Day 2—Thursday
Yuri Kirov sat at his office desk. None of the other two dozen employees at Northwest Subsea Dynamics had yet showed up for work. He slept poorly and woke early—residual stress from the previous evening’s meeting with the FBI. He left the house a few minutes after six o’clock. NSD was a fifteen minute drive away, situated in an office park in the city of Redmond.
The company designed and manufactured cutting edge autonomous underwater vehicles—AUVs. NSD employed the underwater robots to map the ocean depths, conduct geophysical surveys and monitor environmental conditions.
Yuri made a brief appearance at the office the day before, spending an hour with the staff during the afternoon. He’d been absent for a month and a half. Everyone at NSD knew he had been in Denmark, attending to his cancer plagued sister. It was a lie that he concocted and Laura perpetuated.
Using the alias of John Kirkwood, Yuri served as the general manager. Laura purchased controlling interest of the company as an investment. But she really acquired NSD for Yuri, knowing he could use his underwater engineering skills to help turn around the struggling business.
Yuri had just reviewed a company profit and loss report on his PC when he heard a door open in the hallway outside his office. Footsteps resonated on the tile flooring. Yuri recognized the gait.
A short and rotund individual entered the open doorway of Yuri’s office. He held a paper cup with a Starbucks logo. “Morning,” Bill Winters said.
“Have a seat.”
Winters settled into a chair fronting Yuri’s desk. He was forty-eight, the senior NSD employee. Winters was a co-founder of the company. The four original partners, all former NOAA engineers and scientists, created remarkable underwater robotic machines. But like so many startups, NSD burned through its cash reserves. After exhausting personal savings and repeatedly striking out with angel investors, NSD was about to fold when rescued.
Bill Winters kept his 25 percent interest while his partners cashed out. Laura appointed Yuri as general manager; Winters retained his chief engineer position.
Winters took a taste of his café mocha and said, “I’m sure glad you’re back. It’s been like a three-ring circus since you left. We’ve got a huge backlog of work.”
“I’m indebted to you for taking over for me.” Yuri gestured to the Dell monitor on his desk. “I’ve been reviewing the latest P and L report. It’s terrific, best ever. Laura is thrilled.”
Winters beamed while running a hand through his shaggy mop of graying blond hair. “Thanks. I really appreciate hearing that.”
They discussed company finances for ten minutes before moving on to Alaska.
“So,” Yuri said, “I gather it’s still a difficult situation in the Chukchi.”
“It is but there’s been some improvement since you left. It appears that most of the contaminated pack ice has melted, allowing recovery operations to proceed full throttle.”
NSD was under contract with the U.S. Coast Guard to monitor a mammoth oil spill in the Chukchi Sea offshore of Barrow, Alaska. An oil well blowout in nearby Russian territorial waters during the winter had contaminated large swaths of the Arctic with crude oil. For the past several months NSD’s autonomous underwater vehicles had kept track of the oil laden ice that reached Alaskan waters.
“That’s encouraging,” Yuri said. “Can they get it cleaned up before the freeze starts?”
“I doubt it. A lot of the oil has washed up on beaches. Hundreds of miles of shoreline are contaminated from Barrow to Kotzebue Sound. I don’t think enough time is left to clean it up. After the fall freeze up, the whole mess could start over again next spring.”
Yuri and Winters transitioned to NSD’s other Alaska operation.
“Deep Guardian is doing a bang-up job for the Aurora tract,” Winters reported. “It’s just as reliable as Deep Explorer, maybe even a little better.”
Deep Guardian and Deep Explorer were autonomous underwater vehicles. Deep Explorer was NSD’s flagship machine. It was the principal AUV assigned to monitor the Russian oil spill in the Chukchi Sea.
“That’s good to hear,” Yuri said. “If Deep Guardian works out for Aurora, I think the Canadians and Norwegians will be interested.”
Deep Guardian was NSD’s latest autonomous underwater vehicle. It was currently surveying a huge bottom tract of the Chukchi Ridge north of Barrow. Still covered by pack ice, the 20,000-acre tract was leased from the U.S. government by a Houston based company. Preliminary geophysical surveys hinted that the Chukchi Plateau, located in deep waters near the limit of the United States’ Arctic Ocean continental shelf claim, held enormous hydrocarbon reserves. Deep Guardian’s innovative sonar and photographic systems coupled with its new geophysical testing equipment and extended under ice endurance capability were all well suited for surveying the site.
“I agree with you,” Winters said. “I’ve already had an inquiry from Equinor. Apparently, they’ve been following the Aurora work.”
“Wow, that’s encouraging.”
“It is and I’ve been thinking about our future a lot. The company does well with our survey work and we should focus on it.” Winters shifted in his chair. “But maybe we should consider branching out now.”
Yuri cocked his head, curious.
Bill Winters said, “I think we should create a manufacturing division and start selling individual units adapted for specific purposes: hydrographic, geophysical and environmental monitoring…plus, one other.”
“Military?” Yuri guessed.
“Yes, that alone has huge potential.” Winters grinned, clearly pumped. “I’ve run some preliminary numbers and . . .”
Yuri spent half an hour with Bill going over the expansion plan. What Winters recommended made logical business sense. The potential for exponential growth was legitimate, especially in the defense sector. But that aspect troubled Yuri.
How could he run a company that sells cutting-edge high-tech underwater equipment to the U.S. Department of Defense and function as a spy for the FBI and CIA at the same time?