The Laptev Virus

“I knew you’d understand, Angela. I mean, I certainly don’t want to lose any more people to the virus either, but maybe they can figure something out—just enough for us to be able to get back up there and work around it, you know?”

She did know. He had already demonstrated that the safety of all of the employees in his company was paramount to him and she trusted that he would not put any lives at risk unnecessarily. He wanted results, of course, otherwise he would be a lousy CEO, but not at the expense of the safety of the workers.

“How soon do you think you can get an answer from Oscar?”

“I’m not sure, Stan, but I’ll convey the urgency of the matter and let you know as soon as I have any news.”

After she hung up, Angela sat thinking about what Stan had said. She had known that the situation was bad and that Riesigoil needed the issue resolved as soon as possible, but she had not imagined that the company would flounder and drown if the competition got to the oil first. Surely there were other opportunities? Weren’t they involved in fracking operations to harvest natural gas in west Texas?

She wished that she could speak to the shareholders directly and explain the situation, maybe show them some pictures of what had happened. But after another few moments she realized that if she could have direct contact with them, her news might have the opposite effect, and rather than convince them to be patient, it would push them over the edge, making it easier for them to pull their money out quickly and leave the company to hemorrhage, just as the Laptev virus had done to its victims.

No, it was better that Stan worked with the shareholders. He knew how to deal with them more than she knew or cared to know. She would handle this end much better. For now, the most pressing need was for further information. She tapped her cell phone and began scrolling through her contacts to find Oscar Mitchell’s number, but when she found it, she paused. It was entirely too easy to evade questions by phone, and she could not afford to have him postpone their conversation. She needed to understand the progress first-hand, preferably today. After all, it had been three weeks since her last meeting with Oscar. That should have been plenty of time for him to have come up with at least a few answers.

Angela notified her assistant to cancel the rest of her meetings for the afternoon. It was only a twenty minute drive from her office in the Energy Corridor to the UT Medical School building in Houston’s museum district. She called Oscar and informed him that she would be paying him a visit in person to discuss the progress that was being made. For some meetings, she knew, there was no better way to apply pressure than to show up in person, holding the purse strings tightly in one’s hand. If the university wanted to receive further funding from Riesigoil, they would have to start providing some interesting information soon.

CHAPTER 9

Three weeks had passed since Sarah and her team had been asked to drop their research on AIDS and focus on Laptev instead. Although her lab was not that large, there were times when the investigators immersed themselves so thoroughly in their experiments that there was not much interaction between the individuals. Sarah liked it when there were fewer meetings as it gave people a chance to really focus, without being asked to report their progress every two seconds. Her investigators seemed to feel the same way. However, every one of her investigators had apparently made tremendous progress and had much to report.

It was Thursday afternoon and their weekly meeting was already in progress when there was a knock on the door of the lab. Sarah looked through the glass panels that framed the door and saw Rhonda, accompanied by Oscar Mitchell, the University President and another woman. Oscar was easily recognizable with his bushy eyebrows that ran together, but who was the woman with him? Certainly not anyone from another lab—she was dressed too nicely, in a classy dark gray pants suit and open-toed pumps. A mixture of dread and irritation washed over Sarah.

“Whoa, look who’s come to visit. Somebody must have screwed up royally,” said Shane under his breath.

“Tone it down,” hissed Emile.

“Sorry, I was just sayin’. It’s not every day that royalty come to visit,” said Shane, far from contrite.

Sarah ignored their comments and rose to answer the door. She was busy trying not to think that Rhonda was throwing her under the bus, popping into her meeting unannounced and with visitors. How difficult was it to be a bit more considerate of your colleagues?

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” said Rhonda. Sarah saw that Rhonda held her gaze a bit longer than was necessary and then she darted her eyes to the side. Suddenly the coin dropped and Sarah understood—it was not Rhonda’s idea to crash the meeting like this. Something urgent must have happened. Her apprehension remained, but some of her annoyance vanished.