Chapter 407

Friday was hectic in the office; Lorrie set up a commercial account with one on the international air carriers to get the 40 employees to Africa on Monday. All of them were flying out Sunday afternoon and would not arrive in Africa until almost 24 hours later with layovers in Europe.

All of those employees were scrambling to get last minute personal things taken care of. In a way, we were fortunate that out of the 40 only 10 were married or had families. All of them were relieved that they were going to be able to use our SVOL as often as they wanted to, to communicate with their loved ones. There had been a mad rush to move to the area for the family to be able to do that.

Jenna and Mid West had been a godsend working with our employees on housing. With her special JBG discounts, payroll deduction and mandatory IRA account savings accounts, they were getting rates less than 3%.

I sat in on the VCATS calls with Vicky. Together we made arrangements for the next class of 40 deployments; that was the only way I could think to call it. The forty on Monday were all set and the forty more the following Monday were the ones we were working on.

Then, after lunch, we went down the list to confirm when the accommodations would be complete on the rest of the embassies.

With the RRT group back, they were all going to be pressed into trainers. That was the only way we were going to meet the numbers. Jenny, Jason and the HR administrators were burning the phones to get firm dates when they would be here from potential employees.

To our good fortune - just as we would triple the output from the training program - the embassies would be finishing the rooms for them and the transportation for the helicopters should arrive.

By 5 all the bits and pieces had come together as close as we could get them; all long range planning changes checked at least twice.

The weekend was wonderful; the first in 8 weeks that we had not been in a full work mode. We had our first full blown orgy in 8 weeks on Saturday night with many of the normal players with Mischief, Mayhem and their boyfriends, Jenna, Marlene, Crash and the North six.

Sunday I cooked a big breakfast for the group that had stayed over. Then I spent the day with the boys and my mates. The only thing I did work-wise was to check the fence cams at Rochester to make sure there were no problems.

Monday morning I drove my armored Suburban to KCC. I was going to meet with Bob Jackson and Mr. Nobles after I looked things over. I had been gone 8 weeks and I was sure my desk was piled full.

Patti had it separated into piles and there was no junk mail to go through. The things that had been opened had sticky notes with the action she had taken. We had a discussion before I left and I gave her permission to open my mail.

I was wondering just how long it would take the pair to make it to my office. Sixteen minutes after I logged onto my computer, they walked through the door.

“Well, our world traveler has returned. It’s good to see you are healthy after all you have been through,” Bob said and added “You even survived four days in Washington.”

“After Kampala, Washington was a breeze,” I replied.

“You and Patti both drove this morning?” Bob asked.

“Yes, mine is armored, that’s all I’m driving from now on,” I replied before I added, “Patti can continue to use the KCC one.”

“I was getting ready to email you for a meeting but now that you are here, I will tell you now. I am not going to renew my contract at the end of the year. I need to be at JBG now that we have grown so much.”

“I’m going to need some days off along the way. I have to go back to Africa several times. You promised several professors that I would speak before their classes so we need to set that up as soon as possible,” I said.