Task Force with the oversight committee in the White House Lincoln meeting room in 30 minutes; your attendance is required.”

While I was doing that, Ben called the directors that he and I wanted at the meeting and emphasized the meeting was mandatory. We needed OSHA, Labor and IRS. The CIA and NSA that controlled the satellite were members of the Task Force as was DHS and FBI.

I called Art Cummins and asked him to join the meeting. Art had always been open to anything I did or tried to do to stay ahead of the terrorists. His response was “I am on the way.”

General Ingram came in a few minutes with a mug of coffee in each hand. He placed one in front of me. “Black, no cream no sugar. I figured you would need a reserve,” he said.

Andrew Pollard and Anne Hopkins were sitting in on this meeting; it would be our first as a group. It would be telling to watch their reactions to the events. Bobbie Canterberry was going to take notes for me.

Several of the directors were fussing about having to come to the meeting. To upset them even more, Bobbie passed out the confidentially statement that made this a top secret meeting and any discussion outside this room would incur jail time.

After the incidents of various agents and staff secretly recording meetings on phones, I walked around with the trash can and collected cell phones. I started with my people and went around the table.

“I am not putting my phone in there and I am not signing another nondisclosure statement for you,” IRS commissioner Isaac Campbell replied.

His phone was on the desk in front of him; I grabbed the phone as he tried to stop me. I palm slammed the phone over the edge of the heavy-duty metal trash can – breaking it in half – and I then threw it on the table in front of him. It was sparking and arcing.

“Sign the form unless you want me to break your fingers and use your blood to sign it,” I said.
There were big eyes all around the table except for the ones who knew me very well from the actions at Fort Smith.
He looked around and then signed the paper.

There was a knock on the door; it was the FBI explosive expert Casey Todd.

Casey was the go to man within the FBI; he was the guy who estimated how powerful various explosive mixes and compounds were. He had complete data on every commercial and every known homemade mix there was. It was his data the news media used anytime there was an explosion. Casey had supplied the data for all the bombs the task force collected as evidence including the estimates of the Minnesota college bombing.

I gave him the description of Jaed’s bicycle bomb and what I wanted while Bobbie passed the assembled data.

“Ben, you present the known facts and I will take it from there,” I said.

Ben went through what we had learned from the dark web about the attack, the date, the place and communications between Tiam and Jaed. He explained what we knew about the bikes.

“Casey – what is the kill zone of those devices with the two and three quarter pounds of C4?” I asked.

“Everyone within twenty yards is most likely dead. Those between twenty to forty yards are going to have some severe injuries,” he said.

“With the group having one hundred of these bikes, can you give us an estimate of the fatalities at this kind of event? Last year the crowd estimate was fifty thousand in attendance – standing room only – I am told,” I said.

“Standing room only; at least two thousand dead, twenty for each bike; injuries may be another two to four thousand. Possibly another five hundred killed in the human stampede of everyone trying to get away,” Casey replied.

“Now that we have laid some of the cards on the table on what we are possibly looking at, there are some agencies that have not been included in this kind of operation before. Because the information is from the dark web it hinders our ability to get effective and complete information. We believe that a specialized machine shop is building the tubes for the bikes.”

“Labor and OSHA – I need you to compile a list of all machine shops in a one hundred mile radius of Harrisburg that could have CNC machines and lathes. That information should be readily available to you. I need that list immediately.”

“I will have the office start immediately. You will have the list by the end of the day,” Labor Secretary Michael Harvey replied.

“OSHA, once the list is compiled and evaluated I want you and Labor to do a class 3 safety inspection on all of them and of course in the process you will also be looking for pipes and bikes.”

“You will have OSHA’s list tomorrow morning,” Katie Lowe responded. Katie was the Director of OSHA; she reported to Harvey.

“The FBI is looking at pipe suppliers for large orders of pipe of that size. They are also trying to identify the other components in the pictures and sources.”

“Commissioner Campbell, once we get the list of the machine shops we need you to pull up the business tax records for the last three years. We are looking at the owners and the employee list from the W2’s so we can run the names through Interpol, DHS, FBI and the task force terrorist list,” I said.

“The more information we get and the sooner we get it, the more likely we may be able to stop this before anyone dies,” I said.

“The IRS will have nothing to do with your egg hunt. There are rules against us giving out that tax information. I will not bend any of them for you. Drop dead; it is not going to happen,” Isaac Campbell replied.

“We are not after the tax information; just the list of names,” I said.

“Makes no difference- it is still considered confidential tax data,” he replied.

For the next thirty minutes all of the people in the hunt for terrorists in the room tried to reason with Campbell, including the Representatives and Senators. They told him that national security and the authority of the Task Force and Oversight committee would trump his and any court concerns if the decisions were challenged.

In the process of the debate I slid my manual over to Anne, “Make me 15 copies of this page and bring me a highlighter.”

Campbell was having none it. At every reason he only dug in harder.

I highlighted Part 4 paragraph 1 sub section 10A and then rapped on the table.”Enough time has been wasted on all this,” I said as I passed the sheet of paper to each attendee.

“Now that we have reached a dead end on the discussion on this critical matter, I feel I must act. There is far too much risk of mass causalities for all agencies for of the federal government not to work together.”

“Isaac Campbell, to force your agency to cooperate with the intelligence community, the Terrorist Task Force and the Advisory Committee I am invoking Part 4 paragraph 1 sub section 10A of the Terrorism Control and Interdiction Act (TCIA).”

“You are removed as Commissioner of the IRS effective this day and time. A termination hearing will be held tomorrow at 1300,” I said.

“You cannot do that! You do not have the authority!” he screamed back at me.

“I do and I did – you are effectively fired for insubordination and other offenses, there is only one avenue to change my decision.”

“Mr. President, Congressman Lee and Hall and Senators Harrison and Whitby, according to sub section 11 in the same part you can overrule my decision with a majority vote. Do you wish to overrule my decision and actions? If so now is the proper time,” I said.

There were five no’s.

I picked up the phone and dialed the Secret Service command desk, “Please send a US Marshal to the Lincoln meeting room.”

“Dick, will you make the call to cancel all of Isaac’s computer authorizations, logins and passwords?” I asked as Bobbie passed out the telephones I had taken. For some strange reason the State Department controlled who had all levels of clearances and authorizations.

“Mr. President who are you going to appoint as temporary commissioner so we can get them up to speed on what needs to be done?” I asked.

“Until we get past this attack I think it best if you add temporary IRS Commissioner to your duties. Let the assistant commissioner handle the general duties but you need to be able to stand on his toes make sure they follow your orders so there are no mistakes or foot dragging,” the President said.

That was bad enough but then both Senators agreed and that only made it worse. The Treasurer of the US was called to inform him of the change.

Nowhere in the pages of rules and restrictions was there any mention that I would have to assume the duties when I used part 4. I assumed the politicians would be eager to appoint a party favorite to fill the position.

I knew what assume could do; make an ‘ass out of U and me’. The donkey bit me on this one.

Like it or not I was back into the daily Washington routine – at least until I left for Portugal.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

After supper we went over to see what he wanted.

“This came in as Robert was leaving – he said to call you after it was unencrypted if it looked important,” he said as he put the deciphered communiqués on the screen.

The first one was from Jaed to Tiam and included pictures, descriptions and diagrams of his chosen method to deliver death and destruction. It was a new slant on a bicycle bomb.

In the Middle East, Africa, China, Indonesia and most third world countries bicycles were the most popular mode of transportation for the poor, even for many in the middle class. Automobiles were expensive and so was gas and in some countries gas was rationed.

They were used for everything, often filled with all kinds of bags, boxes, cane and anything else that could be tied, strapped or carried onto them. In war torn countries civil war, revolutions and insurgencies the bicycle had been turned into a weapon.

Usually they carried suicide bombers wearing backpacks full of explosives with nails or ball bearings or the bicycles had backpacks or saddle bags attached filled with the bomb.

Usually if the saddle bags carried the explosive charge the bicycle was rode into a busy street market and left in a bicycle stand or leaned against a building or a post. The rider activated a timer as he got off the bike and then he simply walked away to watch the carnage.

Looking at the drawings, pictures and the finished product Jaed had modernized the concept. He knew – the world knew it was standard policy now to inspect backpacks, bags and coolers as well as anything else carried into major events.

The new concept was cutting out the two top tubes on men’s heavy duty mountain bikes and replacing them with heavy scored plumbing pipe to create smaller pieces of deadly shrapnel. The front end of the pipe Jaed used was cut and tapered to make it look like the original when lightly welded in place.

That end of the pipe had a solid steel plug driven in and securely welded in place. This was done to contain the explosion until massive pressure was built up. The higher the pressure the more damage was done.

The Oklahoma City bombing was a clear example of poor bomb making. After the explosion hundreds of pounds of the explosive mix littered the site. He had used thin fifty five gallon drums that ruptured at a very low pressure before even twenty five percent of the mix had ignited. His lack of knowledge and stupidity saved hundreds if not a thousand lives.

The pipe would be filled with C4 – a very stable, very pliable plastic explosive that can be formed or rolled into shapes. C4 is generally manufactured in 2 x 11 x1.5 inch block that weighs 1and 1/4 pounds then wrapped in a Mylar wrap and sealed with adhesive tape.

It requires a shock wave created by a detonator or blasting cap to begin the mass explosion. It cannot be set off by heat, impact, fire or even being fired into with a gun – a common misconception promoted by Hollywood.

Jaed had taken advantage of this in the rear end of the pipe. After rolling the C4 into a cylinder small enough to fit into the pipe a cylindrical plug with a hole sized to allow a blasting cap to be installed was welded into place.

The rear of the pipes were welded to the seat stanchion. The wiring, batteries, timer and other control were hidden in the stanchion below the seat and accessible by removing the seat. The two pipes could hold three and three quarter pound of C4, based on the size of the pipe.

With the heavy steel pipe the pressure buildup would be tremendous, creating a huge deadly blast area. Jaed’s communiqué stated they had one hundred of these bikes with the tubes already manufactured, just waiting for the explosive.

With paint, epoxy and silicone applied, it would be difficult to spot these bikes without tapping on the tube with a metal object listening for a more solid sound instead of the sound of thin metal.

Jaed’s plan was to place the bikes in strategic locations and chain them into place. Others were to be placed into racks for the public to use. With miniature electronic timers the day and time could be programmed in advance.

General Kedar – through Tiam – replied to Jaed’s communiqué almost immediately, “The final products you wish will be delivered to you tomorrow.”

Analyzing the communiqué was depressing. It meant that the terrorist had four hundred pounds of commercial or military grade C4 and blasting caps in the area at their disposal. It was not coming across the border as we suspected; it had already made the trip. Did the controllers have that much confidence in Jaed that they sent the C4 anyhow?

How much more C4 did they have and where was it?

Another thing that it meant was the terrorists still had availability to advanced machine and welding operations at their disposal. Manually cutting, shaping and welding two hundred pipes was an operation that would be hard to do without drawing attention and would be time consuming by a single individual.

My feeling was that it was done in a manufacturing area, probably on CNC milling machines for uniformity, appearance and speed. Once the dimensions were plugged in it was all automatic.

It also meant that the electrical components had already been acquired, based on the pictures and tested.

Where were the bikes being stored? Where were they being modified? When would they be delivered to the water park? I doubted they were already at the water park- there was the possibility of too many prying eyes. All questions I had no answers to at the time.

I did have questions for Robert to look at. Was there enough of the bike in the picture to identify the manufacturer? If so could he find a local dealer? I was assuming that all the bikes were the same to make modifications easier and faster. A sale of one hundred at a time of the same model should be easy to find.

The picture also showed the miniature timer- was it good enough to allow a manufacturer and supplier to be found and tracked?

Then there was the machine shop that was making the pipes; they had to have some idea what they were making. Did the water park have a machine shop that was capable? Was Jaed a machinist? That was an interesting thought because I thought Jaed was a regular at the park from the bits and pieces from the other messages trails.

Just how many people were working on this? It was certainly more than just Jaed.

I called my people at the park and gave them a list of new things to look for and be careful of.

July the fourth fell just three days after Vicky and I returned from Portugal. With those thoughts in mind we returned home to little boys and babies in need of personal attention that was mutually shared.

At 0800 I keyed MTAC and began discussions with Ben. The agency people had only deciphered the first of the three communiqués from yesterday. There were already several more today that Roberts’s people were working on.

I continued to wonder why the feds were always so slow – the only conclusion I could come up with was it was a federal job, why rush at anything? Maybe it was the committee effect with everyone being afraid to make an immediate decision without first a consensus of minds.

Ben and I talked for an hour as we formulated plans and put options in order. The DHS, the FBI, the Department of Labor and OSHA were going to catalog all machine shops in a one hundred mile area.

The Department of Labor and OSHA had a coding system to identify what a business did to establish employee on the job accident risks and therefore the OSHA inspection criteria and frequency of those inspections.

Then the owners would be investigated electronically, looking for any and all connections to the Middle East. Not only the owners but all employees were to be inspected by both the Labor department and the IRS. The IRS could review all the employers W2s gathering names and how long they had been working at that establishment. Then they could be cross checked against immigration records, Interpol and the FBI and DHS data base.

Using the IRS in this manner broke all the rules and a few laws but I felt it was a necessary evil at this point in the investigation. Ben wanted me there when he approached the IRS director; he wanted someone to help twist his arm. Hell, I would break both his arms if necessary.

As chairperson of the oversight committee it was my sworn duty to see that all federal and state agencies stepped up to the plate when necessary to fight terrorism.

Those agencies were to be law enforcement and IRS agents carried guns, badges and also had SWAT teams – whatever for, no one knew. All these years I only thought an IRS agent killed you with a pencil and a crooked adding machine.

To me the gun and badge gave me the green light to use their resources, at least that was the point I was going to argue.

“Get them all on board and give me a time for the meeting. I will be there,” I replied.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Back at the office I went to Roberts’s office to look at the communications on the dark web between Jaed and Tiam in detail.

There was good news for us in the communications, General Kadar demanded pictures of the devices they were going to use so his experts could evaluate and possibly improve them. That would make them easier for our agents to spot.

As if that was not enough, he wanted a map of where the explosives were going to be placed for ‘DA day’ – Dead Americans day.”

The date had been chosen – the fourth of July – but it was not mentioned in this communiqué, it was in one from the other day. The huge water park had one of the biggest fireworks extravaganzas around.

The next set of reports that Robert had intercepted were on the potential sex workers and escorts. There were now one hundred involved in the training of these girls at the Paris France locations. If there were one hundred involved in the training, I wondered just how many girls had they recruited and how large were the training facilities?

Based on past reports and conversations from the embassy tapes of interviews of women seeking amnesty I knew the women would be horribly abused. If there were a hundred trainers the women were going to be sexually trained a hundred times a day. For ISIS and the Iranians, if they could connive a way in it was open season on those women and their husbands and owners need not object.

Would the French police close down the operation or had the Muslim issue grown so large and out of hand that the police had been infiltrated and would inform ISIS?

There were only two avenues that could possibly give me answers to that. One was through Dick James SEC of state, but would I get more reliable information without the political whitewash by directly calling my security team at the embassy there?

Robert and I debated the issue as we walked to the command center to make the call.

Robert and I talked with the team supervisor for an hour. Security director Patrick Jackson was not kind to the current French government or its two national police units.

The National Police had jurisdiction over the major cities. They did patrols, traffic control and identity checks. They were glorified town cops from the sound of it.

The National Gendarmerie was a branch of the armed forces placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior with additional duties to the Ministry of Defense. They were assigned to the smaller towns and other suburban areas. At times the two units worked together; more often than not the arrangement was used to do nothing. It was always the other department’s jurisdiction.

The call reinforced my thoughts that the French police would be of no help. There were large areas of Paris and other cities that were off limits to the police. Through various techniques Muslims had driven the police out.

A single policeman or police car did not go into those neighborhoods; if they did they simply did not come out alive. Groups of police would be immediately surrounded by mobs to prevent them from proceeding anywhere in their neighborhood.

Police cars would be vandalized, tires slashed, set on fire – even with the police in them. The French government – instead of exercising its authority and establishing the rule of law – had caved.

I decided Roberts’s group was going to use the government’s high price version of satellite identification to search those neighborhoods – street by street and house by house – looking for unusual traffic. There had to be a continuous stream of people by the numbers.

General Kadar was not in control of the ISIS training but had some influence in the outcome by supplying money for the training. ISIS or not, he was working his hooks deeper into the training. Along with the money were requests for reports on how it was being used and the success of the training as he called it.

In each communication Kadar promised more money and had it delivered along with more demands. My guess was that in a few weeks he would be asking for names and pictures. He was already suggesting the locations they were to be sent.

In another post he indicated that he could acquire Russian or other European passports for them. The ISIS commander quickly responded that they already had French passports for all of them – and it would be far less suspicious than the Russian ones would be.

I left Robert’s group with more things to do. I met the girls at home. Today was the day that we were going to talk with Crash about the changes coming to Morton Field.

“Crash, we have some new updates about Morton Field. But first, you have never cashed the check we gave you for the property – we owe you some interest on the money,” Marcy said.

“I burned the check years ago – I have no one to leave the money to and I am damn well not going to let the state get it. You took me in when I had no place to go and have treated me better than my family ever did; like I was one of the family. We are even – you do not owe me any interest. If anything, I should be paying for something,” Crash said.

“The last two C5s are coming. The tarmac to park them on will be expanded again with additional spots for larger planes. In the final spot by the expanded tarmac a new specially designed hangar will be built so maintenance can be carried out on the jumbo planes without weather being an issue. The hangar will also be used for maintenance on other planes.”

“Speaking of large planes, we are negotiating with US Air for up to five 747s that have come out of passenger service in the last six weeks. They are in an Arizona bone yard but have not been through the decommissioning process yet. They have replaced them with 767 and 777s.”

“We are looking at them because the US Forest service is offering attractive long term contracts for firefighting water tankers to combat the ever increasing western forest fires. The forest service will give grants to help with the conversion to tankers, then pay standby, storage and availability fees like the state does for snow plows in the winter.”

“US Air will sell us the planes for one dollar and then they will write off the cost on the condition that they never return to passenger service and they get first offer of purchase when scrapped.”

“As usual for that kind of deal we would have to pay for maintenance and modifications above the grants. The pilots would have to go to a forest service training for aerial tanker pilots and certification. It would allow us to better utilize our heavy aircraft pilots,” Lorrie said.

“The next item is an air show. We have scheduled it for the second weekend of July. The advertizing starts tomorrow. We have several historic planes coming, including a B29 like you flew. There are also a B24, several P51s, a B25 and some newer war planes making a flyover or landing. The Navy Blue Angles are going to do a show, and the Army Blue Knights are going to sky dive in.”

“There will be no admission charges and the pilots and crews are going to sign autographs for kids. There will be free hot dogs, drinks and souvenirs for the kids,” Lorrie added.

“It sounds like you have a good show planned; maybe I can get to sit in the pilot’s seat of the B29 again for a few minutes. A word of advice though, watch those contracts with the forest service carefully – have your best lawyer read them.”

“They have been known to make contracts with clauses they can use to get out of the contract. I had a deal years ago to spray for beetles in pine trees using their supplied chemicals. The chemical was no good for the beetles and I told them so before I sprayed hundreds of acres. When the beetles didn’t die they blamed it on me for improper spraying and refused to pay. I had witnesses that I told them the chemical was the wrong one. They finally paid two years later,” Crash said.

The conversation lasted another hour while we were putting supper together.

The EIT night supervisor called asking that Vicky and I come over before we called it a night.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

The last report was from the finance department, Matt always gave that one himself and he was the one to give Marcy troubles.

He began with his report on the overall county being the largest employer using the combined numbers of all county departments and had the largest fleet of vehicles. Then revenues collected to date and projections for the rest of the year.

Matt instructed the agencies to begin putting their budget requests for next year together. The agencies needed to prioritize their spending requests. The finance division was expecting funding to be tight again.

Then he broke into a tirade about the revenue losses that would have improved the county’s financial position. They did not have those revenues because of court decisions related to the Morton crop dusting airfield, the Island airfield and JBG against the county. Like the taxes from one company was going to correct all the evils in the county budget.

With Morton Field so large now the lost revenue had to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly millions of dollars a year. Matt was advocating the county attorneys should reopen and appeal both cases.

Matt also said the finance division was looking at all counties with airports to see what kind of fees and taxes they had applied and if those fees and taxes could be implemented against JBG and Morton Field operations.

Matt continued on with a wish list to generate new funds. He wanted to double the fees for all business licenses. He wanted all rental properties in the county to be registered with an annual fee of not less than five percent of the rental revenue. This was the same rental tax scheme that LA, Chicago, New York and other cities were implementing. He wanted all businesses to pay an annual environmental waste fee and a parking lot runoff fee.

He seemed to ignore the fact that all businesses were unable to carry their waste to counties collection stations. They had to pay commercial waste contractors to pick up trash or the roll off dumpsters to state approved landfills and pay by the ton or the size of the container. I knew because our trash disposal costs were huge.

Duke and Clarence looked at me and tried to bore holes into the table with their eyes. They knew a response was coming; the other county commissioners didn’t know where to look but looked stunned.

The rest of the business owners and operators looked perplexed; this was a side of Matt they had not seen.

I guess Matt thought he had a captive audience and that I would sit there and not respond.

“Let me set the record straight for you, the lawsuit forty years ago corrected illegal actions by the county. The county ran the appeals process as far as they could. The actions by the county at Island Airport were handled in federal court; the amicable decision reached settled criminal proceedings and prevented various county officials and employees from serving time in federal prison.”

“The decision also ended JBG and the DHS suits against the county. If you want to open that rats nest back up go ahead; jail time is still an option. We are better equipped to deal with that more than ever; back then we only had one attorney, now we have dozens.”

“Next on the list is your statement about the county being the biggest employer and fleet owner; neither is true. JBG has over fourteen thousand employees in one hundred and eighty foreign countries and two hundred and sixty five locations in forty states.”

“Our embassy security division – that encompasses the one hundred and eighty US embassies in foreign countries – has seventy five hundred employees. Our college security division – that supplies college security for twenty five colleges – has twenty five hundred employees. Our auto leasing division MAAR has over one thousand five hundred employees; one of the few divisions that utilizes some part time employees.”

“Morton Field has over 750 employees – five hundred who are pilots; three hundred and sixty of those support the embassy security and the other pilots supply flight services. The rest of the employees at Morton are logistics and aviation mechanics.”

“The remainder of the employees are support, administration, trainers for the gym, maintenance, staff for the Morton and Horsey motels and trainers for the Fort Smith training complex and the gun club, the special operations team and more.”
“JBG aviation owns five hundred and fifty aircraft of which four hundred are helicopters; three hundred and seventy are leased to the State Department for embassy security and transportation of diplomats abroad and other government agencies. The rest are used for various training and security functions. We have one hundred and thirty fixed wing and drones.”

“We have planes from as small as Cessna 152 trainers, G5 executive jets, Cessna business and Lear private jets, two fifty passenger CRJ 200s a 737-200, six C130s operating under contracts and will soon have the 5th and 6th C5M heavy lift cargo planes that are back leased to the DOD and also available for commercial freight flights.”

“JBG offers passenger and freight flights out of Morton to anywhere in the world on short notice.”

“We have already made multiple commercial freight flights to Uganda, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Egypt, South America, Australia, Korea, Japan and dozens of other places too classified to discuss.”

“We have completed final negotiations for five 747 jumbo jets to be converted into fire fighting aerial tankers with contracts for the US Forestry Service. Western forest fires seem to get worse every year. Aerial tankers are few and far between; many are seriously old. We have the pilots and the logistics.”

“Our Pig Iron Point marine terminal is in full operation with its pipeline to the Morton fuel farm. When the truck stop is operational diesel fuel will be brought in there as well.”

“Our Mid Atlantic Auto Rental division – better known as MAAR – owns twenty five thousand vehicles from riding lawnmowers to 400 ton mining trucks, and two hundred and fifty ton cranes with everything in between. We are the vehicle leaser for five major utilities that consume twenty thousand of those vehicles.”

“We are a leaser of armored SUVs to state, federal and foreign government agencies with several hundred more to other customers. MAAR uses four thousand vehicles at its two hundred and forty sites, and there are several other commercial leases – the rest for our own use. When the dealership building is operational, individual leasing for trucks will be available in this area.”

“We own or lease 300 houses in resort areas – Florida, Georgia, Texas, Maine and Colorado – and own an island in the Bahamas for our vacation rental division. Our vacation rental operation is in heavy demand and growing. Several Colorado ski lodges and two in the north-east have signed contracts to be part of our recreational package offerings.”

“Foreign clients increased to thirty percent of our customer base for the vacation offerings. Just in the last week we have partnered with two international airlines to improve the international package offerings.”

“Matt; Marcy, Jenny, Vicky, Lorrie, Ching Lee, Jason and I know all about budgets, banking, financing, taxes, logistics and HR employee benefits in a scale and scope you will only ever get to dream of. Try to come up with two million dollars every week to pay just the taxes. Yes – they have to be paid every week; payroll, sales, property, tags, international fees and such come to more than two million every week. And then there is payroll.”

“There is no need for you lambast our business and other businesses in the county and expect those businesses to pick up the tab because of your inability to properly manage your budget.”

“To cut road repairs when you have budgeted money for them and also received state and federal grants, and then give millions of extra money to the school board is unconscionable and may be an illegal diversion of federal funds.”

“Could it be that since you are still are a card carrying member of the Teachers Union and hold an executive board position in the education union, they have an influence on your decision making process related to the county budget?” I asked.

I knew I was not going to get an answer. Matt was too busy trying to find a hole to crawl into.

“I think the commissioners have an issue to deal with this afternoon,” I said as I stood to leave.

“If they don’t, a conflict of interest lawsuit will be the front page story of the Gazette,” I said.

The commissioners met me at the door, “Matt signed a letter of agreement that he would resign from the executive board and union when he was offered the job as county manager,” Commissioner Ames said.
“As of last Friday he was still getting weekly paychecks from the union and he was still using the union email system as well as the county email system to conduct union business,” I replied.

“You can document that?” Ames asked.

“Absolutely – you don’t think I would be that reckless and foolhardy, do you?” I replied.

I opened my portable office on the table and took out the report Robert had completed on Matt Monroe.
The cover had the JBG logo with the second line Electronics Investigative Team in large lettering. Then there was a classified line in Robert’s big red stamp.

On the inside was all the normal stuff Robert’s team collected – which was everything. There was an identifying photo then history, property and financial, including bank accounts, loans statements and other debts.

Then there were family trees on him and his wife and former wives. There was the past employment list, current employment list and all the social media posts.

The final section included all the email accounts he had ever had or used, including the county printouts and the union printouts.

I opened the bank deposit sheet to the deposits page Robert had identified for me. Matt’s county deposits were highlighted in yellow and the union deposits in red; also copies of the deposit slips. Then the latest emails from the two accounts. I only showed them three or four pages of each.

“I don’t guess there is any chance of getting copies of that?” Duke asked.

I closed the report and pointed to the red classified line.

“Your county prosecutor can get the same information easier than I did,” I replied.

“I have to do it the hard way. Everything – and I mean everything – on everybody is in the cloud. I have to find the right keys to open the cloud to get the information to fall out like rain,” I said.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Tuesday morning breakfast was finished by 0730. Vicky and I were in Robert’s office with Andy. The rest of the girls were in their offices upstairs. Lorrie was still using her corporate office and not the one at Morton Field with the baby and the increased threat level caused by the bounty.

With Lorrie here that meant that most of the security was here or could be in training. Most of Andy’s new members to OPS team were at Fort Smith or on the way.

Robert and I went over yesterday’s dark web posts and responses while I was waiting on the rest of the girls to come down. When they arrived we walked over to the meeting room and the discussions began about going back to Portugal.

The discussion was lively and heated at times, almost to the point of being ordered not to go by the girls. But discussion and the taking of most of the OPS men plus the possibility of more diversity in income was a plus. The feeling was that one might open the door for more foreign contracts. We needed to at least give it a shot to see what our options were.

I filled Andy in on the trip to Portugal and my instructions to Robbie along with the possibility of a security contract, our first with a foreign nation.

I knew that even if we succeeded in getting such a contract, it would only be the beginning. The paperwork and getting all the necessary approvals would be a quagmire.

I wanted to impress with security on my visit so the planning began. To help things along in our favor the Air Force had scheduled two flights a week to Turkey to bring back classified materials. Materials that were to end up in Texas and North Dakota; they were nuclear weapons storage sites. The planes were empty on the flight over – at least so far.

We would use those flights to shuttle equipment to Portugal. Logistics were going to be a mess. Andy and I decided to assign Ed to handle all of that since he had been there with us on the first visit.

At 0930 Jason and I left to go to the county meeting in place of Marcy with 8 security men. Jason went because he knew nearly everyone involved in county politics and could make introductions. I had been going to do this for two months but there was always something that came up, but not today.

We were there fifteen minutes early so there were plenty of seats available. Only a few business owners and county officials were there. I did know the couple who owned the hardware store where we seemed to spend a bundle of money every month.

I went and spoke with them for a few minutes until more people started to arrive, then I went to the chair I has chosen and sat down with my coffee mug, with two of my body guards behind me and the rest around the walls in chosen spots.

As was the normal power play, the county officials were ten minutes late. Department heads from all the county agencies were in first. The county manager Matt Monroe came in moments before the commissioners.
Duke Justice, Clarence Hallworthy, Penny Ames, Larry Barton and Roland Pennywell – the county commissioners – were the last in.

Matt began by introducing all the county dignitaries and department heads. Then he began the process having every department give a report on progress on departmental goals and updates from the previous meeting.

I made notes as they spoke with minor agencies being the first to speak; libraries, sewer and water, EMS, county health department, preservation and hysterical society, county environmental and so on. Once in awhile a department head would ask if there were any questions. Answers were the usual run around.

It was an hour before the department heads I wanted to hear spoke;
“County roads is on track to stay within our budget for the year. In order to do that we reduced the amount of roads grass cutting by fifty percent and reduced the number of roads getting tar and chip treatment this year. Some equipment purchases were reduced to achieve our budget goals and a couple vacated positions were not filled,” Nathan Moore said. He started to sit down without asking for questions but before he could – “Excuse me, but what equipment purchases did you eliminate?” I asked.

“Two of the larger mini excavators were eliminated,” he replied.

“So what did you do with the money?” I asked.

“What do you mean? It kept us with in our budget,” Nathan replied.

“According to minutes from your previous meetings the extra cost of the extra snow removal was covered in a grant from the federal government. There is nothing in the minutes to indicate that there should be any expenditure that would carry it over budget.”

“The two excavators should be one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. The two employees with salary benefits and vehicle savings should be another one hundred and fifty thousand in savings. You cut contract road side grass cutting by fifty percent. The grass cutting contract was budgeted at one hundred thousand saving fifty thousand dollars.”

“Based on the tar and chip published bid award the contract was nine hundred thousand this summer. How much did you cut out of that; two, three hundred thousand? That makes over half a million dollars. Where did it go?” I asked.
“You do not understand the budgeting process,” Matt interrupted.

“Oh, I understand the budgeting process completely. You have a set number of funds to work with. From that you pay for the things you are obligated to pay. If the cost of those things are less than budgeted you have more money to buy other things or it goes in back into the general funds.”

“This is government- nothing ever goes back into the general fund. Government departments go on a spending binge the last weeks of the fiscal year. So where did the funds go or are where are they going?” I asked.
“I am not able to answer that,” Nathan replied.

“He does not have to answer that, the budget process is not open to the public until the year end reports are completed and then only by a freedom of information request. Let’s move on,” Matt replied as Nathan started to sit down.
“I’m not finished yet, county roads should cease using the tar and chip and begin a policy of black topping the roads and any extra money in the budget should be set aside for that purpose. The only thing tar and chip does is disguise how bad and rough the roads really are.”

“I’m not against education but every year you give several million a year to the school board above their budget, and test scores don’t move up and in some instances have gone down. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. You have extra money – it’s past time to fix the county roads,” I said.

The next department to report was planning and zoning with a report that new house construction was up three percent and tried to go back to their seat.

“Why only three percent when the national average is six percent given the upturn in the economy, Delaware is over ten percent the rest of the state is over six. Could it be the rules and procedures are stifling county growth? Just when is the rough draft of the proposed new zoning rules going to be released?” I asked.

“It’s going to take several more months,” was the reply.

“Why several months? The rough draft should have been done in thirty days and submitted for review and changes. The new rules should have in effect by now,” I said.

“It takes time to review what different counties have done and put our own in line with them,” he said.

“That’s the problem right there. If I remember the declaration you were given you were directed to change, remove and update the existing rules not use some else’s and modify them. What jurisdictions are you using this time – San Francisco or Sacramento – that are seven hundred pages long to build a single story house? You and every one in your department working on this should be fired for insubordination,” I said.

There was a look of horror from county officials and I was only getting started.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.