Nothing Ventured

by Roderick Price

  “You’re going to regret this, Jerry,” said Jansen.

  “We both regret it now, don’t we Jansen?” and the governor slammed down the phone.

  CHAPTER 53

  The Empire Oil announcement had been drafted and reviewed a dozen times by everybody in management. They would release it at 8:30 a.m. New York oil trading opened at 9:00 a.m. Martin was still at the Ritz. He had called in to work and told them he was ill. He had worked out and then showered back up in his room. He turned the TV on at seven. Everything was quiet. Martin knew it could be a day, or two or even three days, but once Empire and Arbor got their hands on the tapes, one of their experienced geologists or geophysicists would discover the tapes weren’t real. He flipped from CNBC, to Bloomberg, to Fox Business and back again. He ordered breakfast. It was a little after 8:00 a.m. An announcement was made that Empire Oil was holding a press conference at 8:30 a.m. Martin had all of his investment account positions in place expecting a big rise in the price of oil.

  It could have come from one of the technicians tuning the video conference equipment, or a security man standing outside the meeting area. A secretary could have done it after revisions to a memo, or a hotel clerk could have seen it coming off the fax in London, or Los Angeles or Singapore. One of the young analysts who worked in public relations might still have a friend from college who joined Reuters or Dow Jones, or the New York Times. A geologist could have told his wife. A telephone operator could have overheard a call. Everyone wants a scoop. It didn’t really make any difference. At 8:15 a.m., a manager came running into Jansen’s office with the news that there was a rumor that the oil find in Wisconsin was a fraud. Martin saw it scroll along the bottom of the screen, “Questions asked about giant Wisconsin oil discovery.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Empire Oil released their statement while simultaneously Jansen held a two-minute press conference where he read the exact same statement. He stated the billion-barrel oil field in Wisconsin was a “mistake, possibly a hoax.”

  Acting on the rumor, just fifteen minutes earlier, traders in London were buying as many contracts as they could write. The oil price was going to go back up. On a typical day, the New York Mercantile Exchange, or NYMEX, alone trades more than twenty times the amount of oil actually used in any one day. On a day like this, they might trade two hundred or even four hundred times an average day’s actual physical global consumption.

  Martin was watching TV and hovering over his laptop. The price skipped along every minute or two, taking jumps up of ten or fifteen cents. It would be Jansen’s last official act as an executive at Empire. The price was now up a dollar and not slowing down. It took fifteen minutes for the price to come up three bucks a barrel. Martin started to pull the trigger on some of his positions. He sold all fifteen million barrels. In the last three days, he had turned the $500,000 dollars from Hilton into $45,000,00. He flopped on to the bed and stared at the ceiling. His plan had worked perfectly. There was still more work to be done, though he couldn’t help but smile as he thought about his plan, his work with Taylor, and the absolutely stunning outcomes.

  CHAPTER 54

  Hilton had been out of the office. Couldn’t even turn on his phone when he was in Wisconsin because he didn’t want to be tracked later if he somehow became a suspect. He was thinking back on his dealings with Larry. Hilton wasn’t used to killing. He had known Larry a long time and Larry had done him a lot of favors. But Larry had double-crossed him. Larry was dangerous, too. One false move and Larry could have overpowered him in seconds. After Vietnam, Larry could kill a man without giving it a second thought. Hilton himself was good with his fists or a gun. In the early days, long before he was a white-collar executive, he had spent a lot of time himself in the oil fields. And he had been in more than one fight in a bar where he more than held his own. The only way he could have possibly ended up with this oil was to kill Larry and take the signed leases and forge them over into his own name. As long as the landowners got their money, they didn’t care who paid them. Larry didn’t have any family, or if he did, he never mentioned them. Didn’t have any friends, either. Nobody knew what Larry had been doing on this except Hilton and dumbshit Martin. Hilton recalled that he even had several old powers of attorney he had signed with Larry on other deals. He could probably use one of those to legally get the leases in his name. One of his lawyers would fix them up for him. Martin should be out of the deal. He had taken his half-million and that was the last Hilton had heard from him. If there was a problem, maybe Martin wanted another little “Russian roulette” demonstration.

  After finishing Larry with a final blow to the head, Hilton had looked around the cabin. Larry ran a pretty tight ship. Hilton gave some thought to hiding the body, disposing of the murder weapon, and even burning the place down. Then he realized there was nothing in the world that linked him to Larry in this place, at this time. Nobody had seen Hilton. No one knew he was here. At the same time, Hilton had no idea that the entire oil discovery had been melting away. Hilton went through Larry’s pockets and wallet but found nothing of any value and nothing that linked Larry to Hilton. In the end, Hilton had quietly picked up the red accordion file that contained the signed leases, and all of the stuff that Martin had prepared, and he stuck it all into Larry’s briefcase. Hilton grabbed Larry’s gun and cell phone and put them in the briefcase too. Hilton took a wet washcloth from the old chipped sink and wiped down the door knobs, the suitcase handles, anything that Hilton thought he might have come in contact with. When he had everything in the briefcase, Hilton looked around one more time and then walked silently back to his car and drove out of Deep Lake Lodge.

  CHAPTER 55

  It was supposed to be a routine meeting. They had a staff meeting like this every two weeks, where each of the section heads would give an update on activities and plans for the next two weeks. Then Martin’s boss would give an overall summary update and cover any remaining administrative items. It never lasted more than an hour. Anita hated these meetings because they always started right at 8:00 a.m. and she had to stop by Shipley’s and pick up donuts. It was also her job to make sure there was plenty of coffee in the conference room. Martin chose his spot carefully in the big conference room. He was one of the first to give his standard section briefing. As usual, he had been in the office before anyone and he already had packed the few essential and personal items he cared about in the trunk of his car. He also had taken the extra, remaining tape canisters from West Virginia and hauled those out to his car for disposal. Everything—every single thing he had ever done with Chequamegon—was erased from his computer. He had even combed Anita’s files and cleaned out a few items that she had stolen from him and given to Hilton.

  Each of the section heads went through their report, and then Martin’s boss began his overall briefing. Martin listened carefully, waiting for an opening. Finally, his boss announced that they had finalized the capital budget for the coming year. It was to be 20% lower than last year due to overall sluggishness in the oil market.

  Martin started in. “Do you mean to say that we are actually going to have a smaller exploration budget next year than we did this year?” Eyebrows raised around the table at Martin’s sudden reaction.

  “Yes, that’s what I said. 20% less than last year,” his boss driving the point home. He wasn’t going to take anymore crap from Martin. He had already talked to the President about the need to “do something” about Martin.

  “Did our Kazakhstan project make the cut?” asked Martin.

  “We won’t be announcing the final projects until next week,” his boss dryly responded. “We just set our overall spending level this week and now we’ll be going back through the projects to see which ones get final approval.”

  “You know right now whether or not Kazakhstan made the cut, don’t you?” said Martin sarcastically.

  “We will discuss it next week, Martin,” his boss said emphatically. “That is not the purpose of this meeting.”<
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  “Are we doing the Kazakhstan deal or not? I’m not leaving the meeting until I know. Now did you approve it or not?”

  His boss looked around the room carefully. They all knew that if the budget was cut 20%, the chances of them doing a project as large and as risky as Kazakhstan were almost zero. Martin sat glowering at everyone from the other end of the table. It was time for a showdown, and Martin’s boss seemed to be holding all of the cards.

  “Well, Martin, since I need to treat you differently from everybody else in the room, I will tell you. No, your project did not make the cut. We’re not doing it next year; we might not even do it the following year. It’s too big and it’s too risky and I don’t think we should spend any more time screwing around with it. Does that answer your question, Martin, or do I have to further explain it to you?”

  “No, you don’t have to explain a damn thing to me or anyone else in the room, do you? Everybody else in the business is expanding, raising their budgets with the increase in crude prices since last year. We just sit here fat, dumb and happy while you guys at the top just collect your big bonuses.” Martin looked grim.

  “Please don’t start in, Martin. It’s eight o’clock in the morning, for Christ’s sake. We really don’t have time for this,” his boss said firmly.

  “Oh, I’m not going to waste everybody’s time. Because you know what? I’m finished. I’m finished working on projects that never go anywhere. I’m sick of working at a company that’s got no future,” said Martin.

  “Martin, that’s enough,” his boss tried to intercede.

  “And most of all I’m tired of kissing your incompetent ass with the hope of getting a 7% raise next year instead of 5%,” Martin interjected.

  “Martin I’ve had it with you. You’re a talented geologist, but you need to go pack up your stuff. You’re fired.” His boss slammed shut the folder in front of him.

  “No, no, I’m not fired. I quit. I’m out of here. Now if you will excuse me, I wish all of the rest of you nothing but the best.” And at that, Martin rose from his chair and headed to the door.

  “This is it, Martin. This time you will not be welcome if you come crawling back.”

  Martin paused momentarily and looked his boss squarely in the eye, “In your dreams. I’m finally out of here, this time for good.” There was a long pause as they all watched the big door slam shut behind Martin. Then Martin’s boss looked down his list of handwritten notes and paused for a moment.

  “Okay,” he said, “now that we have that out of the way, I only have a couple more things I want to go over.”

  Back at his hotel room again, Martin lay sprawled across the bed watching television. It was Taylor, and she was absolutely outstanding. He loved her. Missed her. Professional, sharp, witty, attractive. Their time in Chicago had been awesome. Word of the oil bust was out, and thanks to Jason, the TV crew in Madison had “caught her” coming out of Magnolia Café with a breakfast coffee and a bagel.

  “Given that the oil is apparently just not there, Miss Thompson, do you have any regrets now over your resignation on this matter?”

  “Absolutely not. I never look back. I believe that principles are still important in the business of government. When the governor went forward with plans to proceed with this action before we had done all of our homework, I had to resign.”

  “Can you describe your relationship with the governor as it stands today?”

  “I told the governor in no uncertain terms that if I were running the show, I would have done things completely different, but he didn’t want to listen to me. He told me I wasn’t a team player. He told me since I wasn’t doing what he wanted, and what the party wanted, that I was finished politically. He threatened to ruin me over my affair with the lieutenant governor. I thought we needed to put integrity above politics on this, but frankly I think the governor saw this as his ticket to re-election.”

  Martin smiled broadly in his hotel room. He could see where this was headed.

  “Taylor, there was a report this afternoon in a Milwaukee Journal poll that shows the governor’s popularity is crashing. Is he still a viable candidate after this?”

  Jason said he wouldn’t need to coach anyone to ask that question. The question was pretty obvious.

  “Oh, that’s not for me to decide, that’s up to the voters,” said Taylor smiling broadly. “I will suggest however, that once he’s out of office, the governor may have more time to go dove hunting down in Mexico with his oil executive buddies.”

  “Can you see a scenario where he doesn’t seek re-election?” asked one of the reporters.

  “That would be only speculation on my part, and I never speculate,” she said. “I would wonder though, if given the way this entire episode was handled, if the governor still has the confidence of the people of Wisconsin. At this point, can he effectively lead?”

  Masterful. Here it comes, thought Martin. He was up sitting on the edge of the bed watching the “impromptu” interview.

  “Taylor, we have to know. All of the people are going to be asking the same question. Are you now a candidate for governor of the state of Wisconsin?”

  “I’m very honored that you would even ask me that question. I haven’t really thought about it. I guess if the people and the party came forward and asked me to represent them I would do it. As governor, I believe I could serve with the dignity, with the honor and with the sense of purpose that the people of Wisconsin should expect. It is far too early to carry on a discussion such as this and I hope I have been responsive to your questions today. Now I’m going to go home and eat my breakfast. Thank you very much.”

  A small crowd had gathered around the TV camera and the reporter. As the interview concluded, a funny thing happened—there was applause. She was still on camera, but she had stepped back from the microphone. There was a mixture of journalists, neighbors, and students, at the conclusion of the interview. She had bowed her head ever so subtlety, and spontaneous applause came from the small crowd. She stood smiling just for a moment and then gave a little wave and walked off towards her apartment.

  Martin picked up his burner phone and called her on her private cell number. She was walking back to her house alone and she answered on the first ring. Only two people had this number—Jason and Martin.

  “Just wanted to talk directly with the next governor of the state of Wisconsin.”

  Taylor was having some real fun now. Exhilarated from the press conference, especially the unexpected applause at the end. “I think you’re jumping to some pretty big conclusions Mister,” said Taylor, joking with Martin.

  “Let’s see, would that make me the First Gentleman of the state of Wisconsin, or the Mr. First Lady?” Martin was so happy for her.

  “Do you believe this?” asked Taylor. “I think the governor exceeded all expectations in his degree of stupidity on this. The buzz on this is unbelievable. Jason said we got a call from CNN and 60 Minutes this morning.”

  “Are you going to do it?” asked Martin.

  “60 Minutes? No idea.”

  “No, no, I mean are you going to run for governor?” asked Martin.

  “This is the chance of a lifetime Martin,” said Taylor growing suddenly serious, “I’ve got to do it.”

  “There was never a doubt in my mind. I just had to hear you say it.” Martin was silent.

  “You were great in all of this Martin. You’re just great, period. I, I love you.”

  “God, I love you too, Babe. Listen, I just want to make sure we know where we’re going on this whole thing.” Now Martin sounded suddenly serious.

  “Wow, you like getting to the point, don’t you?” said Taylor. “Where do you think we’re going?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I thought I knew and then with everything happening I’ve sort of lost my way,” said Martin.

  “We don’t need to rush anything, Martin. You know I’m going to be busy for a week just watching this t
hing take shape. What do you think about seeing where you end up with Liz on this whole thing?” Taylor paused.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Martin felt the tears form in the corners of his eyes. Martin wasn’t going to lose Taylor this time. He wasn’t going to walk away. He loved Taylor. She was awesome. Exciting. Beautiful. Taylor had always loved him. But he loved Liz, too; at least, he thought he did. He did all this for Liz. He had been angry at Liz over the separation. Angry at Liz for telling him he didn’t have the killer instinct, wasn’t making enough money. He had already shown he could outwork and outsmart everyone. He wanted to tell Taylor that he would come for her. He wanted to say he wanted to be with her.

  “Umm, okay how about we talk in a week, probably need to limit our phone calls for a bit,” said Martin.

  “A week sounds good. Surprise me. Love you.” said Taylor.

  “Love you, too. Bye.”

  Martin lay on the bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and wiping the tears from his eyes. It was nearly 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. He was now a very wealthy man. But he still had a bit of business to do.

  CHAPTER 56

  Martin had called Liz and told her it was important; told her it was something about the house and he needed to see her. She had suggested Saturday. When he told her he was off work today, and then pressed her again and explained that it was urgent, she finally said if it didn’t take too long, he could come by around 3:00 p.m. Promptly at 3:00 p.m., he pulled into the familiar drive and parked in his usual spot in front of the right garage door. He got his brief case and a big leather portfolio out of the car and walked across the stepping stones to the back door. He had laid these stones with Liz almost twenty years ago. They had driven up to Marble Falls one weekend and bought ten flat stones and thrown them on a blanket in the trunk of the car. The drive back had been crazy that night. The stones were heavy and weighed down the car. Every time they hit a bump on the road, sparks had flown as their old car had hit bottom and they laughed like kids all the way back to Houston. It was good to be home.