The Chinese Triads grew out of the ancient secret societies, the religious groups and public agitators, who had rebelled against the Emperor. The Triads had a strange history, having fought against the Japanese in World War II, then helped Chiang Kai-shek in his war against the Communists, and even assisted the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.
Triad stood for the sacred symbol of ancient secret societies—a triangle enclosing a modification of the Chinese character known as hung, symbolizing the union of heaven, earth, and man. New recruits partook of various rituals and ceremonies to gain an understanding of duty, honor, and responsibility. They took an oath of loyalty that locked them into the Triad for life. They could retire, but their services could be requested for everything from transporting fugitives, to dealing with drug matters, to assassination.
The various Triads throughout Macau and Hong Kong were separate, autonomous societies, and much like traditional Mafia families, historically exclusive to the Chinese. The larger Triads, the Black Dragon, the White Spirit, and the Lotus Triad, were all dwarfed by Xiao’s Snake Triad, which was truly a criminal operation with no equal. Unlike the Triads of old, Xiao had consolidated power and successfully projected it outward, dealing with the capitalists and the communists, with criminal organizations of various faiths, creeds, and colors.
But with all of his power, all of his strength and reach, his goal had become simple and focused.
He turned and picked up the black lacquered talisman, the small antique wooden box engraved with a fearsome dragon entwined with a tiger in a battle to the death, the image a frozen moment with the final victor left to supposition. The box had rested on a shelf in his study at home for years, a sentimental heirloom that had belonged to his mother.
It had been in a metal lockbox with his father’s name on it, hidden away in his uncle’s house, which had become his house after his uncle’s death. He had found the lockbox after his uncle’s assassination, recalling it to be the lone possession his mother carried to Macau when they fled the United States so many years ago.
For years he had looked upon the black lacquered box and thought of his mother, feeling anger and a deep sense of loss. His mother thought the box was a cursed piece of artwork, never suspecting it was a puzzle box, never understanding what it held.
It was five months ago when he learned the box’s truth, when he pressed the eye of the dragon and performed a succession of intricate moves, the top panel of the box popped open, and he found the black porcelain vial.
The small container held so much death; it was as if someone had dipped it in hell, scooping up a darkness that would steal the soul. It had sat within the black puzzle box for all these years, hidden away by his mother, who feared its power—never imagining that it would be her son who would unlock its mystery, unleashing it upon the world.
CHAPTER 27
1975
Xiao stepped off the plane in San Diego. Though he was untouchable in Macau and Hong Kong, he was listed on Interpol’s Most Wanted list, which could make travel difficult. But since he was half-Caucasian, he could easily assume multiple nationalities depending on his mode of dress and hairstyle. And having been raised in the U.S. for the first ten years of his life, he spoke English without accent, which was far more helpful than a disguise, for everyone looking for Xiao was looking for a Chinese national, a man who spoke with a heavy accent and who had unmistakable Chinese features. No one ever suspected his heritage, his gwailo father.
He arrived at his old home, and except for the white paint job, it was exactly as he remembered it. He entered the unlocked house without knocking and walked about, memories pouring forth: times of innocence, when death was just something others spoke about. The furnishings had not been changed—the same dining room table, the living room couches—it had all been in his dreams for these past years but now it was alive once again.
But there was one difference: The pictures of his mother that had sat on the table in the foyer were gone, his parents’ wedding album from the coffee table in the living room was missing. It was as if she had never lived there, never existed.
Xiao walked into his father’s study. On the shelves were pictures of his brother, Isaac, playing baseball, football, and basketball; there was a prom picture with an average-looking brunette. It was a chronological series so quintessentially American, so different from his own upbringing.
And for a moment, he felt regret, a longing for his brother, from whom he’d been torn so many years ago. Seeing the images of Isaac’s life was like looking at a dream of himself, seeing the world that might have been.
There were nights when he would awaken, covered in sweat, longing for comfort from his dead mother. And he would think of his brother, the one person he thought he could trust, for despite being torn apart, being raised on opposite sides of the planet, they were still brothers, joined in birth, forever linked. He wondered if Isaac had felt the same pain at being torn apart, curious if he’d wondered where his brother had gone, if he knew what their father had done, if he’d ever suspected that their father had had their mother killed.
He had thought of Isaac often but never sought him out, never looking to open up his past until now. And despite his hatred of their father, and his intention to kill him, he wished he could see Isaac again. But he knew that once he followed through on his plans, it would remove the possibility of that ever happening, for his brother would never understand.
In that moment, Xiao thought of himself as Jacob, he thought of himself and his brother and the truth that they could reunite, reestablish what had been lost. For the briefest of seconds, he felt regret at coming here, for considering patricide, for thinking of killing his own flesh and blood. Maybe his uncle was wrong, maybe it was not his father who had killed their mother. Maybe…
And then his eyes fell on the last shelf of pictures, and what he saw sent a shudder through him. There was a picture of his brother at graduation in his dress uniform. He had followed in the steps of their father, becoming a soldier, a man of war. Isaac had become their father.
And Jacob was washed away; Xiao stood there, filling with anger, not just at his father now, but at his brother. For he was embracing the world of the man who had killed his mother.
Mounted above the fireplace was his brother’s sword, nothing like what was created in the Orient. There was no folding of the metal thousands of times as in a Japanese katana, no care to detail as in a Chinese dao. This was a mass-produced weapon of military symbolism whose bearer would never understand how to wield it except in a parade, at a funeral, at some ceremony.
He looked at the shelves he remembered from his youth, floor to ceiling, five feet wide, containing books, charts, and files. These documents pertained to the places his father had visited, had sailed to on his own. Some fathers collected gold trophies, others diplomas, still others bottles of beer; his father collected charts and books to commemorate the places he had sailed as if they were badges of honor. He had ignored the names when he was a child, not understanding or caring about the significance of a man’s piloting his own craft to such places. Now he read them all: Bermuda, Easter Island, the Azores, Tahiti, and the Seychelles. But it was the last shelf at the bottom that gave him pause. Unlike the other shelves, this one was empty except for a single handwritten label.
It was his favorite story, like something from a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, a story of treasure and magic, of life and death. His father had spoken of the island as if it were a fairy tale. He looked once again at the name on the label, mixed in with the other labels bearing names of islands in the world, as if it was real. And it struck him to his core. The label read Penglai.
“Isaac?” the voice called from the doorway.
Xiao didn’t turn around, still staring at the bookshelf in the den.
“How did you beat me home?” Xiao’s father’s voice was as deep and strong as he remembered, though there was an unsteadiness to it, a whiskey growl, a sign of age.
X
iao slowly turned and stared at his father.
Howard smiled as he threw his sweater on the couch and finally turned to look at the man he thought was Isaac. But his smile was washed away by confusion. His eyes struggled to refocus as he stared at his son. It was like an illusion, a picture that was slowly coming into focus. And the realization hit him.
“Jacob?” Howard slowly said.
Xiao stared at his father. He centered himself, trying to maintain calm. He had thought of this moment for years. His dreams and fantasies of what he would do to the man who had killed his mother had evolved with time, from the anger-filled messiness of a child to the methodical acts of an adult who had grown adept at meting out death. Xiao studied his face, the hard jawline and strong nose that was reflected in himself. This was someone he had loved, had worshipped, someone who had shaped the first ten years of his life.
But his most formative years, the last fifteen as he grew into a man, as he fell under the influence of Kwon, of China and Macau, were far more powerful and wiped the memories of those emotions away. And throughout it all, the anger of being torn from his childhood, the horror of the nightmares of his mother’s brutal murder in the streets, the bottled-up rage he could barely contain was trained in one singular direction.
“My God.” Howard stood there in shock, his face a fountain of emotions; his knees finally buckled and he sat on the couch. He slowly smiled as his mind spun. “Look at you.”
Xiao listened, shocked by the tone of his father’s voice; there was a sense of pride there. For all this time, he had thought of his father as hating him as much as he hated his mother.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” his father asked, but Xiao could see he understood.
Xiao slowly walked to his father, standing above him, and violently lashed out, striking him in the side of the head.
“You killed my mother.”
Howard threw up his arms, hoping to ward off the next strike, utterly shocked by the attack.
“You can’t deny it.” Xiao grabbed his father by the arm, yanking him off the couch and thrusting him into the hardback desk chair. He spun him about, pulled zip ties from his pocket, and tied him tightly into the chair. “She loved you.”
“And I loved her.”
Xiao drew back his fist and hit his father square in the nose, shattering it, blood exploding out, pouring down onto his white golf shirt.
“No. No man kills that which he loves. Unless…” he said slowly, a sadness in his voice. “He loves himself more.”
Howard hung his head in shame. “I will burn in hell for what I did.”
“Dad?” Xiao heard the sound of his own voice call out from the hall, yet it wasn’t him.
Xiao looked at his father. “Make a sound and I’ll kill him.”
Xiao stepped into the hall to see Isaac standing there.
The moment hung in the air as Isaac realized who the other man was. The two brothers stared at each other, a world of emotions pouring forth.
Isaac was nearly a carbon copy of his brother except for his shorter hair and more muscular body. Otherwise when the brothers looked at each other, it was like looking in the mirror.
Isaac stepped forward to hug his brother, but Xiao just stood there, his body language cold and dead. Isaac halted himself and smiled.
“My God, I never thought I’d see you again.”
Xiao remained silent.
“Where have you been?”
Xiao finally spoke. “China.”
“For all these years?”
Xiao nodded.
“We assumed…”
“That I was dead?”
“Yes… no. I just thought after all this time, I’d never see you again. And our mom?”
Xiao shook his head.
Isaac’s face swirled with grief.
“Why don’t you come in?” Xiao said, pointing toward the study.
And as they stepped into the den, Isaac saw his father beaten and bleeding, trussed to the chair, and immediately spun about. “What’s going on?” Isaac said, his voice filled with confusion.
“Dad”—Xiao paused—“is going to tell you what happened to Mom.”
Isaac looked at him, confused, as Xiao now pointed a gun at him, urging him to sit, drawing more zip ties from his pocket.
A fire grew in Isaac’s eyes, one that Xiao was more than familiar with. He understood the anger in his brother, the frustration he was feeling, for despite their years apart, they were still one.
Isaac finally sat. Xiao kept the gun on him as he tied his brother’s wrists to the arms of the chair.
“Why are you doing this?” Isaac said, struggling against his binds. “Where did you go?”
“Our mother took me away. She feared for her own life, for my life.”
“I don’t understand what you’re doing…” Isaac looked at Howard. “Dad, are you all right?”
Howard nodded as he took a breath.
“You don’t know what it is like to have your world turned upside down,” Xiao said. “To lay awake at night wondering—”
“If your brother is alive?” Isaac said. “If your mother is alive? Why she abandoned you? Yes, I do. So fuck you.”
“He killed our mother,” Xiao said. “He sent a soldier in the night to—”
“No,” Isaac said quickly, denying the impossible, looking at his father.
“I would never kill your mother,” Howard said as he looked into Isaac’s eyes.
“You lie,” Xiao snapped.
Howard stared at Isaac. “I drank, I struck your mother—I don’t deny that—but I loved her and could never kill her.”
“No, you would have someone else kill her, distance yourself from blame.”
“You think I would kill the woman I love? The mother of my two sons?”
Xiao and Isaac stared at their father, who looked up, his gaze alternating between them.
“What I had done—and your mother knew—I could be court-martialed for, thrown in prison, disgraced.” He paused, his voice growing angry. “Admirals don’t get court-martialed.”
“What did you do?” Isaac whispered.
Howard took a moment to gather himself. Then he finally spoke.
“After V-J Day, I was in charge of repatriating the spoils of war, getting them back to their homeland, their place of origin. The Japanese, much like the Germans, raided museums, homes, banks, stealing everything they could: gold, artwork, pieces worth millions thought lost to the devastation of war. We’re talking billions of things thought destroyed that would never be seen again. As ugly as war is, beyond the killing, this is the ugliest: You’re not only stealing their history, you’re stealing their sense of self. I think the possession of others’ belongings stolen in times of war, through pillaging and death, is a horrific rape of their soul.
“And when war is over, when it comes time for the victor to be honorable and return these precious items, it’s all too easy to slip them in a drawer, to say they were never found, to fold them into a museum’s collection or, worse, into our own coffers. The temptation to many to dip their finger in the pot, to take just one object, justifying that it would never be missed, is something that lies in all men, for we are all fallible. It was why we must rise above and do the right thing. And it fell to me to be sure America did the right thing.
“During the war, in June of ’43, I had hopped a transport from Australia back to our base on Guadalcanal. The plane was a Douglas C-47. We hit a storm, lost both engines, and had to ditch it in the sea. The pilot died on impact; the two other passengers, two young army sergeants, were badly injured. I managed to get us into an inflatable raft. By the time we washed up on the shore of an island, they were both dead.
“I knew the storm had thrown us way off course, far from the shipping lanes. I feared my stay would be forever. But God provides: There was fresh water, plentiful fish, and fruit. I crafted a shelter out of palm fronds and fallen trees and waited. Two days in, I knew no one
was coming. There was a war going on; no man could be spared to look for a plane of four. I knew we were already listed as killed in action. I couldn’t help thinking of myself as Robinson Crusoe.
“I set out one day to circle the island, to learn its size. It took me four days to circumnavigate it; the island was larger than I’d thought. But I found no sign of man, of any other inhabitant. The island was a dormant volcano somewhere within what is known as the ring of fire, which emerges from the Pacific plate. The mountainous center of the island climbed at least two thousand feet, but to truly see its size I had two choices: make my way through the rain forest, a thick jungle that was devoid of paths to follow and filled with who knew what predators, or venture up the central river that emptied into the sea. In my third week, I crafted a small raft out of fallen trees and ventured up the river into the heart of the island. The river was deep and wide, formed in a volcanic fissure; the banks were thick and lush with greenery that climbed into a canopy above that blotted out the sky. I felt like I was in a Joseph Conrad novel as I traveled up river into the heart of darkness.
“And what I found at the river’s end was beyond my imagination: a vast temple hundreds of years old. It sat one hundred yards in from the edge of a freshwater cove, a port like one might find in an old fishing village from the past.
“There were ships in a dock, ghost ships, six of them, of different vintage, as if a museum of boats showing their progression through time. There was a Chinese junk, its sails furled—the ship was enormous, larger than any junk I had seen—a Spanish galleon with a large forecastle and nearly intact sails, like something out of a Patrick O’Brian novel; a paddlewheel steamer; a merchant ship from the thirties; a Japanese war boat that I knew had been rumored lost at sea; and a sloop.
“I inspected each of the ships. They were fully operational, even the tall ships, all protected in the cove from weather; it was as if they had been frozen in time. The only odd thing was the compasses: None of them held true north, their needles spinning, in constant flux.
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