Point of Contact

“Good.” Bai returned to his game.

So did Paul.

The search screen had pulled up the letter combination QC enough times to meet the screen’s frequency parameters. Paul naturally assumed it was an abbreviation for “quality control,” and Dalfan, apparently, was concerned with it. But what caught his attention were the document references pertaining to the QC hits. They didn’t square up with his idea of quality control, and he couldn’t reconcile their connection to particular budget documents.

He dug a little more and discovered that much of Dalfan’s QC concerns were connected to certain items that it produced and sold to an importer in Shanghai that seemed equally concerned about quality control — in fact, no other company Dalfan did business with made any reference to Dalfan’s quality-control issues.

Strange.

Not that doing business with a Shanghai importer was a problem. Nor was the fact that the company exported its Dalfan products to the People’s Republic of China. The whole world traded with China, including the United States, which had been running chronic trade deficits with Beijing for decades, transferring hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth to the Communist dictatorship decade after decade, allowing them to grow their economy and expand their military at America’s expense.

But as Calvin Coolidge once said, the business of America was business, and such matters were far beyond Paul’s pay grade.

However, Lenin was only half right when he said that a capitalist would sell the rope to the Communist who would hang him with it. In fact, while the United States government was more than happy to foster trade with China, it took a dim view of exporting goods or services that directly affected American national and economic security.

To that end, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Science created and maintained the Commerce Control List (CCL), which listed thousands of general and specific items that could not be exported to problematic countries on the Commerce Countries Chart (CCC).

Of course, the People’s Republic of China was on the CCC and there was at least one item listed on the CCL with the Export Control Classification Number 5A002.c, and that item had two letters in it: QC.

It was probably just a coincidence, but it was the closest thing to a clue that he had come across in two days of searches, so he decided to keep digging. He never could confirm the meaning of QC in the Dalfan files, but his investigation led him to that obscure file with a running list of invoices and payments that didn’t quite make sense. It was just a thread. But sometimes pulling on a thread led to unraveling the whole suit.

He flagged the file on the Dalfan mainframe and made a mental note to return to it later, when he had the time to chase it down.

* * *

The old Thai trainer was dark like mahogany, with a hard, round belly beneath his T-shirt and a bald head like the Buddha of Yong’s childhood memory, the one on the shelf in his grandmother’s kitchen. Only the ageless Thai never smiled.

Yong stood barefoot and shirtless in his bright yellow Muay Thai silk shorts, hands up, ready to launch against the thick square pads in the trainer’s skilled hands held up on either side of his head. The sinewy muscles in Yong’s torso and limbs were tightly wound cords beneath his glistening skin.

Yong exploded on his left foot and threw his right foot high, whipping around so fast that his heel strike against the pad sounded like a shotgun blast. He instantly repeated the move, again and again and again, four strikes in blindingly quick succession.

The Thai muttered a command in his own language. Yong acknowledged it and switched directions, his left foot now striking six inches higher than the trainer’s head.

“It would be an advantage if the deal goes through,” Meili said in Mandarin. She was small but well toned, with a heart-shaped mole just above her upper lip. Her hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. She wore red training shorts and a tight black tank top, and her hands were taped for practice sparring.

Yong understood her perfectly, despite her heavy mainland accent. His own Mandarin was heavily influenced by his mother’s Hokkien dialect, which was also practically another language — the second of four he spoke fluently, English being his first.

Yong took a couple of deep breaths, his eyes focused on the square pads now held chest high and pointing down at a forty-five-degree angle.

“My father wants the deal,” Yong said. “My sister wants the deal because Father wants the deal.” Yong’s right leg exploded forward, his weight leveraged on his back leg. His foot struck against the pads in four rapid strikes, smacking them so hard it knocked the sturdy Thai back onto his heels.

“Did I hit a nerve?” The diminutive Ministry of State Security agent asked. She kept one eye on the Thai. Yong had assured her before that he spoke only Thai and no Chinese dialects of any kind, but she was still suspicious.