Chapter 18

Monday started early with the smell of fresh coffee from the kitchen. The new agency chefs quickly learned how I liked coffee. I wondered why there was such a turnover in agency chefs.

There had been a procession of agents attempting to be quiet while getting food and coffee since 0500. I was contemplating ordering the visiting agents to eat elsewhere or at least over at the refreshment center.

I was surprised that places at the dining room table were not filled when we dressed and went down. The kitchen had gotten disposable plates and utensils; there was a stack of them that had not been here last night. But, they had taken over the garage though.

The tables and chairs that we used for cookouts had been set up in the garage - our Suburbans parked outside. The chefs - there were two of them this morning - had food prepared buffet style in the kitchen. The agents were getting plates full and carrying them out to the garage.

The garage now had a heater in it. I wondered when that had happened - something to ask my mates about.

My family - the boys and the two little ones in high chairs included - were being served coffee, tea or orange juice while the chef was getting a breakfast order.

“I have most of what you normally eat in the kitchen buffet style if you would like to look at it, or we will cook it fresh if you like,” Master Chef Pierre Diodore said. “With so many agents here, we decided it would be faster to do things that way.”

“I understand from the manager of the refreshment center that you get a wholesale food delivery from Sysco Foods in the afternoon if it is placed before 0900. If I get an order together, will you allow it to be placed and delivered over there? We are going to run out of a lot of things with so many people here for the next few days. I will put on the government card,” Pierre said.

“Sure, get it together. You may want to order a lot extra, especially coffee. I don’t know how many will be here today and you may want to have the manager to do the same over there,” I said.

The chefs did not have that much food left on the buffet after the agents had raided it, so the food we got was just coming off the griddle.

Troy came down and I invited him to sit at the table with us to eat. Agent Carter came in and handed me the early morning intelligence updates to look over at my leisure. A courier had delivered them to the Secret Service guard at the gate.

Pakistan was drawing down the troops on the Pakistan - Iran border. They had been there three weeks. In that time dozens of villages had been destroyed - leveled with artillery and finally bulldozers. Some of the inhabitants were moved by military trucks hundreds of miles to villages to the east. Satellite photographs showed many Taliban being executed by firing squads and many graves.

The civil wars in Africa were ongoing - the hot spots just moved from place to place. Libya was boiling again, rattling sabers against Algeria near the border with Tunisia. Also, Sudan and Chad were at it again.

Ethiopia and South Sedan were in the cooling off phase again. There had been costly battles on both sides. They were licking their wounds, rearming and recruiting, many of the new recruits were considered to be child soldiers.

I was going to meet with Andy when he came in to meet with the girls at 1000. I would get his assessment where we had men and compare it to the agencies.

At 0700 it was time to get everything started. My mates needed to attend to JBG things, Lisa had arrived and was getting the den ready for the boys’ school day. My mates and I went through the tunnel followed by Troy and more agents than I needed.

Connie Hines and Kitty Winn were both just entering the lobby escorted by a couple agents who were wearing an ear wick in one ear and a cell phone ear piece in the other. They were asking where they were to go. I wondered just how they could keep any conversation going and not walk into the wall. I had them sent to the elevator and then to the basement level. I walked them down to where they were going to have office space.

“See if you can get logged into your e-mail and White House systems with the links the GSA gave you,” I said.

After seeing that the systems worked I settled into my chair in the command center with Connie to my side. Kitty stayed at her desk and began sorting through the hundreds of emails that came in every day, assigning them a level of importance and where they needed to go. This morning - as in every morning - they were printed off and put into piles.

Troy went to his desk and started through his emails and appointment list and making calls.

The ball carriers were in the meeting room with links to the Pentagon. I gave Tom the numbers to make the connection for MTAC with the task force in Section Twelve.

I went through the list of items from this morning’s updates from NSA with Ben. I had questions and he had more work to do about the NSA items. Then I had more questions about the terrorism task force investigation into Jabil Faisal - the truck driver. Our conversation lasted thirty minutes and really answered only a few of the questions I had.

Ben and I spent a while on the North Africa alerts and memos of interest. There were a lot of them today. So many that I went to Robert’s office for a copy of the reports that EIT generated for Andy.

Frank and Eric sent a text - they would be here in an hour along with the rest of the Security Council for the scheduled national security meeting. General Ingram and the chiefs paged for the next spot on MTAC.

MTAC had gone more modern with its last updates. They thought they were streamlining, but it was wasting time and was leading to more open mike gaffs.

If the terminal of the office - or person in my case - was on a secure scrambled transmission, it transferred the incoming call to a queue like a busy office and assigned it a number. That meant that you were waiting for the conversation to end.

That was fine if all conversations were short and you were number one in the queue, but many of my conversations could run on and on leading to delays and frustration. Now everyone was texting if they were in the queue, adding even more distractions.

I ended the call with Ben and paged General Ingram. There had been a training accident early this morning at Fort Macon Army Base. Two Black Hawks with sixteen aboard each had collided over an infantry unit on the ground in high gusting winds. The helicopters were disembarking the troops close to the ground. Over fifty Army soldiers were injured with ten - possibly more - dead. It was not a good way to start off a Monday.