Chapter 304

Patti and I left a few minutes early today. Bob had called me not once but twice since he and Chancellor Nobles were in my office this morning. The first was to tell me that Emily, his wife was happy and overjoyed about the trip. As to the second call, Bob was not having second thoughts about the trip but wondering - if after going through all this trouble - if his son would be able to get time off to see them. Bob Jackson Jr. was an F18 pilot at one of the several US bases in the Middle East. I told him I would make a call to see if I could find out and asked for his unit details and where Jr. was stationed. If I had to, I would try to pull some strings.

"If nothing else, they would be able to tell all their friends that they vacationed in the Middle East this year. At least they would still be able to do some sight seeing," I replied.

Before our nightly meeting started I pulled up the Middle East map and planned out the tentative route. Leave on Wednesday afternoon from Morton field. First stop on Thursday, at the US base in Riyadh to drop off the Jackson's stay over for a meet and greet then off to Masqat Oman on Friday. I planned to visit Abu Dhabi UAE on Saturday and Doha Qatar on Sunday. On Sunday fly back to Riyadh to pick up Bob and Emily then on to Kuwait City to finish out the trip. Arrive in Kuwait city on Monday, do my thing at the embassy then fly home Monday night, making it a five day five embassy trip. I sent the list to Director Amy Lockerman in an e-mail.

The next call was to General Kevin McJames, the liaison between the State Department and the DOD who we used for the in-flight refueling for the C130 flights. I explained what I was after and if it was possible to verify that Bob Jackson JR was still assigned to the US base in Riyadh.

I then asked if a surprise visit by the parents was acceptable. I knew in the marines, when somebody's family showed up the gunnies always found a way to give you extra duty to make sure there was little time together. I had seen that done many times. I didn't want to see that happen here

"The appropriate military response is that there is no way to guarantee that he will not be on assignment by the time you arrive. He is there now, according to the logs, and I see no training scheduled for the next 7 days," he said.

"Make sure they and you stay in approved motels anytime you are in that part of the world. I will send you a list. There is on-base guest housing, availability depends on how many VIP'S are visiting. I will try to reserve rooms for your group for the night and a place for them for their stay. I will know tomorrow and pass it on to you when I find out," Kevin replied.

I made it to our meeting just as Marcy was ready to get started. Renay Reese had been promoted to senior administrator of security under Cindy. With Cindy in Minnesota she was making her first appearance at our regular afternoon meetings giving us the updates for the day's activities.

The same was true for Katrina Keller - she had just been promoted in Ching Lee's training group. Ching Lee had insisted that anyone under her would be able to do training on the gym floor so the process to advance was a little slower. Katrina was ex-army and had been one of those ladies who had tried twice to get into the Army's Special Forces.

Katrina easily held her own on our training modules. It took some time to change from the Army mentality to a security mode.

JBG was growing, I hoped not faster than I wanted too. People were being hired to fill the positions that were left open because of all the promotions as a result of the State Department contract. MY security department needed more and so did Marcy on the accounting side.

The only section that had not changed was Jamie's fire arms training class. She was still doing them by herself.

I presented the travel plan for my Mideast trip with leaving by 4 tomorrow afternoon and the stops I was going to make. Then I made the conference call to Ching Lee and Vicky to see which one of them wanted to go along.

Ching Lee decided that she wanted to wait until I went to Asia. Her reasoning was sound; she wanted those trips to follow her family's history. I could understand that. I was planning to do the same with any European trips.