Chapter 74

Tuesday morning Lorrie put a couple of her real-estate people looking for something we could rent near the Brownsville to Mexico bridge. I didn’t have high hopes of them finding anything large enough for our needs anywhere near the bridge. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

The crews had cleaned the furniture out of the second floor of the Horsey House yesterday. Today Bob’s Construction was touching up the rooms on the first floor where they had expanded the offices for Andy and the rest of his anticipated group.

All one hundred rooms were going to be offices or records storage. We had the Black Bear office problem solved and it was a good thing. Baltimore Office Supply was delivering the cubicles today with installers to assemble them.

The contractor we used to install phone lines was working with them today. That shouldn’t be much trouble; every room already had phone and internet outlets. Plus, the building was loaded with routers for wireless service.

Lorrie and Marcy had negotiated with the Philadelphia real estate group for the old mall at the narrows for future permanent offices. They gave a price, Lorrie counter offered and they accepted. Everything was good, or so it seemed.

Then came the first group of paperwork. It was filled with costs associated with purchasing leased commercial property that was still in active leases. The fees amounted to 500 thousand dollars. Lorrie dug in her heels; we weren’t paying that. The building was empty and had been for decades.

The second round of paper - the fees were still there with copies of the original long term leases of the mall operator. But the fees had been reduced to three hundred thousand.

That operator had filed bankruptcy a decade ago. The bankruptcy court incorrectly had added a clause that if the mall buildings were ever leased, the new leaser had to pay one year lease back to the plaintiffs in the original suit with no time limit. That was why the buildings had been empty for two decades. Lorrie not so politely told them where to put their shopping mall, that we were no longer interested.

This morning they counter offered by substantially reducing the price, this time lower than the original offer to compensate for the lease issues. By now the Horsey House offices were in full swing and we did not need the property. Lorrie made that clear in the communication with them and they still would not give up. They sent two more proposals, each one reducing the price. Lorrie responded to neither.

I called Fort Polo for Ray Underhill and had to leave a message; he was in the field with the Air Force people doing a preliminary inspection. The questions I had for him would have to wait.

Then the call I was expecting came in. I transferred it to the command center so I could have the ultimate privacy. I asked Vicky, Jenny, Marcy, Lorrie and Ching Lee to sit in on the call and discussions.

President Martinez - with his cabinet - were on the VCATS system we had left there so we could easily communicate. The truth was I liked to read facial expressions and body language.

The video meeting lasted two hours. They were not happy with my extra request. But after repeated points, counter points and explanations we arrived at a mutual agreement. They understood my reasoning and arguments, even if they did not like it.

They did not want cartel members and gang members disappearing into the cities with their trade to wreak havoc and I did not want them moving their operations into the states, especially since there were lawyers and politicians that would welcome them with open arms.

The amendment to the agreement I wanted was to be called ‘Part D’ here-after, was agree upon with conditions. The contracts with Mexpo would be evaluated in three parts. JBG had to successfully compete phase one for part D to go into full force. Success was determined by eliminating the illegal tapping on the phase one pipeline.

Phase one was securing the pipeline from Corpus Christi Texas to Mexpo’s Tampico refinery. Phase two was to secure the pipeline from Tampico to Puerto Vallarta while maintaining security on phase one.

Phase three was a new contract not discussed with the legal departments or my mates yet. JBG was to supply security for an additional pipeline from Tampico to Mexico’s National Oil Reserves tank farm east of Mexico City and then east to Veracruz. That pipeline was a joint ownership venture between Mexpo and Ocean Petroleum. Ocean Petroleum was a minor partner. All terms and conditions outlined in the contracts faxed yesterday would remain unchanged.

I was happy but unhappy if that is possible. I figured that it would take a month just to eliminate the tapping and several months to convince the parties that we weren’t going away or giving up. They would have to find some other source of fuel and income on phase one and I hoped it was not kidnapping our employees.

The changes made these contracts even more complex; adding the last contract and Part D and the distances were going to be rough.

I was just getting ready to go upstairs when Andy called with updates. He had found a contractor that was willing to start immediately on the access road.