eurekapd Chapter 460 The End of Gu Gorden
Chapter 460 The End of Gu Gorden
Hong Kong International Airport, 4:20 p.m.
Gordon Gu stood in the security line, clutching his U.S. passport. Seven or eight people were ahead of him; some carried duty-free bags, while a child dozed off against a luggage cart, clutching a Mickey Mouse doll. The security officer checked documents slowly, glancing at the person in front of him every time he turned a page.
He glanced at his watch, then at the gate. Cathay Pacific CX880, direct flight to Los Angeles, departing at 5:10 PM—he still had time.
When it was his turn, the security officer took his passport, flipped it open, looked at the photo, and then at his face. Something interrupted her—she pressed her earpiece, listened to something being said, then looked up at Gu Gordon and closed the passport.
"Sir, please follow me."
Gu Gorden's expression remained unchanged. "What is it?"
"plz follow me."
Two uniformed men emerged from the adjacent passageway and stood on either side of Gu Gordon. A security officer handed his passport to one of them. Gu Gordon glanced back at the security checkpoint; the hall was bustling with people, and no one seemed to notice this corner.
He was taken to a small room in the airport police station. The room had no windows, just a table, three chairs, and a mirror on the wall—he knew it was one-way glass. He placed his briefcase on the table and sat down.
The door opened three times. The first time was to deliver water; a young policeman placed a paper cup on the table. The second time was a change of personnel; the original two officers left, and a middle-aged man in his forties came in. The middle-aged man sat down opposite him, opened a folder, glanced up at him, and said in English, "Your visa has a problem." Gu Gordon said, "I request to see someone from the US consulate." The middle-aged man closed the folder, stood up, and left.
When the door opened for the third time, Ling Yun entered.
Gu Gorden's expression finally changed. It wasn't fear, but the kind of expression that showed he finally understood what had happened—like someone who had been searching for a key for a long time and suddenly realized it had always been in their pocket.
"It's you."
Ling Yun sat down opposite him. He was wearing a dark gray overcoat over a white shirt, without a tie. Zhao Hu stood in the doorway, his hands behind his back.
"Mr. Gu, we've never met, but you know me." Ling Yun pushed the paper cup on the table aside. "You've caused me a lot of trouble this past year."
Gu Gorden did not speak.
"You had Liu Jun steal the design blueprints for the StarCore chip. You helped Liu Chuanzhi set up the whimsical corporate espionage network. You were the one who facilitated Qualcomm's proposal to exclude Starfire in 3GPP." Ling Yun's tone was flat, as if he were reading a product list. "And Liu Chuanzhi's so-called Falcon Project was also orchestrated by you."
Gu Gorden's fingers curled slightly on the table.
"I know all that," Ling Yun said. "I've come today to ask you something in person."
He placed a printed document on the table and pushed it over. The document contained line after line of bank transfer records.
"How much money did you channel to the Vision Group through Goldman Sachs' three offshore funds?"
Gordon glanced at the paper. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I have everything here: what you said to Liu Chuanzhi when you came to Shanghai, at that restaurant in Pudong." Ling Yun took a voice recorder out of his coat pocket and placed it on the table. "Do you want to listen to it yourself?"
Gu Gedeng didn't look at the recorder. He stared at Ling Yun's face as if he were looking at a variable that could never be accurately predicted. The room was quiet, and behind the one-way glass, one could vaguely hear someone speaking in hushed tones. After a long while, he spoke.
"Mr. Ling, do you know where your problem lies?" His Chinese was fluent, with a slight Taiwanese accent. "You think the world is a problem, and as long as you do all the steps correctly, the answer will be right."
Ling Yun did not respond.
"But that's not how the world works. You won, not because you were right. It's just because you had a hand we didn't." Gordon leaned back in his chair, the metal legs scraping against the floor with a harsh sound. "Let's go. We've said what we needed to say."
Ling Yun stood up, took a file bag from Zhao Hu, and placed it on the table.
"This contains a record of all your activities in China this year. It includes the dates you entered the country, the hotels you stayed at each time, everyone you met, and every phone call you made." He pushed the file bag over. "Your report to Anderson, the one that said the Spark mobile phone project would fail, is also in here."
Gu Gorden's expression finally changed.
"How did you end up with that—"
"Because the people who wrote the report were also my people." Ling Yun turned and walked towards the door, pausing at the doorway. "Mr. Gu, you think you can destroy everything with capital. But you've forgotten that some things can't be bought with money—like the hard work of a group of engineers over ten years, or the technological backbone of a country."
He opened the door and went out.
The corridor was quiet, with one of the fluorescent light tubes overhead humming.
Zhao Hu followed. "President Ling, his materials—"
"Give it all to Uncle," Ling Yun said as he walked. "Compile the recordings, transfer records, and activity logs into a complete report. Have Ling Jun hand it over directly to the relevant departments."
"This report will keep them busy for a while."
"This is exactly what I wanted." Ling Yun pushed open the door at the end of the corridor, letting in the cacophony of the airport terminal. "The Americans can investigate our companies using Section 301, and we can retaliate in our own way. This report is the evidence."
He walked to the parking lot and opened the car door. Before getting into the back seat, he looked up at the glass facade of the terminal building. The setting sun cast a dazzling orange-red glow on it.
"Let's go."
The next evening, Lingyun ate at her uncle Ling Jun's house. There were four dishes on the table: a plate of peanuts and a bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup. An Shiyu was watching cartoons with her daughter in the living room, and the voice of Grey Wolf could be heard from the television.
Ling Jun picked up a peanut. "The report has already been submitted, and the relevant departments are taking it very seriously."
Lingyun held up the bowl, "How do you use it?"
"You don't need to worry about that." The uncle put down his chopsticks. "That's not what you should be concerned about right now. Xinghuo is expanding overseas, to Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. You need to have a complete set of risk contingency plans. Not commercial risks, but geopolitical risks."
Ling Yun put down the bowl. "I was prepared."
"What preparations?"
"All core technologies remain in China. Overseas companies only handle sales and localization. Even if they shut down all my overseas subsidiaries, I'll only lose a few sales channels."
Ling Jun picked up the bowl and took a sip of soup. "That's good."
After dinner, Ling Yun was washing the dishes in the kitchen. An Shiyu walked over and leaned against the doorframe. "What happened to that guy surnamed Gu?"
Ling Yun dried the last bowl and placed it on the drainer. "He's been handed over to the judicial authorities. Commercial espionage, unfair competition—enough to keep him in jail for years."
An Shiyu remained silent.
Ling Yun dried his hands and went to the living room. His daughter was sitting on the sofa watching cartoons, her little legs dangling off the edge. He bent down and picked her up. "Come on, Daddy will tell you a story."
His daughter wrapped her arms around his neck. "Daddy, aren't you working overtime today?"
"No more."
The night outside the window in Jinan is very quiet, with a few lights on in the distance.