The Watchman of Ephraim (Book Club Edition) (10 page)

“
Sitting across from Captain Ricci, some of you may have recognized, is Mr. John Francis. John will work in the capacity of the newly created position of Chief Information Officer for The Watchman. “Johnny-F,” as he is known to his friends and my friendship go all the way back to our childhood in the Ridgewood section of New York. Some of you may know of his fantastic accomplishments and success but that doesn’t tell even half of his story. Most of what John has worked on for the last several years is considered top secret. In his role here at The Watchman, John will be tasked with super-charging our information-gathering and data crunching. I will also do my best to see to it that he has a blank check when it comes to any technology he wants to acquire for this agency …my knees just buckled when I said that.”

The room erupted in laughter, except for Pastak who forced a fake smile concealing his anger. His position at the table revealed his spot in the pecking order, which was basically just over the Executive Assistant. What he didn’t realize was that both the Chairman and the CEO considered Debbie Lynch to be more valuable to the agency.

“
To Captain Ricci’s right is Karla Matthews. Karla has been promoted from Director to Vice President of Government Relations. Her responsibilities will encompass all of our agency’s relations not only with the United States government but also with any other governments and sovereignties with which we may interact. Karla is a Rhodes Scholar, among other things and has a number of years of experience and success working within various areas of the State Department.

“
Across from Karla is Major Charles Santappia, United States Marine Corps, retired. As my own dad was a Marine, I know firsthand that, ‘once a Marine, always a Marine.’ Charlie was a highly decorated member of the second Marine division. He has vast experience commanding and taking part in all types of military operations, from peace-keeping to special operations of which, if he told us about them, he’d have to kill us all.”

The room filled with laughter again.

“
Charlie has been promoted from Director to Vice President of Operations. His duties include tactical command of all operations of The Watchman conducted inside and outside of these walls.”

“
To Charlie’s left - is Michelle Wang, The Watchman’s former Director of, and now new Vice President of Intelligence Services. Michelle came to the former agency from a successful career at Langley, where her human Intel expertise, in particular, went underutilized. Here, we will fully utilize that experience.”

“
Rounding out our executive staff, you all know Les Pastak whose title and responsibilities have been refined. Les is now Vice President of HR and General Counsel for our agency. And last but certainly not least, Debbie Lynch who formerly served as Executive Assistant to the former president and who continues in that role for our new CEO and president. Debbie is the linchpin of this agency.”

“
Now let me give you a little insight to why I acquired this firm, what I hope to accomplish with this A-Team of talented individuals and the reason why I renamed the agency, The Watchman.”

“
After my wife Lisa died in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, my life underwent a number of changes. One of which, the most important of which was my rededication to my Judeo-Christian faith. To help me deal with the loss her loss, I turned to the Bible. I was drawn to one Old Testament prophecy concerning modern day Ephraim, aka the U.S.A. It captivated me. In the book of Hosea, the prophet spoke of the
Watchman of Ephraim
. In biblical times, watchmen, mostly soldiers but not always, were stationed in various places in a city and were responsible for keeping watch and reporting what they saw, to the kings and elders. Their duty was not to fight; it was to inform, particularly of some impending danger.”

“
I felt that, of all the failures on 9/11, the biggest failure was that no warning was given. In my view, America had no watchman. While democrats and republicans argued along ideological lines – for and against the use of human intel – for and against the use of torture for interrogation – for and against Guantanamo Bay – for and against whether terrorists should be given rights and privileges outlined by the Geneva conventions, whether they were enemy combatants or just misguided zealots, etcetera. I knew that while the federal government acted like the “silly doves” spoken of in the Bible, America’s enemies continued relentlessly to plan the next attacks against innocent American civilians on our soil.”

“
It is my intention to make this agency, the watchman for our country. Our job will be first, to keep watch over all of our national borders; second, when necessary, to warn our government of any threat; and third, in any instance where we, in this room, believe that our country is not acting to protect American citizens, American property and American territory … we will do whatever is necessary to protect and to defend our nation and its citizens.”

“
Ladies and gentleman, we are not here to replace the military and civilian law enforcement agencies of our country. We are here primarily to advise them and to serve them in whatever capacities we can … but in any case; we will NOT ALLOW … another 9/11! We will NOT ALLOW another terrorist attack on American soil, not if we can help it, not if we can do something about it!”

“
If any of you have a problem with anything I just said, speak now or come to me after this meeting ends. We’ll do all we can to find you a job with someone else. There will be no hard feelings, but for the rest of you who feel up to the challenge … Godspeed and God Bless! ”

Everyone in the room stood and applauded, including Pastak, but his only reason for standing was so as not to be the only person left sitting. Pastak was fuming from what he considered to be a major snub and demotion, so much so, that he hardly heard anything De Niro had said.

“
I would like to invite Captain Ricci to step up here and say a few words, Mugsy?”

De Niro shook his brother-in-law’s hand then took a seat at the head of the table as Ricci stepped up to the podium.

“
Thank you Cris and God bless you and everyone in this room. Ladies and gentleman, I’ll make this one short and to the point. I’m honored to be chosen for this position with this agency and to lead what I believe to be the finest staff that I have ever commanded.

“
Over the next days and weeks we’ll get to know one another and we’ll get a feel for how we all do our jobs. Please feel free to come to me anytime, day or night, if you need any assistance, advice or guidance. Those who know me know that I’m not a micro-manager, neither is Cris. We both believe in choosing the right people for the job and then letting them do their jobs. We’ve chosen you and now I’ll leave it up to each of you to choose your staff. Please have everyone in place by Friday and notify Les’s HR department with any new appointments, so they can make the necessary pay-grade changes. Please also submit your new department roster to Debbie as soon as possible.”

“
I’ve never been one to like to sit through long meetings so I’m pleased to announce that everyone in this firm will begin using our proprietary project management system. You may be asking yourself, ‘what proprietary project management system?’ Well, by the time this meeting adjourns every member of this firm will have The Watchman PMS, otherwise known as ‘Big Brother,’ running on every one of their desktops, laptops, notebooks and handheld devices. Johnny-F, our new head of IT didn’t waste any time ‘… bringing us into the 21
^st
century,’ as he put it.”

The room filled with laughter.

“
The IT department will immediately train everyone on the use of Big Brother, but in a nutshell, it keeps us all connected and informed. Everyone, I mean everyone is mandated to update Big Brother with their status and location at all times. There will be tiered security levels built into the system, so no one need fear disclosing top secret and covert operation status. New SOP
¹
’s are contained in Big Brother. Please become familiar with them. That will be all for now, again, thank you – now let’s protect our country!”

“
Mugsy, John and Charlie, I’ll meet you in Mugsy’s office in five, Michelle would you stay a moment?” De Niro added as everyone stood up, a few shaking hands and making small talk.

Everyone left the room except for De Niro and the VP Intelligence Services. De Niro closed the door to the soundproofed room. Both remained standing.

“
Michelle, I’d like you to do me a favor, if you would.”

“
What do you need, Mr. De Niro?”

“
Please … call me Cris. Michelle, is there a way for you to monitor large withdrawals from overseas banks and/or deposits into domestic banks?”

“
It depends on a number of things, including the size of the transactions, the nature of the transactions …whether the money is being wired or withdrew and deposited in cash or check, and on the banks themselves, among other things. I should also point out that it’s a relatively easy thing to do if we have legal grounds and a court order. Then we can compel the banks to comply. Why, what’s up?”

De Niro reached his hand behind his neck, as if he were reconsidering his request.

“
Well, the fact is there’s no real reason. I mean no tangible reason … I’m not making any sense, am I?”

Wang smiled warmly, “Mr. De Niro … Cris, you’d make more sense if you just spit it out and told me, what’s on your mind?”

De Niro continued to rub the back of his neck then stopped and looked into Wang’s eyes.

“
Okay, I’m sure you know about my … wife dying on 9/11.”

“
Yes sir, I do.”

“
Well, I became close friends with the fireman, Keith Jenkins that saved my life that day.”

That caught Wang by surprise.

“
Sir, I didn’t realize … were you also at the World Trade Center that day?”

De Niro hesitated then replied.

“
Yes … I was. Anyway, Keith came to me with a request and like I said, we’re close friends. You heard about the mosque they want to build near Ground Zero being back in the news?”

“
Yes, something about they’re trying new ways to raise money for it.”

“
Well, Keith and a number of other survivors and friends and family of victims are against a mosque being built anywhere near Ground Zero … and so am I.”

“
I can understand that.”

“
Well then, here it is. I want to look into any funding of the mosque.”

“
Look into the funding … why?”

“
Well, like I said, there’s really no material reason, just suspicions … perhaps fears, that the Park51 project may be funded by … Islamic radicals.”

De Niro noticed Wang’s eyebrow rise.

“
I know. Sounds like a conspiracy theory raised by folks who are still very angry and hurt. To tell you the truth, it’s difficult for me to use pure reason without emotion when it comes to anything about 9/11. I’ll tell you this though, if there’s even a small chance that Islamic radicals are intending to fund that mosque, I want to know about … and I’ll take it from there!”

Wang remained where she stood, crossing her arms in front of her.

“
We’d have no legal grounds to get a court order, Cris.”

De Niro continued to look into Wang’s eyes.

“
I know.”

After a moment, Wang softened her stance.
There’s something about him that’s … sincere, not vindictive. I’d probably investigate on my own, if it were my husband who died. I won’t do less for him.

“
How far do you want me to go to investigate?”

“
I don’t want any laws broken … at least, I don’t want us to get caught, if we did happen to break one … and I want the minimum amount of people involved. I’d like to keep this between you and me for now. I was hoping there might be a technological, passive way to handle this.”

Wang put the tip of the back of her pen in her mouth and strolled a few steps.

“
There might be. I’m not totally up to speed on the full capabilities of Big Brother, but from what I already understand about the system is that Johnny-F enabled it to do dynamic and robust data mining. Perhaps, after he shows me how to set up my own queries, I can have double-B help us … follow the money.”