Chapter 11

The three of us were up, showered, and dressed early. John called down to see if we were up and came down with Kenisha.

"My bags are in the lobby, what's for breakfast? Want to eat with everyone else?"

"Yes, let's do that and afterward go up and get the reports before I leave for the airport."

As we were having our coffee before the food came, John said, "Chuck, you are now a Major in the Marshal Service. Congratulations. You'll enjoy the pay increase. I had a choice of bringing you in to D.C., or doing something I think is doable. We don't need more brass in D.C., but we need someone to do my job and more."

He took a drink of coffee and said, "I want to re-define my job. You're going to do it. You'll be in charge of all of the stations throughout the country. It's not that big a deal, but you will be busy. You will have secondary responsibility for every FBI office, every ATF office, and every DEA office. You'll have responsibility for every federal law enforcement office. The object is to coordinate the efforts of the offices and to help them work together as one. You will have the service's plane in Tampa for you to use, plus you have a budget for staff. You'll need a couple of clerical types and a shrewd, killer, office manager, who will filter junk for you so you're not overwhelmed with bullshit. I'll bring you into D.C. to learn from me and my people, but we're going to be busy overseeing the operation from a different point of view. We'll teach you, though. You and I come from the same background, so you'll do the same job I did while you're doing it. But get ready, as soon as I transfer everything to you, the shit will hit the fan. Your building has an office suite on the same floor as the service office. It's rented and being spruced up. You have a budget if you need to make it fancy, but it used to be a judge's office and chambers, so it's probably fancy already. If you don't like the furniture or if it's too old for you, get new. Your computer system is being set up in there and will be only yours. I'll have access, but I will be the only person outside your office that will."

We had begun eating now. John continued between mouthfuls, "I'm still going to use you when I have a problem. You'll have to have Sarah and Bobby keep a handle on your office. Your office manager will be your lifeline, so like I said, hire a good one. I promise not to do that to you often but, when it happens, it happens. You'll find out that finding someone you know will do the job, especially a covert job, with no direction and no base is tough. You'll find him though. When you do, keep him, use him like I used you, and promote him right on up."

We were on our second cups of coffee, sitting back, when John said, "Congratulations, Guy. When I met you, I figured you to be my replacement. I just didn't think it would be so fast."

He looked at Bobby, "You're a good choice, Bobby, I know you will be a good station chief and make Chuck proud of you. Remember, Chuck is not the station chief, he is a separate entity, and he doesn't make decisions for you unless you ask for help. If he butts his head in, kick him out of your office, unless he's there on official business. I know you two will work out, that's why Chuck's not coming to D.C. He'll learn how to be in and out in a day, except when something really strange happens. I'd like you to help him with his personnel choices. Get him some real slutty clerks that'll give him head in the morning, and send him home happy in the evening."

"Sure thing, Boss, not," Bobby laughed.

"Look hard for the office manager. It's got to be someone like Sarah, like my Mary Ann. You know the type and you may even know one we can steal. With all the big companies closing and contracting, we might get lucky quick."

John put his arm around Kenisha who was happily smiling, "Well, boys and girls, it's time for us D.C. guys to roll out of here. Call me daily, Chuck, and let me know how you are doing with people and getting Bobby settled in. I'll bring you to D.C. and work with you for a few days. If you want, you can commute in your own airplane, but it's better if I keep you up there and work you to death for a few days. See you all later, and it has been nice to meet you, Jan. You did a great job."

Jan glowed, stood up, and shook his hand, "Thank you, Commander, it has been my pleasure."

"You're the first person to address me as such. Thank you, Senior Agent."

We watched John and Kenisha go out to the lobby and out the main door to the bus. I think we all felt a loss with him leaving. He had heaped a bunch of responsibility on Bobby and me.

We went upstairs and checked in with Ken. Bobby and Jan were pulling e-mails. Ken said it was wrapping up and it was good. I said we would talk later.

Sarah said, "We'll finish up with the hotel today and then we're going to run the personnel at Homeland Security. They want us to do it, since it was their boss that said to get us on it. The office is busy, we have two escapees, we're working a couple of transports, and five new transferees that all want air duty. A few more and we'll start pulling a lot of Orlando's too. A couple of the transferees are helping out on the investigations. They have the experience and enjoy investigating by phone. We've even got an app from a senior clerk from Buffalo that wants to transfer. She has ten years of service and is a real deputy. I don't know what to do with the app."

"Ah, Sarah, call the lady and put her on an airplane to interview with me. Put her up in the hotel for me and make sure she eats well. I want to talk to her tomorrow."

"Does this have anything to do with the construction and cleanup going on in the old judge's chambers?"

"Smart lady. Do it for me. I shouldn't be using Bobby's people for my work, but it would be a personal favor."

"Okay, everything else is fine. I'll see you this afternoon, right?"

"Right." I handed the phone to Bobby.

Bobby took the phone saying with a smile, "My boss just handed me the phone. I guess you can put all his shit in a cardboard box and put it by the door. I'll bring in some doilies and flowers for my office tomorrow. Do what the man says and I'll start being a leader as soon as I learn how."

"You know how already, Bobby, I'm proud to work for you," Sarah said.

"Enough butt kissing, I'll talk to you later."

When Bobby hung up, I told Jan to call in. She dialed the number and dialed the Station Chief's extension. "Thank you for the promotion, Sir."

There was a pause, then a "Yes Sir," pause, "Yes Sir," pause, "Yes Sir, I'll be there this afternoon and begin. Thank you, Sir."

Jan put the phone down and grinned a crooked smile, "John Dawson was transferred and he just made me his new Assistant Station Chief. Can you believe that? That's why I got the promotion."

Bobby said, "I guess we have some celebrating to do. Jan come with us to Park Place tonight."

She was smiling big, saying she might need to bring her boss along.

We had the bellhops carry all our shit out to the limo and rode to the airport. The S&S Lear was waiting for us and a fuel truck was topping off the tanks. This meant that we were not late and they had not waited for us. Once again, we had the cowboy looking guy with the longer hair and good smile. I didn't know who was pilot or who was co-pilot, but the other person that was with him was not very tall, but had tits that didn't quit. They were gargantuan. She was a happy girl and seemed to have a relationship with the cowboy. Watching them move around you noticed they both limped a little as if they had old injuries.

As the girls were getting on the plane, the big breasted babe followed them in and went for something. She brought some catalogues back and gave two to Bobby and one to Jan.

She said to Bobby, "These are clothes you can get in Tampa at the outlet store, or you can order them on line. I'll bet you have trouble getting good stuff just like I do."

Bobby said, "I'd like to have your problem, Honey. I'm big, but you're colossal."

She laughed and said nodding toward the door where the cowboy was, "My old man sure like's 'em."

Bobby said, "Mine does too, don't tease him too much."

The lady actually reached up and unbuttoned two buttons flashing some grade "A" prime cleavage.

I was grinning, almost embarrassed that I was staring. The cowboy just said, "She does that to me all the time. Hard to walk, isn't it?"

They went through a checklist to get the plane ready to go and soon the lady hollered at me, "Can you pull the door shut and come up here a second."

I pulled the door closed and followed the instructions to pull the latch down to a full locking position and flipped the catch over it. Up front, I stood in the doorway as they began taxiing. The cowboy was in the left seat and the girl was sitting a little cross ways in the right, going through more of the checklist.

She showed me the top of the next page and said, "I'm going to ride with your ladies, you sit up here. Make sure you buckle your seat belt, put on that headset and read these items off as he gets ready to take off. There are a few for after you're in the air, so just follow his lead." She got up; showing more cleavage than should be allowed by law, then rubbed me up good as she moved by me to go sit with the girls.

I got into the right seat, buckled up, put on the headset that only had the right earpiece. There was all kinds of chatter going on. In front of us was a USAir 757 and in front of that was a prop jet commuter. I said to the cowboy, "Let me know when I should start."

He said sticking his hand out, "I'm Steve, the tease that went to the back is Sue."

I told him my name was Chuck.

"Okay, we're next, start reading and when I say check, go to the next."

I went through the items as I watched the 757 go down the runway. I heard over the earpiece for Lear 1433 to hold. Steve was looking out the window saying, "I can't see any airplanes, wonder what's up?"

A small airplane came down, circling right in front of us and set down hard on the runway. The propeller was not turning.

Steve said, "That's an old 160 series Cessna. Engine's dead. Lucky the guy was this close to the airport. He turned just in time to land. Wonder why he didn't have more time to glide in. Oh, look at that, he's a crop duster. He probably pulled out of a pass near here and his engine quit or seized. He's lucky to have made it in."

The earpiece gave us access to the runway and we were cleared for takeoff.

I read what the directions were and waited for him to say rotate, then he said the next step was something about flaps, then gear, the altitude check, next some air quality stuff and finally he sat back, scanning the instruments tapping here flicking there and said, "Want some coffee? I'll bet we can get one of those babes to get us some."

The big breasted babe gave us coffee. I don't know how she managed to get her arms around those things. I guess she was used to it. She handed us each a sandwich saying, "Glenda made us some sandwiches from the ham we had."

I thanked her, not knowing who Glenda was. Steve and I chatted on the way back. He asked if I ever thought about flying and I said sure, everyone does, but it takes a lot of time to learn. He said it didn't take that much time but you had to do some studying. I said I might check into it. He clicked on the PA and said, "Sue, bring up one of Star's brochures for Chuck. We might get him to learn to fly."

Sue brought me a neat brochure that had smiling people standing by a small aircraft.

I asked, "If I was going to fly something like this, what do I have to learn except this basic airplane stuff and the instrument qualification?"

He said, "Avionics are changing right now, and a lot of the instrument rating is probably going to change. If you are serious," he said, "I could probably get you through basic flight school and instrument training in about three months. The other thing you need is experience. That means airtime. You have to fly, fly, and fly. Get checked out in some different types of airplanes and you can go to the school they have for these babies. There are two separate schools, one is mostly the navigation equipment, and these planes damn near fly themselves. If the plane is kept up after every flight, it'll fly the next time. That's the key to flight safety, know when to say something's wrong and get it fixed."

"If you notice, I set up all the instruments and let this thing take us home. If it was rough out, or I wanted to manually fly it, I could but there's no sense if I'm watching the instruments and the plane is doing what it's supposed to. That's why they call it an autopilot."

I asked a stupid question, "So you could get up and wander around the airplane and you would be safe?"

"I could do that, but that would be pretty stupid. What if something happened and I'm wandering around. Perhaps I can't get seated and right the ship fast enough. I'm sure some people do that, I don't, and it's not recommended."

We were cutting across the gulf after getting clearance from some military base up in the area. We were descending as Steve said, "Maybe we'll see one of the neat big sailboats out today." We did see one ahead and he brought the plane down pretty low and seemed to be slowing. The boat had a main sail with S&S on it. He wagged the wings then began climbing again quickly.

I asked, "Is that boat owned by the same company?"

"Yep, it's one of the charter boats. There're three of the big sailboats right now. If business gets bad there will be only two or one, but so far so good. A lot of companies aren't making it and there're a lot of boats for sale. Wish I had some money to buy boats."

I observed, "This S&S is a big company isn't it."

"Pretty big, it started out small and just kept growing. The company just kept taking advantage of opportunities."

"It's always neat to see and hear of a good success story."

"Heard you had some success and got a big promotion. Congratulations."

"Who told you about that, Steve?"

"The lady from the Marshal's office. She was really excited for you."

"It is a big deal, I'm excited too, but I have to admit, I'm a little scared, there's a lot of responsibility that goes with it. Too darn many people that I'll be responsible for. I don't know how many, but it's like thousands and that is scary."

"Know what you mean, man, it's really a bitch to know you are responsible for the welfare of all those people and their families."

Steve was doing a lot things with dials and knobs, "It's time to land this thing, want to read it, or do you want Sue to do it?"

"Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

He pulled another booklet from the overhead pocket and handed it to me. He flipped a page and pointed.

I read the first item, and he said check. He then used a switch on the yoke to key the radio in calling for clearance to enter the pattern.

He pointed at the next item and I read it. A voice came over the headset, giving us clearance and telling us about traffic at one o'clock at two thousand feet.

I read the next item and got a smile from the cowboy. I read the gear down message and saw him pull the handle and heard the gear go into place. Steve said, "You have to listen, there's a certain clunk that tells you the gear is down and locked."

I kept going step by step, right down to the runway. Once on the ground, he talked to someone who directed him to a taxiway. On the way up to the operations building, I asked, "You knew every step, how come you had me read them to you."

"A checklist is so you remember to do them. Some things make a difference in the order you do them. You can fly without the checklist, but even if you're by yourself, you need to go through it to make sure everything is by the numbers. Since I have someone in the right seat, they get to read it to me. More fun that way."

I was thinking that this guy would probably be a good teacher. He could probably be a good pilot instructor.

We pulled up to the operations building and got out. The cowboy and I pulled the luggage out and set them on the other side of the gate. A lady came out of the operations building and said, "Your limo had trouble and they are sending another. It's going to be about twenty to thirty minutes."

Steve said, "Want to go see where you learn how to fly?"

Bobby said she wanted to go too, and of course, Jan went along with us. We walked across the tarmac to a building between two big hangars. The first or nearest hangar had a bunch of small airplanes in it and two twin engine planes. Inside the office was a young lady that said, "Hi Steve, hi Sue, did you have a good flight?"

Sue said, "Steve flew and it was perfect. Smooth as silk."

The girl said, "The weather is good all the way. Probably a nice day to fly."

Steve asked, "Do you have more of those preliminary questionnaires for student pilots?"

"Sure, right here, how many do you need?"

He didn't even hesitate, he just said give me three. He took them handed one set to Bobby, one to Jan, and one to me. He took a video off a shelf and gave it to me. "Watch this and fill out the questionnaire. Grade yourself and you'll get an idea whether you want to fly, whether you're capable of learning, and how far you want to go in learning."

"Come on, I'll show you a couple of the planes they use to train you in."

The first was a small plane that didn't have a whole lot of instruments. Steve pointed out that some had sticks to fly, and some had the things like steering wheels he called a yoke. We walked over to a little larger plane and looked into the cockpit. It had instruments everywhere with what looked like small video screens on both sides of the airplane.

Steve said, "This plane is used to teach instrument flying. Learning to fly this is fun. You fly all over and land at big airports when they're not so busy. It's a lot of fun."

We walked back across the tarmac to see our limo had arrived with the driver standing by the door. The trunk was open, and all of the luggage was already in it. We shook hands with Steve, and said goodbye to Sue. I still couldn't get over the size of her chest. Bobby caught me ogling and elbowed me, laughing.

Sue said, "Oh my, I'm sorry, I didn't know all these buttons were undone."

Bobby, Jan, and Sue all laughed. Steve just shook his head, while I blushed.

In the limo, Bobby said that Sue had invited us out to their place. It was near Park Place. She said, "Can you believe it, those two live in a trailer park."

Jan said, "There's nothing wrong with a trailer park. I grew up in one and I turned out fine."

Bobby said, "I like those two. We should go see them sometime. Did you notice she didn't even flinch about my size? She asked me if I knew Millie, as she says that she and her husband go to Jonah's. It used to be called Big Jim's before Jonah bought the place, but she says the place is still a popular biker bar. I'll bet Sue shows off when she's out riding."

Jan said, "My almost "Cs" sure do feel inadequate after seeing those things."

Bobby said, "She said they used to be a lot bigger before she had kids. She looks really good for having kids."

I was thinking, too much talk about kids. Gotta get married to have kids, or at least you should.

We pulled up to the house and the duty guys helped us unload the limo. I tipped the driver and he was gone. Ah, home again.

We went inside and one of the duty guys asked Bobby, "Are you going to let the super boss live here with you?"

Bobby said, "I guess he can while I still can. I think I'll have to give up the place. Maybe not, I'll see. I guess I could still do most of it but I can't be home during the day most of the time."

The duty guy said, "The house may be compromised anyway."

I asked, "Why, what happened?"

"Just after you left, a pair of the duty guys were followed out here and a car sat down the block. Jack and I noticed the car as we left. The car began following us, so we pulled into the pancake place and stopped. When they parked, we started going toward them and they took off. We've seen a car down the block twice with people in it. When we call for backup from county, they're gone by the time a car gets here."

"Listen," I instructed, "Next time, just call in and get whoever is closest to close off the street. You can see the guy on the monitors, so set up a way to recognize it and call in."

"Good idea."

"We need to make sure, and if it needs to happen, the next house is built and ready. I saw all of that in the Chief's log left over from Howard."

Later, when we three were heading into the office, I asked Jan, "Look through your stuff and see if you've got anything on local brothels and slave trading stuff. I'm wondering if one of the people might have escaped and they're waiting to catch them."

"Hey, that I can do now. I'll talk to the Chief; he'll know the kinky stuff."

The office was pretty full in anticipation of our arrival. We had let Jan off on the 2nd floor and came on up. All the folks there gave us a hand. The welcome didn't last long as Sarah began showing us the final results from the hotel. They had found another kitchen worker and another on housekeeping staff. All were incarcerated and all were being held as illegal aliens.

I suggested to Bobby that she have a tech, or techs, take the place apart again. If they have found the IP address the information was being forwarded to, we should tear it down, but if not, let's set up a sting. We'll shut down the floor and scrub the two guests again. We'll have them do some acting and see if we can catch someone trying to find them at the house. That will kill two birds with one stone. We'll know if the house is compromised, and we might catch who the transmitters are going to.

Bobby said to everyone standing in the room, "Okay, Guys, you heard the suggestion, I like it. Let's go scrub the guests and make up a script. I want four guys to relieve the two out there. Let's catch some bad guys. Alive is better so they can talk, but these boys play for keeps."

The techs were across the street with some duty people in an instant. They closed off the floor and used another room to have the guests shower. They were ready with towels and combs. Bobby had gone with them since they needed a female for the female guest. Two techs were going over the room, tagging every bug and covering every monitor. Soon the only thing transmitting were the monitors that don't count and the microphones. We were going to have the two black rags over the monitors pulled when the couple was back in the room so the listeners could see them at the same time.