The Chinese Deal

Waves of competing emotions battled for control of Ranell’s features until, finally, there was a crack. Ranell forced himself to spit out some of the poison devouring him. “There was a Chinese man named Hétóng Rén. He offered to buy all our airships. We turned him down.”

Mendoza listened.

“But then we went back to him ...I went back to him, Father. GML was on the verge of bankruptcy. I’ve got thousands of employees who would have lost their jobs!” Ranell looked for some sign of sympathy from his confessor but only received a stern look that insisted he stop making excuses and admit to his deeds.

Swallowing hard, Ranell steeled himself. “When we went back to him, he told us the deal to purchase the airships was no longer on the table. Instead, he offered us a plan, a scheme really, to make a substantial profit using the entire resources of GML. The trucks, planes, ships, everything.”

“What kind of scheme, Josef?” Now that the floodgates were open, the two men began walking again, being careful to stay far away from any ears that might overhear their conversation.

“It’s extremely complicated, Father,” Ranell began. He felt a profound sense of relief to speak openly. “But that’s the whole point. We developed a series of unusually complex trade deals spanning multiple third-party intermediaries across several countries. We thought that by making the deals so complicated, no one would realize we were padding the numbers.”

“Padding the numbers?”

Ranell gave another big sigh. “We used missing, counterfeit, or falsified trade documents to conceal vast amounts of cash crossing international borders. In exchange, GML received the money we desperately needed to continue our operations."