Chapter 460

At 16:45 I was sitting at the meeting table with the girls - my first this week - and listened to all the things I missed so far this week. There were a few things that caught my attention.

First thing, the elevator was gone and the floor covered with a tarp. I had to lug my portable office up the steps. Damn, I was getting soft and it would be Sunday before I could spend time in the gym, unless I made it a midnight trip.

Mischief and Mayhem had indeed jumped on Andy’s request. We had list of prospective ex-military employees. Apparently the posters I had sent to the General were still up in the military installations and HR was keeping the applications on file.

Mischief and Mayhem, with the keen eye of Jason and Jenny, had picked 25 ops people from the Navy, Marines and Army. Vicky had looked at them but wanted me to make the final decision before HR called them to see if they were still interested in a job with JBG, or had gained meaningful employment elsewhere.

Robert had already done his computer thing and had an impressive folder on each of them.

I looked through the folders, looking at the pictures of the individuals attached to top and was surprised to see they had included four women. I knew that they were not former US Special Forces. It was not that women had not tried to get in the US special ops units; none had made it.

Then I looked closer at the information inside the folder; they were Israeli Special Forces and not former - they still had three months active duty. How did we end up with applications from them?

They spoke four languages; Hebrew, Arabic, English and Kurdish. I had questions for these four. Since they were still active, it would have to be done by VCATS. Of course, I could take that trip to Israel as I had promised.

Ben-David and his tech person arrived on time and we made our way to Robert’s office. All I could do was watch and listen as the computer geeks spoke their special language.

Ten minutes after the programs were installed, the phone was unlocked and the pass code changed to a simple one 12345.

An hour later I had four copies of four printouts from Diya’s phone. One was mine, one was Roberts, one was for Ben-David and the other was for the task force.

The phone kept the call logs for days. One was all the incoming calls, including international calls. The other three were outgoing calls, the contact list and text that had not been deleted.

Based on the times of the last calls and text times, Diya made them and then turned off the phone and hid it seconds before the SUVs made the run toward the field house. The last calls and text were to his father and brothers.

Ben-David was reading down the list of numbers; Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Uganda, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

While he was doing that, I was reading the US calls to at least 40 states.

“These international numbers are going to connect a lot of things together,” Ben-David said.

“The big thing now is to find out how many are burner phones and lead nowhere; the task force will have plenty to keep it busy tomorrow,” I replied.

The girls were still waiting for me as I walked Ben and his tech people out. Things had been so busy, they wanted to go out for supper; no one felt like cooking.

They wanted to go to the new Texas Steakhouse in Middletown; that was fine with me. I could use a good steak - the salad I had for lunch did not last long.

We packed up the boys and made the 40 minute trip in my armored Suburban. It was just one more night that I was not going to be able to check on the progress with the gym basement.

I shouldn’t have been concerned. Marcy had made a passing comment in the meeting and it went right over my head. My head was partially still in section 12 at 1600 Pennsylvania.

That comment was that that 100 of Bob’s people and contractors were working night shifts in the basement. The other 50 plus contractors were working 12 hour day shifts. I had not paid any real attention to the yellow safety tape stretched between the house and concrete box.