The List

 

When Griff remodeled the ranch house, he added a windowless hideaway to his upstairs bedroom suite and furnished it sparsely with a roll top desk, a large oak table, and an old comfortable leather wing-backed chair and ottoman. Behind a vault-like door, it also held a FireKing filing cabinet, a Liberty gun safe, and an NSA/CSS 02-01 - Level P-7 approved paper shredder. There, Griff conducted business for Lance and his clients, completely separate from the first-floor office where he handled affairs for the ranch.

Stein, Baylor & Stein arranged to have the more sensitive documents hand-delivered to Griff via messenger service, including the list of items Helena wanted him to find and return. At first glance, it seemed innocuous enough: a footlocker evidently filled with personal mementos, photos, service medals, and private correspondence; her father’s private journals; family photo albums; an A-2 leather flight jacket; an old felt fedora; and a long list of objects d’art, souvenirs, and knick-knacks collected while globetrotting for business and pleasure.

Ranch work done and the sun long set, Griff pulled his desk chair over to the oak table where four stacks of papers were neatly lined up, one each for mister, missus, JR, and Helena. Lance was anything if not thorough in his background preparation. He stared a long time at the pile for Helena—the shortest one—sipping at the Balvenie 40-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky she FedExed him with a promise to hand-deliver a bottle of fifty-year-old Balvenie—a $50,000 bonus—when he got her father’s items back. A distinctly wolf-looking Siberian Husky wandered into the hideaway and pressed its muzzle against his thigh. Griff scratched behind its ear, then pulled his SIG Sauer P226 pistol out of his waistband, placed it within easy reach to his right, and sat down at the table. Rodya sniffed Griff’s shoes, then curled up to lay at his feet.

After a bracing gulp of scotch, Griff pulled the pile of papers for Helena’s father towards him and began to read the story of Cliff Nickolson’s life—and a particularly charmed and lucrative life it was.

Mr. Nickolson was a proud fifth-generation Californian whose ancestor successfully chased the gold in them thar hills around Sutter’s Mill in 1849. The son of a Lockheed Aerospace Program manager, Cliff grew up in the San Fernando Valley, lettering in baseball and swimming while taking flying lessons at Van Nuys airport. He won an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, which Griff might have held against him, but rather than become a Fobbit—a Rear Echelon Mother Fucker—Nickolson opted to become a Marine Corps fighter pilot, all of whom are required to go through The Basic School, because they are considered Marines first, then pilots. Towards the end of his second tour of duty, by then a Major, he flew an F/A-18 Hornet in relentless ground attacks against bridges, roads, and Iraqi military assets in Desert Storm.

Figuring those 42 days of combat for Commander-in-Chief George Bush were likely the pinnacle of his career as a warrior, Nickolson mustered out into the reserves, which allowed him to fulfill both his “need for Mach 2 speed” as well as the freedom to pursue the accumulation of an obscene pile of wealth, an obsession that started with the acquisition of a Harvard MBA and a meticulously cultivated and maintained network of Ivy League contacts which led to stint as a researcher, then portfolio manager at Bridgwater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world. Not content to play with OPM—Other People’s Money—Helena’s dad went out on his own and rode an incredible wave of early investment successes with X.com, Google, and Facebook, among others.

Griff became bored with the details entombed in the accolades of business journal articles of how Cliff continued to pile up ludicrously tall stacks of cash, so he skipped to the bottom of the pile, looking for the NTSB accident report for the helicopter crash that took the lives of Helena’s dad, step-mother, and a corporate pilot near Pebble Beach.

Griff’s cell phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket. Lance’s name appeared on the screen. “Yup?”

“Cramming for finals, again?” Lance asked.

“Yup.”

“So, you got everything, then.”

“Yup.”

“I wish you’d let me get a word in edgewise.”

Griff pulled out the NTSB report. He read the Probable Cause and Findings: The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: IMPROPER PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT, AND HIS FAILURE TO ATTAIN ADEQUATE ALTITUDE BEFORE FLYING OVER RISING TERRAIN AT NIGHT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, FOG, HAZE, RISING TERRAIN, AND THE LACK OF VISUAL CUES THAT WERE AVAILABLE TO THE PILOT. Griff mumbled to himself, “Hmm, wonder who was flying…”

“What?”

“You still at the office?”

“Yeah, long day.” Lance sighed.

“The price you pay.”

“Not all of us get to live the life of Reilly—speaking of which, how are you treating our very important client?”

Griff slurped his scotch loud enough to be heard over the phone.

“You two playing nice together?”

Griff said nothing, thinking of Taos.

“You dog, you.”

“It was before anybody inked any contracts, so there’s no conflict of interest…yet.”

“Careful, my friend. You’re punching above your weight class.”

“I made it to the bell.”

“Yeah…of round one.”

“Cut me, Mick. Cut me.”

“I’m telling you, these folks, they are way above my weight class, even.”

Griff thought for a moment. “Yeah. Duly noted.”

“Don’t get complacent. Condition Yellow, man.”

“Always.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You know something that ain’t buried in all this paper,” Griff asked.

“Not specifically. I just know their kind—and I clean up a lot of their kind’s messes. Sometimes lists aren’t just lists.”

“Duly noted.”

“Anyway, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

Griff grunted.

Lance hung up.

Griff pushed Mr. Nickolson’s briefing papers back into line, skipped ahead, and pulled Helena’s pile towards him.

 

***~~~***