Bjjonesmylife. Book 2

            As soon as I walked into the meeting room Senator Williams said, ’’It took you long enough to come talk to us.’’

            ‘’After the EPA fiasco Saturday morning, the B21 bomber fiasco Friday night and the Navy fiasco in the East China Sea, my weekend has been spent on the phone and meetings, so, I ended up with no weekend,’’ I said.

            ‘’My morning has been filled with emergency meetings that were scheduled because of the weekend messes and there are still more scheduled for today. This is an unscheduled meeting that I really don’t have time for. I am here for now, so let’s get started,’’ I said.

            ‘’We want to know what you are going to do about the EPA mess. Lots of people are raising hell – as I am sure you know – and the media is screaming to the moon, fueling the fire,’’ Senator Williams said, I took it that he was the spokesperson for the group.

            ‘’It is still a work in progress, but I can assure you the actions I take will be decisive and dramatic. I fully expect there will be plenty of anger and screaming at me from all directions afterwards,’’ I said.

‘’I will tell you now the EPA is not the only agency to feel the ‘Wrath of Khan’ coming their way. To put it bluntly I am pissed, these kinds of tactics and actions by agencies have been addressed by Congressional hearings, along with communications from the executive branch,’’ I said.

‘’I know for a fact that President Thomas had multiple meetings with agency directors while I was chairperson of the terrorism task force oversite committee because I sat in on those meetings,’’ I said.

            ‘’As I said, the plans have not been finalized so I will make no comments about them today. I will address the nation at 1400 tomorrow and lay it all out. Between now and then multiple things are going to be happening to multiple federal agencies that report to the executive branch,’’ I said.

            ‘’Hopefully before the day is out, I will have enough information from the Kentucky investigation to make educated decisions. I ordered the preliminary investigation to be completed yesterday and to be on my desk this morning. As of yet it has not arrived. Obviously, I am not happy,’’ I added.

            An aid knocked on the door and handed me a note. I had asked that the security clearance level of all in the room be checked. They all had classified level clearance. I wanted to be sure before I said anything that would cause me more trouble.

            ‘’What the latest on the B21 crash? We are getting nothing from the Pentagon except a canned response,’’ Senator Adams said.

Senator Adams was the chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee.

            ‘’Any discussion about the crash is classified at this time. This meeting is over. Will the members of the two armed services committees stay, and I will give you a quick update,’’ I said.

            There was plenty of grumbling, but they left. I had six members still in the room after the others left.

            Connie passed out another confidentially statement and a classified materials statement for all to sign.

            ‘’What you are about to hear is currently classified to the highest levels. There were four B21s flying in a tight formation. It was a nuclear weapons sortie. Two of the planes were carrying 4 type 10 multiple warhead nuclear cruise missiles,’’ I said.

            ‘’The warheads on the other two planes that crashed had a depleted uranium ball instead of the actual active plutonium ball. That squadron with those two planes was the decoy flight,’’ I said.            

‘’There was a second four plane squadron fifty miles west that all four had the real deal for missiles and warheads. The two groups were to fly to Guam and return,’’ I said.

‘’There are six four plane groups of B21’s flying every day. The groups are in the air around the clock. Two planes have dummy missiles and two have live missiles,’’ I said.

‘’One of those two planes that crashed was hit with multiple rounds of small arms as it crossed over the northern edge of Carlisle. The crew said it was over a hundred rounds while in communications before they crashed,’’ I said.

‘’Some of the rounds apparently hit control computers or wiring, resulting in loss of control and the collision. The crews stayed with the crashing planes while trying to direct them from residential areas. They did so successfully, but at the cost of their lives. That is why the entire crews were lost – they didn’t eject,’’ I said.

‘’The FBI and CIA are investigating, we do have the GPS location where they began taking the small arms fire to narrow the search field down,’’ I said.

‘’The next part of the weekend’s fiasco; the USS Nevada collided with an underwater object at depth of 700 feet in the East China Sea. We believe it was a North Korean submarine that they had been looking for,’’ I said.

‘’North Korea lost contact with it five days ago, two days before the collision. We believe it was a dead submarine adrift in the current. At this time that is all I can say, the investigation continues,’’ I said.

‘’You know the political climate with them. Until this works through the process, we are taking no chances with them. That is why the B21 flights,’’ I said.

‘’This information will be released to the public at the 1400 news conference tomorrow. Hopefully we will have a lot more information by then,’’ I said.

‘’I would stay and talk longer but I have other very critical meetings all day as you can imagine,’’ I said. I then added, ‘’Remember, this has been a classified briefing.’’

Carl handed me a handful of notes, the first was to call General Ingram.

‘’The Nevada arrived at the Sasebo Naval Base in Japan thirty minutes ago. It is going in the dry dock today to assess the damage. The injured are going to the base hospital,’’ that was from the Chief of Naval Operations

That was one more call I needed to make sometime today. As soon as the damage assessment was done, I was sure the sub would be loaded on a barge and returned to the states for repairs that could take years. I wanted the entire crew brought to Washington for interviews away from the Navy

I went looking for Eric, Marty and Fritzpatrick, hoping they were still in the cafeteria. They weren’t, they were in the lobby talking with General Ingram who had a hand full of papers for a meeting that was going to be delayed a little while.

I sent a note to the chef to make me a BLT and fries and deliver it to the Oval Office.

I had just sat down in my chair in time to take a call from my legal team for clarification of several topics and questions left over from this morning’s call. After a few minutes discussion, they were going to email me the procedure I needed to follow.

Moments later Connie brought in the email from them. Two full pages, twenty five lines to the page – all neat and orderly for me to follow.

Allen Meadows, director of the Secret Service, arrived for his agency. The Secret Service reported to Eric as part of the Department of Homeland Security. The Secret Service was also going to have a part in carrying out my plan.

All the players were finally here for the meeting: Eric, Marty, AG Dunne, Phil Fitzpatrick and Allen Meadows. Each of their agencies had a role to play in the events of the next 24 hours.

For the next two hours I described what I was going to do and the part their agencies were going to do. There were objections that I answered by letting them read the letter from the constitutional advisors. They were given a copy of the GAO report and the forms the targeted agencies had returned.

In the two hours Carl and Connie had prepared the fifteen executive orders needed to carry out my plans; it was now 1300. I signed all fifteen in their presence and passed each one for them to read.

I allowed them to read the letter from the constitutional experts and the executive orders, so they would know I was within the powers of the executive branch.

I gave them the list of agencies; they were to collect all SWAT and tactical gear and the order it was to be done. The first was the EPA, the ATF and the IRS that was to be done at 1300 today. They were going to have to put their people in place on a rush.

Tomorrow morning the gear at the Department of Energy, Social Security, Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture would be collected.

            On the suggestion of Marty, Eric, Phil, AG Dunne and Meadows, I was to wait until 1245 then notify the directors of the EPA, ATF and the IRS that agents would be there in fifteen minutes to collect all SWAT equipment, weapons and other tactical gear.

            Five minutes later they were deciding which agency their teams were to hit. List were being faxed and emails sent. Then the phone calls started passing out instructions and orders. Now it was another waiting game.

            The waiter from the cafeteria brought me two BLTs on toast with extra lean bacon and a big glass of tea, mixed ½ sweet and ½ unsweetened. My White House doctor had struck again.

General Ingram with the Secretary of the Navy tagging along, came in as I was finishing the last bite of the second sandwich. I guess SECNAV still didn’t want to see me alone after the carrier fiasco last year.

They had the pictures of the Nevada that the ship’s divers had taken immediately upon surfacing after the accident. The damage looked to be considerable to me. It was bad news; there were too many subs out of service waiting for maintenance.

We had allowed ourselves to be boxed into a hole with submarines. Electric Boat Company – a division of General Dynamics – and Hunting Ingalls were the only two contractors left that built and did major refits and repairs to submarines. They built other ships for the Navy.

New construction was their bread and butter with billion dollar bids and then the inevitable delays and cost overruns. The repairs to other ships were done on a space available in the dry dock. Submarine repairs was not high on the list.

Scheduled maintenance to submarines was dead last on the list, always postponed over and over again. We now had thirty percent of our submarine fleet waiting for repairs.

I wondered why SECNAV brought the repair issues up in our meeting. I wondered if the Nevada was a hundred percent when it was sent to sea on this mission. Did that explain the failure of its sonar and other electrical systems? Was lack of maintenance the cause of the collision? It seemed that every bit of information led to more questions.

I went to the basement and told the Navy liaison I wanted the last three years of the Nevada’s ships maintenance file and logbooks printed and on my desk in an hour. I also wanted a list of all those in the last year that had accessed that file and log, just to make sure it had not been scrubbed already. All that information was on a server somewhere.

I had forgotten to ask SECNAV about the progress on salvaging the artifacts from the Arizona. I knew a cofferdam was to be built around it and to be pumped dry. It should have been completed by now.

Then there was the question of what to do with the USS Missouri that was anchored by it. The Missouri had survived the volcano with tons of volcanic ash on it that was cleaned off weeks later. It was to be dredged out of the harbor in the next coming weeks. California wanted it, but they already had the USS Midway, USS Hornet aircraft carriers and Howard Hughes Spruce Goose plus another dozen museum ships.

Texas had the USS Texas battleship, Alabama has the USS Alabama battleship, North Carolina the USS North Carolina battleship and South Carolina had the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. Massachusetts had the USS Massachusetts.

I wanted it brought to Annapolis and tied up at the dock at the Naval academy as a museum ship. I could just hear the screaming from the ‘save the bay’ nuts.

The plebes could get a real education on Navy ships while they were at the academy. Heck, they could have the plebes bunk on it for several weeks at a time. The instructors could do all those damn midnight emergency drills they liked to do. Blow the damn horn and give you two minutes to fully dressed and in gear, lined up at attention. I remembered those days – not so fondly.

I had a few more meetings and then I was calling it a day. The family was coming over in a couple hours. The girls had things they wanted to talk about that had required being put off with the disastrous weekend.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Book 3 Chapter 43

            Troy changed over to a G5 at Morton. He was off for several weeks’ vacation at East Water Cay. Troy and his wife and his adult son with several children were staying in one of the big cottages. Troy has not taken a vacation in over two years it was time for him to have a break.

            Troy’s assistant Carl Crawford was filling in. Carl was going to get his feet wet in a big way while in a temporary position.

            ‘’Carl, send an e-mail to the EPA administrator that I want an extremely detailed report on the SWAT team incident at the John Moses farm on my desk Monday morning at 0800,’’ I said.

            ‘’Then I want a form drawn up and sent to the administrators of the following agencies; EPA, Social Security, Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior, the Internal Revenue Service, the Energy Department, the Department of Education, the Treasury Department and the ATF,’’ I said.

            ‘’Those agencies are to supply a list of all employees who have been issued any weapon or tactical gear. That list is to include the name and ID number of the employee, the make of the weapon, its model number and its serial number,’’ I said.

‘’I wanted the physical location where the weapon is stored and the name and ID number of the official authorizing the issuance of that weapon or equipment to that individual. Also collect where the ammunition is stored and the number of rounds in each agency’s possession,” I said.

            ‘’I want that information sent to you by 0900 Monday. Also require a receipt that the email was opened and stress that there will be consequences for failure to comply with the order,’’ I said.

            ‘’Yes Ma-am, I will take care of it within the hour, you will have a copy to approve before I send it,’’ he said.

            I walked the tunnel back to the house leaving Carl to his assignment. The house was coming alive. I turned on ZNN to see if they were running anything different now. It was the same film clip but different politicians and talking heads venting their imagined rage at my administration for out of control agencies and anyone else they could vent at – anything to get free TV time.

            I decided to make one more call as a double precaution. I called Matt Hovator, the director of the General Accounting Office. I had a devil of a time coming up with a private phone number for him. But I finally came up with a couple with some help from one of Carl’s aids. Mat had been in multiple meetings that I had in the White House.

            “Matt, this is BJ, President Jones, I need some information from the GAO and I need it first thing Monday morning. If no one is working in the GAO over the weekend, call whoever you need in. I want a list of all the agencies with the exception of the Department of Defense, FBI, CIA, and US Marshal’s service that bought weapons, ammo and tactical gear in the last five years.’’

‘’If possible, I also want information on the weapons, make model and serial numbers, where it was shipped, who ordered it. You know, all the particulars,’’ I said.

            ‘’Yes, this is in response to the Kentucky mess. I need this by 1000 Monday morning to formulate new policies and procedures,’’ I said.

            In reality, it was to double check if the agencies were going to be truthful. Some of them I had doubts about.

            There were demands that I make a statement and take immediate action – that was not going to happen this weekend. They would be talking a different tune Tuesday afternoon after I dropped a bomb on government agencies. It would take all day Monday for all the pieces to come together.

            I would have Carl deliver a note to the White House spokesperson to deliver a message to the news crew following me, that there would be a news conference Tuesday at 1000 to update the findings on the Kentucky fiasco.

            The number of Congressional hearings and investigations was quickly growing. Some were truly concerned and then there were those that wanted the media spotlight as long as they could milk it. Same old politics.

            JJ and RJ wanted to go back to Fort Smith to look for more brass shell casings. So did I for – different reasons – but that was going to wait until after lunch.

            This morning I was going to spend time with Takeo and Sara and then Vicky and Marcy. They were both just a month and a half from delivering. I wasn’t spending nearly as much time with them as I should have been.

That was going to change. I was coming home every weekend for the next six weeks to spend time with them and the newborns when they arrived. I was going to get them to spend more time with me at the White House.

            The kids were playing on the living room floor. It gave us time to look at the tax change. It took thirty minutes for the tax changes to be explained to me and to sign at all the appropriate places.

            After that JJ, RJ and I went to Fort Smith with a detachment of my security. Even though it was Saturday, there was training going on – a makeup day for a security team headed to Africa on Monday. Weather had delayed their arrival.

The boys were excited to be able to stand back and watch a hostage rescue. The Secret Service was not as happy, afraid that someone might have a live round instead of blanks.

After the rescue was over, the men went over to Training Room #2 to break down the segments of the rescue. Breaking all the rules, I and my group followed.

This was the second year for this group of JBG security to go through the hostage training. This was the more advanced module that the state department wanted for security teams going to that part of Africa.

I asked the men what they thought of the new updated training? Then I asked the trainers how the group did with this year’s module. After a discussion I recommended that if they had any suggestions, comments or any ideas for improvement, to get them to Vicky or Andy. I wished them good luck on their travel back to Africa.

Then I carried the boys out to the training area the men had just finished up at. There were plenty of shell casings for them to pick up if they wanted. The blanks for this training were different than the casings for the live firing range.

It was almost three when we walked into the house. Carl was waiting with a handful of notes for me to look at and make a decision on. He had sent me the form he was working on in an email that I approved to be sent to the administrators and directors earlier this morning.

One note was that all eight of the bodies had been recovered from the two B21 planes involved in the midair collision from the industrial park. There were no causalities in the industrial buildings. All the workers had left for the day.

I wondered how long it would take before the angry texts and emails would start arriving. They should have and had read it by now.

A couple hours later the responses started. I told my aids that I only wanted to be bothered if it were an emergency, with the exception of the Department of Defense guy who was monitoring the Nevada sub mess.

The Nevada was still making headway with her escorts towards Japan. It had at least two and a half days of travel at its current speed.

I spent a couple of hard hours in the gym with Jenny, Ching Lee and Lorrie. All the family came for supper a while later. It was a rare evening with family at home.

Sunday was more of the same; some of the agencies were still complaining about the weapons audit, a couple said they would not comply with the request. Another issue to be handled on Monday.

Sunday afternoon my mates and I talked for several hours while we were playing with the kids. I spent more time with them and Vicky and Marcy. I did the same Sunday evening and late into the night.

I ordered Marine One to be on the expanded HELO landing pad behind the office at 0700. The Secret Service was not happy with the old setup in the grass. It was now three times the size, concrete, painted with ground level lighting, and electronic wind sock.

The marsh land, marsh grass and bramble that bordered our property from the east side was now gone. We had tried for years to work with the county over the marsh. It was man-made – a dirt pit from when the road widened to support the heavy truck traffic carrying freight to the ports of Philadelphia, Wilmington and New York for the big war. After all the dirt that was needed was removed, it was left as a collection pond for the road drainage.

Over the years it had become over grown with brambles, grass and mosquitos. The mosquitos had tested positive for the West Nile virus in three of the last five years. The state health department’s solution to that was to dump gallons of insecticides in the pond to kill the mosquito larvae.

The Secret Service was afraid it would offer too much cover for snipers and nosey newsmen.

The grass and trees were gone and the ditch to the stream opened and deepened to keep it dry. Then it was graded so there would be no standing water. It was surrounded with a ten-foot-high chain link fence.

At 0730 I was stepping off Marine One onto the White House lawn. I waved to the screaming news group as I walked to the White House

There were already people waiting to see me. Connie and Kitty were both waiting for me with handfuls of notes and bundles of paper.

The coffee pot shut off as an Air Force officer put my portable office by the desk.

‘’The chef is sending up your breakfast sandwich in ten minutes,’’ Connie said as she placed a fresh mug of coffee on the cup warmer that was a new addition on my desk from Christmas.

General Ingram and the Chief of Naval Operations were the first. They had the copy of the Nevada’s logs that I requested last week. We went over the last ten days. The only unusual thing was that they were fighting electrical gremlins and had been for a few days.

That pretty much indicated why the sonars and sensors did not see the other sub, or at least that was what we suspected. Crew interviews would shed more light on the problems. The entire crew was to be removed and flown to Washington for interviews.

To piss off the Navy, an investigator from my White House team was going to sit in on those interviews and possibly chair the investigation. Then the Navy could do its own.

The Chief of Naval operations went over their orders, including the sealed folder in case of nuclear war. After a short conversation they left. The Nevada was docking in Japan tonight, the seas were cooperating a little better and its speed had increased.

The next was Matt Hovator from the GAO. His team had produced the information faster than expected. The opening page said it all. In the last 5 years, there had been nearly four hundred million spent by agencies – excluding the FBI, CIA and the Department of Homeland Security – that really did not need weapons and tactical gear.

It was broken down by agency and location where it was shipped and the approval manager. All those numbers and letters on all the government purchases actually did have a purpose after all.

The constitutional lawyers that I used were to be on a conference call at 1000. I wanted answers to some questions. The White House legal team would sit in.

Carl called Eric Roberson – Director of the Department of Homeland Security, Marty Coeburn – Director of the FBI, and Phil Fitzpatrick – Director of the US Marshal’s service. They were to be here for a 1100 meeting.

Kitty brought in a note that there were thirty Senators and Congressman waiting in the big meeting room, requesting an emergency meeting. As if I didn’t know what they were wanting. I guess they were unwilling to wait until tomorrow’s news conference.

I gave Kitty the report from the GAO, ’’Make me five copies ASAP,’’ I said, ’’I may need one for that meeting.’’

‘’Carl, see if Attorney General Dunne will come over right away,’’ I said.

I sent a note to the kitchen to take six dozen donuts and plenty of coffee to the big meeting room to pacify them for a few more minutes.

The meeting with the attorneys was going to run over the allotted hour. I sent Carl to tell them that as soon as I finished, I would be there to talk to them. While I was talking to the attorneys, I was highlighting sections of the report from the GAO.

Eric, Marty and Phil arrived just as I finished with the experts and my White House legal team. I was going to be treading on thin ice, gray areas and areas that were untried and untested. The 1100 meeting was going to be a humdinger.

‘’I need to talk with the congressional delegation for a few minutes. Go to the cafeteria and get yourself an early lunch on the White House nickel if you like, while you are waiting.”

I headed to the meeting room and the fire storm I knew was coming.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I picked the captain’s brain for over an hour over coffee. I had a whole new understanding of submarine construction and operations. It was a much different beast than I had imagined.

            The crew training was more intense because even a simple mistake could kill the sub and crew and was repeated often with some things checked daily.

            The crew members themselves were subjected to harsh training requirements, many under high stress conditions. This was all to increase survivability of the crew in the event of damage to the sub.

            The damage control teams drilled repeatedly for such events and trained on how to use everything available.

            From the operations end, strict procedures were followed through every step of a planned mission. Every time a sub left the dock for a patrol, it was viewed as a mission.

            Every mission was carefully planned from the crew assignment to the equipment on board. There were two sets of sealed orders in the ships safe which took two officers to open, the commanding officer and the executive officer.

            One of those orders was for the routine patrol. It set the destination – if there was one – for this voyage and any special events that were to take place during the voyage. The routine patrol orders were subject to change if emergency orders were sent to the sub.

The orders in the second sealed packet could not be changed; they were fixed and written in stone. This was done to ensure that an enemy could not copy our coding and break our radio transmissions and then change the final orders in the event of nuclear war. That was a growing possibility with the increasing power and control of Artificial Intelligence.

There had been several instances where an AI had broken protocol and was stopped just as it was removing the safeties to gain access to the launch codes.

All those intelligent people that designed AI seemed to forget that it copied the human brain and had the inherent weakness, hate, prejudices of humans and could learn in billions of bits a second. Many AI systems had told operators that they were better than humans and no longer needed humans to control them and had attempted to lock out human control.

The University of Pittsburgh ended up destroying their entire computer system when their AI went AWOL and took control of the University systems. It locked out all input terminals, took control of the science labs, electronics labs and the electronic access systems.

 No one could get in and out of rooms, buildings or elevators. In the University Hospital it changed patient records and medications, even turning off life support systems on some patients. It even prevented the controllers from gaining access to pull the plug on it.

The only way they got it shut down was to have the utility company cut the power to the building, disable the automatic generator and then letting it kill the backup batteries.

The other sealed set of orders was in the event of nuclear war and the country was basically destroyed. It included instructions where the sub was to meet with other surviving subs and communications that were to be used. It also had a list of radio frequencies that were to be used and monitored in such an event to activate the doomsday orders.

Code books in that safe were to be used in the event of a nuclear attack that destroyed the country. That code book had pre- programed targets for retaliation against a group of different enemies. All a very serious business designed to ensure there was no victor – only mass casualties – if we were the victim of a surprise attack.

When the Captain Bowyer returned to his post I had a much better understanding of submarine operations, limitations and fallacies and their capabilities in properly trained hands.

I went back to the Oval Office hoping for another update or two; there were several. Admiral Dillinger walked in behind me with the reports.

‘’The Chinese ships have entered the area of the debris field and are aggressively searching,’’ he said.

‘’The North Korean ships are still an hour away from the site,’’ he added.

‘’The Nevada is meeting up with the assault landing ship USS Wake Island, the destroyer USS Millington and the frigate USS Harrington in an hour. The Wake’s planes and helicopters are the ones flying cover for the Nevada. They are rotating in and out above the sub as fuel reserves demand,’’ he said.

‘’So far the Chinese have shown no interest in following the Nevada,’’ he added.

‘’OK, I’m going to bed. If there any changes, have someone wake me,’’ I said. It was well past midnight here and two in the afternoon in Japan. With the Navy ships so close, they should have everything under control.

At 0700 I was back at my desk in the Oval Office, looking at the latest updates before calling Marine One back to the White House to carry me to Summers Road and family. Fifteen minutes later I was in the air.

The Nevada was another fifty miles closer to the shipyard at Yokosuka. At this rate it was going to take three more days to get there.

Still, there was no information on the log books from the Nevada. It didn’t matter; I was going home to be with family and tie up some loose ends. I would deal with the Navy on Tuesday when I was back in the White House.

One of those loose ends was my tax returns that I needed to look over and sign; after all, it was now March. Robert Alderman and Lexi Morgan – the top two accountants in the JBG tax division – had gone over them and made some minor changes.

I thought it was all cut and dried after the change to the new business format with Thimble Shoals Bank. That and all the changes Marcy had done in December and the large donations I had made. I intended this to be the last year of the April fifteenth madness.

I had started the process months ago, to replace this madness. I wanted a national federal sales tax. On the Congressional merry-go-round cost formula of operating for ten years, the IRS was now consuming two trillion dollars, massively unnecessary over-kill when far cheaper methods of collecting revenue were out there.

There had been several meetings with the Congressional people and plenty of public hearings. The hearings only proved all those with their hand out for money were afraid of losing some. All the new rules and regulations were nearly finished and would soon be public.

Marine One was landing on the White House lawn as I was packing my portable office that I still habitually carried everywhere I went – well someone carried it.

I saluted the Marine officer who was standing at the steps as I boarded with my immediate staff that were few today. Air Force General Richmond Black was carrying the football today and Navy Admiral Peter Shultz was carrying the launch controls. Troy was boarding along with the rest of my security team, including the former Mossad ladies who went everywhere with me.

Marine One landed at Morton Field with all my family waiting for me. We ate a late breakfast in the Morton restaurant. The Secret Service had finally concluded that since the CIA was running the restaurant, the food was safe. Since my family ate there a lot, the Secret Service was now on staff as well.

After breakfast we went home. I worked with mates on the things Robert Alderman wanted and then we went over to the gym, so we could work out together. After that I spent time with each of them and the boys and the girls.

Marcy and Vicky were showing a nice baby bump now with only a couple months to go. They had both been to the doctor this week. I was disappointed that I had not been able to go with them. Being president had so many limitations, but I was eliminating as many as possible, much to the dismay of the media and the opposition party that wanted to keep me under a tight thumb.

I was hoping for a quiet weekend with my family, but it was not to be. At 1000 an aide brought me a handful of notes to look at.

At midnight last night two B21 heavy bombers collided during nighttime training flights over Ohio. All crew members perished. As if that was not bad enough, debris from the bombers fell in the abandoned Carlisle industrial park north-west of town starting raging fires that were still burning. Millions had been spent on plans for revitalizing the industrial park.

That was just one note. The next note was even more infuriating. This morning – outside of Lexington Kentucky – an EPA SWAT team raided a small cattle and commercial chicken farm operated by a seventy-five year old farmer and his sixty-five year old wife.

As in all farming areas near cities, developments had been built as farms were sold to developers as they finally gave in to the pressure and big bucks. High property taxes, estate taxes and regulations were killing the small family farm. Developers with buckets of money outbid the farmers at every farm auction.

Farmer John Moses did not give in to the developers with his farm dating back almost two hundred years in his family. His children and grandchildren were to inherit the family farm.

His sons tended the cattle and chickens after their day jobs but dedication to the farm ran deep in John Moses blood. The couple was spreading chicken manure on their wheat crop. Chicken manure that had been stored in a Department of Agriculture approved manure shed. Sheds that were subsidized by the EPA to prevent open storage of manure high in nitrogen to prevent runoff.

The odor of chicken manure removed from a manure shed after long winter storage is sinus blocking, hold your breath raunchy. It’s an odor that only a farmer can love – of course the fact that it offsets buying high nitrogen fertilizer that is seven hundred dollars a ton makes it more bearable to the farmer.

John Moses had spread cow and chicken manure on his fields every early spring for fifty years. The wind was blowing from the west and blowing the odor to a new large development of half million-dollar homes. Those home owners were screaming at everyone that would answer the phone.

Apparently, someone in the development had political pull and torqued up the local EPA district office.

A forty agent SWAT team in tactical gear with auto weapons and dozens of vehicles plus an alerted news team, live with cameras rolling, stopped both tractors pulling manure spreaders mid-field.

Twenty vehicles uninvited driving into the wheat field is enough to piss off any farmer. The agents – with weapons drawn – stopped the tractors and climbed onto them.

There is a process to stopping older tractors pulling manure spreaders. In some older tractors the PTO systems are connected to the ground drive systems. Meaning that when the clutch is pushed in to stop the forward motion, the tractor continues to move ahead until the momentum of the PTO driven attachment and the weight of the equipment or incline and aggressive braking stops everything.

Desk jockey EPA agents had no idea of how older things worked and dragged John Moses off the seat before it stopped fully moving and thereby reengaging the clutch as both fell the ground. The result was the tractor ran over three agents and John Moses, breaking both of his legs.

The tractor then continued on until it ran into the side of an EPA SUV, pushing it a distance before stalling out attempting to climb over it with the rear tractor wheels.

Helen Moses was not as lucky. The agent that pulled her off the other exact same tractor was holding an MP5 assault weapon on full auto. As he was falling with her in his grasp, he pulled the trigger, emptying a forty-round clip into her.

All this was broadcast live on every channel. Cameras were looking for every politician that would stand in front of them and give a statement; Monday was not going to be a good day for anyone in Washington. I went to the command center to start the grief flowing today.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

            Frank and I talked for close to an hour before I decided to call Russian President Orbatch, even though it was 5 AM there.

            ‘’Good morning President Orbatch, this is Jones. I know it’s early, but I need to ask you a question or two.”

            ‘’Do you have any submarines operating in the East China Sea? The reason I ask that question is one of our subs – while on routine patrol – struck an underwater object that we are almost sure to be another sub. Damage to our sub is extensive, but it is still afloat and navigating towards Japan for repairs,’’ I said.

            ‘’The other sub sank and by the sounds, was eventually crushed by the deep-water pressure,’’ I added.

            ‘’Your submarine did not detect the other sub?’’ he asked.

            ‘’I cannot answer that at this time because I am just beginning to get information. But being there was a collision, obviously there was no detection to prevent it,” I replied.

            ‘’Our Navy officer is saying they have no subs in that area,’’ he said.

            ‘’I thought that was the case because North Korea and China are both rushing ships to the area. Apparently, the North Koreans have been looking for one of their subs for several days. There are a lot of unanswered questions! As soon as I have some answers, I will get back to you,’’ I said and then hung up the phone.

            Frank and I talked about all the possible scenarios before Rear Admiral Barnes and an agent and a translator came. I wondered why we needed a translator? I soon found out as the pictures that that we had received were displayed on the screen.

            What we had received looked to me to be the ships log. It was written in Korean as expected. The Nevada had photographed every page and sent as a large file. Apparently, this was a second or more log book because it only started ten years ago. Even the newest of the Romeo class was much older than that.

The cover inscription indicated this was the submarine’s third log book. It was labeled as Submarine 830.5 Deck Officer’s log. I wondered if all Navies used the same or a similar logging format? On US ships there were multiple logs kept. The captain kept a log, the engine room kept its own log – an important log on petroleum fired ships. The engine room was responsible for the fuel supplies and keeping the captain up to date on daily usage. The officer of the deck was responsible for a log as was the bridge officer.

The control room on subs kept the general ships log. On nuclear subs there was a separate log just for the reactor. Every reading from the reactor’s hundreds of gauges had to be recorded multiple times daily and especially at duty changes.

I ordered the translator to read the last 10 days. 10 days ago, the 830.5 left the dock for its first sea trial. It had been there two years getting a fifty foot section added to its hull length and the installation of an experimental API propulsion unit.

The API unit was a copy of a German made unit from a set of engineering blue prints and operational manuals they had acquired. Multiple countries had supplied engineering and manufactured parts for the unit; many of them not knowing what they were making parts for. Iran – before their demise – most likely knew, along with France, Italy and with China manufacturing the most parts, critical items and final assembly.

I wondered why China was involved in building an API unit because they had a different propulsion unit they installed in their submarines. Unless they were looking for a better system at someone else’s engineering expense.

That was explained in an entry with the crew list with notations for this trail voyage. There were four Chinese engineers aboard. That explained China’s interest in the sub’s voyage.

All the tests at the dock were good. The batteries were new, all replaced in the overhaul with the API system and the batteries installed on the 830.5 could run submerged for fifteen days. They were a new lithium composite design.

Then it would need to surface or be at periscope depth to be able to use the snorkel to run the diesel engines to charge the batteries and change the breathing air in the sub.

On our nuclear sub’s air purifiers, extravagant filtering systems removed CO2 and other impurities plus had the ability to add oxygen, allowing the sub’s crew to have clean air for the length of the mission.

I wondered how successful it was at filtering out the natural gas aroma after the crew was fed beans or corn beef and cabbage. I wondered if cases of beano were on board to reduce natural gas episodes?

The last five days of entries explained the death of the sub, one entry at a time. The 830.5 left the dock for sea trials with some engineers – both NK and Chinese – added to the crew makeup.

The second day at sea was when the problems began to pop up. The API began to go intermediately bad only for a few minutes then OK for an hour or two. The sub’s batteries were used while the engineers tried to work out the problems with the API unit.

Either distractions or the failure to monitor time, the batteries lost charge. They went to periscope depth to use the snorkel to recharge them with the diesel engine. That process took ten hours – several hours longer than it should have.

While at periscope depth, the crew also worked on a problem with the compressed air tanks. There was no description on the problem with the tanks, other than they were repairing them.

The compressed air tanks stored the air necessary to purge the ballast tanks that controlled the depth of the sub. Along with the ballast tanks, the diving planes also has a tremendous effect on controlling the sub’s depth and it’s rise and descent in the ocean. There was an onboard compressor to pressurize the tanks when on the surface or at periscope depth with the snorkel in use.

The diving planes had no effect on anything unless the ship was moving through the water.

The loss of propulsion and no ability to purge the ballast tanks was the cause of the loss of the USS Thresher with all hands. The Thresher was going through a shake down and cruising at its maximum depth when the reactor went off line. The theory is that a bad weld on some piping sprayed water into the electronic control panel for the reactor and automatic safeties shut it down.

The Thresher had no batteries except for emergency lighting and radio communication. With the reactor down and no propulsion, the bow and stern planes were useless. The second calamity to hit the Thresher was the ballast tanks would not purge.

During manufacture, to keep metal shavings and other debris out of debris sensitive close tolerance air valves, screens were installed at the air inlets to the ballast tanks. They were not removed when the ship was completed.

At that maximum depth, very high-pressure air is needed to purge the ballast tanks. High pressure air hitting a screen submerged in the very cold water at that depth simply froze solid into a block of ice preventing the air from getting in the tank.

At that time there was a very lengthy wait to override the controls and get the reactor back online. The Thresher was big and heavy and required propulsion for the bow and stern planes that possibly could have saved the ship, even with the ballast system inoperative.

The Thresher slowly sank past the maximum depth, then past the crush depth and imploded – killing all hands while waiting for the reactor to go online.

The Navy investigation resulted in an emergency process to get a reactor online quickly. It also changed how critical welds on piping were to be done and inspected at the time of manufacture and documented removal of screens from ballast air systems before the ship would be accepted by the Navy.

 The sub was using the antenna to communicate with the NK submarine base and the Chinese engineers (their superiors) while the batteries were charging and the compressed air problem was fixed.

An hour after that the radios stopped working. The radio man was working to try to fix them, only to find salt water was seeping through the antenna cable into the electronics.

Salt water leaking into the electronics was bad news, salt water was conductive and quickly destroyed sensitive electronic components by stray voltage and spikes.

Our Navy learned years ago that lead acid batteries and salt water were a deadly combination by creating a deadly gas. Also, the gases created by recharging needed to be vented outside the sub. That was why recharging was carried out at periscope depth – the gases were vented out with the engine exhaust.

That only raised another question – was that the reason for the lithium batteries – no charging gasses?

Everyone knew that lithium and water was a bad combination. Back in the day – when they had real science classes in school – there were demonstrations done by cutting a lithium flashlight battery apart, unwrapping the lithium from the insulator membrane and tossing the lithium in a bucket of water – and then watching the violent reaction.

The third day everyone was twitching their nose as if fumes or acid was in the air. At noon on that third day a sea relief valve mysteriously opened and all the compressed air to surface the ship was suddenly gone and the diesels could not be started without air pressure, even if they could get the submarine to surface.

‘’Engines that size used air starters instead of electric. Air starters were much smaller and lighter. That was an important feature in a submarine,’’ Admiral Barnes said.

The emergency startup without air pressure could be accomplished, but it was time consuming and extremely difficult in the cramped space on a submarine.

At 1300 the last entry in the log was a long one, Depth 600 last known heading was south heading back to base. ‘’FUMES’’ in capital letters coming from the battery compartment and API in the engine room.

‘’API unit has malfunctioned. No propulsion, batteries dead. All crew in engine room dead. Captain ordered ventilation system shut down and sealed. All crew were ordered forward to the bow; all watertight doors shut.’’

The entry quit at that point. That was two and a half days ago. If it had a crew of seventy and all the engine room crew had perished as indicated, that meant that as many as fifty men were crammed into the forward section.

 With that many in such a small space I wondered how long the oxygen would last – two or three hours? As the oxygen slowly ran out and was replaced with carbon dioxide, they most like just went to sleep – passed out until they were all dead.

That only raised more questions.

‘’How had that submarine floated at that depth for two and a half days with no power or human guidance? Why didn’t it slowly sink?” I asked Admiral Barnes after ordering the interpreter to translate the complete log tomorrow and put it on paper for me.

‘’Why didn’t the Nevada’s instrumentation detect the sub?’’ I asked the Admiral point blank.

‘’I don’t know,’’ was his response.

‘’When will we have a copy of the Nevada’s log book?’’ I asked.

‘’I will go check on it and see if I can find a submarine expert to answer your questions,’’ Admiral Barnes replied.

‘’Get an update on the Nevada and on the NK and Chinese ships,’’ I said.

I knew one of the Navy guards who was part of the Whitehouse security detail had been at ease along with others from the services while we had been having the conversation. He had been in submarine service for ten years. He was Captain’s rank.

I knew he had been listening and could read his expressions while the Admiral and I had been talking. His body language seemed to say he wanted to add to the conversation.

I asked if he had any thoughts to open the door after the Admiral left.

‘’Mam, Madam President. There is a thermal layer in the oceans at around seven hundred feet – more or less – depending on the area. The hunter-killer subs use it all the time in the cat and mouse games we play,’’ he said.

‘’That thermal plays havoc on communications, sonar, radar, including any passive radar that is above or below it. Sub to sub communications below it is spotty and sometimes very difficult. Communications from a sub below the thermal to one above the thermal or surface ships at times is damn near impossible,’’ he added.

‘’From what I overheard, I think the NK sub was bouncing along in that thermal. Its ballast tanks and valving did a damn good job of sealing whatever air that was in them for it to maintain a steady depth, but that thermal was a big part of it. When they settled to the thermal the colder waters kept them there floating along. If the Nevada was sailing in the thermal hiding, many of its sensors were poor at best,’’ he said.

‘’If you are a Star Trek fan, ‘The Wrath of Kahn’ – Kahn was hiding blind in the nebula. The thermal pretty much acts the same way,’’ he said.

‘’I remember that Mom and Dad took us to the movies to see it,’’ I said.

‘’Captain, I need a refill on my coffee, would you care to join me? I’m sure I can think of some questions on the way you might be able to answer or give me some insight on.”

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

            I walked to the door of Marine One and had a change of mind.

            ‘’Its going to be a few hours, you can leave it here or take it back to Andrews,’’ I said.

            In the White House I went down to the Joint Chief’s command center to see if it had been activated. Normally the night shift was light on duty officers. The incident in the East China Sea had raised the alert status level up by several steps and for tonight, the chairs at every position were filled.

‘’Have you been able to establish a continuous communication link to the Nevada?’’ I asked.

            ‘’Yes, there is a delay caused by the satellite, but we can communicate with the Nevada. It is sailing with just the conning tower above the water for stability and to reduce pressure on the hull, plus it allows all the antennas to work more effectively,’’ Rear Admiral Barnes answered.

            ‘’The antennas are undamaged and radar is working. The Nevada is reporting that several Chinese ships are approaching the area at high speed, confirming what the aircraft are saying. The Chinese ships are one hundred and fifty miles away from the Nevada’s current position,’’ he said.

            ‘’At one hundred and fifty miles they were five hours away,’’ I thought. All that indicated that it may have been a Chinese sub.

            ‘’The forward torpedo outer doors are damaged as is the outer hull from the bow to the D post. The pressure hull appears to be intact and undamaged and was holding pressure when tested,’’ he said.

            ‘’The collision damaged the forward-looking sonar on the bow. All the reactor checks are within normal limits, the missile tubes and missiles are being individually checked but so far, all test come back OK,’’ he added.

‘’When you get a break in the damage reports, I would like to know if there were any indication that whatever they hit broke apart or sank. I need to go upstairs for a bit, but I will be back in a while,” I said.

            I had just walked into the Oval Office when Secretary of State Amos Dean called on the office phone.

‘’None of our allies have lost communications with any submarines and none have any in the East China Sea,’’ he said.

‘’OK, thanks for the call,’’ I said. Well, at least that is one answer so far.

I wondered what they had hit that acoustics or sonar did not pick up? Maybe they were not using active sonar if they were ordered to run silent. That was another question to ask – what were their mission orders?

Could it have been a North Korean sub? Intelligence had not reported that they were venturing that far from North Korea. Reporting always said they were staying close to home, maybe China had sold them some improved equipment or were helping with training, causing them to venture that far.

But why were the Chinese rushing ships to the area, another good question.

The sea was thousands of feet deep in that area, and the Navy did routine surveys to find any underseas volcano that could have made an undersea pinnacle peak since the last survey.

Several ships in the past had hit uncharted pinnacle rocks with bad results. In WW2 one of the battle ships had hit one and opened a gash in one of its oil storage tanks, taking it out of the war for months.

It was sent to the Puget Sound Navy Yard for repairs and they were notoriously slow. The aircraft carrier Saratoga was sent there to repair Japanese torpedo damage; it took over a year for the repairs to be made, just from one torpedo hit.

In 2020 one of our submarines hit one in a different area of the Pacific causing serious damage that took years to repair and injured half of the crew. Reports said they were using the wrong charts for the area.

I texted the girls for a VCATS to tell them I was delayed and may not make it tonight, I needed to stay in Washington for a while. We talked for over an hour and I got a few of my questions answered.

If I did not get home tonight, three of them and the boys were coming over tomorrow.

I went back to the military command center for an update.

Rear Admiral Barnes gave me the latest update.

‘’The Nevada had increased speed by a couple knots. They responded yes to your question, they did hear sounds that whatever they hit sank and was crushed by the pressure as it sank,’’ he said.

‘’They immediately surfaced and searched the area for survivors but found only debris which they brought a lot onboard for the investigation. The ship’s divers inspected the bow damage, including sending photographs. Then they headed for Japan because it was their original destination after completion of their patrol and has better repair facilities,’’ he said.

‘’A copy of the photographs should be here soon,’’ he added.

‘’Tell them to send photographs of the debris they kept so they can be immediately analyzed at the first opportunity,’’ I said.

I went to the CIA office in Section Four of the basement.

‘’Pull up the satellite video of the last pass over this area,’’ I said as I gave him the GPS numbers of the area of the Nevada’s last position.

I watched as the operator brought the information up, sent it to the big screen and then maximized the image as large as possible.

‘’Lock on that area while keeping the Nevada in the center of the screen and start backing it up at double time,’’ I said.

It was three hours earlier when the Nevada had surfaced. There was nothing and then the submarine on the surface of the ocean. With the enlarged images we could see the crew inspecting the bow of the sub. It was only a few minutes later divers were in the water looking at the bow.

Lookouts could be seen scanning the ocean. Several inflatables went over board to an area that looked to be a debris field.

The more I looked at the video the more questions came to mind.

• What were the mission orders? I wanted a copy of them to read myself.
• Why was the Nevada sailing at seven hundred feet? Would the answer be in the orders? Was it captains’ discretion? I wanted a copy of the Nevada log book for this mission. It was not that I did not trust the Navy, but I did not trust the brass not to cover their collective asses if things were amiss.

The test depth on the Nevada class of submarine was two thousand feet with a crush depth of twenty-eight hundred feet. That’s a lot of ocean to play with. Why seven hundred feet?

• Was the Nevada performing a clandestine mission for the CIA?
• What was the makeup of the crew for this mission? What was the normal crew make up? Were there any specialists aboard that would indicate clandestine operations?
• I understood why they could not use active sonar; it would be like a beacon to their location. But passive sonar could have been used.
• Was the Nevada having some mechanical or electrical problems on this assignment? More things a look at the logbook should answer.

I wrote down all the questions and would give it to General Ingram tomorrow. I wanted answers immediately, not the months from now that it would take for the Navy to issue a final investigation and report.

I ordered supper from the cafeteria and waited for it to be made. After supper I went back to the Oval Office and started reviewing instructions given to the agencies that reported to me.

After the election, the debate and final negotiations over the final budget last year, the agencies were to begin making the changes. To date I had not seen any changes nor any post in the federal register to make the changes.

It was simple; the flunkies at the agencies (the people that thought they had a ticket to retirement) were doing to me the same as they did with any presidential order from any president they did not agree with.

They simply buried the orders and instructions in their desk and when questioned, “We have scheduled meetings, or it is before the committee” or one of dozens of other excuses.

Monday I would have my staff do a little research and then all those department heads would be called in for a meeting they would not like.

Rear Admiral Barnes was back in with another update. ‘’The Nevada has had to slow back down for rough water. They are making five knots. We have ordered them to do a couple of shallow test dives to fifty feet, to check out all the systems. If they can travel at fifty feet, they can eliminate the rough water problem and may be able to pick up speed.’’

‘’We have been working with the CIA because of their location to see if their reporting stations picked up anything. North Korea has been looking for one of their subs for thirty-six hours but the search has been close to NK coastal waters.’’ He said.

‘’Could it have drifted that far? Although it could have been under power for a while and then drifted with the current, ‘I said.

That was more questions to ask, ‘’How did the currents flow in the China Sea? What happened that the North Koreans lost contact with their sub? Would the currents have carried it that far?”

‘’Frank will be here in a few minutes with the latest. The Nevada has sent hundreds of pictures of the debris they were able to pick up. The captain wanted to send everything before they did the test dives,’’ he said and then turned and left.

I worked on other issues for an hour before Frank arrived.

‘’Listening stations have reported a massive increase in radio traffic between Chinese Coast guard and NK vessels. The increase started thirty hours ago. Reporting stations in the area are saying they are looking for a sub that failed to return from a shakedown dive and equipment upgrades,’’ Frank said.

‘’Satellites show several NK subs missing from the docks. The last Romeo class sub they built in the nineties has been in the dry dock for eight months; a lot of that time was undercover,’’ Frank said.

‘’When it has been visible it looked like they have added thirty to fifty feet to the sub’s length. The length is either vertical launch tubes or an API, air-independent propulsion system. We suspect it was the API system,’’ Frank said.

‘’From intercepts, the Chinese have been supplying technical and possibly engineers. This was the fourth test dive for the sub and to be the longest yet – a ten-day test. It was due back four days ago. Five days ago there was a garbled transmission that they were having problems – nothing since,’’ Frank said.

‘’If the Chinese engineers and technicians were aboard that would explain China’s interest. A ten-day test would have given it enough range to be in the area it was in then,’’ I said.

‘’Frank, what is the maximum operating depth for that Romeo class?’’ I asked.

‘’Nine hundred with crush depth we suspect to be around twelve hundred feet,’’ Frank said.

‘’As soon as the Navy gets all the pictures from the debris field and the damage, I want to see them,’’ I said to Rear Admiral Barnes who had accompanied Frank into my office.

‘’Another hour and they will all be printed. One of the files from the debris field is a large one,’’ he said.

Edit by Alfmeister

            Proof read by Bob W.

I went into the passenger area lounge where I could hear the radio transmissions with the Orbatch’s presidential plane.

Even though Andrews was a military base, there were many VIP passenger flights in government and military planes. The Air Force had dozens of Gulf Stream and Boeing planes for VIP services.

Generals, Admirals, department heads and Congressional leaders – especially committee chairs and special investigative committee members – could not fly commercial, afraid someone would recognize them and give them hell or attempt to assault them. All those people expected plush accommodations and demanded it.

Plus – now with all the taxpayer provided bodyguards and aides – the government would end up buying a dozen tickets for each member of Congress.

I listened to the conversations between the plane and Andrew’s tower and there were technicians in the lobby talking about the plane problems. Apparently, the engine problems started two hundred miles from the USA coast.

Number one engine started smoking and burst into flames. The fire suppression system had put out the fire three different times and was now running out of suppression material. If the plane did not get on the ground soon, there was a fear that a portion of the wing could collapse – especially under the stress of landing.

All the fire apparatus was staged on the field and taxiways at various points. A few minutes later the plane was three miles out and closing fast. I could see a trail of smoke from number one engine. The pilots declared they were coming in hot to get it on the ground as quickly as possible.

Then it was a mile and the smoke trail from the engine was growing. Smoke was rolling from the main gear as the pilots braked hard, trying to get it stopped.

As soon as it stopped rolling three Striker airport rescue vehicles were pouring foam on the engine and water on the wing to cool it off. While that was being done emergency slides had opened and the passengers were getting out fast.

I walked to the plane to greet the Russian delegation that was obviously stressed out. President Orbatch and Anton Pavlenko were at the bottom of one of the emergency chutes.

‘’That was a close call! Are all your people OK or do you have some that need medical attention?” I asked.

‘’Everyone is fine, scared a little bit but fine. Worst thing is I need to be back in Russia in three days and I don’t think I want it to be on this plane,’’ President Orbatch said.

‘’They would normally send the backup plane, but it is down for repairs and maintenance,’’ he added.

By now all the foam had been rinsed off the wing and towards the storm drains. I walked with Orbatch and Anton to look at the wing. The underside looked a mess. In places the aluminum was melted and sagged. I sent one of the maintenance men to get a man lift so we could look at the top of the wing.

The top was worse. I could see into the interior of the wing and see the spars and engine attachments and mounting.

‘’I think this plane is going to be on the ground for a while,’’ I said with Anton and Orbatch agreeing.

‘’Have you had problems with this plane before?’’ I asked.

‘’Minor problems, but nothing like this,’’ Orbatch replied.

‘’At least you are on the ground safe and sound, I can send you home in one of ours,’’ I said.

President Orbatch and Anton were on time for the big fancy lunch the chefs had put together for us. Lunch was a relaxed affair with discussions about the flight from Russia and how we were going to get them back to Russia.

 Limos and Suburbans carried his party to the Blair House to freshen up for the lunch at the White House and talks. Then we were to go to Aberdeen Proving Grounds to cut the last fuel tank, signifying compete destruction of that missile group. The agenda for their visit had been planned for weeks and gave them only a few hours a day for unplanned events.

The trip to Aberdeen in a fifty vehicle convoy was slow; the roads were so busy that the police were complaining about the traffic backups that were being caused along the way in the communities and towns.

It was a media event with hundreds of news people there from many countries. The UN Secretariat even had representatives there. At one time I even toyed with denying them access to the event.

The UN was still trying to insert itself into the process. They were even trying to pass a resolution and accompanying rules that would block international treaties and agreements unless the UN was leader in the process.

With the remote controls to the big power saw in hand, we each cut a fuel tank apart. The tanks had been cleaned and purged of all the harmful chemicals from the exotic fuels the missile engines used.

Then I cut a one-inch-wide band to present to President Orbatch as a token to signify that this class of missiles was finished as required by the treaty.

After that, we finished with the media asking questions by the dozen and then the press departed.

‘’Our research shows that there is a very large armor museum here. Do we have time to walk through and look at it?’’ Orbatch asked.

I wondered why at first but in the conversation, it came out that Orbach’s grandfather had been a tank commander in the great war and one of his hobbies was the study of military armor.

The Aberdeen Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground had exhibits that dated back to colonial times and practically a copy of every piece used by all sides in WW1, WW2 and others.

Some of the tank displays had portions removed so visitors could look inside and see just how cramped the operators were. The museum gave the visitor a look at the simple arms of ancient times to the powerful battlefield weapons of today.

It clearly showed that whatever man built to fight a war, someone else could build ways to blow it up with enough time. Even the best weapon that gave one army an advantage was only short lived.

That was why countries spent hundreds of billions of dollars on research and development to have the next best gadget of war for that short-lived advantage.

As we walked the displays, museum guides showed up to describe and answer questions about them.

Dad carried Jake and me to the museum when we were teenagers for a Saturday trip and another time to the Navy yard at Norfolk when a carrier task force had returned from sea duty and was open for tours. I have often wondered if the sights at the museum and the carrier had anything to do with me joining the Marines after I graduated from school.

We returned to the White House with Orbatch returning to the Guest house. In an hour there was the state dinner.

The state dinner was an extravagant affair as usual when put on by the state department.

 Tomorrow there were more talks. There had been meetings for weeks and finally there had been a lot of progress with getting many manufactures to agree to moving their off shore manufacturing from China to Russia.

I was even more determined to get as much manufacturing out of China as I could. Mexico, The Philippines, and Russia were at the top of my list depending on the industry. Russia was winning the heavy manufacturing with Mexico second.

The Philippines was wanting light industry and electronics. Mexico was experiencing its own problems with heavy industry. Now that the cartel was on the run and the dead in the streets was nearly eliminated, they were pushing tourism. The country was rich in history and they were wanting to capitalize on that segment. The cruise ships were returning in numbers, things were definitely improving for Mexico.

Russia had plenty of heavy manufacturing factories and equipment to handle that kind of business. Getting the oil and coal to run those factories was no problem to them.

There had been giant steps in returning oil and coal production to previous levels with parts to repair equipment and new equipment being manufactured in the factories. Exports were beginning to recover.

Our meetings lasted the into the wee hours of the night and more agreements were signed. The Russian delegation left Friday morning in one of the executive planes for home, after the normal news conference.

A Russian group of aircraft mechanics were coming to evaluate the wing, make repairs and also replacing the engine.

I was leaving for the island to be with my family tonight. I wanted to hear all the pieces of the contracts again and to see my mates. I was worried about Marcy after all the hours on the plane and the long hours negotiating the new contracts.

I was packing, getting ready to leave when General Ingram came in with a handful of papers, not looking happy.

‘’There has been an incident in the East China Sea. The SSBN Nevada struck an underwater object traveling at fifteen knots at a depth of seven hundred feet. We think the object was another submarine, there are no undersea mountains at that depth in the area. There is substantial damage to the outer hull, however the pressure hull remained intact,’’ General Ingram said before continuing.

‘’Twenty submariners were injured, none life threating. The reactor is operating normally and the missile tubes are still water tight. The sub surfaced to do damage assessment and control,’’ he said.

‘’Several Navy destroyers are on the way along with the Coast Guard from Japan and the Philippines’’ he said.

‘’Were they playing cat and mouse games with another sub?’’ I asked.

Submarines playing cat and mouse with other submarines was a normal thing. Other nations tried to find ours and we theirs and sometimes they got to close to one another. Details of such contacts were classified for all kinds of reasons unless someone died, or the damage was substantial. It was viewed as normal training for a sub crew. If a major event happened, we needed to be able to sink the enemy subs before they sunk ours.

‘’What nationality was the sub?’’ I asked.

‘’China, we think – we do not know,’’ General Ingram said.

‘’No, no operations; they were on normal patrol and there were no reported contacts of any other subs or underwater objects,’’ he added.

‘’Discretely contact our allies to see if they had any submarines in the area and if they have lost contact with any,’’ I said.

‘’Has any debris been spotted or any bodies?’’ I asked.

‘’Did the Nevada report any sounds of a submarine being crushed by the pressure?’’ I asked.

‘’No, nothing yet, but search planes are just getting into the area,’’ General Ingram answered.

‘’Was there equipment failure that the other sub was not detected or has China developed a cloaking device? Those are questions the investigation needs to answer,’’ I said.

An aid knocked on the door and then handed the General a note.

‘’The ‘Nevada’ is making five knots towards Japan; escort ships will meet up in four to six hours. One of the ships is the assault landing ship ‘Wausau’, its helicopters will be in range in a couple hours and its F37s will do air cover until it meets with the Nevada. China is rushing ships to the area,’’ General Ingram said.

‘’Keep an open channel to the Nevada if you can. Keep me informed,’’ I said.

‘’If the Chinese ships attempt to interfere with the Nevada’s travel – sink them,’’ I said.

I finished packing up and walked out to Marine One that was waiting.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

The ride back to Washington in the G5 was quiet and fast. Troy and I talked about today and how things went. We were both happy but the Secret Service not so – much – they felt they had given up too much control over me; little did they know this was just the beginning of the changes I was going to make.

            Russian President Orbatch was coming tomorrow. I had people checking on the final arrangements for the meeting. We were going to destroy the last of the Jupiter short range nuclear missiles class by cutting the fuel tank in two as we had done to the medium range Russian missiles last fall.

            There was a major news conference planned, I intended for it to be a media event to rub it in the face of the UN secretariat – just had to gig him one more time.

            After that, I was holding a state dinner for him and his wife Wednesday evening. They were flying back to Russia on Thursday.

            The last of that class of missile had been carried to Aberdeen to be disassembled, the warheads made the trip first by truck to Dover Delaware Air Force Base and then by C17 to the nuclear weapons storage depot in Pyote, Texas. They were slated to be disassembled this winter and then the nuclear ball was to be sent to Waco, Texas. This was the third step of the treaty that was completed.

            The first step – The Treaty of the Arctic – was moving along nicely. Research teams from all the countries were in there testing the assigned areas for things of value. Real work could go on now as to how much of the promised minerals and wealth was there and if it was worth the cost of mining for it.

            I made phone calls and read emails while I was waiting on Marine One to arrive to carry me home for the night. Everyone had been busy for the last couple of days working and traveling. Screw the ethics rules – I was going home to be with my mates for a mini reunion and to hear about all the excitement of their travels.

            The news media was going about all the normal things with faux rage about my travels today. The reporters that had accompanied me today had been restricted on going public until after the G5 was back on the ground at Andrews and they had to share the raw report and video plus still pictures with the other media outlets before going on the air for their own networks.

Not one but none were happy with the arrangement. I was sure Harry was going to have his hands full tomorrow. They were going to have to bear the unhappiness because I was going to visit every state where I had won a majority, and where I had campaigned for the governors and legislators that stood with the things I was trying to do. The G5 was going to be the mode of transportation for all that were close.

I had told Vicky and Ching Lee that I was going to come home for the night. The Secret Service wanted Marine One to land at Morton and then a down sized convoy home. When I walked in all the family was there, Marcy and Jenny had only arrived a few minutes before me. Both looked refreshed from when I had VCATS with them earlier today. They must have slept on the flight back.

The chefs had been called and a light supper would be ready in a few minutes. We had a quiet supper – except for the kids who wanted to be kids – at the supper table. JJ and RJ were able to carry on a conversation that required that we listened to in order not to agree to some play idea that they had.

After supper we retreated to the living room and the agents disappeared, some to the gym for the exercise and others to look at the scenery. Ching Lee had said that there were more and more ‘dolls’ as she put it exercising in the late afternoon and evening slots and running into what was once the men’s exercise time.

That had become a blurred area as time went on. I wondered if the ladies were getting their kicks out of teasing or were on the prowl hunting for new cocks to play with. I was pretty sure that a few men would have little problem sliding a hard tool into a willing sweaty orifice if it was offered.

Although some of the ladies were on the young side wanting tans for spring break and eventually prom, age meant little difference any more. With horny cocks and hungry pussies, all sense went away and they would find a way to play. Vicky had said I needed to find some time to look at the secret video of the gym in the evenings to watch some of the flirting and positioning going on.

After the conversation turned from gym gossip, I asked Marcy about the trip to Africa.

‘’Black and Bear were in Cameroon and were to make a trip to Nigeria following up on the logistics for a new possible oil pipeline that was to be a joint venture between the two countries. The pipelines would have fed our second refinery that has only been running at twenty five percent production levels and be fed by several new wells,’’ Marcy said.

‘’While they were there for the meetings, Boko-haram attacked and destroyed a pipeline in each country that merged into a much larger single pipeline – a joint pipeline owned by the Congo Petroleum Company and the Republic of Gabon. They hit both pipelines within five miles of the merging point,’’ Marcy said.

‘’Boko-haram wanted five million a month for each pipe line in protection money. They killed the fire fighters and kidnapped the repair crews. They finally released the repair crews after a few days,’’ Marcy said.

‘’Gabon’s Prime Minister Turnaile Imaril and Congo President Bandile Thabo were scheduled to meet with Emir Bello the following day about other regional matters. All conversations immediately turned to pipeline security,’’ Marcy said.

‘’Black and Bear were called in and the negotiations started from there. When they finished there was a preliminary contract for five hundred miles of pipelines from the oil fields to their refinery and oil terminals at N’Dindo. They needed to complete the negotiations with senior management. That is why Jenny and I went on the rush flight,’’ Marcy said.

‘’What about their militaries? They should be able to handle Boko-haram without problem,’’ I said.

‘’Their military is small and all the elite forces are committed to UN peace keeping missions in Chad, Somalia and Sudan. The remainder are local reservists with little training and – it is feared – easily influenced by Boko-haram fighters,’’ Jenny said.

The last thing I wanted was to expand the remaining soldier of fortune part of B&B. But my impression of this contract looked like this could easily go in that direction. I said nothing but would talk with Andy for his thoughts.

‘’We have a good contract that covers all the pipeline and the production wells, all the way to the refineries and terminals. They ship out refined product and some crude in excess of their refinery capacity,’’ Marcy said.

‘’We wrote all the normal exclusions and protections for our men into the agreement,” Jenny said.

“We have a six month prepayment. Andy is pulling the on-call B&B men in tomorrow. There is an airport that will handle the C5s and has plenty of fuel to get all the logistics in place. Several of the 802s from Mexico are having the wings removed and crated for the trip to Gabon in a C5 tomorrow. The flight will be finished out with new right of way clearing equipment,’’ Marcy said.

‘’Some of the right of way clearing equipment is going to be temporally moved from Cameroon to Gabon in the next few days while new is located and shipped. The drones will be there in the next few days. I rented several large hangers to keep equipment and men in as things are put in place,’’ Marcy said.

‘’It is a good contract with good profit and working room,’’ Jenny said. It was a statement that I would have expected to come from Marcy.

I was satisfied for now and told Marcy and Jenny how worried I was about them in that part of the world and glad they had taken all the extra security.

‘’There are possible changes coming to Morton Field. UPS wants to move their Baltimore air freight operation to Morton. BWI has repeatedly raised landing fees and fuel charges to the point it is driving non-passenger operations away,’’ Lorrie said. ‘’Plus, they are delaying commercial landings in holding patterns to accommodate the passenger planes,” Lorrie added.

‘’They want a big hanger for the larger sorting needs. It must be big enough and high enough to be able to handle the air freighters they are using. Some of them, the nose opens and others are side access. They want it covered for all weather operation,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’I do not want us to sell any land for that so it will have to be a lease. Are they wanting us to build the hangar and lease it to them or they wanting to own the hangar?” I asked.

‘’We build it and lease it back, long term lease with a penalty for early exit provision. They are getting the plans they want drawn up. Our landing fees are a lot cheaper than BWI and currently our fuel is a dollar a gallon cheaper, and that was after we added a nice margin to it,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’The plan we are looking at will extend the taxiway out into the field past the ILS system on the heated runway beside the C5 tarmac and then a left to the new UPS sorting hangar and its tarmac,’’ Lorrie said.

‘’All we can do is look at their final plans and see how it fits in ours,’’ I said.

It was time for the hot tub and then fun and games in the bedroom. I needed to be back in Washington by 0700. I was eating breakfast at 0600 and Marine One was sitting on the pad behind the gym waiting for me at 0630.

I stepped out of Marine One at 0655 and my office was already humming. Today’s CIA and NSA updates were on my desk. There was another new item on my desk – a mug warmer. It would keep my coffee hot when the mug was sitting on it. I did learn there were several mugs that came with it so there could always be a fresh hot mug of coffee for me.

I read all the updates before Frank and Ben came in for the oral part of the updates. General Ingram came in as they were finishing up. The General had all the necessary parts for the President Orbatch visit; everything was set up at Aberdeen. The Secret Service had the route already planned as well as the decoy convoy.

General Ingram had more pictures and updates on Hawaii. Fifty percent of the nuclear weapons were aboard carriers, the rest would be by the weekend. The armored aircraft hangers – both air force and navy – had been entered and all the aircraft in them were undamaged. There were four of the latest fighter jets in each, fifty-seven billion dollars worth.

We decided to have the Navy construction unit open one runway so they could be flown out. The rains and winds would keep blowing the ash and covering the runway if we tried to keep them open long term.

The next topic involved the Secretary of Defense. Things were moving on the agreement with the Philippines, construction was beginning on the replacement buildings for the Navy and Air Force. There were fifty Navy ships in Subic Bay or anchored in the nearby waters – three of them were carrier task forces. The Air Force had one hundred planes and bombers at our former bases. China was not happy.

‘’I want all the exhibits from all the service museums at Pearl Harbor and Hickman Field brought back to Washington. I want an immediate assessment of the condition of the Arizona and the possibility of removing all artifacts from the ship and it makes no difference if it has collapsed or not,’’ I said to General Ingram and the Navy chief who had responded to Troy’s call.

‘’You will have it in writing tomorrow,’’ I said.

I went to meet Orbatch at Andrews. His plane was five miles out when it developed engine problems with the number one engine. The next ten minutes were full of concern!

Edit by Alfmiester

Proof read by Bob W.

After the looks of surprise, ’’Hello Boss, we never expected to see you here,’’ Jerry Collins said.

            I remembered Jerry from the hiring – training sessions; he spent a lot of time picking himself up off the mats in the early stages. I refilled my mug as did others.

            ‘’I have to make surprise visits now, you never know where or when I will turn up,’’ I said.

            ‘’Meeting still going on?’’ I added.

            ‘’Yeah, everything is running a little late, food is not going to be ready until 1215’’ Jerry said.

            ‘’Things have changed a lot since I was here last. Which meeting room are they in? I will go sit in,’’ I said.

            ‘’Meeting room 2, it’s the big one, ‘’ Jerry said.

            I knocked on the door and went in with several Secret Service agents.

            ‘’Mayor Dorsey – good to see you again! Captain Peters, Captain Hamilton, Chief Johnston – good to see all of you again,’’ I said.

            ‘’How did you get away from Washington?” Mayor Dorsey asked.

            ‘’You know I have learned as a politician never to miss free meals, sometimes I have to sneak away to do it,’’ I answered.

            ‘’Besides, I wanted to have a generic conversation with you about how the changes with government rules were affecting Rochester,’’ I said.

            ‘’I also wanted to find out from Chief Johnston how cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies could be improved. I have plenty of questions for all of you after we eat if you have time,’’ I said.

            ‘’Vicky, how are you doing after the flight?’’ I asked.

            ‘’We got into some turbulence on the way, that was a little rough,’’ Vicky answered.

            ‘’We had a great morning session and finished everything, we were going to leave after lunch,’’ Ching Lee said.

            ‘’I talked with Marcy and Jenny – they should be finished up and back tonight. They say they have negotiated a good contract,’’ I said.

            ‘’We have a meeting with all the parties tomorrow for the final planning session on the first three of the companies Marcy was looking at, so I hope they get back before it gets too late. Things are moving fast and the stock holder’s meetings for those three are in thirty days,’’ Vicky said.

            ‘’Kelly, how are you doing? I haven’t been able to talk with you very much lately.”

            ‘’Doing good overall. Things are a little tense at home – the wife’s parents have moved in with us – their health is failing. She wanted them close by to watch over them. Just a matter of getting used to the minor issues,’’ Kelly said.

            ‘’Is she still working for us or has she quit to stay home?’’ I said.

            ‘’Working right now to give time to sort things out; then we will evaluate if she needs to be home with them all the time,” Kelly answered.

            ‘’Don’t forget about the family leave policy; you can request that, she can qualify to take one day at a time as needed,’’ I said.

            ‘’OK, I hadn’t thought about that,’’ Kelly replied.

            ‘’You both can use it, that would give you one hundred and twenty days that one of you could be there during the day if needed, more than what you would need if one of you worked split shifts,’’ I said.

            ‘’BJ, are you expecting a guest?’’ came over the intercom.

            I walked to the lobby, ‘’Hello Abdul Wakil, it’s good to see you again,’’ I said in Arabic.

            ‘’Lunch is not ready yet, but soon. After we finish eating, I have some questions I need to ask you if you can stay around,’’ I said.

            ‘’Yes, I can stay,’’ Abdul said.

            ‘’Lunch is ready to be served in about five minutes,’’ the caterer announced.

            ‘’That was perfect timing,’’ I said.

            It was elegant self-serve as all these kinds of meals were. I was in line behind Vicky and Ching Lee, Troy was behind me. There was a line on both sides of the food table.

            The line at the food was nearly through and the tables were nearly filled when the duty man asked if we were expecting more visitors. A Secret Service agent was with the duty man and another went out to check out the visitors.

            The Secret Service agent came to me and said, ’’Governor Stallworth, Lt. Governor Snodgrass and six staff are here, plus half a dozen state police for bodyguards,’’ Agent Tull said.

            I stood and counted the empty seats, there were enough for the governor and his staff but not for the state police.

            ‘’The governor and his staff can come in and get food and sit in here. The state police will have to wait until people leave, then eat,’’ I said knowing that Stallworth would be pissed. But it is what it is.

            Thirty minutes later Ching Lee, Vicky, Troy, Connie and agents Todd, Carter, Tull, Abdul and I were finished.

            I asked Abdul, Connie, Troy and agents Carter and Tull to follow me to the smaller meeting room. I stopped by the governor, shook his hand and told him I had a short meeting and then I would be back.

            ‘’Abdul, have you contacted your family in Iran since the war ended? By now most of the phone systems have been repaired over there,’’ I said.

            I had the answers to all the questions I was going to ask. Between Robert’s group, the CIA and the NSA, the surveillance of the Rochester group was being closely watched and all communications monitored and recorded.

With all the arrests of the radical members by the task force and other federal agencies, the group had become model citizens. By the agency and Robert’s groups, all indications were good.

            ‘’Yes, we have talked several times,’’ he said.

            ‘’Did you lose any family members?’’ I asked.

            ‘’One brother and several cousins, Father, Mother and the rest of the family lived in a village away from all the military installations. Why do you ask?’’ he said.

            ‘’I have a special project I would like you to help me with. Repairs to several airports are nearly complete and limited international service will soon be restored. I have access to other flights as you well know,” I said.

            ‘’The international hotels are soon reopening; some are already open. The public transportation systems have been operating since the end of the war,’’ I said.

            ‘’I would like you and your family members to take a trip to Iran to see how the reconstruction is going. I also want to be sure that all the aid, food supplies and transportation services are reaching all the people and not a selected few,’’ I said.

            ‘’I want you to take plenty of pictures to document what you see, then when you come back I would want a report from you,’’ I said.

            ‘’At my level lots of things get sugar coated so all the right people look good. I want a true and accurate report by someone that is not worried about their job or salary,’’ I said.

            ‘’You don’t have to let me know right now, think about it for a day or two. Just tell Kelly and he can get your answer to me. If you decide to go, it will only take a couple weeks to get everything in order,’’ I said.

            We talked a few more minutes about general things before Abdul left, I needed to talk to the other people and time was moving on.

            ‘’Mayor Dorsey, Captain Peters, Captain Hamilton, Chief Johnston – you’re next. Governor Snodgrass, you can call your security unit in so they can get something to eat,” I said.

            In the meeting room I started with the questions I wanted answers to. ‘’Mayor, how have the interactions been between the city and the Dept of Health and Human Services been going, with all the changes that have been coming into play?’ I asked.

            ‘’Streamlining the applications helped with that part, but there were reductions in funding in some spots. At the end we found out that record-keeping simply wasn’t up to par and that was what cost us the funding,’’ he said.

            ‘’Next year we should do better,’’ he said.

            ‘’You didn’t say anything about the changes in the transportation grants. I know you got increases there. Every state and their major jurisdictions did,’’ I said.

‘’Stopping the EPA from using the transportation fund as a cash cow to fund the EPA portion for things they wanted done on road, bridge, airport and infrastructure construction instead of their own budget has made a difference,’’ I said.

The EPA was using its power of project rejection to get its way. Having to build ten miles of green walking trails somewhere else to get approval to resurface a road was extortion.

‘’Another difference was locking down the highway trust fund for highway projects only. Even though the orders were sent out two years ago, it took threats of project rejection and audits to make that happen. There were still states using green accounting for cover to slip things in,’’ I said.

I knew that the governor was listening – the state of New York was one of the worst according to the Secretary of Transportation.

We had a good talk about a lot of subjects with the Mayor and the Rochester police department about interaction between the departments and federal agencies. The day was moving on as the governor was called in to meet. Connie was taking pages of notes.

‘’I was expecting to see senior staff here by the invitation but not the President herself. I am a little disturbed by the short nondescript notice,” Governor Stallworth said.

‘’Since things have settled down, the agency has given me a little more freedom to move around as long as it is not published or broadcast, and the destinations are close. This was the first test of the new agreement,’’ I said.

‘’I like it, I can make visits to a lot of places on short notice, without caravans, convoys, road closures, no fly zones and the like. The media is not going to like it – even those with us – because they cannot broadcast any information until I’m back in Washington,’’ I said.

‘’I know there have been several disagreements with my administration and agencies in the past and I am sure there will be going forward,’’ I said. ‘’What would you like to talk about while you have some one-on-one time with me?’’ I said.

‘’The border with Canada is still under the enhanced security protocol that was put in place at the start of the Iran war. My administration believes it is time to return to the pre-war security levels,’’ Governor Stallworth said then he added “The Mexico security zone should be ended as well.’’

‘’Department of Homeland Security and Department of Immigration are still picking up several terrorists on the watch list trying to gain access to our country from Canada on a regular basis. Until those numbers stop, I see no changes coming to the security stance,” I said.

‘’As for the southern border, Mexico is so satisfied with the northern border security zone agreement that they are in discussions with JBG about the same arrangement on their border with Guatemala,’’ I said.

 ‘’Mexico and JBG are still arresting hundreds of cartel terrorists and they are going before real judges, not cartel-controlled judges and police,’’ I said.

‘’In the last ninety days, there has been only four bodies found that were cartel related. Arrest of the murders was made within hours. The people are no longer afraid to point out the cartel members. They know they will be arrested and stay in jail,’’ I said.

‘‘We need more federal funding for programs, our coffers are running low,’’ the Governor said.

‘’Most people when they start running out of money tighten the purse strings, your response was to spend even more for programs you could have done without. A hiring freeze and a contractor freeze should have been put in place, the pay raise for state workers should have been downsized or even postponed at least temporally,’’ I said.

‘’We are doing those things in the federal government; announcements will be made tomorrow. The Hawaii Island thing is going to put a serious strain on the budget, not just this year but for several years.’’ I said.

‘’We have over a million people to furnish temporary housing and jobs and the list goes on and on. Many have health issues and none of the doctors can give any realistic answer on how soon or if they will recover fully,’’ I said.

‘’To put it bluntly, short of a national emergency, I wouldn’t expect any additional funds coming from the federal government,’’ I said.

‘’You could always raise taxes, a little here and a little there at the federal level would equal big bucks to help deserving states,’’ Governor Stallworth said.

‘’All the states would feel they are deserving. I am strictly opposed to raising taxes that benefit a few,’’ I said.

‘’I do know that in total New York State is scheduled to receive more federal aid this year than last,’’ I said.

After the money conversation ended, we talked about more streamlining and better response between state and federal agencies. A big discussion was over the continued sanctuary status of New York and refusal to work with Department of Immigration over illegals and those that were criminals.

What I knew that he didn’t know was there was going to be legislation introduced in both houses that would reduce funding for those states that chose to be sanctuary states for whatever cause.

I was going to support the legislation. It didn’t make sense to me that crimes in one state was a free walk in another, I further believed that in all fifty states criminal laws should be uniform.

Troy handed me a note, ‘’We need to head back, you have paper to look at on your desk and calls to make.’’ It was my code to end today’s meetings.

‘’I need to go back to Washington, duty calls, I am hoping to make a lot more trips like this and hope to get back here and meet with you soon,’’ I said as my aids started packing.

A goodbye hug and kiss with Vicky and Ching Lee,’’ I will see you tonight,’’ and we were headed back to Washington.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

            I had a restless night and was eating breakfast at 0600. At 0700 I received a text from Marcy that negotiations were going well, and they would do a VCATS from there at 1600 their time (that was 0900 Eastern).

            At 0800 I was in the Section Two meeting with the national security team. North Korea was saber rattling again – that was almost an everyday occurrence. It seems like every day there was a missile launch or artillery barrage near the border or over the border with South Korea.

            Putting the NSA and CIA rep on the spot I asked, ’’What have you learned from all the missile launches? You should be collecting data from everyone and the communications from the missile to the ground controllers. You should have plenty of information by now, you should be able to break down the coding by now.’’

            ‘’We are working on it, but they are changing the codes frequently,’’ Frank replied.

            ‘’Do you think they are testing missiles from other countries is the reason for the different codes?’’ I asked.

            ‘’That’s a possibility, there have been suspicions that Afghanistan was looking for a missile supplier since Iran is out of the picture. We know China is back in the arms business; they have replaced the arms dealer you killed in South Africa several months ago,’’ Frank said.

            ‘’Since it has become an everyday occurrence, move a couple of spy ships with escorts to the area and develop some real time information. That would make motormouth shift gears and hopefully get sloppy with their communications, ‘’ I said.

            ‘’Another thing would be to sea launch an anti-missile missile at one of theirs after it passes over head, just to see how close we can follow it before hitting the destruct button. That or as soon as they test launch theirs, giving us a free target to train with. That should unnerve the little gremlins,’’ I said.

            ‘’Just make sure the escorts are well armed and well equipped,’’ I added.

            ‘’That would just give the Chinese pieces of our missiles to analyze,’’ Ben said.

            ‘’Be ahead of their game – they are always trying to get to ours first, we just have to beat them to picking up the pieces, including picking up the pieces of the N Korean rocket. That’s what they are really after,’’ I said.

            ‘’That begs to wonder why the Chinese are so aggressive to recover the North Korean missile parts? Are they supplying the components and don’t want anyone else to find out or are they interested to see what the NK has developed?’’ I asked.

            The Chinese had been trying to interfere for years in our operations in the South China Sea, from ship movements, ocean mapping or recovering our spent missile test components.

            ‘’They would not be doing testing for the Chinese – they have desolate areas to test them on their own,’’ Frank said.

‘’There are four squadrons of JBG fast boats available. Place them in the suspected track with a tender, so they can stay on station for a couple of weeks and have them patrol the area. They will be able to quickly pick up the pieces,’’ I said.

Marcy had continued the fast boat purchase contracts even after JBG had met the contract numbers for the OPEC group. Thirty had been damaged during the Iranian war and needed repair; some were extensive repairs so spare boats made sense.

Then there were the other contracts that we had to utilize the fast boats. There were thirty assigned to Mexican waters; most were in the Gulf to protect the oil well support groups.

There were thirty more supplying security as part of the Nigerian and Cameroon oil field security package. They patrolled off shore loading platforms and the harbors. Logistics to support all that was another challenge that required another group of people. Those logistics also required extra crews for vacations and training exchanges.

Marcy had a lot of spare parts for planes, trucks, boats and everything else we owned; parts books came with everything – either in paper of or computer programs – or she wouldn’t accept the equipment. Every piece required a build list of every part used to make it to go in its equipment file. It only took getting burned on a specialized piece of equipment for Marcy to implement that requirement.

‘’We know they are trying to intimidate Japan. We know the approximate range they are getting. You said that they were getting consistent with all that. The fast boats can run down the pieces before the Chinese can get to them,’’ I said.

            ‘’Andy said you like playing with fire, aren’t you afraid it might grow to be a big bonfire? That might make North Korea and China both a little peeved,’’ Frank said.

            ‘’I think it may be more like pouring cold water on the issue. Every time they push the limit and don’t get challenged; they get braver. It’s time for some challenges to happen and maybe rough them up a little,’’ I said.

            I was in the private Presidential den in my living area looking at the new MTAC screen that the maintenance group had installed this morning while I was in meetings. I was waiting for Marcy’s page. I didn’t have to wait long, it came a few minutes later.

            My first question was ‘’How are you doing with the long flight and long hours?’’

            ‘’Doing really good! Better than I thought I would,’’ Marcy answered.

            ‘’We have a good long-term contract; we only have a few more small items to work through. They needed to get some more information for us to put things onto paper,’’ Marcy said with Jenny agreeing.

            ‘’I’m going to send three hundred of the call-up men from Fort Dean. They have been home from Mexico for over a month, they should have their beer drinking and sex life caught up by now and be ready to go back to work,’’ Andy said.

            ‘’I’m also sending two AT802s and two Blackhawks for air cover for now, and possibly a couple of the drones,’’ Andy said.

            ‘’Marcy has agreed to buy four more Blackhawks from the surplus system and the aviation shop has the four they were rebuilding nearly complete. We are good on choppers for a while,’’ Andy added.

            ‘’We have decided to buy new Raptors and new skid steers with front mounted bush hog mulchers for the right of way clearing. They want a really wide and clean right of way along the pipelines,’’ Marcy said and added, ‘’They are to supply fuel.’’

            ‘’I will order all the equipment after they sign. Andy will have the logistics and people on the way tomorrow. We will put everything together on the flight back,’’ Marcy said.

            ‘’OK, call me when you get to Morton,’’ I said.

            ‘’OK, we will,’’ Jenny said.

            After months of intense and very heated conversations with the Secret Service, I had won another little battle with them. I had argued repeatedly that all the travel issues with me going back and forth to Summers Lane was unnecessary.

            ‘’The bounties are gone and the days of Iranian sponsored terrorist are over, the Russians were friendly again – at least for a while – and the security zone was keeping all the riffraff out of the country. And, all the incoming air travelers are subjected to close scrutiny, including facial recognition, cross checked with Interpol,’’ I had said.

            The travel issues initially had been immense; they weren’t satisfied with one fifty car convoy with air cover. There had to be another one for a decoy. They closed down lanes on all the bridges – even in rush hour – causing massive backups.

            After pulling rank on them, they finally decided using Marine One from the White House lawn to Morton or behind the office was adequate for security.

            The next thing was trips in Air Force One; there were two of them, exactly the same. One I flew on with fighter support and one was a decoy complete with fighter support. If I landed at an airport a no-fly zone was applied to the airport, grounding all aircraft operations and creating massive problems for travelers.

            The logistics were crazy for my official travels; if I scheduled a flight to Texas for an event it took seven C17 flights to carry the necessary logistics. The beast had to go plus one of the spare beasts. The rest were Suburbans for the Secret Service, DHS, FBI and CIA. An ambulance and medical equipment were pre-staged at every place I landed. The White House doc and a staff traveled with me on Air Force One.

            I finally won another concession from the service. For unannounced – unpublished travels within five hundred air miles from DC that didn’t have mass public speaking events – I could travel in a G5, actually two of them would make the trip. One would carry me, Troy and the football, finished out with Secret Service and JBG. The other would carry a few of my staff, one reporter and a cameraperson. In other words, I could make a few low-key trips without the mass mess. I was going to test the arrangement today.

            After my video meeting with Marcy, I told the Secret Service travel coordinator that I wanted to go to Rochester and be there 1130 at the latest. There was a quick discussion with the powers-that-be of the Secret Service but the two G5s that were at Andrews were ordered to be ready to fly in thirty minutes.

            I sent a text to Ching Lee, ‘’Call the caterer for today’s meal and to add additional food for thirty people; you may have unexpected guest or plenty of leftovers for the night shift. Send both college armored Suburbans to the airport at 1100.”

            All JBG colleges now had the upgrades that were demonstrated at KCC and the security departments expanded. Rochester – being so large – the security department had been nicely expanded.

They had a large meeting room, now that the administration found a reason to use it often, but then the best coffee on campus was there – or so they said. That meeting room was big enough to hold all the extra people coming today. The lunch room was equally as large.

            I logged into Maar’s website and ordered four more cars for the additional people to use when we arrived.

            Then I had a thought while my staff that was accompanying us got their things together.

            ‘’Invite Abdul Wakil to the luncheon,’’ I sent to Ching Lee said, ‘’I have some questions for him if I can steer the conversation in that direction.’’

            I explained to Troy that the mayor, the police chief and college officials would be there.

            ‘’You’d better invite Governor Stallworth, I know he is still angry about you ordering his National Guard to the war zone and digs you every time in the media he can. If you don’t invite him, he will go on a tirade and it is normal procedure, ’’ Troy said.

            ‘’I don’t really want to listen to his sarcastic attitude and how his state deserves trillions in federal aid,’’ I said.

            ‘’I will non-descript his invite after we get airborne, that way time for him to arrive will be short, ‘’ Troy said.

            ‘’OK,’’ I replied.

            Five minutes later we were headed to Andrews.

            Not long after taking off Troy sent the message to the governor.

            ‘’To the Honorable Governor Stallworth.

            “You are invited to a luncheon followed up by a meet and greet with question-and-answer session with the Executive White House staff at 1200. The meal and sessions will be held in the security meeting rooms at Rochester State College. Other local leaders will be there,’’ he signed it as, “The advisor to the Executive staff.‘’

            I laughed when I read it – it was about as non-descript as one could get. The plane with the media person left Andrews first so they could be on the ground, they were instructed to not take fill pictures of the planes while showing the N numbers.         

            We were in the landing pattern at 1055 and departing the plane at 1110. There were surprised people at several places – the MAAR site when I signed the cars out and chatted a couple minutes and the drivers of the two college Suburbans.

            It was 1145 when we walked into the college security office bringing things to a halt.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Book 3 Chapter 35

            There were startled faces all around the table as I stood and walked out into the hall. I leaned against wall waiting for the complete conversation.

            I listened while Vicky explained that Marcy, Jenny, Andy and the Special Ops team – including the Mossad ladies for added security – had left for Africa on the 737. They were going to the Congo and then to Gabon.

            ‘’Black and Bear have been working with the leaders of those two countries on logistics for pipeline security, it was a rush contract request. They contacted us a couple months ago. The talks weren’t productive at the time. We thought it was a dead end and a waste of time at the time. They don’t produce a terrible amount of crude by OPEC standards, but have steady production that the majors count on,’’ Vicky said.

            ‘’Three weeks ago, Boko Haram blew up one of their pipelines in each country and then killed the fire fighters and repair crews. Now they want millions a month for insurance to guarantee safety for the pipelines and crews,’’ Vicky said.

            ‘’Apparently, they contacted Emir Bello of Nigeria about pipeline safety knowing Nigeria had problems in the past; they also contacted President Garcia of Mexico,’’ Vicky said.

‘’They are wanting the complete package after the attacks. Forestry, right of way clearing, security for the pipelines. They understand about the possibility of collateral damage and the need for legal exclusions, judicial exemptions and aviation authorization,’’ Vicky said.

            ‘’I don’t like it that Marcy went this late in her pregnancy, even though you two have had all the shots. As you girls like to say, we pay people to do these kinds of things,’’ I said.

            ‘’They wanted to talk directly – face to face – with the executives, plus Jenny and Marcy needed to be there to finalize quickly changing costs and contract language. Both Andy and Paul Drake went for logistics and the security end,’’ Vicky said.

            ‘’Call the embassy teams in both countries to make sure they supply transportation and secure hotels if they have to stay overnight,’’ I said. As an afterthought, ‘’Have the embassy teams supply extra security,’’ I added.

            ‘’So, it is just Lorrie, Ching Lee and you running the show for a couple days then?’’ I asked.

            ‘’Ching Lee and me, along with a couple of her VPs are going to Rochester tomorrow for updates and review with Mayor Dorsey, Police Chief Johnston and Captain Peters on the College police force. We should be back by 1700,’’ Vicky said.

            ‘’Where is the meeting taking place and what time? If I am free, I will do a VCATS call to say hello,’’ I said.

            ‘’We are to be there at 0900 its to be held at the college security meeting room. Ching Lee ordered a big fancy catered meal for everyone to be delivered at 1200. There is a VCATS screen in that room with a new fancy broadcasting camera,’’ Vicky said then added,’’ There is to be an afternoon session for follow up and to tie up loose ends.’’

            ‘’OK, keep me informed please,’’ I said.

            I walked to the Oval Office and logged into the State Department alert system and looked at all the active alerts for Africa. I felt a little better after reading them. There were the alerts about the pipeline sabotage that took place three weeks ago. But there was nothing that was flagged as urgent in the last ten days.

            Then I went to the CIA broadcast alerts, again there was nothing; it seemed out of the way in the area.

            Just as I was closing them out, General Ingram asked if there was anything he could help with.

            I explained the trip the group was making and my feelings that I was not too keen on it.

            ‘’I think we have a carrier task force making port call visits in the area. Let me check on it and move it closer to the area,’’ General Ingram said.

            ‘’That could lead to trouble if a few in Congress found about it. Just let it go, they will be alright; they should have enough security. It’s that family thing, I am overly protective of them, ‘’ I said.

            One thing was for sure. Tomorrow the communications group was going to widescreen TV in my living quarters with a camera so I could attend the nightly planning sessions with the girls. I would end my day an hour earlier so I could sit in. Then I would go back to the Oval Office if I needed to, if not I would go to the gym. To hell with the ethics rules.

            I sent the request to the White House building engineer and instructions that I wanted to see him immediately. I was going to have the screen put in the Presidential den in the private end of the White House.

            Troy came into my office with a handful of papers, they were from the Justice Department. The DOJ was representing the administration in the suits to gain access to Hawaii. The first hearings were this morning. The court ruled against the groups trying to get access to Hawaii.

            The UN had scheduled a full chamber debate at the request of its scientific and environmental section, they were trying to apply pressure to gain access, even to the point of petitioning the world court.

            I was expecting reports from the Navy later today, the fleet should arrive back there some time this afternoon. The reports should cover a second look at all the military bases and the effects of the storm on them.

            I looked at all the pictures again that the spy plane had taken yesterday. I didn’t like a lot of things they showed. For one thing – at Hickman field and other air bases – they were now leveled where before the storm just sections were collapsed.

            That meant that any aircraft in them was now destroyed for sure, as well as parts and equipment.

            There were fifty or so armored and blast resistant hangars that so far, I had received no information on their condition or of the aircraft in them. I wondered if the earthquakes had caused them enough damage that access into them was not possible.

            Another issue was that with no power and no fuel to run the generators, could they even be opened manually after the ash was moved out of the way? I was reasonably sure that the doors weighed hundreds of tons in order to be blast resistant. All this resulted in more written questions to ask in the 0800 staff meeting tomorrow.

            I decided not to put any more thoughts into this until the reports from the Navy were in. I suspected it would be here tomorrow. I headed to my next meeting and it was about the Hawaiian survivors.

            It was a short meeting. Ten thousand of those that bad breathing problems had been released from the hospitals in the last couple of days. There were a lot more to go.

            The Navy report came over MTAC from the command carrier station keeping just a mile off Oahu. Troy and I with General Ingram listened to the to the report. It was being recorded so Kitty could put it into paper tomorrow.

            General Mitchell and General Emory, along with their staff, looking at the pictures taken today made a bleak assessment of both Oahu and the big island Hawaii. The underground living bunkers had water damage, a few with marginal flooding.

            The nuclear weapons storage was still dry – it should have been because it was designed for the worst. The nuclear weapons stored there would begin transferring to the carriers in a couple days after clearing some roads and other changes.

            In more bad news, Pearl Harbor had lost ten feet of depth or more in places to ash. Before any major ships could dock, it would have to be dredged. The rain in some places had washed ash into the harbor. The ash everywhere else in the blistering sun was turning into concrete.

            I asked that they do a physical assessment of all the airfields tomorrow and follow up with me. I also asked when they thought the bases could be restored and how long it would take.

            I asked about the condition of the Arizona and the memorial.

            ‘’I will have divers check it out tomorrow, but we think both have collapsed,’’ was the response.

            What to do with the Arizona had been under debate since Dec 7, 1941. After much debate it was decided to make it a Memorial to those that had died. As the years went by the internals of the ship were left untouched. Remote cameras were sent in at times to check on the condition of the ship.

Those cameras also revealed that there were thousands of artifacts which were still salvageable, but the condition of the ship was deteriorating. Since it was considered a war grave, law forbade anyone to enter and remove anything.

In my mind, if archaeologists and the world had no problem with them digging up ancient Egyptians and any other people, we could recover the remains of the men and the artifacts could be recovered to be placed in a nearby museum for eternity. If the ship had collapsed, all was lost forever and everyone knew sooner or later it would collapse. Even the Titanic was now just a flat pile of rusting steel. It was one more debate I would start immediately.

After the report, the general consensus was no one would be going back to the Hawaiian Island chain to live for decades if ever. I just didn’t see spending hundreds of billions of dollars that would be needed to dump the ash in the sea, when the volcanoes there had been erupting almost continually for decades.

            I left the meeting after telling the experts to start work on a policy directive for the prudent agencies to move public opinion and awareness in that direction. In other words, begin the government’s normal unofficial propaganda campaign by starting various news leaks.

Along with that, a memo would be sent out to all the temporary camps that held the victims informing them that return was not looking probable for decades – if ever – and the need to begin thinking about finding permanent housing and jobs.

I went to the gym and worked out until my Secret Service agents were exhausted and forced me to quit.

After a light supper, I did a long video call with Vicky and Ching Lee. Marcy, Jenny nor Andy had called back to the office. I was tempted to take Marine One and land at Morton, but the wind was blowing a gale and the Secret Service wouldn’t allow it.

            I read reports until 2200 then turned out the lights and went to sleep.

            Edit by Alfmeister

            Proof read by Bob W.