Chapter 10

All the upstairs meeting rooms were occupied so that left us with the larger basement meeting room.

We listened as Moses, Larry and Curly - our corporate lawyers Howard, Fine and Howard - explained the suit and the cease all work order the town was asking the judge to rule on tomorrow.

“Why a stop order on the whole project? The sewer is the last thing that will be needed months from now. Why not just the sewer portion?” I asked.

“It’s all about negotiating leverage,” Moses replied.

“It’s hard to believe the town wants to put 500 construction men in the unemployment line in the middle of the construction season,” I said.

“Well, let’s change the game a little bit. Tear up the contract with Q-town and make it a two part contract. Part one is to be the sewage and water pipes from the town to the gun club. That will take in Morton, the Morton water tower, the Crash Motel, and the gun club and get the pipes just a few miles away from the truck stop,” I said.

“Contract two will be an extension from the gun club to the truck stop and the truck dealership to finish out the project,” I added.

“If the judge rules for a stop you can argue for just the second contract. That is the only one Cville has been making the fuss about. You can also argue that the first contract is critical to public health because of the failing well in Q-town,” I said.

“They are going to want the grant put into escrow until a court decision is reached. That will put a stop on the plant upgrade,” Kurt Allen the Qtown manager said.

“A grant is a grant; there were no strings attached to it other than the hand shake agreement. Continue on with the plant upgrade; if they want money in escrow we will take care of it. If the judge rules in our favor we will get it back and if we lose we will have to pay it anyhow,” I replied.

“Write it up and then the legal department will type it up and we can sign it tonight so it will be in force for tomorrow’s court appearance,” Jenny said.

A few minutes later the legal department was working on the text of the contracts. An hour later the documents were signed and everyone had left and I was glad.

Vicky and I met the DOD team, Frank and Eric at the medical building for the interrogation of the two. Tomorrow night they were going into the doc’s furnace. It was a short night; we were done early, the prisoners fed and we were home by 2200.

Tuesday morning I spent all my time on VCATS, MTAC or with Robert. The DHS agents had hard drives full of video data from the Harrisburg water park, someone had a long boring road ahead of them to analyze and run facial recognition on the sixty days of films from the hundreds of cameras. I was super glad they did not want Roberts’s group to do it.

At noon Moses called to say the judge denied the town’s request for an injunction and stop order on the construction of the truck stop and dealership building.

In judge’s words, “The town failed to provide sufficient evidence that continued construction was against the interest of Cville or the general public. The contracts were sound and the project was within the guidelines established by the county and the state through the permitting, hearing process and approvals. The construction site was outside the town limits leaving the town with no claim against either party.”

The Cville commissioners and mayor now had a public relations disaster to deal with and the town elections were in just two months.

I called General Ingram on the scrambled phone to inform him that all six of the cobras had been delivered to IDF as instructed. I also informed him that the two prisoners were going to meet Allah tonight after his men were finished unless there were strenuous objections. There were none.