Chapter 86

Chapter 86
Taylor was puzzled.
“But we’ve been doing this for almost two months now. The people back home are counting on this collaboration. Besides, who knows what Mr. Manent might have to say after today’s meeting.”
Sean pressed the down button on the elevator, his stern features reflected in the mirrored
walls.
“Instead of begging to survive, it’s better to take a bold stance and fight for it! Maybe then we won’t be at the mercy of others in the future.”
The elevator let out a soft ding as it arrived. Sean was the first to step in.
Although Taylor didn’t fully understand Sean’s words, he knew his decision was final.
He had been at Sean’s side for many years and had never seen him make a wrong move.
Taylor broke into a cold sweat at the thought of Lawson Global returning empty handed.
Besides, the chairman was using the cancellation of Sean’s engagement as leverage to get him to resolve the chip problem in Marvonia.
Back on Lawson Global’s private jet, a group of executives gathered.
“Mr. Lawson, the negotiations are still ongoing. I have a meeting with Raymond Corporation this afternoon to discuss the chip manufacturing partnership. Why the sudden need to return. to Oceanford?” asked a confused executive who had been called back.
Before Sean could answer, someone else chimed in, “Stop wasting your breath. Mr. Lawson knew before he got here that Marvonia wouldn’t sell us the chips, let alone partner with us to manufacture them.” “If we knew they wouldn’t sell us the chips, why did we waste our time here?”
“It’s all for show for the folks in Marvonia!” a knowing executive sneered.
He looked at Sean, who poured himself a glass of water at the bar.
The executive happily informed his colleagues, “Two weeks ago, my team safely escorted two chip experts back home.”
Another young executive added, “On my end, Dr. Harris had followed the route I arranged for him. He’s headed to Coldor first, then to Norlandia, and finally from Fontenay back to Oceanford. Our staff should have picked him up at the airport by now.”
+15 BONUS
“Professor Irich, a Ravorian from Norlandia’s ASML Solutions, flew directly from Norlandia to Krontos yesterday.”
Something finally clicked in his mind as Taylor listened to everyone’s exchange.
Sean’s grand gesture of bringing the company’s top executives to Marvonia to negotiate the partnership was a cover to move the experts the company had already contacted back to Oceanford. “Now that we’re suddenly leaving, the people in Marvonia must be shocked,” chuckled one of the executives.
“Everyone else knew about this but me? I was the only one losing hair by the handful, using every brain cell to secure the chip collaboration for us,” the original questioning executive chuckled with frustration and resignation.
“If we had already decided not to partner with them, why not simply bring everyone back home? What’s the point of going to Marvonia? We could just as easily invest the money in research and development!” Sean stood at the bar and poured another glass of water from the bottle.
As he twisted the cap back on the bottle of mineral water, he remarked, “Wasn’t the plane incident enough to set off alarms for us? 154 of our citizens, including 60 chip experts, were caught in it.”