Chapter 417

The first thing I did after Ambassador Abelman and his group left was to call Ambassador Dansky and thank him repeatedly. I even asked what gifts I could bring him from the states.

I put the thumb drives in my computer and started reading. There was nothing new on Aadam that I did not already know.

Dagar Daharr was another story; there was a trove of information and I did not understand why Frank had so little. In the reading there was reference to reconnaissance being done at the university where we supplied security. Not only was a reference there but a list of planned targets on the campus.

They were planning to attack the university when Dagar returned from his trip. The trip to Africa was leadership, tactics - and worse yet - explosives training; an exercise in how to pull off the big one.

Then one more question; why did Israel have all this information? Did they have agents in Minneapolis? What was the connection to Israel? I suspected there was a connection to problems that were close to Israel.

I called Ching Lee, “Come to my office now!”

Robert was next; I showed him and Ching Lee what I was reading. His group had a new urgent assignment; find all Dagar’s associates and contacts. Find out what was going on? How complete was the planning, and when and if the planned attack was still on?”

Alwaleed bin Salman Al Saud was the grandson of the king; he had the biggest file so far. It was hundreds of pages - almost since birth - and he had been a trouble maker and wild child from the beginning. He was 26 when he died at 515 and had been involved in terror plots and attacks in Somali, Iraq, Syria, also Jordan as a fighter, planner and financier. He killed the first time when he was 14; a 12 year old Somalia girl who had offended him; he killed her in front of her family.

He liked young virgin girls and boys, preferring them to be Egyptian, Libyan and Syrian; rape, sadistic torture, and when he was finished with them, he killed them if they survived the torture. His security team kept him supplied with new victims and disposed of the bodies.

I was willing to bet the four unidentified persons in 515 were his body guards. That was another note for Robert.

The king had dispatched Saudi security forces to look for him, but too late. All the bodies from the embassy attack had been buried or cremated by the time they arrived to look through the morgue.

Saudi Arabia was supposed to be our ally, yet had trained and supplied so many terrorists to attack us. I was willing to bet our state department had made the pictures of the dead available to the Saudi secret police. Or had the CIA tried to work a deal of some kind? People were expendable - including me - for a piece in the bigger picture.

I wrote more notes for Robert and his group. I wanted everything coming out of Saudi Arabia read with a magnifying glass. The more I read, the more things I thought of.

I wondered it there was some warning in Ben-David’s statement after all. Maybe, just maybe, I was wrong to leave existing JBG employees in place and add people to bring up the numbers. Maybe I should have swapped out the entire groups, moved them around to break up any possible traitors.

Could the Morocco attack have been helped by inside information? I put more notes on the paper.

Investigate all the individuals that were assigned to Morocco at the time; Robert knew what to look for.

I refreshed my coffee before I continued reading. As I was walking back, it finally dawned on me that our allies were beginning to pull back on information sharing. Our government’s poor showing on being able to stop hacking and leaks of our secret data was making them skittish.

Our homeland was isolated by two oceans; our land borders could be - when the need, necessary and the political will - nearly closed. Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America and Asia did not have that luxury.

I would bet that many things were now on a case by case need to share. That was why Frank did not have the intel. He had routinely held back on JBG and now they were holding back on the agency in the same fashion. They may pass on the headline but were holding the details as not to give away their collection methods or people, in case of hacking.

My reading and thoughts were interrupted by a call from Lorrie. The C5 was on it way back, but Frank had changed the plan. It was now doing a stop in New Mexico at an Air Force base that had been closed for years, according to Google.

“All things are not as they seem or are reported to be,” I told her. “Have Marcy bill the flight accordingly, adding for the standby time.” The C5 came home some time after midnight.

We girls went out for supper at the Inn again; family, friends and boys. Then we had a late night in the hot tub with wine coolers.

Crash spent the night with Marlene again, his age was showing and his health slowly going downhill and he knew it. He was still going on flights when he felt like it but not nearly as often. He wanted to go on a short flight on the C5, if there was one.

Crash had already taken a tour of the cockpit and was in awe at all the instruments and controls. He had even sat in the pilot’s seat - speechless for a long time - before he finally he said, “Makes that B29 I flew look like a Jenny.”

Saturday was normal; clean the house, boys and time together without work. We needed it; Monday was going to be a cluster fuck from sunrise on.

Before we were ready, it was Monday; all of us were going to the Morton Field restaurant for breakfast. Lorrie, Vicky and I were staying with Marcy, Ching Lee and Jenny going back to the office.

Eighty more new employees were showing up there this morning to start the process; HR, the Docs, then starting the training. Then 80 more were coming tomorrow; that would fill both the Crash Hotel and the Horsey House.