Chapter 27

Supper was great - after all, this was a five star restaurant. I sent Vicky to take pictures for the girls, Hanna, Melinda, their camera men and some of the security team to sight see the city as the sun went down.

The security team I sent with them were from the first group I had sent here. I figured that they had explored the city by now and knew where the points of interest were. Although I did remark the strip clubs and casinos were not points of interest because of the political fallout if they were spotted.

I went to the embassy to use the MTAC secure communications. First was Robert.

“We got breaks today, Jaed spent several hours today at one of the machine shops just to the edge of the city. I sent the information to the Harrisburg group. It’s was too congested to get a drone over there.” I sent the information to Ben.

“They are getting a proper OSHA inspection tomorrow. We used one of the burn phones to call in an anonymous safety complaint to give them some paper to work with.”

“The power company is hanging one of those new transformers there tomorrow, low voltage and fluctuating power complaints in the neighborhood,” again from the burn phone.

“The Harrisburg group has sent pictures of several new helpers with Jaed this morning. All three of them are on the Interpol terrorist list. The last known sighting was in London six weeks ago.

“We used traffic cams to follow them as far as we could today. Tomorrow we will have access to more in that direction. Ching Lee is sending some of her people from the college to stake out the road and follow them if they can. The tag numbers come back to that same lot outside Philly,” Robert said.

I was not sure if I liked that. I did not know how skilled the college security teams were in tailing and not being seen in that kind of stakeout procedure.

“On a more private thing you asked us to follow General Kedar. He did make a trip to Pakistan as his travel calendar indicated and his arrival was covered by the Fars news agency,” Robert said.

“OK that is a start; keep checking,” I said.

“Robert, call East Coast and see if they have any portable tag scanners that mount on a car available. If they do, get a couple ASAP. Since we now have some tag numbers to work with we may be able follow them that way. It’s a long shot but I will take it,” I said.

The next one was to Ben Smith; I wanted to double check what he was doing with all this information. I listened to Ben explain his day so far. He confirmed what Robert had told me and carried it a little further. He was going to have an agency aircraft - alternating between a small plane and a helicopter - take photographs of the area every hour during daylight hours.

Ben had commandeered a telephone repair bucket truck. Tomorrow the 500 pair phone cable near the shop was going to need an all day repair and maybe for several days. The next day a fiber optic repair crew would go through the motions to replace it with the agency as part of the crew. At least positive things were happening.

I was ready to end the conversation when Ben said, “The President had requested that if I talked to you that you call him. Secretary of State Dick James left the same message.”

“OK - thanks,” I replied.

I called the President on MTAC, he picked up right away. Troy and Dick James came up on the split screen, all saying hello at the same time. I knew this could not turn out well.

“Did you get up one day last week and decide just to piss everybody in the world off in six days - take a break and then piss off some more?” the President asked.

“No, not really; who have I pissed off now?” I asked.

“Well for starters a third of the House is still screaming about the IRS leadership change. The other third wants you subpoenaed to explain why the collection changes. The Senate wants hearings on the ousting of the IRS commissioner. That’s just what’s happening in Washington,” Troy said.

“France and Greece are really pissed off about this terrorism summit and want to know why they were not invited. Both ambassadors have been to the State Department and have filed an official complaint,” Dick said.