The Watchman of Ephraim (Book Club Edition)

by Gerard de Marigny

  “Just how fast is this bird?” Ricci asked as he gazed out of one of the cabin’s portholes.

  “She can do Mach 1.8 and has a range of 4,000 nautical.” Francis replied with a touch of awe in his voice.

  “The best is that she’ll fly New York to Los Angeles in 2.2 hours and New York to Paris in less than five.” De Niro added.

  “Hey, this girl can even make it from New York to Tokyo in 9 ½ hours and that includes a fuel stop in Anchorage!” Francis added with glee.

  “That means if I did the calculation right, we’ll be landing in Las Vegas an hour before we took off from Dulles, with the time difference!” Ricci remarked, impressed.

  De Niro got up and closed the door to the cabin.

  “We didn’t fly it east because the Colonel and Doug took it to have some new avionics equipment loaded into the cockpit. I told them I want every bell and whistle for this girl.”

  De Niro returned to his seat at the head of the conference table.

  “Okay Charley, the reason I had you tag along with us, other than to meet your old roommate, was to discuss a special unit that Mugsy and I have been contemplating creating. Mugsy will fill you in as it was his idea.”

  “Charley, when Cris told me about his mandate for The Watchman to do ‘whatever is necessary’ if the government doesn’t when our country or its citizens are in imminent danger - he challenged me to come up with a means to accomplish that. Obviously, we would need a paramilitary arm but then I started thinking along those lines—”

  “And you were faced with certain legal and regulatory dilemmas,” Santappia interjected.

  “Exactly, The Watchman is an intelligence-gathering agency. In our normal course of business we deal with highly sensitive and confidential Intel and information. If we introduced the type of paramilitary unit that we would need to do whatever is necessary – and neither Cris nor I are even sure what that might entail yet – we would have to subject The Watchman agency to government supervision and scrutiny. That’s not something we want to do.”

  Santappia thought hard for a few moments and then replied.

  “So, what we need is a black ops arm.”

  Ricci looked over to De Niro who answered.

  “That’s the conclusion we came to, also. Charley, this unit would have to be so dark that only the four of us should even know about its existence.”

  Santappia nodded his understanding then turned to Ricci.

  “Have you selected any members for the unit yet?”

  Ricci looked again at De Niro but then replied with a smile on his face.

  “Only who we want to command it …”

  The statement showed how much both men respected and trusted Santappia and that didn’t get past him.

  “Cris left it up to me and I’m leaving it up to you.”

  “How big do you picture this unit to be?”

  “Not too big, maybe two or three squads with the ability to scale up a bit – stock the squads with all specialists.”

  Charley didn’t waste a minute.

  “Three squads then and I know just the three men to lead each – Riggy, De May and Pescalitis – all three were CWO53’s. I served with all of them overseas. We all chewed the same dirt. All three of them are top gunner specialists, as good as they get.”

  “Can you get a hold of them?” asked Ricci.

  “I sure can. In fact, I just heard from Riggy. His name is Vic Rigoni. We’ve always kept in touch. He just called me to tell me that he hired De May and Pescalitis to work in his machine shop in Brooklyn. Riggy’s an accomplished mechanical engineer and inventor. The three of them joined the corps together and all three left the corps together.”

  De Niro jumped in.

  “Charley, do you think they’d be interested in the situation we’d be offering? I’ll be the first to admit that it may fall …outside certain legal and regulatory—”

  “Sir, I don’t mean to cut you off, but, number one, I didn’t hear you say that and number two, the three of them have spent their entire careers being asked to do things outside those same parameters by the U.S. government. All three are patriots and besides, all three have been jarheads for so long, they couldn’t function as civilians.”

  Smiling De Niro winked at his brother-in-law. Ricci replied,

  “Okay, get a hold of them and tell them you want them to fly out to Vegas. I’ll contact Debbie and have her send them three first-class tickets as soon as you tell me when they can make it. If you have to discuss salaries—”

  “That won’t come up, trust me. These three will jump at this opportunity and they’d all tell you they’d do it for nothing. It’s what they were born to do.”

  “Are they married?” De Niro asked with concern.

  “Oh yeah, all three are married. Riggy’s a granddad, his daughter just had his first grandson. The other two have adult kids.”

  “Will their wives be okay with this?”

  Santappia couldn’t stifle his laughter.

  “Sir, their wives would probably chip in for you to get them out of their hair. Those ladies have been married to Marines for so long, they all know the drill.”

  De Niro grinned as he nodded to the satellite phone on the table.

  “Okay, call them from here …and Charley, call me Cris … please.”

  As Santappia started making the calls, De Niro turned to Francis.

  “John, is there a way for this black ops unit to utilize Big Brother without anyone even at The Watchman knowing about it?”

  “Not a problem, Cris. I’ve done the same thing for … certain government agencies that I’ll leave unnamed. I’ll make it so that not even my own tech department will be able to know that this unit is using the Double-B.”

  “Excellent. I’ve already made arrangements to finance and supply the unit outside of The Watchman, so at the end of the day there will be no direct link between the unit and the agency, except for their utilization of Big Brother.”

  “… and that, no one will know about except for the four of us, I can guarantee that,” asserted Francis. “One thing more though, how do we refer to this unit?”

  De Niro got up and grabbed an unopened bottle of Macallan Scotch whiskey from the galley. The bottle had the year “1926” emblazed on its label. He opened the bottle and began pouring the silky, dark liquid into four sparkling, highball glasses, as Francis spoke up.

  “Cris is that what I think it is?”

  “I don’t know John, what do you think it is?”

  “That looks like a bottle from the Macallan Fine and Rare Collection, 1926, 60 years old … around $30,000? I had a taste of it once in a hotel in Atlantic City, after I made seven passes at the craps table. A dram cost me $3,300!”

  De Niro pushed a glass in front of each man.

  “This bottle cost $38,000.”

  De Niro looked at his brother-in-law with a combination of sadness and happiness in his eyes.

  “Lisa bought it for me at an auction that was raising money for children afflicted with cancer. We were saving it for a special occasion.”

  The men’s smiles disappeared from their faces as they each bowed their heads slightly as a sign of respect.

  De Niro fought back the tears that welled in his eyes then he took a deep breath to compose himself.

  “If she were here, she would consider this a special occasion, as do I. Gentleman here’s to the birth of ‘ARCHANGEL,’ the unit that’ll be like the sword of Gideon for The Watchman.”

  The four men clanked their glasses and said in unison, “ARCHANGEL!”

  Chapter 10

  Estancia De Niro (underground complex 10 miles south of the main house)

  Henderson, NV

  1:00p.m., Tuesday, May 17, 2011

  Cris De Niro, Mugsy Ricci, John Francis and Charley Santappia got down from horses they rode from De Niro’s stable.

  Francis spoke first as he patting the desert dust from his clothes.

  “That was fun Cris, don�
��t get me wrong. I love horseback riding, but next time do me a favor and warn me when you’re gonna make me ride to Arizona … so I can change out of my Ferragamos!”

  The others laughed as Francis looked around.

  “May I ask where exactly we are?”

  De Niro grabbed a canteen of water hanging from his saddle and took a swig, then handed it to Francis who did the same.

  “Well, for one thing, we’re still in Nevada, in fact we’re still on my land.”

  “You gotta be kidding—”

  “And for another thing,” De Niro cut him off as he looked down at a portable GPS tracking device in his hand, “we’re standing at the entrance of the complex I told you about, on the plane.”

  The three men looked around, but all they could see was barren desert, foothills, cactus and sagebrush. Above their heads, the sky was cloudless and deep blue and the sun was blazing.

  De Niro paused a moment amused by their confusion, then he pulled a small remote from his pocket and hit a button.

  “Gentlemen, welcome to ‘Coyote’s Den!’”

  The sound of large servo motors could faintly be heard as suddenly, a 12-foot wide swatch of the desert floor, complete with cactus and brush attached, began rising up in the air, exposing a long, concrete ramp leading down. Lights along the walls of the ramp automatically turned on, illuminating what looked like the entrance to a fairly large warehouse-like underground facility. The men stood in silent awe, all except Francis.

  “Would ya look at that? … The southwestern version of the Bat Cave!”

  De Niro had the men lead their horses down the long ramp. At the bottom, they saw the concrete bunker in its entirety. It was basically laid out with a number of rooms built into the walls surrounding a 120,000 square-foot central area. The walls, floor and ceilings were constructed of reinforced concrete but the rooms were finished in stucco and wood. Surprisingly, to the men, the air wasn’t stagnant and the temperature of the entire underground facility seemed to be comfortable.

  De Niro answered some of the questions he was sure they would ask.

  “I had a state-of the art ventilation and air conditioning system built into it. We’re also using solar power as our primary electrical delivery with battery, AC and natural gas back-up. As far as I can tell, it can’t be spotted from satellite and the crew that I used to build it thought that they were building a nuclear bomb shelter.”

  Ricci clapped his hands a few times to hear the echo, “I think this place might be able to survive a nuke attack!”

  De Niro showed the men around. He led them into each room, one housed the electrical systems, there was a small cafeteria, two conference rooms, a dozen small living quarters, two bathrooms complete with showers, a half-dozen offices and a small recreation room. There was also a room filled with security equipment and monitors that appeared to have the capabilities to show every square inch of the entire 250,000-acre ranch.

  After showing them the security room, De Niro walked over to Francis.

  “John, I want you to turn this place into NSA4-West.”

  “Is that all?” Francis replied with a bit of sarcasm. “Cris this is a big Bat Cave, for sure, but NSA has 10 acres underground, with 20,000 employees, a pretty large percentage of which are mathematicians and the second most powerful supercomputer in the world. Besides the fact, all that tax money we pay is their monopoly money. I know you’re rich but their food budget has a ‘B’ after the number!”

  De Niro shrugged his shoulders, a little frustrated.

  “… Point taken. Then, how about a mini-NSA? John, I want you to build us the best intel-gathering and analysis facility outside of Fort Meade.”

  Francis looked around and everyone could tell his brain was working overtime. They all stood quietly for several minutes watching Francis use his hands to frame certain areas of the facility, like a Hollywood director would to shoot a scene in a movie. The whole time he mumbled to himself until finally, he stopped mumbling and took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Okay—”

  De Niro flashed his widest smile.

  “Cris wait, first let me explain. The only way to tackle a project this size is in phases … and we’re talking beaucoup dollars and time.”

  De Niro was more perturbed about the time element than the money.

  “How much time do you think you’ll need?”

  Francis laughed as he turned to Ricci and Santappia.

  “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he? I tell him it’s gonna cost a bundle and take time and he asks me how long instead of how much?”

  De Niro repeated his question.

  “John … how long?”

  Francis stared at his old friend for a long minute then finally shook his head in mock-defeat.

  “If you give me the keys to your vault, I could probably expedite phase-one and get a functional system up in 90 days, but for a system with the size and scope of what you’re talking about, we could be talking 6-months to a year, depending on the availability of the toys and the boys that play nice with them.”

  De Niro nodded his understanding as he turned to lead the men back to the horses.

  “Fair enough, consider this the green-light to get started.”

  Francis jogged to catch up to him.

  “But Cris, what about The Watchman and the Big Brother install and ramp-up with the staff there – which gets priority?”

  De Niro winked at Ricci and Santappia as the three of them watched Francis struggle to mount his horse. Once the computer genius steadied himself, he simply answered.

  “Both!”

  Chapter 11

  The Offices of Zamani Import-Export Corporation

  Lower Midtown Manhattan

  New York, New York

  6:00p.m., Monday, June 27, 2011

  Aref Sami Zamani sat behind his large ebony and Carpathian elm desk when his Skype®5 phone rang.

  (In Farsi) “Yes?”

  “This is Payam. I am sending you the intel on the man De Niro now.”

  On cue, Zamani heard the soft ringing tone of an email entering his Inbox – Subject: De Niro. There was nothing written in the body of the email just an Adobe Acrobat® file attached. Zamani opened the attachment and started reading a full dossier on De Niro as he spoke.

  “I have it. Things went well in Tehran. Our leaders have given us permission to move ahead with the wedding. As the infidels concentrate on Cordoba6, the celebration will be great in Antioch.”

  “Understood, what are your orders?”

  “You see where this man De Niro lives?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go there with your men and perform reconnaissance. I want to know all there is about the level of security at …Estancia De Niro, as it is named. I hope to be able to provide you with details about De Niro’s movements and the movements of his children. I want you and your men to remain there and ready an infiltration plan. I may need you to interrogate him before eliminating him. Placing a gun to his children’s heads may inspire him to be more forthright with you. Have the plan ready by the time of the wedding. I don’t want to take the chance that he survives the bomb and our men. He and his agency are too much of a potential threat. I don’t want Cris De Niro around after Antioch”

  “Understood”

  Zamani’s Executive Assistant, Bahman Fard had been standing at the other end of Zamani’s desk.

  “Sir, our leaders have allowed you to name our holy actions in the west, but why did you choose Antioch?”

  Zamani smiled and leaned back in his chair, pleased with his subordinate’s question.

  “Fard, how knowledgeable are you of history, of the holy battles fought by those of our faith during the Crusades?”

  Fard hesitated then replied with meekness.

  “I am ashamed to say, not as knowledgeable as I should be sir.”

  Zamani blinked his eyes as a sign of condescension.

  “You are not alone. It is sad that so many of the true believers ar
e so ignorant when it comes to the history of our faith and of the many heroic battles fought in the name of Allah.”

  Fard bowed his head in embarrassment as Zamani leaned forward and spoke as a professor would to a class of students.

  “In 1268 Baibars7 besieged the city of Antioch which was badly defended by the Christian knights and abandoned by most of its inhabitants. The people of the city begged Baibars to spare them if they surrendered but the knights would not give up the city. The knights were led by a man named Simon Mansel, who was Constable of Antioch. Mansel was captured in the failed cavalry attack against the Muslim army and Baibars ordered him to command the knights to surrender, but they would not.”

  Zamani stood up and looked out the window behind his desk. He peered down at the Midtown Manhattan crowds walking to and fro below, as he continued.

  “The Christians have never changed, Bahman. Even after over 700 years, their weak peoples beg for mercy and want to surrender while their stubborn and arrogant leaders and their armies try and fight hopeless causes.”

  Fard stepped up next to Zamani and joined him looking down at the crowds of people.

  “What happened then?”

  The question made Zamani smile.

  “Baibars secretary described it in a letter. He wrote, ‘Death came among the besieged from all sides and by all roads: we killed all that thou hadst appointed to guard the city or defend its approaches. If thou hadst seen thy knights trampled under the feet of the horses, thy provinces given up to pillage, thy riches distributed by measures full, the wives of thy subjects put to public sale ; if thou hadst seen the pulpits and crosses overturned, the leaves of the Gospel torn and cast to the winds, and the sepulchers of thy patriarchs profaned ; if thou hadst seen thy enemies, the Mussulmans trampling upon the tabernacle, and immolating in the sanctuary, monk, priest and deacon ; in short, if thou hadst seen thy palaces given up to the flames, the dead devoured by the fire of this world, the Church of St Paul and that of St Peter completely and entirely destroyed, certes, thou wouldst have cried out "Would to Heaven that I were become dust!’”8