Standing the Final Watch

by William Alan Webb

  “Great to hear,” Angriff said. “Stan’s people have got some blood they need you to run for DNA, and I assume Quantico can do it faster than the state lab.”

  Bettison turned to Laughlin. “Sheriff, tell your people to stand down until my CS team gets here. I want them to process the scene. No offense — it’s just that I know them and I don’t know your people.”

  “No offense taken, Agent Bettison, but it doesn’t matter if you know my people or not, because it’s not your crime scene; it’s mine. Your assistance is much appreciated, though. I’ll get you those blood slides before you leave today.”

  “I can’t allow that, Sheriff. This is a federal matter now. Tell your people to stand down.”

  “Whoa, boys,” Angriff said, raising his hands. “No need to get up on your hind legs about it. We all know whose crime scene it is… it’s mine. It’s my house and I say who investigates this crime. And if you don’t like it, that’s too bad.”

  “Sorry, General,” Bettison said. “I can’t allow that, either.”

  Fleming stood several feet away, still speaking with the detectives, but at that he stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Who asked you to allow anything, Bettison? Let me make this very clear to you. Sheriff Laughlin is going to conduct this investigation. You and your team are going to assist him in every way possible. If you do not, I will get the FBI director on the phone — his son fought under my command in Iraq — and I will start asking embarrassing questions about why the lead investigator of my family’s murder has the time to drive to Virginia to muscle his way into a situation where he was not asked to intervene. Especially when there has apparently been no progress made in the highest profile terror attack in this country since Nine Eleven. I will plant the seed that maybe you’re a loose cannon who’s in over his head and needs re-assignment... I hear North Dakota is nice in the winter. It’s your choice; do I make that call?”

  Special Agent Bettison stepped back, scowling. “As you wish, General. I will instruct my people to give whatever assistance is needed.”

  “Thank you, Bettison. I knew we could come to an agreement.”

  Fleming shook his head and stifled a laugh.

  “Norm?” Angriff turned to his friend. “You ready to eat? I’m starving.”

  “Whenever you are, Nick.”

  “I strongly advise against that, General,” Bettison said. “They could still be out there.”

  Angriff ducked back inside and came out wearing his trademark crisscrossed shoulder holsters, with his twin Desert Eagles tucked into them.

  “That’s what I’m hoping for,” he said. “Stan, we’ll be at Netty’s if you need us. You’ve got free rein of the place, but make sure these people don’t go anywhere except the front. And if you hear shooting, give us time to finish the bastards before you show up.”

  “Got it, General.”

  “If you get hungry, Bettison,” Angriff said, “Netty’s is down that way about a mile. It looks like a bombed-out building, but Netty serves up a mean bacon pancake. Oh, and a word of advice: if somebody shoots at you, shoot back.”

  Sheriff’s Department technicians crawled over the house, porch, and front yard, like ants sniffing out every crumb of food left over from a picnic. Bettison did not get in the way. Instead, he wandered over the crime scene and pretended to inspect the evidence for himself. When no one was openly watching, he slipped into the backyard, dappled in shadows from the dense woods that backed up almost to the swimming pool deck.

  The burner phone picked up a weak signal and it took three tries for the call to go through. When the line clicked on, nobody spoke. The FBI agent put a voice scrambler over the microphone.

  “It’s a clusterfuck,” Bettison said. “I told you to use pros; they almost hit him. Fleming showed up out of nowhere and they panicked, barely missing Angriff. The idiots tried to flank the house for some damned reason. Angriff returned fire and one of them was hit, so they’ve got DNA. We got here in plenty of time to process the scene, but Angriff demanded the locals handle the investigation or he would call the director. The shooters need to disappear, permanently. As for Angriff, you know my opinion. He’s the wrong man for the job, and if you give it to him anyway, the day’s going to come when you regret it. I’m gone.”

  Slipping the phone into his pocket, he waited until he re-crossed the Potomac before throwing it out the window.

  Chapter 5

  If you do not know yourself, and you do not know your enemy, then you must fear everything.

  Attributed to Hannibal Barca, circa 216 B.C.

  January 1st, 1215 hours

  Norm Fleming had been right. Angriff knew it the instant he stepped onto Austrian soil.

  Salzburg preened in the crystalline sunlight, as dazzling as a daughter of royalty draped in diamonds at a Viennese ball. He felt calmness in Old Salzburg he could not explain. Rage never left him for long — he almost smashed the bathroom mirror in his hotel room on the first morning — but as he had been trained to know, and as Fleming had pointed out, anger had to be suppressed for the mind to function at its peak. Any strong emotion affected the decision-making process, and none more so than anger.

  At first it seemed obscene, his family erased from the face of the Earth but Salzburg as enchanting as always. When he shielded his eyes from the glare, the red roofs standing above the white streets and fields seemed artificial, like the magical city of some children’s movie. Under the surface, however, he knew all too well how many refugees from the wars in the Middle East and Africa choked Austria, with no regard for Austrian customs, traditions, or laws.

  After the assassination attempt, and with the mass of refugees, his personal protection was no longer something he took for granted, especially in Europe. An old friend in the Austrian Army arranged a special permit for him to carry a forty-caliber Glock.

  The human flotsam of war threatened to forever change the core of what made Austria so enchanting, and yet Salzburg remained glorious, a last reminder of European culture. Angriff thought the schnitzel superb, and found something curative about a late-night treat of Salzburger Nockerl. He drank a lot of Austrian beer and, in deference to his beloved wife, tried to like the local wines. Drafts of Jägertee warmed him after long hikes over snowy trails in the surrounding hills, where during one outing he glimpsed a wild hare hopping through deep drifts.

  Early one morning late in December, he made the short drive to Werfen and wandered for hours in the giant ice caves, then lunched in Krimml and spent most of the afternoon marveling at the thousand-foot waterfalls, which seemed too magnificent to be real. Without him even realizing it, Austria began to drain away the stress and calm his mind, and that brought the clarity he craved. Sleep became deeper. He looked in the mirror to shave one morning and realized the skin along his jaw had tightened.

  The serenity of Christmas and the following week gave him time to reflect. Heavy snows lasted all of New Year’s Eve day but slackened as midnight neared, and the first day of the new year dawned bright and clear, emptying the city as tourists and locals alike streamed to the ski slopes near Kitzbühel to take advantage of the new powder. The sheer ice-covered slopes of the Austrian Alps never lost their ability to inspire jaw-dropping awe. Shops in the Old Town saw few visitors during the normal slow post-Christmas season. Mozart balls were a Yuletide favorite, after all, and Sound of Music tours would not start up until spring. Little traffic crossed the bridges over the Salzbach River.

  On New Year’s Day, Angriff stood alone atop the Hohensalzburg, bundled against the cold and leaning on the battlement as he looked down on the birthplace of Mozart. The pastel green tops of Salzburg Cathedral contrasted with the new snow. He could feel his muscles letting go. The knots of tension mirrored the knots in his mind, and as he stood motionless, despair gave way to tranquility. The freezing air carried with it the scent of better times, and in his mind’s eye he formed images of Janine standing on that very spot. He closed his eyes and tipped back his he
ad.

  Most winter days dawned hazy and gray, obscuring the rooftops below. But that day, with skiers away, Angriff basked in sunlight off snow and he reveled in solitude on top of the mountain. As the wind picked up he felt the icy stings with something akin to pleasure, turning his face for the full effect.

  Standing at the far end of the platform, he stuck a cigar in his mouth and cupped his hands to shield the flaring matches. On his third match the wind died down and the tobacco began its slow, luxuriant burn. He preferred matches to lighters: something about the sulfuric smell of a match added to the pleasure of fine tobacco. Soon enough a security guard would show up to make him put it out; they always did. Janine hated cigars and hated him smoking them even more. He knew the dangers; he always told those who reminded him about the health hazards that if Churchill had not smoked he would not have died so young, at 90.

  Angriff had never felt a man of his time. Vices and enjoyments were frowned upon in the modern world, unless they involved some form of sex or drug. His recent trip home had made it obvious that his sense of morality no longer synched with that of modern America. Like some Orwellian nightmare, the media celebrated deviance while condemning virtue. Patriotism headed the list of mortal sins. For decades, on battlefields across the globe, he’d risked his life to protect the American way of life, yet he now wondered if that way of life deserved the price soldiers had paid for it.

  The windswept stone atop the Hohensalzburg and its view of the historic city had been Janine’s favorite place on Earth. She had said there was some magic that pervaded the city and made men transcend their limitations. Angriff had never felt that.

  For a long while he smoked his cigar in silence, staring over the rooftops below into the cobbled streets of Old Salzburg. A few people ducked from shop to shop while others strolled along the narrow streets, but he did not move. His ears turned red and started to hurt. For the first time in a long time he felt something like contentment. Or if not contentment, than at least a resigned peace to all that had happened; in the end that might be all he could hope for.

  “General Angriff, sir?”

  He did not move, did not react, merely squinted and drew deep on his cigar. Smoke trickled from his nostrils and the sides of his mouth, and then his left eyebrow twitched. He could not decide if the intrusion angered him more than not having heard the newcomer approach.

  “Whoever you are, whatever you want, I’m on leave,” he said without turning. He did not mask his irritation. “If you don’t know what that means, it means I’m on vacation. So go away. And if you’re in the American military, that’s an order.”

  “With all due respect, I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. I’ve been ordered to bring you with me.”

  Angriff still did not turn around; he drew deep on the cigar and ash flew away in the breeze. “So you are military. Since you know who I am, you also know that I have three stars on my collar. So unless you want me for an enemy, making your life miserable in ways you cannot imagine, go away and leave me alone.”

  “No can do, sir. My orders are to bring you along regardless of circumstance, by whatever means necessary.”

  Angriff noted the newcomer’s accent. “You’re a Southern man?”

  “Yes, sir. Guntersville, Alabama.”

  Drawing on the cigar again, Angriff watched a delivery van park in front of a small shop below. “Our ancestors may have fought together, son, at Chancellorsville, or Gettysburg. You should know better than to do this.”

  “Sir, I am sworn to carry out legal orders from a superior officer, regardless of my personal feelings. The only thing I am allowed to tell you is that someone wants to see you. Please come with us.”

  At last Angriff turned. “What’s your name and rank, soldier?”

  “Tompkins, sir. Lieutenant Dennis D.”

  Tompkins towered at least six feet, four inches tall, cheeks reddened by the wind and cold. Despite being bundled in jeans and a heavy jacket, Angriff could tell his clothes fit tight because of the heavy muscles beneath. Three other, similar men stood behind him.

  When Angriff spoke he leaned forward to be heard over the wind and looked up at Tompkins, not something he often had to do. The cigar moved to the side of his mouth and flared, but he did not remove it.

  “Well, Lieutenant Tompkins, since you’ve got the balls to tell me to my face that you’re prepared to hog-tie me and throw me in the trunk of a car, I suggest you tell whoever sent you that I don’t want to meet him. Or her. I don’t want to meet anybody, even if they did send a goon squad to fetch me.” Angriff tapped his left wrist, though he wore no watch. “I’m off the clock now, on leave. I’ve put in for retirement and then I’m gone for good. Discharged, retired, free to do whatever the hell I want. And what I want right this minute is to stay here and be left alone.”

  Tompkins sighed. “Please, General, don’t make me use force.”

  “I wouldn’t try it, Lieutenant. I’m armed.”

  “Yes, sir. I know. But I’ve been given a lawful assignment, and I will carry it out in a timely manner. Orders are orders.”

  The three other men inched closer and fanned out into a semi-circle.

  Angriff squinted and realized, much to his surprise, that Tompkins meant what he said. In that same instant, he knew that he had no choice, either. Leave or not, pending retirement or not, the United States Army still ruled his life and he had to obey orders just like Lieutenant Tompkins, whether he liked them or not.

  One thing stood out. If Nick Angriff could not frighten a lieutenant, the orders came from way, way up the chain of command. The order had to have been issued by someone who could protect Tompkins from the wrath of an angry three-star general. And that intrigued him; very few officers held superior rank to Nicholas T. Angriff.

  He had pushed it as far as he could. “All right, Lieutenant, have it your way. But if I find you had discretion in this matter, you’d better find the deepest cave in Pakistan and never come out again.” He took one last long, delicious pull from the Cuban cigar and tossed it over the parapet. The red glow of its burning tip swirled away in the wind.

  “What a waste,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  Something tapped me on the shoulder

  Something whispered, “Come with me,

  Leave the world of men behind you,

  Come where care may never find you.

  Come and follow, let me bind you

  Where, in that dark, silent sea,

  Tempest of the world n’er rages;

  There to dream away the ages,

  Heedless of Time’s turning pages,

  Only, come with me.”

  Robert E. Howard, ‘The Tempter’

  January 1st, 1339 hours

  They drove for hours. The twisting alpine roads led through deep ravines flanked by rivers of foamy green water and rocky outcroppings, then up sharp slopes covered in dense stands of English yews and Austrian pines. The sun began to set early and dappled the road with night-black shadows followed by dazzling unfiltered sunshine. Angriff could not be sure what country they drove through. Not all roads had barriers between national borders, or even signs that you had left one country and entered another. Germany, Austria and Switzerland had long been friends, after all, and in the era of all-watching satellites few things could move unseen, anyway.

  Nearing nightfall, with the sun hanging low over the Alps, the car broke out of a dark stretch between two sheer walls into a long, broad valley, with a small river on one side and deep snow covering the fields. Sunlight had cleared the road and what appeared to be a short landing strip several hundred yards ahead. No buildings stood near the airfield, not even a shack, just the tarmac itself and a small, sleek jet parked at the far end.

  Angriff’s curiosity rose. He was no aircraft expert, but the angular fuselage, swept wings and canted elevators meant stealth technology. The matte black finish meant radar absorbing materials. The plane bore no markings. If that plane belonged to the American
military it was a well-kept secret, and a secret plane on a secret airfield in an unknown country made him wary. Covert operations he understood, but not the shadow world of politics and espionage.

  The cars stopped next to the plane and Angriff got out before the driver could open his door. Stairs lowered from the aircraft’s side, For a moment he felt the surreal disorientation of being in a dream. Sucking a cold breath that burned his lungs revived him. He scraped ice from his boot soles and climbed into the aircraft’s warm interior.

  At the far end of a small, well-appointed cabin, one man sat holding an unlit cigar. He stood as Angriff entered and extended his right hand. He was short and slight, wearing jeans and a black turtleneck. Angriff recognized him as General of the Army Francis Thomas Steeple, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, adviser to the President, the highest-ranking officer in the United States military, and the architect of its ruin.

  Angriff drew up to attention and saluted, even though both men wore civvies. Steeple waved that off and took Angriff’s hand, forcing a shake. He then handed Angriff the cigar.

  “Happy New Year, Nick. Cubana, Especiales Number Three, right?” Steeple said.

  Angriff nodded. “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

  “I’ve got good intel. Sit down.”

  Steeple indicated one of the leather chairs bolted to the floor on either side of the cabin. Angriff chose the closest and sat, still wary, eyeing the cigar, the plane, the chair, General Steeple, everything. Head cocked to one side, his eyes cut to the door as it retracted into the fuselage.

  “Don’t be angry with poor Lieutenant Tompkins,” Steeple said. “He’s terrified of you. Especially when he found out you had a sidearm.”