Bjjonesmylife. Book 2

This meeting with Frank and Eric was from our agreement to keep closer communication on security issues. I was surprised to see that the wimpy triplets were not at the table. I wondered if Frank was still hammering them about the Mason jar. I couldn’t imagine anyone that timid being placed in a high level security position.

Usually those positions required a poker face, nerves of steel and a big pair of brass balls with extra gruff to go with it.

We talked about the expanded agency contract with the new budget. Frank wanted to know if we were going to be up to the challenge and be able to handle it, especially with the contracts with UPS.

“Then you don’t know about the FEDLX and NEDHL overnight contracts and the daily freight flights to Scranton Pa,” I replied.

“No, when does that start,” Frank asked.

“End of June, but don’t worry – we have extra planes and pilots coming on board to handle all of it,” I replied.

“That is the only good thing about the continuous down sizing of the military; there are plenty of experienced well trained pilots out there looking for jobs.” Then I added, “So many that the airline industry cannot absorb them and with the move to larger planes, they are actually cutting the number of pilots they need.”

“While we are talking about aircraft, do you have any leads on where I can get a dozen more Blackhawks?” I asked.

“What do you need those for?” Franks asked.

“So you did not hear about the expansion of the embassy contract? You guys are slipping,” I replied.

“No, what is that about?” Eric replied.

I explained the new contract and its expansion.

“Since we are talking about embassy things, what do you make out of this intel?” I asked as I gave them each a copy of Robert’s on going intelligence report at Kampala. At the same time I sent an email to Amy and Victor containing a file of the same information.

I reread the files as they were reading them for the first time, just to see if I had missed something. The file was the same as all the files I received from Robert; the original wording then the translation highlighted so it was easy for me to find.

The copies of the file that I had handed Frank and Eric to read and had sent to Amy and Victor Robert had applied the normal government secrecy thing to.

All the computer information, IP addresses and anything not directed to the conversation he had redacted. It was all I could do not to chuckle out loud. They were looking at a dose of their own medicine with how they shared information with me. My copy had all the information without the black-out ink.

“Damn, what the fuck; not again,” Frank said.

“I haven’t seen any Intel like this; where did you get this?” Frank asked.

“When I found out that JBG was going to be asked to expand, I had my Intel group expand their scope of surveillance,” I replied, “This is one thing we found right off the bat.”

Eric had been on the phone while Frank and I were in conversation.

“NSA is on the way over; they should have been here an hour ago for this meeting. Now I know why BJ calls them the wimpy triplets – they got lost on a detour in downtown Annapolis. Trust them with national security and they get lost in oldest city in the state ten miles from their home office; no wonder I don’t sleep good at night,” Eric said.

“According to their office, just the normal traffic is all they have been picking up on the central East African coast. North eastern Kenya on the Somalia border is getting really hot again. Lot of camel traffic and the like with radio transmissions; believe that and I have a bridge to sell,” Eric said.

I called Lorrie, “Check in the restaurant for an empty Mason jar. If they have one, send it over to the agency hangar right away.”

We talked in depth about the intelligence while we waited on the wimpy triplets. Kirstin brought the jar over along with the pictures I had taken of the drone with the bomb loaded on it this morning.

We were examining the pictures when the wimpy triplets walked in. I flipped them over and put them in my portable office as they walked by to take seats.

I reached for the Mason jar and put my combat knife beside it, “You know there are severe penalties for being late to my meetings,” as I unscrewed the top.

“BJ, I think you should let them slide since this is the first time; don’t you agree Frank?” Eric said.

“BJ, is it true they taste like chicken if you dip them in batter and seasoning and deep fry them?” Frank asked.

“If no one told you what you were eating, you can’t tell the difference,” I replied.

Frank and Eric were trying their best not to laugh; the triplets saw no humor in the conversation.

It was then that Victor paged the agency VCATS to join the conversation. I slid the triplets a copy of the Intel to be able to join in if they were speed readers.

There was a lengthy conversation; Victor’s bosses wanted to close the Kampala embassy for a few weeks to eliminate the threat.

“How does that eliminate threat? Looks to me like that is just a postponement. Is that how you are going to respond to every threat now, is to cut and run?” I asked.

I did not even let him answer, “You know of course that as soon as they conclude you are gone they will storm the embassy for propaganda and bragging rights. That will only make them braver and help recruiting; Hey look the Americans ran from us. Such actions will only elevate the risk factor at every embassy in Africa and the Middle East.”

“Yes I know, but I have to convince higher ups of that and come up with a plan. I am going to have that meeting in a few hours. Can you NSA guys add anything to BJ’s Intel?” he asked.

“No, we have not seen an increase in traffic in that area; if BJ would let us have the sources of her Intel and access to her systems and people, we could double check and verify. Otherwise we really can’t place a lot of value in the information,” Smith replied.

“You cannot protect your systems, they are hacked every day by the Russians, Chinese, Iranians and North Korea. You want access to mine; that inevitably will give THEM access to mine. Dream on,” I replied.

“Well, if NSA does not have anything to err on the side of security I will go with BJ’s, her group has been good so far. You are just going to have to put an all agency effort to either verify or nullify the information, and do it fast,” Victor said then he added. “I will email you after my meeting.”

That ended my portion of the meeting and I was asked to leave while the NSA, DHS and the agency discussed classified topics.

“If you are you going to be in your office at Summers Lane, Eric and I will stop by on our way back to Washington,” Frank stated.

“I’ll be there,” I replied as I packed my portable office to leave.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Friday morning was going to be a busy morning. Lorrie and I had a meeting over in the agency hangar with Frank and Eric.

Howie arrived at the restaurant while I was sitting with Kevin and Cory Richfield. Cory had enough material on hand to make one frame and one device. The material would be in this morning to make the rest.

Cory had test assembled both pieces at his shop and now wanted us to do the same. He wanted to fly the drone with it on and at it full weight. All the disassembled components were loaded into his van, including the drone.

The three of us carried the boxes into the aircraft shop where the UPS shipping scale was. First thing was weighing and then bolting the device carrier with its extended stands for the clearance needed from the ground and composite propellers.

When all the components for the device came out of the box, Howie knew what we were building. Cory explained all the machining and why he did certain things to Howie.

From Cory’s explanations it was easy to see this was not the first special project he had made of this type. What my intentions were was to give the two camera drones the capabilities of delivering an anti-personnel or a concussion device – a small bomb in other words.

Based on what I was seeing in the Intel from Kampala, the terrorists were getting smarter and more advanced training and planning from somewhere, and the size of the groups were getting larger.

All of those things meant that it was only a matter of time before they achieved their goals. All this improvement in tactics had happened since the prince and his merry men had their personal meeting with Allah.

The training most likely was coming from Iran through Hezbollah, the ISIS or Chechen separatists.

Had Haamid been able to put the full 50 against the Morocco embassy, the outcome would have been tragically different. They succeeded in breaching the security wall and had been able to get a number of terrorists inside where the assault stalled.

From the questions and answer sessions with my 18 people who had been at Morocco, the attack stalled for a couple of reasons. First they had devoted all their manpower to getting inside the wall; they had no one supplying covering fire to keep defenders down.

Second, once they ran into heavy fire from the defenders, they continued to rush headlong at the defenders thinking they could just overwhelm them.

In the past most acts of the terrorists were almost always a bombing of some kind; car, truck or suicide bombing, by only one or a few individuals. All that changed with the ISIS.

The ISIS in its fast campaign that gained so much territory in Iraq and Syria had used multiple car and truck bombs and then before the smoke cleared, followed up with aggressive assaults against rescuers, civilians and troops alike. That combination created panic and hectic retreats.

These were the tactics that were now being taught at the training camps. Terrorism was evolving and security in Africa and the Middle East embassies was going to get a lot tougher. This was what I was seeing in the Intel for Kampala and what JBG would face at all the embassies that we would have starting in October.

I cleared my head of thoughts and reasons and went back to listening to what Cory and Howie were talking about. The empty assembly weighed 25 pounds.

The center section was three and a half feet long and would hold nine packages of C4, three stacks of three formed into a round tube; 12 pounds of explosive. With the battery and caps the unit was well below the 100 pound limit of the drone. In fact, with a different mounting the drone could carry two.

The materials were aircraft aluminum; the strongest one could buy without making them out of titanium.

The anti-personnel version would use half as much explosive rolled into a 1½ inch roll for the full 36 inch length and slid into a paper tube surrounded by an estimated 70 pounds of loose ball bearings.

When I answered Kevin and Cory’s question of what I had in mind to use for the hardware component, Howie looked real hard at me, “Ball bearings? You really intend to do some serious damage!”

“Howie, the AP version will be the last line of defense before hand to hand; at that point collateral damage won’t matter much, as long we keep our heads down first,” I replied.

Robbie filled the center section with sockets to bring the unit up to the 100 pound mark, with extra batteries attached to the drone. Then the three of them worked it under the framework and attached it to the release solenoid, Even though there was no explosive charge in the unit, Cory pushed the steel safety with the red flag through the nose assembly.

I gave Howie the controller for the drone and I held the laptop for the guidance go-pro camera in case we wanted to fly it out of sight outside.

When Howie powered up the control the little electric motors lifted the unit to 6 feet like it was no problem. We followed as Howie maneuvered the drone through and out the end of the hangar door. I took multiple pictures with it hovering in the sun on the tarmac.

After checking with the tower that there were no planes inbound, “Run it through the paces Howie,” I said as I held the laptop to see where it was going. After a few minutes of testing I saw Frank and Eric standing in the door of the agency hangar.

“Fly it over to the agency hangar and let Frank take a look at it,” Kevin replied, “He likes fancy toys.”

Howie put the drone on the tarmac just feet away from where Frank and Eric were standing as we walked over to them.

Kevin was right, Frank and Eric were both into drones. Cory, Howie and I had to explain the drone and device in detail; the amount of explosive material they would hold and my plans for it, even including the anti-personnel one.

“Is this the same type of drone you used in Morocco with the guns mounted on them?” Frank asked.

“Yes, the guns are still mounted on two of them in the armory,” I replied.

“You are going to test these aren’t you?” Frank asked.

“Yes, as soon as the anti-personnel one is done I plan to test it at the compound for effectiveness. If the system works, it will work with the other as well,” I replied.

“I want to be there when you do,” Frank replied.

The drone went back to our hangar, with the test bomb disassembled so Robbie could get his sockets back. Cory took the drone with him so he could test fit the rest of the frames as he completed them.

The only change that Howie wanted in the design was to make the center section 6 inches longer to make it easier to assemble the eight concussion units and re-balance it after the change.

Howie was going to do an internet search for a Styrofoam tube that he could use for spacers in the antipersonnel unit to keep it balanced and make the hardware fill the tube.

I drove my Suburban around the service road to the agency for my meeting. I carried my portable office and the report on the planned terrorist attack on the Kampala Embassy.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Thursday was another slow day a KCC. It was not slow with the EIT team. Robert had another folder on the KRAA – small bits and pieces were deciphered today. Individually they did not say much but when connected with what we already knew, it added another pixel to the picture.

I still did not think I had enough concrete evidence to go to Victor and present a convincing story. I was going to give it a few more days and see what developed.

Burt, on the other hand, brought disappointing information about Alica. Burt had finally hacked the Ohio child services that had taken custody of Alica and then put her in the foster home/kid warehouse.

The Martinez couple that ran the foster home had been busted for running a prostitution ring after Alica had run away. Before the trial they were additionally charged with human trafficking with connections to Mexico and South America, Minnesota and then things went down hill from there.

Alex Martinez died in a mysterious prison gym accident while awaiting trial. His throat had been crushed in a bar bell accident. Bail had been denied; he had been in lockup for just two weeks. His wife Sofia died of a drug overdose although there was no previous evidence of drug use just four weeks earlier.

Her autopsy was sealed for reasons unknown. Most likely it was to leave the detectives bargaining room if they ever found suspects to ply them for real information, or else someone in the department was covering their ass. Burt was able to back-door a copy of it from the coroner’s files.

Sofia’s arms and legs showed signs of being restrained before her death and she had struggled in those restraints. The pain pressure points on her hands, shoulders, and neck had been used so much they were severely bruised. There were signs of aggressive sexual abuse. She was torn and bloody, both vaginally and rectal. There was no DNA found on her body.

She had died of an overdose of opiate drugs: there was no prescription, empty bottles, left over pills, no suicide note. The room had been cleaned; scrubbed was the term in the report.

It read to me like interrogation with torture and murder by a professional with a mission.

Burt did not stop digging even after he found that information. When Alica ran away from the foster home there were five other kids left; three girls and two boys.

Within a month after Alica left both boys were dead. A drug dealer stabbed one of them and a week later the other was found beat to death beside the interstate. The police reports speculated that they were involved in the drug dealings and tried to short change the dealers.

Two of the girls were arrested in a Craigslist sting and charged with prostitution again. The first offense was the reason that they were under child services care and at the foster home. That second offense was the key to the couple being charged with running a prostitution ring; the girls agreed to testify against Martinez.

The two girls were kept in juvenile correction with the third girl moved to a different foster home. Over the next two months the two girls at juvenile were both dead. One supposedly hanged herself and the other died from a fall down a stairs resulting in a broken neck.

Within days of posting bail for the first prostitution charges there were four more girls at the house, all of whom could barely speak English. This time the police had the house under surveillance and Alex was seen unloading the girls from a van and into the house. This action led to the second arrest for trafficking.

Just a day after Sofia’s body was found, the third girl’s body was found outside the new foster home she had been assigned to. Somebody with power and connections was cleaning up all the loose ends on the case. Alica was a loose end, I was afraid.

Burt also found that the case files were being looked at every few days from two different IP addresses. One of the IP addresses was from Mexico and the other was a Cleveland vice cop who was in a different city than the case. There was no need for the vice cop to be routinely checking a closed case file in a different city, especially with so many of the participants dead. He and Mexico were checking for updates to the file. Why? The cop was also checking foster care system records almost daily.

Alica was the only link left.

I Told Burt, “Dig deeper and be careful; find out what you can on that vice cop and get me a picture of him if you can. See if there were any visitors logs kept at the juvenile centers; if there were, see if the two girls had any visitors.”

At our nightly meeting I took the lead by passing out Burt’s report on Alica.

“I want all four of the girls to get the full defensive training starting tomorrow. If Joni and Paula have a flight, let them fly – they can use the money – otherwise I want them on the mats,” I said and added.

“We need to tighten up our own security a little more. I want the facial scanners turned on at the airport and gym and have someone monitoring the screens; the same for the tag readers. We need to flag our own rental cars that are not assigned to the gym or at Morton. These people are professional and could easily rent one of our cars at BWI or Dulles and drive here,” I said and then continued.

“We know the people who are regulars here – I want everyone else checked. We pay East Coast good money for the scanners and the data package. I want it used more aggressively from now on. Be suspicious of everyone we do not know, anyone asking questions or who seem out of place, or just too slick,” I said.

I called East Coast – I wanted more cameras at the Horsey house and around it with motion sensors.

“Howie will be here in the morning; I have a special project he will be working on. Andy, Charlie, Hoss, Abe and Martin will be staying here next week; I have a special project they will be working on,” I said.

“Seven ladies and one pilot are going to Quito on Monday to fill in for the five who are going to stay here next week to keep the training module on schedule. We will tell them in the morning,” I said.

Lorrie reminded me that we were to settle on the L100 Saturday morning in Fort Lauderdale. The plane was already in the Boeing’s rehab shop in Toronto.

“Yes I remember, and we’re taking the four girls with us,” I replied.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Wednesday was a breeze at KCC, just nothing going on. I had plenty of time to think about how to make the drones more useful, especially if we got all of Africa as Victor had said.

The only problem was half of Africa was at war with itself and anyone who happened to be in the way. I had just finished one skirmish in Morocco that had cost me two men. I did not want that to happen again; that’s why I was pleased with Robert and Burt’s continuous monitoring and the information they were supplying. They had taken on that job with real determination.

They were good at finding groups who were tied to the net. The question was, how many lone wolf and small groups that were staying off the internet were out there would we would encounter?

As my mind wandered and muddled through random thoughts, it finally hit me what was going on with the State Department security change as described by Victor.

The department was essentially doing a tactical retreat in the worst areas by withdrawing its own security personnel and substituting our personnel. They were simply reducing departmental exposure. Now they had 20 or more people at each site. After the change there were five or less – by my estimate – and we were easily expendable, at least on paper for them.

The proof was in the final Morocco report and official cover-up. I cleared that thought from my mind. The solution was to be better prepared than the Morocco embassy was.

I started drawing designs on copy paper – several ending up in the trash before I came up with a design that I liked and thought would work. My dream had been helpful. It was always intriguing how the conscious and subconscious mind worked together sometimes.

I called Robbie first, “What machine shop do you use that can be trusted to make me some special items that would be considered top secret – at least for JBG?” I asked.

I wrote down the name and number. Then I called Kevin and asked the same question and received the same answer that Robbie gave.

“Bay Machine Works makes all kinds of special items for us. Cory Richfield owns the place; he knows how classified things need to be handled. Do you need something built?” Kevin responded.

“Yes! I want to make my drones more useful in critical situations. I need fixtures made for that to happen,” I replied.

“Cory lives in the East Woods development on Woods Road just outside of C-ville; no wife or kids but has a high maintenance girlfriend. He stops in the airport restaurant for breakfast and coffee 6:45 on the dot every morning,” Kevin said.

“I will call him to set things up and you can show him what you need in the morning,” Kevin replied.

“If you would join in the conversation, you may have some ideas that would help. Howie and Andy are away on assignment so I am winging this alone for right now,” I replied to Kevin.

“Be glad to help if I can,” Kevin replied.

Our meeting tonight was a follow-up for everything going on. There were no rush decisions to be made or decisions to made about anything.

Much to Lisa’s dismay, we were home early to care for the boys. They were getting stronger and so were their lungs every day. They were sleeping better and so were we; longer every night. They seemed to be always hungry.

At 6:45 Lorrie and I were sitting with Kevin as Cory Richfield brought his filled mug to join us. A few minutes later Lorrie and I opened the vault door and we walked to the drones on the storage rack.

“So those are the toys that you used in the desert. Very nice – so small and mean looking – no wonder that was over so quickly,” Kevin replied as he was looking at the two gun drones. “I can’t wait until we have time to play with them back at the compound.”

I put drawings that I had made on the shelf and explained them. Cory was sharp and prepared. He pulled out a pocket rule and took some measurements, looked at the drawing several times while making notes on them.

Finally he spoke, “To do what you want we will need to make taller stands to move the device away from the propellers. I recommend that we leave the original stands on the drone. They have a lot of mounting holes in the main frame for different options that we can use. I will make the fixture to hold the device complete with the new height stands. All you will have to do is simply bolt it on,” Cory said then he continued.

“Your note says 100 pounds maximum. What kind of battery are you planning to use in the device and what kind of solenoid to make the drop?” he asked.

I handed him one of the batteries that Howie used and one of the extra solenoids from the box.

“Your drawing says threaded but that will create weak spots on both ends. I suggest dog legs – a total of six on each end at two different heights, it will be stronger and three setscrews on both ends to make sure vibration does not cause them to unlatch once assembled and to make the connection stronger,” Cory said.

“In the tail end I will machine a space for the battery to be accessible externally and just screw a cover to hold it in place. That way you can build the package weeks or months in advance. When you are ready to use it, just plug in a good battery and secure it.”

“Then machine the holes for the switch and the two LED lights. That’s a good idea to use two LEDs, and I have plenty of two-wire on and off keyed mini-switches that will work great,” he said.

“The 3 inch fins should work OK, don’t you think Kevin?” he said.

“Once you get one or two made, we can test them back at the compound to be sure,” Kevin replied.

“On the nose end I like your idea of using high density plastic for the plunger and the safety shear pin. It will cut down quick in the machine to give it a wide impact mushroom head. Then we can simply screw a copper disc on the inside as a contactor and it will be self insulating from the other metal.”

“The note says you plan to twist the wire and use epoxy to hold it in place; I don’t like that. How about we use a plastic plate to keep your ingredients from getting into the mechanism, embed a copper strip in the plastic for the contactor to hit and solder the wires to the strip.”

“The CNC machine will make everything the same so it can be assembled from either direction. I can balance it and weld the lifting tab in place. How do you plan to balance it with the components installed?” Cory asked.

“I plan to use Styrofoam to balance it by separating the components and to keep it under the 100 pound limit,” I replied.

“You have two different designs on the main tube and I think I know what for. How deep do you want the slots cut in it?” Cory asked.

I was looking a little puzzled because I did not have an answer for that when Kevin said, “One third the thickness of the schedule 80 pipe.”

“I will order the materials today. It will take the engineer about four hours to write the program for the machine, about as long as it will take the machine to make the 16 that you want, eight of each kind. It will take another day to assemble the contactor, components and welding,” Cory said.

“As soon as the first one of each is done I will bring them here for testing. That should happen sometime Friday. Can you take the cameras off and let me take one of the drones to make sure everything fits? And you want four of the mounts?” Cory asked.

“Yes, four,” I replied.

As Kevin and Cory helped me remove the cameras, Kevin said, “Those are nice looking cameras. That explains the quality of the video I have seen.”

“Should be nice for the thirty thousand dollars they cost each,” I replied.

“Do you have something going on that the agency does not know about again?” Kevin asked, “Off the record, of course,” he added.

“You have heard that JBG is getting all the embassies in Africa and the Middle East – even the bad ones – to furnish the complete security package,” I replied.

“No! I haven’t heard that! But that does not surprise me, no-one seems to know what is going on any more,” Kevin replied.

“It looks like you are expecting things to get ugly,” Kevin replied.

“I have to have better protection for my people in some places. This is the first part,” I replied.

With that I closed the door on the vault as we left. When I got to KCC I sent Howie an email for him to order 500 more pounds of C4, 100 caps and 25 more batteries ASAP.

Then I sent an email to Andy to have Howie on a commercial flight back to Summers Road tomorrow morning. I informed him that Howie and the four drone operators would be staying at Morton Field next week. The five of them would be replaced with five of the new ladies.

I wanted Howie in on the final stage of manufacturing to get his approval of the design.

The last step was to call Robbie in the aviation repair shop to place an order for the last piece of the component list.

“You want that much of them? What the hell are you doing? Never mind, I do not want to know,” he replied.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Tuesday quickly went by quietly and normal, for a change. The thirty JBG men from six of the South America embassies had completed everything HR needed, including the physicals. Today they were with Jamie and her assistants.

I did a VCATS meeting with the three sites that had choppers to inquire about the housing for my new female pilots going to them for a week. The personnel at those sites had separate rooms for my people just like Morocco.

The first problems showed in my VCATS with the embassy at Quito Ecuador, as I thought they would. The entire JBG group that was assigned there was coming to the gym for the works like everyone else.

That included the three ladies who we were paying as bodyguards for the ambassador’s wife Sally and the chopper pilot. Alice Dorsey, Ellen Mills and Elsie Hammonds were not happy and neither were the ambassador, his wife or the secretary Linda Charms.

I received an email and then a VCATS from both Amy and Victor trying to change my policy that everyone was going through the process of recertification and retraining. After an hour on VCATS my policy was still firmly in place. That group was scheduled next week.

Robert appeared at my door and I motioned him to a chair out of the VCATS camera view. He was waiting for me to finish my conversation with Victor.

“I will notify ambassador Woodman that your policy is our policy regarding your employees,” Victor replied then added, “Night BJ.”

“Burt and I have translated more intel from Kampala. The group is the KRAA: Kampala Revolutionary Army of Allah.”

“The attack is going to be in four weeks on a national holiday during the celebration. From the chatter they are going to use the streets full of people as cover, moving their terrorists into place and to slow down any police and government response. It is still a work in progress in the planning and by our translation,” Robert replied.

“Follow the trail closely and keep me informed. After Oct 1 – the start of the governments new fiscal year – all African embassies will be secured by JBG,” I replied.

I used the State Department’s map program to study Kampala and locate the US embassy there. With the program I could expand the images and they would still be clear as a bell. I printed off a complete set of the pictures to give me one table-top size picture of the embassy grounds and nearby area.

The British embassy was in an embassy block in the old part of Kampala. That made sense with most of Africa a British protectorate for centuries before countries were given independence.

Kampala was 25 miles from the Entebbe Airport, the only major airport in the country. There were other airports listed but they were grass, stone or dirt runways. There were a couple of short asphalt strips for small planes. A few small sections of the country were modern; the rest of the country was extremely poor by all accounts.

Those people living in poverty by most accounts – were ripe for the promises of prosperity by the terrorists. The players with money, guns, drugs and an unending stream of propaganda never seemed to run out.

I went back to the current notes on my desk and called Frank. I needed to make sure that the air freight deals would not jeopardize anything the agency was doing in their hangar or lead to problems.

I was surprised to find Frank fully endorsing the deals. “That means we will be able to get critical overnight deliveries hours early by having the sorting site at the airport.” Then as an after-thought Frank added, “We have a big office in Charlotte and so does DHS. The round trip might work out well for moving personnel and special packages, if you have room on planes at times.” Opposition from Frank would have been tough to deal with.

When I called Eric, the opinion was the same; all positive, I was relieved.

At our afternoon meeting, the main discussion was what to do about getting the county involved in the announcement. Even though we owned the airport and there had been serious disagreements early on every time we called the county for anything they delivered.

Jason was going to call his friend Harry Stills, the County New Business Coordinator for the signing. UPS had agreed to allow public signing of the contract for the publicity it would bring.

Tomorrow morning when I stopped at the restaurant for my mug of coffee, I would see Duke Justice and Clarence Hallworthy – two of the four County Commissioners – to see if they wanted to be there.

Ching Lee’s public relations girls would set up the media event.

Lorrie called her contact VP – Thomas Southfield at UPS – on a conference call to set up the date and time for the contract signing.

I asked if corporate spying was a problem in their line of business.

“Not really, why do you ask?” he replied.

I explained the interest from the other two freight companies.

“Sometimes we do things first and sometimes they beat us. Just let our contract signing make the news cycle first then do whatever you need to do. Business has to come first – we understand that,” he replied.

At our evening meeting, one more piece for the homeless girls came together. All of us had asked Alica and Amanda about finishing school; we had done it in a setting with the four of them. It paid off doing it like that because Paula and Joni were both supportive of them completing their education.

Lisa had contacted a testing agency that was coming Monday to give both girls achievement tests to see where they were and what need to be done. Lisa was willing to tutor them over the summer to help; Lisa and Jenny both were still tutoring the North six when they needed help.

Alica, for the time being, was going to be Jane Alica Jones. Burt was hacking the Ohio court system for all records he could find on her. Judge Slaughter was also looking at ways to help.

If all that failed then there were other resources at my disposal, that for some reason I had never considered using and I hoped that I would not have to go that direction.

There was DHS; they could move mountains on command of the right influential people and then there was the agency that was beholding, as Frank called it.

Then if all else failed and everyone agreed, I was sure somewhere in the 80 countries that I had people, one could find a third world doctor. One, for a few dollars, who would scribble in some dialect a birth certificate on dirty old paper that could be mistranslated that we could use to make Alica a legally different person – on paper at least.

Tuesday night I had a mix of uncomfortable dreams again for the first time in a long time. I was somewhere in a heavy firefight and I woke up when a bullet with my name on it was just inches away from my chest. For some reason I did not wake afraid or agitated from the reoccurring dream anymore, almost like I was expecting and prepared for the end.

Tomorrow I would update my will with Howard, Fine and Howard. It had been a while and I was sure it needed to be updated. Another thing I was going to do was have a closed door meeting with the girls about the business and how things should be carried on in case of a death at the executive level.

Another part of the dream was making the drones more useful than just video platforms and gunships. Reading between the lines on the state department contract, they were expecting things to get nasty in Africa and the Middle East and wanted most of their people out.

That way when things went down the tubes, the bosses could say none of our people were killed – just the contract personnel.

I wanted the drones to be able to be offensive and defensive if need be, and I dreamed up ideas for both.
Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Monday Patti and I rode together to KCC. I was glad to be back at the college for a couple days in order to have a break from politics. I was wrong on that count.

I expected to see Bob Jackson and Mr. Nobles sometime this morning but not in the office when I walked through the door. Not only were those two there but the professor from the political science class, the professor of the media communications class and the professor for the current affairs class.

I answered questions for two hours from Bob Jackson and Mr. Nobles after I agreed to participate in a question and answer session for the political science class and the media class, whatever the reason for, I was wondering.

Then I thought about getting Jenny and Marcy to come sit in. Both of them had been on national TV for the three hours and had more personal interaction with the candidates and the media groups than I did. They could share way more than I could.

Jenny and Marcy arrived at lunch, Jenny with the double stroller and the boys. It was three when we finished with both classes; it seemed like after a thousand questions.

Bob Jackson and Mr. Nobles stayed through both classes and asked questions. There were also questions about my call from ZNN Sunday. Bob Jackson was surprised to learn that JBG had made the initial arrest of the arsonists and turned them over to the county police department.

At noon today the Montgomery County police department announced the arrest of Marla Snoops and Julio Barns for arson, conspiracy to commit arson, and traveling across state lines in commission of a felony.

Eight others were charged with conspiracy to commit arson, attempted arson and traveling across state lines in commission of a felony.

Our nightly meeting was late getting started because we had to wait for Lorrie to print off a bundle of documents. She had spent all day on conference calls. While we were waiting I glanced over a report that Brook Haywood had dropped off on her way home.

Robert and Burt had expanded their surveillance of the African continent, mostly by following one lead that that connected to another. They had hacked all the computers connected to the terrorist, including the Prince, and downloaded all the contacts.

Slowly over time they were placing a very sophisticated spy program into every contact from those computers. The program did not transmit until the computer had been online several minutes and then only when it was directed to from Robert’s spy program.

The report that Robert had printed out and translated from a series of email messages indicated that in a month to six weeks there would be another embassy attack in Africa. This time the target was the US embassy at Kampala Uganda.

The intent was to capture the staff and ambassador and hold them for ransom, executing one individual every 4 hours until the ransom was paid. Then they were going to execute the rest of them after they received the ransom money.

The group was confident that the US would pay after all the reports coming out of the Middle East that we were now negotiating with terrorists and paying big money to get captives and hostages back. Apparently there was a lot more of that going on than was making the news cycle.

The embassy at Kampala was not under contract to JBG security. Yet – but if the budget was approved it would be. I sent an email to Robert to investigate the threat in detail. The least I could do was warn Victor when I had credible facts and details.

Lorrie passed out several reports. The L100-30 in France was given a clean bill of health by Lockheed’s inspection team. It was out of date on a lot of maintenance items and needed its certificates renewed.

The air frame had 5,000 hours on it. Lockheed’s standard specification was that the air frame had a useful life of 60,000 with proper maintenance. There was a lot of life left in the plane.

Lockheed would fly the plane to its Canadian plant and do all the checklist items then install the in-flight refueling plumbing. They would then upgrade the radio package to the same package as our two C130s and the C130 they were 0 timing, plus install the latest radar, repaint the plane to JBG colors for 3.25 million and have it completed by June 15.

The Florida owner of the plane wanted 10 million CASH for the plane. All major businesses wanted nothing to do with cash transactions of that size.

First, no bank was going to give you that much cash without notifying the federal alphabet soup agencies. The feds or state agencies would be waiting to seize it when you walked out the bank door as drug money or money laundering and you would never see it again.

We had the cash so no bank would raise flags on our end. The plane owner would be the one to have to answer questions when he tried to do something with the money. It made no difference to me once we had the ownership papers to the plane.

The other C130 was in the Lockheed Canadian plant getting a 0 time overhaul and was also scheduled to be completed by June 15, had an asking price of 25 million and that was with remanufactured engines. It already had the refueling plumbing in place. This was going to be an easy decision, I thought.

Lorrie never stopped for us to discuss the planes and handed out another memo, this one was from UPS accepting the submitted contracts for the hangar they wanted to rent for their Air Freight sorting site, without changes. The hangar door needed to be changed from a center hinged aircraft door to traditional garage door used for trucks, in this case six in a row.

It also confirmed the daily round robin freight run from Charlotte/Douglas to Morton Field by JBG. They wanted to sign the contract in two weeks and the flights to start June 30th.

The next two memos Lorrie handed out were from FEDLX and NEDHL overnight. Both wanted an immediate joint meeting and negotiations for the same service that UPS was getting. Both wanted daily flights from Charlotte/Douglas to Morton. That meeting was scheduled for Thursday.

NEDHL also wanted a daily flight to originate from Morton Field to Scranton PA where they had a second air freight hub for the Northeast. Whoever said there was no such thing as corporate espionage did not know what they were talking about. It was just too much of a coincidence for the top three overnight companies to want the same thing at the same location, just days apart.

The next memo was from the agency; they were also working on the budget for next year, the same as the State Department. The contract was to be extended, even though there still were a couple years left on the original contract with an estimated 25% increase in flights and a 10% annual increase in fees.

Frank said when we set up this deal that the agency would keep the two planes busy, but I didn’t think this busy.

Now was as good a time as any to tell the girls about the State Department’s budget and JBG security expansion. There were possibly 40 more embassies – 21 of those were high risk – with expanded staff including choppers and Armored SUV’s.

Victor now wanted to pull all the state department security out of the high risk embassies and for JBG to furnish the complete security package. That would mean that 41 embassies would have an average of 25 JBG employees and a couple at 35.

That budget had made its way through committee at both House and Senate levels today and was now part of the big budget. The four Senators on the intelligence committee that I routinely testified in front of had locked JBG into a no bid contract by upgrading and extending the existing contract.

After agreeing to provide the security for the debate and the fact that it went off so smoothly with the best ratings of all the debates, the two senators on the committee had pushed things in our favor.

A long discussion followed with us agreeing to buy the L100 by using the money from the gun safe. Marcy would start the financing request through Jenna and would start negotiating with Lockheed sales on the other C130 in Canada. The question now was would the two be enough.

To complicate matters, how many choppers would have to be added for the new embassies and how soon? I needed those numbers sooner than later, I thought.

Training was in full force tomorrow; the rapid response team was departing to six different embassies in South America tonight with the trainees arriving back mid morning.

Jack was giving the three lady chopper pilots check rides and signing off today. Next week’s training rotation would include three embassies where we had choppers.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

Have a safe and Happy Independence Day everyone.

Sunday morning while we were doing breakfast and taking care of babies, we had the TV morning talk shows on. The independent debate was the talk of the morning; the ratings were the best of all the debates to date, even better than the party-run debates.

ZNN Sunday Morning analyzed every question and every response, even down to the facial expressions. Then they analyzed the questions as groups trying to see if the moderators were biased or playing favoritism to either of the individual candidates.

Then they did a dissection of the protests and the protesters. The channel had video of all the school buses trying to block the entrance and what had happened to the three of them.

They even had video of the protesters climbing out of the rear emergency exit of the bus with interviews. The front exits were jammed because the jersey walls we had set them on had damaged the operating mechanism. The protesters were claiming that their rights had been violated because they were not allowed to block the entrance and continue their protest.

The final segment was on the Marla Snoops and Julio Barns smack down, as they had labeled the incident. They had used the clip as the teaser for the whole show as it was. They played the video in regular speed and slow motion. A couple on the panel thought it terrible that Marla had been struck down just for spitting on me.

There was a good five minute shouting match between the panelists before they moved on to Julio. ZNN even had their sports analyst break down the punches I had thrown at Julio. It was almost a comedy listening to the narration on 15 seconds of action.

Arthur Kennedy promised to extend an invitation to us for appear on next Sunday’s show. Then he said, “I might have a phone number; let’s see if anyone answers it.” My phone started ringing.

I debated if I should answer and finally decided to, “Hello,”

“Arthur Kennedy here, is this BJ?”

“Yes, this is BJ. Good morning Arthur, say good morning to the rest of the panel for me if you would.”

“BJ, give me a second to transfer my call the conference phone on the round table. BJ, I hope I am not interrupting your breakfast,” Arthur said.

“No, we just finished up and are listening to your broadcast before we get started with our day. It was a very late, very busy night,” I replied.

“Yes, I can imagine that you had a very late night with all the action. You heard that the ratings were better than anyone expected and you had a good crowd in the convention center. How was it determined who would get seats?” Arthur asked.

“Anyone who had donated to any of the candidates in the area received an invitation to request tickets for seats,” I replied.

“There were a lot of really good questions. Where did they come from, who decided the questions?” David Young asked.

“They came from the attendees; when the invitations were sent out a postcard to submit a question was included,” I replied. Then I added, “3500 were returned. We simply compiled them in-house. Then Jenny and Marcy chose the best ones.”

“I think what you did to Marla Snoops for spitting on you was over the top, totally over the top,” Candy Brown irately said as soon as she has an opening to speak.

“I don’t like being shoved and called degrading names. I learned at a very early age that spitting on someone was a bad thing to do. The worst ass whipping I ever received as a child was over spitting. Now days it can be considered assault with the HIV virus. She assaulted me and I defended myself. Ms. Snoops is well past the age of the new ‘timeout in the corner’ discipline,” I replied.

“You did know that Marla and Julio sent two different groups of arsonists to burn down the Civic Center in the week prior to the debate. One group was as late as Friday night?” I asked.

“Just how do you know that Marla was responsible for that?” Candy asked.

“I can’t say right now – on-going investigation – you have to contact the Montgomery County police for details on that,” I replied.

“I need to run, maybe some time in the near future we can visit around the table and have chat,” I replied.

We made one more trip back to the Convention Center Sunday afternoon. New employees from Jake’s VA site were loading up all the jersey barriers. Jake wanted all of them back in the yard before noon Monday so there was enough time to return the forklift.

The school buses were still high and dry on the parallel jersey barriers. I was surprised they were still there. I guess the owner still did not know what his drivers had done and did not watch the news.

I waved the forklift over and assisted the rookie driver in placing the buses off to the side so he could load the jersey barriers on the trailer. With the bus in the air I got a good look at the damage caused by being picked up by a forklift.

My initial assumption was correct plus a little more; the drive shafts were broken in several pieces and the exhaust systems along with the emission filters were crushed. At the front the entry door had sat directly on the jersey barrier and the operating mechanism – doors and all – were destroyed. All three buses had the same damage. When the owner came for his buses he was going to be pissed.

That is what you get without proper controls in place and charter to out-of-control groups, I thought.

Back at home we talked about the needs of tomorrow. I decided that all the JBG employees who had lost their weekend would get an extra day off with pay, at their leisure.

It was 6 PM when the Bombardiers returned from returning the J&J employees to PA; there had been room on one of the planes for two more passengers. Alica and Amanda asked if they could go; neither had ever flown.

We met them at the airport restaurant because no-one felt like cooking today after the long night last night. The whole meal they talked excitedly about their flight. All of us had flown so much; we had forgotten the thrill of the first time.

Alica and Amanda did not know it but they were flying again tomorrow with Vicky and a couple clerks. They were going to Worthington College to do two rape prevention seminars. Alica and Amanda could provide the labor helping setting it up. The real reason I wanted them there was to learn how to defend themselves should someone tried to rape them.

Joni and Paula, on the other hand, were going to hit the mats with the 10 new RRS ladies and Vicky until I came home from KCC on aggressive self defense training.

Joni and Paula were going to have a great paycheck this week. With all the flying this week plus the overtime rate for the Saturday and Sunday flights, they were going to have almost 40 hours of premium pay on top of their regular pay.

We had just returned home when a call was forwarded to me from the Montgomery county police department; it was the owner of the three buses and he was livid.

“I want to know why you damaged my buses,” he demanded.

“Your buses were used in a civil disturbance and used to block a public entrance to the convention center by protesters,” I replied.

“There is no way my drivers would allow that to happen. I am going to sue you for the damages and loss of use,” he replied.

“There is plenty of news video of just that happening. The driver shut the bus off in the entrance and said the bus would not start. When the wrecker tried to hook up to tow them out of the way, they started it up and tried to run over the wrecker operator,” I replied.

Then I added “The bus drivers are your legal representatives and they were willing participants in the demonstrations and using the bus as part of it. They are responsible for any damage to the buses as a result of their criminal activity.”

“I would suggest you fire them and call your insurance company, not that it may help you. Most insurance companies have an exclusion clause for damages and claims for participation in civil disturbance. You should know the wrecker operator was talking about filing charges against you and for damages to his wrecker on Monday. Good luck with all of that. As I said there is plenty of video of what your drivers did,” I said as I ended the call.

The rest of the evening was spent just relaxing and caring for babies and quiet time with my mates. Jenny was a tiger when we went to bed. The other girls had said the same thing each night when they slept with her. The only thing I could think of was that the babies sucking on her nipples was making her horny. Jenny wanted a full blown orgy next Saturday night with all of our normal players; she was that horny all the time.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I hoped that I had chosen the right cord and that it was the slow burn type and not mislabeled. It was one hell of a chance but I did not like some of the things Robert was sending me from his intelligence gathering. They had a couple minutes to change their mind but no more.

I had walked fifty feet when all kinds of screaming erupted from behind me. Gus wasn’t saying anything, just staring at the burning cord, but his three accomplices were saying plenty.

The burn was less than 8 feet away when I stomped it out. To be sure, I pulled my combat knife and cut the cord off a couple inches from the burn.

I put my phone on movie capture, “Now; who sent you here? Who paid you to set the convention center on fire?”

“Shut up, don’t say anything!” Gus yelled.

“Marla Snoops,” Dufus replied.

“The head of the Mad Matters Group?” I replied.

“Yeah, her and Julio Barns were there; he was passing out the money,” Dufus replied.

“I told you to shut up!” Gus shouted.

I stopped the recording.

“That white bitch is crazy, I can see it in her eyes; man she could watch you burn just for the fun of it. You may want to go out that way but not me,” Dufus shouted.

Andy and Charlie came back, “Your coffee was getting cold so we refilled it. Do you have everything you need or do you want a few more minutes with them?” Andy asked.

“Call the cops man; please call the cops and keep her away from us. Please misters call the cops?’ the other one begged.

“Put flex cuffs on them, cut the cord off,” I told Charlie.

“Cord, what do you mean cord?” Dufus asked.

Andy handed me one of the removed cords.

“It would not have been good for the medical examiner to find plastic from melted flex cuffs imbedded in your wrists after I had lit you off. This is fast burn cannon cord. It would have burnt off so quickly you would have been able to thrash around in your last 30 seconds, making it look like you accidentally set yourselves on fire,” I said.

I stepped back away from the gas and lit a piece. It burned very fast; 3 seconds to the foot.

“I told you she would burn us you dumb ass; she had it all planned and ready and had an alibi,” Dufus said.

“Make sure you get all the incriminating evidence Charlie.”

I called the county sheriff, “We have four more for you at the Convention Center, out back in the parking lot. They are cuffed to a light pole with their gas cans. Come pick them up,” I said

Fifteen minutes later four squad cars came through the entrance and into the back parking lot, screeching to a stop at the light post. I directed them to Charlie since he had made the initial contact with the group.

Then I asked, “Who is in charge?”

“I am ma-am; Lieutenant Richardson at your service. What can I do for you?”

“I have a video clip you need to watch,” I replied.

I played the clip of the confession then said, “Give me your email and I will send it to you,” as I handed him one of my business cards. A couple seconds later his phone chimed that he recieved my e-mail.

“Lieutenant, I will send you the drone video of them coming through the back fence and across the parking lot as soon as the lawyers approve it,” I said.

“You had drone surveillance on this site?”

“We did last night,” I replied.

It was now 7 AM Saturday morning and we had less than 12 hours to get everything in place for tonight’s debate; the candidates wanted to be on stage at 7.

The TV channels that were going to broadcast live were setting up at three. Both Marley Kendall and Hanna Page’s stations were going to run it live, with Marley’s parent network sending the feed nationwide. There were four national networks along with several independents in the reserved media section.

Several of the networks planned to have reporters outside the Convention Center covering the incoming crowd. I knew for a fact that the protesters had tipped them off that they were going to cause trouble from a report I had just received from Robert.

I had forbidden any live broadcast from the parking lot, in the tent or security area, much to the stations dismay; they all wanted the footage of protesters and how they were handled that would win them the Pulitzer Prize.

Andy and I walked back to the chopper; the turbine was spinning up as I buckled the seat belt for the 30 minute ride back to Morton.

We spent the rest of the morning putting the last of the pieces together and verifying the logistics to get everyone there for the training before people starting showing up.

At 2 PM we were back with everyone in the convention center where the final plans were put together. One of the local school bus operators had a charter service that Marcy contracted to carry all of our people over from the island.

By four we had all the plans finalized.

Everyone who was going to work the scanners was at the scanners getting training from the east coast people. All the operators of the scanners were my administrators and clerks. When the technical training was done all of us were going to go through the scanners for real ‘on the job’ training for the operators.

When the crowds started arriving I was going to stay at the entrance area to look over everyone coming in.

Robert and Burt were going to run the facial scanners from a booth off to the side while still monitoring the communications of the groups. We anticipated that the chatter between the groups would drop off quickly when the event started.

Jake had his 100 employees from the PA site and was outside going through the parking sequence. They too were going through the scanners; that would expose the scanner operators to a variety of life experiences.

I was sure the construction guys would have a whole lot of different items in their pockets and on their belts to put on the trays. I remembered when as a little kid Dad would empty his pockets on the kitchen table before going to bed.

There were always interesting things to look at; small bolts, nuts and always some interesting thing that he would have to explain to Jake what it was or what it did.

Marcy and Jenny set up the podiums for the candidates and then set up the table for the moderators. Marcy, Jenny and Jason were going to be the moderators. They were also checking out the audio and speakers.

All the questions that the attendees wanted to ask the candidates had been printed out on 5 x 8 cards and were stacked on the table. There was a smaller pile of questions that would be directed at the entire group of candidates to answer.

One more thing that we had to allow that I did not like was the concession stand needed to be open. One could simply not have that large a group of people for that long a time and not have at least bottled water.

I objected on the grounds that things could get nasty with things being thrown in all directions, if some of the opposition groups managed to get on any of the mailing lists and had gotten tickets. To get on the mailing list, all one had to do was donate and end up on one of the lists the candidates had given us.

We had cross-referenced the list with known members of the groups and anyone who had been flagged by the Secret Service and came up empty.

The concession stand was going to be run by the Montgomery County Volunteer Fireman’s Association. They were only to offer plastic bottles of water or soda and boiled or grilled hot dogs, hamburgers and French fries.

Another decision driving the concessions was that there was going to be a 10 minute break at the end of each hour to allow the candidates to go to the secure bathrooms and consult with aids.

I did win one victory; the contract Marcy had negotiated gave us exclusive control of the property for security reasons, including all food and drink. It was several weeks after the signing that the management company for the site realized that the concessions were not covered in the contract like they wanted and they wanted the concessions themselves.

They sent Jenny an addition to the contract for us to sign, giving them control of the concession stand; no way was that going to happen. The Fireman’s Association was going to get all proceeds and the agreement with them had already been signed.

At 6 everything was finished including the JBG employees being fed by the concession stand. The stand was to run an open tab for JBG; anybody with one of our ID cards could eat on the tab.

At 6 people started coming in; at 6:15 the first trouble started. A chartered 60 passenger Bluebird school bus from DC drove across the entrance and was shut off: the driver claimed it had stalled and would not start. The windows were down and protesters with bull horns were yelling all kinds of crap. I had anticipated this would happen and was ready. It was blocking the pedestrian access as well as the driveway to the parking lot.

The second entrance to the parking lot was opened and traffic redirected. The wrecker was backing up to the bus. When the wrecker tried to hook up the bus, it started and the driver kept rocking it back and forth a couple feet, making it impossible to hook up.

Jake drove the big forklift against the bus and picked it up high enough to clear the jersey barriers. The drive shaft and exhaust are the lowest parts under the bus. The drive shaft was now bent and broken and the exhaust crushed.

That was only the beginning of the bus driver’s problems. Jake carried it through the parking lot, out the second entrance and across the street to the lot we had designated for buses.

Jake had his men set a row of jersey barriers in parallel with just enough room to drive the forklift between. Jake drove to the end and sat the bus on top of the barriers high and dry – protesters and all – it was going nowhere.

With the first bus gone a second bus did the same thing and ended with the same result as did the third. The fourth bus never stopped at the entrance but did park in the lot.

The protesters marched out front yelling and screaming for the cameras but never blocked the driveway again.

At 6:45 the candidates did a sound check of the equipment and pictures for the assembled media. The place was nearly filled to capacity. The scanners worked fast and had collected a variety of contraband including several handguns, some from women’s purses.

I unloaded them and they went into a zip lock bag with the owner’s drivers license and hot sealed then put into the job box that I locked each time.

At seven the show started with Jenny reading the rules to the candidates that they had agreed upon for the benefit of the media audience. We watched on the big screen we had set up with a projector as the debate began and the questions started flying, with each candidate having two minutes to answer. Marcy had a timer and when it rang the answer was over. “If you need more time, make it part of your closing statement,” was Marcy’s reply.

At 7:30 the protesters decided to bring the protest inside. They came in with the last of the invited ticket holders. When they could produce no tickets they were told they had to stay in the tent and watch on the big screens. That did not go over well but it was what it was.

At 8:00 two persons followed by several more tried to force their way through the security area. Marla Snoops and Julio Barns were in front of the line. I guess they never went to jail or were out on bail already.

“We’re going in there: we have something to say and you bitch are not going to stop us. We have a right to be heard,” Marla shouted for the benefit of her group and the TV crew that followed her in from off the street.

“You are not going in there; it’s just that simple. You have no ticket and you have no right. This is a private invitation only event. You are to go sit down and watch it in the tent with the others without a ticket or leave,” I replied.

“We are going in and you are not going to stop us you whoring bitch, now get out of the way,” she yelled then she spit on me.

That was a mistake. I was infuriated but held some control, but my immediate reaction I could not stop. I threw an immediate fist to the throat and then a very hard slap to the side of her face; one that would sting for a while. I managed to pull most of the punch but she went down gagging, gasping and unable to talk, in obvious pain.

I looked at Julio, ready to take care of him. Julio thought he was a street fighter. He swung at my face but a blocking arm made it go wide. I put a right as hard as I could to his nose and then my left fist caught his throat.

That stunned him and he dropped his hands. With his hands down, I gave him several hard hits to the face and one to the jaw. I thought about another hit to the throat but it was not necessary. Julio fell to his knees and then face first on the hard wood floor. He was out cold; a glass jaw I guessed.

I put steel cuffs on her, squeezed them tight and roughly pulled her to her feet, then I looked her in the face and said, “The next time you spit on me I will cut your tongue out so you would never spit or mouth off again. The next words out of your mouth to me better be; I understand Ma-am I’m sorry Ma-am. My name is not bitch or whore. Do you understand?” I said.

She just looked at me. I raised my voice and said again, “Do you understand Ms. Snoops?”

“Yes Ma-am I understand, I’m sorry Ma-am,” Marla answered.

When I looked away from her I saw the camera crew was just feet away.

“What are you doing back here? You know this area was off limits and you know you were told all cameras would be seized and destroyed,” I yelled.

The camera man decided he wanted nothing to do with me and turned and ran. He ran into Tony and a couple more J&J men. Tony hit him with a horse collar hold and the camera went flying, breaking into dozens of little pieces. Tony’s helpers made them smaller.

I was sure it was too late, that he had been live feeding a TV truck, but only time would tell for sure.

The Sheriff’s department was there in 2 minutes to pick Marla up. Julio was put in another squad car. He was still bleeding and woozy.

With their leaders getting their ass whipped, the protesters left wanting no part of the action.

The rest of the debate went off without a hitch. By eleven most of the cars gone, the parking lot mostly empty; the three buses were still high and dry but everyone was gone at the parking lot.

When I went into the main area to see Jenny and Marcy to ask if they wanted anything from the concession stand before it closed down, the candidates were still there talking. My JBG security guys and the Secret Service were still providing tight security for the group.

Everyone was very happy with the debate; the candidates, the media was still there but not filming. I thought it was odd that media personalities that were always aggressively hard on the candidates were sitting around the table with Marcy, Jenny, Jason, Vicky, and Ching Lee and the candidates with boxes of food and drinks from the concession stand like old friends.

“I see you had a run-in with Marla Snoops and Julio Barns; the video is making the rounds. I think I heard cheering from the newsroom when they went down,” the ZNN group reporter said.

The crews were loading up the scanners and electronic equipment as we spoke. The rest of the cleanup would be done tomorrow morning. In an hour the college guys would be boarding the Bombardiers at Dulles International because it was closer and heading home. They had elected to go home tonight instead of tomorrow morning.

I went back to the concession stand and asked for the tab for the JBG employees. It was 3600 dollars, a lot less than I expected. I put four grand of the Prince’s money on the counter, “Keep the change; thanks for working with us tonight.”

At midnight we were headed home. Two security people were staying the night just to be safe. It had been a long and exciting day. I wondered how long it would be before the lawyers and subpoenas would start showing up.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Tuesday became Wednesday and then Thursday. Friday all the flights were started to get all the college security people in place for the Saturday night debate. The ones furthest away were picked up Friday morning.

Joni and Paula were each working on one of the Bombardiers as flight attendants today. They were paired with one of our regulars; the Bombardier usually carried two attendants when it is at capacity. Each Bombardier was making a three stop trip this morning and the same this afternoon. That would bring today’s numbers to 200.

Lorrie had one of the professional UAL attendants that worked for us part time give them training with the plane in the hangar. Then she made them go through the preflight speech and hand motions to the recordings until they had it perfected and followed that up with coffee, tea, soda and snacks cart service.

They also got a quick course on how to physically control an unruly passenger and get control of the situation with the help of Vicky and Ching Lee. They were going to get the full course later.

They had both flown on a couple of short G5 flights on Thursday and loved it.

With CPR and first aid completion cards in their pockets, there were more smiles now than frowns. It is a miracle what even little success stories will do for one’s confidence and self-esteem.

You would have thought we had given Joni a million dollars – her smile was that big when she was looking in the mirror, trying on the uniform Lorrie required.

When Lorrie pinned the brass lapel pins on their jackets Thursday morning, there were tears.

Joni Athens
Flight Attendant
JBG Flight Services

Paula Craft
Flight Attendant
JBG Flight Services

Jason had carried Paula to MVA Tuesday afternoon with enough documentation to change over her NC license to a MD license. It was another success story for the four. They could now go to outlets or the shopping center without having to ask someone to carry them. Marcy assigned one of the pool cars with the GPS locator so we could critique her driving if necessary.

Tomorrow both Bombardiers were going to PA to pick up 100 J&J construction workers to be parking lot attendants. They were big, burly, gruff and I am not going to put up with any B/S out of you; do as I say and move it kind of guys. One plus was they already had all of the new 2016 regulation reflective gear needed for event parking in Montgomery County.

J&J was paying for all the motel costs for them. Sunday they were going by bus to the new J&J Virginia site for a tour and to help layout the yard since it essentially had to be done from scratch. Then the Bombardiers were going to pick them up at Dulles for the flight to PA at 4 PM. The morning run for the Bombardiers was the three stop return trip. Joni and Paula were going to get a lot of flight time in just three or four days.

Friday afternoon I flew over to the convention center in one of the 407s and landed in the parking lot. I had with me the latest reports from Robert and Burt.

The three groups had been changing a lot of their plans. The arrest of the arsonists and the subsequent interviews of the group leaders by the Montgomery County sheriff’s office had not gone over well.

Andy had been right that they would try again; Friday night there was trash-can banging and bottle throwing in front of the center. They were trying to draw the security away from the rear of the building. They did not know that security had been doubled or that the guys there had one of the infrared drones.

Two guards responded to the commotion out front while Charlie and Hoss – the same two who had operated the gun drones in Morocco – stayed in the back lot flying the drone around the perimeter. The infrared cameras allowed the operators to see four more men coming across the rear parking lot carrying gas cans again.

A few minutes later they were surrounded and trapped like the rats they were. Instead of calling the Montgomery Police Department this time, Andy had them restrained to a light pole in the middle of the parking lot. They stayed there until he got there at daylight and sent Charlie and Hoss to search the car that had been left outside the parking lot.

With the first group, the only information we had came from the things our guards collected off their person before the county police got there. Their lawyers were waiting for them when they were unloaded from the squad cars. No one ended up with anything.

Andy had spent the night on the island in the Horsey house to be close to office. Robert came in early because he was monitoring the Middle East social media traffic and all the email accounts that he had bugged.

I met Andy in the refreshment center and together we took the information that Charlie and Hoss had collected to Robert. It only took Robert a few minutes to tell us that we had 4 street level hoods with lengthy rap sheets that were most likely were paid for their services.

“I guess we won’t be getting anything out of these guys either,” Andy replied.

“I’m not so sure of that. Let’s go raid Howie’s toy box in the armory and take the chopper over so we can be there before light,” I replied.

Howie was teaching me how make and to set off the distractions in the compound during the hostage rescue training. It was a quick course in pyrotechnics and included a description of everything he had to make things go boom in the new ways and the old ways.

I searched through the boxes until I found what I wanted. Luckily it was still tagged to tell me for sure what it was. As I was closing the door on the vault the early pilots were showing up for work. I grabbed the first chopper pilot I saw. Twenty minutes later we were landing in the convention center parking lot.

The group was towards the back side of the parking lot. Charlie had them zip tied together around a light pole. Andy and I walked over to them. I was putting on gloves as I walked up to them.

“Charlie, give me all their IDs – they need to be on the bodies for the medical examiner to find,” I said.

I looked at the IDs to make sure that I put them on the right person.

“Retie their hands with this, use a few extra loops. Then cut the zip ties and make sure that you put them in your pockets,” I instructed Charlie and Andy as I handed them the green colored cord. I had brought three different coils of cord: green, orange and red.

One of the guys was named Gus; he seemed to be the leader. “Gus, what’s in the plastic jugs?” I asked.

“I ain’t telling you anything. I know my rights – I want a lawyer,” he shouted at me.

“Problem is I am not a cop and you don’t have any rights that matter to me,” I replied.

I sloshed the can, then unscrewed the cap and carefully smelled it. “Gasoline huh – I guess you were planning on a barbecue” I said.

I turned the 5 gallon jug around and shoved it as hard as I could with my foot against the concrete base of the light. When it hit the base without the cap on, gas sloshed everywhere and all over them. I did the same thing to two of the other jugs at the other guy’s feet.

The fourth jug I turned around and slid it between Gus’s feet. I stuck the end of the red cord a couple feet into the jug and ran it out straight. It was a 20 foot roll.

“Andy, Charlie, is there any fresh coffee in the convention center? Why don’t you go get a fresh cup, pick up my mug from the chopper and refill it? Take the pilot with you. I will meet you at the chopper say in 6 minutes and we will fly home,” I said.

After they were out of ear shot, “Gus, this cord is cannon primer or dynamite cord. If you ever watched any old John Wayne movies they would shove a nail into the end of a stick of dynamite and push the cord into the hole. The longer the cord and the slower the burn rate, the further you could run before the explosion.”

“The red burns at a rate of one foot for every 30 seconds. The problem is the gas is wicking down the cord; has it wicked 2 or 5 feet? When the burn and the gas meet you are going to be in the middle of the inferno. The experts say you will live about 2 minutes in the flames; that will be two minutes of hell,” I said. “You will be the barbecue, unless you answer my questions,” I said.

“Who sent you to burn the convention center? Who paid you?” I asked.

“You don’t have the balls to do that,” Gus replied.

“Oh, I got balls – they are called ovaries – and they make me a wild mean bitch some days. Last chance; who sent you, who paid you?”

His buddies were saying, “Tell her – she is crazy enough to do it.”

“Fuck off bitch,” Gus replied.

I walked to the end of the cord and lit it with the lighter I had brought. I then walked towards the chopper and didn’t look back.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W,

I spent the rest of the day in my office with Cindy and Mark. They had finalized the training schedule based on the information I gave them on Friday. I also asked them to be thinking about who would be next in line for an administrator’s position that they could work with and where we could place them in the office.

If Victor’s budget came to pass, it would mean more expansion in all directions. Oh well, more to ponder when my mind was no so occupied as it was right now.

Robert and Burt were sending twice daily updates on the groups. None of them were getting any better. It looked to me like they were brainstorming in the chat rooms they used or else trying to throw us off.

They had pulled that stunt in Chicago and gotten away with it. It was not going to work with me, plus their objectives were more direct and they had fewer options this time.

At 3:00 I went out to the meeting room table where the 10 ladies were finishing up the paperwork for today. The final piece for today was verifying they knew how to do their daily time sheets and send it to the time keeper who Marcy had temporarily appointed for them.

They were each given one of the older laptops. Robert and Burt had taught Brook how to scrub the hard drive and load the basic office and email programs that we used. There was a file with corporate forms, vacation, sick leave, time keeping things like that. They also got their ID card and a temporary corporate phone with a preloaded call list.

All 10 of them had flown into BWI yesterday and waited at the MAAR site until there were groups of four to make their way to the eastern shore. They were put up in the Holiday West last night; tonight they were split between the Horsey house and the Crash pad.

We had finally made a decision on the Crash pad to get better utilization out of it. Bob’s Construction was going to remodel it by increasing the length and adding a wing. When Bob was finished it would have 20 motel style rooms with twin beds and each with a shower/tub combo, microwave and refrigerator, little work desk and TV. The Horsey house was then going to get another wing added to it with the same setup, only a two story version with an elevator.

Between the two we would have accommodations for 80 people in-house. This was the trade-off to end the need to buy a motel to save money for Marcy. Repairs and remodeling on both were direct write-offs; that was all Marcy needed to hear from the tax man. Even with the corporate discount, renting 20 to 40 rooms a night, 6 days a week was counting up.

At 3:30 Tina Booth called up to tell us the bus was out front. All 16 of us were going to Lawman’s Supply; even Jenny was going. Mom and Mindy was going to watch Jacob and little Robert. Jenny had started pumping to get them used to a bottle; she would be going back to work before we knew it.

Lawman’s Supply normally closed at 4:30; tonight they were going to stay open so the 10 ladies could be outfitted. All of us were going because the girls wanted the combat pants like I had packed for Morocco. When I came back I noticed them looking them over before they went into the wash and talking about all the pockets to stash things.

When the ladies returned the applications we had asked for clothing sizes so we could preorder gear for them. Lawman’s made sure they had smaller and larger sizes. Women’s sizes were always screwy with vests and the like.

When we left, the ladies were outfitted for the range tomorrow and to go to work. The only thing left was for Jamie to issue the Glocks and extra clips, taser, and rest of the hardware for the belt. They had several sets of black and camo outfits, bulletproof vests, jackets, helmets, gloves and the works.

The only thing left was business attire that we generally wore everyday and that came from the professional shop in the outlets.

We stopped at the airport for supper then let them choose who was going to stay at the Crash house and Horsey house, assigned cars and room keys and everyone went their own way. Tomorrow the 10 belonged to Jamie and her assistants. By tomorrow night I would know how long they would need to be there with Jamie.

We were going to meet the group at the airport restaurant at 7, then open the vault and issue the weapons with Jamie and do the required paperwork. It had become standard practice to issue trigger locks and a lock box to store the weapon in for everyone to carry home with them.

I was ready to see two boys and I knew Jenny was; she had been trying to speed things along for the last fifteen minutes.

After breakfast I called Andy for an update. I was not surprised when he told me that several people had tried to break into the convention center last night.

The night duty team had held four men until the County Sheriff’s deputies had arrived. They were in the process of breaking in the front door. They had 10 gallons of gas and timers plus more in their car. They were not happy campers to be caught. They were not expecting anyone to be there.

They were even less happy when my team started to do the questioning before the deputies got there to take them away.

Andy did get face pictures and pictures of their ID’s; Burt and Robert would have something to work with, and of course their cell phones.

The rest of the update was that all the jersey walls would be in place before the end of the day and tent people were to be here Wednesday to erect it.

East Coast Security was going to install the body scanners today. Andy’s men were setting up the dividers and secure area. The generator and light towers were to arrive today.

I asked Andy if he thought we should add two more security cars after hours after the events of last night.

“It might not be a bad idea. I am sure they will regroup after last night’s failure and come up with a different tactic, possibly a multi-prong approach,” he replied.

“Have two of the four guys working nights stop in at the office. I will approve them to pick up two more marked cars for you. Do you want them to bring anything else with them?” I replied.

“More night vision equipment and batteries for the drone,” Andy replied.

I met Lorrie at the vault to get the night vision equipment out; it was so expensive that we kept it in the vault. I took half the batteries for the drone and the night vision equipment back to the gym. Andy’s two men arrived as I was exiting my Suburban, perfect timing.

All things were on schedule, it seemed.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.