Chapter 41

Tuesday morning just three Suburban’s made the trip to Washington. To put it plainly, we were short on people. With the men and ladies moving towards the PAC countries and the OPS team drafted as trainers, there were simply not enough people to go around.

There were two hundred scheduled to be in training before the end of next week. They were coming in stages based on skill level, class size and the number the doc could run through his system in a day with the physical we had chosen. Jason, Mischief and Mayhem and all of HR had been busy.

All that meant that Robert’s group had several members dedicated to doing background investigations. To hell with all the new employment rules telling us we could not look at criminal, court, medical records or social media. I had told Robert to find all of it.

Even the shrinks group was having a chat with the applicants on the couch. There was no way we could tolerate someone who was marginally unstable being assigned to the PAC Countries.

One of the first things they were told is they had to close all social media accounts - period. If we found them accessing social media they would be terminated.

All social media companies lied. Opting out of tracking and other information collecting did nothing. Even though you opted out, the companies turned it all back on with updates. You were still tracked and monitored with apps used to collect data and information and then they sold it to anyone, anywhere.

It would be highly dangerous for our company if a terrorist were able to use social media to get a list of employees and where they were assigned by using social media data.

I met Axle James at the office before I left for Washington; he had been away for a family emergency. Today was his first day back.

“Here are the pictures you asked for from Harrisburg. The three CDs are from my cameras. I was working with Robbie to develop something we could use for training.”

“There was one on each mini-gun and one aimed straight ahead that captured the Stingers. All three became active when the arm weapons switch was turned on. Ah, I’m sorry about the back ground music; I forgot to turn it off. You may want to look at them before you show them to anyone,” he said.

“Did you make copies?” I asked.

“Yes. If you want me to destroy them just tell me,” he said.

“Just hold on to them for a while, I’ll let you know. Thanks, you may have been more help than you know,” I said.

I watched the CDs with the sound turned off. I wanted to be able to hear the company radios and the JBG aviation channel.

At 1600 every reporter with a White House grounds pass was crowding the fence yelling questions. They must have had someone watching the roads. I waved as I went inside, ignoring the questions.

Some things never change and it was a good thing. Both percolators were brewing fresh coffee. I noticed the cans were marked USN, Ben had found himself a source when my supply ran out.

I had only been in my office a few minutes with Anne and Andrew, long enough to give them Axle’s pictures for the investigation, and then we went out to the big table. Shortly after that, the parade started.

The parade was the President, Troy, Art Cummins, Frank Love (who had been too busy to attend most meetings lately) and the AG. It was followed by General Ingram and the Air Force chief of staff.

“Couple more and we could have a trial,” I thought.

The AG started, “I need the names of the FBI ladies you used. Just for the record, of course. The House has said they are going to subpoena all records related to them,” he said.

“I already publicly said that no records were made or kept. I forgot long ago who they were or what they looked like. So you are SOL, don’t bother asking anymore,” I said.

“Is the intel source still active?” the President asked.

“Yes, I believe so, we just need to verify and double check the data for a while,” I replied.

I cherry picked pages from my folder and handed them to the President; the ones with the orders from the General.

“Pass them around, read only, no copies,” I said.

“This is the one that is the most discouraging. It leads me to believe there are ten more sleeper cells in the country similar to Harrisburg. Here are the replies to Tiam that Robert came up with and found US IP addresses for,” I said as I handed the papers to him.

“Looks like your gamble may bear fruit after all,” Troy said, “Damn you have big brass pair. I never would have the balls to make that kind of decision, let alone execute it so perfectly.”

“Troy, that could be considered a sexist remark,” the President said.

“Hey, I was within arm’s reach and I am still standing and not bleeding, so it must have been OK,” Troy replied.

I gave him a thumbs up.

We beat the communiqués to death for an hour until there was nothing more to say other than the fight goes on.

I handed the three DVD discs to Bobby, “Play the one that says box truck first.”

That disc was from the right side mini gun camera. The cameras were live and recording after Axle flipped on the weapons switch. He had turned that switch on when he observed the SWAT teams entering Avon Heights.

That gun was the one Axle used on the box truck and in the first sweep on the barn. Bobbie had the volume up when it started to play; I recognized Hank Jr’s. ‘All for the Love of Sunshine’. A few seconds later the mike on the camera picked up my order to Firebird 1 to stop the box truck and the men in the back of the truck and then to cover the barn.