Chapter 199

The carrier fleet had made its swing to the Sea of Japan and anchored off South Korea for a couple of days. Then it carried out a week of air operations. North Korea’s President was hemorrhaging crap, calling the fleet a major provocation and an invitation to war. He was on every media he could find, even calling into ZNN making threats.

Today the B52s flew over South Korea and buzzed the fleet on their flight to Russia. B21s returned to their base in Japan were also flying over South Korea and buzzing the fleet.

China’s ambassador was in the lobby – without a formal request for a meeting. ‘‘I have a verbal message from the President of North Korea. You are to remove your fleet and bombers from the Sea of Japan or war will be immediate,’’ he said.

‘‘You can tell Crap mouth if it is such a provocation that he needs to step up to the plate and do something about it. Otherwise he needs shut his mouth, go back to his harem and hope I don’t take offence to his statements. You can also tell him none of his scientists assisting Iran’s nuclear ambitions survived. You can also tell him that there are serious consequences coming his way. The best thing for him to do is shut his mouth or to bend over and kiss his sorry ass goodbye!’’ I said.

‘‘Do you want me to put it in writing for him?’’ I asked.

‘‘No, that won’t be necessary. I think I can relay the meaning of the message,’’ the Ambassador said.

I spent four more days and nights on the campaign trail, then home again on Sunday night. The girls had spent the four days with me. They were spending Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at JBG. Six weeks to the election.

The first two wells in Cameroon were productive. The next two were dry - no oil or gas. The next four were productive. The pipelines were being run down to the trunk line to the refinery. Twelve hundred JBG security were now in Cameroon and Nigeria.

On Tuesday they had killed a ten man scouting party from one of the new groups. Elsabab had started showing up on fliers posted on poles and bulletin boards threatening local election officials.

I read the updates from the Joint Chiefs - twenty thousand more prisoners had been released, there were seventeen hundred deemed unfit to release. The maximum prison outside of Tehran was their destiny, then advanced interrogation and execution. Two thirds of the National Guard were now on their way home.

Last week’s campaign swing had been through the north central region. This week’s was mid central with Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. I was home again on Sunday night with the girls. It was five weeks to the election.

The weekend’s news was on the liberals again. Tom Bennett did a naked swan dive from his twentieth floor penthouse Friday afternoon in broad daylight. Two high end call girls were found bound, gagged and dead in the living room and bedroom. The door had to be broken down to gain entrance by the police. It was double chained from the inside.

On the coffee table were ten lines of cocaine mixed with fentanyl and evidence that at least that many had been inhaled. The call girls were killed as some part of a sexual ritual. The coroner’s report said they were so high on drugs they were unlikely to have felt a thing or understood what was taking place. The knives used to kill them were still in the bodies and Bennett’s fingerprints were on them, along with his DNA in the women.

It was beginning to look like God had a sudden dislike for liberals the way they were suddenly dying - or was Andy involved?

On Monday more ads were made to counterpoint what Albert Finney’s campaign was trying to exploit. The polls said I had a twenty point advantage on him. I expected the campaign to start getting very dirty. Desperate men do desperate things, including throwing caution to the wind.

I did four more news programs that were to air during the week. The hot topic for the today’s news was that there was a large fleet presence in the South China Sea. The Philippines were building their island base that China had tried to prevent. They had dozens of ships driving pilings and pumping sand.

China had its hands full following the American fleet as it sailed around the island of Taiwan and did aviation exercises in the South China Sea. They were not happy that the Navy was in force there.

The East Coast heavy carriers left the fleet and headed back home through Panama Canal or to their duty stations off the east coast of Africa through the Suez Canal. One heavy carrier group was left in the Indian Ocean. One West Coast task force was to ply the South China Sea near the Philippine’s new island.

The light carriers were to start picking up their troops and equipment and return to their home ports or assignments.

This week’s campaign tour carried me back to states that I would have to win to carry the electoral vote; Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, California and the Carolinas. It was four weeks to the election.

This week was the first election in the new Iran. It was for delegates to develop and ratify a new constitution. Ninety five percent of Iranians over the age of fourteen had identity cards. The voting age was eighteen.

The girls and I were home again on Sunday evening. There was plenty of JBG business for them to catch up on. Gold shipments from Polokwane were being stacked in the secure hangar. There was simply no time to stack the bars in the basement vault rooms.

Vicky, Ching Lee and Andy were flying to the Pack countries for more meetings on terrorism. It had been quiet for a while but a new group of terrorists were starting to show up on intelligence reports. They were former ISIS and rogue terrorist from Africa. JBG intelligence gathering stations were following a dozen other small groups.

When they returned from Europe they had meetings with Mexico and our other Central American security customers.

Wednesday afternoon I was on the campaign trail again, first stop Texas with four big rallies. I beat Albert Finney like he was a wet dog. From there I went back to Florida and then to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Sunday I was back at home meeting with the girls. The polls had started to do crazy things for some reason; I dropped ten points in five days without explanation. At this point I was too busy to worry about it. My campaign researchers were trying to find out why.

Monday morning I met with the Joint Chiefs and Vice President Harrison. We made the decision to reduce the troops in Iran by fifty percent starting tomorrow. 747s would begin returning the soldiers to their home bases. China was pissed but still buying the Iranian oil.

Congress flooded my desk with bills and then went into recess so the members could run their elections. That was one of the problems; too many of the bills were feel good special interest so the politician could go to their home and brag about all the bills passed to benefit his district.

I vetoed more than I signed.

On Monday afternoon Finney and his associates began personal attacks against me and my family. First he started with that I wasn’t that poor woman that I wanted everyone to believe I was. Next he challenged the medals I had earned in the war - there was no way a woman could earn those kind of medals. The Marines was just passing out feel good medals.

Then he challenged the number of contracts JBG had with the government and foreign governments, why they were allowed and why some were listed as classified.

Then he started trashing my mates, my lifestyle and the boys as illegitimate bastards.

Everybody in both offices were pissed. Andy was ready to send a cleanup team after him. I shut that down immediately. Andy had two new cleanup teams at his disposal and was itching to try them out.

They had the new Russian long range sniper rifle. It was a copy of the Barrett but had an eight inch longer barrel and was fifty five caliber instead of fifty along with a huge noise suppressor and a much more powerful scope. The bullet was the same weight as the fifty, had a slightly faster velocity, a flatter trajectory and two thousand yard plus kill range in the right hands.

‘‘OK, so you want to play that game. You just went too far,’’ I thought.

I had the file Robert generated on him and his VP candidate. I hadn’t read it or even looked at it for that matter. It was time to do that.

I looked at his college grades and papers, he had been a member in good standing with the American Communist Party until his run for public office. That would have little impact the way the younger voters seemed to think. But it might make some difference.

There was more damaging information - he had a police record that might raise eyebrows. Two drunk driving arrests in his home state that he cleared by pleading guilty before judgment - a process unheard of in this day and age for drunk driving.