by Tom Berreman
* * *
After ninety minutes the committee took a fifteen minute break and Hartwig approached her.
“Miss Walters,” he said. “I have a file on my desk labeled Product Development Committee. Can you please get it and bring it to me? After you refill the coffee pots.”
“Yes, Mr. Hartwig,” she said, not bothering to correct him her name was Williams, not Walters.
As Chelsea entered the executive offices suite Hartwig’s administrative assistant’s desk was vacant, so she walked into his office. She stood at Hartwig’s massive, antique desk and ruffled through the files and papers.
As she grabbed the file he needed a document just underneath it caught her attention. The email copy’s subject line read Extremely Confidential–For Your Eyes Only, and as she skimmed it she learned PCI cut corners in testing recently acquired sensor technology to rush its commercial release.
“May I help you?”
Startled by the unexpected intrusion while reading a document she had no right to see, she dropped the file and turned abruptly, finding Jane Cornelius standing in the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m Chelsea Williams, an intern in the engineering department, and Mr. Hartwig asked me to retrieve this file. You weren’t at your desk, so I came in to look for it myself.”
“That’s quite all right,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Did you find everything you need?”
“Yes, I did. Thank you very much,” Chelsea said as she tucked the file under her arm and left the office, hoping her snooping had gone undetected.
* * *
“Here is the file you requested Mr. Hartwig,” she said.
“Didn’t I ask you to refill the coffee?” he said without acknowledging the return of his file.
“I’m sorry, I thought the file was more important.”
“When I tell you--”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hartwig,” she interrupted. “But I am first in my class at Cal Tech and applied for this internship to gain valuable experience. Instead, I’m tasked with filling coffee pots and playing gofer when you forget important files.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way Miss Walters,” he said, taken aback by a low level underling speaking back to him. “But if you’re unhappy here, you’re free to leave. I don’t have time to deal with whiners.”
Hartwig appeared calm and collected, but his rage was building and he struggled to stifle it. As a Marine drill sergeant, no one ever spoke back to him. But if anybody did, he had the unfettered power to kick the shit out of someone so stupid before he drummed them out of the Corps. If only the corporate world allowed his preferred rebuttal method.
“I’m not a whiner. And my name is Williams, not Walters,” she said as she turned and walked away, resolve in her steps, unable to conceal her anger. She returned to her seat against the wall, not at the conference table, to resume taking notes.
The coffee pots remained empty.
* * *
Nervous perspiration formed on Chelsea’s forehead and underarms as she walked through PCI headquarters’ hallways. It was nine thirty on Friday night, and she was confident she was the only one left in the building except for the security guard at the front desk.
Relieved to find Hartwig’s office door unlocked she entered, shut the door behind her and turned on the desk lamp. She rifled through the papers on the desk, whispering out loud “Call me a whiner you crusty old bastard? I’ll show you.”
She hoped to find the email she read earlier, but with no luck. She sat in the chair behind the desk and searched the files in the credenza drawers, locating a file labeled Sensor R&D–Confidential–L. Hartwig Eyes Only. The first document in the file was the email she read that morning.
She took the file’s contents and found the closest copy machine. She held her employee identification badge against the electronic reader to activate the machine, copied the documents and returned to the office.
As she closed the credenza drawer an unexpected visitor startled her for the second time in one day. With her heightened anxiety, a male voice behind her caused her to scream.
It was not the midnight shift rent a cop.
Chapter 47.
“Excuse me, but may I ask what you’re doing?” asked Scott Jorgensen, pointing a nine millimeter SIG Saur at her, an unnecessary precaution once he identified the intruder.
Monitoring the corporate headquarters’ security system from home he had detected motion in the executive offices area. After confirming the night janitorial staff had left for the evening, and knowing Hartwig was at an out of town sports car race for the weekend, he rushed to the office to investigate.
“Oh…, I’m so sorry,” Chelsea said. “You startled me. I’m Chelsea Williams, an intern in the engineering department.”
“I know who you are,” he replied as he holstered his gun. “But I asked what you’re doing.”
“Mr. Hartwig asked me to attend a committee meeting this morning, and this afternoon left me a voicemail he expected the minutes first thing Monday morning. My plan was to work on them at home over the weekend, but he asked me to include a new sensor project summary in the minutes. He told me the background information was in a file in his credenza.”
“Why didn’t you get the file before you left this afternoon?”
“I didn’t have a chance until now. I know it’s late, but I work weird hours, juggling my classes at Cal Tech with my internship responsibilities, and I had a mid-term this afternoon. I didn’t get his voicemail until this evening and it’s almost an hour commute from my apartment.”
“Very well,” he said, accepting her explanation. “But from now on, I recommend you consider the executive offices out of bounds after business hours.”
“Yes sir…, thank you…, I’ll do that,” she stammered. “Have a good weekend.”
Chelsea hurried out of the office, the file containing the documents she copied tucked under her arm.
* * *
“Damn it,” Jorgensen said as he sat behind Hartwig’s desk, the file labeled Sensor R&D–Confidential–L. Hartwig Eyes Only in front of him. In her haste to get in and out undetected Chelsea left the file askew, and it was the first file he noticed when he opened the credenza drawer. He paged through the documents in the file without reading them, acknowledging the L. Hartwig Eyes Only designation, and detected a common element.
Each document’s upper left corner had two small holes, close to the staple binding the pages, as though someone removed the original staple and re-stapled the document. He left the office and held his identification badge to the electronic reader on the copy machine in the hall. His security clearance gave him an administrator menu screen, and he pressed the Copy History icon.
Last Job: Chelsea Williams, 37 Pages Copied
When he returned to Hartwig’s office he counted the pages in the file.
Thirty-seven.
He never should have accepted her explanation.
* * *
“What’s so fucking urgent you need to see me first thing on a Monday morning?” Louis Hartwig said as Scott Jorgensen sat across from his desk.
“This,” Jorgensen said as he pushed a button on his cell phone connected to the office voicemail system.
Chelsea, this is Alicia Jones, please call me ASAP, I’d like to talk, maybe meet in person to discuss what you emailed me.
After realizing she had copied sensitive documents he spent most of the weekend searching for evidence of her motives. Sunday afternoon he found the deleted voicemail in the system’s back up files.
“Who the fuck is Alicia Jones, and what makes this voicemail so goddamn important to make me late for my eight thirty meeting?” Hartwig said. His attitude conveyed I’m too busy to deal with this shit right now.
“She’s the freelance investigative reporter who wrote the Pacific Business Journal article accusing PCI of unethical corporate espionage. And Chelsea is the intern from engineering you dragged along to the product
development committee meeting Friday morning.”
“Damn, I don’t like this. Tell me more,” Hartwig said, no longer concerned with his eight thirty meeting.
“Late Friday evening I found her going through your files, and I’m sure she found this,” he said as he handed him the file.
“Damn,” he said, stifling an oncoming storm of outrage.
“The file has thirty-seven pages, and Ms. Chelsea made thirty-seven copies on the machine just outside your office.”
“I’ll kill the little bitch!” Hartwig said as he stood and paced around his office.
“Slow down Louis,” Jorgensen said, one of few who got away with using his first name. “I’ve got this under control, I’ll handle it.”
“No,” he replied. “I want you to stay out of this. The author of that corporate espionage article dragged your name through the mud, and we can’t risk any more bad press for you. And besides, aren’t you and your wife leaving this afternoon for a three day Sonoma Valley getaway to celebrate your anniversary?”
“Yes. But I can cancel--”
“Nonsense,” Hartwig interrupted. “You’re taking that trip.”
“Okay, but what are you suggesting we do to stop this potential PR disaster?”
“I know a guy who can discretely manage delicate situations like this.”
* * *
After Jorgenson returned to his office he reflected on their discussion. Hartwig couldn’t care less whether he enjoyed his anniversary trip to Sonoma, he wanted to rely on his absence to pay some corporate mercenary cash to solve his problem. He would give him free reign to utilize any methods necessary, methods Jorgenson could never force himself to use.
A guy who can discretely manage delicate situations was another way for Hartwig to rely on plausible deniability if he were caught.
Jorgenson would take time to celebrate his anniversary with the woman he loved, but would also take time to ponder whether his role as Hartwig’s fixer pushed the limits of his moral compass.
Chapter 48.
“Yeah,” was the only salutation offered by Drew Sexton as he answered Hartwig’s phone call. Background noise from the strip club he frequented muffled his greeting.
For fifteen years Sexton was an LAPD undercover cop with a marginal record. But he faced numerous excessive force complaints and was kicked off the police force after the local TV news broadcast cell phone video of his back alley, tire iron beat down of a drug dealer. A jury acquitted him of felony assault charges after his attorney put the victim on trial for preying on grade school kids. But his career as a police officer was over.
Sexton earned a living doing freelance corporate security work, often pushing the boundaries of legality, and Hartwig knew he possessed the skill set necessary to silence their college intern.
“It’s Louis Hartwig. I’ve got a delicate situation I need your help with.”
* * *
Sexton watched Chelsea Williams unlock the front door to her apartment building and enter as he sat in his car parked across the street. Getting into her apartment was a simple breach of the suburban apartment complex’s low-grade security system, and the listening devices he planted would be more than adequate to monitor her conversations.
It didn’t take long for his surveillance devices to reward his efforts, although he could hear only one side of the phone conversation. He didn’t have the time or the resources to bug her cell phone.
“Hello, is this Alicia Jones?”
Pause.
“Hi Alicia, this is Chelsea.”
Pause.
“Yes, I think we should meet.”
Pause.
“Okay. I’m a senior at Cal Tech studying electrical engineering and an intern at Pacific Coast Industries. I read your Pacific Business Journal article questioning PCI’s reputation for aggressive corporate espionage, and I have memos disclosing more of the story.”
Pause.
“No, I’m not comfortable handing over copies right now. They are proprietary and I’m breaking the law just having them, so I need to know I’m doing the right thing by speaking with you in person before I share them. I’ll bring them along so you can review them, and we’ll see what happens from there. Until then, you’ll just have to trust me.”
Long pause.
“Okay, tomorrow night, eight o’clock, the fountain in Horatio Smith Park. I’ll see you then.”
* * *
Hartwig sat speechless, his rage about to boil over to a profanity filled diatribe as Sexton replayed the conversation.
“Do you want me to follow her to the park?”
“That cocky little college bitch,” Hartwig said. “Just give me a minute to collect my thoughts.”
Sexton said nothing more, having learned the hard way not to interrupt Hartwig. After a moment he spoke.
“Return to her apartment, and when she leaves to meet with the reporter follow her. Under no circumstances are they to meet. After you stop her, search her for any PCI documents, in particular a memo marked extremely confidential, for my eyes only. She stole thirty-seven pages of sensitive documents, and I need all thirty-seven pages back. Then return to her apartment and search it in case she made more copies. I’ll look through her desk at the company. And make sure there’s no sign you were ever there.”
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I did.”
“And her silence must be permanent.”
Sexton nodded, stood and left the office.
Chapter 49.
After a late afternoon meeting with Jennco’s key supplier Jason strolled through the research and development lab, a shortcut to his new corner office. Following the probate of Curt Jennings’ estate, the shareholders elected a new board of directors including Jason, Allison, Brent Jennings, Allen Ginsburg and Eric Rogers. The board appointed Jason president and CEO on a three to one vote, with Jason recusing himself from the process.
Jason’s goal was to get to his office, check for any important emails then leave for the weekend. He paused at the sound of two men talking, their voices echoing over the cube walls in the otherwise deserted office.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with Jennings. The last diagnostics I ran were one hundred percent right on. But he made me run them again.”
“He did the same thing to me last week. It almost seems like he doesn’t want the long-range sensor to pass the QA testing protocol.”
“How’s it going guys?” Jason asked as he stepped into the aisle between the two technicians’ cubicles. “Couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”
The two men fell silent, each looking as if they were busted cheating on their final exam, until one of them spoke.
“Oh, hey Mr. Burke,” he said. “We didn’t think anybody was still around. It was just Friday night venting, you know, needing to blow off a little steam after a long week. It wasn’t meant to--”
“Dave,” Jason interrupted, noting his cube’s name placard. “First, my name’s Jason, not Mr. Burke. And I apologize for not knowing your name without cue cards,” he added, tapping the placard. “I’m new around here.”
Both men chuckled and seemed to be more at ease.
“Second, I respect every employee’s opinion, and would be disappointed if anyone didn’t feel they could speak openly about any issues hindering Jennco’s goal to be the best company in its industry.”
“Sorry Jason,” Dave said. “It’s been frustrating since Adam appointed Brent Jennings as his second in command, our QA testing has ground to a halt.”
“Yeah,” Phillip chimed in. “You think you’re doing a good job, and your boss tells you to go back and do it all over again.”
“Guys, I’m a lawyer, not an engineer. But if I’m sitting in a car’s back seat and there’s no one behind the wheel, I want to know the technology is one hundred percent reliable. And since Brent is new to the job, he’s just being careful.”
“Yeah, but we’re as close to a hundred percent as we can get,” D
ave added.
“Okay, I’ll have a talk with Adam, see if he can get Brent to pick things up.”
“But,” Phillip said, “you can’t mention our names, he’d be pissed if we’re second guessing his management style to his boss.”
“Not to worry, this conversation never happened. I’ll just ask him in passing whether Brent is doing a good job running QA and why the testing is taking longer than expected.”
“Thanks boss,” the two said in unison.
“Okay, but don’t you guys have better places to be on a Friday evening? It’s after six o’clock.”
“The company’s softball team has a game at seven thirty, so we’re just killing time before heading to the field.”
“Boy, when I played softball back in Minnesota, we went to the bar before our games. But I’m sure that explained our losing record.”
Both men laughed.
“We want to be on top of our game,” Dave said. “If we win, we’re first in the league going into the playoffs.”
“And we’re playing without our best power hitter, adding a little stress to the game,” Phillip added.
“Why isn’t he playing?”
“Well, the slow progress frustrated him, so he took our QA test results to the regulatory agency responsible for the autonomous vehicle market. An engineer on the agency’s staff reviewed our results and said they met or exceeded appropriate testing protocol in all aspects. But when Jennings found out, he fired him on the spot. He said sharing the test results violated his nondisclosure agreement.”
“Interesting,” Jason said, concerned this was the first he heard of it.
“Besides,” Phillip chimed in, attempting to change the subject. “I’m sure we’ll spend plenty of time in the bar after the game.”
“To celebrate a win, I hope,” Jason said. “Make Jennco proud. And if a bar tab submitted for reimbursement lands on my desk I’ll approve it, win or lose.”
Both men laughed as Jason left the R&D lab and returned to his office. He reviewed his emails and found nothing that couldn’t wait until Monday. As he logged off his computer, his office phone rang.