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.