The A440M military transport carrying George Preston’s body and belongings passed over the Capital Beltway just southeast of the White House. As it touched down on the major North South runway of Andrew’s Air Force Base, the flag draped coffin with George's few remains were finally home.
Dave Simon signed for George’s coffin and belongings in a guarded military hanger. Dave picked up George's duffel bag filled with what was left of his life and placed it gently into the trunk of his 5 series BMW. He took the direct route to Langley crossing through the lower part of Washington D.C. and crossing the Potomac. It was an appropriate route since he passed by Arlington National Cemetery where George will be buried. Unfortunately, George’s work was so sensitive the Agency mandated a very private burial.
It was your typical hot humid midsummer’s day in the nation’s capital with a partly cloudy sky threatening rain. Dave turned left off of Custis Memorial Parkway on to North Glebe Road and drove through the C.I.A.’s main security gate.
As Dave opened the duffel bag and pulled out the five laptop computers George used in his work. He could smell the stale Eastern African air emitting from the bag. Dave knew that George hadn't had to stay in the field. He could have had an operations job back here. But George always said, if you’re not close enough to see the enemy you’re not effective.
Dave was George’s boss's boss with a full congressional appointment to boot. On an organizational chart there was a dotted line going from Dave to the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. There weren’t too many of those around since 9/11, because of the Homeland Security takeover and they discouraged cross calibrations like his without it going through them first. Dave’s relationship with the Secretary was pretty special since it was up to him to keep the Secretary up to speed on his findings in the Middle East and especially Eastern Africa, which was now the new playground for al-Shabaab a wing of Al-Qaida. Today the U.S., encouraged by Dave’s suggestions to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the Secretary of Defense, sent out travel advisories for Americans to watch their step over there. It seemed that the Eastern theater was about to heat up since George’s death, and that was no coincidence.
Dave knew of George’s findings and that he had uploaded his information to the Agency’s mainframe but because of special encryption George’s files could only be accessed through one of these computers. So, he started working with computer number one as the 538th day of the Obama Presidency had no idea the C.I.A. was on the case.
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