The Shaft

Sitting at opposite ends of the glass covered, cherry wood conference table, Gino Marienello, referred to by those gathered around the table as Prometheus, and Matire Everhardt, who used the code name Art for this project, stared down at the list of names that had been handed to each of them by Marcia Kingston, Gino’s administrative assistant for over 10 years. At 10PM on a Sunday night, Gino and Matire felt confident that their firm’s conference room would be the perfect, private setting for an important meeting with several of their partners in what they referred to as “Project Deliverance”. After only 5 minutes of perusing the documents handed to him, Matire looked up and met Gino’s eyes and nodded without saying a word, communicating effectively that he agreed with the direction that needed to be taken according to what he had just read.
The double doors immediately behind Gino opened as the partners joined them in the conference room. Four additional players in this secretive venture took their seats in the black leather high backed chairs, each one reaching for the same packet of information that Gino and Matire had just viewed. These documents had been meticulously prepared by Marcia, having become a trusted analyst in this project, a significantly more important role than she had assumed at Intracor Pharma over the past decade. She finally felt as though she had made it. Only one year of community college and a struggle with low self-esteem had managed to keep her content with the status quo until being asked, or possibly more accurately, told by Gino that she would be working on a completely top secret project for the greater good of humanity. Gino was aware that Marcia lacked any true spiritual or religious affiliation and had recently lost her husband of 22 years to pancreatic cancer. He made a calculated bet that this increase in responsibility and more importantly, the 50% increase in her salary would help to make her the administrative clay that he desperately needed as the master potter in this plan. The documents had been placed in dark brown file folders with only their code names written across the top left tab. Without speaking, all four read through the information quickly, but thoroughly, a couple taking notes as they read.
After no more than five minutes, the meeting was called to order by Matire, the man who was given project management responsibility by the group’s leader, Gino “Prometheus” Marienello. “Let’s get started, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us on such short notice. Max, I am sorry to hear of your mother’s recent passing, but we truly appreciate you making the effort to join us here tonight. Marcia has made arrangements for you to take the first flight out of Hartsfield at 6:45AM.” Max nodded a simple gesture of thanks to his hosts.
“To date, gentlemen, we have completed approximately twenty five percent of our overall objective. Although a great start, we, Prometheus and I, sense a heightened police and FBI sensitivity to some of our tactics.” Matire continued in his matter-of-fact, made for corporate finance, monotonic voice, “As you see before you, we have identified the next two targets, two individuals that have been key driving forces behind the success of ‘The Call’. We have engaged our friend from the mountains for both of these situations, and he has assured us that they will be taken care of within the next several days.”
Gino jumped in, immediately showing that although Matire had been given meeting organizer responsibility, Gino was indeed running the show. “A key point here that we should discuss is the departure from our normal course. After the recent elimination of what I would classify as four significant threats, we felt that ‘The Call’ would find it difficult to continue operating as normal. In fact, we felt that the perceived danger that would be felt by the leaders should derail the current tour and would hamper the influence that it is having on the church, its chosen political puppets and society as a whole.” Gino paused before continuing. “Instead, we have seen a strengthened resolve by some in ‘The Call’, possibly even increasing the movement’s momentum. We must increase the pressure. It reminds me of the American response to the 9-11 terrorist attacks when, even though the attacks were primarily in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C., every American’s resolve to maintain our freedom and way of life seemed to reach a fever pitch across the entire country. I guarantee that if one of these militant groups provides proof of their ability to set off a dirty bomb or inflict some other terrorist catastrophe that dramatically affects the United States, U.S. officials won’t keep up this American confidence façade. Their fear will cause them to pull back…cower in the corner, wondering when the next attack might come. In the same way, we are required to rid the world of this insidious, religion inspired political threat, brothers. We must defeat this radical movement and we cannot afford to lose our focus and resolve. These people have become far too powerful. They continue to fight for prayer in our schools and are getting closer to winning this battle every day. They continue to gain support in the ‘right to life’ debate. They want adult video programming, what they call pornography, banned from all U.S. hotels. And, congress is listening! But all of these things aside, the most important concern for those of us seated at this table is their continued, aggressive fight against the ethical use of embryonic stem cells in critical pharmaceutical research and regenerative medicine and their ignorant stance on therapeutic cloning. These areas are the most important scientific frontiers that exist today and are critical to not only the future growth of each and every one of our companies, but for the continued funding of research and development, and the requisite scientific advances that will be seen in the U.S. and global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries over the next twenty years at least, if not for the next one hundred. Pro-life advocates continue to argue that these initiatives are simply immoral acts of disregard for human life. As all of you know, stem cells and gene therapy quite possibly provide the most dramatic potential for finding treatments and cures to a vast array of diseases including various cancers, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimers, Multiple Sclerosis, Huntingtons, Parkinsons and more. There is endless potential for scientists to learn about human growth and cell development from studying these stem cells. With this recent groundswell of support against this scientific brave new world, a frightening pendulum swing back to the right, we are moving in a direction that might rebuild our Supreme Court with conservative whackos that will for many years weaken our great nation. And forget about just the Court! This Barry Hatcher in Texas. Senator Bible Thumper.” His face flushed with anger as he emphasized what he had picked as a crafty nickname for the man he counted as his ultimate commercial nemesis. “He is the main reason we must derail this movement. Have you listened to his recent speeches? He wants to do to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies what tort reform has done to so many of our attorney friends down South and what the ridiculous mortgage and banking regulations did to our banking system in 2008. The bill that he plans to chair this year would put limitations on our business like we have never seen before. He is finding incredible political support for price controls for orphan drugs, new therapies that can change the entire treatment landscape.