Security - 17. Chapter 17

I arrived home at seven, Bobby met me at the car. I unloaded the fishing gear, “This is for crabbing. I got an extra pail for Abe.” We walked into the cottage together, my arm around his shoulder. “I’m, hungry I hope Rosa left some dinner for me.” I went and washed up, when I got back to the kitchen, Bobby had my dinner on the table.

“I don’t know what this is but it’s very good. I had two helpings.” Bobby was right, I didn’t know what it was either but it was good.

I helped to clean up, “How was your ride?”

“It was great but you didn’t have to do that. The bike, the cottage, and a scholarship, I owe you a lot.”

“You know how to pay me back? Be the smartest kid in class, and when you receive your doctorate, I’ll be paid back.” I had an eighteen-year-old kid, hugging me. I guess if I was eighteen, I’d be as excited as he was. Bobby was a good kid and I’m sure he’ll study hard to achieve his dream. There was one more thing I needed to do. I called Annie and asked her to get me the phone number of several bookstores in the city.

“Let’s take a walk along the beach, okay?’ No problem, I closed the cottage and we walked to the beach. Walking along the beach, Bobby every once in a while would stop and pick up a shell. “You know if you walk in the early morning, this beach is loaded with shells and crabs. There are a lot of people who are up early in the morning.”

“What say we take a morning walk, or better yet a morning run.”

The next morning we headed out at six am for a morning run. Bobby was right, there were quite a few shells along the beach. The high tide probably brings the shells in, a collectors trove. I saw Bobby pick up a few and then run to catch up to me.

Returning to the cottage Rosa was starting breakfast. Bobby gave the shells to Carlito who ran and showed them to his mother. Rosa looked at Bobby and smiled. When we sat down for breakfast, Carlito climbed up on Bobby’s lap. He looked at Bobby and smiled. I smiled at them, Rosa just patted Carlito on his head and sat down for breakfast.

I left to meet up with the guys. We needed to finalize the proposal and get a copy off to the General and the Prime Minister. I think the Chamber might change their minds as the new proposals, in total, were twenty percent more than the original proposal.

“What is the offset to our proposal? Suppose they don’t buy it, what could they do to provide the same level of security?”

“If the General has his way he would need more guards to patrol the outside area, his force would grow by a factor of four, at least.”

“They may think that is a good idea, help the unemployment.”

“Well, let’s finalize these and send them off. We’ll just have to sit until they come back to us.”

“Let’s have lunch.”

“Have any of you made your flight plans?”

“Pete and I are going back in the morning. I’m not sure when you are leaving Dave.”

“I was thinking of staying till the weekend. We’re going to go up the coast. I was thinking of buying some land along the northern coast, Oregon specifically.”

Lunch was great, I had Mexican food at home, but this was a mix of Mexican and Southern California. We all just sat around the table and chewed the fat. The women wanted to know when we’d be traveling overseas again. Dave fielded that question, one of the women asks if they could go along. Then they all thought that would be a nice trip. They thought a cruise, rather than flying, would be nice. I just listened and smiled to myself. These women would drive me up the wall. I’m glad that I’m not married.

The hotel said I had a message from someone named Annie. I went and got the letter, she had five bookstores listed. Now I had my afternoon project. I called each one and asked the same question, do you have the complete works of Jacque Cousteau. Of the five, none had all of his works but one did say if I wanted those books, they would order them for me. I told him to go ahead, gave him my credit card after agreeing to a deposit. Now I needed a bookshelf, I checked on the internet, found what I wanted and ordered it. In my mind, Bobby was all set for school. Now I could turn my attention to my security bracelet, at least until I heard from the General.

When I first designed the bracelet, I had to find companies that could supply the parts I needed. I searched the internet for specific manufactures. I planned to have several manufactures build one piece and the assembly, I’d do myself. Finding the gold bracelet was easy. I found two companies that thought they could build the bracelet. I asked each of them to build me one for my inspection. I had to pay for the material and I was okay with that.

When all was done, I had twelve manufactures, after prototypes passed my tests. The trickiest was the safety destruction unit which would activate when there was an attempt to remove the bracelet. I had a stainless steel bracelet made, rigged with the internal system. I used a pipe to simulate a wrist and tried to remove the bracelet. Removal was easy but the bracelet got very hot and I had to drop it. After it cooled enough for me to exam it, the inside was a molten mass of metal. Although this was what I wanted, if a mortician or someone who had the authority to remove it, then what I experienced would be a problem. So I needed a release catch of some kind. I needed to think about that.

In the meantime, school started for Bobby. We had met with the General and agreed that we would do the outer security work and then wait for the go-ahead on the other proposals. In confidence, the General told me that it was a costly mistake and we should have done the original job.