Chapter 306

Patti and I drove separate vehicles to KCC Wednesday morning. She was going to be in charge of the day shift for the next 5 days, but did not know it yet. The Mideast trip was going to last that long and I had no doubt she could handle the job.

The smile said all that needed to be said when I told her, "A pool secretary is going coming over to do payroll and handle the phones. You need to train her. You are going to be temporary upgraded to Assistant Director and I want you to be able devote all your energy to being in charge. Also, you will get a pay upgrade for the five days."

"Leave your cell number as an emergency contact for the other shifts," I added.

I changed the access level of her password to give her more access to the video controls and files if something happened. It was part of my plan to do this every time I left on an extended trip for the next few months. I completed the things that I needed to at KCC and left at noon.

The plane from the M&M colleges had already landed and the girls were already home when I got there. Vicky was packing for our five day Middle East trip. I stopped by her room to remind her that pant suits and scarves was the dress code for this trip. If we needed to go anywhere outside of the embassy or US bases, I did not want to create a political problem for the State department.

Ching Lee was in the room she shared with Marcy, so I stepped in to give her welcome home hugs and affection. I spent extra time with her as I was going to do with all the girls - especially Jenny - before we left for the airport.

The five days would seem like forever when I was away from my mates. I was getting worried about Jenny now. She was so huge from the twins and was having more back problems. The visits to the doctor and the test were always good and there was another one scheduled for next Wednesday when I returned. We were all counting down the days; the middle of February could not get here fast enough.

When I finished my rounds with the girls, I packed for my trip then did my business at the gym. At two we headed to Morton Field. I guessed that it would take Jake an hour to do all the programming on the armory door. There were eight sets of access codes to put in. Mine, Marcy, Lorrie, Ching Lee, Jenny's, Vicky's, Jason, and Jamie were going to be the ones with access to the vault. It would take any two of them to open the door. I was going to be the only one whose codes entered on both pads would open the door.

This would be my first look inside the vault since Dad and Jake had put in the shelves and racks and moved all the weapons from the shipping container. Yesterday we received Jamie's first big order of ammo that would be used for practice and recertification. I wondered how long it would take to go through all that ammo.

My plan was to have Jamie do all the training in the super hangar with the bad weather coming except the shoot don't shoot course that had to be done at the club.

Jake had already done some of the programming by the time Vicky and I walked in the pilots/mechanics office and had it down to a science. It took longer for each of us to go through the motions to make sure our codes worked than it did for Jake to program the thing.