Bjjonesmylife. Book 2

As we were following the Humvee to our assigned parking spot I looked over at Vicky, remembering how much she had grown since I had met her. In just two and a half short years she has proven herself time and time again that she can master anything that came her way just like the other girls back home.

Remembering just last week, when Vicky proved herself once again in the heat of battle during the first embassy visit,- she followed me around back and took two rounds in the vest and still managed to take down her terrorist that had gotten into the compound. But nothing could prepare her for what awaited us off base. We knew that the King Khalid International Airport was under attack. Watching the news of the attack for most is surreal like 911, but being part of it seeing and hearing it – it takes on a whole meaning to the soul. But there she was still holding her own – and showing no fear.

If the Jacksons were shaken up by the buzz by from the F18’s and listening to Vicky and I talking about the security reports for this region, stepping on to tarmac hearing the whistles and thumps of explosions in the distance from the tarmac really bothered them by the expressions on their faces. It occurred to me that Emily had never been anywhere near a combat zone. Bob was doing all he could to keep her from jumping out of her skin.

Because of my time in the sandbox, I could tell transportation was coming our way. An extended all – terrain vehicle sped towards us with its engine screaming pulled to a screeching stop in front of us. As it came into view, I could see a lieutenant was in the passenger seat and a private was in the driver’s seat. After the vehicle came to a stop, the Lieutenant jumped out, stood at attention in front of me and gave a salute. In kind, I returned his gesture by coming to attention and returning the salute.

“Welcome to Riyadh Air force Base. Ms. Jones, Ms. Snow, the officers on base have been scrambling to put together a welcome since the State Department requested that your flight be diverted here with such short notice. I have been ordered to take you ladies and your guest to the VIP cafeteria until the embassy sends someone to pick you up.”

“Thank you for the welcome lieutenant,” I replied as we slid into the seats of the all – terrain vehicle.

In the VIP lounge Vicky and I were trying to drink what the Air Force passed off as coffee, it was much diluted. I guess the Air Force people could not handle the stronger Marine version of coffee that we liked. Bob and Emily took a seat by the window watching all the aircraft activity.

Before we left, General McJames had given me a number for the base public relations officer who he had contacted for the info on Bob Jr. As I was getting a second cup of what was passed as coffee Captain Kenny Horsey came to me. He recognized my name immediately.

“General McJames speaks very highly of you ma-am, let me make a couple calls but I am sure that with the events of this morning Captain Jackson is most likely flying at the moment. The brass wanted extra fire power in the air just to be safe.”

While Capt. Horsey was on his smarter than smart phone I was looking out the window too. I didn’t like what I saw; I could see that Vance and Josh were not happy campers. I saw them talking with the fuel truck operator who had stopped at the jet along with a Humvee full of officers. There seemed to be an agitated discussion going on.

A few moments later Capt. Horsey hung up his phone and said, “His group is going to be relieved within 20 minutes and they should back at base a short time after that,” then added, “The ground crew has been told to have him report to the VIP cafeteria after his debriefing,” Capt. Horsey replied.

I thanked the Capt. Then I introduced him to Vicky, Bob and Emily. Knowing how bothered the boys looked, I excused my self and went outside. That’s when I heard, “That is the boss. I am sure she can supply the information you need,” I heard Vance say as I closed the distance.

“What’s up men, how are we doing today?” was my opening line to put myself into the conversation.

“Boss, I was trying to get fuel here; we are below the minimum takeoff requirement. It would not have been a problem if we had landed at the international airport.”

He continued by saying, “these gentlemen are saying there is no way they can refuel a non-military plane and that we are going to have to get a fuel truck to drive from the international airport to get fuel. That could take several days. I was trying to convince them that we were not a civilian plane,” Vance replied.

Seeing that the fuel truck operator was not going to budge, I said, “Vance, I’ll take care of the problem,” I pulled out my State Department secure phone. I used it to make the call to General McJames. I knew he could have any fuel purchases back charged to the State Department and they would bill JBG.

As always with that phone there was a process after you keyed the call button. “Enter ID,” then “Scan fingerprint.” I had it on speaker as loud as it would go so I could hear with all the noise.

“Pentagon office of public affairs, Lieutenant Fergerson how may I help you?” the Lt replied.

“Hello LT, This is BJ Jones, of JBG Security. Is General McJames available?” I asked. The expressions on everyone’s face suddenly changed.

“The General is coming down the hall now with General Short; it will just be a moment.”

A moment later the General was on the line. “BJ, how is the trip progressing?” the General asked.

“Vicky and I and the Jacksons landed safely at the Riyadh Air Force base, we were diverted from the International Airport because of the terrorist attack there. Thanks for the escort by the way. I am calling because we are having problems refueling my plane, we are below minimum on fuel for takeoff; they are not going to let us get any here. They are telling us that we have to wait until it can be trucked in from the International airport after all the ruckus dies down. That could be a couple days. There would have been no problem if we had made our destination. Other than that, Ok,” I said.

“The fuel is no problem I’ll make a call to the base commander and rattle his cage. Someone there does not know what they’re doing; there is an established procedure for State connected flights,” the General replied.

“You need to get to VCATS right away – contact Amy and Victor. They are both on line now. Morocco just went south a couple minutes ago,” General McJames said.

“Thanks for the heads up, I’m headed that way now,” I replied.

“Josh, go get Vicky – tell her we have an emergency,” I shouted.

I followed Vance up the ladder. The auxiliary power unit started running as I was getting logged in. Vance assumed this was going to be a long conversation. Without the APU running, a long conversation would kill the jet’s batteries. I paged both Amy and Victor and waited.

Moments later, Vicky came bounding up the plane stairs, “What’s wrong BJ?” she asked.

“Bad news from Morocco, I think,” I replied.

Vicky pulled up the Morocco US embassy live video feed while I was waiting for my pages to be answered. When the very first camera image popped up my heart sank.

Sitting inside the front gate was one of our Suburbans blown apart and burning. The audio was AK47 gunfire and shouting in the background. Men were standing behind the security wall trying to put the fire out with fire extinguishers and trying not to get shot, while others were giving covering fire. I could tell there were bodies still inside the burning Suburban.

I could easily distinguish the difference between the AK47 of the attackers and the M16’s and the M4 we used in the audio.

“Vicky, call Marcy; we need an emergency SVOL meeting now,” I said. Then I set up to connect to the gym.

I flipped from one video channel to another hoping things were better. The embassy itself looked secure – there was one place that looked like an RPG had hit it, the embassy grounds was another thing.

There were black-hooded bodies lying inside the rear entrance; there were a dozen or more. In the south-west corner the security wall had a section blown away with more hooded bodies on the ground.

I recognized some of the JBG employees in the video. I quickly opened the employee file for the Morocco embassy. I was trying to account for employees but soon gave up on that; there was just too much running around going on.

While we were waiting on Marcy, Amy answered the VCATS page.

“BJ, I have some bad news, are you looking at the video feed from Morocco?” she asked.

‘Yes, I see the Suburban, how many were in it?” I asked.

“Four – the driver, Albert Koons the other front seat passenger Phil Adams were both JBG – the two in the back were Mills Pike, the assistant ambassador and Brain Hovater, the advisor to the ambassador.

“It looks like from the number of dead and wounded insurgents that after the initial attack the security group did OK. Amy are you saying intelligence didn’t pick up any indication that this was coming?” I asked.

Amy responded by saying, “Victor will have to answer that but not as far as I have been told,” Amy replied.

“Where do we go from here, there is nothing in any of the manuals for this situation. What is the procedure?” I asked.

“As soon as things are settled down and a preliminary investigation is done. The bodies will be flown to the Mortuary at Dover Air Force Mortuary for positive identification and whatever else they do there. In this case it isn’t going to be much. From there, the two bodies will be turned over to the families or to JBG to handle,” Amy replied.

“I need to send someone to participate in the investigation,” I replied.

“There are no flights in or out of Morocco; the place is shut down for at least a couple of days. As soon as the shooting stops the physical investigation will start and be done fast. Almost all of it will be based on the video and physical evidence,” Amy replied. Then she added, “Rewind and copy all the video for your files; make sure you copy it to DVD’s.”

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

Hearing that the Johnson’s were in the terminal building Vicky and I left the pilots office to greet Bob and Emily. As a group we headed out of the terminal building to the tarmac where the plane was waiting for us. As we walked to the plane with our baggage, the fuel truck was still topping off the tanks of the G5LR.

My pilot Vance and co-pilot Josh were double checking the refueling operation. They wanted to make sure every drop was being put in the tanks that could be squeezed into them; they wanted to make sure that the tanks were filled to cap. This trip was pushing the G5LR to its extreme – we were trying to go seven thousand miles without refueling. When they were satisfied they helped us with our baggage.

“If the winds at thirty thousand are not in our favor, we will have to divert to one of these three countries Spain, Italy or Morocco to refuel,” Vance said.

“If it comes to that, Spain or Italy is the better choice – Morocco is not a fun place anymore, I hear,” I replied.

I knew that from reading the State Department daily security reports of the region I had access to, Rabat Morocco was one of the largest JGB sites with fifteen employees. They had a Blackhawk and two Suburban’s. What caught my eye about the Rabat Morocco embassy was that the ambassador on site had requested one more of each and additional employees. Even though the ambassador’s request was in the hands of the Secretary of State, the request was made months ago while still under control of Black Water, and there was a request to revaluate the site and expedite the decision a month ago, before JBG took over

The latest Intel I was privy to indicated that when the embassy and the staff left the compound, they were under heavy surveillance by multiple groups.

“Ten four, Boss” Vance replied as we took our seats.

Bob, Emily and Vicky made small talk while we taxied and took off. Vance did a gentle climb to thirty thousand feet before leveling off. It was the first time that Bob had been to Morton field. He was impressed and much of the talk was about the airport, helicopters and planes that had been on the tarmac.

My thoughts were by leaving around three Wednesday with a twelve hour flight and the changing time zones, it would be nine AM Thursday by the time we finally landed in Riyadh.

At four I activated SVOL and Vicky and I participated in the nightly meeting taking place at the gym from 30000 feet, at over 500 miles an hour. After we finished that meeting I took a break for a bit and chatted more with our guest. I needed a hot cup of coffee before I logged into VCATS.

I brought back 6 cups plus the fixings and carried two forward to Vance and Josh. After the coffee, I logged onto VCATS and looked at the evening’s updated embassy alert system. Nothing had changed for the region we were going to since I did a quick look at it this morning.

Because of the jet lag and time changes, we decided to call it a night. Bob and Emily decided to sleep in the fancy comfortable reclining passenger seats while Vicky and I took one of the fold-down bunk beds.

At 6 Vicky and I were up, dressed. And we were ready to start our day. I made coffee and nuked several of those precooked brand name breakfast biscuits. I carried fresh coffee and a tray of biscuits to the pilot’s cabin. While Bob and Emily were still sleeping we checked our e-mails.

While we were sleeping, Vance and Josh both had made trips to the bathroom located in our sleeping area. I knew that because I was doing the half-sleep half-awake routine that I did during my time in the sand box. I also knew that when Vance came through, Vicky and I were together and our arms tightly around each other. The heat was on, it was warm in the cabin and the covers were half off of us. Josh came through an hour later.

About 10 minutes into checking my e-mails, Vance came across the intercom waking Bob and Emily, telling me that there were problems at King Khalid International Airport.

I logged into VCATS, to my surprise, the screen lit up with all kinds of official warnings for the area where we were going. What a difference a few hours makes in the Middle East.

The King Khalid International Airport – our destination – was indeed under attack by unknown militants, most likely ISIS, to show their growing power and reach. The airport had been shut down temporarily and would reopen soon – was the promise. We were still three hours away.

Several other embassies in the region had received threats that were in the active file, including the one in Riyadh, Morocco, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan – all the threats were flagged as serious and credible. JBG people were assigned at all of them.

By the time I looked at all the sites and read all the details in the alerts, another hour had passed. All of a sudden the 35 ton plane shook like a leaf in a wind storm. Vance came on the intercom again, “BJ that was two F18s on full afterburners that just buzzed us.

A moment later I was pinged on the VCATS. It was Amy Lockerman, “King Khalid International is not safe for you to land at; all non-Arab flights are being diverted. A pair of F18s is going to escort you to the US Joint Air Force base at Riyadh. You will be met there by your people as soon as it is safe to do so,” she said.

“We were buzzed by a couple of F18’s a few minutes ago. They have not returned or communicated with us,” I replied.

“They will shortly,” Amy replied as she signed off.

“November two niner seven Alpha, (N297A) this is King Khalid control, do you copy?”

“King Khalid Control this is N297A, roger on the copy,” Vance replied.

“N297A, change frequencies to 122.99 repeat 122.99 and call Falcon, do you copy? Acknowledge,” the control tower replied.

“Control this is N297A roger 122.99 and call Falcon,” Vance replied.

“Control over,” the tower replied.

“Falcon this is N297A,” Vance spoke into the radio.

“N297A this is Fighting Falcon 5 on the port side and that is Falcon 6 on the starboard. Come to a heading of 090, maintain speed,” Falcon 5 replied.

“Roger, 090, maintaining speed and altitude,” Vance replied.

I looked out the port side window, an F18 loaded for bear was less than 100 feet off our wing – a glance out the right side was the other F18. Both of them had a red, white and blue falcon painted on the tail with its talons extended, ready to snare its prey. A small US flag was painted above it.

Vicky, Bob and Emily were glued to the windows. I took a moment to take several pictures of the F18s through the window with the smarter than smart phone and sent them to the girls at the gym with the caption “Our escorts to the dance are here.”

The flight went on for another hour. Falcon 5 and 6 were replaced with Eagle 4 and 8.

“N297A this is Riyadh approach turn to heading 124 and pick up the glide slope to runway 124,”

“Roger Riyadh, heading 124 and follow slope to runway 124,” Vance replied.

Fifteen minutes later the landing gear doors were opened and locked. Eagle 4 and 8 poured on the power and pulled away in cloud of smoke.

The tires squealed as they touched the runway and picked up speed to match our airspeed. At the end of the taxiway a Humvee was waiting. Vance was instructed to follow it to our assigned parking spot.

Josh lowered the stairs and I, followed by Vicky, Bob and Emily, stepped onto the tarmac. In the distance were the whistles and thumps of explosions caused by an RPG and machine gun fire in the distance.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

Patti and I drove separate vehicles to KCC Wednesday morning. She was going to be in charge of the day shift for the next 5 days, but did not know it yet. The Mideast trip was going to last that long and I had no doubt she could handle the job.

The smile said all that needed to be said when I told her, “A pool secretary is going coming over to do payroll and handle the phones. You need to train her. You are going to be temporary upgraded to Assistant Director and I want you to be able devote all your energy to being in charge. Also, you will get a pay upgrade for the five days.”

“Leave your cell number as an emergency contact for the other shifts,” I added.

I changed the access level of her password to give her more access to the video controls and files if something happened. It was part of my plan to do this every time I left on an extended trip for the next few months. I completed the things that I needed to at KCC and left at noon.

The plane from the M&M colleges had already landed and the girls were already home when I got there. Vicky was packing for our five day Middle East trip. I stopped by her room to remind her that pant suits and scarves was the dress code for this trip. If we needed to go anywhere outside of the embassy or US bases, I did not want to create a political problem for the State department.

Ching Lee was in the room she shared with Marcy, so I stepped in to give her welcome home hugs and affection. I spent extra time with her as I was going to do with all the girls – especially Jenny – before we left for the airport.

The five days would seem like forever when I was away from my mates. I was getting worried about Jenny now. She was so huge from the twins and was having more back problems. The visits to the doctor and the test were always good and there was another one scheduled for next Wednesday when I returned. We were all counting down the days; the middle of February could not get here fast enough.

When I finished my rounds with the girls, I packed for my trip then did my business at the gym. At two we headed to Morton Field. I guessed that it would take Jake an hour to do all the programming on the armory door. There were eight sets of access codes to put in. Mine, Marcy, Lorrie, Ching Lee, Jenny’s, Vicky’s, Jason, and Jamie were going to be the ones with access to the vault. It would take any two of them to open the door. I was going to be the only one whose codes entered on both pads would open the door.

This would be my first look inside the vault since Dad and Jake had put in the shelves and racks and moved all the weapons from the shipping container. Yesterday we received Jamie’s first big order of ammo that would be used for practice and recertification. I wondered how long it would take to go through all that ammo.

My plan was to have Jamie do all the training in the super hangar with the bad weather coming except the shoot don’t shoot course that had to be done at the club.

Jake had already done some of the programming by the time Vicky and I walked in the pilots/mechanics office and had it down to a science. It took longer for each of us to go through the motions to make sure our codes worked than it did for Jake to program the thing.

Jake and Dad had done a great job with setting the armory up. The ammo and heavy weapons that had come from the State department was stacked on racks sorted by caliber on one side and across the back. There were two center racks holding the big things.

In front of the center racks were four rows of military style gun racks that Dad had built. All the M16 rifles shotguns, the 308 sniper rifles and the Barrett 50 cal sniper rifles had been unboxed and set in place.

All the JBG owned weapons were on a separate racks and shelves. We owned a lot more than I expected, but then Jamie was in charge of that. It was another thing that I had delegated to someone else who I trusted. Jamie was on a skiing vacation for the next two weeks. I was going to get the programming done for her when she came back.

Jamie and all of us were going to have a busy first week when she came back with the 20 man SWAT team from Rochester to get things started for the New Year.

I had a set of hand drawn plans for a portable backstop that I wanted to set up in the super hangar. I called Marcy, Lorrie, Jake and my Dad over to a desk and spread out my hand-drawn blueprints and then explained to them, why I thought we needed them and where I intended to use them.

“It will be eight by twelve foot of I inch hardox welded on four inch box tubing to keep it upright and allow the big forklift to be able to move it around. Then weld supports to hold six by six oak planks in front of the plate. That way it will be easy to replace the planks when they needed it.”

“On the back side is a three foot plate across the box tubing to act as a catch pan and angle half inch by twelve to direct anything that gets through into the pan,” I said.

Then I added. “The front supports and box tubing need to be spaced so three foot wide full sized targets will fit in between them. Four targets are on each backstop. Build 6 of them to handle 20 shooters on the firing line.”

We had a hardy discussion with Lorrie and Marcy before they finally agreed to the project.

Jake asked, “Why do you want one inch plate behind the lumber and the angle plate?”

“If we shoot the 50 cal, the round at a hundred yards will go through the lumber and most likely the one inch plate,” I replied.

“If we put holes in the end of Lorrie’s hanger, Lorrie will be very mad. Believe me, you do not want to be around Lorrie when she is mad; trust me on that,” I said.

“In that case we will use one inch for the angle plate too and triple thick box tubing. The limber needs to have a ship lap to eliminate gaps; we can cut the lumber as we stack it in place. We can have it finished before Jamie needs it. I will get the welding crew back and Bob’s construction to help with the wood work,” Jake said.

At that moment, Sabrina called from the terminal to tell me that Bob and Emily were waiting and that my G5 LR was in front of the terminal fully fueled and ready to go.

“Work out whatever details you need, Vicky and I will see you in five days. We need to get on the way,” I replied.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

I knew some of them even before they introduced themselves.

Senator Malcolm Fordes, long time member of the Senate armed services committee. He was well liked by hawkish conservatives for his stance on the military defense and intelligence communities. He hailed from Mississippi.

Senator Albert Stoneham from Kansas had been reelected several times. Albert was on the Senate agriculture committee, hated the EPA and was vocal about it. He believed that many government agencies needed to be eliminated, and many others downsized.

He called them over-reaching, overbearing, abusers of authority and power hungry. In the latest round of Senate hearings to make the liberal loonies go ballistic, the senator demanded to know why the EPA needed a 200 man full blown SWAT team with helicopters, Hummers and MRAP’s (mine resistant-ambush protected) vehicles to enforce environmental laws.

Someone desperately needed to end the EPA having a SWAT team: that was an insane decision by bureaucrats wanting bragging rights. Millions of dollars were being thrown away in equipment and training, for nothing. If they ever needed that kind of support there were plenty of state and local SWAT teams that would be more than willing to work with them.

Senator Colin Harrison from Indiana; he was another farm state conservative who had been against many of the liberal administration’s policies. That included foreign policy which had abandoned many of our long time allies. He also wanted the US out of the UN, calling it a worse fiasco than the League of Nations. He was also a harsh critic of all the EPA power grabs.

Senator Hank Whitby from North Carolina was a firm believer of state’s rights and a smaller federal government. He was a strong supporter of the bill of rights and railed against all the increasing surveillance powers given to federal agencies, the attack on Christianity by the government and was critical of allowing any immigration with the high unemployment rate. Hank was in the growing chorus of critics calling for either the repeal of Obamacare or a major overhaul of it.

Connie Hovater was a business executive and had held high level positions in major businesses. Connie was a strong constitutionalist. She wanted government downsized, the EPA, ATF, Department of Education, Department of Energy and Labor eliminated and the Agriculture, Health and Human Services reduced, the State Department budgets severely cut. She also wanted the Obamacaare health care repealed to be replaced with a more patient friendly patient needs and less expensive version. Connie wanted all illegals fast tracked for deportation and all legal immigration stopped for ten years, including the work permits for tech workers.

Finally there was Harmon Getties, a multiple major business owner. He was very outspoken and opinionated on just about everything. He was notorious for speaking his mind and then letting the chips fall where they may.

Harmon wanted to take the axe to government, not the hatchet. His push was to eliminate any government agency, department, or office that had a copy at the state level.

“It was insane to have repeated duplication of agencies at federal, state and local levels. A terrible waste of tax payers’ funds” he said. He also wanted the defense department and defense suppliers held accountable for cost overruns, delivery delays and military equipment that did not meet design requirements and operational performance.

“It was unconscionable that planes and ships were years behind schedule, with massive cost overruns and outdated before they could get into the field, and many planes were so expensive that they would be cancelled way before intended numbers could be completed,” he replied to a reporter’s questions.

For two hours we listened to one story after another about the candidate being run off stage by aggressive protesters from every fringe group out there. Save the whales, save the planet, ban guns, legalize drugs, close the prisons, waive college loans, free lifetime college, open immigration and stop deportations.

The BLM group was the most aggressive by getting physical on stage. In some cases, they never allowing the candidate to speak and if he or she did, they used bullhorns, yelling their message while he was trying to speak

The tactics always seemed to be the same, just different players. They were well rehearsed like they had the same training. As the last one finished I was sure there were collusions between the groups. Only one group appeared at any one candidate whistle stop.

Another big concern was that at TV media promoted forums, few questions of a conservative nature were asked and usually by the most liberal host that could be found. This host also shut them down quickly if the answer didn’t open a controversy for the liberal media to run with against them for the next week.

They were very angry at the party heads for always agreeing to the liberal arrangement. All of them suspected that the party was supporting a dark horse who would suddenly appear to save the party on Election Day.

When they had all said their piece, Connie stood, “What we want is a nonparty televised forum where we get to answer questions that pertain to our values and beliefs without being controlled by liberal media or the party. We are willing to buy the two hours in prime time to make that happen.”

“We need independent security; the local police just step out of the way on union orders or the chief doesn’t want the political grief afterwards, in the end the protesters always win PR and we lose and the media has its attack material for next week to frame the narrative. Do you have any ideas and will you work for us on this?” she asked.

For as far apart as this group appeared in the media, I was surprised that they were unified on a project with such large political ramifications but then this was just the beginning. When it came to final agreement it may be a different story.

“Well, to open this part of the meeting, I had a discussion with Amy earlier today and had a long time to think of ways to help you out. These are the things I assume that you want: One, a public forum; anything else would give the media a gold mine to work with. Two:I suggest a public but restricted audience.

As to your audience there are a few ways we can go. Vicky can help with setting up the forum, she is executive vice president of advertising, media relations and official spokesperson. Ching Lee is our Executive vice president of web presentations and can put together the web format. A suggestion of mine is to use your donor lists. All you need to do is just mail those donors from the area. They will need double post cards as an invitation with a RSVP for preferential seating to the front. You could even have a line for them to ask a question at the event on the RSVP card,” I said. “If you need someone to handle the mailings we can do that.”

“One has to assume that a twenty percent turnout would be average so you would need to get local voter lists from the surrounding counties and mail the cards to Republican voters to help pack the house,” I replied.

“Do you have a venue contracted yet?” I asked.

“We have an auditorium that has offered to let us use it for free,” Harmon replied.

“Free is not the best way to go. Paying some kind of fee – even if it is ten dollars – to make it legal with a contract gives you total control of the event, not subject to someone bowing to pressure from any group,” Jenny replied.

Then I added, “For security we can furnish as many officers as needed. I would suggest that the building get a complete inspection for bombs the afternoon of the event and then be locked down; no one or any packages in without inspection.”

“Because we have access to the latest equipment and I would suggest that everyone who enters goes through a body and package scanner. If they don’t have the RSVP card they don’t get in. The reason for this is if any of those groups do get a card we can stop them from bringing in bull horns and banners.”

“Another reason is once they find they cannot get in they will most likely call in a bomb threat to shut it down. With the scanners and bomb inspection, we can eliminate that threat,” I said.

“If you need someone to handle the mailings, we can do that. We can also supply impartial moderators.”

We talked and I answered questions for another twenty minutes before I walked out with them. The day people were heading home as I climbed back up the stairs. Back at the meeting room table, supper was being discussed. Jenny, hands down, always won all menu conversations.

It was decided we would have pizza and cheesy breadsticks. We ordered a special one just for Jenny, loaded with everything including anchovies; the little fish. Just thinking about it gave me indigestion. The rest were a mix that went from plain cheese to meat lovers special.

Our pizzas were being made downstairs in the snack bar. Marcy had given in and allowed the kitchen to be expanded with so many people working in the building for us. It was just too much to have dozens of people exit the building for lunch, fight the traffic or deal with dozens of food deliveries. Of course, being able to run a tab all week and get a 25% employee discount when they paid sealed the deal for most of them.

I asked the girls for an opinion on our guests. There were mixed opinions as to whether or not we should be involved with them. I thought for a minute that I was going to be lynched by them

“Then I told them I do not think we will have it to worry about. They want something done but I was reading their faces and their aids. They are not going to work together for the final result. The aids were horrified at the thought of giving up their donor lists and someone else having a little control of their candidate. I think we just wasted 2 hours.” The arrival of the pizza ended all talk.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

Patti and I left a few minutes early today. Bob had called me not once but twice since he and Chancellor Nobles were in my office this morning. The first was to tell me that Emily, his wife was happy and overjoyed about the trip. As to the second call, Bob was not having second thoughts about the trip but wondering – if after going through all this trouble – if his son would be able to get time off to see them. Bob Jackson Jr. was an F18 pilot at one of the several US bases in the Middle East. I told him I would make a call to see if I could find out and asked for his unit details and where Jr. was stationed. If I had to, I would try to pull some strings.

“If nothing else, they would be able to tell all their friends that they vacationed in the Middle East this year. At least they would still be able to do some sight seeing,” I replied.

Before our nightly meeting started I pulled up the Middle East map and planned out the tentative route. Leave on Wednesday afternoon from Morton field. First stop on Thursday, at the US base in Riyadh to drop off the Jackson’s stay over for a meet and greet then off to Masqat Oman on Friday. I planned to visit Abu Dhabi UAE on Saturday and Doha Qatar on Sunday. On Sunday fly back to Riyadh to pick up Bob and Emily then on to Kuwait City to finish out the trip. Arrive in Kuwait city on Monday, do my thing at the embassy then fly home Monday night, making it a five day five embassy trip. I sent the list to Director Amy Lockerman in an e-mail.

The next call was to General Kevin McJames, the liaison between the State Department and the DOD who we used for the in-flight refueling for the C130 flights. I explained what I was after and if it was possible to verify that Bob Jackson JR was still assigned to the US base in Riyadh.

I then asked if a surprise visit by the parents was acceptable. I knew in the marines, when somebody’s family showed up the gunnies always found a way to give you extra duty to make sure there was little time together. I had seen that done many times. I didn’t want to see that happen here

“The appropriate military response is that there is no way to guarantee that he will not be on assignment by the time you arrive. He is there now, according to the logs, and I see no training scheduled for the next 7 days,” he said.

“Make sure they and you stay in approved motels anytime you are in that part of the world. I will send you a list. There is on-base guest housing, availability depends on how many VIP’S are visiting. I will try to reserve rooms for your group for the night and a place for them for their stay. I will know tomorrow and pass it on to you when I find out,” Kevin replied.

I made it to our meeting just as Marcy was ready to get started. Renay Reese had been promoted to senior administrator of security under Cindy. With Cindy in Minnesota she was making her first appearance at our regular afternoon meetings giving us the updates for the day’s activities.

The same was true for Katrina Keller – she had just been promoted in Ching Lee’s training group. Ching Lee had insisted that anyone under her would be able to do training on the gym floor so the process to advance was a little slower. Katrina was ex-army and had been one of those ladies who had tried twice to get into the Army’s Special Forces.

Katrina easily held her own on our training modules. It took some time to change from the Army mentality to a security mode.

JBG was growing, I hoped not faster than I wanted too. People were being hired to fill the positions that were left open because of all the promotions as a result of the State Department contract. MY security department needed more and so did Marcy on the accounting side.

The only section that had not changed was Jamie’s fire arms training class. She was still doing them by herself.

I presented the travel plan for my Mideast trip with leaving by 4 tomorrow afternoon and the stops I was going to make. Then I made the conference call to Ching Lee and Vicky to see which one of them wanted to go along.

Ching Lee decided that she wanted to wait until I went to Asia. Her reasoning was sound; she wanted those trips to follow her family’s history. I could understand that. I was planning to do the same with any European trips.

The Jones family had migrated to America as indentured employees of the A&P Tea Company in the late 1600s, as many of the early settlers had done.

For 20 years two thirds of everything they produced went to the Tea Company’s representatives to pay for the voyage and for one year’s (Protection). That was a campsite within the Tea Company’s land grant and within the Kings Fort for protection for one year. A family had to have a hut or cabin to live in outside the fort after the year to make room for the next summer’s arrivals.

Many families partnered with another family to make sure they had a cabin completed by the first year and worked together the following year on the second cabin. That should have made for some interesting nights.

As a kid I had read stories where families all slept in the same bed to share body heat in the cold winters. I wondered how much sharing went on under those covers.

The men worked on the cabin and hunted wildlife for food while the women tended the gardens and smoked or salted the fish and meat to preserve it for the long winter. The Tea Company got the best of the animal skins, beaver, fox and bear to ship back to Europe and two thirds of the meat, vegetables and grain to feed the sailors.

It was no wonder that so many settlements failed. They simply worked to physical exhaustion which left them too weak to fight off disease and then also starved to death in the winters. It made true reinforcement for the old saying that “Only the strong survive.”

I could just imagine how that kind of arrangement would be received today. But then again, government runs the same scam today and they call it taxes. If one were to factor in all the hidden taxes into everything, 80 percent of every dollar goes to taxes.

I was daydreaming and listening to the meeting at the same time. I was jarred back to reality as Lorrie was discussing the winter snow forecast and everything Robbie had put into place. Robbie had found two new snow melting machines.

These machines were fired by propane or butane which burned even hotter than the ones we already had. The new ones were much larger and more efficient than the machines that Lorrie had bought last fall. The company was willing to give her more than she paid for it as a trade in.

Dad had made a deal with the local road building contractor to leave two front end loaders and a road grader in the super hangar out of the weather but for use if we needed them for snow removal. We just had to pay for the hours we put on them if we did.

It had a hopper that you loaded snow in with a front end loader and a belt that carried it into a big tank that melted it into hot water that ran out of an over flow. The video the company had sent indicated that it would melt snow as fast as two front end loaders could put it into the hopper.

My concern was that only one runway and the tarmacs were covered by the experimental system. If there was a mishap on that runway, the airport could be forced to close. We needed both runways operational – even in bad weather – if possible.

The FAA was sending a delegation to stay at Morton Field in ten days and observe our winter operations. I guessed that the powers to be had finally looked at the late January and February snow forecast and wanted the experts to make a decision on the multi-million experimental systems they had paid for.

Lea Purdy was working the customer window for both the gym and tanning booth. With the addition of spray-on tanning it was busier than ever. Lea also monitored the parking lot and garage video cams and saw all the limos pulling in.

“BJ, are you expecting any VIPs?” she asked after I answered my phone.

“Yes; Have someone bring them up,” I replied.

As we were finishing up the meeting Wendy brought up the politicians and they each had an aide with them. As usual, Wendy was wearing her normal tanning room attire, a thong bikini and barely there top. I expected some comments after she left to go back downstairs. But none came.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Joe H.

The weather was even colder with a brisk wind on Tuesday morning. The students were wearing heavy winter clothing as I drove to the security building at KCC.

It was nearly 10 by the time Bob Jackson and Chancellor Nobles strolled into my office. I had expected them to come in much earlier. They had been making the college rounds, verifying that everything was running at a smooth college pace for the first day of the new semester. It saved me a trip to find them.

It did not take long to figure out they were both itching to know the latest details with JBG and me. Both of Hanna’s reports made the 6 and 11 PM newscast and again this morning.

Bob Jackson opened the conversation asking if there were any problems that the security department has to deal with today. Then Chancellor Nobles’ ask the questions that went right to the core. Why they really came.

“Well, you have been one busy beaver over the holiday. I see that you have new contracts with the government, a shootout in South America and now you have your own college-style police department. I can’t remember how many times I have seen you on TV in the last month. How do you have time to do all these things?” he said.

“I am going to have to better manage my time and delegate more of my work onto others,” I replied. Then I added, “I am going to have to discuss some changes to my work schedule here with you. Seeing that you are now aware of my new government contract, part of that contract states that I have to visit all of the embassies that JBG has security employees at”

“How many embassies do you have employees at?” Bob asked, “I did not see a number in Hanna’s reports.”

“Eighty, out of 180 embassies, I have been to four so far. The contract states I have to visit all of them. I also have to be available to deal with any emergencies 24/7, that’s why I have to carry all of this around with me every where I go,” I replied.

“One of them is not in Riyadh Saudi Arabia is it? My son is stationed there, he is the Air Force,” Bob asked.

“Why yes, that is one of my stops along the way. Get your passports up to date and if we have a couple empty seats on that trip, you and the Misses can pay him a surprise visit for a day or more,” I replied.

“We keep them up to date,” Bob replied.

“I and one of the other girls are leaving late in the afternoon on Wednesday and flying home on Sunday night. The first trip Vicky went with me, as you saw on the shootout. I think she had a blast,” I said. To a couple of shaking heads and moans followed by “The plan is to try to make 4 embassies on each flight,” I said then added.

“When we get there we do the meet and greet with embassy staff including the ambassador and his/her family and then do the same with rest of the people there, then deal with our new employees. Sometimes we sleep on the plane, sometimes we stay in a hotel, and other times we sleep in the guest quarters at the embassy – it all depends on the length of the flight to the next stop and the available accommodations,” I replied.

“Where I am leading with this is I am going to need Thursday and Fridays off for an extended period of time. Vicky is going to do some trips for me but some I have to do. My contract states that I could set my own schedule. I would like to try working three days a week here hoping that still meets the contract requirements? Or do we need to discuss other options?” I asked.

During our discussion, you could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet, even Patti’s office was deathly quiet. We had ridden together this morning and talked about a lot of things, but not talked about this topic.

“Just for conversation, what options are out there?” Bob asked.

“I could resign and you would have a position to fill. You could contract JGB to handle security, the same as the other 10 colleges we have. Or I could work a three day schedule meets the requirements,” I replied.

After a quick glance at each other Mr. Nobles said, “Bob and I have expected this conversation was coming for a while now. We are open to a security contract with JBG after the second dorm is completed. Right now we don’t want to rock the boat; things are going too smoothly for that.” He continued by saying.

“The contract allows you to set your own schedule; three days is acceptable to us as long as everything goes smoothly as it is now. There may be a few Thursday or Fridays that we need you here for staff meetings and the like. We will put the schedule out a month in advance to allow you to plan around them,” he said.

“Good, I was hoping we could work something out, at least until the last dorm is finished,” I replied.

I had my secure laptop and secure phone with me. They went everywhere that I went; now both were heavily encrypted. I had copies from each of the Bogota cameras from the shootout – even the footage from the front – in pass-worded files. Well, it took my right thumb print, a password and my left pinky and another password to log in to the computer.

The secure phone was not quite as bad; just a single thumb print and password to make an outgoing call and a password to answer.

“Patti, can you come in here a minute and close the door behind you?” I asked.

I knew that most likely she had not been privy to seeing the video footage with the girls. I opened the files, connected to the plasma and played the video.

The first video started as we exited the vehicle and started taking rounds near us. The State Department computer geeks had connected all the various camera footage into one long clip from all the different angles of the shootout.

They watched quietly. The video also had audio; it had captured the orders to surrender before they turned to fire on us, then all the shooting took place. Patti gasped a couple of times once when the two intruders went down, and when Vicky said, “That hurts like hell; I think I’ve been hit.”

“That was a close call there! If they had gotten in without being seen, it could have been very messy. That was some nice shooting for a handgun,” Bob said, “I could have never made hits that far away.”

I played the next file of the mess that happened in front of the embassy with the Suburban getting shot up with us in and behind it. It had all the pieces with us returning the Molotov cocktails back at the building and finally the inferno with it finally disappearing from sight.

“That was great, that’s one way to take care of two problems at once,” Bob replied.

The third clip was of us inspecting the bruises from the hits on the vests inside the embassy communications room and of the interview with the Columbia police.

Patti was the one to perk up, “So that’s how you two got those nasty bruises that no one at house would talk about. They were that bad even with your vest on, WOW!”

I was just about ready to close down the computer when the VCATS pinged. It was Amy Lockerman on the other end. “Can you step to the side, out of view of the camera for me please?” I asked? As soon as they did I accepted the page.

“Good morning Director Lockerman, how are things in the world of the State Department these days?” I asked.

“Things are good here thanks for asking. I have a couple of items on the agenda first. First off you may not like this one, but here goes. You know this is a presidential election year and if you’ve watched the news lately, you have seen that conservative candidates are having problems with their joint campaign stops and debates. The special interest liberal groups along with a supporting liberal media are giving them a run for their money, they are trying to disrupt them at every turn and doing a good job at it,” she said.

“Normally I would stay a mile away, but several of the senators who are running are helpful to the department when we have special needs. The campaigns are trying to find a company to provide security for joint debates independent of their party. They no longer want to go it alone,” she said. Then Amy added, “I suggested they contact you, “With a smile.” Just talk to them if you would. They would like to do it soon; in fact they are in Washington today for a planning session.”

“Now for the important stuff, the schedule shows that you are visiting more embassies this week. Have you made a schedule yet?” she asked.

“Yes – the plan is to visit the embassies on long weekends – Thursday’s, through Sunday’s is the scheduled to visit the embassies. But I have not planned which embassies to see next; that was a topic for tonight’s meeting,” I replied.

“You have made a presence in South America with a memorable visit, and Africa with the chopper transfers. I suggest that this trip be to the Middle East or Asia if possible,” Amy said. “We don’t want any area to feel left out.”

“Ok, that makes sense. I will plan the trip tonight and send you an email after the meeting. We are having a short meeting tonight. I hope I wont regret it, see if you can get them to come to our meeting and try to convince me that JBG should work for them, otherwise it will be put off another week,” with that I signed off VCATS.

“Bob you may want to make sure the Misses has pant suits with long sleeve blouses and several scarfs’,” I replied.

We were going to have an abbreviated meeting tonight. Ching Lee, Mark, Jason and Roseanne had flown to the M&M colleges for the first day of the new semester with Jason, Vicky and Mark at Michigan, and Roseanne and Ching Lee at Minnesota.

The next trip was the longest yet. For this next group of embassy visits the first leg was 7000 miles. They were coming back Wednesday morning. One of them was going to have a bad case of jet lag. I was going to let them decide who was going on the conference call tonight.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

“BJ, this is Captain Jimmy Hamilton. He is in charge of one of the Rochester SWAT teams,” Captain Peters said.

“Good to meet you Captain Hamilton, I hear you want some training for your team?” I replied.

“Yes BJ that is what I wanted to talk to you about if I could. Rochester has three different swat teams; one is on duty at all times. They are 15 man teams; only one reports to me,” Captain Hamilton replied.

“I want to send my team first, and then the others will follow later when you could fit them in. How soon can we set it up with you? I hear your training can intimidate the best. I want to see it first hand,” Captain Hamilton replied.

I called Jamie over to verify the schedule. I knew that there were a couple weeks open before she went back into full time recertification. The numbers we had to recertify for our embassy employees plus the college security at 20 persons a week are going to put a strain on the system.

With the CPR refresher, weapons course, hand to hand skills course (as I was now calling the hand to hand combat training), JBG company computer policy, a human resources ethics policy update and travel, I estimated a week for each group.

This had to happen rain or shine and that was the problem. On the eastern shore January, February, March and April could be very cold, wet, snow or blowing a gale. The same could hold true for November and December some years and then some years November and December could have nice 70 degree weather. Weather or notwithstanding, the training had to go on.

The shoot don’t shoot course would have to be hand-picked days because of the weather. The rifle range was outdoors too. Only the pistol range was an indoor facility. We had to qualify everyone on any weapon that I may issue them.

The shotgun training was a no brainer – point and pull the trigger – a shotgun fell into the same group as hand grenades, close counted. Double 00 buckshot at 10 yards put 10 pellets in 12 inch circle, at 20 yards a 24 inch circle.

I had a plan and I just needed to convince Lorrie and Marcy to let it go forward. I knew Bob’s construction could use the work and would do the job. If Jake did not time to oversee the job, I knew my dad would.

Jamie and Captain Hamilton decided on the third week of January to put the SWAT team through the course. Vicky, Ching Lee and I, along with help from Ty and Herman would put them through their paces.

This would allow me to finalize the physical and weapons training module I needed for JBG. The good thing was Rochester was going to pay full fare and be the test subjects.

We had just finished that schedule when Captain Peters signaled that the start time for the ceremony was quickly approaching and that we needed to be seated.

Captain Peters made an opening statement about the cooperation between the city and JBG on the college police force. Then he went through the introductions of everyone on stage. Mayor Dorsey then made his speech followed by the Police Chief Johnston and then College President Sanders.

Captain Peters began the work up for me to make my speech.

“Who is JBG? Jones Business Group?” he asked.

“JBG is a fast growing national and international multi-business company. It is a private company wholly owned by its senior management.”

“JBG’s President is Roberta Josephine Jones, better known as BJ. She is a highly decorated former Marine who served in Asia and the Middle East, a Master Sergeant. The things that speak volumes from her record are three Purple Hearts and Three Silver Stars while in the Middle East and her many other awards,” he said

“BJ lives the Marine motto, ‘Marines run to the gunfire, not away’. Another fact that stood out was a field promotion to Major for a day. I know there has to be a story behind that one.” he said.

“When not in the war zone, BJ was a hand to hand combat training specialist and her students won awards in competition matches. BJ also commanded a MP unit in the States. After leaving the marines, BJ became Director of Security for KCC College,” he said.

“BJ along with 5 other ladies started Jones Fitness and Training Center. That center is just one part of JBG today,” he said.

“BJ is President of JBG and is in charge the security operations. That security division supplies security for 10 colleges for over 20,000 students and facility in 10 states along with over 500 employees. If you have been watching the news JBG now supplies the State Department with embassy security personnel at 80 embassies world wide. JBG was instrumental in stopping 2 terrorists’ attacks last summer and fall. One was at the Annapolis Mall and the other was at Warrington College.”

“Executive Vice-president Marcy De Stone is the CFO and controls the Mid Atlantic Auto Rental division. MAAR has over 2,500 rental units including over 500 to a utility company, a NASCAR team and specialized units to the federal government.”

“Executive Vice-president Lorrie Smithfield, Lorrie oversees the Aviation Division with 22 helicopters, two 50 passenger planes, Beech Craft King Air and Queen Air, Gulfstream G4 and G5, G5 long range Cessna business jets and two C130 cargo planes,” he said then added.

“Lorrie’s responsibilities include Morton Field a JBG airport and a designated emergency airport for the Middle Atlantic States – along with flight training and pilot recertification and is located in QA County.”

“The vacation rental unit with over 50 houses in Florida also reports to Lorrie. A family can book a complete vacation from Morton Field with a private jet to a beach house in Florida complete with rental cars, and back,” he said.

“Executive Vice-presidents Ching Lee and Victoria Snow oversee operations of the fitness and training center. The fitness center is open 24/7 with over 1000 members. The training center supplies training to multiple Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. It also does the training and recertification of all their security officers. They even have in-house paramedics for health assessments and emergencies at the training center”

“Before the Rochester Police Department would approve this partnership I and nine other officers spent several days in the training center of JBG, and went through the firearms and physical training program to evaluate their program. We were mixed in with new employees from the college security division.”

“Believe me when I tell you that training is not for the weak of heart. It will intimidate the best the best of the best. One of our SWAT teams is going there in a couple weeks. I can only say to those fine men – take plenty of Ben Gay and aspirin – you’re going to need it!”

“Ching Lee and Vicky also do all the advertising and web presentations, both are skilled web masters. All executives serve as trainers with Ching Lee as a martial arts expert and BJ as the hand to hand combat and defensive trainer,” he said

“Executive Vice-president Jennifer Coles is in charge of the legal department and human resources. Jenny is also Chairperson for the Maryland Governors Criminal Task Force. The legal team of JBG also includes Jason Coles, attorney who was a former Chairman of the Governors task force, county commissioner and director of JBG Human resources.

“Executive Vice-president Jeanna De Stone is JBG’s Financial Advisor

“Other legal advisors include Howard, Fine and Howard for corporate law. The Curtis Warren legal group specializes in criminal law and Maryland State Supreme court Judge Tony Slaughter for legal over-site.”

“BJ, did I leave you anything to say?” Captain Peters said with a huge grin. He turned and walked towards me as I stood to walk to the podium. I playfully crumpled the sheet and tossed it to him.

“Mayor Dorsey, Chief Johnston, President Sanders, members of the board and honored guests. It is with great pride that we the senior management are before you today as JBG partners with the City of Rochester and the Rochester State College to improve student safety and protect the student community,” I said.

“The twenty individuals who are going to become the Rochester College Police Force today are the best of the best. They have been vetted by the state of New York, the city of Rochester, passed multiple back ground checks and a complete physiological work up. They have completed and passed the training that Captain Peters described with a 98% score or better. They truly are the best of the best,” I said.

“While Captain Peters’ introduction of our company was very knowledgeable, he missed an important part, our mission statement.”

“At JBG, our mission is to provide the best service to our customers and exceed their expectations day after day. From security, aviation, rental cars and fleets, physical fitness and the dream vacations, our goal is to be the best of the best with integrity and compassion in our diverse world.”

Then I stepped away from the mike and took my place next to the Mayor as he swore each of the twenty in. As each officer was sworn in, I handed the badges to each of them and shook their hand with the police chief looking on.

With the ceremony over we walked to the media to answer a few questions. Hanna was loaded and ready with questions; apparently the news desk had sent her a list of questions. Some were a continuation of the interview at the airport. She did wait with those until the local media had finished with questions related to Rochester.

Aadam Mohamed was still sitting in the front row as the media left for other news stories. I did the un-lady like thing and did a one-arm drop off the stage to greet him. We spoke in Arabic again, even thought I knew he could get by with his broken English.

“I learn more about you all the time. I said the first time we met that you were a leader and a warrior. Now I know it to be so,” he said.

“There are some things that one cannot hide for so long, a dominant personality will rise to the top every time,” I replied.

“Do these new officers report to you or to the city?” Aadam asked.

“They report to Kelly Preston, whom you have met, and then to me. The only time they will report to the city is if there is a major emergency on campus. I am paying them; they better not be doing city work on my time,” I replied.

“There will be no change in our artistic agreement?” Aadam asked.

“No changes,”

“Good, I plan to have another family gathering in a month,” Aadam replied.

“Let Kelly or me know a day in advance so all the shifts can be instructed not to bother you or your group,” I replied.

“If I may ask, where the embassies located that you providing security for?” he asked.

“Central America, South America, Africa, the middle east and Asia, none in Europe,” I replied.

“BJ, they are ready for pictures,” Marcy said from behind.

“Aadam, I need to go now, if you need anything just see Kelly,” I said.

Another hour of doing my JBG presidential duties and we were boarding the plane for home. Tomorrow was a change of pace for a couple of days, and then Vicky and I were flying out Wednesday night for another round of embassy visits. There were no chopper exchanges happening this week.

Both C130’s were scheduled to fly all week for one agency or another.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

The flight was good and with 20 empty seats. No one was crowded on this trip unless they wanted to be. People moved freely around the cabin talking with anyone they wanted. Jenny and I sat next to one another with me holding her hand. I was hoping to have time to catch up with her; I wanted to know how she was feeling. The pregnancy was starting to wear her down. She was so huge now – the twins were winning that battle.

Jakes saw us sitting alone and came over. He reversed the seat in front of us and sat on his knees in the seat in front of us. He opened the conversation about a discussion he had with Lorrie. “You know I asked Lorrie to find me a G5 LR like the ones you have. I wanted a new one but the wait is 18 months to 2 years. I have to make at least one trip a month – sometimes 2 – to Japan, at least until next fall,” Jake said.

“Lorrie said that she could shift around some flights if necessary until she found one for me. My plan was to lease it to Lorrie when I did not need it and she would also supply pilots for me,” he added.

“Tony and I decided on expanding J&J construction. Our plan is to set up the next field office, head quarters and plant complex will be in Centreville Virginia. There is a former contractor site for sale about five miles from Centreville on 66 towards Washington. It is on 50 acres and has a borrow pit with all the permits still valid,” he said.

“They needed to test fly one of the 407s last Saturday and they flew me over to meet the realtor. I took the opportunity put a deposit on it to hold it for 30 days,” he said and then added, “its 75 miles from Summers Road and 85 from Morton field. The flight was a little over 30 minutes and to drive it about one hour and a half.”

“At the moment the J&J engineering group is bidding on several road building and bridge contracts and one industrial development site. If we get any of them the new complex is a go for sure,” he said.

“Marcy said I could use one of the vacant offices at the gym so I could have all the whistles and bells, but I wanted to ask you first. She out did herself by putting me in contact with her mom “Jeanna” at Midwestern Bank for construction financing just to price shop against QT banking. Jeanna is something else hell, she beat their rate by 2 full percent,” he said.

“You can use the office as long as you need it think of it as tour home away from home. In fact if you want, you can meet Kate and Tony at Morton and fly over in one of the choppers when you need to. You can use our corporate room discount at the Holiday West for them; they liked staying there,” I replied.

“By the way all the storage racks came in for the armory on Friday. Tomorrow morning Dad and I will put them together. Dad also built several wooden gun racks to put all the guns on. He surprised me; he found the plans on the internet. I never thought he was that internet savvy. The weapons will need to be out of the crates to get moving air or they will rust. The racks that dad made are finished; all we have to do is slide them in place.”

“The basic vault is done. The only thing left is to finish some blockwork near the roof and that should be done in the next day or two,” Jake said.

“Tomorrow afternoon we will move the stuff out of the shipping container. Tomorrow afternoon when you get home from KCC, we will set up the vault access program. So the people you want to have access will know how the vault door works and I will show you how to program the vault door,” Jake said.

“Right now I just want all six of us including Jamie and Jason to be the only ones with access. I will feel a lot better when all the weapons are in there,” I replied.

“We now have another 500 more employees that have to have recurrent weapons training done immediately for all kinds of reasons, and another 500 that must have it this year as well. We have been buying the ammo a few thousand rounds at a time because we did not have a place to store large orders; now we do. Now Marcy can request bids of several hundred thousand at a time,” I replied. With new employees it normally takes between 250 to 500 rounds to qualify to our standards. With the former B/ W employees not having been qualified in three years who know how proficient some of them were and how much ammunition it would take.

The flight went fast with all the discussions going on. It was cold when we stepped off the plane. There were piles of snow from the 30 inches they had received a few days ago. Kelly had contracted a bus to carry the group over to the college auditorium.

In the auditorium it took over half an hour to get past the introductions. There were dozens of city officials and dozens more from the Rochester Police Department. It was a good thing we were early.

All the big guns were there, the college President and the executive board, the mayor and the chief of police and even the administrative board for the Police department was there.

My seventeen men and three women who were going to take the oath to be the new JBG Rochester College Police Force were lined up behind the table in their new uniforms.

I had allowed the college and the Rochester Police Department to have token input on the new uniforms for our men and women in blue and a different badge that met the New York state requirements.

Captain Peters was to be MC of the ceremony and he handed me a choreographed schedule they had prepared. After introduction of all the dignitaries, the Mayor and the Police chief each had a slot for the first speeches; it was an election year after all.

Captain Peters had been delegated to do the most speaking. He was to do an overview of JBG then I was to give a little speech followed by the college president Mr. William Sanders. Finally, the Police chief was to swear the 20 officers in. Kelly Preston and I were to hand out badges as they took the oath.

My twenty police officers who I had hand picked from the Rochester security group were all were either ex-military or former police officers. All of them had met again with Dr. Rich and had a security review by the agency. I spent hours reviewing their training reports and firearms proficiently reports. In my opinion, they were the best of the best at Rochester.

In the few minutes that were left before GO time I met with the guys and Kelly. There were handshakes, congratulations and finally, “I am proud you, remember we stand together in success and fall together in failure,” I said.

I went to my seat with the rest of my team, took the folded sheet of paper that I brought with me and wrote an outline for my speech. After Mayor Dorsey’s and Chief Johnston’s speeches, I could fill in the blanks.

I was surprised as I looked over the rapidly filling audience section to see Aadam Mohamed sitting in the front row without his body guards. I was about to stand up to go greet him when Captain Peters and another officer approached the table.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

We touched down on Morton Field at 0630. Even though it was a chilly 30 degrees cold, Marcy, Jenny, Ching Lee, Lorrie, Jason, Lisa, Jake, Mindy, Dad and Mom came out to the tarmac and met us at the bottom of the stairs as we exited the plane. It was a warm reception standing in the cold wind.

We quickly made our way into the warmth of the terminal building where everything was set up for the grand opening for the restaurant. The County commissioners, the dignitaries from the state aviation administration, the county EMS aviation, along with Eric and Frank and Amy along with the media and a large crowd were waiting for the ribbon cutting and breakfast.

After our quick hellos to the extended family, we six went into one of the meeting rooms for what we called a 15 minute debriefing. We just wanted time alone for a few minutes before we started our day. A few minutes before 7, we came out to start the festivities.

To get things started, I sent Lorrie and Marcy to do the honors with the manager of the restaurant. Lorrie and Marcy using the giant scissors cut the ribbon while the rest of us stood to the side and cheered them on.

The breakfast menu had all the sure favorites. There were eggs, bacon, sausage, sausage gravy, chipped beef and biscuits, hot cakes, waffles, fruits and cereals. There were huge coffee makers – both decaf and hi-test as Vicky called it.

I was sure that when the local construction and farmers found out they could get a full freshly cooked breakfast in the wee hours of the morning, this place was going to be busy.

We were going to get our breakfast on a tray and disappear into Carson’s office to have a real business update. While we were waiting, Hanna Page walked over to ask for an interview. Marley Kendall was nowhere in sight; I wondered if she had finally gotten the promotion she had been seeking for so long.

I had a feeling what she was after; the State Department had released the back gate shoot-out camera footage from the Bogota embassy. Hanna was gunning for what the Sunday morning talk shows were missing this past week fill in the blanks from JGB. It was the interview that would make her day.

JBG had not issued a press release related to the Bogota embassy incident and had given no interviews. The talk show hosts were dismayed that no representative was made available for the Sunday news cycle. We had long ago made the policy decision that we would not participate in the Sunday morning talk show armchair mud-slinging for ratings. As for Hanna Page and Marley Kendall because they had gone out of their way for us, we would gladly return the favor.

Hanna had another exclusive. I answered her questions until our breakfast was delivered. Some of her questions were coming from her ear wick and I was sure from the national news desk as well and spun her own way. Then when she had killed the mike I asked, “What are you doing from 10:30 until later in the afternoon?”

“Why?” Hanna replied.

“There is another news conference and announcement about JGB in Rochester at noon. We are flying out at 10:30; there is a seat for you and your cameraman if you want it,” I replied.

Hanna lit up like she had won the Pulitzer.

“Let me call my desk; I’ll get back to you,” she replied as she hurried away talking on her phone a mile a minute. Hanna still had several county commissioners to interview IF they were willing.

Duke Justice and Clarence Hallworthy were both in attendance. I would have loved to listen in on their interviews but I would have to listen to the edited version tonight from the DVR.

As we ate there were the general conversations about our trip and events in the gym. Marcy and Lorrie both said, “We have a lot of business to discuss at our meeting tonight.” It did not surprise me one bit. After getting shot at again, I was expecting to see a ring mounted in the office floor with a log chain and ankle cuffs just long enough to make it to the bathroom if Jenny got her way.

Lorrie discussed the repairs to the first 407 that had made the return trip in the C130. “The engine is going to need a complete overhaul. We found all the tools to do the job in-house, on e-Bay, Amazon and the military web site. The parts are from several places, the interior completely needs to be re-upholstered and the windshield replaced. The mechanics think 500k will make it a first class chopper. I gave them the go ahead.”

“Jack Rush has two friends who want to partner in his flight instructor school and start a sight-seeing venture located here at the airport. They are both chopper instructors from the Air Force and are retiring. They want to work out a lease rental for both a 407 and a Blackhawk, if we fix one up. They already have a small 2 person chopper and they have rented one of the small offices in the terminal,” Lorrie added.

Marcy was smiling like a Cheshire cat, which meant that meant that she was on board with Lorrie’s conversation. Our conversation was interrupted by Frank and Eric walking our way.

“You certainly know how to make an impression for all the right people and all the right reasons,” Frank said. Then added, “You have no idea how many calls I took expressing support for the decision to turn the State contract over to JBG since the Bogota fire fight.”

“Congratulations on the Rochester College Police force. I’m interested to see how it is going to work out for you,” Eric replied.

“I am hoping that it will eliminate so much lost time, but only time will tell,” I replied. Then I continued by saying, “Oh, by the way we need a sit down at the big table to deal with how bad the embassies are when we get back.”

The Bombardier had been pushed in front of the terminal building signaling that it was almost time to go, the time had crept up on us. Carson announced on the PA system that JBG Flight 716 for Rochester was now boarding. The new flight numbering system was something that Lorrie and Marcy wanted to try. 716 meant that this was the 7 flight of 2016. We were only 10 hours into the New Year and already six flights had departed from Morton Field. I guessed that most of them were to Florida rental houses and the islands for warmer weather vacations.

Lorrie and Carson had created a log sheet with the flight number; plane number and passenger list in case there were “Heaven Forbid” any accidents.

We had intended to fly in the G5 this morning, but with so many people going up there with us, there were not enough seats in the G5, so we switched to the 50 passenger Bombardier 200.

The whole gang was going up to Rochester for the publicity announcement of the Rochester College Police Force. The list was long all six girls, Mom and Dad, Jason, Lisa and Joey, Judge Slaughter and his wife, Jake and Mindy, Cindy and her husband, Mark and his fiancée, Jamie, her husband and their two teenage children, Crash and Marlene and finally Hanna Page along with her camera man. There was one flight attendant, and a pilot and copilot.

The weather for the flight was good but cold. Rochester had had 30 inches of lake effect snow several days ago but everything was clear at the airport. The pilot had given us an update as we were finishing breakfast. He asked if there were any last minute changes.

“None just get us there safely,” I replied.

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.

Three hours later we had been cleared out of the holding pattern to land and were landing at La Paz International Airport. It had been an interesting flight in more ways than one.

Weeks ago when we had accepted the contracts for the M&M colleges, I tried to get Vicky or Ching Lee to be more involved the security department.
At the time both wanted to stay where they were, with Vicky in charge of advertising and sharing duties over the gym with Ching Lee over the corporate web site.

On this morning’s flight I started giving Vicky an in-depth training on the VCATS system and the use of the manuals, along with the programs that Cindy had put together for me. She even responded to the pages for embassy chats on the system.

Then she finally said it, “I can help you with more of the security department now. My clerks have improved enough with the advertising that with just a little oversite, they can do just fine. The trainers in the gym haven’t needed any guidance for the last couple months, even though new membership continues to grow,”

“Three days ago you were shot at and managed to get hit not once but twice. We were lucky that we walked away from that one. A few inches in either direction and the outcome could have been a lot different for us,” I replied then added. “You know that is something we are going to face over and over again at some of the places we are going to have to go. Are you ready for that kind of risk?”

“Well I have to admit that I was scared at the first shots but then the training that you repeatedly pounded into my head started to take over. I will not make the mistake of letting my guard down anymore. You never told me about the adrenaline rush after it was over. It was something like I have never had before,” Vicky said.

“I think by splitting up and using two jets we can get these onsite visits over a lot faster. We are going to have to add a couple more administrators to handle all of this anyhow. One thing for sure, I know we need to keep Cindy in the office; she is just too valuable in the big picture to have out of the office,” Vicky added.

“You’re right on that. We will know a whole lot more in a few days with this embassy adventure. We need to bring Ching Lee into the discussion, do you want to take on this kind of role,” I replied.

We had just finished taxing to a stop on the general aviation tarmac. I looked out the window to see our C130 and the newer Blackhawk and Bell 407 choppers with a crowd around them. I knew they were the newer ones; the 407 was NN730G that Adam wanted and the Blackhawk had the JBG decal on it.

As we stepped to the tarmac the mechanics and the C130 pilots waved us over as we stepped onto the tarmac. I recognized Adam right away. There were all smiles as they walked to meet us.

“It’s great to finally see you two in person. I was a little worried whether we would get to meet you girls after we started getting reports that you were at Bogota embassy, I thought another Benghazi was coming before you even got out of the gate, no pun intended. Each report was getting worse and worse; add that to the video feeds, I didn’t know what to think of that mess you ladies fell into. Your final solution was quite effective,” Adam replied.

“It was tough going for a few minutes but it is never good to piss off two women with guns,” I replied with a grin.

“Yeah, I think they found that out the hard way,” Adam replied with a hard laugh. “It’s true, you are one tough bird”.

“No, just an old marine, I replied.

“We just finished the check ride in the 407; it was as nice as the chopper looks. My pilot is over here – let’s go for a sightseeing tour of La Paz. There are some great scenic views from the air then we can get down to business,” Adam replied.

“Sure, just give me a minute to greet my crew,” I replied.

I walked over and shook the hands of all my men who had worked so hard to make this chopper exchange work out in the allotted time frame. I asked all the normal questions. “How is everything going? Are the accommodations satisfactory? Are you getting enough to eat?”

After the usual head nods and verbal responses I said, “Missions like this are going to happen a lot more than we like. When we get back we need to do a roundtable this. We need to develop a plan from developing the flight plan to landing back at Morton field and everything in between.”

I continued by saying, “It needs to be quickly adaptable to any emergency JBG security may encounter any where in the world. It also needs to be both plug and play with fill in the blank. You guys have been on two of these; I want you to work with Lorrie and Vicky to get it done. Vicky is going to be doing more in security,” I said.

Adam introduced Vicky and me to Melvin Johnson – the pilot we now supplied to the La Paz embassy – as we climbed into the rear seats of the 407. I had flown in choppers many times, specifically Blackhawks.

The 407 was much smaller but lavish compared to the Blackhawks I rode in the sand box. The 407 seats were the best there was to make it a comfortable ride. The Blackhawk had a plywood floor and no seats to make it multipurpose, flying gun mount, carrying soldiers, freight or bodies.

Vicky had never flown in a chopper before. When the rotors started to pick up enough speed and lift, there was always some shaking and vibration. She grabbed my hand and squeezed tight. I looked at her and winked. As soon as we cleared the ground to get away from the rotor wash things started too smoothed out.

We put on the David Clarke noise canceling headsets – the best on the market you can buy- so talking was easy and normal. Adam told us about the city as we flew over and around it, he described the geography and explained about the rich history.

After the aerial tour of the city, Melvin flew toward a nearby snow-capped mountain. As we closed the distance Adam pointed out a beautiful waterfall that fed into a small stream that later on turned into a river as it made its way to the ocean. At first the waterfall looked like a silver paint brush stroke on a magnificent painting by Bob Ross.

As we flew closer I could see the water mist and vapor rising from the water’s angry descent onto the rocks below the waterfalls and then we came upon the rapids as it moved downstream. It was breath-taking scenery. Vicky had overcome her fears quickly and was talking excitedly over the headset as she took pictures with her smarter than smart phone. She had recovered quickly enough to even taken a lot of pictures over the city.

After landing it was back to the business at hand. Vicky and I interviewed our employees, chatted with the embassy staff and asked the same questions that we had at the other stops and unfortunately, received the same troubling answers.

I promised that JBG would meet their needs and go beyond whenever necessary.

We enjoyed another State dinner, Vicky and I both needed extra time in the gym after this trip. It was near 10 pm when we climbed into the seats of the G5 to gladly go home. The C130 and her crew had left for home in the early afternoon.

It was four thousand miles as the crow flies back to Morton Field. The G5LR could make the trip without refueling. We were going to sleep during the flight and arrive at Morton field by 0630.

The plan was to have some family time before festivities at the airport started. Today was the grand opening of the Morton field restaurant to the public.

Two hours later the six of us girls, Jason, Lisa, Cindy, Mark, Judge Slaughter and more would be departing on the Bombardier bound for Rochester to publicly announce that the Rochester College Police force was taking its place as part of the college security force.
Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Joe H.