Bjjonesmylife. Book 2

Monday I was reviewing the weekend concert reports and the county police call logs for anything that happened at the convention center that was an indication of trouble. Andy was on site positioning the jersey walls to limit access to the site and maintain a desired traffic flow. Andy also had a meeting with the Montgomery County Police Chief today.

As an afterthought I sent our contract with the convention center to Howard Fine & Howard and to Curtis Warren – both of our outside legal groups – with a list of questions for both. I wanted to know exactly what our limitations were.

Even though our contract implied total control of the property from property line to property line I wanted to make sure there were no legal exceptions to the contract in Montgomery County.

In some states your gated driveway that you control access to is still considered public property for legal purposes. There are a host of state rules that allow you to be arrested standing on your driveway drinking beer or having a car parked on your driveway with expired tags, even though it is controlled by a gate. New Jersey is one of the worst with nuisance laws like that.

Burt and Robert were working up this morning’s surveillance report of the groups. A special courier delivered all the videotape from all the campaign stops that the five candidates had made. They had been smart enough to videotape all the protesters.

They were working on putting all the images into a facial recognition program that could be used at the convention center. The cameras would scan everyone coming into the convention center from the limited access lines. Anyone who had been involved in protesting we could block from entering the convention center.

I took a break to head for the coffee pot at 8. Six of the 10 were still at the meeting table working on the required HR forms. The first four had gone to the docs for physicals. The doc was going to call when he needed the next four. I sat down in one of the empty chairs to drink my coffee and worked on text.

Eric stepped off the elevator with one of the big mugs from the refreshment center and took a seat beside me.

“Well, I don’t see anything in the news this morning about any unusual happenings in Africa, so I guess you didn’t make any quick trips this weekend,” Eric was personally delivering copies of the 10 ladies military records. He had done background checks on them for me.

“No trips, I am going to wait until this weekend to create the news cycle again,” I replied. Then I added, “Do you have any unsavory characters that you want me to knock off to make it a newsworthy weekend?”

“No, not that I can think of today. If it changes I’ll let you know,” before he broke into a laugh. “You know the wimpy triplets – as you call them – would pee their pants if they heard this conversation?”

“We were at a meeting Friday going over some of the data you supplied. They were letting their departmental ego show, again. Frank asked them if they wore a cup.” Smith asked, “Why?”

“Because if BJ finds out you are slamming her intel she will start another jar just for yours. They went quiet for the rest of the meeting; I have never seen anyone get so nervous so fast. Frank has found something that finally torques them up,” Eric said with a big smile.

“You know there are some empty jars downstairs by the refreshment center cashier; I will try to remember to take one with me next time we have a joint meeting,” I replied. We both had a good laugh at that.

“Everything looks good on the files. Frank and I both signed off on them for subcontracting to us; the decisions are yours. I am going to grab an extra mug of coffee to go and head to my meeting at the agency hangar,” Eric replied.

I picked up the 10 folders and went to my office and started to read.

First was Captain Julie Synclair, 31, former Marine pilot 1500 hours in Blackhawks, 500 in Cobras and then 250 hours in Warthogs. Certified helo instructor and had been working towards certification in C130s. Commendation after Commendation, recommended for medal after medal; most were denied by the review board.

Julie was recommended for discipline for disobeying an order to withdraw from air patrol leaving the grunts with no air cover during a heavy battle before the replacement plane arrived. That recommendation was withdrawn after pressure from a four star general. Apparently the episode left a bad taste; she left the Marines shortly after.

Marine Captain Bambi Firestone, 32, was the next one, also a pilot; 1200 hours in Blackhawks. Bambi had crash landed a Blackhawk at a MASH unit after taking heavy fire on a Medivac run. Blond with a cute face, below the face was built like a linebacker for the Cowboys. Must have spent hours in the gym; I suspected she was one of those ladies who had tried to move into Special Ops.

Marine Captain Lexy Ford, 33, was the third pilot. Lexy had a thousand hours in Blackhawks and was trying to make the move to Warthogs when she rotated out. Medals, awards and commendations filled page after page in her file.

I wondered why Eric had put the three pilots on top of the pile: then I remembered that Frank also had gone through the pile. A note from Frank that they would be approved for agency flights was on each one of the three.

Marine Sergeant Cynthia Hunt, 30, was the second lady I suspected of trying out for special ops. Her file has multiple reports and request from her to take the field test only to be denied by her superiors.

Sergeant Amber Tull, 31, the only black in the group. Amber had a clean record with as many commendations and medals as the rest. The scores and evaluations were very good. I wondered why she had left the Army; she should have easily made the transition to officer school.

Army Sergeant Gail Dexter, 33, good record with no blemishes; she was offered officer training and had turned it down before leaving the army.

Marine Sergeant Alene Pepper, 32, was another one that looked good on paper.

Army Sergeant Mandy Burdet, 34, her records were as good as the rest.

Marine Sergeant Babette Downs,, 33 another good one on paper.

Air Force Sergeant Jackie Deere, 32, just good paper same as the rest. The pilots would give us flexibility that we did not have before.

I wondered how we were going to do the recurrent training for the chopper pilots we had in South America and Africa. These three ladies answered the question – if they still wanted to fly.

Not only did they need recurrent training, they needed a check ride for every aircraft we had that they qualified to fly and a sign off with Jack every year for the insurance company. Now, if there were no personality conflicts Jack had a helper and we had extra pilots to do it with.

My enthusiasm about finally getting to where we needed to be with personnel was short lived. After lunch I was summoned to a VCATS conference with Victor and Amy.

“We are working on next year’s budget and there may be more demands placed on your security and aviation divisions. We are looking to expand from your current 80 embassies to 120, all of them in Africa and the Middle East. Then, increasing the number of high risk embassies from 18 to 40,” Victor said then continued.

“The number of armored Suburban’s and helicopters will be increased; I do not have the numbers yet but at least one of each at the new assignments,” Victor replied.

“We will need as much advance notice as we can get on an implementation date. I am assuming that the helicopters will be 407s or equal. Will there be start up or advance funding for the new sites?” I replied.

It will be a multi-year contract – 5, possibly 10 years – and I anticipate that your current contract will be extended to match,” Victor replied.

“It should not be a problem; just keep me informed,” I replied and then signed off.

Every time we advertized for help we were flooded with applicants, this should be no different I thought, besides it was months away. Far more important things than that were on for this weekend.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.

At our Thursday night meeting we brought all four of the homeless girls up for the meeting. We brought up the four so there would be no appearance that we were trying to divide them.

From all appearances, they were each others support group. They did everything they were told to do and more, but immediately were together if they had idle time.

We had reached a partial decision; we were going to do it in steps. Step one was to make the job offer to Joni and Paula and see how that went before moving on to step two. Jenny was working on step two behind the scenes.

With them sitting at the table I began with a general conversation.

“Is everything going good for you; up to your expectations now that you have been here a couple of weeks?”

After looks at each other Joni replied, “We are certainly better off than we were and we thank you for that. Are you telling us it is time to move on?”

“No, not at all; we were wondering if you and Paula were willing to take on more responsibility,” I replied. Then I added “Lorrie’s aviation division has a lot of flights coming up and she needs flight attendants, if you are interested,” I replied.

“What will we need to do?” Paula asked.

“First will be CPR and First Aid training, and that can happen tomorrow. In fact, we want all four of you to take it because someday you may need it. Then to the outlets to get you the uniforms we approve for flight attendants,” Lorrie said.

“Flight time pay is double what you are getting and pays overtime,” Lorrie added.

“What is flight time pay?” Joni asked.

“Flight time pay starts when you arrive at the airport for a flight and ends when you return, unless you are on an overnight flight; in which case a motel room, meal and overnight allowance will be provided. The pay resumes when the return flight resumes,” Lorrie responded.

“I think I would like to try that; it might be fun,” Paula replied.

“I think I would like to do that too,” Joni replied.

“OK, that is what we wanted to hear. Here is the paperwork that needs to be filled out, job application, power of attorney to get a copy of your birth certificates and Social Security cards. Then we need to get both of you Maryland driver’s licenses so we can get you passports in case any of the flights go out of the country. Start filling it out and we will help you through any problems,” Jenny said.

“I might not be able to get a passport,” Joni replied.

I opened the report, circled the shoplifting charge and slid it to her, “Because of this?” I asked.

“Yes,” Joni replied.

“It should not be a problem, we have friends in high places if it is,” I replied.

An hour later all the paperwork was done. First thing that had to happen was getting a Maryland drivers licenses for them; without the license there was no way to get passports and a license was one the required documentation to navigate the new DHS airport security.

For Paula it was easy; she still had her NC driver’s license in her possession. A trip to the DMV was on tap as soon as we acquired the documents for Joni.

We were sending someone to MVA every few days. Jason usually went; he still knew a lot of the people there. She could go along with whoever went and make the change. Marcy had already given them an address for their first paycheck.

It was Paula Craft, 1001 Summers Lane, JBG Building H, Apt 1. State law required a physical address on a pay stub or other official paperwork when applying for a license or a change of address. To help smooth things along with more official documents, Jeanna had already started checking accounts with debit cards for Joni and Paula.

Friday, Cindy and I worked on the schedules for the next two months of retraining for the embassy personnel. I wanted as many of them done by June as possible. From June to September the plan was to concentrate on the college security personnel while the colleges were on summer break. Then we would switch back to the embassy personnel.

I had initially planned to hold over the ones brought in from the colleges for the debate to do the recurrent training while they were here. After giving it further thought, with so much terror activity going on plus college shootings and now demonstrations against the traditional political process on college campus, I wanted them back to the colleges as soon as the debate was finished.

I was looking forward to Monday; the 10 ladies who had applied for security jobs with the first posting for the rapid response team were due in that morning.

Roseanne had returned calls to all fifteen; five of them had other jobs that they did not want to leave or had found boyfriends and were no longer interested.

The 10 who did still want to try out for the job were the cream of the crop anyhow – in my mind – for what I wanted. All were former military, all had been at least sergeant rank, all of them had been in the sandbox like me and all of them had tried at least several times to make it into larger roles. They had tried to get into either in Special Forces with the Marines or the Army Rangers only to never get a fair chance.

Lorrie was going to be ecstatic to find out that three of them were pilots certified in Blackhawks. That was going to be a big plus for the entire RRT to be able to have several assigned pilots as part of the team. It would be easy to train them to fly the 407s if we needed them. Jack would check them out in their second week.

Monday evening I was going to carry them to Lawmans supply for the same style of uniforms that we had purchased for the men. One set black and one camo, with good boots, bullet proof vest, a shoulder holster and belt holster for the Glock we used, along with all the other goodies that went on a belt.

Andy gave an update at our meeting on all the preparations for next week and the debate. Lorrie reported on the preliminary condition reports on the L100-30 in France. They looked good enough that we recommended getting Lockheed to do an on site inspection and generate a repair list with pricing. The current plane owners had some strange payment request that would suit us to a tee.

We went home feeling good about things. I carried Robert and Burt’s latest report on the protest groups to read when things were quiet.

The weekend was good to us; the boys were sleeping just a little longer each night. Another few weeks and they may be sleeping through the night. Jenny was back to her normal sleeping habits until the boys cried.

We were finally back to our regular sleeping routine, swapping partners every night and both weekend nights with our regular partner. Everyone just seemed to be a lot more relaxed.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I followed my normal routine again on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; I worked at KCC all three days.

On Monday, Andy and his team – with Vicky as official company representative – took the old county bus to do a walk-through of the convention center.

We had leased the convention center – with JBG as the leaser – for a period of Monday to Sunday. That way it gave us direct control of the property for the five days prior to the debate, instead of being in the middle of a one or two day lease.

There was a Saturday night rock concert in the convention center the weekend before the debate, narrowing the time we had to set up all the necessary security. I was concerned that the concert would be used as a cover for protesters to do considerable damage to the building.

That was one more reason I wanted bomb sniffing and drug dogs to go over the building just to make sure no one left or planted anything. The groups were determined they were going to shut down the debate.

On Monday Andy joined our afternoon meeting and for two hours we discussed all the possibilities with the convention center and the protest groups.

All of my ideas were put on the table and we discussed every one of them. Then we discussed Andy’s and put together the plan. Andy was going to take over all the logistics and operational control for the convention center setup for the debate. It was his responsibility to keep the site secure along with all the external security for the site and prep work. That included arranging for the tent, wrecker, and positioning of the Jersey barriers.

Jake was going to supply the two big forklifts through a short term heavy equipment rental company he used. The construction site he had bought in Virginia had hundreds of the Jersey barriers stacked up. They came with the property. The bank holding the deed was not going to pay to haul them away. Because of the way the auction for the previous owner was held, there was no bid on them.

The same was true with the giant rock crusher that was left on the site. The bank gambled that it would add more value to the property than trying to scrap it. Jake said the thing weighed 200,000 pounds and when we flew to the site in the chopper, you could see it and the quarry that supplied rock for it miles away, almost like a beacon to the site. If the crusher had been up and running when we built the road for the compound, it could have supplied the crush & run material.

J&J flat bed trucks were going to haul the Jersey barriers from VA to the convention center and set them in place with a crane truck. We had received permission to pre-stage them at the back of the parking lot.

This was the last major project that Jake would be able to work with me on. In thirty more days the construction business would be gearing up and Jake’s time would be spent there along with one week a month at the Japan nuke plant cleanup site.

The new J&J site in Centreville, Virginia would be the first to get active because of its more southerly location. It would be going a full month before the Pennsylvania location would be able to start.

Midwest Bank was now financing all of J&J’s construction needs. Jeanna tweaked the numbers until the deal was just too good for Jake to turn down.

Marcy – with the help of Robert Alderman, the former IRS tax specialist that Frank recommended that we hire – convinced Jake to lease all the new equipment versus buying it and taking depreciation. When Robert showed Jake on paper how much of a reduction in owed taxes, it was a no brainer.

Marcy was doing the leasing for all the equipment for the new site and replacement equipment for the PA site. Marcy was falling in love with big equipment.

“It takes five car leases to equal one dump truck lease, with one fifth of the paperwork! Plus, you put the cars in the rental fleet and hope for 75% monthly ratio. With utility and construction equipment it’s rented 365 days a year,“ she said at our meeting.

We were no longer buying cars and light trucks from dealers; Marcy was now buying direct from GM, Ford, Nissan along with International and Peterbilt trucks through their commercial sales divisions. Those were two truck lines that the three utilities we were leasing to liked to use.

Marcy had 100 tandem-axle with an air tag axle (making them triple axle dump trucks) coming in the next thirty days for J&J. That was only the start; front end loaders, pavers, cranes, rollers, graders, pickups, flat bed trucks, box trucks and other equipment were on the list. Jake was dividing the new and old equipment between both sites for improved day to day reliability.

JBG was helping Jake on several other fronts; HR was going to do the employee manuals, job requirements, job postings, background checks and our doctors were going to do the physicals and DOT physicals at the Virginia site.

Tony, Jake and a couple of J&J foremen from the PA branch were going to be on hand those days to check out the equipment knowledge.

A man who claimed he knew how to drive a dump truck needed to prove he could work a 13 speed Spicer without making hamburger out of the gears. He also needed to prove he was proficient in doing the required DOT daily inspection and log books.

The next 30 days would get the VA site completed and operational and all the equipment swapped around. The crusher would be the first project. As soon as it was operational, different size materials could be stockpiled for the summer construction season.

Jake need the crusher, concrete plant and the wash plant to separate sand from stone to make concrete to be the first items completed.

On Sunday after the Saturday rock concert, JBG was going to have several 24/7 guards at the center. The groups had planned to do some site assessments on their own from what Robert and Burt were getting from the intercepts. The presence of guards might deter them from getting too good a look to do any planning.

Our Wednesday night meeting was devoted to the 4 homeless girls. Jenny had found out everything there was to find out about them.

Joni Athens was 28 and had a criminal record from the state of Virginia. Two counts of shoplifting; one count was waived and she served 30 days in juvenile detention for the second; she was 17 at the time. Her parents and an older brother and sister were still alive.

Since that time she had been living as a runway and homeless person. There were 7 municipalities that had searched her records over the last 10 years. Somehow, she had managed to finish high school with a GED diploma.

The next older one in the group was Paula Craft. Paula had just turned 19 and had graduated high school with honors. Why she was living as a homeless person was a mystery, and so far there was nothing to explain it. Paula was from North Carolina. Jenny had found out from the NC DMV that she had a valid NC drivers license.

Paula’s family was dead; both her mother and father had been killed in the same auto accident two years ago. She was an only child – maybe the deaths were just too much for her to handle. Maybe there were other problems at home before they died. Jenny looked at their estate to see if there were any answers there. There were.

Paula’s father and mother had no wills so the state had become executor of the estate and appointed her father’s brother as her legal guardian. NC law is strange when it comes to orphaned children, estates and their rights. The laws gave Paula’s uncle an immense amount of power over her without any financial oversight.

The family house was sold and the proceeds disappeared; her parent’s life insurance money disappeared. Paula’s college fund was drained. There were no bank accounts with Paula’s name anywhere.

With further research Jenny found that two new cars were bought; both were Jaguars. The uncle’s house was remodeled. A new 40 foot pleasure craft boat was bought and a short time later was transferred to a casino in Georgia. It was another case where the state failed in it responsibilities.

Paula’s uncle found a special place in my heart; I wondered how Andy felt about breaking arms and legs.

Paula was a beauty and well spoken in any crowd for her age. She had a sense of humor. She was well liked in the gym with a personality that would take her anywhere she wanted to go.

Lorrie needed flight attendants. We were going to offer Joni and Paula the chance if they wanted it; a couple of test flights at first to see how it would work out and if they liked that kind of life. Then there would be the normal training, first aid, CPR, and then the self defense course.

Alica Sevens was another thing all by herself. Alica was 14; the youngest of the group and a ward of the state of Ohio. Alica’s mother was a drug abuser and had died of an overdose when she was 10. Her father had turned to booze to drown his pain. He had been arrested several times for bar fights and once for hitting Alica, leaving her with severe bruises.

The state had placed her in a foster home that was one of those kid warehouses for money when she was 12. Jenny found out that there were 6 other kids there, all older than Alica, some of them waiting for juvenile court dates. The foster home parents were busted for running a prostitution ring last year. I could only image what happened there. Alica had been a runaway for a year and a half.

To send her back to Ohio would only continue the cycle and have the same or worse results. The horror stories of some foster homes and kid warehouses were more than enough to avoid that ending if at all possible.

Amanda Black was 16; old enough to technically be on her own in this state. She too was from Virginia; the Shenandoah area. All indications were that she had a normal family life and above average school grades. Amanda had left home after the school year ended completing the 10th grade. What transpired to make her become a runway? One could only wonder.

At least we had some idea where to start. Alica and Amanda both needed to go back to school and would if they stayed with us. There was no need to force that issue now. February had become March and now April.

The school year was effectively done; the schools were in a review mode for exams. To throw them into class now would be a waste of time; they would fail anyhow and that would not be a confidence booster.

The problem was Alica. As soon as you started requesting school and other records, somebody from Ohio Juvenile Services was going to show up to take her back under the state’s jurisdiction.

More things to think about; we would hash it out later and make a decision and set things in motion at tomorrow’s meeting.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

The next big thing that JBG Security faced was the independent political debate. I had extended the RRT time off to a full week. When they came back, we had two weeks to get everything in place.

Cindy and Mark began the task of notifying the college security employees who were going to work the debate. I made a command decision that while they were this close, they were going to be recertified.

With three firearms trainers, Jamie’s team could do 30 in a day. With the college group the retraining would not be as intensive. They just needed to show proficiency with the pistol, shotgun and rifle.

There were people who objected to our college security people being armed on campus, but the Warrington incident as well as other incidents at other colleges proved it was necessary. The rifles and shotguns were kept in a gun safe in the director’s office along with a better set of body armor.

On the mats the basics were all that were needed along with take-down skills. All of it should go quickly.

One of the side hangars was being used to store the many pieces arriving, based on our preliminary planning for the debate. All of it would have to be trucked to Montgomery County. We still had one of the box trucks from the NASCAR vehicle updated with a rear lift gate. Marcy had leased the other two to the county school board.

On Thursday, Vicky, Ching Lee and I went to Montgomery County to look at the convention center, site of the debate.

“Wow,” this place was huge. I was not getting enough information from Mark and Cindy but they both had been very busy with Middle East issues.

Two hundred security guards would not be enough. It would take a hundred just to cover the parking lot, plus parking lot attendants to park cars. The plan needed to be changed already and we had not even put a firm one together yet.

Back at the office I went to see the EIT for an update on the BAM, BRMM and the Mad Matters groups. I was glad I did.

Robert was putting the last five days of surveillance into a folder for me. They were going to bus protesters in from three states. They also planned to have the buses come early and to use the buses to block off all the accesses to the parking lot and streets of the convention center complex.

I had a camera full of pictures and several Google map pictures. I printed off color pictures of all those I had taken. I put them out on the table to get a full site view. I should have taken one of the camera drones; I would the next time I went.

My clerks – with Jenny’s assistance – had mailed out 5000 RSVP tickets. The return portion had a line to write a question for the candidate.

4500 replies had been returned to date; 3500 of them had questions that were being entered into one of our computers; they would be printed out on 3 x 5 cards. They would be whittled down to a couple hundred to use for the debate.

The remaining 500 were going to be sent another invitation. At a week before the debate, we were going to send reminders to all of them as a reminder of the event.

The convention center was an old one and had a seating capacity of 5000. We needed to use a portion at the rear where the entrance doors were to set up the security area for the body and bag scanners.

I kept adding to the list of things that possibly needed to be done. I had a legal pad that I was keeping notes on.

1. Jersey barriers
2. Heavy lift forklift; 100,000 pound with long forks.
3. Heavy-duty wrecker. “Highway Thru Hell, rotator version.”
4. A big tent to handle the crowd waiting to go through security in case weather turned crappy.
5. Projectors and screens in case there were still people in the tent after debate started. The tent could also be used for people without tickets to the convention hall.
6. Come up with a solution to get 100 parking lot attendants.
7. Find an agency that would search the convention center with bomb sniffing dogs before the debate.
8. Have 24 hour guards at center at least a week before, to prevent tampering, sabotage and other activity.
9. Verify that all sound systems were operating.
10. Verify that the convention center was insured for all possibilities.
11. Verify that the convention center had enough electric power to run the scanners at the entrance of the building. Get a generator for backup.
12. Add diesel powered portable lighting around the tent.
13. Have hundreds of flex cuffs and several dozen ball gags. Anyone that gave any trouble was going to be immobilized quickly; hands, feet and mouth.
14. Have East Coast Security supply extra tazers.
15. Make sure separate secure bathrooms for the candidates were available, clean and guarded from the beginning to the end of the debate.
16. Issue clear safety glasses and gloves to all security personnel.
17. Set up a security command center.
18. Set up temporary security cameras for the exterior of the building.
19. Depository for confiscated items, guns, pepper spray, signs, posters and the like; a construction lockable job box would do.
20. Chairs for seating in the tent. Chairs were a double edged sword; they could also be used as weapons by the protesters.

I was sure more would be added to this list as time went on.

At our nightly meeting Lorrie brought up the fact that we were going to be in trouble in the early fall with both of the C130s. They were both due for inspections because of the number of hours we were flying them. Some weeks, they were getting 80 hours flight time.

Robbie estimated the inspection would take two weeks per plane for the annual inspection and compliance testing.

To make matters worse, Lorrie was picking up more and more cargo flights for them since so much TV time had come our way. There was a new industrial equipment manufacturer and an assembly plant in the industrial park that she was flying weekly freight runs for to some parts of the US and Mexico.

To add to that, not only were we flying for the agency but the US Forest Service had added JBG an emergency freight carrier for moving forest fire-fighters and equipment.

The TV time with Flight 709 had the phones ringing off the desk. UPS was inquiring about making Morton Field an air freight sorting and distribution location for the shore. A contract was being discussed for JBG to do a daily freight flight from the UPS Douglas/Charlotte east coast sorting center direct to Morton along with rental of one hangar for the Eastern shore sorting center.

UPS executives had already made one trip to Morton to check out the airport and the hangar they were looking to rent. They had toured the complete airport minus the agency corner. Their visit was on the same day that Robbie took the pictures of the C17 with the JBG logo taped to it and our C130s parked by it.

They had just come out of the end of the super hangar with Carson who was giving them the tour, and the three planes were still sitting there. Of course, the execs had to have pictures with the planes. No one told them that the C17 was not ours.

Currently all air freight for the shore was going into BWI; that was now operating beyond its ability to handle all the passenger traffic during peak hours. That led to cargo freight planes left in holding patterns for longer; passenger planes had the first landing priority.

Lorrie had found two planes, to possibly add one of them to handle the extra freight and down time on our two C130s in the fall.

One was a C130 H model being 0 timed overhaul at a Lockheed facility in Canada, and the other was an older L100-30 for sale by a Florida individual, but the plane was physically in France. The L100-30 was a civilian version of the C130 H-30 extended length military version.

We agreed that Lorrie should at least price check both. Her division was making money, lots of money and I was sure that missing 4 weeks of flight time between the two planes would complicate things.

One question that needed to be asked was if the aerial refueling pipes and valves were installed and functional. Our C130s were using that option at least once a week for agency flights.

On a fluke thought, I called Frank to see what the possibilities were of another one coming up for sale from the bone yard in Arizona. I held out little hopes that anything would come of it.

With another thought, I left a message for Captain Mc Calister of the Iowa National Guard to see what kind of deal could be worked out if all else failed.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

The swap was made on the weekend as planned. The RRT was back and took three well deserved days off. I worked KCC those three days. Every day Bob and Mr. Nobles stopped by to fill me in on the international news and have a discussion about it. They were still trying to pump me to see if I knew anything.

In the conversation I found out they had just come from a world affairs class that was currently studying Africa. The news media was giving them plenty of current affairs for discussion material. The media was still fixated on the Prince and the Kingdoms bombing campaign.

Tuesday night the EIT guys had left a package on my desk. It contained names to go with the faces from the villa.

Ahad Byair was from Oran Algeria and leader of a vicious organization. The latest was that he was acting as a go between in trying to merge two factions together there. He was the planner of a night club attack in Ech Cheliff – frequented by non-muslins – that killed 200 people a year ago. Plans for his next big attack were in the thumb drives we had gathered from the SUV.

Abu Ala Kaaf was from Guelmim located in Southern Morocco; he and Mir Madi Parsa came in the same SUV. From what my guys had found in the thumb drives that they had on them, they had planned a series of raids in border towns in Algeria and Mauritania. The Prince’s money was what set the raids in motion. Detailed information of planned raids with local terrorist group assignments was included, along with names.

Radi Omar Taaj was from Tangier on the Straits of Gibraltar. He was ferrying jihadists under the cover of refugees and weapons across the straits to Spain, destined for France. These guys were so confident in their operations that they kept records that were only lightly encrypted. The encryption they used was a very little challenge for my EIT guys.

Faaiz Faeq Fahad – who replaced Aamid – finished out the group. The information with him detailed his new group and his plans.

I finally opened the folder from Prince’s stuff to read the files. It was a treasure trove of information on terrorism in North Africa, Spain and some events in France.

The meeting we had ended had been the final step before implementation of the attacks. The Prince was going to approve and issue the funding that day. There were even plans for more attacks in the US by the end of summer with preplanning details.

The more I read the files, I knew I had to turn all of this information over to Frank, Eric and Marty and the triplets and do it soon, before it lost its value.

Even though it was late – after 8 PM – I called Frank, Eric and Marty on a conference call, “To be honest, my men had a lot more to work with than the pictures I gave you; they finished the work today. It covers a lot of things you guys need to see right away,” I said.

“I will change my schedule. Can you have your group here tomorrow morning at ten? You may want to include more people who are responsible for Africa, the US, Spain and France.”

“Text me how many are coming. I need to brief the girls on other matters before the meeting with you.”

Tuesday night I thought long and hard about what to do with the safe full of money. To discuss it with the girls, I needed to fill them in on what had transpired in Morocco. They knew I was involved in something big with the midnight rush departure. I suspected that with all the news, they had an idea.

It was time to come clean and that would happen Wednesday morning, before the meeting with the agency people.

At seven Frank sent a text that the group coming would be 10 people. I called Robert to have 15 more of the folders put together that he had left on my desk, including the pictures. I also wanted the trove boxed up by individual. They could take it with them and fight on who had first dibs on it.

The girls were in the meeting room a few minutes later and I started the task of explaining everything, starting with Haamid; the information gleaned from his computer, Faaiz and the connections and the references they made to JBG. Then I explained the rush trip to Morocco. I then played the videos – all of them – from beginning to the end, including the video with the Prince.

I answered a lot of hard questions, some of them emotional. I ended the conversation by, “They came after our people; then they came after us. I cut the head off the snake by cutting off the funding. One can only guess how many lives we have saved. I know it was hard and cruel but I will do whatever it takes to protect my family and our employees.”

We went to the airport for the last piece of filling the girls in. Vicky and Ching Lee were ready to go fly the drones NOW. “Let’s go and have some fun,” Ching Lee said.

I opened the safe, “This is the money the prince was going to give to those terrorist to fund the attacks they had planned,” I said as I handed one of the blocks to Marcy.

“I should have burned it with the vehicles, but was afraid some would survive. Taking it made it look like a robbery adding cover for us. Not knowing how many in the Saudi government knew what the prince was up to, makes using large sums of this money in the states risky for now,” I said.

“What I think we should do is use it to pay for refueling outside of the US. That won’t put much of a dent in it but it will free up money to pay for cost of all this equipment that was bought,” I said.

“How much money is there?” Marcy asked.

“96 million, enough to fund attacks to kill thousands of innocent people,” I replied.

“Let’s think about it today and talk about it at our meeting tonight,” I replied as Marcy put the block back in the safe.

When we returned to the office the agency people were waiting on us. Not only were Frank, Eric, Marty and Smith waiting but so were their bosses; the big dogs. Ricardo Stanley, Section Chief DHS; Anthony Parks, Section Chief FBI; Phillip Jenkins, Section Chief CIA; Victor Edmonson from the State department and finally Gary Porter, Section Chief for NSA.

I asked Frank where I needed to start; the current OPS or all the way back to Haamid.

“Haamid; that way they will have the whole story directly from you.”

For the next hour I went through all the details of the two OPS and all the data that was collected; the camera videos, stopping again at the reloading of the drones. I stopped the drone videos at that point and then played the Prince’s demise. I put the Mason jar on the table and it slowly made the rounds and back to me.

I wish I had had a video camera running; the expressions were priceless. It was almost like some of the men could feel the pain of them being removed.

I gave them the files that Robert and Burt had converted; then put the originals on the table for them to take.

I answered a lot of questions, one of them with, “No, you cannot get a copy of the operation videos. They will remain within our company’s classified files. Any attempt to get those files would end any further voluntary exchanges of information such as you are receiving here today and have received in the past.”

With that our meeting was over. Let the chips fall where they may.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Before we knew it the weekend was over. The Sunday talk shows were filled with pundits who had all kinds of theories from mild to wild.

The wild was that the prince had gone undercover to Morocco to inspect and buy virgin sex slaves from the Libyan branch of ISIS and had been double crossed.

Centuries of tales of harems and private sex slaves were still rumored to be happening in the backrooms of the closed society that were made of the Kings and Princes. The modern internet only fueled the speculation with some of the postings from within the kingdom.

Sunday night I met the RRT at the airport welcoming them back. They were staying in the motel for the night then Monday night all 30 were going in five man teams to six different embassies in South America. When they returned next Saturday they would be here for two weeks setting up the security for the debates.

Monday I was glad to spend the day at KCC. I was even happy to see Bob Jackson and Mr. Nobles and play cat and mouse with their questions and my answers.

“Well, I see you missed some action in one of your hot spots,” Bob said.

“Yeah looks like it, you win some and loose some,” I replied. They did not know that I had spent a couple of days in Morocco.

Retraining the thirty from the six embassies moved faster this time. We were either getting better or all the informational e-mails were having an effect, or maybe both.

HR had everything they needed done in one day, including the physicals and DNA collection for our permanent records. The Morocco incident proved that we needed to add that to the file.

Tuesday and Wednesday they were split up between the shooting range and gym. The change over to the S&W 40 caliber went smooth. Jamie collected all the 9mm and issued them the new ones. By Thursday the work in the gym was done. These guys had kept themselves in shape or else the word was getting around about what we were going put them through and they went to great lengths to get in shape.

Tuesday night the international news ran a story that the ISIS Libyan branch had claimed responsibility for killing the Prince in retaliation for allowing the US to use bases there to bomb them in Iraq and Syria.

“No matter how hard you try, you cannot fix stupid,” I thought and to claim responsibility for that was as stupid as one can get.

On Wednesday the Saudi Air Force flew 500 bombing runs against ISIS and promised even more on Thursday.

Wednesday Jamie sent me a text wanting me to stop by the armory on the way home from KCC. I helped her carry in the 9mm pistols and all the collected ammunition. UPS had delivered two thousand clips to make belts today. It was her cover story to grill me about the drones.

We had a long conversation about them and that one day I would demonstrate them for her and Kevin at the same time. I also informed her that I had items in one of the gun safes and that I had changed the combination.

I was just leaving when Marcy called to tell me that I had VIP visitors waiting for me in the refreshment lounge.

I was not surprised to see Frank, Eric and Marty but I was surprised to see Smith, Phillips and Roberts – the wimpy triplets, as I thought of them – from NSA.

I grabbed a bottle of water and was pleasantly surprised to see Paula Craft – one of the homeless girls – working behind the counter as I paid for it.

“What brings you gentlemen to my little part of the world?” I asked.

“We need to discuss that in the privacy of your office,” Frank said.

“Are we going to leave them here? They are fixated on the shapely ladies on the tread mills,” I asked. I was referring to the wimpy triplets.

“They are the ones who wanted to come along. They wanted to see your operation, but are afraid to ask you,” Frank said.

I snapped my fingers to bring them out of their fixation. “Let’s go to my office,” I said.

Behind the closed doors of my office, “OK guys, you did not come all this way to stare at the lovelies, so what’s up?” I asked.

“The NSA thinks you held back some information. According to FAA records, one of your jets sprinted away in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to Morocco and while it is there, a massacre happens, killing a prince with some unusual ritual and then it sprints back just as fast a few hours later,” then Frank continued.

“Then we have a virus that wipes out all servers storing satellite and intelligence data for the African continent for the same period of time, and all our intelligence people say they are now in the dark about everything in the area for a two day period,” Frank said.

“All circumstantial I think, just a lot of coincidences, our jets fly all over. There was a round robin to Morocco Sunday, nothing happened while it was there. Then there were six different countries in South America and nothing happened, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” I replied.

“The prince was on your list as the paymaster and you want us to believe it is a coincidence that he was killed when your plane made a rush trip there?” Smith asked.

“Stranger things have happened. What makes you think I have any information that you don’t?” I asked.

“Well, we’ve got nothing; so anything you have would be a help. We know that your people on the ground do a lot more than look over the embassy wall; they have already proven that. Then there is your intel group, so we know you must have something,” Frank replied.

`“Just for a topic of conversation, suppose I do have something – what is in it for me?” I asked.

“Well, we would be beholding I guess,” Frank replied.

“Is that anything like a Presidential Pardon for high crimes and misdemeanors that I can put in my safe?” I asked.

“Something like that,” Frank replied.

“Well, we have worked together so often and so well, let me go see if there is something that will fill the gap,” I replied.

“What’s discussed in this office stays in this office. Do we have an agreement on that?” I asked.

The six of them agreed.

I removed all of the satellite images and left them in Marcy’s safe. I had the stills I had taken with the phone and the four DVD’s from the two gun drones and the one drone that they had left on station – as they called it – and one that was all thermals from the other drone.

I played the left side gun drone first, shutting down the video when it left to reload. I did the same with the right side gun drone.

Frank, Eric and Marty were into the video; back it up, play that part again; what is that? What kind of drone is that? Is it one of ours that you have got your hands on, Chinese, Israeli? How many do you have, three for sure, maybe four?

The triplets were just stunned, mouths open.

Then I ran the high panoramic view of the gun drones doing their thing and the explosion, stopping it where we were getting ready to investigate the Prince’s vehicles. It was 500 feet high and they had zoomed in the camera to a panoramic view to capture all the action.

Then I handed out the still pictures I had taken of the dead terrorists and the Prince with their IDs with my phone.

“Does that answer all your questions, give you something to wrap your head around?” I asked.

I handed Frank the pictures I had taken of the dead leaders with their IDs. “Put your research teams to work on these,” I replied.

“Your team could not find anything on them?” Frank asked.

“They’re working on it; I am waiting on the report,” I replied then I added “When that gets finished, we can compare notes if you like.”

I did not tell them I actually had given Robert and Burt every piece of paper, laptop and thumb drive we had taken out of all the vehicles and off their bodies and bagged them accordingly.

“Is there anything else that we need to cover?” I said.

“There is still the question of the Prince,” Frank said.

I placed my trash can in front of the wimpy triplets. I took the box off the bookshelf that held the Mason jar and then inserted the thumb in the slot and hit play, then walked around my desk to stand next to Frank as I held the box.

The video clip ended immediately after the two shots. The triplets were beside themselves; there was no doubt that that it was me in the video. Frank, Eric and Marty were staring at the now blank screen. I tapped Frank on the shoulder and handed him the Mason jar.

The color drained from his face and he quickly handed Eric the jar. Eric eyes were as big as saucers and he quickly passed the jar to Marty. Marty stared at the jar for a moment and started to hand the jar to the triplets, but there was no need; two of them were fighting over the trash can and then decided to share it just as they started to heave profusely into it.

I put the jar back into the box and back on the shelf, “Are you two done or is this just intermission?” I asked of the trash can holders.

“Cruel, just plain cruel to do that while he was still alive, it only reinforces what Eric said the other day,” Marty said.

“What was that,” Smith asked, he was the one that held his stomach.

“You never ever want to piss BJ off; you will not like the consequences,” Eric replied.

“I can believe that,” Smith replied.

I put everything back into the envelope and resealed it with security tape.

“I think that covers everything, what is said in this office stays in this office; that is the agreement,” I said.

“Do you three want to look at the jar now that you have gotten yourselves together?” I asked of the two wimpy triplets who were sitting back in their chairs.

“No, that will not be necessary. They got the message,” Smith replied.

“That will only make you a target,” Smith said.

“You seem to forget; JBG was already a target,” I replied.

We talked for another fifteen minutes before they left. We agreed to keep closer ties and a more robust line of communication on intelligence matters.

After we had left my office Frank asked if he could speak privately to me, so we stepped back in.

“Would you mind if I took a picture of the jar? I have some old friends in the intelligence community who are debating the issue of the Prince,” he asked.

“As long as you do not connect it to me or JBG in any way,” I replied. “Do you want me to take them out of the jar for you?” I asked with a laugh.

“No,” he quickly replied.

I helped him set the jar up in the right light and made a cardboard shield to hide anything else in my office.

When we went downstairs, sure enough the triplets were back at the refreshment lounge, eyes glued to the treadmills again. Eric and Marty had a mug of sweet tea and were standing at the counter talking with Paula Craft.

I stood there with them listening to the conversation. Paula surprised me with her level of intellect and professional poise. I really needed to have the homeless girls investigated in detail.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

The screech of the tires woke me up as they made contact with runway. I felt good – I was refreshed – and I dressed quickly while the tug pushed the plane into the hangar.

When the door opened and the stairs went down, Dad and Jake were there. The pilots handed the suitcases and all the boxes out as we stacked them on baggage carts, including the box that held the Mason jar.

We pushed and pulled the carts into the pilot’s office and into the vault. In the back of the vault were three new gun safes. I had decided that some of the special things needed to be hidden away from possible prying eyes a little better. They were the biggest gun safes I could buy, designed to hold 64 long guns and plenty of ammo.

I thought Jake and Dad were going to have a heart attack when the first suitcase opened. Each time a new suitcase was opened Dad just shook his head and mumbled something. By the time I had finished stacking the $96 million in the gun safe it was full. The prince had been planning one massive expansion in terror activity.

The next thing was to remove the drones from the boxes. I wanted to remove all the batteries out of the vault because they were made out of the same material that was causing the fires in the new Boeing planes. I did not want them in there with 200 pounds of C4 and the hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo.

It was Jake’s turn as the two gunships came out of the boxes, “Oh crap, when can I take one deer hunting?” The nearly full unused belt had been fastened to keep it from falling into the tray Andy had made on both guns.

I put all four drones on the shelf with the controllers. The laptops that had been mated to them went with me. I was going to download the video that had been saved from all the action, and then delete it off the hard drives.

Someday I would take one of the drones back to the compound and just play.

First thing I needed to do was to order several more cases of belt clips and 9 mm rounds; unless you were firing from a fixed position to be able to recover the clips, they were history.

I asked Dad and Jake to help me take all the suitcases back to the compound and burn them.

“Those are very expensive gold inlayed cases; you can’t do that,” Dad replied very loudly.

“Dad, those suitcases can tie me to the money and to this,” I replied as I showed him the pictures of all the carnage we had done at the villa. “These are the people who paid for the attack against us and they were planning another. The money was to pay for it. The suitcases have to be burned, all of them,” I said.

Dad looked at the pictures on the phone, “You did this?”

“Yes Dad; I ordered it and helped do it. I did what had to be done, like it or not,” I replied. I played the short clip I had recorded with the prince. When it stopped Dad looked at me and said, “OK, I get it; Jake and I will burn them right now.”

I headed home; none of the girls knew I was home unless they had been listening to the airport radio system. If they had heard, they would have been there for sure.

Instead of going into the house, I went to the office I wanted to look at the VCATS alerts.

On my desk there was a note from Vicky, “Your instructions were carried out to the letter.”

The bodies had been found and Morocco was now in a tizzy. It was Thursday, almost midnight there. The darkness was hampering the investigation.

The royal family was sending a delegation to retrieve the body. Prince Aabad Aabzaari was 15th in line to be king, which was as good as never. Their way of life dictated they be buried immediately and forbid an autopsy being done. There was no mention of the missing millions. It would take days, weeks or even months to discover anything about the money and they may never look.

To complicate things for them, there was a massive storm hitting the area before morning. By morning, unless the place was guarded, the place would be overrun by scavengers looking for brass, scrap metal and anything else that could be carried away, now that it had made the news there.

As I walked in the door, supper was just being put on the table. Jason and Lisa were there. I placed my bags and portable office in the den. Then I gave all my mates a hug and a kiss. I even gave Jason a kiss on the cheek with “Hello Pop-Pop,” and then looked in on the boys. They were sound asleep.

Tonight’s fare was steak, sweet potato and salad. Jenny had chosen the menu for supper, I was sure. One of these days she was going to start mooing. As usual, they had cooked extra steaks so I was in luck. I was hungry; I had had no lunch as I was just too busy.

There was no discussion about events of the day either in the office, or the news. When the boys woke up it was time for Momma’s nipples, burping, bath and the rocking chairs.

We were up early; it was going to be a busy day, the final day of training for the 25 going back to Morocco. Today was the updated hostage part of the training. Trainers from the State department were running the exercise. There was to be more emphasis on ground assault than aerial assault.

On VCATS there was no more news than last night. The alert level for all of Africa had been raised two steps.

ZNN, on the other hand, was in full blown conspiracy mode. They named off 10 terror organizations that had a beef with the Saudi Kingdom. The Saudi’s on the other hand were saying nothing other than they were preparing for the state funeral today.

Morocco officials were demanding to know why a prince was in their country without going through proper channels. Let the finger pointing begin, I thought. The more the merrier.

I spent the morning with the team at the compound. By noon the five men teams had been through several times. Lunch was at the airport restaurant.

I walked in behind Kevin and his shop coat buddy who were always together.

“Lunch is on me today guys,” I said as I stood beside them.

Shop coat got his to go as always. Kevin took a table in the corner.

“Was your trip as productive as you hoped?” Kevin asked.

“Oh yes, very productive – everything I could have hoped for and more,” I replied.

“Have you had any computer problems?” Kevin asked.

“Marcy had to clean up the files yesterday afternoon on the email server and scrub the hard drive,” I replied.

“Our problem was bigger than that; we lost all the satellite records for two days and on the backups as well; some kind of virus,” Kevin replied.

“Too bad, that would be a lot of work to recover that,” I replied.

“They say they will never be able to recover the data,” Kevin replied.

“I have a couple of new toys you may be interested in playing with some day back at the compound,” I replied.

“Fast and mean?” he asked.

“Yes to both,” I replied.

The afternoon consisted of using two and three teams together; at three we had a barn-storming session and sent them on their way. They were to be back early Sunday morning to swap out the Rapid Response Team at Morocco. The round robin flight was to be done in one day. I would feel much better when they were back on US soil for at least a day.

Back at the office – before our end of the day meeting – I remembered one more thing I needed to do. I connected my phone to my computer and printed all the pictures I had taken at the villa. Then I down-loaded them and the video to another thumb drive.

I saved all the camera video files off all four laptops to DVDs, identified them for easy reference then deleted the files from the laptops.

I opened my safe, took the shipping envelope that Vicky had put them in and looked through the color photos of all the images that Kevin had sent. I put everything back in the envelope and sealed it with my personal security tape, the kind that could not be pulled off and reused, it simply tore apart. I made notes in code so I would know what the contents were without opening it.

There were getting to be too many sealed envelopes in that safe, with two added in the last two weeks alone.

Tonight was going to be orgy night. Jenny informed me this morning she felt like she was ready to play a little more aggressively now. If she was ready, we all were but it would slow and easy.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I heard Andy getting dressed at 4 AM. I did the same. I looked at the satellite images that Kevin was sending to me. It was five minutes old, there was no one at the villa yet and no changes from yesterday; good news I hoped. The note on the email said to expect an updated one every two hours.

Breakfast was ready in the embassy lunchroom. After breakfast, back in the basement Andy laid out the plan. An hour later we had loaded both Range Rovers and both Suburban’s with the drones and other weapons.

Across the road from the villa were a dying mangrove orchard and a burned and an abandoned homestead from the last local war. The thermals had shown no activity there all week. A quick search as we unloaded reinforced the assumption.

Charlie and Hoss immediately flew the two drones with the thermal cameras over the rest of the orchard to be sure no one was hiding amongst the dying trees and brush piles.

Another e-mail from Kevin showed no life at the villa; the image was so recent it showed us parked behind the abandon house across the road. Andy handed out the ear wicks; it was Go time. I walked with four of the group to the second row of trees on the left side of the dirt lane. The first guy peeled off to take a position where he would be able to take out the guard on the south-east corner when he showed up.

Andy, Howie and Bernie slipped out of the group at the villa to hide the C4 charges where they would do the most good and then they were taking position on the east side of the villa two rows of trees away for the time being. I continued on to the north east corner to wait for the guard who was stationed there.

There were 3 who made their way in the right side of the orchard. One went to each corner and the third was to be a lookout and provide covering fire for Andy and Howie while they were planting the devices, if it became necessary.

At ten the first of the group started arriving; they were the guards and staff for today’s festivities. Two persons instead of one went to each corner. They took the well worn path that was used every day to their position; it was a suicide path today.

A complication for sure but not much of one as Andy continued to give updates as cars continued to arrive, including Faaiz Faeq Fahad. By the time they were done there were 4 Land Rovers with different sect signs on each of them, each with 3 to 4 people.

From the description, it was a status symbol for a terrorist to have a driver/ body guard or two. There were a total of 15 people in the first group.

Prince Aabad Aabzaari arrived in style; new Land Rovers, in the third car of the four car convoy with three in the car; two bodyguards plus the driver. The other three cars in the procession each had 2, a driver and additional bodyguard I assumed for a total of ten. The grand total was 33 to 11 of us.

I sure hoped that the drones, explosives and the element of surprise were a big equalizer.

I watched my two guys as they were doing some half-assed shadow fighting and wrestling when they were not looking out at the field. They never considered that there may have been someone behind them.

Andy gave the command for the perimeter guards to go down. The second round was going into the chamber before number two realized that his buddy had just died. He joined his buddy on the path to see Allah two seconds later. There was no sound of them dying; the silencers took care of that.

With rifle at the ready, I made my way to Andy’s group just in time for the real action to start. The eight leaders and the prince with his three body guards had gone in the villa; the rest were having an old fashioned bullshit session standing by the vehicles in two separate groups.

I took my second position in the same tree row as Andy to cover the rear of the building, in case anyone survived the explosive package and tried to escape. Oscar – who had taken out the guards on the north-east corner – was on the opposite side to provide a cross fire with me and down each side of the villa

The prince’s drivers and extra guards were by their vehicles while the terrorist drivers and guards were on other side by their vehicles. I guess they didn’t associate very well. The go command for gun drones to make the first pass was given.

The operators had their attack well planned; they came out over the top of the mangrove trees, within 100 feet of the groups and put withering fire onto the groups. As soon as they made their first pass and turned around, Howie tripped off all the C4 charges.

Howie had placed the charges in a triple row of ceramic jars that were lined up to divide the dirt lane in front of the villa. The prince’s men were on one side and the terrorist group on the other. Between the gun drones and the flying ceramic, only a few were moving.

Howie had also placed charges at the rear and front of the building; the result was part of the ends of the villa were blown away giving me and Oscar a clear shooting field. The gun drones made one slower pass, this time moving from target to target until they were out of ammo. They made a fast run to the controllers for new ammo belts.

I put down four moving targets trying to escape out the back of the villa; Oscar fired on several more before Andy called for a cease fire. They moved along the row of victims by the cars; if they were not dead, a knife finished the job – I wanted none of them to roll over and shoot us in the back.

I pulled my Glock – that was better for close in shooting than the rifle – and made it to the corner where I could make quick glances into the villa. Andy did the same on the other end.

The only sound was someone shouting first in Arabic then in broken English “I surrender, I surrender.”

We eased our way in gently; all inside were dead or badly wounded. The prince was trapped under his two dead bodyguards with his legs mangled. All 9 of us were in the remains of the building with the drones flying back overhead for protection.

We pulled the dead bodyguards off the prince and set him up. I pulled my phone out and took several pictures of him. Then I pressed record and pulled off my camo hood. When my face came into view he recognized me and was very happy for a minute.

“You paid to kill my men; then you paid to have me and my family killed. Did you really think you could get away without repercussions?” I asked.

“They tell me that if you do not have your testicles and penis when you die, you are denied your harem of virgins.”

He was wearing the traditional Arab flowing robe of the elite when I flipped it up; no underwear. Nearby was the local version of a mason jar.

I had my combat knife I always carried – it was razor sharp – and nitrile gloves; with one fast cut his testicles sack and all were in the jar, then his puny cock joined them

“No virgins for you, they will look nice bronzed and mounted in a trophy case on my desk,” I said.

I did not wait for an answer; he knew what was coming as I pointed my Glock and put one round between the eyes and another in his chest for good measure. I stopped the recording and took a couple more pictures.

“Turn the terrorists over face up, make sure they are dead and check them for papers. If you find any lay, them on their chest. I need pictures of their faces and to collect everything on them,” I said.

“What do you want that for?” Andy asked as his men complied.

“I may need bargaining chips and leverage later; call it insurance,” I replied.

It only took a few minutes to finish and it was a good thing. I was no doctor and the smell of blood and guts was getting to me. It was something I would never get used to.

Once outside I looked at the princes vehicles and wondered why they had come in four. As I searched the first one I found out why, in the back were four medium suitcases. I expected to find explosives or weapons in them.

What I found was the weapon of billionaires. Each suitcase was filled with six blocks of $100 US bills; one million to each block, still wrapped in the US Treasury packing and with a Saudi national bank stamp on the plastic. All four suitcases held the same thing. All four vehicles had the same suitcases and held the same money. This was more than a planning session; the planning was already done – this was the funding to carry out the plans.

“Andy, see of any of those vehicles will start,” I was pointing at the terrorist trucks. “If they do, go get our Rovers and Suburban’s and hurry it up,” I shouted.

Four guys left with Andy, the rest of the guys I sent to collect all the loose weapons lying on the ground to put in the vehicles and to look for something to start them on fire.

When the Suburban’s arrived, we loaded all the suitcases in the back of them, along with all the laptops and information we found in their vehicles. I ordered the gas we had found poured in all the terrorist vehicles including the new Land Rovers. Andy and Howie calmly walked past each one and tossed in a grenade.

Then we went back to the embassy, for me to change into something more professional looking, also to pick up my bags and all the unused ammo and weapons I had brought.

They also packaged the drones back up; they and all the equipment was going with me. It was risky but far less so than leaving them at the embassy. If things went to crap while we were on the flight back, we could drop to near sea level and I could kick the stuff out the door and into the ocean before we reached the states.

The State Department letter of a contractor I had may help a bit if it happened before we got off the ground.

We went to the airport and put everything in the G550; the plane had been fully fueled and was ready to fly. Andy handed me the sealed Mason jar they had filled with alcohol while I was changing.

I had stopped by the 24/7 truck stop on the way to the airport before I left the island. I bought several dozen DVDs and several copies of reading material for the men to put in the basement. I handed the bags to Andy and told him where it was to go.

I thanked them for a well executed plan and that I would see them at Morton Field on Sunday evening.

Ten minutes later we were airborne, gaining altitude and heading west over the Atlantic Ocean to Maryland.

I turned on the laptop to look at alerts, waiting for all hell to break loose in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. In my emails I had dozens of thermals from Kevin. He must have every satellite that passed over take images.

I could see my teams in the orchard then at the back of the villa, the bodies on the ground, the drones in the air even firing the guns, the cars burning and us leaving.

The note on the last one said, “Follow up HUH! Looks more like a clean up team to me; all images have been deleted from the files, do the same on your end.” How Kevin could hide that I would never know and did not want to. But, I would owe him plenty.

I called Vicky, “Run everyone out of my office, open my email, save all images and emails from the agency and Kevin for the last four days to a thumb drive; you will need a big one. Print the images and then permanently delete them from the email and do it now please. Then put everything in one of my secure shipping packages and lock it in the safe. After that have Marcy run a clean-up program on the email server.”

The adrenaline rush of today was gone; I was dog tired, but I had one more thing to do. I called Robbie. I gave him a time we would be landing, I wanted the hangar open all the way to the back and I wanted this jet pushed all the way to the back next to the pilot’s room and then the hangar locked down. Put all the other planes in the super hangar.

The last call was to Dad, “I need your help when I get back this afternoon,” and gave him the time.

“Do you want Jake too, he is back?” Dad asked.

“Yes, it will make things go faster,” I replied.

It was stupid to bring the money; what could we do with it? I should have let it burn. Taking it made what happened there look like a robbery. If anyone knew about the money, that could be a cover for us, a no honor among thieves kind of thing. To leave it, possibly some of it would not burn and be used for terror.

Then again, knowing Washington they would give the Saudis new money for the ashes if it were found.

The G550 has a shower; I took a hot one. I was asleep before I was comfortable on the day bed.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

I helped carry all the freight down to the basement floor in the crew quarters. I watched as Andy and his guys began to assemble all the pieces together.

I checked out the other two drones that were already assembled on the floor. Both cameras – one regular and one infrared – had been mounted on the underside supports. Antennas for the wireless image feed were fastened to the top side as well as provisions to mount extra batteries to keep them flying longer.

As I watched the work, I started loading the belt with the rounds. The belt clips had come loose in packages of 500. Each clip had to be placed by a mating clip and the bullet pushed through to fasten them together in a belt of ammo for the gun. It was a good thing the speedy tool came with the kit; it would have torn my hands all to pieces working with all the spring steel clips.

At Andy’s instruction I made several 10 round belts for test firing after everything was assembled

Andy and his helper fashioned a tray out of Lexan – a clear plastic more durable than Plexiglas. The tray had to be wide enough for the loaded belt to be stacked in a back and forth pattern and deep enough to hold several hundred rounds in the belt, yet allow the belt to be easily pulled out from the top by the gun’s auto-loading mechanism without hanging up.

There were other limits that had to be dealt with; it could not be any lower than the stands that supported the drone and the entire package could not be more that the 100 pound limit of the drone.

Paul was filing the sear to modify the unit from semi-auto to full automatic. The trigger of the gun in the semi mode had to be pulled every time a bullet was fired. This was impossible to do while navigating the drone from the joystick control; it was just too much distraction. The trigger on the controller operated the solenoid to fire the gun.

The operator would be flying the drone by looking at the video on the laptop from the go-pro camera mounted on the unit.

Another challenge was to align the camera with where the bullets would be hitting while in flight. Andy said that was easy. Simply use a laser sighting tool and then paint a cross-hair on the camera lens and adjust the intersection of the two at the distance we wanted. A lot easier said than done, I thought.

I showed Andy the photos that Kevin had sent to me today versus the ones taken yesterday. Apparently in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting, the grove help were being sent away for security. Yesterday there were a dozen working the mangrove orchard; today there were only two. It did look like there were 4 security positions set up on each corner of the 5 acre orchard surrounding the villa.

At two everything was ready for a field test. Andy and the seven OPS guys took the four drones and test ammo out in the country for a test. I, on the other hand, called Robert and Burt for an update.

The update was the one I was looking for. The prince had filled a flight plan for his private jet to leave Riyadh and land in Rabat at 10am tomorrow. The plan was still on schedule and in more detail.

The meeting at the villa was to bring together his four terrorist groups under more control along with solidifying targets and funding. The top two leaders of each group were to be there. That meant that there would be at least 20 terrorist connected individuals there.

I also looked at all the state department activity reports for the area. No news was good news again and I wondered how the prince and four terrorist groups could be meeting and not a hint from the state department, after all the information I gave them.

They placed no value on what I supplied or simply did not trust it or me; that was the only thing I could think of.

Andy and the group came back a couple hours later. The group was very happy after some tweaking on the equipment. All the batteries were placed on chargers. I finished loading all the ammo belts.

Howie worked on putting together the special effects packages with the C4, the transmitters and the remote detonators. I looked, listened, and learned, even though it was something I would never need again.

After all the testing with out the blasting caps connected – the last step before they were put in place – they were ready to go.

The embassy chef had put together a big meal and all of us pigged out. One last check of the e-mails, security check and a video conference call from their VCATS room back home to the girls and it was time to call it a night.

“I’ll carry your bags over to the embassy,” Andy said.

“You have a couch in your quarters; I’ll sleep on it if you don’t mind. I trust you more than I trust them right now, I do sign your pay check,” I replied.

As I carried my bags into his quarters I was surprised but after a thought I realized I should not have been. Andy’s room was neat and clean, everything was in place. It was the military training still being carried out, even though there wasn’t a sergeant riding his ass over housekeeping.

I insisted Andy shower first; it was his space after all. While he was doing that I placed all the pictures of the villa we had on the table to give us an overview.

Based on the satellite thermals, no one stayed in the villa overnight nor was there any perimeter guard posted. I guessed that was done to not draw attention to the place, or else they were just plain confident of the location as far as security went.

As I looked at the layout I developed a plan on how I would run the operation. I would see how close my plan was to theirs.

Andy came back to the room with a towel wrapped around him. “Still planning, are you?” he asked.

“Just getting a mental image,” I replied.

As I headed to the shower Andy said, “Spray it down with the spray nine cleaner when you are done; mold grows fast in these areas.”

“10-4 boss,” I replied.

When I came out he was still at the table. I walked to the table, folded the towel I had been wearing and placed it on the chair seat to sit on.

“Got a plan yet?” I asked.

“I think so; just have to see what the morning Intel looks like. I’m taking ten men, the two Range Rovers and one of the Suburban’s to drop off the equipment early. The guards haven’t been getting there very early, morning prayers, and breakfast, beating their wives or whatever; it’s eight before they get into position,” Andy replied.

“You have eleven, I’m going; I want the prince to live long enough to spit in his face and know who killed him. Me spitting in his face and a woman killing him will be the ultimate disgrace when he stands before Allah. I will ask no one to do something for me that I would not do myself, including what we are planning tomorrow,” I replied.

“Time for bed,” I said as I stood.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.

Saturday afternoon Andy sent me back pictures taken of the villa from one of the choppers with a very good camera. His e-mail had the GPS coordinates of the villa.

Andy included the tool list as he called it; all of it, with the exception of a few things, we had in the armory. The things we did not have Andy had sent links to online sites that carried the items. Andy included the rush order that I was to place and have it shipped next day to the embassy.

Andy wanted four Dragon X12 RTF KDE Drones that were $31,000 apiece, eight extra batteries with chargers that were a thousand each plus four cameras; two of the cameras were $4000 each and two were $25,000 each. By the description, the last two were infrared; the kind that could see the heat signature of people in buildings.

There were several interesting things about the order he wanted. One was the cameras were live feed to a laptop and Andy wanted four laptops to go with them. The next thing was that the drones could carry a hundred pounds of weight and with the extra battery packs, could fly well over an hour. The package was a lot of money, but all of it could be used later over and over, even at the compound for training.

I was using a three half-day work schedule at KCC for the next few weeks. The first thing I did Monday morning was order all the things Andy wanted and sent him copies of the order, in case he wanted to change or add anything. I also instructed Marcy to upgrade Andy’s credit card limits. Marcy was going to kill me when she saw these invoices.

Things were back to normal at KCC; I had a quiet morning. The visit by Bob Jackson was cordial and quick.

On the way back to the gym I stopped at the airport and went to the agency hangar. I had questions for Kevin Parks. I basically wanted to know how much of the rules he would bend for me in a discreet way.

I asked, “How often do the satellites go over North-east Africa?”

“Several times a day; what areas are you interested in?” Kevin replied.

I gave him the GPS of the villa. He punched in the numbers; then he looked at me a little strange.

“There is a whisper in the wind about a sweet little OPS your guys are said to have pulled off. Is this connected?” Kevin asked.

“Call it follow up,” I replied.

“That location is in the direct path of several satellites that routinely monitor Morocco, Algeria and Libya. What do you need?” Kevin said.

“A couple of good images a day, then Wednesday and Thursday a lot – including thermals if possible – sent to my email account,” I replied.

“Off the record, I assume,” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I replied.

In the terminal building I stopped by Lorrie’s office, “I need the G550 Wednesday through at least Friday morning; the flight is to Morocco. I want to leave at midnight Tuesday. I want to be there at first light.”

“Then on Sunday, one of the C130s with all the jump seats put back in needs to do a round robin to Rabat to exchange the team there. The flight needs to leave real early Sunday to make the exchange in one day,” I said.

Monday afternoon I went with Jenny and the boys for their first doctor visit. All three were fine and fit as a fiddle. Jenny had lost weight – ten pounds – since she had left the hospital. The boys had put on a pound each.

At our nightly meeting I stressed that the training for the group in the gym had to be finished by Thursday evening so that all day Friday could be on hostage rescue training when I returned. They needed Saturday off to finish any personal items before returning to Rabat.

Tuesday morning was as quiet as Monday. I gave Patti all the numbers for a meeting I was supposed to attend on Wednesday afternoon.

Then I went to Bob Jackson to explain I would not be there and Patti had everything that was needed.

At the gym Vicky, Ching Lee and I pushed the group hard on hand skills. All 25 of the group were in the gym this afternoon. Jamie was finally satisfied with their weapons skills. It was 6 before we called it an evening.

When I opened my e-mail, the first set of satellite photos that I had asked for were in my in box. Another e-mail was from Andy; the drones and other equipment had arrived, including the laptops Marcy had sent. They had spent several hours learning to use them today by flying the perimeter of the embassy grounds.

I double checked the list that Andy wanted and took Lorrie with me to box it up so that all I had to do was load it on the plane. Twenty pounds of C4, a case of 24 transmitters and receivers along with a case of the heavy duty batteries needed to remotely detonate the C4.

We had two of the new Freedom Ordnance belt fed 9 mm defenders, a thousand clips and a thousand rounds of 9 mm ammo along with 2 of the 308 sniper rifles with silencers and a case of special ammo for them along with 12 hand grenades and a dozen extra loaded clips for my Glock went into the pile, along with an assortment of electrical components and brackets that Andy had stored in the vault.

Lorrie never asked directly what was I going to do with all the toys. She did ask who was going with me.

“No one, I need to handle this myself. Besides, it is too dangerous and everyone has plenty to do as it is,” I replied.

At home I packed a bag. This time in addition to the go bag, I packed a couple of pairs of my old Marine camo cargo pants and shirts, extra socks that were light and cool. I packed under watchful eyes.

I spent the rest of the evening with my mates, we even spent an hour in the basement. It wasn’t a full orgy but it was as close as we could get with the short time we had. I intended to sleep soundly on the plane. There were long hugs and soft words as I left for the airport.

The pilot, copilot and I loaded all the freight in the back of the G550, along with my portable office and my bags.

I reclined the fancy padded seat and went to sleep. I woke up when the thump of the tires hitting the runway at the international airport at Rabat. It was 7 AM; Darrell had made good time and the westerly winds had been in our favor.

I called Andy to pick me up. A few minutes later two Range Rovers drove to the plane. I looked questionably at the Rovers.

“You own them; they were a bargain,” Andy replied with a laugh. “They fit right in with everything else on the road; besides Haamid won’t need them any more. He did not mind spending the prince’s money on himself.”

On the trip back to the embassy, Andy filled me in on the progress they had made with the toys that had been delivered and the testing that was done yesterday.

I made a comment about going to see the ambassador and making nice.

“You won’t have to worry about them; only little people are here as all the bosses are in Washington; they left on Monday. A very big powwow is in the works.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.