Chapter 73

When Gigi came back, the three of them snuggled up as close to me as they could. Jacky had to get on top for togetherness and when Junior made a pest of himself I hid him in her for a while. She didn't seem to mind and the other two egged me on. They only seemed a little disappointed when I didn't make her pass out.

We crowded into Mom's shower for a quick rinse and then had more fun drying off. While we were putting our clothes back on Jacky warned the other two.

"I'd forget about bras or panties if I were you, I just saw him give Sharon a spanking for wearing bikini bottoms under her T-shirt," she said.

"If you need them to be comfortable flying or working you can wear them, but don't let me find any when I'm pawing you like the male chauvinist pig I surely am," I said, grinning.

"We only wore them thinking we could get your attention by accidentally letting you get a peek," Gigi said, putting on her coverall without them and putting the offending articles of clothing in her pockets.

When we were dressed we went to the study. Mom, Francis, Julian, Marsha, Sherilyn, and Glenda were there, sitting around in T-shirts, someone had even found one for Glenda.

Mom reminded me Charlene would be here in a couple of hours and Glenda had to giggle a little and give me a kiss. Sherilyn went over our plans for the Senator and his aide again for the benefit of Jerrilyn and Gigi. Jerrilyn's face lit up like tomorrow was going to be Christmas when she heard the details.

Sherilyn also clued us in with a few details of the construction. Indeed it was a tunneling machine they'd been unloading beside the big hole they'd dug and it must be even more complicated than it looked.

As it made the nearly nine-foot diameter tunnel, it placed precast concrete sections behind itself and sealed them together with some type of super epoxy. When it came out the other end we'd have an eight-foot inside diameter tunnel from the basement here to the basement of the new airstrip's control tower.

The tower would be three stories above ground and it would have all the latest radar and flight control equipment, including being connected to the nationwide radar network.

Those details might be interesting to Jeff or Gorge but they didn't mean much to me. Mom said she didn't know why we had to have all of it either, but Chucky had told her it would take more time to leave it out of the normal way they did things than to go ahead and do it all like they normally did.

I wondered why they needed small airstrips like this all over the country. They had to have some reason for them because it was obvious they hadn't gathered this large organized construction operation just for our airstrip. Maybe I'd find out someday.

My cell went off not long after we'd been clued in and it was Bill. The loader was ready to travel and I decided we had time to go pick it up. Our main problem was we were short a tractor to bring the big tires.

I mentioned this snag to the room after Bill rang off, and Mom had the cure.

"Sherilyn and Chucky worked late last night and most of the morning while you were entertaining Glenda. Everyone who came with the construction detail is now under our control. I'll let one of the drivers who are hanging around take his tractor to bring the wheels back," she said.

She went to the phone and dialed someone. When she started giving orders I realized she was talking to Chucky baby. He said he'd send a driver to Tom's lot for the wheels.

With Jacky's new plan to keep a close eye on me she was going too and of course Glenda wanted to go. I asked Jerrilyn and Gigi if they wanted to come along, but they had some things to take care of with the new helicopter and they had to get ready to leave early in the morning to pick up another one.

Jacky, Glenda, and I headed for the truck after Glenda shucked her T-shirt and put her sundress back on. I didn't mind waiting around while she changed since I got to wait watching.

The other driver was in his truck waiting for us when we got to mine. We mounted up and headed for Tom's place. It didn't take long to get there but the quick traveling was over when we arrived.

I had to drop the flatbed and I thought the other driver would need to unhook from his drop-deck. Bill reached us before he did it though, and he and the driver decided it would probably be easier to put the giant wheels and tires on the drop-deck, so the driver followed me as I bobtailed to the loader.

Bill showed me where to hook the new trailer with the loader. He rode over with us, standing on my step and hanging onto the mirror.

I had a hard time believing what I was seeing when we got to the loaded trailer. It was ready to back under and hook, but it was massive. It seemed to stretch out forever.

"Bill, don't you think you should drive when we get that thing hooked up?" I asked.

"Probably, but I want you to do it anyway."

"But what if I run over something or somebody?" I asked.

"There won't be a chance of that. We had to call two escorts for something this big, and when we did, they had to notify the State Police.

"When the State Police found out who was doing what, they sent two Highway Patrolmen in their cruisers to help out. If a normal car gets in the way the poor bastard will probably be in jail before he has a chance to let you run him over," Bill said, laughing.

I'd been expecting to have to do a lot more to hook this trailer, but I didn't. I just backed up, hooked it and then connected the airlines and pigtail. We did have to wait about a minute to let the trucks air system pressurize the trailer's auxiliary tank, but we were good to go then.

The only hitch in our get-a-long was waiting for the tires and wheels to be loaded. It was easy to see why Bill and the driver wanted to use his trailer. With the drop-deck he was pulling, the tires and wheels would be riding much closer to the ground.

It made it simpler to load and they would have a more stable ride too, in fact, the driver didn't even bother with any chains or binders. He said there wasn't a chance of slinging them off during the short trip back to my house.

Getting this parade underway was another small madhouse. When I put it in gear and headed for the street one police car and one of the escorts with flashing lights pulled out first. The policeman blocked off the street with his lights now whirling and the other police car now sped out to lead the escort that led me.

Both the escorts talked to us on the CB as we started out and I asked Bill to at least deal with the radio. When we came to the first intersection I was surprised to see two more police cars, they had each of the side streets blocked off.