The Watchman of Ephraim (Book Club Edition) (11 page)

De Niro smiled, “Excellent, but Michelle, really, err to the side of caution. Don’t do anything too intrusive … and try not to let this favor of mine take you away from the other things you have to do around here, for too long … understood?”

Wang followed De Niro to the door and just before he opened it, replied, “Got it!”

As De Niro made his way out of the room he was intercepted by Pastak.

“
Mr. De Niro, may I speak with you?”

“
Sure Les, but if this has to do with your new position here, you need to speak with Captain Ricci, he’s in charge here now.”

“
But sir, I … didn’t get off to a good start with Captain Ricci and—”

“
Les let me stop you there. First, let me repeat, Captain Ricci is in charge here, not I. I’m aware of your initial introduction with Captain Ricci and I want you to know that, despite it, Captain Ricci still suggested that not only you stay with the company but he insisted that you keep your pay grade. Under the circumstances, I think that’s fair, don’t you? In any case, if you have a problem with your new position, let Captain Ricci know as soon as possible. If you don’t Les, I suggest you just get on with it. Do your job and I’m sure things will be fine between you and him.”

Pastak could see that the conversation was over. It was obvious to him that he was being conspired against
. They probably think I’ll leave, but I won’t give them the satisfaction. I’ll do my job alright; just enough to keep everyone off my back. That is, until I can figure away to get ahead, here or somewhere else!

“
I’ll … do that. Thank you, sir.”

De Niro sighed with a deep breath as he watched Pastak disappear into his office then he walked into Mugsy’s office. Ricci and Santappia were already there, Mugsy sitting behind and Santappia sitting on one of the two chairs in front of his desk. De Niro took a seat in the other chair.

“
Mugs, Les just approached me. I’m still not sure he’s happy with his new situation here.”

“
What did he say?”

“
I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. I told him to talk to you. Are you sure about him?

“
No, I’m not Cris, but the bottom line is that, with all the changes we’re making here, replacing him could severely impede our ability to get everyone settled in their new positions, on our timeline. He is competent running human resources. I’m not sure how good he is as our corporate counsel, but I’m hoping we won’t need legal counsel to get this ship sailing.”

De Niro didn’t reply, so Ricci went on.

“
Listen, once we get everyone in place and up and running, if he’s still not with the program, I’ll get him replaced. Who knows, we didn’t cut his pay and there aren’t many places he can go and get paid the same, so maybe, he’ll just fall in line.”

There was a knock on the door and then Debbie Lynch walked in followed by John Francis.

“
Can I get anyone anything?”

Ricci answered, “No thanks Debbie, just hang the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob for a bit. We’ll need a few minutes without interruption.”

“
Got it,” Lynch said as she closed the door behind her.

Francis spoke up.

“
Sorry I’m late; there was a small line of people waiting to talk to me outside the conference room.”

“
I bet half wanted to shake your hand and probably the other half wanted your autograph,” De Niro quipped.

“
Only two wanted my autograph, for your information, the rest wanted me to walk them through Big Brother. It looks like we have an aggressive team here; everyone wants to get right to work. I had to grab a few of my managers and get them to start the training with the department heads.”

De Niro got up and took a seat on the couch next to Santappia. Ricci and Francis joined them. De Niro started.

“
John, how far along are you with the new security measures here?”

“
I haven’t started them. Cris, give me a break, I haven’t even hung my hat yet in my office here. I thought the first priority was to get Big Brother installed.”

“
It was, but we’re gonna need at least this office and maybe the conference room sound-proofed, bug-protected and secured a.s.a.p.”

Francis nodded.

“
Understood, I’ll get on it right after we break here.”

“
Not so fast,” replied De Niro, “I need you, Mugsy and Charley to fly home with me. I have something to show you and we can talk safely once we get there. We take off at noon. We’ll have lunch on the plane. Why don’t you gentlemen go get things squared away, here, with your staff – my car is waiting outside to take us to the airport whenever all of you are ready. ”

Francis smiled.

“
Vegas huh, I haven’t been there since the last Comdex show. Guys, I gotta tell you, I met the finest-looking ladies over at Wynn after the first night of the conference—”

“
So that’s why you couldn’t come and visit with me and the boys?” De Niro interjected. “I thought you told me you were ‘all tied up’ when I called you, at your hotel room?”

Francis blushed, “Well I was… literally. You see, one of them, this pretty-little oriental … she was an acrobat in one of those Cirque De Soleil shows. Anyway, she was showing me one of the illusions they do in the show with these ropes—”

All three men laughed.

Chapter 9

Aboard De Niro’s privately-owned QSST (Quiet Supersonic Transport)

At 60,000 feet south of Jefferson City, MO cruising at 1,056 mph (Mach 1.6)

12:00p.m. (local time), Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Co-pilot Doug Miller collected the empty food trays from De Niro, Mugsy Ricci and Charley Santappia as they sat in the high-tech cabin section of De Niro’s new aircraft, the QSST. John Francis’s lunch still sat on his tray though, untouched.

De Niro patted the uniformed co-pilot on his back.

“
Thanks Doug. Captain Douglas ‘Charger’ Miller, USAF, retired, I’d like you to meet Captain Louis Ricci, USN, retired and Major Charles Santappia, USMC, retired.”

“
You make us sound like a bunch of geriatric patients with all those ‘retired’ after our names, ” Ricci gibed as he shook Miller’s hand.

“
Doug and the Captain, Colonel O’Rourke, USMC retired have just joined our team. The colonel will take charge of all of our flight operations.”

“
Wait a minute; did you say O’Rourke, as in Colonel James O’Rourke? You mean Duke’s flying this plane? Santappia asked with excitement in his voice.

“
You two know each other?” asked De Niro with a little disbelief in his voice.

“
Let’s just say that we were roommates back in the day.”

“
More like brig-mates. How the hell are ya, Charley?” O’Rourke said as he entered the cabin from the cockpit, offering his hand to Santappia first, then the others.

“
Duke!” cried Santappia as he shook the big man’s hand with vigor.

“
Brig-mates?” asked Ricci.

Santappia’s face turned a shade red.

“
Well, I was fresh out of boot camp and on weekend liberty from Lejeune
²
and ended up in this longshoreman’s bar in Baltimore when a bunch of their rank and file decided to see for themselves if Marines were as tough as the movies make them out to be. I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t living up to the Marine Corps image, partially because there were six of them and partially because I had two single-malt scotch highballs in me.”

Everyone laughed.

“
Well, just as one of the larger ones was about to perform oral surgery on me with his knuckles, Duke here came barreling over like John Wayne himself and proceeded to toss all six of them out of the bar – three through the door and three through the bar’s storefront window.”

O’Rourke took over.

“
Word got around about it and suddenly everyone was calling me ‘Duke,’ all because of Charley here.”

“
Wait a minute, what about the brig?” asked De Niro.

Both men smiled as Santappia replied.

“
Oh yeah, well, right after Duke tossed the last one out the window, I decided to thank him by buying him and me, another round of that single-malt I was drinking. Before we finished it though, Baltimore’s finest burst through the doors and arrested us. The sergeant was an old jarhead so he decided to contact Lejeune and the next thing we knew, we were both thrown into the brig.”

“
What are the odds you two would meet up here in the clouds,” De Niro asked rhetorically.

“
It’s a small corps, Cris,” Santappia replied as he winked at O’Rourke.

“
Can I ask another question, if you’re back here, whose—“

“…
Flying the plane? Mr. Francis sir, he insisted and he said it would be alright with you.”

“
So that’s what he’s been doing up there in the cockpit,” replied De Niro. “Can he fly my $80 million baby?”

“
To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what kind of pilot he is, but he sure does know everything about this aircraft.”

“
That’s Johnny-F. He knows everything about … everything,” replied De Niro.

“
Well, if you gentlemen will excuse us, Doug and I will get back to driving this plane. That is if Mr. Francis will allow us to.”

De Niro, Ricci and Santappia all walked to the back cabin where they sat around a small conference table and after a few minutes Francis joined them from the cockpit.

“
Man-oh-man that was fun … I gotta get me one of these. How much did you say you paid for it?”

“
$80 million, but it’s not being offered to the public yet. My friend owns the company that built it.”

“
Well, tell your friend that I want one … of course, I’ll expect a big discount for being one of your friends…”

De Niro ignored Francis, directing the rest of what he was saying to Ricci and Santappia.

“
I had to get a bunch of clearances to fly it over the U.S. because it flies faster than the speed of sound. The government is afraid it’ll shatter windows, but the truth is it’s got the sonic signature of 1/100th that of the 'Concorde. ’”

“
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—”