Chapter 98

Friday was home. I needed home - all of us girls needed home. Of course there were office responsibilities that needed to be taken care of, then there were the emails - hundreds - related to business. Hundreds were related to the Loco Waco mess, most of them were threatening. It made no difference and wasn’t going to change anything.

We went to the gym, all of us did. It felt good to be able to work out. That had been hit or miss for the last couple weeks. I spent three hours in the gym including thirty minutes in the hot tub and another thirty on the massage table letting Amy Crossman work me over. I needed working over; my muscles were sore all over my body.

Amy rarely did massages herself anymore; there were six men and ladies who stayed busy all the time. Several were into sports massage for the many athletes that regularly came to the gym.

Friday afternoon I went to the jail at Fort Smith to see the elite prisoners most likely to live - short of starting a Middle East war - and the five who would soon die.

After several long discussions in Persian I told the elites their fate depended on the UN meeting in four weeks; until then they were my guests. The fire was gone out of their temperament. The few weeks in a cell had simmered them down.

The last thing I did was to give each of them the last two days of the Tehran daily paper and the Pakistan paper. While I was in my meetings yesterday I sent Dave Ortel - one of my new security guards - to the huge international news stand not far from the White House to get the papers.

Saturday started with a series of updates from Bob’s engineers in Mexico and Andy’s men. Andy was home and had already spent time in his office.

Then it was family day. The boys needed my attention. I carried them to the nearly deserted Fort Smith. We walked the compound and looked at all kinds of things. We left with their pockets full of shell casings and spent bullets from the target range. It had become a game to see who collected the most. I enjoyed watching them count them out in neat stacks and counting the stacks. They were growing faster than I could keep up with. I needed to spend time with Takeo and Sara. Time well spent with the kids - and all the frustrations of the week were gone.

The best part of the feeling was I would not need to go to Washington for at least another week.

I was looking forward to going to Thimble Shoals Pirates Bank on Monday. I wanted to see if the Bull had any money stashed there. In fact I was looking for any Central Americans with large sums deposited there.

On Monday Jenny, Vicky and Ching Lee made the trip to Mexico City with me. It was a media frenzy that I did not expect. I wondered why the Mexican government had taken such a vested interest in Mexpo’s plights that the President of Mexico would in Tampico for what was a progress report.

Not only was President Martinez there, so was Federal prosecutor Inez along with Mexpo’s Garcia.

A twenty minute huddle assigned the pecking order. Presidents go first and peon me last was my theory. It would be an interesting news conference for sure without some data for them to use, and as far as I knew they had none. I soon found out that I was to supply it.

I quickly wrote out a list of things they could talk about - Mexpo’s Garcia and Martinez sorted through and chose things they wanted. They chose the political and economic side of the notes. The number of taps closed, the increased revenue in taxes and fees collected already. There was also increased confidence from the locals in their safety.

The number of dead found on the highway from gangs and the cartel in the area had diminished substantially from just a week ago. Maybe we had the worst of the worst behind the concertina wire. Another thing that told me; the cartel had either moved operations south and west or was just laying low to see where things were going. It was time to devote some attention to Bull.

Federal Prosecutor Inez jumped on the police officers we had arrested and the number of prisoners captured. He jumped even harder on the human trafficking, wanting every detail, even the minor ones. Details like the names of two captured, what we did with the girls and what was going to happen to the men.

All that left me nothing, but I was not disappointed at that.

I listened while experienced Mexican politicians as smooth and savvy as any politicians anywhere gave their news conference. I thought I was home clear until they made the mistake of opening up for questions.

‘‘There was a news conference in Washington last week displaying drugs and money captured by JBG in Mexico. Why were those taken to the US for a news conference?’’ a reporter asked.

I watched as the slickness disappeared and that lost look was cast my way.

‘‘Let me answer that for you,’’ I said as I stepped to the podium.

‘‘First, all things captured in the security zone and the pipeline right ways become the property of JBG by extension of the contract.”

‘‘Second, JBG is working with the US Drug Enforcement Agency and other international drug enforcement agencies including countries I cannot mention. They are working to develop a world wide database of illegal drugs.”