Chapter 58

The media fiasco at the gym and Morton was unfolding as I closed down the Oval Office for the day.

At Summers Road, Andy had thirty protesters properly immobilized with four flex cuffs each on the side of the road. A dozen Secret Service agents were politely watching while taking a boat load of pictures with cell phones. The county sheriff had called for two county ride passenger vans to take them to the detention center.

If the Secret Service had arrested them, they would be released almost immediately by a federal magistrate. Not so with the county; they were going to spend at least one night in the detention center. The county judge that handled all the new arrest cases was a hard ass - from the prisoner and attorney complaints.

The county detention center was not known to be a kind place. There was a section that had hard timers there, the worst of the worst was the word.

Dozens were sentenced to life and a few that were once on death row until a liberal governor gave in to the pacifist and changed the death sentence over to life.

They had nothing to lose so battles that resulted in solitary confinement were often. Then there were the normal prison gangs that are prevalent in all large prisons.

Then there were the holding cells that all those waiting to see the judge were put into. There was always the local addict and trouble makers in the group. The protesters were in for a rough night.

The women’s section holding cells were no better, maybe even worse. Women can be vicious, even more vicious against other impressionable women. The power plays in women’s prisons are as bad as in any men’s prison.

Those women that thought they were doing something by joining in the protest were in for a rude awaking, starting with an aggressive body cavity search and going downhill from there.

The two groups that were arrested at Morton were going to the federal system. All crimes at airports became federal crimes and that included blocking the airport, blocking aviation services and so on.

Morton came under the Baltimore DOJ office. The judge - and by connection the prosecutors - were my appointees. I chose the most hardline people I could find for all those positions nationwide. Let the fun begin.

There were updates all afternoon on the fate of the protest and protesters. There were also some news footages and a few posts on the protesters’ websites.

Most of the website were directed at their rights being denied and about their phones and cameras being seized or destroyed. Then there were the charges of excessive force being used by security and the use of torture devices being used – cattle prods on protesters sitting in the road.

They were lucky Marcy wasn’t there with her bull whip. Jenny and I had a good laugh at that thought.

We received a text from Lorrie that we needed to be home Saturday morning for training on the two new Stryker airport fire trucks. They were at the Pierce dealer getting final touches put on them and were to be delivered Friday night after dark.

Lorrie wanted their appearance on Saturday to be a media event for Morton. There was an 0700 breakfast for the attendees, then an all-day training session for the Morton fire department, the agency fire department and the three local volunteer fire departments that were on the call box for anything that happened at Morton.

The county EMS system was done by a call box. The 911 call center determined the call box by the type of emergency and where. Any call box that was for Morton Field or the truck stop went to all three volunteer companies as well as activating the Morton fire alarm that included the agency’s fire group.

I sent a text back that I would be home Friday night. I wanted to be there to look at those beasts, maybe even drive one down the taxiway. I also sent that she should invite Hanna and Elmo, as well as Duke Justice and Clarence Hallworthy.

As an afterthought I sent that she should invite the three managers of the air freight companies that were renting hangars for their sorting operations, especially now that all three were expanding operations.

I went back to the task at hand, there were always dozens of people that wanted to meet with me. Kitty screened them first, then Troy and Connie screened them again and ranked them on level of importance.

The federal tax changes that were in the works would affect some states in the way they figured state tax. Every one of those state governors wanted a meeting.

Of course, they wanted their chief revenue officer or the head of their tax division to be in on the meeting to emphasize their concerns. They also wanted their senators and representatives to sit in on the meeting. What should have been a small meeting was now very large meeting in a couple of cases.

The small states that had the two senators and one, two or three representatives would not be too bad. Meetings with large populations such as California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania would be a cluster fuck from the beginning.

I knew I was going to get seriously lectured by California, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, demanding they get more federal money in and for hand out programs but because of the proposed changes, they weren’t getting any more money.

California and New York were this afternoon, the meetings took all afternoon. They were upset and disappointed when they left - there was formal promises of extra money. Being the bad politician that I was, I still dangled the carrot in front of them. I still needed enough votes to pass the measure to make it law.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania were tomorrow morning, then Jenny, Ching Lee, the kids and I were going to Summers Road.

The fire truck training and demo was Saturday and Sunday we were leaving for East Water Cay. The Secret Service was already there with a small detachment and so were some of Andy’s men.

After the decision of keeping a lower profile on my travels, just a few of my Washington staff were going. Needed people would be moved in and out for special projects, problems and meetings as needed.

The six added rental cottages had been completed and were all booked by the government for the two weeks that we were going to be there. There were no regular rental customers staying on the island for those two weeks. Congress was going to go crazy when the bills hit the GSA books.

Jenny read me the update from the tower construction site. It was trouble and a disappointment in more ways than one. As with many things at home, I was not kept in the loop as much as I would have liked. I needed to find more time to sit in on the nightly meetings by video.

The base tubs for the two towers were completed. The tubs went all the way to the bedrock and were designed to keep water from seeping into the huge pit needed to construct grillage for each column tube of the tower.

The grillage was set directly on the bedrock with huge anchor bolts drilled into the bedrock. The grillage consisted of a thick concrete pad long enough to support several columns.

On top of the pad was several layers of steel H beams crossed and layered for support. On top of that was an extremely thick steel plate for the columns to sit on and be welded to. Then the complete grillage was covered with high strength concrete. This pad was sixty feet below ground level. That sixty feet was floors of the basement.