Balance of Power Shifted (20 page)

The next week was quiet, but then odd things began to happen.  Bill’s parents received a couple of mysterious phone calls asking of Bill Bates lived there.  When they responded that he did not live there anymore they questioned his parents for contact information
, which thankfully his parents declined and asked them to leave a number he could call back.  At that point, the callers just hung up.  A couple of days later the switchboard routed some calls to Julius and each asked what type of business Efficio was involved with.  When Julius asked who was calling, they also hung up.  We got the sense that probing was going on, but we did not think an association of us to the video had yet occurred.  It was apparent that someone was systematically going through public records.

Towards the end of the
week, I headed over to our newest facility.  I am not sure the word warehouse was applicable in the description. Yes, it was a large one story open facility, but at one time it must have been some kind of retail store or showroom and had large part of the building outfitted with high quality tile flooring.  There were a series of Cherry wood partitions breaking up the space and a very expensive lighting system.  About a third of the building was designed as an actual warehouse with a shelving system.  Wow, this was going to be a great showcase for the company, I thought as I investigated other areas of the building.

Fiona was sitting in the
building’s only office and was speaking on the phone to Bill when I walked in.  The conversation was wrapping up, but the gist of what I heard sounded like the Electricus vehicles from California should be arriving any minute.  After hanging up the phone, Fiona said, “great timing, Sean is out looking for equipment such as work benches and tools for this place and the trucks should be driving up any second with our cars and supplies.”  “What do you mean trucks?  I thought we were getting a car carrier?”  “No go on the carrier.  Bill could not schedule one for two weeks so he got two moving trucks and loaded them up.”  “Smart,” I said.  “Well guess what,” Fiona continued.  I just shrugged and waited for her to continue.  “Bill had Steve email me instructions on how to drive the cars so we can drive them off the back of the truck at our loading dock.”  To emphasize her news, she handed me a 10-page document with pictures and illustrations.  “I suggest we make this a quick study.”  As she was telling me this, I was awe struck by her take-charge attitude and gorgeous countenance.  As she was finishing her last words, I slipped an arm around her and used my lips to stop her talking.  You are beautiful when you bossy you know, I slipped in between kisses and a little improvised tongue action on her part.  Things were heating up, and I am not sure how far it would have gone in the privacy of that office, but the sound of trucks driving up put a quick end to it.

We hustled back to the
two bay loading dock and each of us opened out own bay door.  We directed the trucks into position, flush with the dock bumpers, and waited for the drivers.  Of course, I left the directions for driving the cars in the office and hustled back to retrieve them. Luckily, Fiona had printed two copies and we each furiously reviewed the materials to be able to drive the vehicles out of the truck.  I happened to have the Hummer and one of the Camry’s in my truck while she had two additional Camry cars.  I jumped into the Camry, which was in the rear of the truck and matched the diagrams with the controls.  The directions looked straightforward and the cars used standard off the shelf components from the conversion market. Everything looked professionally done and not some garage hack job.  Except for some initial surprise at the sensitivity of the throttle pedal, I gently navigated the Camry out of the truck in only a couple of minutes.  I decided not to ask Fiona if she needed help since she would probably not take it well and went to tackle the Hummer.  I was surprised that the Hummer controls had changed since I last saw it and were now identical to the Camry.

Fiona stared at the manual a few more minute
s before getting up the courage to engage the drive of the car and goose the throttle.  The car shot backwards in silent acceleration, quickly forcing her to hit the brakes resulting in a loud tire squeal.  Correcting for the sensitivity, she eased the throttle softly and the car silently glided out of the truck.  This is sweet she thought to herself and looked forward to putting some license plates on the car and test driving these bad boys.  With no trouble at all, she backed the other Camry out and instead of parking it in the loading dock; she navigated it to the showroom and parked it parallel to one of the wood partitions directly under the strategically positioned spotlights.  An idea came to her while she was getting out of the car and was glad to see that the double doors on the side of the showroom were wide enough to drive a car between them.  It sure beat carrying it off the loading dock…

After signing the documentation
from the truckers, I locked up the loading dock area and went to find Fiona.  I saw her talking to someone who looked vaguely familiar from behind and as I walked up, I realized it was our friend Ty from Clavis.  We gave each other the obligatory fist pump and Ty then apologized for not announcing that he was coming.  As part of his unannounced visit, he performed a security spot check of our office site and used some social engineering tricks to try and gain access to the facility posing as a UPS delivery person, complete with a uniform bought at a thrift store and a couple of dummy packages.  Part of his exercise included dumpster diving, which in his words were ‘clean’.  He was still dressed in UPS browns complete with summer issue shorts.  While at the other site, he introduced himself to Iris who mentioned we were at our new showroom facility and he rushed over to catch me here since Clavis had not heard about this site.  I then introduced Ty to Fiona and informed him she was our Chief Information Officer.  He was noticeably trying to impress her with his manly charms so I off handedly added, “and my better half.”  It took about 3 seconds for that last comment to sink in and caused him a second of pause before he responded with some disappointment showing saying that I was a lucky bastard.  I pointed to Ty and told Fiona she should get Ty on the mats and see if he can keep up with you.  Ty was one of the gang who got together regularly, trained, and sparred together.  I have to warn you Ty, that Fiona knows more about MMA than I ever will and she can hurt you.

We spent the next half hour
walking Ty around the place and explained what our intention was for this site.  After we were finished, Ty said, with a very serious look and tone, “this site is going to need its own security protocol.  With your intellectual property embedded in these vehicles as well as in the spare Power Pad and Panel inventory, it is extremely important to put a 24-hour guard presence here.  An armed service will be required with active patrols, 24-hour camera surveillance with the feed sent back to the main Efficio office where 24-hour guards will monitor.”  Fiona and I shook our heads in the affirmative together and I just gave Ty the approval to put something together ASAP.  Looking at my watch, I asked Ty to join Fiona and me for dinner and added for Ty, “We have had some recent developments that we want to catch you up on regarding a certain YouTube video.”

We ended up at a local family style Italian Restaurant that had quickly become one of my favorite
s with authentic Italian cuisine and heaping portions of delicious food.  They also had a wine list, which to my unpracticed palette, was excellent.  I think Fiona was trying to refine me a bit and was pushing me towards wine instead of a beer.  At first, I resisted slightly, but have come to appreciate wine and thoroughly enjoy it.  While munching on shrimp parmesan over al dente linguine, we filled in Ty on the YouTube fiasco and fallout of strange phone calls and online posts.  Ty asked for some dates and other specific details and asked if I could send him the information we had compiled to date, so Clavis could look into it further.  He added, “You will start seeing people at your main site, since the pattern is a standard approach to gain intelligence about a company for whatever purpose.  It could also be as simple as a reporter trying to get a story.” 

While
he was talking his Blackberry buzzed and he looked at the message and said with a smile, “Guess what, you are going to be stuck with me for a while.  I am going to quickly, and personally put together your additional security needs.  Jeremy is very concerned about your showroom and wants that secured right away and I have not even updated him on the video yet.”  He leaned in close to both of us and said, for disclosure purposes, I carry a concealed firearm.  His revelation got us curious and for the rest of the dinner we wondered where he carried it.

The next morning
, I asked Fiona what she had on her schedule as we got in the car to go to work.  “I have to go by the showroom and work with Sean on some items and we were going to familiarize ourselves with the vehicles.”  “Perfect” I said, “Because I have the tags and registration to put on the cars.  Bill provided me with the VIN numbers, I was able to register them at the DMV, and the vanity plates came in yesterday.”  “What did you put on the plates?” Fiona asked.  “E-POWER, for the Hummer and E-POWER one through three for the Camrys,” I explained.  We got to the showroom and Sean was already fawning over the new additions.  I yelled out for Sean that we had a surprise for him and asked if he had a screwdriver handy.  I had thought ahead and brought stainless steel mounting hardware along.  We were able to put all the plates on in about 20 minutes and decided to keep the registration and insurance forms locked up in the office unless a vehicle was going onto the road.  I had to lie a bit to the DMV that the cars were still gas powered since I did not want to face any unnecessary questions.  We still had to get the vehicles inspected and were concerned because these unique vehicles would have caused quite a stir on the inspection line.  Grabbing the documentation for E POWER1, I took hold of Fiona’s hand and asked if she wanted to drive first.  “I’m not ready to drive one of those yet and I’m not sure I want to get in the same vehicle with you if you haven’t got some test time on it.”  “Oh come and live on the wild side,” I said and with only minor resistance, she jumped into the passenger seat.  Sean opened the double doors for us, jumped into the back seat and we drove out into the parking lot where I played around with forward and reverse until comfortable.

While I was
driving, I had Fiona call the main office and ask if Taylor could notify everyone in the building to assemble in front of the lobby doors in 5 minutes.  I had to kill a few minutes so we drove around in a large circle, was able to push the speed limit a bit to 50 miles per hour.  The car performed flawlessly and the controls were easy to use and responsive.  I made a mental note to write up an ‘all users email’ and give Steve and Bill a huge Atta boy!  When 5 minutes were about up, we pointed our way to Maple Street and drove up to the dozen or so employees out front, all who started to cheer when they saw the license plate and figured out what we were driving.   For the next half hour, we let everyone crawl all over the car.  Fiona, Sean and I answered a slew of questions.  It was really starting out as a great day for Efficio until I saw a dark blue sedan parked at the edge of our parking lot entrance with a large camera lens sticking out of the window.  Not wanting to alarm anyone, I motioned for Ty who was part of the activities and whispered that there was someone taking pictures.  It was amazing to watch Ty’s whole demeanor change.  Without any obvious movement, he faded out of the crowd and into the building.  About 60 seconds later I caught some slight movement in the trees to the right side of the building and in another 60 seconds the sedan quickly squealed away and then I saw Ty calmly writing down something.  No one else caught on to what had just happened and when Ty rejoined the crowd, I asked if he could meet us back at the showroom to talk about our mysterious visitor.  He agreed and cautioned me to not go directly to the showroom, but take a longer route and make sure there was no one tailing us.  I filled in Fiona on the way and she helped keep an eye open for anyone following us.  I was sure by the time we headed to the showroom that all was clear.

Sean stayed at the main office to continue to answer questions so it was only Fiona and I when we got to the showroom. 
“Fiona,” I said, “we need to be extra vigilant from here on.  Let me know where you are going when we’re not together or without other team members.”  “Aww” Fiona said grabbing my arm, “you really care about me” she chided, but then added, “The same goes for you Dufus.  I will need to know your whereabouts’ to make sure nothing has happened to you.”  “Agreed,” I said.  We waited until Ty entered and then headed for the office to talk.  Ty started and said “Martin Schiner.”  “Who is Martin Schiner?” we asked at the same time.  “Our Mister Shiner is an independent reporter that specializes in following up on videos that go viral on the Internet.  He usually wraps some fluff around the video based on interviews and viewer reactions.  Media outlets regularly pick up his stories, but the more sensational the video; the more outlets will pick it up including some of the major networks.  He most likely has been the anonymous caller asking questions however, we can’t rule out that other agendas may be in play.  Just and FYI, Martin is a resident of New York City and we may see him again.”

“
Ty, I’m amazed at how quickly you identified him, you must have good contacts to have run those plates so quickly.  I suspect that if he puts together an article it will have enough information in it to expose our company completely and open us up to a swarm of interested parties banging on our door.”  “Mike, I think you hit it precisely.  We need to quickly ramp up the security schedule and I recommend that you call a meeting with all the staff and update them on the situation.  An informed employee may be our best defense!”  “I’ll head back to the office, call Bill, and put a strategy together,” I said while getting up to leave.