Chapter 321

When the bright lights went dark for the last time the rest of the girls came up on the stage and joined us – for a long off air conversation with the panel. Mr. Kennedy was serious about wanting us to come back - this time they wanted all six of us.

It was nearly two when we went through Annapolis. We decided to stop at a second favorite restaurant; the Outback. With football over - with the exception of the Super Bowl - there was plenty of room. We even found a table with enough room for Jenny's big belly.

The food was good as always and the onion and salad were my favorite appetizers. The steak, hot bread and sweet tea just finished it off to a tee. Then the ZNN news brought us all back to earth.

One of the wide screens was running the ZNN news loop. The current headline was about the Mad Matters Movement. This morning during a campaign rally at Kansas Stadium they had rushed the stage at a Connie Hovater event. She had been pushed off the stage into the front row lower seating.

The result was two broken ribs and a broken wrist. To make matters worse, the protesters poured a pitcher of water on her while she was on the floor and threw a folding chair at her before the stadium security swung into action.

It was the third such incident, but was the first to cause serious injuries since the group had been at our JBG meeting. I guess I had been right that they would not agree on anything.

Back at the gym another planning session was needed for the upcoming week. All kinds of things were happening and faster than I had planned. I was glad I had Jake, Dad, Jason and Robbie to fall back on for all the outside things that were going on.

I was soon going to miss Jake; he was leaving for Japan the first week of February to evaluate the progress on the Nuke cleanup project and would be gone for a week ... Kathy and Tony were both in for a surprise; they were going to Japan in Jake's new jet, as he was going to tell them next week.

Then he was going to be setting up his Centreville Virginia construction site. J&J had won the bids for a bridge replacement and adding a second lane to one of the heavily used highways in the area. Tony's wish for expansion of J&J was now a reality, to be built with concrete and rebar.

Marcy had agreed to assign two of her new clerks to Jake's office until he decided where his business offices were going to be. With the Virginia and Pennsylvania locations, the decision where to place the main office would be a tough one for him.

The irony was that JBG being on Summers Road was nearly in the center. On top of that, our office had every bell and whistle there was. Another thing that caused a few chuckles - every time Jake drove over there, he came back late and cursing up a storm over the traffic on 66 to Washington. The last two times he needed to go over, one of the Bell 407 choppers carried him. Now that Lorrie had moved more of her people over to the Elizabeth Morton terminal building, we had office space to spare at the gym offices.

Jake was with Bob this afternoon setting up the hostage rescue site. Jake had texted a picture of them trying to drive stakes in the frozen ground. The final group picture was them drilling holes for the stakes with a wood auger bit and a Dewalt battery pack drill.

Tomorrow the Iowa National Guard C130j-30 was loading the two Black Hawks for us bound for Africa and make the exchange. Glenn was eager to go again, even with the increased risk. It would make us down one chopper pilot as it was.

Darrell Anderson was transferring to the State Department Security Division of JBG permanently. The 500 a day hazard pay - tax free - was too much for him to say no to. He was going to be the pilot of their new Black Hawk going to Morocco. He and his bags were along for the ride.

I guess the Guard's superior officers had lacked full confidence in their crew when a long over-water flight was involved.

They wanted them to fly the northern route, over Canada, Iceland, England, then swing south to Africa; all short hops compared to the long over the Atlantic flight our C130 made. Either way, it was a savings for us. All Marcy had to pay was fuel and lodging. This crew needed flight time and the Iowa Guard had been hit with big budget cuts. As with everything, training was the first thing cut.