by Leslie Wolfe
A loud noise disrupted her concentrated efforts. Someone was unlocking the bunker. She froze. The door opened wide, letting the sun in and blinding her for a second.
"There you are. Come on, let's go!"
Alex recognized the familiar voice. Louie grabbed her arm and pulled her up on her feet.
"You? What are you doing here?" Alex asked.
"You're welcome," Louie answered.
A drone was buzzing in the distance, barely visible.
"You need to trust me on this. I'll explain later," Louie said, taking off his jacket and putting it on her head. "Look down, so you see where you're stepping, but keep this on your head until I tell you it's OK to take it off, all right?"
"Uh-uh," she agreed, without knowing why.
He continued to guide her at an accelerated pace, almost running, holding her shoulders in a tight, supportive grip.
"Where are we going? Aren't we taking the car?"
"Too late for that," Louie responded, leading her in the opposite direction from where both their cars were. The drone was seconds away.
"Why is it coming for us?"
"Long story, but I promise I'll share," he said, running faster now.
She could barely keep up with his pace, but he wasn't letting her slow them down. The jacket she was wearing on her head was disorienting and causing her to be a little dizzy.
They reached a small ridge in the terrain and Louie crouched behind that ridge, dragging her down with him. She landed hard on her knees and cried in pain.
"Sorry," Louie said. "You can peek at the bunker now, but keep that jacket on your head."
The drone was heading for the bunker, flying at a moderate speed and a low altitude. It launched a missile, which whooshed loudly for a few seconds, before hitting its target. It was a direct hit on Alex's car, a deafening explosion that resounded in her stomach and chest, making her feel like she'd been pummeled by a huge fist. The explosion threw balls of fire in the air, engulfed in black clouds of smoke.
"They're not very precise, these drones," Alex said bitterly.
"Quite the opposite," Louie said. "Your car was the intended target, not the bunker. I knew that, you obviously didn't. I'll explain in a little while. The problem we have now is that, despite the fact that I knew your car was going to be targeted, I parked mine right next to it. Very smart . . .” he said sarcastically, “so, now we're pedestrians."
"How did you know I was here?"
"Bob called me, the minute you stepped out of the office."
Alex looked at him, surprised.
"I knew you were in some kind of trouble, and that coming anywhere near flying drones would probably not be good for your health. Let's go," he said, suddenly worried. He pulled her to her feet and started walking toward the plant building, barely visible on the horizon line. A faint, choppy noise, approaching overhead from a distance, made their attention go toward the northwest.
"What's that?" Alex asked. "Another drone?"
"Nope. Choppers," Louie said, squinting to distinguish markings. "Unmarked, heavily armed, two of them."
They stopped, not knowing whether to run from them or to them. There was no place to hide anyway. The helicopters landed just a hundred feet away from them, in a cloud of thick dust that darkened the sun.
A man jumped from the first chopper.
"Alex?" Steve's voice was loud enough to be heard over the roar of the chopper engines.
Alex threw the jacket off her head and ran to him. In seconds, she was in his arms, holding back tears.
"It's OK," he said, hugging her and kissing her hair, "it's over, we're here.
"Are you Tom?" Louie said, approaching Tom, as he was jumping from the second helicopter.
"Yes, I am." They shook hands. "Louie, I presume?"
"Yes, sir," Louie answered, smiling.
Alex pulled herself back to reality.
"And how exactly do you two know each other?"
"Well, minutes before we received your distress call," Tom explained, "I received an email, saying that if the name of Alex Hoffmann meant anything to me, I should know that you were in serious trouble, probably somewhere at the plant. The email also said that pictures of you and your car had been loaded into the drone targeting system."
"Pictures of my car? And of me?" Alex asked in disbelief.
"Yes," Louie answered. "That's why I put the jacket over you, hiding you from the drone when it was flying out there. That's why I had Bob keep an eye on you."
"How did you get Tom's email address?" Alex asked.
"Remember when I installed your printers?"
Alex groaned. "I knew it . . ."
"You had his email address configured on a separate email account, that was not company installed. That got my attention, I looked around some more, and I realized that the computer itself was not company issue either, although it looked just like one. Then I wrote his email down, just in case." Louie had the same childish, innocent smile he was wearing whenever he would admit to doing something not exactly by the book.
"You are one mean hacker, you know that?" Alex said, smiling back at him. "And who are these guys?" she asked, pointing at the armed men surrounding them.
"They're feds," Tom said. "We don't exactly have armed helicopters of our own at The Agency," he said, smiling. "I needed their help, to get here fast, and to be able to shoot down a few of these drones, if needed."
"The getting here fast part didn't exactly work," Alex said. "It's almost seven!"
"True, but at least we came this time," Tom said, and winked. "Let's get going. We need to decide how to wrap up this mess. Plus, Dr. Barnaby is coming tomorrow at 9:00AM for the final report, which is yet to be written. We've got work to do."
...81
...Thursday, July 15, 10:29PM
...The Agency HQ—Corporate Park Building—Third Floor
...Irvine, California
To: Dr. Anthony Barnaby, President and CEO, NanoLance Inc.
From: Alex Hoffmann and Team, The Agency.
Re: Findings and Recommendations—Final Report, Case #516
Dr. Barnaby:
In response to your request to investigate certain issues occurring at NanoLance, as formulated in our meeting that took place on May 3 of this year, we are hereby filing our findings and recommendations.
The four primary issues brought to our attention on May 3 were as follows:
1. An anonymous note, received by you at the company Christmas party last year, containing the following message: Please stop this insanity or more people will die.
2. Unexplained stock price fluctuations, synchronized with your announced intentions to sell your stock.
3. Low employee engagement scores, with little additional feedback.
4. Potentially related drone incident taking place overseas, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, leading to loss of lives in a friendly fire incident.
Section A—Findings
The Agency approached this case by deploying Alex Hoffmann, on site, as a newly hired director of infrastructure and support. I am presenting below the leadership profiles of all the members of NanoLance's senior leadership team. Their roles in the issues listed above are complex and interlaced.
► Benjamin Walker, Chief Operating Officer
Walker is the typical toxic leader, an aggressive and abusive bully, displaying sadistic behavior on numerous occasions. He thrives on publicly humiliating employees, demoralizing and intimidating them into obedience. He pushes them into taking fear-driven actions that are against their better judgments or against any common business sense. However, he doesn't hesitate to hold them accountable for his actions, when the results are bad.
It is my finding that Walker, by applying unnecessary pressures on the employees, pressures that deserve to be called psychological torture, has led to overall decreases in product quality. Walker has repeatedly requested his teams to drive down costs by significant percentages. This request, unaligned with the overall company
priorities and unjustified by the company's financial health, was a self-serving goal that will be explained later. While all companies should be cost conscious and should maintain good controls to ensure that costs are contained, Walker has set the cost-cutting goals at unachievable levels, driving product quality down and stifling innovation.
► Dustin Sheppard, Chief Technology Officer
Sheppard has a hatred for the human race that can't be compared to anything I have ever seen. His deep contempt for people is revealed through every word he speaks and every action he takes. Just this trait should disqualify Sheppard from managing in any people-leading roles.
He is not open to any feedback from his employees and doesn't set clear goals, preferring to maintain a generalized state of anxiety in the employees. His team members are second-guessing themselves in a constant attempt to figure out what he really wants so they can offer it to him. Besides being totally non-constructive, his dictatorial and discourteous attitude prevents people from seeking his support. Therefore, as a leader, Sheppard is highly dysfunctional.
► Angela Prescott, Vice President, Human Resources
Prescott is a charismatic figure, mostly displaying political correctness. In her role as an HR leader, she should have brought to the attention of the CEO all issues concerning the well-being of the organization and its employees, such as Walker's continued abuse. She has not fulfilled this role, preferring a defensive stance in which she simply "plays along." This defensive stance could be motivated by the personal, intimate relationship she has with Walker. Nevertheless, Prescott failed in her role. More details will follow on Prescott's involvement in this complex case.
► Chandler Griffiths, Chief Sales Officer
Griffiths is a highly professional and effective leader and raised no concerns during this investigation. He is respected by his employees and is supportive of his team.
► Audrey Kramer, Chief Financial Officer
In the case of Kramer, we will summarize the findings and recommendations a little later in this report. The main issue concerning Kramer doesn't involve her leadership abilities.
Going back to the list of issues brought to our attention, here are our findings:
1. The anonymous note
We have identified the author of the note as Janet Templeton, director of manufacturing quality. During my conversation with her, she had expressed concerns regarding the loss in product quality. It was her finding that these losses in quality were being driven by cost-cutting initiatives that were both unrealistic and unachievable.
Unfortunately, Janet was killed in a car crash, under suspicious circumstances. A contact at the San Diego Police Department has been notified and the case will remain open into the investigation about her death.
I have attached a chart that Janet created that examines quality rates over a period of time. The chart identifies events that triggered, in her well-documented opinion, these quality rates to decline. The correlation is obvious, linking cost pressures with declining product quality.
It is my belief that, due to the strong correlation between the two, reversing the current trend will be easily achievable in a timely manner.
The Agency team couldn't identify with any precision which deaths Janet was referring to in her note. Since she wrote the note in December, it could not have been related to the Kandahar incident in April. Last year, few drone-related casualties were reported, no friendly fire incidents, and no incidents took place on US soil either.
The only potential death we could presumably link to Janet's note is the death of Sebastian Williams, former director of operational effectiveness at the Alpine plant. Williams died of a heart attack in October of last year. He was one of the most vocal opponents of the cost-driven actions and employee reductions at the plant. His cardiologist has confirmed for us that Williams had been complaining of stress-related chest pains and blood pressure, and that he had indicated the work environment as being the source of his elevated stress.
2. The unexplained stock price fluctuations.
We have uncovered the fact that four of the five senior leaders at NanoLance were planning to gain control over the company by acquiring the stock that you would be selling in preparation for your retirement. These leaders are Walker, Sheppard, Prescott, and Kramer.
There is nothing wrong with this intention by itself. However, to allow them to obtain control of more than 50 percent of the outstanding shares, the four needed to come up with a considerable amount of cash, which they don't currently possess. The following actions were taken to address their shortage of cash:
Significant padding of specific, hard-to-trace expenses. Kramer was the orchestrator of this action, setting up overpaid contracts with offshore providers, for services that are hard to quantify and trace, such as outsourced research and development, software architecture, design and development, application testing, etc. This strategy maintained the company's profit margins at relatively low levels, thus keeping the stock price under control. This strategy also led to the accumulation of significant amounts of cash, in various offshore accounts, with the intention to provide the group with the liquidity needed to purchase the stock. Kramer is on tape admitting to this entire scheme, while holding me at gunpoint and setting me up to be killed by a drone, on the Alpine test field, on July 15. The FBI has stepped in to ensure the accounts are frozen and the funds are seized and returned.
Deliberate leaks to the press, placing the company under unfavorable light, with the intention of driving down the stock price. Walker put pressure on Prescott to "get him something worth reading in the press." While this in itself is inconclusive, we have Prescott's cell phone records, showing she twice dialed a News of the Hour direct phone number. These calls took place on days before major releases of reports that were highly damaging to the company's reputation and stock price.
These two separate, yet concerted, sets of actions were carefully timed to maximize the damage. They are responsible for the stock price losing almost 50 percent of its value. The size of the financial loss due to the oversized expenses is yet to be determined, as it would require your permission and guidance on how to investigate, report, and correct this issue. Recovering the offshore cash deposits could potentially pose additional challenges.
3. Low employee engagement scores.
Considering the depth of the damage uncovered with respect to the other issues, it is my strong belief that by replacing the ineffective or corrupt leaders, and by properly communicating the change and its reasons to the broader organization, the employee engagement will be restored. A key point in regaining employee trust would be to recognize the process failures and to set strategies to correct these failures, while giving assurances regarding the future. Clear, honest communication is essential.
4. Potentially related drone incident in Kandahar.
The drone that opened fire on a Canadian patrol in Kandahar last April was a NanoLance drone. However, findings indicate that there is no company liability in this case. The preliminary investigation into the incident has determined that the drone operators were at fault. A US Air Force liaison was able to secure some details about the events of that day. Allegedly, the two operators of the Kandahar drone were aware that the drone had the self-guidance module installed for testing purposes. They were flying the drone over a lengthy distance, from one base to another.
During this commute, no actions were required on their part, other than keeping the drone on course, speed, and altitude. They decided, on their own, to switch on the self-guidance software for a while, without any authorization, and go outside for a smoke. Being unaccustomed with operating the self-guidance module of the drone, they failed to put the safety measures in place, specifically those designed to keep the drone from launching missiles at unconfirmed targets, or to open fire on its own. Therefore, it can be concluded that NanoLance had no responsibility in the Kandahar incident.
However, the subsequent incident that took place in Florida
can be blamed on intermittent defects preventing the drone from being under the control of its operators. During this separate investigation, we have learned that these operators also would engage in short, self-guided flights with their drones, lacking proper authorization. However, this was not the case on the day of the Florida incident. The Florida drone came in and out of control with the ground operators, despite their desperate attempts to control it, causing its flight path to be unpredictable, and the consequences to be dire.
This reported behavior is consistent with the lower-grade circuit boards found at the plant. Lower quality circuit boards can lead to intermittent defects, and this drone appeared to have been equipped with a faulty circuit board affecting its navigation and / or communications module(s). The US Air Force is yet to release complete official findings in this case.
Section B—Recommendations
1. Staffing
I would highly recommend the immediate termination of the following personnel:
Benjamin Walker, COO
Future investigations will be conducted by the authorities regarding Walker's involvement into criminal activities. An indictment is highly likely, in case he is found responsible for instigating Prescott into leaking damaging information to the press. He is also under investigation for a series of SEC violations.
His replacement could well be John Dunwood, vice president of manufacturing. Dunwood is a well-respected and dedicated man with great operational experience, a passion for his work, and consideration for his employees. His moral compass is unaffected by his tenure as a direct report of Walker's. He has my full endorsement for the role of COO.