Chapter 376

Both planes from Charlotte landed within 20 minutes of each other. The G5 that Jason, Lorrie and Jenny made the rush trip in; it flew faster than the Bombardier and was later in taking off but landed first. Lorrie and Jenny did an inspection of the Charlotte MAAR office, causing the later taking off.

When we bought MAAR there were four major rental car companies at the site. There were now two and MAAR was the biggest, renting an average of 150 cars a day. It was Marcy’s premier site that she used as a challenge to other sites.

I was still on VCATS when both flights returned. After talking with the management team of Jason, Jenny and Lorrie I left word that I wanted to see Joni and Paula when they returned.

I had spent the rest of the day on the state department VCATS learning. The higher level of authorization opened Pandora’s Box for me to investigate. I limited my looking to the Kampala embassy. I went back two years looking at all the alerts, general e-mails, letters to the embassy and anything else I could find.

The only other distraction was a call to Andy, “The components need to be shipped disassembled. I have Bob’s Construction coming tomorrow to build crates to the Air Force requirements. The specs are in your email.”

I was taking a break when Joni and Paula came in; I was watching live video from the Kampala entrance camera. From the way they came in they were expecting the worst.

“Are you two OK? Do you need to see the doctor?” I asked.

“We are OK; just a couple of bruises,” Paula replied.

“I hear that you did well in the confrontation and inflicted substantially more punishment than you received, and that you worked together. That is why I wanted you to take the training; so you could defend yourself and to teach you how to do it as a team. You did a good a very job and I’m very proud of you,” I said then I added.

“I am sure that Jenny told you but I am going to repeat it. Do not, under any circumstance, answer any questions or calls about today’s incident without Jenny or Jason being with you. I am sure someone claiming to be an investigator will call you all hours of the evening saying they only have a question or two. Do not answer them; refer them to Jenny’s office number. They will try anything to trip you up and change the events. Again, good job! Thanks for stopping by, I am glad you are OK.”

I was tired and glad we had a short meeting. I was ready for the hot tub and gentle snuggling with Marcy tonight. First was supper at the Outback Steak House in Annapolis, another of my favorite places to eat. The blooming onion salad and seafood combo always hit the spot. We took the armored Suburban just for safeties sake.

It was a beautiful evening; a few people recognized me and spoke a couple wanted autographs. I had spent too much time on TV lately. I guess being recognized was something else I needed to get used to.

It was the hot tub again tonight. Crash and Marlene were in their room doing the bunny hop. We could hear her pleasure downstairs; she was always very vocal.

The general was still staying close. I guess it was needed; it seemed I was always answering a question for him. He was in one of the rockers facing the highway. He asked if we wanted another round of wine coolers; of course we did.

He placed the tray on the edge of the tub and passed out the coolers; I wondered if he wrote down what we liked or if his memory was that good. This time he stayed and chatted a few minutes before he went back to his chair. I guess we still looked good; I noticed a rise in his pants before he turned and went back to the chair.