“Perfect.”
Chavez nodded, then leaned over the reception counter and reached down for two clipboards. She handed them to us.
“We first have to get a security clearance,” she said. “If each of you could sign this waiver, I will go make copies of your driver’s licenses. And the letter of introduction you said you had.”
“You really need our licenses?” I asked in mild protest.
My concern was that our California licenses might raise a security flag since we had said we were from Las Vegas.
“I’m afraid that is our security protocol. It’s required of anyone taking the facility tour. There are no exceptions.”
“Good to hear. I was just making sure.”
I smiled. She didn’t. Rachel and I handed over our licenses and Chavez studied them for indications they were counterfeit.
“You’re both from California? I thought you—”
“We’re both new hires. I’m doing mostly investigative work and Rachel will be the firm’s IT person—once we reconfigure our IT.”
I smiled again. Chavez looked at me, adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses and asked for the letter from my new employer. I pulled it out of the inside pocket of my jacket and handed it over. Chavez said she would be back to collect us for the tour in ten minutes.
Rachel and I sat down on the couch beneath one of the windows and read the waiver form attached to the clipboards. It was a fairly straightforward waiver with check boxes stating that the signer was not an employee of a competitor, would take no photographs during the tour of the facility and would not reveal or copy any of the trade practices, procedures or secrets revealed during the tour.
“They’re pretty serious,” I said.
“It’s a competitive business,” Rachel said.
I scribbled my signature on the line and dated it. Rachel did the same.
“What do you think?” I whispered, my eyes on the receptionist.
“About what?” Rachel asked.
“About McGinnis not being here and the lack of a solid explanation why. First he’s ‘unexpectedly detained,’ next he’s ‘home sick.’ I mean, which is it?”
The receptionist looked up from her computer screen and right at me. I didn’t know if she had heard me. I smiled at her and she quickly looked down at her screen again.
“I think we should talk about it after,” Rachel whispered.
“Roger that,” I whispered back.
We sat silently until Chavez returned to the reception area. She handed us our driver’s licenses and we gave her the clipboards. She studied the signatures on each.
“I spoke to Mr. Schifino,” she said matter-of-factly.
“You did?” I said a little too un-matter-of-factly.
“Yes, to verify everything. He wants you to call him as soon as possible.”
I nodded vigorously. Schifino had been blindsided by the call but must have come through.
“We will as soon as we finish the tour,” I said.
“He’s just anxious to make a decision and to get things going,” Rachel added.
“Well, if you follow me, we’ll get the show on the road and I’m sure you will make the right decision,” Chavez said.
Chavez used a key card to open the door between the reception area and the rest of the facility. I noticed that it had her photo on it. We stepped into a hallway and she turned to face us.
“Before we go into the graphic design and web hosting labs, let me tell you a little bit about our history and what we do here,” she said.
I pulled a reporter’s notebook out of my back pocket and prepared to take notes. It was the wrong move. Chavez immediately pointed to the notebook.
“Mr. McEvoy, remember the document you just signed,” she said. “General notes are fine but no specifics or proprietary details of our facility should be recorded in any manner, including written notes.”
“Sorry. Forgot.”
I put the notebook away and signaled our host to continue the presentation.
“We opened for operation just four years ago. Keying on the growing demand for high-volume, secure data management and storage, Declan McGinnis, our CEO and founding partner, created Western Data. He brought together some of the best and brightest in the industry to design this state-of-the-art facility. We have almost one thousand clients, ranging from small law firms to major corporations. Our facility can service the needs of any size company located anywhere in the world.
“You may find it interesting that the American law firm has become our most common client. We are strategically designed to provide a full raft of services specifically aimed at satisfying the needs of the law firm of any size in any location. From web hosting to colocation, we are the one-stop shop for your firm.”
She made a full turn with her arms outstretched, as if to take in the whole building, although we were still standing in a hallway.
“After receiving funding from various investment blocs, Mr. McGinnis zeroed in on Mesa as the place to build Western Data after a yearlong search determined that the area best met the critical location criteria. He was looking for a place where there were low risks of natural disaster and terrorist attack as well as a ready supply of power that would allow the company to guarantee twenty-four/seven uptime. In addition and just as important, he was looking for a location with direct-access bridges to major networks with massive volumes of reliable bandwidth and dark fiber.”
“Dark fiber?” I asked and then immediately regretted having revealed that I did not know something I possibly should have known in the position I was supposed to be in. But Rachel stepped in and saved me.
“Unused fiber optics,” she said. “In place in existing networks but untapped and available.”
“Exactly,” Chavez said.
She pushed through the double doors.
“Added to these site-specific demands, Mr. McGinnis would design and build a facility with the highest level of security in order to meet compliance demands for hosting HIPPA, SOCKS and S-A-S seventy.”
I’d learned my lesson. This time I just nodded as if I knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Just a few details about plant security and integrity,” Chavez said. “We operate in a hardened structure able to withstand a seven-point-oh earthquake. There are no distinguishing exterior features connecting it to data storage. All visitors are subject to security clearance and recorded while on site twenty-four/seven with the camera recordings archived for forty-five days.”
She pointed to the casino-style camera ball located on the ceiling above. I looked up, smiled and waved. Rachel threw me a look that told me to stop behaving like a child. Chavez never noticed. She was too busy continuing the rundown.
“All secure areas of the facility are protected by key cards and biometric hand scanners. Security and monitoring is done from the network operations center, which is located in the underground bunker adjacent to the colocation center, or ‘farm,’ as we like to call it.”
She went on to describe the plant’s cooling, power and network systems and their backup and redundant subsystems, but I was losing interest. We had moved into a vast lab where more than a dozen techs were building and operating websites for Western Data’s massive client base. As we walked through, I saw screens on the various desks and noted the repeated legal motifs—the scales of justice, the judge’s gavel—that indicated they were law firm clients.