Chapter 473

One of the ground controllers from Morton Field was on the College lawn to direct the landing of the choppers. He had painted red, blue and white paint marks for the choppers to land on and to maintain a safe separation as they touched down.

The College grounds crew may have heartburn after everyone left, trying to get that utility marking paint off the grass and dirt before Thanksgiving.

This was the lawn where all the big tents were put up for graduation and the Mayday celebrations for all the exhibitionist students to play naked sports games. They said it was a tradition that went back over a hundred years. Somehow I doubted that, but never challenge tradition at a liberal arts college; they always seemed to find a new one whenever the student council wanted one, like the toga party.

We were guided onto the spot the most distant away from the buildings; the media and Marine One would land closer. The media chopper was going to land first so all the reporters could get video of the President stepping off the chopper.

Marine 1 and the media chopper were ten minutes behind. That gave me time to introduce the people with me to the assembled dignitaries. I asked one of my task force members to be in charge of a box that was on the Blackhawk that I would need later.

The media chopper touched down next and all the press corps scrambled to get set up. A few minutes later Marine One touched down; not knowing what the protocol was, I walked to the chopper and when the rotors stopped turning, walked to the door and waited.

A marine in dress blues came down the stairs as the door touched the ground, stood at attention and waited for the passengers to unload.

After all the introductions and photo ops, we headed to the big meeting room. Ching Lee and Patti had a presentation that showed all the before and after changes to the college grounds with access, parking and a variety of other things. Bradberry was standing by to answer any technical questions should they be asked.

Then they got into the technical part with cameras, scanners, alert systems, the ID card, how it worked and all the things that could be done with it, imaging systems and other things. With all that done, next was show and tell.

We went over to the security building that had been remodeled; the big meeting room was gone, the wall was partially removed and in its place was the new security control room with all the whistles and bells. It had desks for two attendants to monitor the array of screens.

The number of entrances had been reduced and all were monitored by thermal imaging, facial imaging that compared the face to the student ID on file. There were scales in the mat at the doors and imagining that compared the student’s height and weight to the file.

For visitors, the height and weight was compared against the norms. If you were wearing twenty pounds of explosives then you should be flagged by weight. At least that was the theory. All visitors had to enter the college from one entrance and the maze of scanners, infrared and thermal.

Where the students once had to stand on the sidewalk to cross the street over to G dorm and wait on the traffic light, there was now a wall to stand behind. Anyone watching could not see the sex or number of students who were waiting. More cameras were also at that crossover.

A new kind of automated metal detection linked to the equipment that could estimate the size and weight of a metal object on a person and determine if it was keys or a handgun or other object was at all entrances. The computer had thousands of objects on file for comparison. If the computer was in doubt an alarm sounded.