Chapter 282

Seven am Monday on this wonderful cold morning found Marcy, Jenny, Lorrie, Jason and I in two cars of our unmarked cars were fighting the Washington our way through rush hour traffic on our way to the DHS Joint intelligence briefing room in Washington.

The NSA, DHS, State Department and CIA were scheduled to be there. Again I wondered what we were getting ourselves into. We were supplying logistics to two of those agencies and had never before been requested to any meetings like this.

The only change in this new contract was we were simply going to write paychecks for 500 security employees who were subcontracted to the State Department. Those employees were still direct reports to the Ambassador's security chief at whatever location they were assigned to, or so I was led to believe.

Part of the logistics package that we needed to do is supply 80 armored vehicles at 80 locations and helicopters at 10 of them. I guess my questions would be answered in due time.

I was instructed to wait in the lobby after I identified my group to the receptionist. She was still filling out temporary visitors badges when Frank and Eric opened a side door and walked in.

"That won't be necessary," Frank told the receptionist as he handed her five cards with retractable belt clips. She scanned the cards and handed them back with a clipboard.

"Name, card number, day, time and sign on the line," She replied and then added. "Always have the card on you, when you leave the building, the card reader will automatically clock you out." I put the information on the line and clipped the photo ID badge onto my belt along with my JBG badge.

Frank and Eric led us behind the closed door though a series of halls and other doors that required us to use the ID cards. Marcy, Jason and Lorrie carried briefcases and all of us were carrying our Glocks, even Jenny had hers under her jacket.

We were all wearing a professional ladies business suits with jackets; the temperature this morning was in the low 40's. It was getting harder and harder for Jenny to find maternity business suits that fit her.

I was amazed that no one patted us down or asked to see in the briefcases. I was given no instruction on if we could carry our weapons or not. We were a security company and always carried the federal ID we were issued - an eternity ago it seemed. Now we had a much higher clearance.

Frank led us into a huge elaborate meeting room with a monstrous walnut meeting table. The chairs were red leather and padded more than best home living room chairs that I had ever seen, and I had seen some fancy offices in military establishments.

The walls were filled with flat screens so that where ever you were in the room, you had only to look straight ahead to see what was displayed.

I knew a few of the people in the room, Frank, Eric, McJames and Amy Lockerman, Victor Edmonson and Elmer Hobart. Frank introduced the rest and the agency that they worked for; there were a lot.

Four were US senators and 4 more were from the House State Department oversight committee, responsible for Embassy Operations and Security. They also served on the funding committee for the State Department.

Victor Edmonson, the director of embassy security, made the statement that JBG had been awarded the security contract by the State Department, replacing Black Water as required by Congress. The transition was to begin after the holidays.

The decision would be made public at a 2PM news conference in the conference center lobby.

Frank made the opening statements about JBG, and our cooperation in logistics and mission specific training for the agency.

Eric discussed the four successful on going surveillance operations we were assisting DHS with. It was at this point I was asked to give an overview of the security division and all the colleges we supplied security for. I kept it short and sweet. JBG security division had a five hundred full time and part time employees and responsibility for 20 thousand students at ten colleges, all in ten different states.

Eric then surprised Lorrie by asking her to give an overview of JBG Morton Field, now that it had been officially designated as an emergency airport in the area.

I was even more surprised when Lorrie asked if she could connect her laptop to the system to run a PowerPoint about the airfield.

Lorrie's PowerPoint started with the barren farm with the one crop dusting runway and progressed from there, explaining the fuel farm, the terminal building with all the available meeting rooms and the restaurant. She explained about the runway width and lengths and the experimental snow removal system. Then she explained about the hangar space including the super hangar and on site Doppler radar.

Lorrie then explained that the restaurant and terminal would be fully operational on January 1.

She then showed another PowerPoint of our fleet of planes that we had available for charter with interior and exterior pictures and the addition of the helicopters after the first of the year.