The Watchman of Ephraim (Book Club Edition) (12 page)

“
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 CWO5
³
’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 NSA
⁴
-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.”