Chapter 89

At 0900 Eastern the first text from Ching Lee hit my phone, ‘‘The attack has started - they are assembling in the parking lot and have started moving towards the court yard entrance. Black hoods, weapons and some look to be wearing a suicide vest,’’ it said.

It was 0800 in Oklahoma City. The terrorist timed the attack to hit when the courtyard would be full of students heading to class.

I logged into our college cameras on my laptop and selected Oklahoma State. I locked the screen to those in the court yard and those around it and watched.

I sent a text of my own to Jenny, ‘‘Get the G5 ready to fly to Oklahoma as soon as we land - and get through the formalities; I want to take off. All of us need to be there.’’

Then I sent a text to Eric and Marty, ‘‘Oklahoma State under terrorist attack. Get your people there to assist Ching Lee and Vicky. The local law is not our friend nor on our side.’’

I went to the PA mike and informed the men, ‘‘Attention Attention. A few minutes ago a terrorist attack started at Oklahoma State, a JBG college security site. We expected a retaliatory strike and all JBG sites worldwide were put on high alert yesterday morning. The terrorist cell at Oklahoma was connected with the Paris terrorist cell. The attack is ongoing and as soon as more information is available we will try to get it to you.’’

At 0945 Eastern the seat belt light went on. We had been coasting for quite a while from forty thousand feet saving fuel as we descended. A few minutes later the gear went down after a series of turns.

Another text from Ching Lee, ‘‘Attack is over- we won, some injuries in our ranks - nothing life threatening, healing will take a while. Twenty three terrorists dead six injured and alive.’’

‘‘Stand your ground with the locals - DHS and FBI are both on the way, so are we,’’ I sent.

Out the window I could see the bay bridge and the city of Annapolis past it. It was a clear fall morning on the eastern shore.

We landed on the runway from a southerly approach. The 747 was able pull right up on the tarmac near the terminal. We waited while the portable stairs was positioned.

‘‘Men, it has been great, let’s plan to do another one next week. Oklahoma is over! Ching Lee sends that we won the shootout at the OK Corral with only minor injuries to our people and the loss of two innocent students,’’ I said. I was the last to depart of the Morton group.

The baggage men were already unloading our bags. It only took a few minutes to get 75 bags out of the baggage compartment. It was going to take a lot longer to navigate through the maze of reporters and on lookers and then there was customs to deal with.

I quickly brushed off the reporters’ questions as the pilot put my bags on the G5. Andy was not going, he had other things to deal with that were as important.

The 747 was taxiing to take off as I was speaking to the reporters; its next stop was Fort Dean.

But first I needed to survive the attack of two little boys who could run the thirty yard dash in two seconds flat. I crouched down to meet them with hugs.

‘‘We saw you on TV a lot and mommy was afraid you were going to get hurt. We are glad you didn’t. How do you do all those long speeches? I would forget what I was going to say,’’ JJ said.

‘‘Oh, I don’t think you would run out of something to say. Either of you. Let’s go see mommy and get on the other plane,’’ I said.

Two and a half hours later the gear was touching the runway at Oklahoma International. Four cars from the MAAR site were parked outside the general aviation terminal. It took that many with the security that went with us.

We pulled into the college after driving through a maze of congestion. As we walked towards the college courtyard I was glad I had put on my gear. Heated conversations were going on.

We forced our way through the crowd of EMTs and officers to find Ching Lee, Vicky and Paul Drake with a group of uniformed Oklahoma City police and some suits.

‘‘Well the big boss is here. Eric said you were coming. That was some operation you pulled off in France. Three hundred terrorists, all those weapons and explosives, damn.”

‘‘I don’t know if you remember me - I was at the seminar you gave about the new terrorist weapons a couple years ago. I’m Vince Albertson, vice director of DHS here in Oklahoma City.”