Chapter 437

We walked back to the security office meeting Eric, Frank and the wimpy triplets at the door.

What the heck are they doing here, I wondered?

“You are running an iron fist on this site; I thought we would never get in. If it had not been for one of your RRT men we would still be out there,” Eric said.

“I have enough problems without hundreds of John Does just wanting to take a closer look,” I replied.

“The media is screaming about the no fly zone over this place; they want all those aerial shots for the news. I am expecting it to be dropped as soon as the president gets involved. He has already put his two cents worth in based on social media,” Eric said.

“I am pulling all my out of town people out as soon as they can get packed. I have other pressing issues to deal with elsewhere,” I said then I added “I told Len to get his structure set up an hour ago.”

“I don’t even want to know what you’ve got pressing,” Frank said.

We still had four days before I was leaving for Uganda but I wanted my people out of here before the shit hit the fan. The investigation and follow up hearings would take months. It would only be a matter of hours before all the questions started, if not sooner.

Once the media was allowed access they would be interviewing everyone that looked important or in a suit, increasing the chance for someone to slip up and say something they should not. That was one reason I allowed the DHS people in so they could take that responsibility.

Another thing that would play into the equation was Randolph. The agency and DHS did not want anyone to know about him or their agreement with JBG, so they would work aggressively to keep things in control.

Ching Lee and I spent the next hour in a meeting with Frank, Eric, the wimpy triplets, Len, Andy and Sherman. The Minneapolis police chief - who was the mayor’s cousin - was in cuffs and was excluded, much to his dismay. Instead he spent the hour in the other meeting room being questioned by four of Eric’s DHS agents.

When that meeting was over, there was another with a dozen more DHS and FBI agents and the state police, Kelvin Ackerman and the College Board.

The Minnesota State Police were going to guard the parking lot for the next few days until all the forensics teams had completed their work. They were also going to control and patrol all access to the college grounds. A mobile State Police command center was on the way and would stay until all that was completed.

The college was closed for the next seven days.

The downside of this was I had to listen to my exchange with the Mayor several times. Eric and Frank both had it loaded on their smarter than smart phones and linked it to the flat screen, with the group laughing at the mayor’s plight. Apparently the state police and local FBI had no use for him.

The first press conference was in 15 minutes in front of the college. The death toll was now 25, with 30 more reportedly unaccounted for. The governor was on his way just to make things interesting.

Ching Lee and I stood behind of all the dignitaries that wanted the free TV time. I always hoped that out of sight, out of mind would prevail and I would escape making a statement. It had not worked yet but I kept hoping.

The governor arrived in time to speak after a ten minute delay so the state police could up bring him up to speed.

It was the normal speech with sympathy for the families and a promise for a complete investigation. Then there was the promise to bring the guilty parties to justice. The governor took no questions, which I thought was odd.

Next up was the State Police Commandant Kent Dalton; he had been in the meetings with all of us. He updated the body count - it was now 30 - but the unaccounted had dropped to 5, and then he gave out more information. To my surprise he took no questions as he handed off to Eric.

Eric was left with little to say except that DHS was going to use all the power of its agency to follow the investigation wherever it took them. No stone will be left unturned; no lead too small to investigate. There had to be answers as to how this act of terrorism was planned, organized and carried out in a complete veil of secrecy. He took no questions but said, “BJ, you’re next.”