Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions (27 page)

“So. Here we are.” I clasped my hands together on the table and looked at the three of them. “What a fucking mess.” Mark audibly moaned again and I knew then that I wasn’t going to be able to count on him when the chips were down.

“Mark, are you okay?” I demanded.

He nodded. “I guess I’m just tired. Been putting in some long hours ever since Tommy passed.” He held up his hand. “But I’m okay. Really. Just gotta tough it out and look on the positive side.” There was a catch in his voice and I wondered if he was going to break down. This was not a good time for one of the executives to curl up in a fetal position under his desk.

“Good,” I told him in my cheeriest voice. “Right now we’ve got to do some
major
damage control.”

“First off,” I announced, “we need someone to take over R and D for the interim. That’s a lot of staff without a boss, and a few of the team leaders are pretty ineffectual, I’ve been finding out. So they’re rudderless. Any volunteers?”

I watched Sandra look pointedly at both Russ and Mark. “I’m in,” she told me. “Russ has enough to do with counting the beans, and Mark needs a nap.” Mark’s head snapped up at this snarky remark but I gave Sandra credit. “Besides, I know more about the R and D side of things.”

“Thanks,” I told her. “We need to sit down and figure out what we’re going to tell the staff. We probably need Steve’s help with that too. We should send something out to the staff at the same time as we let the press release go.”

“Russ, what are the numbers on this?”

“Not good,” he said. “The total loss of revenue will be close to $40 million. We’d already billed and been paid for about $60 million worth of work over the last couple of years. And that’s not counting the potential other work we could’ve got from Global.”

“Okay team. Let’s divide and conquer. There’s plenty of work to go around. And Mark.” He looked at me. “There’s no time for a nap.” This time his moan could be heard all around the room.

chapter thirty-seven

Carrie told me that Kelly Northland was waiting for me in my office and sure enough there he was, sitting ramrod straight in one of the guest chairs, with a stack of files on his lap.

“Let’s sit at the working table,” I said, “and you can show me what you’ve got.”

It was early in the day but I was feeling tired and familiar feelings of being overwhelmed hovered. I was determined to keep those feelings under control. Before joining Kelly at the large work table, I walked around my desk and shrugged off my suit jacket, hanging it on the back of my chair. I ignored an urge to light a cigarette and got focused on the job at hand.

“Okay, Kelly, sit rep,” I ordered. His eyebrows shot up at the familiar, military talk, and a little smile played on his stern face. My dad would demand a sit rep anytime he needed information on what was going on. Sit rep for situation report, gimme the details, don’t leave anything out, and make it quick.

“Your dad was military,” he said.

I looked at him, not sure if he was asking a question or stating a fact.

“Career infantry soldier,” Kelly continued. “Served with NATO in Germany and the U.N. in the Sinai. Finished up his career with the Airborne.” Kelly rattled off these facts easily and now my eyebrows shot up. I guess it would be easy to check my background and Kelly was proving that he was doing his job. So I nodded to let him know he had the correct facts on my father.

“I followed up on Natalie Scott’s move out of the office. Security cameras show that she moved out of here two nights ago,” Kelly said.

“Two nights ago, and all of this was on security cameras? Did anyone think to say something?”

“No ma’am. We don’t monitor what our cameras see. They’re only there to record what’s going on and if there’s an incident, we can play back the tapes. We’re only a tenant in this building, so we rely on the building landlord’s CCTV system, which is monitored. They have a security office on the second floor, where guards monitor the cameras. Their tapes say the same as ours. Two nights ago, around four in the morning. Natalie Scott is on tape, leaving our offices and going to the parking garage in the basement of this building. She made three trips, each time carrying a large banker’s box. Once she had those boxes loaded in her car, she left the building.”

“And security didn’t think this was unusual, someone making repeated trips to their car, loading it up with boxes?”

“Not at all, ma’am. Miss Scott was known to come and go at odd hours. Security didn’t think anything of it. You see, they would have done something if they knew she had left Phoenix. When someone leaves, whether they’re fired or they quit, we take away their access pass which gets them into the building and into our offices. And we let the building security know so they can keep an eye out. Miss Scott was not terminated and did not quit, as far as building security was concerned, so she had carte blanche to come and go as she pleased.”

“But those boxes contained company property,” I protested.

“That’s right, ma’am,” Kelly agreed with me. “But employees take company property out of the office everyday. Lots of them work at home or at client’s work sites. And, as far as I’m concerned, Natalie Scott is still an employee of the company. Isn’t she?”

Jesus Christ this was frustrating. Cleve had advised me at dinner last night to hold off doing anything about Natalie until more facts were known. He told me that I needed to talk to her and get her side of the story before I ran off, half-cocked. That’s why I ended up at her office this morning and why I was having this conversation with Kelly.

“Yes. She is.” I wanted to stamp my feet like an eight year old who wasn’t getting her way. I pushed back my chair from the table and fetched a cigarette from the bottom drawer of my desk.

As I smoked I stared at the traffic on the street below. Total gridlock. Typical at lunchtime in Manhattan as I was finding out. A sea of yellow cabs as far as I could see. I turned around and looked at Kelly who was still sitting, ramrod straight, at the work table.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to track Ms. Scott down at home and pay her a visit,” I said.

“I wouldn’t advise that ma’am.”

“And why not, Mr. Northland? She hasn’t returned any calls or emails. I think the next thing to do would be to go to her home and talk to her.”

“Like I said,” Kelly drawled, “not recommended. I don’t trust the woman. Allow me to try and contact her.”

“I’m quite capable you know Kelly.” He was being just a little patronizing in my view and this whole conversation was getting me no-where.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And stop calling me ma’am,” I demanded.

“Yes, ma’am,” he smiled. “I know you’re capable. But you’ve also been known to barge into situations and put yourself at risk. You’re damn lucky that bullet only grazed the top of your ear. And you’re damn
unlucky
to be living in a posh building right now that has an eighty year old man as its only security.”

Okay, so Kelly had done more that a little bit of background checking on me. He knew about my run-in with that demented pile of shit in Toronto who shot me. And somehow, he knew about the security set-up at Tommy’s, correct that,
my
apartment.

“What do you mean, the only security in my building is an eighty year old man?” I asked. “There’s got to be more than that.”

“Really? And after you got knocked out on one of your first visits to Mr. Connaught’s apartment, did the building management offer to check security tapes to see if anyone had accessed the service entrance? Did they say they could check their logs to see who was in and out of the building? If they had logs, they’d have known if your friendly neighbour, Natalie Scott, was at home when you got hit over the head. The security in that building is non-existent.”

Mr. Northland had been doing his homework and had not missed the fact that Natalie Scott lived in the same apartment building. But why was I only meeting him now? If Phoenix had security staff who were on the ball, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Maybe Tom Connaught would be sitting here, in his chair, at his desk, running his company.

“Where the hell have you been the last two weeks?” I demanded. “Were you going to point
any
of this out to me or just sit on your tight little Marine ass in your office downstairs?” My voice was raised by the time I finished.

“Ma’am, with all due respect,” he started but I cut him off.

“Don’t
ma’am
me,” I shouted. “I’m running around like a crazy woman, trying to find out what happened to Tommy, and you’ve got information that may be relevant and you’re sitting on it?”

Get a grip, Kate, I told myself. I butted my cigarette angrily in the ashtray on the windowsill, turned my back to Kelly and stared at my reflection in the window. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Deep breaths. Calming breaths. I have to stop losing my temper so easily, I thought.

I turned back around with my arms wrapped around myself and faced Kelly.

““Sorry,” I said. Kind of. “Sorry for yelling. But seriously, why haven’t you come forward before this?”

“With all due respect, Ms. Monahan, Mr. Connaught did not allow me to provide any sort of executive protection. He didn’t let us do any snooping on the industrial espionage side of things either. He never asked more of us than to do background checks on employees and make sure the technology was safe. In my view, he was pretty naive about some things. You don’t know why he was murdered, and the police have no clue either. I can’t help but think he got himself into a situation that could have been avoided, had he thought it through. If he had come to me, maybe I could have helped.” He paused. “With all due respect,
ma’am
, I’m not about to allow anything like that to happen again on my watch.”

Kelly Northland was a military man, through and through. Just like any good soldier, he reverted to his training, even when given certain latitudes. All women who ranked above him in a traditional and military sense, were to be addressed as “ma’am”. I was his superior in this situation and would henceforth and forevermore be known as ma’am. I’d have to live with it.

chapter thirty-eight

“So when were you going to come and talk to me?” I demanded.

“When I felt you were in danger, or when I had any news that I felt was important.”

When he felt I was in danger? What the fuck did that mean? How would he know if I was in danger? The only way he would know that I
hadn’t
been in danger was if he had been watching me. For the last two weeks. I pointed at the door to my office.

“Out,” I demanded. “Get out of my office. You’ve been following me and watching me. That not only creeps me out, it’s a little whacked.” Kelly stood up and headed for the door. My head was spinning and I was a little freaked out.

He quietly closed the door when he left and I knew what I had to do.

Mom wanted to chat but I was too distracted to fill her in on any news. I needed to talk to my dad.

When my father came on the phone I explained that I needed him to check into someone for me. Even though he was retired from the Canadian military, he was still connected and could make things happen.

“Kelly Northland. Says he was in the Marines, retired five years ago. Worked at their headquarters near the end of his career and then transferred to NCIS. He was a meathead.”

“Got it. You stand by and I’ll get back to you asap.” I loved the way he said that. Not A-S-A-P. A-sap.

“I don’t trust this guy dad,” I told him.

“Okay Kathleen. I understand. I’ll call my sources. Might take a couple of hours.”

A little tit for tat, I figured. The checkee is going to do a little checking on the checker.

“You sure everything’s okay there?” he asked. “What’s this all about anyway?”

“Dad, everything’s fine. Just make those calls, okay?” I made sure he had my office number before we hung up.

When Kelly had left my office, the files he had brought with him stayed behind. They were in a pile on my work table and while I waited for my lunch, I took a look. There was a file for Natalie Scott and each of her team leaders.

Papers were clipped to both sides of the files when you opened them up. On the left side was a copy of a form, several pages long. The form had the Phoenix logo on the top left side and the logo of INTELLI-Guide on the right side. INTELLI-Guide must be the company we used to carry out the background checks. On the right side of the file were copies of the employee’s offer letter, resume, letters of reference, and a couple had hand-written note summaries of reference checks carried out by telephone.

The INTELLI-Guide forms asked for employee information going back fifteen years for residential addresses, twenty years (if applicable) for employment history, all educational institutions attended (even if a degree or diploma was not granted), birth, death and marriage/divorce dates for all immediate relatives (mother, father, children, brothers, sisters, grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law). The form had more boxes on it than an income tax return and went on for pages.

I started reviewing the files of each of the R and D team leaders. Mr. Tight Ass Marine had piled them in alphabetical order so the first one I checked was Derek Hutton. I remembered him as the quiet one from that first, dreadful meeting with the R and D team. His file told me that he was four years older than me, he had been working at Phoenix for the last seven years, and he had
two
Masters degrees, one in computer science and one in biomedical engineering from the University of Arizona. Very impressive. Derek was married, had three children, and lived in Brooklyn. He had moved to New York four years ago from Phoenix, where he had worked for the company. The file said he joined the company right out of University.

Belinda Moffat’s file contained a lot of the same type of information, but just to up the ante in my catalogue of
impressive
, Belinda had a Ph.D in medical engineering from MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wow. She had worked for us for three years. Her father and mother were both deceased, she had twin sisters who were ten years younger than her, and three brothers, all older. I remembered her telling me about the twin sisters and how she was responsible for their care. Belinda lived in Queens.