Chapter 287

Jake and Mindy left for Pennsylvania at 1. Jake had been here three days and I still had not been able to have time alone with him. I wanted so badly to hold him.

All the girls were going the things that were needed to keep JBG going strong. Vicky and Ching Lee were making videos of the 407s for me to send to Ambassador Adam later today. Marcy and I were in our offices. Jenny, on the other hand, was having some heated arguments on the phone with her Annapolis office. Lorrie was back out to the airport. She was moving everyone but the pilots into the terminal building. She and all of her staff were there doing the plug and play with computer terminals and flat screens.

She was leaving two flat screens behind in the pilots/ mechanics office as she was calling that side Hangar- one for scheduled arrivals and the other for scheduled departures.

While Lorrie was working in the terminal building she had the pilots hang a banner on the front of the terminal announcing that JBG Flight Services was now open in the main terminal. Vicky and Ching Lee were going to update the web site.

I was waiting for any updates on JBG's first security flight mission, the replacement chopper mission that was in play. There were still three hours of flight time to go before the C130 would land at Bamako and I was still on pins and needles. I spent some time looking at the geography of Africa. A lot of the countries had new names since I was in school, due to rebellions, divisions, and other political strife.

The flight from Bamako to Khartoum flew over some of the most contested territories in Africa. So far none of the belligerents had taken to shooting down planes flying in the designated commercial plane routes. My guess on that was such an event would cost them too much in political support from whoever was sponsoring their war. It was more of the unwritten rules.

I knew now why we had received the shipment with the Blackhawks. Diplomats were forbidden by international laws from carrying weapons into other countries. Contract security details and accompanying police forces were another story and a gray area. We were to fill that gray area just like Black Water had done.

Black Water had grown too big and too fast with the Iraq war. They had to hire people too fast and did so without asking the right questions. They had tried to isolate the Iraq part of their operation from the rest of their business. In Washington, when things go bad with that large of a scale, no one is isolated from the flying horse dung. There were lessons to be learned.

Ching Lee and Vicky must have come back. The ding of an email interrupted my thought process. Vicky had sent me the four video files they had taken of the remaining 407s. I had to admit, the JBG Security decals on those choppers boosted my spirits.

When I finished looking at all four of the videos, I sent them to Adam with a simple note, "Which one do you like best?"

While waiting for a response from the Ambassador, the weather came to mind. One of the things we had gained out of all of these changes was access to NOAA US Government classified weather forecasting worldwide for the agency. I wondered if it was truly any more accurate than the old Farmers Almanac. I looked at the 30 day forecast.

On January 25 it predicted a blizzard for the Middle Atlantic States coming from the south. We always had massive snowfall when the storms came from that direction and when the winter cold air from the north met over the Delmarva. Most years we missed the big blizzard for one weatherman's excuse or another, usually one or the other front stalled.

How anyone could be wrong as often as they were and still keep their job was beyond me.

I went to Jason's office; I knew he kept a copy of old Farmers Almanac on his desk for the tide charts. Sure enough it predicted the same. I called Robbie to have him make sure we had everything we needed in place in case a blizzard was coming our way.

We started our four PM meeting with no word from the C130 flight our first security mission for the State Department. We had a short meeting - Jason was missing - he was rabbit hunting with my Dad today.

The biggest discussions were as follows: the flight to Bamako, Lorrie's group making the changes at the airport and Jake's project in the parts hangar. Marcy and Lorrie knew I had something that needed special security as a result of the planning they did with Jake today. Finally Marcy asked point blank what it was.

"The Blackhawks came loaded with freight it is advanced military weapons and ammunition along with some other goodies. The kind of stuff you fight a skirmish with. The kind of stuff that you don't want loose in the neighborhood," I replied.

"I assume that it gets delivered to some of the embassies at some point in the future. I think the fewer people that know about it, the better," I replied.