The R and D folks were located on the floor below the executive offices. The area took up one quarter of the entire floor. In spite of all the natural light pouring in from the floor to ceiling windows, everything appeared dingy, dull and overloaded with paper, manuals, computers, printers, and pieces of equipment that were unrecognizable to me. Some desktops had two or three monitors sitting on them. It was a beehive of activity, but eerily quiet, the clicking of keyboards the only sound. Each person apparently had their own workstation, although it was difficult to discern the difference or dividing line between some areas. The amount of electronic equipment and paper was mind-boggling. I stood in the middle of the area and looked for a clue as to where Nat Scott might hang her hat. There was a lone, enclosed office on the far side of the floor, and I headed in that direction, sure that as a Vice President, Natalie would have an office with a door.
The door to the office was closed and outside, in an open area, a young woman sat at a secretarial desk which was pushed up against the wall to the office. Her back was to me as I approached the desk and she was bopping in her chair to the music which I could clearly hear coming out of earphones plugged into her ears. She was typing on her keyboard, keeping rhythm to the music. I walked around her desk and stood to the side, hoping she would pick me up in her peripheral vision, not wanting to startle her. She saw me and held up one index finger, the universal sign for wait. With a flourish of pretend drumming on the edge of her desk with her two index fingers, she finally looked up at me with a very big smile and removed the ear plugs.
“Hi,” she said, apparently genuinely pleased to see me, judging by the smile that just didn’t go away. Her short hair was jet black and cut severely, with one large mass hanging over the right side of her face. Not quite punk. She appeared to be in her late twenties.
“Hi yourself. I’m Kate Monahan.” I held out my hand and she gave me a shake.
“Jenn. Jenn Ludlow. What can we do for you today Kate?”
“I’m looking for Natalie Scott. Is this her office?”
“Yep. You got it.”
“Is she in?”
“Not sure.”
Gawd, this was going to be painful. One question, one answer, at a time.
I thought I’d try a different angle. “Do you know if Miss Scott is in the office today?”
“Not sure,” she repeated. “Door was closed when I got here and it hasn’t opened. I’m not allowed to open her door when it’s closed.” She held up her index fingers and mimicked quotes in the air. “On pain of death, the boss tells me. Not sure if she’s building something secret for NASA in there, but I’m sure not going to die finding out.” She burst out laughing.
“Well, I really need to speak to her so should I just knock on the door?”
“Not supposed to do that either,” Jenn said. “A door closed means no interruptions.” Her voice went up an octave as she tried to imitate Nat Scott. “But, if I see her, I’ll be glad to give her a message,” she offered.
“Sorry,” I told her. “I’m going to interrupt her.” I raised my hand to knock on the door and Jenn jumped out of her chair and leaned across the desk to grab my arm.
“Please,” she pleaded with me. “Don’t do it.”
Whoa, this was one weird set up, but I didn’t want to get the girl in trouble. “Then go to the ladies room, and we’ll pretend you weren’t here. I’m new enough to the company, I can honestly say I didn’t know the rule.”
“Go right ahead then,” Jenn said. “Promise though you won’t tell I was here?”
“Promise,” I assured her. She grabbed her purse and took off.
There was no response to my two loud raps on the door and when I tried the door knob, it wouldn’t turn. It turned just fine when the security guard showed up about ten minutes later with a master key. Jenn had returned from the ladies room at this point and she was not happy that we were unlocking the door.
“A closed door means no interruptions,” she told me again. “A locked door means don’t come within ten feet of the door, even if the fire alarm is going off.” Her eyes were wide and she seemed to be hyperventilating just a little as she told me this. Several employees in the area were standing up at their desks now, peering over the dividers and watching the action.
I took Jenn by the arm and led her a few feet away from the security guard who was standing there, like a bump on a log, just watching us. “It’s okay Jenn. You won’t get in any trouble for what I’m doing. I guarantee it,” I told her.
“No one can guarantee my job,” Jenn said. “That’s what Nat tells all of us every day.”
“Well, I can,” I told her. “Seriously. Don’t worry about it.”
“She’s right, you know.” This from the security guard who was supposed to be out of earshot. “She is the new President.”
Jenn looked at me, surprised. “You are?”
I nodded.
“Go ahead then. It’s all yours.” She waved me into the office with a flourish.
It ended up that Jenn was worrying for nothing. Because the office was empty. There was nothing in the office except a desk, a credenza, a two-drawer filing cabinet, a chair and a telephone. Bare, deserted, unoccupied. No trace of a human ever having inhabited the space. I stuck my head out the door and motioned to Jenn to join me. I also told the security guard that he could leave and thanked him.
Jenn stood in the center of the office with her hands on her hips and looked around. “Well, would you look at that,” she said. “The rat has finally deserted the ship.” She said this with a certain amount of pleasure in her voice.
“How long did you and Nat work together?” I asked her.
“Ha! Work together? Together?” she repeated. “Together implies a team. We were never a team, and she never let me, or most of the people in this department forget that. We worked for her.” Her voice was wavering just a little bit when she finished, and she turned toward the window. I could see her taking a deep breath.
She turned back around and faced me. “Kate. Can I call you Kate?” I nodded. “Good. Kate, I hope she rots in hell. There. I said it. And I mean it. She didn’t deserve to work here. And ever since she started boffing the boss, she’s been worse. Gawd, what did that man see in her?”
My thoughts exactly!
“When was the last time you saw her in the office, Jenn?”
“What’s today? Wednesday? Yeah? She was here on Monday morning. A regular team meeting. Hah! I guess I haven’t seen her since.”
“You didn’t think it was strange that two days have gone by and you haven’t talked to her or seen her?”
“Nope.” Jenn shook her head. “Sometimes I’d go weeks and never see her. She worked weird hours. Heard sometimes she’d come in and work all night. I’d get emails from her time stamped three in the morning. Whee!” She jumped up a little bit and the smile I’d seen earlier was back. “She’s gone. The wicked witch of the west has flown the coop. I used to think she looked just like Margaret Hamilton.”
“Margaret Hamilton?” I didn’t get the reference.
“The woman who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. She and Nat Scott had the same nose.”
I had to agree.
chapter thirty-six
My next stop was a visit with our in-house security manager. His office was on the same floor as Nat Scott’s but on the opposite side. Jenn Ludlow showed me the way to his office, chatting a mile a minute as she weaved her way around the maze of workstations, loads of crap on the floor, and quietly working staff members.
“What do you think it means?” she asked me. Without waiting for an answer, she kept chatting. “I think it means she’s left the company.” Duh. “Nothing in her office. Everything gone. What did she do with all the files in there?” Good question, I thought. “How did she get everything out of the office?” Another good question.
We had arrived at the other side of the floor, where there were several glassed-in offices along the
wall. The walls of the offices were made of glass brick that obstructed the view into the offices, but allowed the light from the windows to seep through. Jenn stopped in front of one that had its door open and she poked her head inside.
“You’re here Kelly? Good. Kate needs to talk to you.” She put her hand on my shoulder and said in a whisper, “You need anything, you call me. Okay Kate?” I nodded to my new best friend.
“I’ll do that. Thanks Jenn.” She walked off, bouncing to the internal music in her head, with a wide smile plastered on her face.
Kelly was standing when I entered his office and he walked around his desk to greet me. “Hi, Ms. Monahan, I’m Kelly Northland.” Kelly spoke with a soft southern drawl. I wasn’t sure if it was Georgia “south” or Texas “south” because my ear wasn’t attuned to American accents.
We shook hands and he offered me a chair in front of his desk. Kelly appeared to be in his late thirties, early forties and he was what you would describe as wiry. Probably no taller than five foot seven or eight, with not an extra ounce of fat on his trim body. His hair was curly, grey and cut very short on the sides. He had great posture and I guessed he was ex-military.
I made a snap decision not to trust him. Not that he gave me any initial reason for that decision, but I was finding out the hard way that not every employee at Phoenix was loyal and trustworthy. From this moment on they were all going to have to earn their way with me. The fact that we had never met but he knew who I was, was only a wee bit disconcerting, because if he was in charge of security, he would know who I was at this point in the game.
“So,” Kelly started. “Are you here about the mess with Global?” He was either a mind reader or very well plugged in.
“Yes,” I told him. “There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you. First off, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself.” I was going to sit back and get to know these people.
Kelly Northland was all business. He didn’t balk at my request to talk about himself, and he didn’t glorify himself in the telling.
“Been with Phoenix for almost five years now,” he told me. “Before that I was a Marine. Served twenty years in the Corps as a Military Police Officer.”
Ah, I thought. A meathead. At least that’s what we called the MP’s, or military police, in the Canadian army.
“Got interested in doing corporate security work the last few years I was with the Corps. Was stationed at headquarters in Arlington and then got promoted to Staff Sergeant and worked as an investigator at NCIS. That’s the Naval Criminal Investigation Service. Some of the work we did was with the civilian authorities. So when I took retirement after twenty years, I decided I wanted to get out of policing and into protection. That’s how I ended up here. I consider myself lucky, ma’am. Tom Connaught was a good man, and I’m damn sorry about what happened to him.”
He finished without a flourish. Kind of reminded me of that detective in the old TV show, Dragnet. Joe Friday. Just the facts, ma’am. A man of few words.
“Tell me about security here at Phoenix, Kelly. What do we protect and how do we do it?” I asked him.
“Well, our mantra is to protect our people and our assets. On the people side of things, we make sure that everyone coming to work here has a background check done on them. Lots of our work is with government agencies, so those people need more in-depth security clearances. Government’s coming out with more onerous requirements soon on background checking and security clearances, thanks to Mr. Bin Laden. On the asset side, we protect our proprietary property. That includes our patented technologies, our source codes, our software development stuff. We don’t own any buildings or much of anything on the physical side, save and except for computers. But we do have a lot of money invested in our technology. So our job is to protect that technology and the designs and software work that goes into it. And with the way technology is advancing these days, it’s a moving target. Our biggest threats right now are hackers and cyber terrorism.”
“How many staff do you have?”
“It’s me and four others. That’s it. But a lot of our work is done from our desks. We’re well-connected all over the world.”
“Okay. Tell me what you know about the mess with Global.” I sat and stared at him, with my hands on my lap.
“What I know, I heard from Russ Freeson. He called me late yesterday and filled me in. Told me that Global had cut ties with us. Told me that Natalie Scott didn’t let anyone know about it. That’s it.”
“Did you know that Nat Scott has vacated the building?”
“Not sure what you mean. She comes and goes at very odd hours, so I’m not sure that I’d know whether she had vacated or not.”
“Well, I just came from her office. And it’s empty. The only thing in there is a desk, a chair and a phone.”
His eyebrows went up, just a little. I’m pretty sure he was surprised to know that. He didn’t say anything.
“Any idea when she packed up and left?” I asked.
“No ma’am. This is news to me.” He looked a little perturbed. “Can you give me a few minutes to look into this?”
“Sure. Come and see me in my office.” I stood up to leave. “And bring me the background checks on Nat Scott and all of her team leaders.”
When I got back to my office I asked Carrie if Cleve Johnston had arrived. She told me he had been there for about an hour and he was working in one of the boardrooms down the hall.
He was on the phone when I opened the door but he waved me in. The round boardroom table was strewn with newspapers and files, two empty coffee cups, and a plate with half a muffin, some grapes and an apple core. The small credenza against the wall had a coffee urn and a tray of breakfast goodies. I helped myself to a coffee and waited until Cleve got off the phone.
“Morning Kate,” he said as soon as he hung up.
“Morning Cleve. Looks like you got right down to work.” I nodded at the mess on the table.
“Lots to do. And I brought some work from Toronto. I hadn’t planned on coming to New York, so I brought some files with me. Some of my clients expect round the clock service.”
We spent the next hour in a meeting. Cleve had asked Carrie to gather the executive management team for an urgent meeting. Barry Golden, the lawyer from Cleve’s New York office had been asked to attend as well.
When we arrived in the main boardroom, the silence was deafening. The tension in the room was palpable. Steve Holliday and Mark Hall were doodling on papers in front of them, Sandra Melnick was staring at the wall. No one was talking and no one was looking at the person next to them or across the table from them. Needless to say, Nat Scott’s absence from the table was noticeable. Barry Golden was the one face I didn’t recognize so I walked over to where he was sitting and introduced myself.
“Barry, Kate Monahan.” He stood up and we shook hands. Barry was medium-sized, with a bit of age on him. Part of the age was showing in his middle, which was thick and he had a bit of a paunch. He hid it well though in a tailored, double-breasted suit. His hair was snow white and well cut. “Thanks for joining us. I’m sure Cleve has filled you in and I think you’ll get the flavour of the problem shortly.” Barry nodded and sat back down quietly.
Sitting beside him was Terry-Lynn Jacobsen, our in-house counsel. Although she wasn’t a member of the executive management team, Cleve thought it was important that she be at the meeting. Terry-Lynn was sitting hunched in her chair, staring with her head down at her notebook. Her face was covered by her thin, stringy, badly permed, chin-length hair. I had never met her but Carrie had told me a couple of days ago to be quiet around her. Apparently she scared easily and was very self-conscious of a large strawberry-coloured birthmark that covered her left eye and part of her left cheek. She didn’t look up at me so I decided not to introduce myself. If she scared easily, she wouldn’t want to be around me. Apparently she was a wizard at patent law (yawn, bore) and that’s why Tommy had hired her. The types of problems we were about t
o talk about fell outside her area of expertise, but still, she was in-house counsel.
I sat at the head of the table and looked around. No one was watching me and all heads were down. A sign of guilt perhaps? I hoped to hell not. One bad apple in the barrel was enough for me. I took a deep breath and told myself to remain professional, remain calm, and above all, remain in control.
“So, as you may have heard, we’ve got some problems we need to deal with a-sap. You all know Cleve Johnston. He’s brought his partner Barry Golden with him. Barry works at the New York office of McCallum and Watts.” I took another deep breath. “You all know that Nat Scott isn’t here. I just came from her office downstairs, which has been cleared out. There’s not a sign of her in R and D.” With that revelation, everyone was now looking at me. Even Terry-Lynn.
“We’re trying to ascertain when it was that she left. Anyone here got any idea?” No takers. “When was the last time any of you talked to her?”
Sandra Melnick, our VP of Operations offered that she hadn’t seen Natalie for days. That pretty much jived with everyone else’s memory as well.
“Well, apparently, several weeks ago, Nat Scott received notice from Global Devices that we were to cease and desist all work on their products. Was anyone aware of that?”
Every head around the table shook in the negative. Mark Hall, the Vice President of Sales put his head in hands and I was pretty sure I heard him moan.
“Mark, you okay?”
He looked up at me, closed his eyes and nodded. Grim. I took this as a yes, and pressed on.
“So, we need to do some damage control. That’s why Cleve and Barry Golden are here. Barry’s got some familiarity with the SEC and hopefully we’ll be able to finesse the fact that we haven’t disclosed this information. Yet.”
Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions Page 20