Chapter 14

The next day at work, I call Paul into my office.

“It seems as though you have unofficially taken command of our special ops team.”

“I’m not so sure I would call it a special ops team, but yes, I think the others have treated me as such. The rest of the guys have experience, but I am the only one to have lead a spec ops team. I have a bit more experience in planning a mission and have a few more contacts.”

“I hate to poach, and I don’t want to piss off Allied Security, but I would like to hire you as my new head of security. We will continue to use Allied Security, but you will oversee their operations and take over Kim’s job. I would like you to train her so she can eventually be your second.”

Allied Security eventually makes some acquisitions and mergers to become one of the largest military contractors. I want to stay on their good side and possibly gain a controlling interest to keep them honest.

“I think she is too young. Most of your senior staff is.”

“I can’t tell you why I have done that. There is reason for it. I still need Kim trained up. If you can’t do it, I will have to find somebody else.”

“Wait a minute. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. If I am to be your head of security, I have to advise you, which often means telling you things you don’t want to hear. If I can’t tell you that I think she is too young, we will have a problem.”

“Sorry, I misunderstood.”

“Most militaries train their people not to say sorry, as it is a sign of weakness. I think admitting you aren’t perfect is a sign of maturity. I will happily take the job.”

“Good, our first order of business is to work on our little spec ops plan?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“We need to gain access to the storage room in the old shop. Picking up the captain of the basketball team should get us the alarm codes. Do you know anybody that can scrub the alarm system to make it look like we were never there? It can’t be that hard. We designed the thing.”

“I’ll make some calls. Why? What were you thinking?”

“It will take us a while.”

We hash out my plan taking the better part of two hours. In the end, neither of us are entirely happy with it, but it is the best we can come up with. It doesn’t involve another kidnapping, which we are both happy with. We will be putting ourselves at a greater risk then we desire, and there are no guarantees.

Once he leaves, I call Kim into my office. As usual, she comes in with her cheery disposition, lighting up the place. All of my girls have the habit of infecting me with a smile. When we first met, I swear I had a permanent frown. Thanks to them that is changing.

“You wanted to see me?”

“I always want to see you, but we have some things we need to talk about.”

“I hope you aren’t planning on putting more on my plate. I feel completely inadequate as it is.”

“That is part of why I wanted to talk with you. How do you feel about your job? Do you like it?”

“No.”

“Ok, that is the short answer. Would you care to elaborate?”

“I’m in over my head. You keep on leaving me out of important discussions and meetings. I have no clue what I’m doing...”

She continues listing things she is unhappy with, and it isn’t a shortlist.

“ ... I’ve gotten to the point where I am questioning our relationship. I do still care about you, and I enjoy the affection you show, but you rarely smile, and it is almost impossible to get you to laugh.”

“Those are all valid points. Let’s deal with that last thing first. You aren’t breaking up with me, are you?”

“No ... or, I hope not. I still care about you.”

“I haven’t been fair to you, and I am sorry. I pushed you to hard and gave you too little. I just hope it isn’t too late to fix everything.”

“Fix everything? What did I mess up this time?”

“Nothing, that isn’t what I meant. I meant fix our relationship and find you a job that you can enjoy.”

“I enjoy everything I do. I just don’t know what I am doing half the time. I find the work fascinating, and I am learning a lot.”

“If you weren’t overworked and had a better grasp of what you were doing, would you be willing to continue?”

“That isn’t going to happen any time soon.”

“That isn’t what I asked. Please answer the question.”

“God, yes. As I said, I love the work, just not the stress.”

“Would you be willing to step down until we can train you properly, maybe take a smaller role?”

“Would I ever?”

“Good. That was one of the things I talked with Paul about. I know you only know him as one of our bodyguards, but he was a team leader in Delta Force, the best US special forces team. He has experience with leadership, security and planning. I know that you feel put out by my excluding you from some things, but I’m not willing to risk somebody I love. I think he is a much better fit until he trains you, and you can take over.”

“I think that is a good idea. I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t capable of doing the job.”

“You were. The job just grew faster than I anticipated, and I drowned you.”

My only real concern with Kim is that my pushing her put a strain on our relationship. Now, I am making her step down, and she will not feel as important to my plans as the rest of the girls. I just hope she doesn’t equate that as her being less important to me. Does she have the maturity to handle everything? Is this the start of my losing the girls?

We spend an hour going over her new role in the company, and she is relieved by all the changes I have made. I’m sure to let her know that I am doing the best to give her what she desires. I admit a lot of the more significant changes I never asked her what she wants. Then again, she has always been quite vocal about which ways she feels inadequate and when she feels like I am stepping on her toes. She is sad about the demotion but understands it has to happen. You can also see a huge weight lift off her shoulders.

When the hour is up, she gladly heads off to find Paul, her new boss.

I don’t have time to ponder Kim’s role in everything for much longer. The next phase of the MCDV bidding process is coming due, and there is a lot of things I promised Fred that I haven’t gotten around to yet. Given how closely our bid looks like the one from Finco Engineering, I have no choice but to make sure our proposal is in first and contains part of what is required for the next phase of the competition. That way, it looks like they are stealing our design and not the other way around. I don’t feel guilty in the least for using their plans.

Our design isn’t exactly like theirs. The Finco design is purely a minesweeper. With the change in required specifications, all Finco did was lengthen the hull. This made the ship far less seaworthy in the open ocean. I was happy when two months ago, I showed Fred the initial drawings, and he right away pointed out the design flaw without needing to do any calculations. That was when I knew I had the right man for the job. Since then, I have been handicapping him by not helping him with the designs as much as I should and not giving him as much staff as he needs.

Today is the day that I show Fred how I haven’t neglected him.

Putting my thoughts of Kim aside, I grab two boxes of files and head over to Fred’s double-wide office trailer. I struggle to open the door, and as soon as it is open, I can see just how frustrated Fred is. It is a good thing he doesn’t have a temper, or I am sure he would have hit me a few times by now.

“I’m sorry, I know it looks like I have saddled you with an impossible task and that I have been unreasonable, not letting you hire anybody.”

“I have no idea how you expect me to train our new guy and my daughter while doing the work of a team of engineers.”

Elsa looks up from showing Mitch, the new guy, some of the differences between aerospace and marine engineering. She, too, looks overworked and frustrated.

“I guess it is a good thing I brought you a short list then, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean short list?”

“I have a list of engineers ready to start next week.”

“And where did these people come from? Do they have experience?”

“There are three groups I looked at. The first is a list of engineers I think we should poach from the competition. We will need to watch these guys, though they are the ones with the most experience.”

I hand him the list, and he scans it over.

“I don’t know most of these guys. Where did you get their names from?”

“I hired an investigator to check out the past jobs of the six other bidders. These names kept popping up as people that their customers had an appreciation for. I don’t want to hire any of them until you interview them and make a decision. I have files on all of them.”

“So that is one group. What about the others?”

“I contacted the engineering department at Memorial University in St John’s. They have one of the best naval architecture programs there is. I had them offer the top ten bachelor students a temporary job in way of applying to be part of our engineering team. We did the same for their top five master’s students.”

“So, what was the job and the results?”

“I gave the master’s students a similar hull design to our MCDV project, then a list of equipment and weights. They had to figure out locations, pipe arrangements and balance, so it is seaworthy and floats upright. You can use their work as you see fit. Three failed. I recommend you hire the top guy as your assistant. If you don’t like him, then I have three others I would recommend. One is the guy that came in second. You can have them both, though I would prefer only to hire one of them.”

“What of the bachelor students?”

“I just gave them a simple hull design task. I have all their assignments and my recommendations. Between this group and the third, I would like you to hire six people. Two or three of whom should work under Mitch on the WIG project.”