“Well, at least one of you is glad to see me,” she said, finding the hall that led back to the office. Walking through almost made her glad she didn't have much money. Most of her father's inheritance had gone to her brother, and she hadn't made much as an executive assistant, even one who worked for a company as big as Valley Oil. She liked the place enough, but she thought she would go nuts living in it. It was too stale, too empty. And no place for kids, when you got right down to it. But aren't you getting a little old to think about kids, Kate?
She shook her head. What the hell was she thinking? If she had a place like this and didn't like it, she could always sell it and trade it in for something she did like. So yeah, almost glad she didn't own it was about right.
Kate found the door at the end of the hall and knocked.
A muffled voice: “Come in.”
She pushed the door open and entered her godfather's office. As always, it felt more cramped than it really was, in part due to the smells: shoe leather and papyrus and old man musk.
“Hello, Godfried. How was your trip?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Where's your escort?”
Straight to business, that one.
“I sent them away.”
“What?”
Kate stepped inside. “Come on, Godfried. I don't need bodyguards. You and I both know that.”
“I know no such thing.” He shuffled around the desk and gave her a hug. She noticed with some amusement that he was wearing a designer blue bathrobe that looked like it cost more than her dress. Godfried had never shared her father's views on fashion and frugality.
“You don't just send away a security detail, Katelyn. Are they outside? Are they watching?”
“Well, 'sent them away' might be a bit of a stretch. I sort of gave them the slip this afternoon.”
He stared at her, then broke into rattling, old-man laughter. “Gave them the slip? Whatever for?”
“I guess I needed to be alone for a while. It's not like they were looking too hard. I was back at the cemetery for the better part of an hour when you called.”
He shook his head and put one hand on his hip. “Christ Almighty, Katelyn, you are your father's daughter. Gave them the slip, indeed. How many young women do you think could have done that?”
“I don't know. Why don't you tell me?”
“All the wits of a CIA operative, and here you are still working as a secretary.”
“I'm not a secretary, I'm an—”
“Executive assistant, I know,” he finished.
“That's actually not true either now,” she said, looking at him slyly. “I got a new job.”
“Really? Where?”
“Same place. But I'm not an EA any more. I'm a media relations executive, and I have my own assistant. What? You're making fun of me now,” she said, noticing the glimmer in his eyes.
“Yes, I admit, I know all about it. And you've earned it. It doesn't look good to have the smart girl working for the dumb ones, does it?”
“Are you still going to harp on me for not moving up the corporate ladder fast enough?”
“Oh no. But you could have moved faster with my connections, if you weren't so stubborn to ignore them. All of that is meaningless now, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sit down, dear.” He shuffled back behind his desk and took a seat, watching as she grabbed the chair across from him. He smiled. It was a grandfatherly smile, but it was impossible for Godfried not to look crafty when he showed his teeth. He had too much Clint Eastwood in him.
“What's all this about, Godfried?”
The old man reached into a bowl on the side of his desk and took out a peanut. He cracked it in his gnarled hands and nodded. “Tell me what you think of Valley Oil, Katelyn. I'm not interested in the public relations nonsense, mind you. I just want to know what you think of us personally.”
She frowned. Godfried was one of her father's oldest friends, but he was also a significant shareholder. He was also on the board of directors. He had also given her a personal recommendation when more qualified candidates were spilling over the brim.
“I don't know. To tell you the truth, I never really thought about it. I love my job. I'm grateful for it. But the company itself? The most I could tell you is that I'm impressed by them, and that's the truth.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, they have the fourth largest market share of gasoline on the west coast, and they're still growing. They've got the best ad campaign of all the big oil companies right now. Their slogan is catchy,” she said, picturing the green and yellow outline of their stations, the words Drive through the green Valley printed above their pumps. She waited for Godfried to respond, and when he didn't, she picked up a peanut shell and threw it at him. He didn't return her smile this time.
“That's good, dear. Your loyalty is good. Because we have a problem now, and damned if I've ever heard of anything like it.”
“You're killing me,” she said, only half sarcastic. “If you need someone in public relations to—”
“This isn't about our image,” Godfried said. He was angry now, and she withdrew, surprised. “This is something serious, my dear. You'll be hearing the particulars soon enough, but it starts here, with this.” He withdrew a manila envelope out of his desk and passed it across to her. “He wanted you to have this.”
When she took the envelope, her hands were shaking. She didn't know why, but a darkness had descended upon the room. She could feel it in the envelope's weight, in the intensity of her godfather's stare.
She unhinged the clasp, and the contents spilled to the floor. Could there be a letter from him? The news of some scandal, or some heart-felt confession about the company? It turned out to be neither.
“Pictures,” she whispered.
“Satellite images, photographs, blueprints. Do you know what they're from?”
“They're from Aeschylus.”
The Aeschylus Platform had been one of the largest public relations pitches handled by Kate's department in the past two years. She had only been an EA when the campaign was heating up, but information about the project had percolated through the office months in advance. Deep in the south Atlantic, the two-point-two billion dollar platform was Valley Oil's crowning jewel, an engineering marvel made possible by VO's acquisition of several sub-sea drilling companies in the preceding decade. At the time, its construction was a large financial gamble, but The Aeschylus, as well as several smaller platforms to the north, were supposed to escalate VO's yield by three hundred thousand barrels per day. The real problem, however, was that VO had to go to extreme lengths to satisfy the Protocol on Environmental Protection for Antarctica since they were located only a few hundred miles north of solid land. In many respects, the real audience of the marketing campaign had not been the general public, who cared as little about where their oil came from as the cows on their dinner plates, but the U.N. And the U.N. was not a force that could be lobbied, greased, or otherwise moved in the way other businesses could. In the end, Argentina, who would receive a huge economic boost through sub-contracted labor on the platform's construction, helped win international approval, but it took months.
“Have you seen these?” she asked.
“No, but, after hearing the news from my contacts this evening, I'm not surprised.”
“What news? What are you talking about, Godfried?”
“All communication from the platform has ceased. They suspect some kind of terrorist attack, something like that. I don't know the details.”