Chapter 24
Sunday was uneventful. Alder’s attempt to question his daughter more thoroughly about why she decided to draw angels on the previous day yielded only simple “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” responses. Michelle was more interested in playing with her dolls and toys than wanting to answer her daddy’s questions. On Monday, the only thing Alder could think of while driving into work was whether he should attempt to pursue additional information about Aurora. The name had become prominent over the weekend, and it was something he couldn't ignore.
Alder mulled over ways to just discount his curiosity. The more he tried to dismiss the name, the more it came to the forefront of his thoughts. Branson came to mind first as someone who could possibly yield some insight, or maybe someone in his department. Alder knew if he framed the question correctly, his attempts to bring up Aurora during the normal course of business wouldn’t seem out of place but merely be seen as trying to locate information to carry out the duties of his job. Alder and his staff had meetings and discussions with different sections in the division to discuss expenditures, cost overruns, and budget issues. After some consideration, however, there wasn’t a reason to communicate with the marketing department on the specifics of projects. Most of his work centered on the production and operations processes within R & D. Another peer would normally deal with operations affecting the marketing section, so there was no real way to try and directly inquire for information.
Normally, getting to work half an hour early paid off, a large number of empty parking spaces would be available near the front door. The morning rush wouldn’t have arrived and many of the midnight shift employees would be herding out to head home. Alder observed the stream of cars leaving the company campus while he drove onto the expansive parking lot. Today it dawned on him that after being promoted to his new position, he was still relegated to hunting for a parking spot. He hadn’t been assigned a director-level parking space in the executive lot. Then he remembered Sheila was the one responsible for assigning executive parking spaces. Alder felt slighted, another battle to look forward to with her.
Pulling into a parking slot only four rows back from the main entrance to the administrative building, Alder couldn’t believe his luck in seeing Branson getting out of his car only a couple of spaces over. The lingering smells of sterile equipment manufacturing from the production facilities on the campus breezed through the vents of the car after he shut off the engine.
“Hey Branson,” Alder called out, while exiting his car and greeting his coworker with a sincere smile. “How was your weekend?”
Branson returned the smile. “Pretty good. Yours?”
“If you don’t count weird, not bad,” Alder responded, heading over to shake Branson’s hand while they both strolled toward the entrance to the main building.
“Whadaya mean weird?”
“Remember I planned to go and visit Stephen over the weekend?”
“Yeah, you go?”
“I did.”
“How's he doing?”
“He's doing fine but still having a bit of a hard time trying to adjust. While I was there, three Church representatives were questioning Stephen about what happened, and you know what, they knew something about one of our projects, Aurora, and something about Mexico.”
Branson stopped walking, his eyes widened. “Alder, you do realize Aurora had its genesis in Mexico when an older subsidiary held by the group was active about ten years ago? Remember what we talked a bit about Friday? And from what I understand, something major is brewing with the project.”
“So what the hell is this Aurora project? And why would those three from the Church be interested in it?”
“That project is extremely sensitive. No one here on our side of corporate knows too much about it. The only one I could think of who’d know more would be your boss. And to hear someone from outside the company is interested in it, I’m thinking maybe you should tell someone.”
“You’re probably right, I should tell Gary. He’d be interested in hearing about this,” Alder lied. He was already uncomfortable signing paperwork without being able to scrutinize it with a lawyer. He didn’t even want to bring up the coincidental circumstances of his daughter spelling out the project name and complicate the situation. Why would Gary believe him? Now Alder was even more curious about the project. He wanted to put an actual project against the paperwork and satisfy his curiosity, a project with enigmatic underpinnings.
Alder and Branson veered off to their respective offices, with Alder settling in and deciding to head down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. He didn’t find his marketing counterpart. When he arrived at his office, he could instantly see the effects of Sheila being at work. Several new folders arrived on his desk during the short time he was gone. Grabbing a couple of the smaller packets, he scanned through the paperwork, initialed it, and then headed down to Gary’s office hoping to collect some information, albeit it would need to be clandestine.
Sheila was amazed to see Alder returning completed folders. Usually he found ways to procrastinate or hold off heading to her desk, especially with the project folders. The custom had been for her to come to his office, coax him to initial or sign the paperwork where identified, then retrieve the folders from him, barely leaving time for an adequate review. Although she was Gary’s administrative assistant, she sometimes exerted herself as if she were the executive vice-president incessantly passing off paperwork to Alder.
Contending with her ego, being swamped in a tsunami of paperwork added to his frustrations. Typically, Alder couldn’t dedicate the time he would like to work with his managers. They all considered him to be an extremely laissez-faire director.
“Is Gary in?” Alder asked, thinking it might be best after all to bring up the information about the three visitors to Stephen’s house if he wanted to try and find out more about Aurora.
“No, he’s gonna be gone for most mornings this week, following up on one of our major projects. What did you want?”
“Nothing much, just wanted to discuss a couple of things with him. What time do you expect him back?”
“Probably after lun …,” she said, interrupted by her ringing phone. Sheila answered the without excusing herself or showing any respect to her visitor. “Everest International. Gary Applethorpe’s office… Shit, is she all right?” she cried out into the handset.
Slamming the handset down, Sheila grabbed the two folders presented by Alder, put them on her desk, and scurried around the large L-shaped oak-veneered desk.
“Everything all right?” Alder asked.
“Desiree just burned herself badly on a pot of hot coffee.”
Alder knew Desiree was Sheila’s trusted friend and confidant, the one who helped to provide her with inside information on gossip throughout the building. Sheila paid no attention to Alder still standing in front of her desk as she left in distress, not even initiating the screen saver to lock her computer. He was ecstatic and felt as if he’d been left alone in a bank vault full of money and no one around to watch. Here was a chance to go in and search for documents about the project of interest. Alder could move throughout the office with liberty. He strolled around the desk to see the operating system desktop icons fully visible. She was logged on and had been active on the computer prior to the log-on-activity time-out kicking in to fire off the automatic screen saver. Moving the mouse cursor, he scanned the icons to analyze and determine the possible file structure, navigating to find some information. He knew his time might be short, and that being caught on her computer was a reason for immediate dismissal. After a couple of attempts through a couple of folders, he found the semblance of information he was looking for only on the local hard drive. Checking a couple of project plan timelines, he saw the history of Aurora dating back more than ten years. Nothing else of importance was found. Even Sheila seemed to be restricted from many of the more detai
led project files. He was aware that his time for review was getting short. He closed out the documents he had opened and returned the mouse to its original position the best he could remember. Hearing the elevator chime down the hall, he hurriedly retreated to his original position. As soon as he got to the front of her desk, Sheila stepped off the lift and rushed back into the office, distraught. She still managed to give Alder her familiar harsh glare.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked abrasively, returning to the keyboard of her computer to log off and grab her purse to leave again.
“We didn’t get a chance to finish talking before you left and …”
“Look, I don’t have time for you right now. I’m gonna take Desiree to urgent care. I’ll talk to you when I get back.” She darted out of the office, going into the stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator. Alder debated exploring for more information in Gary’s office since Sheila would be gone for some time. It only took a minute for him to decide to look through the open files in his boss’s office.
After less than ten minutes, Alder found the information he was looking for, a project file for Aurora. From what he could extrapolate from the paperwork, the project consisted of two phases. A majority of the information in Gary’s office related only to one phase of work finishing up in the Los Angeles area, and the best he could determine, the second phase was predominantly in Mexico. Reviewing portions of the budgetary documents, Alder was stunned finding out one of the major sponsors. “What the hell? They’re paying for a lot of this project,” Alder thought to himself. He put everything back in the original location and headed out to track down three people who could possibly answer a couple of questions that came to mind based on the new information revealed.