Helena

 

Griff entered the Atlantic Aviation offices on high alert as if it were a Ramadi residence in the middle of the night, scanning and clearing the lobby corners quickly. No Jackie Ohhs.

The Learjet 31 co-pilot leaned casually on the counter, talking up the young receptionist, Tiffani, as if he might be overnighting in Chicago. Her eyes were drawn to Griff like iron filings to a neodymium magnet. The co-pilot noticed. His banter trailed off, and he looked over his shoulder. As if suddenly confronted by the alpha male of the pack, he stood up straight, reflexively took a step back, and lowered his eyes to his shoe tops.

Griff returned Tiffani’s smile. He knew her more or less intimately from his own previous layovers. But this current mission involved another target, and he deemed it tactically unsound to confront a woman emerging from the Ladies Room, so he turned down the hall on his right to lay his ambush in the pilot’s lounge.

“That didn’t take long. I didn’t think it would.”

The low, almost husky yet honey smooth female voice poured seductively over Griff and blanked his mind as he turned into the pilot’s lounge. Though dimly lit, as they all were to facilitate napping, her red dress glowed like a hearth, yet she still wore her sunglasses as she studied her iPhone’s screen, slouching and sitting askew in one of the La-Z-Boy recliners with her legs crossed. Griff’s eye was drawn to the slow but rhythmic bounce of her stiletto heel. Predator had become prey.

She took off her Jackie Ohhs, looked Griff up and down, then took a deep breath. “Mmmm…tall, dark and dangerous…just the way I like them.”

Griff locked onto her blue-gray eyes and surrendered. He leaned against the door jam. His inside voice taunted, No plan survives contact with the enemy.

“I couldn’t help but notice Lance’s Escalade on the ramp. He is a conniving bastard, isn’t he? Of course, he is a lawyer, but he does excel at it. Not to mention the unseemly delight he takes in it.”

“Always has,” Griff said. “As long as I’ve known him.”

“Then, you really shouldn’t be surprised.”

Griff smiled, realizing it wasn’t Mayor Daley’s fault that he was still on the ground in Chicago. “Name’s Griff.”

“Yes. I know.”

He waited, his face an implacable facade, one molded and hammered into place on the Coronado Beach while enduring BUD/S training. “You got a name? Or will you answer to minx or vixen?”

“Hmmm…you like the ‘X’ words. I prefer Helena.”

“So…how long will we be playing Three Card Monte with modern art…Helena?

“Oh, that. The Pollack is already crated up at a friend’s gallery in LA waiting to be shipped off.”

“Which gallery?”

“Now, Griff. Have we come to an understanding yet?”

As a Navy SEAL, he had been well-trained never to sigh out loud. “I’ve found understandings to be vastly overrated and all too often unreliable.”

“Hmmm. So, it often is.” She sat up straight, arching her back. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair. “Lance speaks highly of your…work.”

“I’ve solved a problem or two for him—or should I say his clients. What is it you need?”

“Trust me, there is precious little that I need.” Helena smiled coyly.

“Well, then, what is it that Helena wants?”

“You’re kind of a no-nonsense guy. Don’t you believe in foreplay?”

Griff laughed. “Why, yes. Yes, I do. But you and I are a bit too vertical right at the moment. So, it’s more like teasing.”

“Huh. Men. Why must you all be so literal?”

“Because literal is where we live and work and play.”

“Well, Mr. Griffith Crowe, this has been a fascinating conversation, but I must be going. I have an engagement to get to, and my limo is surely out front by now.” Helena stood up and walked up to Griff. She put her index finger on his chin.

“So, did I pass the audition?”

She pushed his head to the left, then back to the right. “Eh, you’ll do.”

Griff broke protocol and sighed heavily.

“I’ll be in touch,” Helena said as she slipped by, brushing his arm with her body.

Griff watched her leave, contemplating the possibility of foreplay—predator, again.

 

***~~~***