Chapter 37

The helicopter ride seemed to take forever, even thought it was only forty minutes.

I called the girls to fill them in and to tell them I would be on the news again.

I turned the swivel seat around to face Eric, Ben, Anne and Andrew.

“I want every single individual from every department and agency that was on site to be interviewed starting on Friday. This needs to start from the time they turned off the highway on to the lane. I need what they did, what they saw, what orders they were given, and how many rounds they fired.”

“I want maps and location of every vehicle with notations of who was in the vehicle. I want the location of everyone dead and who was injured. I want to be able to reconstruct this fiasco like a movie script from beginning to end,” I said.

“Axle took pictures as he was leaving; I will get you copies to help with mapping the scene. When that is finished we will meet with all the agencies and hash out the differences.”

“Anne, since you have the most experience at analyzing data and systematic planning you are in charge. Don’t be afraid to exercise your authority. Split the agencies in half with Andrew. Get it done.”

“I will authorize an expense account with air travel and have the GSA authorize a car for both of you. I will also authorize for you to get whatever clerks you need from the pool to assist you.”

“Eric can supply the list of agencies that participated and the contacts with them,” I said.

“How long do you think you will need?” I asked.

“Not more than thirty days to the final report with both of us working on it. The sooner the interviews happen, the better - before memories get cold. We just have to wait until the funerals are over,” Anne replied.

“This investigation is not to assign blame. I have already accepted that. It is to identify why and what went wrong, and how to fix it before the next one happens - and it will,” I said.

Then I called Andy, “Bring all our people and equipment home from Harrisburg. They can stay and watch the fireworks there or come home to be with their families for the holiday.”

“Monday run them through the gun range and the fitness test. They will be reassigned to the Pact Countries by the end of the week.”

“Plan on a team going to Paris with me during the last week of July. Fate has scheduled a meeting for me with the angel of death. Make sure there is a coffin on board to bring my body home,” I said.

After a long pause, “OK,” Andy replied.

Every eye in the helicopter was wide and on me but no one said anything.

A few minutes later we were landing on the west lawn at the White House.

We met with the President and his staff for most of an hour, first discussing the all the information. The FBI bomb squad confirmed that all one hundred bikes were recovered and disarmed.

Friday they were going to cut the tubes apart with a pipe cutter and remove the C4, holding some of it for evidence and disposing the rest of it.

There would be long and drawn out trials for those arrested in the machine shops and community members of Avon Heights. The raids had produced plenty of evidence.

I could just imagine the fun they would have blowing things up with it. I loved to play with explosives myself at times.

The news conference started at four with Ben and Eric in front giving statements. The grim news about the causalities was given and the agencies they worked for. Then the condolences and sorrow for the loss of life and the gallant sacrifices of the fallen officers.

I stood with Anne and Andrew behind Ben as I said I would. The politicians gave the usual pat themselves on the back and the fine work that their agencies and people had done protecting the citizens of the nation.

Then there was the reassurances that everything that could be done to protect the public was being done. And then the questions started.

Ben, Eric and the others answered carefully. One of the things we had done in the meeting before the news conference was to discuss how certain questions and answers were to be given. The Harrisburg group was given a script to use before we left there so we would be on the same page. We wanted to preserve the dark web intelligence if we could.

At the Harrisburg news conference DHS director Creber had followed script when answering the question on how we found out about the terror group and their plans. Eric answered the same way but the Washington reporters were insistent on more detail to the point of harassing Eric.