Chapter 209

I needed to spend several hours today at KCC for a building update and a meeting with the board of directors. A new Suburban for KCC was still several weeks away. In fact the insurance company was dragging its feet coming to an agreement on the value, along with a suit against the Jeff Justice Insurance company.

I was using one of the unmarked Jones security cars that KCC was now leasing until the Suburban came in. I noticed a tractor trailer and a utility truck were at the gym on the side of the building with the loading dock, just as I was leaving the driveway - so I went to check it out.

Our forklift was struggling, carrying pieces inside the building. Inside, crates were being opened by the night Fed workout group. When I saw what they had been opening inside the gym I knew why the Feds were helping.

The day before all the Rochester and airport commotion Vicky and Ching Lee had ordered a large climbing wall. They were finally getting popular in the area. One of the big sporting goods stores had one on the western shore and several gym regulars had asked about one.

With the 30 foot clearance below the girders in the gym, Vicky had ordered two of the 25 foot models with the attached controlled descent safety devices for when you fell. The units could be climbed on both sides. That made for four different levels of expertise.

They came with a complete set of fall harnesses for use with 50 pound kids to 300 pound football players, along with helmets and a set of mats to cover the floor completely around it.

The agency guys had been talking about modifications they could add to it for use after midnight to help with wall scaling and rappelling training on some of their missions. They had taken one of the sale pamphlets with them to their rig shop. I was sure that some morning the girls would come in to find ropes and attachments on pulleys fastened to the beams.

The manufacture's installer was drilling holes in the concrete for the anchors to fasten the walls to the floor. I was satisfied with the goings on and left for the college. I assumed that by the time I finished my meetings and returned it would be assembled and in various stages of testing.

Patti had piled my desk full of paper that I needed to deal with today. Most of it came from the pile that had accumulated on her desk in her week absence. It was going to be a longer day than I thought.

It was nearly three when I finally made it back to the gym. I had an hour and a half before Ching Lee and I were to meet the first of Rodney Stokes' group. I wondered what kind of mission they were training for that they thought they needed the kind of close-in hand to hand combat that had been my specialty.

As soon as I went through the door into the gym I could hear the commotion from the back of the gym. The rock climbing wall was obviously a big hit; there was a large crowd. From where I was standing I watched Ching Lee reach the top and ring a buzzer before rappelling to the floor to much cheering from below. With a glance around I could see the gym was busy.

If she had done much of that today, she would never hold up to tonight's training session with Rodney's pros. I expected it to be a tough one and they were early. Rodney and his group were walking in the door behind me.

I corralled Ching Lee so we could change. We met the men out at the mats to get started. The men were smaller than I thought they would be. For some reason I was expecting they would be six foot six and 225. Only a couple of these guys were taller than I was at 5 foot 10, but they did have a weight advantage over me and a lot more over Ching Lee, but I doubted that any of them were over 200.

We were both going to need all the speed and finesse we could muster to not get our asses whipped tonight. After a talk on the mats in which they reveled nothing about any mission, I was still in the dark with what they wanted other than they wanted to wear the padding.