Chapter 201: Dilemma
Lorckheed Martin Corporation North Bethesda, Maryland.
Inside one of the conference rooms in the building, a groups of men and women dressed in office attire could be seen seated around a rectangular conference table.
One could feel how tensed the atmosphere of the conference room is and this can also be seen by the solemn expression on the face of everyone in the room.
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"Joseph, we have to find a way to solve the current situation. We are caught in a dilemma here." A man said with a very serious expression on his face.
"Jeremy, what do you suggest we do? He has the biggest shares in the company, just slightly behind two other institutional investors. How do we solve this situation in a way that we don't lose his investment and we don't get the country on our necks?" The man seated at the head of the table asked, as a solemn expression colored his face.
The man's question caused a stifling silence to envelope the room. Everyone looked at the files in front of them with different thoughts running through their minds.
It wasn't just the man that was seated at head of the table that was worried but every single person in the room is worried on how to solve the situation at hand.
Just early this morning, they got a message from one of their investors. It would had a joyous thing to get a message from one of the company's investors but unfortunately for them, this message wasn't a very favourable one.
Joseph Terrence, the head of the company's Board of Directors, President and CEO, immediately called for an emergency meeting when he received the message, asking for all the Board of Directors to attend.
He wouldn't had called for an emergency meeting if it was something that he could handle on his own but there are a lot of factors involved, and that's makes the issue very complicated.
This time around, it was someone else that spoke up, breaking the silence.
"I don't think we should focus on that. The question we should be asking ourselves is why one of the company's biggest shareholders is asking us to sell weapons to a country that's under sanctions by almost all the major countries in the world? Also, what does he need these weapons for? Why is he that he's threatening to dump all the shares he has if we don't sell these weapons to the country?
These are the questions we should be asking ourselves instead of trying to find a way to solve the situation. I believe that if we can get answers to these questions, then we have already solved the situation."
"Icarus, you've asked the questions one every one's mind, now what are the answers to them?" Joseph Terrence asked.
He agreed with the questions that Icarus raised but with the lack of answers to these questions, they become nothing but unanswerable questions.
"Does he intends to start a war?" Someone asked carefully, with a low voice that almost sounds like a whisper.
Even though the person's voice was low, it was loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
The expressions on everyone's faces tightened when they heard the question. They immediately felt that things were now snowballing into a very gray area.
"Why did the expression on their faces change so much when I asked the question? Or do you want to tell me that this is the first time that something like this is happening? We have done deals even shadier than this, why should this one be so hard?" The person that asked the previous question asked again.
He felt that the pretentiousness of everyone in the congregation room was evolving into something else. He was fully aware of what the corporation is capable of and he found it very funny that something as simple as this is giving them so much headache.
Why overthink things when you can just sell the weapons and make the expected profits? This is something that he doesn't understand.
"Nathan, I understand what you mean but this scenario isn't as simple as it might seem. I got a news from someone in the White House that there's a war. Also, you do know that Venezuela is still under multiple sanctions and with war imminently at hand, we can't let our be caught dead in the middle of it.
The consequences are going to be disastrous," Terrence said, explaining more on the situation at hand.
The faces of those in the conference room tensed again when they heard that there's a war coming. Under normal circumstances, for them as company that deals with military equipments, weaponry, technologies and services, it would had been a very solid news for them but they couldn't help but feel that something's up.
They could smell trouble brewing from a thousand miles away and this made them incredibly worried.
"Also, the scariest thing is that we don't know much about this shareholder. All we know is his name which is Silas Kurt but nothing more than that. We don't even have an image of him and we can ascertain that this name is actually his.
If you want to ask if I tried to personally investigate him, then the answer is yes. I started gathering information on him the very day he bought the first batch of shares.
I used every single one of my contacts but I got nothing. All the investigations lead to a wall. It was looking for someone who didn't exist in the first place.
Tell me, how does it feel when your enemy is in the dark and we are in the open?" Terrence asked and he watched the expression on everyone's faces tightened even more.
"I'm glad that everyone now understands the severity of the situation. We can't just make a casual decision and have ourselves suffering from the consequences of it. We are caught in a dilemma here because we can't just refuse to sell the weapons to him and risk him dumping that much shares.
The percentage of shares he has in the company are not huge but they are sizable making it very difficult for me to overlook it. With how volatile the market is right now, if more than half a million shares are dumped at once, how do you guys think the other investors will react?
Also, we can't sell the weapons to him because if we do, we are definitely going to be in a lot of troubles. We can't get ourselves in trouble with the United States, can we? It won't just be them as it's going to have a massive snowball effect. So guys, how do you suggest we solve this problems?" Terrence asked as he tapped the table rhythmically.
*****
While Lorckheed Martin Corporation Board of Directors were burning braincells over issue of selling weapons to Venezuela, the one who's the cause of the dilemma was still seated in the room filled with high ranking military personnels.
After he told Luna to walk into the room, the expressions on the faces of everyone in the room, excluding Silas and President Yusmaorobis changed into a very uncomfortable one.
Silas smiled brightly when he saw the expressions on their faces. He clapped his hands bringing them out of their stupor.
"I can see that you guys are already familiar with my Personal Assistant, Luna. She must have paid you guys a very wonderful visit. Now, do you still want me to prove myself?" Silas asked as he looked at them with a stern expression on his face.