Chapter 323

Within an hour the extra manpower had arrived to beef up security at KCC. As they came in they were given all the information that I knew and also what they should be especially aware of based on the alert. At 3:30 everything was quiet and there had been no additional bulletins.

With everything running smoothly I left for the day. Patti wanted to stay a couple more hours and that made it an easy decision.

The ride home was normal so I had the radio on to hear if there had been any attacks anywhere. I was also monitoring the KCC radio system.

There had been a bomb detonated in a parking garage in central New York at 2 PM with a lot of damage but no loss of life. They had picked the wrong time or else their timer had malfunctioned. Two o'clock was midpoint between lunch and time to go home. Most of the people were still in their offices.

There was bomb detonated in a tour bus in San Francisco. They were not as lucky there as the bus was filled with vacationers. 40 people lost their lives with many more injured at the bus stop while waiting to board.

On the international front another luggage bomb detonated at Heathrow International Airport. The luggage had exploded on the luggage carousel. There were only four deaths but heavy damage to the terminal. It brought the airport to a complete halt. The bags on the carousel had already been inspected for explosives and contraband.

Planes were evacuated and all luggage was removed for special screening. Reports were saying that it would be two days before the airport would reopen.

The fear was a new kind of explosive that would not set off detectors had been used. That would add a whole new level to all threats if it were so. In my thoughts it was more than likely an inside job. Someone associated with a terrorist organization working for security had disabled a scanner or simply over-rode the warnings to let the bomb or bombs pass through.

BWI, National, Kennedy, Philadelphia and any other airport that had direct flights from Heathrow were temporarily closed so all arriving passengers and luggage could be given an intense screening.

To me, the only way that made any sense was to find bombs that had failed to detonate with the plane carrying them over the Atlantic. What better way to shut down the aviation industry and spread world-wide fear than to blow up a dozen planes a thousand miles over the ocean in a day.

With all the new executive orders barring the use of criminal records and many items on background checks from being used against a potential new hire, along with the mad rush to force diversity into every aspect of government including security, bad things were going to happen sooner or later.

The last time that I checked on all the colleges that JBG covered, they reported all quiet. I felt good about that for the time being.

I turned off RT 301 onto Morton Airport Road. There at the circle in front of the security gate were four of our security cars and now four new members of the Rapid Response team.

They were easy to spot; they still had on jeans and other civilian pants but had on the bullet proof vest, a JBG security jacket and hat and were armed. There was a line of traffic they were working through. A lot of it was dump trucks and supply trucks for the construction project at hand.

To their credit, they were waving the trucks out of line and on their way to the back farm where Bob's crews were working. I flipped on the light warning package then pulled out of the line and parked in back of one of the security cars.

I introduced myself to the men then helped them get the line through the check point. With all the vehicles past we had time for a conversation.

"First day on the job has turned out to be a busy one for you guys," I replied.

"That's for sure. By the way, I am Andy Riddick. Mr. Coles put me in charge of this checkpoint. Your team does not play around when it comes time to make command decisions. One minute we were completing testing and 20 minutes later being issued gear, cars and an assignment. Now that is fast."

"Have there been many construction trucks by here?" I asked.

"A lot, we logged in all of them as they came in and left. There were close to a hundred I would say, I can count them if you like," Andy replied.