Fargo
Griff left the St. Francis having extracted a solemn promise from Helena—she crossed her heart and hoped to die—that she would stay in San Francisco until Griff checked out her home in Taos and found it safe.
As he sat in the Cirrus on the tarmac in Hollister waiting for the engine oil temperature to come up, Griff sent a text to Lance: “Home tomorrow.”
Lance replied: “Saturday. Meet you halfway. Code 2.”
Halfway meant Fargo, North Dakota. Griff typed “10-4,” hit send, then taxied out to depart Runway 13.
He made Taos in four hours with a fuel stop at Page, Arizona, south of Lake Powell.
Helena’s bedroom window had been repaired, arranged by the property management firm contracted to look after her house in her absences. Their cleaning service had disposed of the abandoned derby pie and made the bed. All looked normal. Griff checked in with International Protective Services. The IPS residential security patrols reported no incidents and no alarms. He considered giving Helena the all clear, but his inside voice nagged him to wait until after he met with Lance.
With plenty of daylight left, Griff decided to head home. He topped his tanks in Ft. Collins, then by-passed Laramie to land at the ranch. Ben was still working in the barn and helped him push the Cirrus into his hangar as night fell.
“Please tell me it’s been quiet around here,” Griff said to Ben as they pulled the hangar doors closed.
“No more hunting accidents—if that’s what you mean,” Ben answered.
“Here or in the county?”
“Deputy Walt said ours is the only incident that’s been reported.”
“What are they making of it?”
“Nothing, like we talked. City folks on safari. Walt wrote a report, and that’ll likely be the end of it.”
“Good.”
“How is Helena?” Ben gave Griff a big grin.
“You and Swannie sure have taken a shine to her.”
“There’s definitely entertainment value there and, you know us, we’re easily amused.”
“Glad to be of service. She’ll be the death of me.”
“Huh. You never noticed how women live longer?”
Griff whistled for Rodya, who came bounding out of the darkness. “Come on, boy. Let’s enjoy what little time we evidently got left.”
“Squaw fever, my friend. There’s no cure.”
Griff gave Ben the international sign language for being on your way, forthwith, in a carnal fashion.
Ben laughed.
“Give my best to Swan.”
Rodya followed Griff into the house. It was good to be home.
***~~~***
Griff arrived first at Hector International Airport in Fargo. He paced the North Ramp tarmac as the fuel truck filled his tanks. Twenty minutes later the Stein, Baylor & Stein King Air 200 taxied up, spewing Jet-A fumes on the parking apron. The doors opened and Lance bounded down the stairs dressed like a golf pro. He inhaled deeply.
“You gotta love it.” Lance beamed his white phosphorus smile.
“You solo?”
“We gotta talk. Your ears only.” Lance eyeballed Griff’s Cirrus. “Take me for a ride?”
Griff nodded. “Sure. I’m topped off. Where to?”
“Doesn’t matter. I just want to be alone.”
They piled into the Cirrus. Griff called Clearance Delivery for a westbound departure.
Fifteen minutes later, Departure Control advised Griff to Squawk VFR and ended their flight following with, “Frequency change approved. Good day.”
“Kind of an expensive conversation we’re going to have, huh?” Griff asked Lance as he throttled back to the best economy power setting. “You’re not in a hurry to get anywhere right?”
“No. Just back for my round tomorrow morning. I’ve really been spanking the ball hard lately. Feels great,” Lance said. “But, anyway, how are you doing?”
“Eh, I have my good days and my not so good days. Got no extra holes in me, so pretty good today. So far.”
“And our favorite client?”
“Hopefully staying put like she’s supposed to. Why didn’t you take her to New York?”
“Have you met our client? She’s very persuasive. And, you know, family is always important in times of crisis.”
“Yeah, well, I was figuring she might not stick out like a sore thumb in New York City.”
“Like I said, she made a compelling argument.”
“With her checkbook?”
“Be that as it may.” Lance scanned the horizon that seemed to go on forever. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”
“Eply?”
“In part. I wasn’t really worried until I learned about the sniper that seems to be stalking you two.”
“And Junior.”
“Him, too? Man, these guys are busy.”
“Yeah. Real go-getters.” Griff engaged the autopilot.
“Well, Eply and Wilkinson have been looking into…things.”
“Corporate things?”
“Mainly. Seems as though Mr. Nickolson had been steadily and increasingly divesting himself and Hornet out of the consumer tech sector.”
“Meaning?”
“Mainly social media companies: Facebook, Twitter, Google.”
“Meaning?”
“Wilkinson made the rounds with the vulture capitalists on the coasts. Evidently the guy—besides being wicked smart and almost always right—was an industry bellwether. You know, the old E.F. Hutton, thing. When Helena’s dad talks, people listen, usually follow—and sometimes panic, especially if they’re on the wrong end of the money flow.”
Griff looked over at Lance. “You hungry? Seems like this is going to be a long conversation.”
“Why not. No calories in an airport burger, right?”
“Wanna see some dead Presidents?”
“Sure.”
Griff checked the navigation display and angled the Cirrus southwest towards Rapid City. “Now, who was panicking over where daddy parked his money and why are they taking it out on my cows?”
“It’s funny, really, how when it comes to high finance, perception is reality. Not hard to start a bear market stampede if you know how to spook the herd.”
“So, was Nickolson trying to spook the herd?”
“Actually, no. He was being very discreet. Only a few of the bigger players had just started taking notice when his bird went down—oh, and you may be right about that. I talked to an old Army buddy of mine in Maintenance who’s now running a fleet of choppers servicing Gulf oil rigs. He told me there were issues with a catastrophic failure mode in the FADECs on the Bell 407s causing the engines to run erratically and sometimes lose power when the throttle was advanced. Bad news if you’re down low. It was a hard fault failure that didn’t generate any cockpit warning signals.”
“So, it wasn’t nefarious?”
“Well…this goes back almost ten years ago. A guy in New Hampshire sued Bell and company. So, the NTSB should have gotten it resolved.”
“Should have…”
Lance turned his palms up and shrugged.
“So, Facebook killed Cliff Nickolson and my cows?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Who did it then?”
“Goddamn it. Now, I’m going to sound like Alex Jones.”
“Conspiracy theory?”
“Well, let’s just say there are other non-private sector interests involved.”
“The Highlands Group.”
“You know the night he was killed, Nickolson was going to Singapore, right?”
Griff nodded.
“Well, the Singapore Defense Ministry was the host for the international edition of the Highlands Group with China being target numero uno. You don’t think Google bending over and grabbing the ankles to get into China is just about expanding into new markets for their search engine ads, do you? It’s still the same wizard hiding behind the curtain.”
“The one that put them into business in the first place.”
Lance nodded. “Bingo. Good old Uncle Sam.”
“Wait, so Nickolson was active in the Highlands Group at the same time he was divesting on the corporate side?”
“Sometimes a sound national security policy doesn’t always make for a good private investment. Ever since Snowden blew the whistle on NSA surveillance of every John Q. Public on the planet, people—besides just the alt-right loonies—have been connecting dots between social media’s obsessive personal tracking and the likes of Clapper and Brennen. Those guys make the Stasi look like Keystone Cops. Only nobody was ever supposed to know.”
“So, the CIA is after me and Helena?”
“Come on, man. You know how this works. You don’t really think your name is being taken in vain in the Executive Offices at Langely, do you? Behind some key-coded locked office somewhere in a big white building in, around, or somewhere near the Beltway, there’s a patch of turf that some nameless, faceless drone believes is in need of protection.”
“From Helena?” Griff turned southwest of Rapid City towards the Black Elk Wilderness Area and began a descent.
“From the implosion of their digital house of cards. Social media is the fentanyl of the masses. And if the masses stop believing and trusting and using…” Lance shook his head. “Well, tell me, how much actionable intelligence do you think the NSA is harvesting from MySpace for targeting Hellfires off Predators in sand country?”
Griff nodded.
“You and I, we did our bit for the War on Terror and we know what’s going on—especially, you.”
“And Helena?”
“You read Nickolson’s journals?”
“The most recent ones.”
“Me, too. She left them with the firm for safekeeping. Put them in context and you can read between the lines that he was getting his money out of the spy business. And why. Others were sure to follow, so he had to be stopped and he was.”
“The crash.”
Lance nodded. “Then Helena hired me to hire you to find Nickolson’s journals and…”
“And I got them before they did.”
“And it’s game on…again.”
Griff slowed as they drifted past the stone-carved visages of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt at seventy-seven hundred feet. From four miles away, outside the restricted airspace around the national monument, Mt. Rushmore was underwhelming.
Griff continued on to Custer County Airport and landed. They took a cab to the Sage Creek Grille for burgers.
“Sorry about the calories,” Griff said when they ordered.
“Eh, life is short.”
“So I hear.”
***~~~***