Approved as a Son-in-Law!
“……”
“……”
Martin studied the young Asian man standing before him from head to toe.
Neat shirt, a round, likeable face, and not a hint of sharpness or intimidation anywhere about him—he had one of those easy, pleasant looks that made people warm to him on sight.
If not for the fact that he stood well over six feet tall, Martin would have taken him for a thirteen-year-old. No—ten, maybe.
Some instinct honed by more than thirty years of dealing with people as a landman kicked in on its own.
He doesn’t feel like some slick con artist.
There was no greed in his eyes, no nervous energy, no short fuse waiting to blow.
His posture matched that impression. He didn’t stand pigeon-toed or avoid eye contact, but he wasn’t rude about it either.
He looks younger than Caroline... and this kid is really my daughter’s boss?
Martin tilted his head to himself.
Then, with a bored expression, he slowly rose from the sofa.
“So. I heard you’re Korean-American?”
“Yes. My parents came from Korea. I was born in the United States.”
“I’m Caroline’s old man. Martin Channing.”
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Lee Sanha.”
“Right. So our Caroline works for you as your secretary?”
“Yes. Caroline is an exceptional talent. She’s indispensable to me.”
At the words indispensable to me, Caroline covered her mouth, while the crease between Martin’s brows deepened a little more.
“It’s honestly still strange to me that my daughter’s working under somebody. Even when I try to let it go, I keep thinking about it.”
“Ah, I understand. That must be difficult.”
“I wanted to make time to meet you because I was curious what kind of man you are, and what kind of business you’re running.”
Martin folded his arms.
“I heard you’ve got a big interest in underground energy. That you even started a company... This line of work is rough as hell. I couldn’t figure out how a kid—no, a young man like you ended up jumping into it.”
“Opportunity presented itself. I suppose you could call it luck, or a good eye. I saw places where treasure had been left buried under abandoned land.”
“...Hmph. Luck, huh.”
It was rare to find someone young enough to call his own success luck, and mean it with such humility.
Martin tipped his head slightly.
Caroline, who had been fidgeting beside him, hurriedly jumped in.
“Daddy, see? Now you get why I work for him? He’s seriously amazing.”
Caroline straightened proudly, chest out.
Martin waved a hand.
“All right, all right. Sit down, then. Let’s keep it informal. I’ll call you Sanha, and you can call me Mr. Channing.”
“Understood, Mr. Channing.”
“Good. Sanha.”
Martin settled back into his seat.
The atmosphere loosened a little, but suspicion still lingered in his eyes.
“Caroline told me something. She said you run your own oil field and gold mine. In Texas and Massachusetts.”
“Yes. There’s an oil field in Garden Queens and a gold mine in Wishville.”
“Right. Lee Energy, was it? I’ve heard the rumors about that company too. Supposedly it’s been growing like crazy lately. I assumed it was something your father ran, but that wasn’t it, was it?”
“No. I run it myself.”
“You do? You’re telling me that’s true? A young man like you—no, a young person like you...”
Curiosity lit Martin’s eyes.
He was a veteran landman who had spent more than thirty years in the Texas oil business.
He knew as well as anyone what lay beneath the ground, what rights were needed to dig it out, and who had to be lobbied to get it done.
“To be honest, it’s hard to believe. From the perspective of someone who’s been in this business for thirty years, that is.”
“I understand. It probably is hard to believe until you see it for yourself.”
“But that’s not the important part. What I’m really curious about is something else.”
“What is it, Mr. Channing?”
“Tell me straight. You don’t have your eye on my daughter, do you? A young man and woman working together—things can happen.”
“Daddy!”
Caroline cut in at once.
“Please! It’s not like that!”
“Hold on. I’m checking. A man can only be understood by another man.”
Martin held up a palm to quiet his daughter.
Then Lee Sanha answered calmly.
“Caroline is one of the most important partners in my business. I don’t have the luxury of entertaining other thoughts.”
“Hmph.”
Martin nodded.
“So, are you seeing anyone right now?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Really? You’ve got a good face and seem like a decent enough character. Don’t you get a lot of attention from women?”
“Sometimes I get invited to dance parties. But I’m so busy I usually turn them down.”
The instant Lee Sanha finished, Caroline jumped in again.
“But Sanha only ever went to a dance party with me, you know? At the end of the semester!”
“……”
Martin’s expression darkened further.
Lee Sanha hurriedly waved his hands.
“That was because the rules said a man and woman had to attend together. It wasn’t anything special. Caroline didn’t have a boyfriend to go with either, and I didn’t have anyone, so...”
“So you two really aren’t anything to each other?”
“No. Really.”
At that clear answer, Martin suddenly felt sheepish and lifted his glass of water again.
Caroline chided him.
“Daddy, stop it. You’re making my boss uncomfortable.”
“All right, all right.”
Martin cleared his throat and backed off.
“Anyway.”
He returned to the main point.
“You said you run an oil field and a gold mine. But the thing about the ground is, money alone doesn’t make it spit anything out. I’ve seen plenty of people pour in tens of millions and come back with nothing. You have to be careful.”
“Ah, well, the Garden Queens oil field... Garden Queens was originally the town where my father ran a small gas station. A long time ago, he bought the wasteland behind it for next to nothing. Nobody had looked twice at the place. But after drilling a few meters down, crude came out. It was a shallow oil field, discovered thanks to a quake and a lightning strike.”
Lee Sanha spoke in a level voice.
“We’re currently running our own refining facilities off the crude from that field, and we’ve built a gas station network across Texas, so we handle distribution directly as well. We’ve completed vertical integration from production to refining to distribution.”
“……”
Martin was left speechless.
Vertical integration. That was the sort of thing only major oil giants like Exxon or Chevron talked about, and yet he was hearing it from this fresh-faced young man.
Lee Sanha went on.
“The gold mine in Wishville is a —an abandoned mine from the 1920s in Massachusetts. Back then, with the technology they had, they dug out only the surface vein and stopped. There was no way to know what was deeper.”
“So?”
“I didn’t know it myself, but there were a lot of capable people there. I just bought a few companies that came up in auction, and the experts there handled the rest, so I suppose I was lucky. We’re getting gold bars out of that mine every week now. We refine everything and store it in bank vaults, then use it as collateral to secure loans and raise additional capital.”
“Hmm.”
Martin stroked his chin.
He claimed it was luck, but these were achievements that could never be explained by luck alone.
“Mr. Channing.”
Lee Sanha met his eyes squarely.
“I already have proven oil fields and gold mines. And I intend to develop many more, built on that foundation.”
He paused.
“But if I do business only inside the United States, growth will hit a ceiling.”
“A ceiling...”
“I’m looking at the North Sea.”
Martin’s eyes widened.
The North Sea.
The world’s largest offshore oil region, stretching between the United Kingdom and Norway.
“The British government is issuing new licenses for North Sea oil fields right now. Bidding for new blocks is scheduled to begin soon.”
Lee Sanha spoke calmly.
“But Britain is not the United States. The monarchy, the government, and Parliament are all tangled together in complicated ways, and above all, they are extremely reluctant to hand their domestic underground resources over to foreigners.”
He drew a small breath and continued.
“Bureaucrats in the British energy ministry begin by distrusting American companies. The North Sea is the heart of the British economy, after all. A portion of the royal pension comes from North Sea oil revenues, and both the Conservative and Labour parties fight fiercely over energy policy.”
Martin’s expression hardened.
As a landman who had spent thirty years in the field, he knew exactly what that meant.
“To get into that market, money won’t be enough.”
Lee Sanha said,
“I’ll need connections with London lobbyists, energy ministry officials, and the royal advisory circle. And more than anything else...”
He looked Martin straight in the eye.
“I’ll need a veteran landman who can read both the American oil industry and the British energy market at once. Someone who can even lean all the way up to the White House if necessary...”
“You mean me?”
“Exactly. That’s why I came here today.”
Lee Sanha’s voice remained even.
“Mr. Martin Channing. I need your help—someone with deep ties not only in America, but in Britain as well.”
“……”
Martin Channing.
He was an American of Scottish descent, and he also had many relatives in Edinburgh.
His late wife had been a woman from the British upper class, which meant he had social connections in those circles as well.
What was more, in his youth he had studied at Oxford, where he still had many alumni connections, and he had also worked back and forth between Britain and Norway in the early days of North Sea development.
“You’re planning to expand into Britain? Their territorialism is no joke. They’ll look down on Americans first and ask questions later.”
“I know. That’s why I’m preparing a heavy opening blow. One so strong they won’t even think of trying to play territorial.”
“Heavy opening blow? Against Britain? Ha—so what are you planning to use to knock those arrogant bastards down a peg?”
“Money. Overwhelming financial firepower. I’ll use cash raised against gold and crude collateral, then lever it up to the limit and pump it hard.”
“You’re insane. What the hell are you trying to do in Britain, anyway? Drop a Tsar Bomba you bought from the Soviets?”
“If I have to.”
“Ha ha—”
Somewhere along the way, Martin found himself completely absorbed in the young man’s words without even realizing it.
Caroline watched the two of them in silence, holding her breath.
It was the first time she had ever seen her father—normally famous for being stubborn and finicky—so readily listen, nod, and acknowledge someone else’s words.
Martin rubbed his chin and said,
“I once met the British energy ministry’s assistant minister at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston. We hit it off pretty fast, since he was related to my wife’s side of the family.”
World Petroleum Congress.
An event held every three years since 1933, often called the Olympics of the oil industry.
The highest-ranking international conference in the field, where energy ministers and CEOs of the major oil companies from around the world gathered in one place.
And the British energy ministry’s assistant minister was a key post, handling the actual operations directly beneath the minister.
All the licensing for North Sea oil fields and all the regulatory policy passed through his hands.
In other words, he was the gatekeeper of the North Sea, and Martin had personal ties to him.
“Mr. Channing.”
Lee Sanha said,
“I don’t want to be the sort of businessman who only plays in the American sandbox.”
“……”
“I’d like to bring you into our company. In the United States, I want someone who can deal with the Texas and Massachusetts state governments—and eventually the White House. And beyond that, I want someone who can take me into Britain.”
“……”
“And later on, when the time comes, I’ll need your global perspective for the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Alaska, Siberia, and Africa too.”
The moment he heard that, Martin realized something.
He had called the young man here today to size him up—but the young man was sizing him up too.
And then... Martin realized one more thing.
Just as he had given the young man standing before him a generous evaluation, this young man had also given a generous evaluation to the man standing before him.
Lee Sanha turned to Caroline.
“Caroline’s included as well. She’s my secretary now, but once this project kicks off in earnest, I’m planning to promote her to Europe business director. I’ll give her the authority to make decisions directly on the ground. Of course, she’ll have to study the global market diligently with me, but still.”
“...!”
Caroline’s eyes went wide.
Martin looked over at his daughter.
Caroline had both hands folded neatly on her knees, staring at Lee Sanha.
With a face that said she’d fallen for him completely.
“Hmm-hmm.”
Martin read the look on his daughter’s face, but for once he pretended not to notice.
Instead, a very pleasant greed began to bloom in his chest.
This kid... honestly, I want him. Should I just abduct him and make him part of our family as a son-in-law?
Perhaps this was another kind of happiness only a father with a daughter could enjoy.
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