Chapter 24

Friday morning I went straight to the IRS building with the business name of the shop Jaed had made Thursday’s stop at. It was an excuse to sign the next batch of seizures - in fact I signed the rest of the four hundred and fifty that were left.

I instructed Hap to pull another thousand for collection action next week. I planned to sign them on Monday, explaining that I would be out for the rest of next week and I wanted collections spread over the week.

I left with the information on the business that Jaed spent time at. In the office Ben immediately assigned someone to work on it. They were added to the OSHA inspection list.

I was disappointed at the snail’s pace that the OSHA inspections were going and let it be known. The Labor secretary Harvey was going to send a person over after lunch to explain the process and the delays.

I met with Ben and the task force and listened while he explained today’s difficulties.

The satellite that the CIA had moved over the Harrisburg area was an old one on life support. Life support failed to keep it alive after the second day. Three days of worthless pictures and video was all Ben was going to get from it. The CIA was trying to improve the quality of the pictures but there was little hope.

There were no other satellites that could be repositioned over the US for our intelligence use. Sure, there were plenty of satellites but they were all communications or weather or dedicated to military specialty functions. To reposition one from Asia or the Middle East would take weeks.

Putting a military drone overhead for that length of time was a possibility but that was some of the most congested airspace in the country. To get a larger drone high enough not to be seen would put it in heavily traveled air space that would be a nightmare for air traffic controllers. There were over a dozen major airports with flight routes over the area.

We could use the smaller drones and would be, starting on the second if all else failed. The water park had a strict and much published policy against drones, but then I would twist arms to stifle opposition - if necessary.

Robert sent this morning’s Harrisburg reports with the GPS map. Jaed did take the truck home - home was eight miles away from the water park on Holmes Road.

This morning after Jaed left for work Burt Slade of the Harrisburg group drove past. After verifying there were no more autos there or signs of life, Burt called for the drone to inspect the place. One of our small camera drones was carried there to do the job.

The flyover by the drone only proved Jaed was a junk rat with household trash dumped everywhere. There were no storage sheds or anything else large enough to store anything in nor were there any bikes anywhere on the property. One more dead end but at least it answered a question or two.

After lunch Neil Elliott from the OSHA enforcement and Director Harvey came to explain why the audits of the selected businesses were moving at a snail’s pace.

“We have to enter the business and announce what we are doing there. Then we have to wait until someone from management approves a voluntary audit. If they refuse, we are done until we get an enforcement order.”

“First there is a records compliance phase and then a verification of safety meetings and safety equipment. Then is the inspection of the shop area, storage and yards. The process can take two men a day to do a large one site business, even if they voluntarily comply with the request.”

“We have our entire Pennsylvania office working on the request; it s going to take a month,” Neil said.

“You don’t have a month; you have ten days. Pull teams from Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Ohio; send them there - put them up in motel rooms but get this job done. Tell them what we are discreetly looking for and not to acknowledge they have seen it if they do but report it immediately. It is imperative that their visits look like a normal inspection,” I said.

Ben and Eric had so far put about twenty percent of the names through the terrorist list and Interpol with no real success. There were one or two expired visas and green cards but none that seemed to be connected to our problem.

Tomorrow the number of people working on the list would be doubled. Ben and I both wanted all the names run through the system by noon on Monday.

After a quick visit to the Oval Office to hear more questions about the IRS seizures, my security carried me home. I took my place in the meeting room while the girls told me about their day.

Bell was finished with the upgrades to our 406 and 407 helicopters and had finished with the last of the Hueys. Progress was being made on both the truck stop building and the dealership building.