Chapter Two
Echo
" Powell's office, how may I direct your call?" I said as I hit the send button on an email response to a question about my boss's schedule and whether he'd be available to give a talk about the role of biotech firms in the military industrial complex. Dr. Powell hated giving talks, but he knew that it drummed up support for his pet projects that were far less profitable, so he gave them grudgingly.
"Echo, can you come down to Mr. Baines' office right away?" Ruth said in a tone usually reserved for those who were being terminated.
"Um, sure. What's wrong?" I asked as I felt my blood pressure skyrocket. I knew that Dr. Powell had been working on some secret project because he'd asked me to type up documents that he had me shred after sending. He assured me that there was nothing illegal going on, and in the six years I'd been working for him he'd never lied to me before, so I chose to believe him. Now I wondered if that had been wise.
"Just get down here as quickly as possible," she repeated. "You don't need to bring your things."
I hung up the phone and, out of habit, grabbed a steno pad and my phone before walking down the long hallway to Mr. Baines' office.
Something wasn't right; I could feel it as I walked down the corridor. The legal staff was gathered in the glass-walled conference room and although I couldn't hear the conversation, I could tell something wasn't right. When I got to Ruth's desk, she waved me on through the open door, and then quietly shut it behind me.
"Miss Frost, I've got some bad news," Mr. Baines began. He slowly gave me the once-over stopping ever so briefly at my chest and then continuing down. Julian Baines was a tall, thin man who had a habit of slicking his thick blond hair back in a way that made him vaguely resemble an old time Mafioso. This morning, he was dressed in a casual linen suit that made him look like he belonged on the Lido Deck of cruise ship rather than in an executive office of one of the highest grossing biotech firms in the country. I'd thought he was too slick, but Dr. Powell had always treated him with the utmost respect, so I emulated him. This sleazy kind of once-over shifted my perspective. When he had finished, he gestured toward the chair across from his desk and said, "Have a seat."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, I don't understand," I said as I tried to recall the last document I'd sent and shredded.
"Miss Frost, Alan Powell is dead," he said dropping the news swiftly.
"What do you mean?" I said as I looked around the room wondering if this was some kind of cruel joke. Alan Powell had hired me during my first year at NYU. I'd arrived a wide-eyed Midwesterner from the plains of Illinois and gradually become a savvy city-loving New Yorker. Dr. Powell had taken me under his wing, and shown me the ropes. His style had been more military than paternal, and I'd often found myself holding back tears when he'd chastise me for not knowing something that, to him, seemed perfectly obvious. I couldn't say I loved the man, but I did have absolute respect for him.
"I mean exactly what I said," Baines said in a clipped voice. "Alan is dead."
"How? What? Why?" I said as my thoughts tumbled out of my brain. "I don't understand. What happened?"
"The details remain somewhat murky," he said as he picked up a sheet of paper on his desk and scanned it. "It seems he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines," I said wrapping my arms around my body as a sudden chill ran up my spine. "I just don't understand. Dr. Powell was at a meeting this morning. He had a meeting with Ranger executives. It was on his schedule."
"Miss Frost, I recognize that this comes a shock," Baines said narrowing his eyes. "But please do try to get ahold of yourself. We're all broken up about the news, but this is a workplace, not a counseling center. When I have more details, I will inform you, but until then, please continue working as usual."
"I...I...yes, sir," I nodded as I stood up and turned to go.
"Oh, and Miss Frost?" he called as I walked to the door.
"Yes?"
"Please keep this news to yourself for now," he warned. "I'm sure you understand the delicate nature of this particular issue. The last thing we need is to activate the rumor mill and send it spinning out into the business world."
"Yes, sir," I nodded before turning to open the door. I could feel his eyes on me as I quickly exited the room.
"Are you okay, Echo?" Ruth asked. Her look of concern brought me close to breaking down, but I swallowed hard and simply nodded before turning away. I had a thousand questions, and for the first time since I'd begun working at TriCorp I had no one to answer them. I choked back a sob and headed to the ladies room where I locked myself in a stall and shed silent tears.
Everything in the office looked the same, but the entire world had shifted underneath me. Alan Powell had been the owner and CEO of TriCorp since its inception. He'd built a small medical research facility into one of the most profitable biomedical firms in the world, and he'd done it with military precision and a dedication to the greater good.
When he'd hired me, I'd been in a desperate situation. My tuition had exceeded the amount of scholarship money I'd been awarded and without co-signers, I couldn't take out any loans, and I was faced with a choice of giving up or finding a way to earn enough money to make up the difference. I knew there was no way I could go back to Peoria and the small life that would await me there, so I began making the rounds at the temp agencies and religiously reading the help wanted ads. I considered everything, even escorting, but the newspaper horror stories about women mutilated and murdered while doing it resonated in my brain and I quickly discarded the notion.
I'd interviewed with Ruth two days after Dr. Powell's long-time assistant had retired. The woman had run his office with an iron fist, and when Ruth had called to tell me that Dr. Powell had hired me, my first question was, "Why?"
"He feels you have a great deal of potential, Miss Frost," she'd replied and then begun telling me when and where I was to report to in order to get my ID badge and fill out my paperwork. I listened and jotted down notes as she spoke, and remained in a daze for most of the rest of the day.
The next morning, I reported to the security office in the basement of the TriCorp building on 7th and 23rd where the head of security, Butch Wilson, took my picture and issued me a badge before giving me a tour of the building.
"What about floors seventeen through twenty-three?" I asked as we headed to the executive offices on the sixteenth floor.
"Don't bother yourself with those, Miss Frost," Butch said. "Those others are research floors and your badge won't allow you access to them."
"Oh, okay," I said trying to hide my disappointment.
"Don't feel bad, kiddo," Butch chuckled. "Very few people are allowed access to those floors. Only Dr. Powell and the research scientists are allowed up there."
"I see, well, then I guess I'll just have to confine myself to the other sixteen floors, won't I?" I smiled.
Butch nodded as the elevator doors slid open. We walked to a door at the end of the hall where Butch inserted a key and swung the door open. Inside was an enormous open space that was double the size of the tiny little apartment I rented over on 13th and Broadway. There was an enormous beech wood desk positioned in the middle of the room with a sleek silver computer monitor set off to the side and a modern looking phone set up next to it.
"Mine?" I asked as I shot Butch a questioning look.
"Yep, you're Dr. Powell's new assistant, so I imagine this is your realm," he laughed. He handed me the ring of keys and explained, "The red one is for the front door, the blue on is for Dr. Powell's office and the yellow one is for the supply room, the storage room and the copier room. I imagine that Ruth will be down shortly to get you acclimated and trained in your duties. She's good that way."
"Thank you, Mr. Wilson," I said as I looked down at the keys and wondered where the yellow rooms were.
"Call me Butch, kiddo. Everyone calls me Butch," he smiled as he dipped his chin and headed back to his post.
Butch had been right, and in no time, Ruth had shown up and given me a tour of the offices. She explained how Dr. Powell liked things ordered and organized, never ever sloppy. I was to make sure that his schedule was always up to date and that he had a copy of the daily agenda every morning by eight. She taught me how to answer the complex phone system that looked like it had come straight out of a futuristic film and she gave me a list of the company hierarchy so that I would know exactly who reported to whom and who was allowed access to Dr. Powell.
Ruth explained that she would be stationed down the hall in Mr. Baines' office if I needed anything or had any questions, and she assured me that I would do just fine. As soon as she'd left, I walked around the desk, pulled out the black leather chair tucked under the edge and sat down. I felt like a new phase of my life was beginning, and while I wasn't sure where it would lead me, I knew that it was the start of something good.
It was this feeling I remembered as I sat on the cold tile floor with my back pressed against the wall and hot tears streaming down my cheeks. The newness of the job and the feeling that everything was possible had only been reaffirmed when Dr. Powell entered the office and walked to my desk. There was something about him that caused me to shoot up out of my chair and stand at attention.
"At ease, soldier," he said as a smile played at the corners of his lips. "Miss Echo Frost is it?"
"Yes, sir," I said successfully resisting the urge to salute him. I'd grown up in a military household, so the action had become like second nature for my sisters and me, but out in the civilian world, saluting was viewed as mocking, so I had developed the ability to suppress my urge. Dr. Powell's demeanor felt vaguely familiar, though.
"Alan Powell," he said holding out his hand and gripping mine firmly as he shook it then let go. "Welcome to TriCorp, Miss Frost."
"Thank you, sir," I nodded solemnly as I shook his hand and then dropped my arm back to my side. "I'm please to join your team."
"Miss Frost, do you have a clear understanding of your duties? Has Ms. Reasoner explained them to you?" he asked.
"I believe so, sir," I said.
"Good, then you will remember that my mail is to be opened and neatly stacked on my desk before I come in every morning," he said as he scooped up the pile of papers I'd been working on and carried them into his office. "Tomorrow morning you'll get this right, Miss Frost."
"Yes, sir," I said as my heart beat wildly in my chest. I wasn't two hours into my new job and already I'd screwed up. For the rest of the morning, I focused on learning my job and creating a workflow chart that would ensure that the only mistakes I'd make would be due to things that were entirely out of my control.
At the end of my first day, I smiled after I'd answered the phone with the proper greeting, successful forwarded the call to its proper recipient and then took one more look at my chart before printing it out and taping it to the inside of the top drawer of my desk. Tomorrow I would get it right.
Then next morning, when I opened the drawer, I found that Dr. Powell had gone in and circled the spelling errors on the sheet, awarded me a grade of B+ and written "Good work. Let's try this again, shall we?" and signed it A. Powell. Rather than allow myself to be gripped with anxiety, I laughed out loud, pulled up the chart, fixed the mistakes and printed it out again before turning to the mail.
By the time Dr. Powell arrived, I had not only sorted the mail and put it in neat piles on his desk, I'd updated and printed his daily schedule and had a cup of hot coffee waiting for him as he walked through the door. He said good morning, took the cup from me and walked into his office. I didn't hear from him again until he headed out for his lunch appointment at Gramercy Park.
When he returned, he handed me a stack of papers and said, "Please type these up, Miss Frost," before he headed back into his office. When I sat down at my desk and began transcribing them, I realized that these were the notes for a meeting with a government official regarding the development of a new drug. The notes were somewhat cryptic, but I didn't try to understand them only transcribe them as they were written. When I was done, I printed them off, put both versions in a file folder and took the in to Dr. Powell.
"Miss Frost, I'm sure by now you already understand the nature of our work at TriCorp," he said without looking up. "I'm entrusting you with my notes and I expect that you will keep everything you read and see completely confidential."
"Yes, sir," I replied as I waited to see if he would speak again.
"Very well, as long as we are clear on that," he said looking up at me. "I will be entrusting many things to you, and I would hate for my trust to have been misplaced."
"No, sir," I said shaking my head. "I understand completely."
He nodded at the desk as he returned to his papers and I silently exited the room. Looking back, I realized this was the defining moment in my relationship with my boss. He'd extended trust that I had not yet earned, and I'd spent every hour on the job making sure that he'd not been wrong in his assessment of me. He wasn't warm or even particularly friendly, and we never had any heart-to-heart talks about who we were or where we'd come from. He never asked me where I went during the holidays I took, and I never asked about his family or whether he'd been in the military, though I was often sorely tempted.
However, underneath the lack of overt personal information, I came to understand that my boss was someone who had an enormous capacity for doing the right thing. His meetings with various heads of state or major corporations were usually focused on solving some type of problem for those in need, but he never accepted an invitation to do an interview with anyone who would put his story out into the public realm. If it focused on the people doing the work, he'd pawn it off, but if the reporter wanted to talk about Alan Powell, he simply said no.
During the years I worked for him, I'd learned most of his idiosyncrasies and knew exactly when to push and when to back off. I knew how to protect his flank and how to win the war rather than the battle. I was his right-hand woman, and I'd proven time and time again that when he'd chosen to trust me, he'd made a wise decision. And although our relationship had been strictly work-based, never veering into the personal, I knew that he cared about my well-being when he raised my salary to a level that covered both my rent and tuition without saying a word. When I graduated with honors from the NYU computer science program, he was there on the dais as a gust of the university's President, and he shook my hand as I walked across the stage.
Alan Powell was a close to a father as I'd ever had, and now he was dead. I rested my cheek against the cold tile wall as I tried in vain to choke back the sobs that threatened to pull me under. I couldn't break, not even now. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them as I fought to contain the emotions welling up inside me. I heard the bathroom door open and I swallowed hard to try and maintain silence.
"It's okay, Echo," Ruth said quietly speaking through the stall door. "I've put the janitor's cleaning sign in front of the door. No one will bother you. It's okay."
"Tha...Tha...Thank you," I choked out before I slapped my hand over my mouth.
"If you need me, you know where I am," Ruth said as she softly pulled the door shut behind her.
It took me another hour to pull myself back from the brink of emotional chaos, and when I did, I found that Ruth had left a small care package for me on my desk. It contained tissues, makeup remover wipes, a roll of Lifesavers, and a small bottle of vodka with a note taped to it that read, "For home." A small crooked smile spread across my lips as I tidied up the office and gathered my things.
I stood at the door and looked around the office knowing that today was the day when everything had completely changed, and yet again, I wondered what the changes would bring.