by Alan Ross
Chapter 7
When Steve Met Robert
Steve was standing by his workbench, staring absentmindedly into space and muttering to himself periodically. Denise and Tom gave him space, sensing that he was on the verge of something profound. The results of the polymer experiments had been getting better each week. Tom and Denise often talked about Steve, wondering why he was kept around but when the results came they understood.
Steve was proud of the most recent results, the polymer spheres breaking down within minutes of the expected result. Steve had spent most of the day in the lab, watching the beakers and taking notes, rooting for the experiment to finish on time. It was now mid-afternoon and the buzz was spreading around the building – there was genuine excitement around this invention. Each week had brought a string of successes, but that didn’t stop Steve from spending most of the weekend wondering what he was going to find when he came in the office Monday. Even the company lawyers, normally reserved, were getting excited about the results.
Rob approached and it didn’t even bother Steve, he knew that there was nothing his boss could do or say to change his mood. Steve calmly finished his sentence and closed his notebook. “Hi Rob.”
“Another great week Steve. Just got out of a meeting with George and he is very excited about the results. He wants to meet with you as soon as possible, have you updated the data?”
“Haven’t had time to do that today but will only take a few minutes.” Steve walked away from Rob, notebook in hand. He didn’t even acknowledge Rob.
Rob started to say something and left it alone, walking over to Tom and Denise to see what they were working on. This was not the time to pick a fight with Steve, especially when George Wall, the company’s vice president, was happy with him and his team.
Steve sat down, entered the most recent data to the statistical analysis program and pressed the graph button. The charts continued to show the trend of the past few weeks, demonstrating that the process works very predictably. He printed out the charts on the color laser printer and double checked the results before going to George’s office. The vice president had been brought over from a petroleum company three years ago with a mission to cut research and development budget while raising the yield of the division. It was a tough job and George Wall had proven his merit, slicing the R&D budget by thirty percent while exceeding the results of his predecessor.
Walking like a praying mantis in a lab coat, Steve marched down the shiny linoleum halls toward the corner office of the vice president. George’s office furniture was all hardwood and the floors were carpeted, providing a silent environment. George’s administrator was Eleanor Smith, who had been with the company for over thirty years and had supported some of the founders. She had the toughest reputation in the company and gave no quarter when people approached her charge.
“Mr. Wall is very busy, is there something I can help you with?”
“Rob Bailey sent me to see Mr. Wall, said he wanted to meet with me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have you on my calendar.”
“Send him in Eleanor, you’re going to scare him away.” Boomed a voice from the inner office. Eleanor made no apologies, simply bowed her head slightly and pointed to the back. Steve put his head down and walked into the office. George Wall stood up, reminding Steve of an aging drill sergeant. Wall stood six foot two but had the broadest shoulders Steve had ever seen. His hair was always buzzed and he had the face of a ninety twenties boxer. George had played college football at Purdue and had even been drafted by the Packers but decided to stay in school and pursue his doctorate instead. He told people that his knees thanked him every day for that decision. If you met him on the street you’d think he was a furniture mover or truck driver, not a vice president of a billion dollar chemical company. George sat down and Steve followed his lead, sitting across the beautiful walnut desk.
“Are those the latest results Steve?”
Steve passed the packet of data and charts across the desk without an answer.
“These look promising, the data gets more convincing every week. Have you varied things much?”
“I’ve kept everything consistent since I first met the expected result last month. I don’t want to start testing the variations until there is enough data to support the basic assertions.”
“This is fantastic, Rob has been keeping me updated but I wanted to congratulate you personally. We expect significant revenue opportunities once we complete the FDA trials. I wanted to let you know that we’re giving you a special bonus as an appreciation of the idea, the hard work and the patent work you’ve been doing with the lawyers. You’ll be receiving one thousand shares of company stock to show our appreciation and to keep you interested in remaining a Foundation employee.”
Steve was floored, this was almost forty thousand dollars worth of stock! That would pay off their mortgage and let them take a long trip this summer. “Wow, thank you so much Mr. Wall, this means a lot to me.”
“You are one that we want to keep. In fact, that’s not the only reason I wanted to talk to you today Steve. A special project has come up that needs immediate attention and total discretion.” George paused.
Steve nodded, wondering if he was supposed to say something.
“There are national security implications to the project, though I won’t even know all of the details. I haven’t mentioned anything to Rob yet and even if you agree to work on the project he will know little about what you’re doing. You’ll be independent, not answering to anyone within the company until the project is over.”
“I have a lot of work to do on the time release stuff, also working on some new ideas. Will I still work here or be working somewhere else for this project? I’m willing to do it if you want me to Mr. Wall.”
“I’m glad you’re willing, I’ve already committed you. We’re meeting with the government representative in about thirty minutes so why don’t you go back to the lab, close up for the day and meet me in conference room 8?” Mr. Wall did not wait for a response and Steve got up and left, not acknowledging Eleanor on his way out. He stopped in the lab for a few seconds to make sure everything was as it should; next week’s experiments already started, and then locked up the office area. Rob must have already gotten a call from Mr. Wall because he came out to speak with him.
“What is the big project Steve?’
“I have no idea, Mr. Wall said that I need to go to a meeting in a little while where I’ll find out what it’s about. If I can share anything with you I will Rob.”
“I’ve been told to let you come and go as you please for the near future. The duration is unknown and I won’t be advised as to the nature of the project. Maybe it’s military related and going to use some of your background.”
“Like I said, I don’t know anything at the moment but need to go now.” Steve locked his desk, shut down his computer and was out the door. Entering the conference room he saw the company’s chief legal advisor, Mr. Wall, and a very angry looking man at the table. They were arguing about the need to know about the project when Steve walked in.
“This is Steve Pfister, our top polymer chemist. He’s the one who has been working on the time released delivery system. Steve, meet Robert Swanson, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Swanson stood up to shake Steve’s hand. The man was old, hunched over and balding. He had a beaked face and beady eyes that made him resemble a bird, but a very angry bird. His nasaly voice said “Pleased to meet you” as they shook hands.
“Same here.” Steve returned as he sat down at the table. The melee resumed almost immediately, the Foundation lawyer insisting that the company be aware of how and where their technology would be used before agreeing to sign any of the documentation. Robert, though appearing to be a bird, was tenacious in his defense of the need for secrecy.
“God damnit, this is a national security issue and I’m not going to budge. We can do this the easy way or we can make i
t tough on the company. If you continue with this you’re going to have every three letter organization in the government after your asses!”
George Wall put his hands together and rested his chin against them, looking like he was in prayer. All eyes were on Wall as he thought through the situation. “Ok, we’ll sign it but you better be playing straight here Swanson. This technology is going to revolutionize the pharmacology industry and Foundation is counting on it to help drive new revenue growth. We are all for national security but need to protect our own interests.”
“I guarantee this project will not preclude Foundation from pursuing the revenue stream you desire with the pharmas. If this project is successful it will propel you forward and we will not lock down this technology to the government, it will be available to pursue for profit.”
“Let’s sign this so we can get to the project details.” There were a number of documents that needed to be executed, mostly around the secrecy and exclusivity for the government to have access to the technology for the duration of the project, which was projected to be six months in length. All had seen non-disclosure agreements in the past and it was standard practice for Foundation to have all of their employees sign such agreements but none had seen any with these kinds of terms, which included imprisonment and even death if treason was detected. They all signed and then the lawyer left the room.
“Ok, what’s the project all about?” Mr. Wall asked.
“I am only going to be able to provide you the most basic details, only Mr. Pfister and I will be privileged to the most sensitive information. We are aware that there may be parties in the world who are interested in launching bioterrorist acts against our military presence around the world, especially in the Middle East.”
“I thought we found nothing in Iraq, are you telling me that there was something there?”
“I’m not going to confirm or deny anything except to say that the threat of attack is higher than ever and we have seen some adverse reactions to some inoculations. It forces us to break them up into several boosters that need to be delivered over time, which is a very difficult task, especially if the forces are deployed.”
Wall nodded his head. “This is going to be a very early field trial, I hope there is proper due diligence performed before we try anything serious. I don’t want all of the hard work to go down the drain and I most certainly don’t want anyone getting hurt or killed because we didn’t test enough.”
“There’s not much else I can tell you. I expect that most of the work and testing will happen here at Foundation and that Steve will have access to the equipment he needs to progress in a timely fashion. We will use the center for disease control in Atlanta as a validation point.”
Steve was listening but couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had developed the system with a hope that someday it would be useful for humans but thought that was at least a decade away, with all of the trials and also first using the process for animals. Going straight to our own military is a huge step and it caused him to get a lump in his throat. The last group he wanted to hurt was the military.
George Wall had heard enough. “You have my full support and Steve will have the freedom and access to any resource he needs to be successful. Please keep me as updated as possible.” He stood and shook Swanson’s hand before leaving the room. Steve was anxious to hear more.
“Let’s take a ride.” Swanson said as he got up from the table. Steve followed, wondering where they could be going. The car was a standard white four door rental, Steve was expecting a blacked out Suburban like the CIA usually used in the movies. Once they were on the freeway Swanson started to make small talk, already knowing everything about Steve and his life. “So you were in ‘Nam?”
“Yeah, spent a few years over there, delayed by a stay in the Hanoi Hilton.”
“I was there but luckily never captured. Did two tours before coming home to finish school and join the government. It’s kind of like the mafia, once you come in you’re not getting out.”
Swanson got off I-480 in Independence and drove through the ubiquitous business parkways before pulling into a low slung row of office buildings. They went into a dark building and Robert disarmed the alarm system. Upstairs was a conference room and some office space that looked like it was rarely used. Robert closed the door and they sat down at the table.
“Here’s the deal Steve. We have some chatter that the North Koreans are looking to make some noise against America for our anti-nuclear stance.”
“Haven’t they recently relaxed their stance on nukes? I thought they were coming around.”
“We think that it’s a ploy to take attention away from them when this attack is launched. It looks like they’re planning a smallpox attack on American soil.”
“What a disaster that would be.”
“Our predictions show that a well planned launch of this type could affect millions in the first few months. Our hospitals would be overwhelmed and the economy would come crashing down worse than it already is. This could be the straw that breaks the proverbial back.”
Steve didn’t know what to say. He sat for a second as Robert stared him down with his beady hawk eyes. “Why do you think my invention will help?”
“Smallpox is one bad mother of a virus and the vaccine is not very pleasant on the system. The CDC have been working on a vaccine for a long time but have found that it’s best for people to build up a tolerance instead of taking the whole vaccine at once. It can only be taken intravenously so that means bringing people in three or four times over the course of many weeks. This isn’t very practical if you’re trying to get several million people immunized. When we heard about your work from the patent office we became interested.”
“This is a lot to think about. I have just been working on proving the reliability of the concept, haven’t even considered a human trial. Are we on a very aggressive timeline?”
“The threat seems very real to us and we don’t want to take any precautions. We are working to get traditional intravenous vaccines ready for the most critical members of the government in Washington and along the West Coast, which is where the attack is rumored to be targeting.”
“Ok, I will do whatever is necessary here. Will you be spending a lot of time in the area during the project?”
“Yes, you can consider this location to be your new office, only using Foundation when necessary. Downstairs is a well equipped lab at your disposal. We can also bring in other government employees to assist if desired.”
“It would be good to have a few chemists join the team.”
“Ok, let me get started on that, you just get to work. I’ll take you back to your car now. Here’s a key, the alarm code and all of my contact information. I’m at your disposal around the clock.”
Steve took it and tried to absorb all of this. He remembered some talk about smallpox when he was in college and knew that it could be nasty. He also thought there were a couple of different varieties of the disease. “Is this the bad version of smallpox we’re talking about?”
“If you’ve heard about smallpox then you’ll know there are two main variations of the disease, a major and minor one. The one the North Koreans have developed is reputed to be a major-major or super-major version. The CDC is planning for a mortality rate of over seventy percent but it may be worse than that.”
They left the building and rode in silence. Steve drove around before going home, trying to think about how much he could share with Claire. He needed to tell her something but didn’t want her to worry about him day and night for the next few months. He decided on a story about a new business venture for the company that was super-secret and would take a few months. She was really happy about the stock that Steve had received and was hopeful that this new business venture might yield more of the same.
Steve spent a few hours that night researching smallpox. The disease had killed millions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but was declared eradicated almost thir
ty years ago. There were large assumptions about the current immunity of the population, many of which had never been vaccinated against smallpox. Were we sitting ducks? What was he up against? He tossed and turned the night away thinking about what he was embarking on.