Eleanor nodded.
“Already drafted.”
I looked toward the message.
Then asked, “Do we need to inform Northstar?”
She considered that.
“We need to follow our contractual and legal obligations. But notifying the wrong person prematurely could expose the source or compromise the review.”
I nodded.
“Coordinate with outside counsel.”
She smiled faintly.
“That's why you're paying me.”
I laughed.
Then became serious.
“Eleanor, I don't want an anonymous allegation used to punish innocent employees.”
“Neither do I.”
“But I also don't want the financing to proceed on representations we haven't verified.”
She nodded.
“That's exactly the balance.”
Two days later, the source responded.
Her name was Nina Alvarez.
She was thirty-four, a Northstar internal reporting analyst who had worked for the airline for eight years.
She wasn't a senior executive.
She wasn't wealthy.
She lived with her husband and seven-year-old son in a modest house outside Los Angeles.
Her job involved compiling operational information from different departments into reports for senior management.
She knew how to reconcile information across systems.
And she'd noticed discrepancies that didn't disappear when she checked them twice.
At first, Nina thought the problems came from ordinary reporting errors.
Then she began finding internal comments instructing staff to move certain issues into less visible categories.
Some entries concerned maintenance planning.
Others concerned passenger complaints.
She raised concerns with her supervisor.
He told her the classifications were approved.
She asked for the underlying policy.
He said she was being difficult.
Eventually, she contacted a more senior manager.
That was when Leonard Pike's office became involved.
Nina was told to stop distributing draft comparisons outside the reporting chain.
Her access to several systems was reduced.
And her annual performance evaluation suddenly described her as someone who lacked professional judgment.
She'd never received that criticism before.
She became frightened.
But she preserved her own contemporaneous notes and identified records that could be obtained through proper company and legal processes.
We arranged for independent counsel to receive her information without encouraging her to violate laws or disclose material she wasn't authorized to possess.
The goal was to investigate the allegations through legitimate channels.
Not to turn a frightened employee into a courier for confidential files.
The first meeting took place by secure video.