Chapter 54

Wednesday morning I went to Washington even though I said I was not going until Thursday. I had two things that were a top priority. Anne had texted me to contact her by MTAC. When I did she informed me that the investigative report - the final draft of Harrisburg - was complete, just waiting for my approval.

I had reviewed the first drafts online while we were traveling giving approvals and recommending changes. Now it was getting one final review before going to the secure government printers. They were holding a spot on the print schedule for it at 1100 today. Together we both were happy with the final review.

Anne made four copies of the original, one for Andrew, one for me, one for herself and the one for the printers. I wanted each of us to have an original for insurance. I sent Anne with two Secret Service agents to deliver the report to the printers.

I spent the next few minutes putting together the rest of the documents for my next meeting.

With two Secret Service agents in tow I met Curtis Warren at a classy restaurant for lunch - my treat.

After lunch we went to his office across from Judiciary Square where I laid out Harrisburg from the beginning and ending with my little white lie.

Why Curtis Warren? First he was a family friend and one of our many corporate attorneys. When something needed to go to court his law firm handled it for us. He was a former Federal Judge who was twice asked to accept a nomination to the Supreme Court.

Prior to his retirement he was one of the three federal judges who developed and wrote the guidelines for the secret terrorism Federal court and served as its chief judge for two years. Judge Warren was only one of a handful of judges able to argue cases before the court.

After listening to my tale and reading the subpoenas he laid out the steps that we had to follow.

“I am going to ask for an emergency hearing for either Thursday or Friday - depending on the courts schedule - to squash the subpoenas. I agree presenting the evidence even to Congressional intelligence committees poses a grave danger to our national security. They simply have too many leaks,” he said.

The wheels of a secret process were put in full motion, picking up speed before I even left.

“You will have to appear at the hearing with the evidence and testify for your position and against the Congressional and Senatorial attorneys as will the chairpersons of those committees,” he said.

It was 1530 before the agents and I walked in the rear door of the White House complex. I ignored the media that was by the fence. I went to Section Twelve to pick up the first of the properly bound and dated official report of the investigation.

I was going to read it one more time before a news conference tomorrow to make sure the printers had not made any changes. On the President’s approval it would be made public. Copies would be handed out to senators, representatives and agency heads as position dictated.

I was just walking to the elevator when General Ingram stepped out.

“Here is the information you wanted. 120/240/480 single or three phase and they can work with 50 or 60 cycles. They have inverters and converters to make it work,” he said.

“How soon are you going to get the units down there and how soon do you want them operational?” I asked.

“I will have them trucked to Morton and you can finish out the load for a C5. I think they said it would take three flights to get it all there if you load it right. I’m sure you are going to have lots of things needing to go back and forth. It will take about three weeks to get it checked out and to Morton,” the General said.

“By the way, the rest of the Joint Chiefs saw the video - when you get time they would like the narrative to go with it,” he said with a grin.

It was a three Suburban convoy home; we were still short handed and would be for a while. This group in training was already assigned and none were to guard me. I wouldn’t stand for it. I had far more important things for them to do than follow me around.

I walked into the office to a packed house. The big meeting table was covered in heavy white paper. On the paper were satellite pictures of the Polokwane property.

Standing around there were a host of people; some I knew, some I did not. There was Bob Short from Bob’s Construction plus two of his design engineers. Irving Gunther was there - Irving was a retired engineer from the local utility. Irving had helped in designing the service for the truck stop and the Pig Iron marine terminal.

Nesbit Pringle was the owner of the water and sewage engineering group Q-town used.