Fire Trap

23 - Boardroom allies

We got to Genetrix a half-hour before the meeting. According to Janice's agenda, the fire and keyman insurance investigations were the last items on the list. This was a regular board meeting, unlike the special session devoted to the fire that I had attended last week. Normally, I would only be brought in for my segment at the end, but I had persuaded Janice that Arnie and I needed to talk to Mark before the meeting and that both of us needed to sit through the whole thing.

By mutual agreement, we had avoided discussing the scene with Jean in the restaurant, but, now, as the three of us rode up in the elevator, I brought it up.

"I'm aware the board has the right and the need to know that Roark has the Genetrix notebooks and samples, but I'm requesting you don't bring it up at this meeting."

"I'm sorry," Janice replied. "I've gone along with you on everything until now, but that's asking too much. Millions of investor dollars are at stake and board decisions have to be made on accurate information."

"It's not money that's at stake," I said, holding down the anger rising inside me. "It's lives that are in danger. I think there is a murderer in your boardroom. If it's discovered that Jean was there when the explosion occurred, was possibly an eye-witness, what do you think might happen?"

I saw Janice go pale as her imagination probably filled in the answer. Dire consequences are not a part of most people's daily lives. If we encounter death at all, it's on the evening news or carefully decorated in the funeral parlor. Even the ultra confident Janice was not at home with the idea of a murderer in her boardroom. She maintained her poise, however, reversing herself quietly.

"I'm wrong," she admitted. "I won't say a word until there's someone in custody."

When we got off the elevator, we could see Neal and Lester through the open doors of the boardroom and we nodded hello as we turned down the hall to Mark's office.

#

Mark was behind his desk reading some papers, but got up to be introduced to Arnie and shake hands. Janice got right to work proposing to insert us into the full board meeting. Mark didn't care for this last-minute twist, but he kept his objections brief and succumbed with grace.

One of his objections was that the first agenda item, after the department reports, was the distribution of Simon's options and other financial arrangements of the current funding round that were highly confidential. I vouched for our discretion, and Janice vouched for me.

When that hurdle had been cleared, I began. "Actually, the stock option distribution was one of my reasons for requesting this early meeting. On the plane, you covered the stock arrangement through the second funding round, where Hillberg Partners acquired a fifty-one percent interest, bringing the venture investment total to ten million. I assume, since you refer to the current round as Round Four that there was a 'Round Three'?"

"Absolutely," Mark replied, "Round two got us a product. Round three, twenty million, got the product to market. Do you want details?" he said to me, but turned to Janice for the answer.

She nodded and he went on.

"We brought in one additional group, an insurance company, for the whole twenty million. These were the topical liposome products, not requiring FDA approvals or human clinical trials. The current round, an additional forty million, is to take on the FDA."

"How did the stock ownership change?"

"Hillberg kept controlling interest, the insurance company got twenty percent, then nine for Gallagher, six for Roseman, and four-and-a-half each for Wilson and myself, leaving a five percent pool for our employee stock incentive program."