Standing at the Edge

by William Alan Webb

  “All right, I’m listening.” Janine Angriff was not like most people, who would already have been overwhelmed by the revelations.

  He handed her more water and spoke while she drank most of it. “I’ll give you the facts right off the bat, but explaining it is going to take time. It’ll probably be easier just to show you.”

  “Show me what? I don’t want to wait.”

  “We are, right this minute, inside of a large mountain in Arizona. Specifically, we’re inside a very large multi-branch base, which is part of something called Operation Overtime. This base was built at staggering expense over many years, and kept very secret. I’m its commander.”

  “You took this assignment without even asking me?”

  “Sweetheart.” He reached down and stroked her hair. Janine became alarmed, because in thirty years of marriage he had rarely done that before. “I couldn’t ask you.”

  “Okay, Nick, I can see you’re upset. Whatever it is, just tell me. I’ll be all right.”

  “Janine, those terrorists kidnapped you, but the world thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. That was what they wanted us to think. There was a memorial service and everything. I took this command because I thought my family was gone, you and Cynthia both.”

  “Dear Lord,” she said. “So how are we here now?”

  “That’s a very long story, and not the main thing. There’s plenty of time to talk about that later. For now… how do I say this?”

  “Don’t you always say the only way to say it is to say it?”

  He blurted it out. “It’s sixty years later.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Janine said, incredulous. “That’s impossible. You look tired but not older. Have you been drinking?”

  “I wish so. Look, you’re just gonna have to accept that for a minute, then I’ll explain it. There’s something else you need to know that’s even more important, and for the life of me, I don’t know how the hell to tell you that, either… Let me put it this way. You have a son-in-law.”

  “How’s that possible? You said Cynthia was with me.”

  “Cynthia was.”

  “Are you saying that Morgan got married before she died?”

  He leaned forward and put his forehead between her breasts. There was nothing sexual about the gesture, however. A moment later he slid his arms under her and hugged her, hard. “Morgan wasn’t killed in Syria, Nini. That was a hoax, too.”

  She pushed away and looked him in the eyes. “What are you saying, Nick?”

  He turned to the doorway. In a loud voice, he called, “Come on in.”

  Janine Angriff watched the door open, bewildered and wondering if this was nothing more than another dream, but when a blond woman in dirty ACUs walked through, she yelped, ah! “It can’t be. It’s not possible.”

  “Hi, Mom,” Morgan Randall said.

  #

  Chapter 43

  Shut up and say something!

  Moe Howard

  Operation Overtime

  0731 hours, April 17

  For one of the few times in his life, Green Ghost stood at attention before Angriff’s desk, saluting. He wore a clean regulation uniform instead of his usual crumpled, mismatched camo and stained boonie hat. He’d even shaved.

  “When did you intend to tell me?” Angriff wondered what sort of conversation he was supposed to have with his… son? His mind couldn’t process that fact yet.

  “With luck, never,” Ghost said.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, stand at ease. Sit down. How long have you known?”

  “That my name was Nick Angriff, Junior? Since I was seventeen. I didn’t know who you were and Mom was dead when I found out the truth, so I had to look you up on the internet. We’d grown up with the last name Bauer, but before she died, Mom told us where to find our birth certificates. That’s when I found out my real name was Angriff.”

  “You didn’t try to look me up before that? That would have taken all of about twenty seconds. And then… how many years did you serve under me, anyway? Didn’t you think I should know this?”

  “I didn’t know before that. Mom told us you were dead, killed in Iraq, and that it was all stupid and useless, and she didn’t want to talk about it. That’s back when we thought our last name was Bauer. When I said something about researching you, to see if I had cousins or a grandmother, she went berserk. Told me not to dare, that you’d left because you didn’t care what happened to us and went and got yourself killed and that was where we had to leave it. There’s nothing worse than your mother throwing stuff at you in her bra and panties.

  “We didn’t know it then, but she was dying. The drugs were killing her. Since it upset her so much, I dropped it. She said you were dead and it just didn’t seem that important. There were a lot of other priorities at the time.”

  “Not important to know who your father was?”

  “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”

  “What changed?”

  “After she died, we knew our name was Angriff, but at first I didn’t bother to look you up because I still thought you were dead. We couldn’t figure out why she’d used her maiden name instead of yours, but it didn’t seem to matter at first. You’ve gotta remember we couldn’t afford a computer, much less the internet. If I wanted to search for you, I had to use the computer at the library, and that was a hassle.

  “Then I got picked up for vandalism… some friends and I shot up some road signs. I’d turned eighteen by then and gotten an adult driver’s license, and used my real name. Angriff. One of the cops at the jail saw it and asked if we were related. He had served under you in Iraq. I told him Nick Angriff was my dad but you died over there, and he laughed, said there couldn’t be more than one Nick the A in the world, and the one he knew was definitely not dead. He let me go because of my name, then I went to the Frayser library and did an internet search.”

  “Your mom hated the Army. I’m not really sure why, but she did.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know. Mom was a drug addict. Crack, meth, opiates, whatever she could get. Pure grain alcohol if that’s all there was. The older we got, the worse she got. For a short period when we were fifteen or sixteen, she sobered up. She got better, but then relapsed. We didn’t know why at the time, but found out later.

  “That led to some problems back home in Memphis. By the time she died, she was pretty much a vegetable, slept for days or stayed awake for weeks at a time, and stopped caring what we did. We lost Mom mentally when we were sixteen, lost her for real a year later. Nipple took it a lot harder than me—”

  Angriff held up his hand. “Can we maybe not call her that?”

  “I’ve gotten so used to it… How about Nikki?”

  “Nikki’s a lot better.”

  “She took it personally when Mom died, like she had abandoned us. Went off the deep end.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Never,” Ghost said. “She hates them. But Nikki’s perception of the world is… different. It always has been. She wound up killing a lot of people she blamed for Mom’s death.”

  “Were they guilty?”

  “As sin. We found a notebook Mom kept. One of the local gangbangers, a thug named Isaiah Suggs, shot her up with heroin and made her do sex favors to get more drugs. I didn’t know any of this at the time. It’s a long story, but I wound up helping Nikki get revenge on them. You might not remember, but I went home before the Kenya operation…”

  “I remember. You went home to help Nikki with this?”

  “Yeah. She shot eleven gangbangers in one morning.”

  “My God,” his father said. “All by herself?”

  “That was just the beginning. We killed a lot more before it was over, some dirty cops, too. I called in reinforcements and that’s why First Squad left mission training. They flew to Memphis. When it was over, I had to get Nikki out of the country, and that’s how she would up in Zombie.”

  “She’s that good with a gun?” />
  “Gun, knife, bow… her brain is wired different in some ways, but in others she is just like me and you. Her hand-eye coordination is off the charts, and she never misses what she shoots at. That’s why I put her through Zombie training. I knew she could take it, even if she was never a formal member. Sound familiar?”

  “Like father, like daughter. How does she feel about me?”

  “I think she’s torn, Saint—”

  “You can call me dad if you want.”

  “No.” Ghost shook his head. “It’s too soon; that’s too weird. I think she wants to have you as her father, she really wants you to love her, but she also blames you for never being in our lives. She knows that’s not fair, that Mom took off and never told you, but it doesn’t matter. Some part of her thinks you should have known, should have felt our presence somehow, and come looking for us.”

  “Is she really psychotic?”

  “I don’t think so, but who really knows? Maybe. God knows she’s killed enough people. But I think she’s more of a lost little kid.”

  “A lost thirty-something kid who likes shooting people?”

  Ghost shrugged.

  “Okay, why don’t you go get her and bring her in… Nick.”

  Ghost stopped. “No. I’m Green Ghost. I have been since the night before Mom died… it’s another long story. But I don’t know how to be anybody else, not any more.”

  #

  Nicole Teresa Angriff walked into her father’s office, nodded in approval at her futuristic surroundings, and plopped down on the couch. “Nice digs, pops,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Got a Pepsi?”

  Angriff studied her and said nothing. He realized immediately how much she looked like her sisters, and wondered how he could have missed it before. Her hair had a reddish tinge that Morgan and Cynthia’s didn’t, courtesy of her mother, but her skin was just as fair and her build was lean and tall, exactly like Cynthia’s. And her eyes… her eyes were the same bright sky blue as both of her sisters’. For being thirty-three, she looked about nineteen.

  “You’re starting to creep me out, Saint Dad. If you don’t have Pepsi, what about a beer?”

  “You don’t drink alcohol, but I’d be happy to get you some coffee, or water.”

  She cut her eyes at her brother, because only he could have told their father that she didn’t drink. “I’m good.”

  “You are a stunningly beautiful young lady,” he said. “Now that I take the time to look.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “My God, what have I missed?” Angriff said, having not heard her. “How could your mother not tell me I had two such fabulous kids?”

  “What a shitty thing to say.” She leapt up. “After all these years, you think a few lies are gonna make me forgive what you did to us?”

  “What did I say?” Angriff said. “Nikki, I just—”

  “Nikki?” She turned on her brother. “Why did you tell him that? He doesn’t deserve to call me that. Nipple is plenty good enough for him.”

  “Would you shut up for once?” Green Ghost said. “You know damned good and well that Mom never told him about us. Mom told you that herself. We’ve talked about this a million times. Are you really so eaten up with the need to hate somebody that you won’t give him a chance?”

  “I don’t need to hate him,” she said. “I just do.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re mad at Mom for giving more of a shit about huffing paint or coking out than about us, but you’re taking it out on him. It’s not his fault. He’s our father.”

  “He might be yours, but he sure as hell ain’t mine.” She was furious now, pointing at her brother as her face flushed a bright red. “I haven’t had a father for thirty-three years and I turned out just fine. I sure don’t need this guy going all daddy over me.”

  Panting from her outburst, she turned on Angriff with defiance, as if daring him to strike her. Instead, he bowed his head and walked to his favorite niche along the outer wall, from where he could see the desert beyond. Standing with his back to them, he spoke in a low, sad voice that Green Ghost had never heard before.

  “It seems like this all started a million years ago,” he said. “I was on top of a mountain in Austria and it was a bitter cold New Year’s Day. This was less than three months after the Tahoe attack. I was alone in the world, my wife and both my kids were dead, so when this command was offered, I took it.”

  “Boo-fucking-hoo,” Nipple said. “Who gives a shit?”

  Green Ghost pointed at her, with an expression that she knew meant shut up or I’ll make you.

  Angriff went on without pause. “As we now know, that was the whole point of Tahoe, to give me no reason not to sign on. And yet, unknown to anybody, there were two more reasons — you two. If I had known then what I know now, I would never have agreed to join up. There’s no way I could have left two of my children behind.”

  “One,” Nipple said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference to me what you did.”

  “I believe you.” Angriff half turned and made eye contact. “But that wouldn’t have mattered to me. I would have stayed anyway, for both of your sakes. And yet now, a lifetime later, I not only have my family back, I have more family than I ever knew about. That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t accepted this command.”

  “Spare me the whole poor dad routine.” But her eyes were moist and her voice trembled. “Even if you knew about us, we still would have been nothing more than an inconvenience. You already had your trophy wife and your two perfect daughters! We would never have been accepted, we wouldn’t have been anything more than the mistakes you made with a drug addict…” Unable to resist any longer, she started crying and plopped back on the couch, face hidden in her hands.

  “I’ve never seen her cry before,” Ghost said. “Not even when Mom died.”

  He moved to comfort his sister but Angriff put out a hand and stopped him. Instead, Angriff sat on the couch beside her. Pulling her chin around with one finger, he tried to look her in the eye but she avoided his gaze, so he whispered in her ear.

  “You’re an Angriff,” he said. “You’re my daughter. None of my kids is a mistake and none of them takes a back seat to anybody. Do you hear me, Nikki? You’re my daughter, and I love you.”

  He hugged her and she let him, finally hugging him back. They sat there for a while, crying.

  The reverie was only broken by Schiller knocking to get his attention. “I’m sorry, sir, but something’s come up.”

  “This is a bad time, J.C. Any idea what it’s about?”

  “Colonel Santorio says we got a call from Australia…”

  #

  Chapter 44

  Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or a sister is still in the darkness.

  1 John 2:9

  Operation Overtime

  0924 hours, April 18

  Angriff dismissed Nipple but Green Ghost stayed behind. She found Morgan and Joe Randall waiting for her in the hallway outside the Clamshell.

  Morgan noted the red, puffy eyes in a face that had never before shown signs of human weakness. “You okay?”

  “Fucking dandy, thanks for asking.”

  “It’s weird having an older sister. I mean, we’re strangers, but we’re sisters.”

  “From my perspective, it’s not that strange,” Joe Randall said. “You two look a helluva lot alike.”

  “Do we really?” Morgan said.

  “Is that why you’re drooling to get in my pants?” Nipple said. “Because you know you are.”

  “Hey, no, I never—” Joe stammered.

  His wife put a finger to his lips. “Ssshh! This is what she does. Ignore her.”

  Nipple snarled. “Oh, I get it. You want a threesome. A little sister-on-sister action, is that it? I didn’t know you cared… Bring it on! As long as you don’t mind me fucking hubby here.”

  “I think I’ll head back to the hangar deck, see if something needs calibrati
ng,” he said.

  “Bye, honey!” Nipple said as Joe Randall hurried down the corridor. “Looks like it’s just an incestuous twosome.”

  “Who are you trying to impress with this act?”

  “Act?” Nipple’s high-pitched laugh seemed tinged with a hint of madness. Then her voice dropped into a sinister baritone. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m the most dangerous person you’ve ever met. Do you know how many people I’ve killed? You think I’m just this skinny blond girl, but I’ve killed more than a hundred men in my life. See, I ain’t had dear old Dad bouncin’ me on his knee my whole life, like you have. Nick and me grew up on the mean streets of Memphis, so don’t judge me. It pisses me off, and you don’t want to see me mad.”

  Morgan crossed her arms and leaned against the tunnel wall. “That’s all you’ve got?” People passing by gave them a wide berth, even the men, who usually stared at both of them.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It means I see right through you. I can see why this little act might bother guys, but it doesn’t bother me at all. You wanna fight? Bring it on, little girl. I’m a fucking tank commander. I blow shit up for a living. I killed more than a hundred of the enemy in one day last year, so those notches on your gun don’t mean much to me.”

  “If you’re my sister, that means you have to hate whoever I hate, even if it’s you!”

  “You’re kind of pathetic; you know it?”

  Nipple blinked and felt her face warming as anger pumped blood into her brain. Nobody had ever spoken to her like that before. Never. The little boy who’d pulled her hair in third grade had gone to the hospital with a broken nose, and the kids had left her alone after that. She wanted to hurt her gorgeous sister, with the perfect boyish blond hair and tight-fitting uniform, wanted to knock out a few perfect teeth. Nipple wanted to hurt her, badly.

  Hiding her face in her right hand, she pretended to be crying. Morgan took a step closer, well within range. Nipple’s left hand balled into a fist and snapped like a piston at Morgan’s nose. The speed of the strike rivaled a Gaboon viper, the fastest-striking snake on Earth.