Chapter 326

Patti and I took separate vehicles to KCC again; I was going to be using Marcy's Suburban for a while. Yesterday's events cemented the decision that we girls were going to get armored Suburbans ASAP.

I had another new laptop; both the JBG and the state department ones were a pile of ashes in the KCC Suburban. Amy was sending over a new one today. It was a good thing that everything I did on the JBG laptop was automatically backed up to the server every 4 hours. Little data had been lost.

I turned onto Morton Road. I wanted to see the damage to the road in the daylight, plus I never made it to the construction site last night.

Bob already had a crew fixing the potholes. There were dozens of FBI and DHS people in white hazmat suits, combing every inch of the ground looking for more evidence.

I found Bob at the training site. Dozens of dump trucks were dumping the stone to finish out the road. Heaters were still blowing hot air under plastic tents to cure the concrete poured yesterday.

Some of it had already been uncovered and masons were laying block in the heat of the tents. Several of the wooden structures looked to be completed or near completed. The pow, pow of air nailers was rapid fire and dozens of carpenters were cutting, holding or passing lumber.

As I walked along looking at the progress, all of them stopped to ask how I was this morning and made comments about all the burned vehicles in the row.

I took some more pictures of the burnt out vehicles and I did another check to make sure my computers were destroyed. They were nothing but remnants of the hard drives left, all the plastic was melted into a glob.

I stopped by the airport restaurant for another mug of coffee before I headed on my way. The two captains and the Rochester group were there. They asked how I was feeling this morning.

"I am fine. Your guys are going to find out how fine real soon, this afternoon we are going to spend time on hand skills on the mats. You need to rest up this morning, I hear you are going to get another go at the shoot don't shoot course with Jamie," I replied.

While I was filling my mug, the TV was replaying all the video from yesterday. Hanna's interview with me had made the national news circuit. All the opinion speakers were using my interview for material - good or bad. Because of the carnage the police had kept the other two attack sites closed. Hanna Page and JBG were blasted on every TV channel.

As I was leaving a huge all terrain crane was coming down Morton Road. It had eight of the big tires you see on monster trucks. I wondered what it was going to do here but then I remembered that Bob had settled on Jake's idea of setting the second floor and the roof as a pre-poured slab instead of trying to pour it in place on the four block buildings.

I drove straight to the college, anxious to get a day's work done in the four hours I was going to spend there. Because of my detour, Patti had beaten me there by a good fifteen minutes.

I opened the door to a packed house; a few students but mostly administrators. There was a big cake on the counter - across the top was "Car Killer," in red letters. In the center were two pictures; one of last years wrecked Suburban and one of the burnt one from yesterday. I had heard the cafeteria bought one of those computer graphic cake decorating machines that could impose a picture on a cake.

All of us had cake with our morning coffee and a good laugh at my expense. They had all seen Hanna's news footage so I connected my phone and let them see the pictures I had taken this morning.

The crowd left after the cake. Bob Jackson and Mr. Nobles were the only ones left in my office. I knew a conversation was coming about the Suburban so I tried to head it off right from the start.

"JGB will order a replacement Suburban from our supplier and have our up fitter install the security package on it. I am pretty sure the insurance company is going to balk at paying for it. Almost all of them have no fault no payment terrorism clauses in the policies," I said. Then I added "I will need the title as soon as you can get it to me."

"Then you are going to have to take the loss on all those vehicles?" Bob asked.

"Maybe not all of it; there are pages of rules and regulations dealing with terrorism losses after 911 with when and what the government will pay. Something else for the lawyers to handle," I replied.

When I left at lunch I had the title in my hand and a handful of notes from phone calls that I needed to return before the end of the day. One of them was from the Secretary for the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Another o-joy call, I was ordered to appear and testify before the committee a week from Wednesday. It was to be a closed door hearing.

Today was not a good day for anyone to meet me on the mats. I was in one of those moods where I wanted to beat the crap out of someone to relieve stress. It had been a long time since I had been this angry.