Balance of Power Shifted

by Karl, Victor

  We walked back in and took our seats. Gentlemen, Bill started calmly, we cannot accept you generous offer since we are already committed to a group of investors and do not appear to be currently lacking financially. We appreciate your coming out here and wish you a good trip back. At first, there was shock in their faces and then Mr. Energy got an angry look and started to try to insist that we take their offer. Bill and I continued to refuse it, which only irritated this person further. The next comments out of his mouth got my anger up when he overtly threatened us that they could put numerous roadblocks in front of us, maybe even leading to a loss of investors. I just looked Mr. Energy in the eyes and said, “The current administration and your boss are looking like buffoons in the press and public opinion with the skyrocketing energy costs and your lack of a credible long-term energy plan. Our energy platform will bail you out and you know it so I would be careful how I threaten people. Thank you for your time.” Bill volunteered to show them the door and the two were now showing concern on their faces as they faced the task of informing their bosses on their failure.

  A day later the President of the United States mentioned Efficio and Electricus as a “stunning technological development that could provide the renewable power that humanity has been looking for” at the tail end of his press conference. Well I thought, not much we can do about people hooking up their wagon to our wagon train.

  We had two breakthroughs late Monday regarding the California assault and the thwarted attempt on Fiona and me. It appears that the big dude, who most likely suffered a broken nose and knee damage, had a name. Jason Moorehouse, late of the Army Rangers was now working for a security protection company called Pinnacle Professionals that did jobs all over the world. Jeremy knew all about their CEO Colonel Maurice Armstrong. Armstrong had a reputation for taking on some of the dirtiest assignments in the industry without being too particular on how he got the job done. According to Jeremy, this was just a front and their main revenue producing service was supplying mercenaries and people to do corporate dirty work so that corporate employees did not have to. Clavis was still working on trying to figure out who the clients were, but were not optimistic. The Middle Eastern person picked up the other night was a Saudi national in the country legally. He did not give up much information but had slipped a bit and named another individual associated with the Saudi Arabian ministry responsible for their oil production. He swore that they just wanted to ask questions, which may have been true except there may have been some pain associated with getting the questions answered. We did not think the Saudi was part of the original crew that viciously attacked Julius.

  Later in the week, I joined a meeting on the third floor in the R&D lab. It was a crowded meeting as there were five Air Force technicians in the room reviewing design specs with Bill and Sean. Once the Air Force had determined what electric motors to use and total wattage of all the electronics on board, it was simple math to determine the Power Pad configuration. The design issues they were working through now were how to build the Power Pads to handle the rigors of high altitude flight and frigid temperatures. They seemed to have an answer for each question and it was just a matter of working out the details.

  The Air Force was trying to work through our current manufacturing vendors and in parallel, getting them certified with top-secret clearance. It was likely that additional technological requirements for the Air Force’s needs would be over the heads of the current manufacturing companies involved. While I was there, I signed a secrecy agreement Iris pushed my way. Steve was on loan to the Army for 2-weeks and was currently staying at a nearby Army base. We supplied the Army with two 50-gallon drums of Electricus and the specs we followed for the Hummer conversion.

  Sean saw me and said “Mike, do you have a few minutes for me to show you a new prototype?” “Sure,” I said, seeing new concepts has become one of my favorite activities. I walked with Sean to his office where he had large schematics taped to his white board. “Look at these,” he said pointing to the schematics. For the next 10 minutes, I reviewed each drawing in detail. “They look good Sean, the specs look very workable in fact the one design you have with the center console and a rigid clear floor over the Power Pad is genius. You know that as soon as you get one of those 24 foot cuddy cabin boats built, I’m going to want to be the test pilot for it.” “I want to build them over at the show room building,” Sean said. “The boat inboard motor model will need significant modification since we will be replacing the V8 single propeller with dual electric motors and dual propellers. We still haven’t worked out all the details on replacing the outboard on the center console model yet” Sean added. “Now that the bulk of the cars are gone, the space is all yours” I agreed. “Fantastic,” Sean energetically responded. It was clear to all that Sean has been a huge asset to Efficio since coming on board with his enthusiasm and innovation.

  While I am here Sean, you have the go ahead to extend an offer to those five R&D technicians. The sooner you have them on board the sooner we can free you and Steve up to start working with different manufacturers. With our company’s name dropped during the President’s press conference, we have been instantly legitimized and the phone is literally ringing off the hook. Many automobile manufacturers now want to see everything first hand. We have decided to have an impromptu workshop for all interested parties instead of a one- off scenario this Thursday and Friday. We will have it at the show room and focus primarily on the car component, but also paint a broad picture of how Electricus can extend into almost every area of our lives. Bill and I can handle this for the most part, but we will need you this Thursday afternoon to get into the deeper details if that is all right with you. “No problem Mike, these Air Force guys should be out of here early Wednesday.

  Everyone comes in here expecting some complex system and leave here astonished that what we offer is extremely simple and flexible. If you understand the concepts of basic electricity you got most of the battle won.” “Thanks Sean, I have to commend you on what a freaking fantastic job you are doing. Fiona thinks you are actually living in your office and never go home so she is concerned about you. I hope that the new help will let you have some semblance of a personal life. Thanks again,” I said. I gave him a hard fist bump and left the room.

  Chapter 19: Careful What You Wish For

  Bill had dumped the personnel meeting on me to handle so there I was with Kristen and Taylor going over our current and projected headcount. With financing secured, we had gone on a hiring spree and with those recently hired and with the open requests in front of us, it would bring the projected headcount to 65 employees. There was a new lawyer to help in contracts as well as a law clerk, two human resource staff to help Taylor, four finance and tax clerks to help with taxes, financing, expense reports and a slew of other things the need to happen for a company to run. Marketing picked up another head count and we now had an actual mailroom as well as a full time Help Desk for Fiona.

  The bulk of the hires were for R&D, and we had eight other new positions open to help secure contracts and licensing on a global level with one dedicated to the US military. Taylor and Kristen had worked out the numbers and had put together a decent benefits package with matching 401K plan. We were hedging our bets on a bonus program until we were actually making money, but wanted our employees to share a piece of the success so we put a future bonus plan together. We were doing fine for space now, but R&D had taken the entire third floor, which meant we would most likely exercise our option on the fourth floor soon in anticipation of even more growth. Our business plans expected our headcount to peak around 120 people that is unless we decided to do our own manufacturing, which was not in our current plans. Taylor threw out an interesting statistic that the average employee age was 29 years old.

  One open item on today’s agenda was a decision on a media management person or Public Relations Director. We have identified an immediate need to bring on somebody with experience dealing with the press on an international
level and monitoring our name in the press and on the Internet. We also wanted someone who was experienced in using social media tools. We had looked at 50 resumes and culled them down to five candidates who went through an initial phone screen with Taylor. For the next four hours, we interviewed all five candidates. The first 2 and the last candidate were out of here in 30 minutes as we all had the same impression that they weren’t team players and were a little too cocky.

  Jordan, our third interview came across as someone we would pay attention to if we heard him speaking and he previously worked for an impressive string of companies. Most of his experience was in the financial services area including regular interaction with a variety of government oversight groups. Our fourth interview, Gwen, had very similar qualities. Where she differed was her experience with Internet startups. She had the misfortune to team up with companies that ended up failing or acquired without retaining any employees. All interviews were joint interviews, where all three of us were in the same room asking a scripted set of questions. We were about halfway through the interview, when a price tag still attached to Gwen’s sport jacket slipped out from under her sleeve. Without skipping a beat, she continued to answer the current question while she calmly tucked the tag back up her sleeve.

  An hour later, we reviewed all candidates and agreed that Gwen was our choice. The others echoed my feeling that both candidates where even until the tag fell out of Gwen’s sleeve. The fact that she did not get flustered or even acknowledge that it had happened told us that she could handle her own under fire. Another good thing was that she was not currently working and could start next Monday. During her interview, she had brought up the fact that she was raising seven and 8-year old boys on her own since her husband died in Iraq a few years earlier. She had been donating time working with support groups of families with members killed in action. To me she appeared to be in her early thirties and had an uplifting personality that would make a great member of the team. Later I asked Kristen to follow up with Gwen once she was onboard and make our first donation to a charitable cause to the support group she worked with.

  Fiona had been anxiously waiting for Mike to be available all day, but the interviews had taken up his day, so when Fiona saw Mike in his office she zipped right in and sat down across from him. “Mike, we have a problem” she blurted. “This morning an alert sounded on my smartphone telling me that some anomalous traffic transmitting outbound from our network was detected. The data was being blocked and dropped in our Intrusion Prevention System before it hit our firewall. The logs pointed me to one of my own Help Desk staff.”

  Fiona could see she had Rico’s attention so she continued. I was able to remote into her workstation while she was out to lunch and saw that there were a number of malware tools installed on her workstation including keystroke loggers. One of the pieces of software I was familiar with, and it was used to crawl through networks to try to exploit any system or application it discovered and report back to command and control center. At first I thought it was simply malware that had somehow gotten through our controls, but I ended up determining that it had been loaded from a USB device.” “Well, have you removed the malware yet” Mike asked. “That’s not all Mike,” she added. We have 'data leakage protection' software loaded on all workstations that tracks where classified data goes and tracks the use of devices such as a USB port. After the malware was loaded, there were audit logs of certain files downloaded from various servers in our network to a mass storage device on her PC and reported by the DLP.”

  I walked by her workstation before she got back from lunch and did not see anything plugged in.” Mike was looking more concerned as I relayed my findings and said, “I assume the DLP logged what files were downloaded,” he stated rhetorically. “Have you had a chance to look at what they were?” he asked? Fiona felt a little sigh leave her before responding. “For the most part, the file permissions didn’t allow her access to anything important however; she was able to escalate her administrative privileges on one server, due to an oversight on my part and downloaded human resource files. These files listed all employees, their addresses and contact information that was to be part of a business continuity plan we had been working on.” Mike looked Fiona in the eye and said, “You know what you have to do. Grab Ty and let’s deal with this before the end of the day.”

  Fiona left Mike and went to the security area on the first floor looking for Ty. She found him in a training room with a new Clavis security person. “Ty, can I speak with you a moment she enquired?” Ty got up and asked her to follow him to his office where she relayed the same information just given to Mike. “Wow he said, good job catching all this stuff. “I’m pissed” Fiona replied, “She should not have been able to get anything.” “Where is she now?” he asked. “Still at her desk, but she’ll be gone in a half hour at 5 pm” she said. “My recommendation would be to get her in a room and try to squeeze her for information. If she is an amateur she might give us some information, however if she is a pro, she most likely will clam up. Regardless, we will inspect her belongings, which our policy allows for, and show her the door. To be honest with you, there is not much else we can do.” Okay Fiona agreed. “Come up at 4:45 and I’ll have her waiting in conference room C.”

  Fiona tried to remain calm as she approached Melanie’s desk and waited for about 15 seconds for her to finish what sounded like a Windows 2010 Excel issue. Melanie looked up after hanging up the phone, smiled at Fiona, and told her hello. Fiona nodded her head in reply and said. Melanie, can you come with me to the conference room for a quick meeting. You may want to grab your stuff so you do not have to come back afterwards since it is near five. Melanie had short look of concern, which seemed to fade, as a forced smile from my side seemed to reassure her. Both headed to the conference room, which was on the other side of the floor and sat down. Ty immediately followed them into the room, shut the door and sat on the same side of the table as Fiona so both were facing Melanie. Now Melanie started to get a concerned look on her face and started to clench and unclench her hands together. Fiona had not had a chance to form a relationship with Melanie since she had been here less than three weeks but had a lot of respect for her technical skills and decent phone presence. Melanie was not very attractive. She was about 5 foot 6, had a nose that was a little too broad and her tight curly hair seemed to have a mind of its own and never seemed uniform, but when she smiled she seemed like a different person as it really brightened up her face. Melanie was not smiling now and instead of moving to a more nervous manner actually started to stiffen up realizing it was over for her. In Fiona’s mind, this did not bode well for them and she was not hopeful useful information would be forth coming.

  Ty told her what they had found and asked her where the flash drive was. She denied everything and when he searched her purse, there was no flash drive found. Ty even inspected all kinds of items typically found in a purse since a flash drive could look like anything nowadays. Melanie was wearing a form fitting pair of dress slacks that would show if there was anything concealed and a simple blouse. Ty took a wild guess and asked her whom she gave the flash drive to during her lunch break. Melanie face let slip a guilty reaction, which she tried to hide, but too late. Ty looked at me at that point to take over the discussion. I told Melanie, “You are being fired for failure to follow company policies with corroborating evidence to be placed in your personnel file.” Ty, please escort her to the door and inform your staff that she is banned from Efficio property. “Screw you both” was Melanie’s disdainful response. “That’s alright Melanie,” Ty said with an ominous tone. “My company will make sure that we know everything about you, where you try to work next and will do everything in our power to make your life and the people’s life you work for miserable. You are now on our watch list.”

  Fiona thanked Ty and went to Taylor to tell him what happened and open a new requisition to hire a replacement. Fiona thought about our new-hire screening process, which included fin
gerprinting, and reference checks while walking downstairs to Taylor’s office. The only hole in the process was the reference check. Based on their procedure, they did not validate persons identified as a reference. Taylor was walking down the hall towards his office so Fiona stepped in pace with him and said, “I got something to tell you.” Walking in to his office, Fiona closed the door and filled him in on the latest events as well as her suspicion regarding the references. Well let’s see, Taylor said, and pulled up Melanie’s online file. Dialing the number given for the first reference, he got a disconnected message back from the automated operator. He quickly tried the remaining reference numbers and got the same message. Looking up he said, “We’ve been duped.” All the reference phone numbers are disconnected.

  Feeling even more pissed now, Fiona went back upstairs to make sure there was no hidden software on each system, which was a big job. Rico came by at 6:30 looking for her and ending up helping to check all our systems until about 7:30. “We were lucky” she said “to have caught her so quickly. The more I analyze what she did the more I realize she was very good. I had to re-image her PC since there were some encrypted files that I could not access to decode.” Rico had come over and was massaging her upper shoulders and she could feel some of the tension leave her. “Let’s get out of here,” she said standing up. “I am starving and I believe it is your turn to figure out dinner tonight.

  Early next morning there was a question posed to the entire management. Amy had been acting as our interim PR person and was literally being hounded by news programs, talk show producers, magazines and newspapers and even a couple of well-known universities for interviews and was trying to get us to focus on a strategy. It was a complex situation and mixed feelings abounded in the room. It was clear that there were pros and cons to any decision. My main concern was that we just did not have the staffing to address these issues and short term, Bill and I would have to expend our precious time dealing with it. Bill’s big concern was that we would add more pressure as the publicity would feed upon itself. Our original plan was to fly below the radar and selectively work with businesses and governments across the globe on introducing Electricus on a very controlled schedule, but that now seem to be an impossible dream as interest spiraled upwards every day. It was the tandem of Julius and Iris that put everything in perspective. Iris got up and said,