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
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.