All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) Read Online Free

stature, smirked slightly, and said, “Why, sir, that would be me.”
          Kelly smiled, pulled out his communicator, and hit an entry from his contacts list.   He waited a few seconds and spoke into the device, “Ambassador, I think we have found a way to work around the problem.   We need to put together a request for exception to policy for the no longer approved security components installed in the building.   It will require some extra guard duty until some reserve engineers can come in and replace the components.”
          Kelly listened for a while and replied, “No, sir, I don’t foresee any problems.   I have the man that approves requests in front of me.   Do you still have that breakfast with the Secretary tomorrow?   You might want to see if she can do anything to help Mr. Strange clear his workload to handle this priority.   You will, sir?   Good, I’ll send you some talking points for the Secretary’s breakfast in about an hour.   No, sir, I think we can disassemble the Embassy on Luna Day.   That’s in two days, sir.   We should be ready to transport in five days.”
          Mr. Strange turned all shades of reds and bounced in his seat.
          Kelly continued his conversation, “I see, sir.   You’ll convey that to the Secretary.   Fine, I’ll see you on G’Durin in a week then.   Have a good day, sir.”
          Kelly put his communicator away and Mr. Strange fairly exploded in all his bureaucratic outrage.
          “Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Captain, but there is no way you will get this exception to policy through in time to get this building approved for transport in five days.”
          Kelly sat back in his chair and smiled.   “Perhaps you didn’t just hear me tell Lieutenant General (retired) David Taylor, the first human ambassador to the K’Rang Empire, that we were going to do exactly that.   He will bring that up in conversation with the Secretary in the morning and I know you won’t want to make a liar out of the ambassador and have to explain to the Secretary why the ambassador was misinformed.   Why, preparing the briefings, getting it through your boss and his changes and his boss and his changes and his boss and more changes and scheduling time on the secretary’s calendar and getting rescheduled and rescheduled could eat up all your time for the next four weeks or longer.   You don’t want to have to go through that hassle, now do you?”
          Kelly turned to the contractor and said, “Mr. Krallen, I believe we have taken enough of your time.   I will confer with you in the morning on our timeline for moving the embassy.   You and your company have done an outstanding job and I wish to convey those as the ambassador’s sentiments also.   I’m sure his comments won’t hurt your chances at winning the Angaerry embassy contract, too.”
          As Mr. Krallen left, Kelly turned to the four remaining individuals and said, “Gentlemen, we have forty-eight hours to put together a request for exception to policy that will pass review by every office and be granted immediate approval, is that not right, Mr. Strange?”
          Mr. Strange smiled and in a smarmy tone said, “I hate to spoil your little party Captain, but I have a transport to Gagarin to catch in two hours.”
          Kelly smiled again and told the bureaucrat, “I’m afraid the severe weather will cause your flight to be cancelled.”
          Strange jumped up and paced over to the window, looking out at a clear western sky and snorted, “It won’t wash, Captain, you can’t pull the old, ‘all flights are grounded’ trick on me.”
          No sooner had Mr. Strange completed his sentence than there was a brilliant flash of light, followed by a deafening thunderclap.   Mr. Strange was so startled he turned to jump away from the window, got tangled in his own feet, and went down like a sack of