IC - The Story So Far...

First son of Albert Chan, James was born in Hong Kong on the 01st of July, 1974, the Chinese Year of the Tiger. Besides English, which he speaks with an English public school accent, he speaks fluent Cantonese, and some Mandarin.

To all appearances, Albert appeared to be a successful and respected businessman, owning a thriving import and export business, mixing with Hong Kong’s rich and powerful, sending his son to be educated in the United Kingdom, at Harrow Private School.

Unknown to all but a trusted few, however, Albert was also the Dragon Lord, or leader, of the Third Triad Tong, also known as the Red Fists, a brutal criminal gang that dealt in drugs trafficking, extortion, gambling and prostitution.

James was initiated in to the Third Tong on his seventeenth birthday, his initiation rite to kill an undercover policeman who had infiltrated the Triad's inner circle. He would rise swiftly through the ranks of the Red Fists, and by the age of twenty one, he was one its most feared enforcers enjoying all of the benefits that his position gave him - fast cars, expensive clothes, drugs, his choice of women.

In 1996, the Chan Family gathered at a Kowloon restaurant, as they always did, to celebrate the Hung Shing Festival, Festivals being an important part of life for all Chinese families, but especially the Triads. James was late arriving for the meal, having been reluctant to leave his lover’s bed. That fact probably saved his life. The bomb that ripped through the restaurant killed over twenty people, most of them members of James’ extended Family. Among the dead were his father, mother, and younger brother. The leadership of the Triad passed to his Uncle, Kenneth.

Vengeance was swift and deadly. The Red Fists hunted down those who had planted the bomb and those who had planned it. Money loosened tongues, and for those who could not be bribed, there were other ways of persuading them to tell what they knew. The finger of blame was pointed, towards a rival Tong, a smaller group, who had always been envious of the Red Fists’ power, influence, wealth. The accused were brought before James and his Uncle, to whom they apparently confessed the crime. Following their deaths, which were neither quick nor painless, James and his Uncle Kenneth consolidated their positions, the older man formally becoming the new Dragon Lord, and making his nephew Mountain Lord, his Second.

There was some disquiet over this change of leadership. Kenneth was seen by some as weak, easily influenced, had never been respected the way that Albert had been. When several of the older members openly questioned the wisdom of this, they disappeared, never to be seen again. After that, no one else questioned. Rumours would persist for some time however, whispered in the night, when none could overhear that James and his Uncle had actually been responsible for having the bomb planted themselves in order to take over the Triad.

While his Uncle Kenneth consolidated his position as leader over the next year, James increased his own status within the Triad, as well as his personal wealth. He gambled, in the many illegal gambling dens that the Red Fists controlled, he was a regular visitor to the Casinos on the Portuguese Colony of Macau; he drank, mostly scotch whisky, Johnnie Walker being his preferred brand, smoked, continued to do drugs. He would go to the most expensive bars, where the most beautiful women were found, choose one, sometimes more, to warm his bed.

Along the way he managed to make many enemies. Enemies who wanted to see him dead. The fathers of sons that he had murdered, the husbands of wives that he had taken to his bed. In 1997, the Union Flag was lowered for the last time in Hong Kong, to be replaced with the flag of the People’s Republic of China. A new Government brought new opportunities, new enemies.

The Triads from the North, from Beijing and Shanghai now saw Hong Kong as theirs. They came, in force. War broke out between the rival gangs, War which the police were unable or unwilling to stop. A truce was finally declared after eighteen months of bitter fighting, and an uneasy co existence began between the Hong Kong Tongs and their Northern counterparts. The Red Fists prospered once more.

Until, eighteen months ago, that co existence was almost shattered, when James took to his bed the nineteen year old daughter of one of the Beijing Dragon Lords. Her father, a powerful man, was incensed. It seemed that War would re erupt once more between the Tongs, a War that could prove disastrous for the Red Fists. In an effort to keep the peace, Kenneth sent James away from Hong Kong, to give rational heads a chance to prevail.

He sent him to the United States, to look after the Red Fists’ expanding interests in that Country. First to San Francisco, for a while, then onwards. To Chicago.