Chapter 453

After seeing my family off, I met with the GSA group. They were the people that handled all government buildings, furnishings and equipment.

I took the elevator down to the fourth level in the super secret new underground White House office expansion. GSA contractors had been years building the offices with big tarps and tents to keep prying eyes and satellites from seeing what they were doing.

Section 12 was where my task force was assigned. I was informed they were not to be called foremen or supervisors. They had computer printouts of various office setups based on the dimensions of section 12.

Being a novice, I asked what other department heads would choose for a space like this. She quickly narrowed it down to two.

I chose the one where there was one private office with everyone else in cubicles. There was an area with fax and copiers. All the cubicles had computers with printers. At the end of the cubicles there was a 20 person meeting table with 5 x 8 ft flat screens on the three walls.

“What will it take - a week or better to get this set up?” I asked.

“Oh no; all the standard office packages are prepackaged and staged at the GSA warehouse. The same is with the office equipment and communications. As soon as I click the approved tag and send it, they will be loaded on the truck and on their way,” she replied.

“The orders for the night shifts to assemble it tonight were sent out yesterday. This job was flagged as a top priority. There may still be odds and ends to finish in the morning, but you will have a place to work.”

I went back to office 12 and went to work with the only items I had in my portable office. I laid out tomorrow’s agenda for the first meeting of the task force.

Since I was using my secure state department laptop, it hooked right up to the White House wired system.

To use my JBG laptop, I used one of my cell phones as a hotspot.

I was just getting into the good stuff when two people from the ethics group came in the door to begin my OJT in Washington ethics and a handful of disclosure forms I needed to fill out.

I looked at the forms and decided it would be best if Curtis Warren or Howard, Howard & Fine assisted me with them.

After a brief overview, I sent them on their way and a promise that next week I would give them a couple hours to finish their speech.

They had not even finished when another agent brought in a stack of personnel files. He had a lady trailing behind him.

“I’m Grace Logan and I have been assigned to you for the rest of the day as your clerk. These four personnel files are from the secretarial pool. They were the first four that have volunteered to work for you; there are dozens more if these do not suit,” she said.

“Can these ladies be located to do an interview now?” I asked.

“It will take a couple minutes. Which one do you want first?” Grace asked.

“I want all four at the same time,” I replied.

“That’s a bit unorthodox,” Grace replied.

“They are going to work together; let’s see how they interact together from the beginning,” I replied. And then I added. “Get them here while I review the files.”

“Yes Ma-am.”

The files had their ID picture as the first sheet then all the things that should be in a personnel file. Education, college, each of the four spoke a different foreign language that happened to be four of the seven I spoke; something in common with them already.

Bobbie Canterberry, Celeste Newsome, Cassy Bitmore, and Mona Fox followed Grace in. Once they were seated, I started talking.

“Good afternoon, I’m Roberta Jones, I have been called a lot of things over the years such as Bobbie Joe when I was little. Later that became BJ, then Sergeant Jones and most recently Ambassador Jones. Every now and then someone will call me that woman or bitch. My friends call me BJ and I’m OK with that,” I said.

Bobbie Canterberry spoke German. I asked my questions in German, “Why did you volunteer to be a part of this task force?”