Shadow of the Dragon

I wanted to share the first chapter of my book, Shadow of the Dragon, with you as a change of pace from my typical articles.

Fall of the Dragon

Hong Kong, 1987

The neon-drenched streets of Hong Kong hummed with their perpetual symphony of chaos and order as dusk melted into the cloak of night.

Wan Chai, a district brimming with life and energy, was a dichotomy of tradition and modernity. The gritty industrial docks were evolving, bristling with the clanging symphony of cranes and forklifts as they danced around towering cargo stacks. Majestic container ships glided into the harbor, casting long shadows, while weather-beaten junks floated gently in the choppy waters, juxtaposing ancient silhouettes against the modern cityscape.

In 1987, Wan Chai was a meeting point between East and West, past and present. Neon signs jostled for space alongside older red lanterns, casting a soft, ethereal glow over the bustling streets. A torrential downpour swept the night sky, baptizing Hong Kong relentlessly. The southeast wind bared its teeth at the harbor, coercing tiny, bobbing boats to seek refuge and scattering city-dwellers from the labyrinthine streets.

In the heart of this frenetic cityscape, Tan Shui Kin Hospital in Wan Chai stood as a beacon of sterile calm amidst the urban frenzy. Under the indifferent glow of fluorescent lights, Simon Chan, Dragon Master of one of the most prominent criminal Triads in Hong Kong, the Wo Shing Ye, burst through the double doors and limped toward the stairs leading to the street below.

Senior Inspector Blake Morgan of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force walked beside Chan. Dressed in navy blue pants and a white shirt, Blake cut a striking figure. At forty-two, his Welsh and Mexican heritage sculpted him into rugged contrasts: piercing blue eyes framed by a mane of curly black hair against a tanned, angular face. Each line on his face spoke of years of hardship and determination; his lean, athletic form was a testament to a life of martial arts discipline and military rigor.

Blake’s journey had been extraordinary. Born during WWII in Hong Kong, he was a prisoner of war of the Japanese along with his family. He inherited a survival instinct from his resilient father, a Chief Inspector of Sanitary Health Services. These formative experiences sculpted Blake into a man of unyielding resolve, courage, and strength. Fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin, Blake’s deep understanding of Hong Kong’s intricate cultural fabric was a testament to his dedication to the police force. He faced the mammoth task of navigating the dark waters of Hong Kong’s Triads.

Blake had served in the British military early in his career, following his father's footsteps. He was recruited into the Special Air Service (SAS), the special forces predecessor of the US Navy Seals. The SAS training was gruelling, including the famous long marches across the rugged terrain of the Brecon Beacons in Wales, carrying heavy rucksacks and navigating with maps and compasses. The final test was the Endurance March of forty miles within a strict time limit. In dense jungle conditions, candidates learned survival, navigation, weapons, and combat skills. The close-quarter battle training included urban room clearing, hostage rescue, and hand-to-hand combat. The attrition rate in SAS is ninety per cent, and Blake was one of the durable minorities that succeeded. That training and discipline had proven to be essential to his success as a police officer.

Blake emerged from the sterile confines of Tan Shui Kin Hospital in Kowloon, the acrid smell of antiseptic still clinging to his clothes. He had just gone toe-to-toe with Simon Chan, the infamous Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Ye, whose very name sent shivers down the spines of criminals and business owners throughout Kowloon. Blake’s interrogation of Chan regarding his attacker had been met with silence.

Chan’s leg wrapped in a bandage, was a testament to the brutal dance of power that constantly threatened to tear the city apart. The bullet wound was a stark reminder of the fragile peace that existed between rival Triads, a peace that now teetered on the brink of all-out war.

Blake had hoped that Chan's vulnerability might finally crack the impenetrable wall of silence surrounding the Triads. But as the minutes ticked by, that hope had withered and died, replaced by a gnawing frustration that clawed at his insides.

Chan's eyes, cold and unyielding as steel, had revealed nothing. His lips, twisted in a mocking smirk, had offered only silence and contempt. With each evasion of Blake’s questions, each calculated pause, Blake felt the answers he so desperately sought slipping further from his grasp. “I have to remain centered and calm,” Blake reminded himself. He was reminded of the wisdom of the Stoic philosopher Seneca: “You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself when no noise reaches you when no word shakes you out of yourself.”

As he stalked out of the hospital with Chan, anger boiled within Blake. For a dark, terrible moment, he found himself wishing that Chan's attacker had aimed true, that the bullet had found a more vital mark. The thought was a stark reminder of how this endless war had eroded his optimism about controlling the Triads.

Simon Chan's gait was a torturous dance of agony and determination. His uneven steps betrayed the dark history etched into his soul, a visible echo of the violence he had both endured and inflicted. Once youthful and vigorous, his face had succumbed to time and the exertion of authority. Deep lines creased his countenance like battle scars, weaving a tale of age and dominion.

Chan was a name whispered with reverence and fear in the shadowy corridors of the criminal underworld. His reign as the Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Ye  Triad left an indelible mark on the city. Blake, hardened by encounters with the criminal world, reached out to gently halt Chan's unsteady walk, having calmed himself. "Although that gunshot wound in your leg didn't inflict grave damage, it might be prudent to spend a day or two recuperating in the hospital,” he said to Chan. “We haven't finished discussing how you came to take that bullet."

Chan's head shook imperceptibly, his silence an unspoken declaration of defiance. With a predator's keen gaze, Chan surveyed the bustling street, his commanding presence subdued by the slow, painful steps he took. Unbeknownst to him, danger lurked in the patient malevolence concealed within the shadows.

A sleek, black sedan careened down the street, engines roaring like unleashed beasts. Before Chan could react, the vehicle screeched to a halt, disgorging two assailants cloaked in black sweatsuits. Their faces, covered with black masks, projected determination, their hands wielding meat cleavers that gleamed ominously under the flickering streetlights. The assailants descended upon Chan and Blake with a barbaric frenzy, their cleavers cutting through the air with deadly intent.

Blake's hand instinctively reached to his belt, pointing towards his service revolver, which wasn't there. He cursed inwardly, regretting his decision to forgo his firearm. But as the glint of steel sliced through the air, Blake's body responded with a fluidity resulting from countless hours of grueling martial arts training and meditation.

Years of the deadly Krav Maga martial arts had honed his reflexes to a razor's edge. Blake's forearm snapped up in a lightning-fast block, deflecting the cleaver. He pivoted on his heel, a move straight out of Shotokan Karate, narrowly avoiding a second attacker's wild swing.

The scene became a blur of motion. Blake's feet danced across the grimy pavement, his Taekwondo footwork keeping him one step ahead of his assailants.

These weren't street thugs – they moved with the coordinated precision of trained killers.

Blake's vision tinged red, not from blood loss but from a familiar darkness rising within him. Anger – old, deep, and terrible – had been his constant companion since childhood. Now, it surged through him like molten steel, sharpening his senses and numbing the pain.

With a guttural roar, Blake unleashed a flurry of Wing Chun strikes. His hands became blurred, raining precision blows on pressure points and nerve clusters. The assailant engaged with Blake crumpled, clutching a shattered collarbone.

The assailant, eyes wide with dawning fear, swung his cleaver in a desperate arc. Blake slipped inside the man's guard, years of muscle memory taking over. His left hand deflected the blade while his right formed a rigid spear-hand. In one fluid motion, Blake drove his fingertips into the attacker's throat, crushing the windpipe.

As the man gasped and staggered, Blake's fury took control. His fist rocketed forward, slamming into the attacker's sternum with bone-shattering force. The impact lifted the man off his feet, sending him crashing to the ground.

Blake pounced, straddling his fallen foe. His fists became pistons, driven by rage and adrenaline. Each blow landed with a sickening crunch, pulping flesh and shattering bone. Blood sprayed, coating Blake's knuckles and spattering his face.

A cold realization settled in Blake's gut as the red haze of battle faded. His perfectly placed strike to the heart – a killing blow he'd trained for but never truly intended to use – had ended the fight before it began. The savage beating that followed had been nothing more than a grim epilogue written in blood and fury.

Chan, despite his resilience, faltered under the relentless assault of the other assailant. Blood sprayed onto the pavement, mingling with flecks of flesh in a gruesome tableau. Chan's agonized grunts echoed through the night. Overwhelmed by the attacker’s savagery, Chan lay crumpled on the ground, his body a canvas of gaping wounds and spilt blood.

Chan’s assailant swiftly retreated before Blake could engage with him, disappearing like a spectre into the awaiting black car. Just as he fled, a hospital security guard burst through the doors, his shouts of alarm and outrage piercing the night.

“Get a doctor out here, fast,” Blake barked at the guard.

As the assailants vanished, a car screeched to a halt at the hospital's curb. Burly men, members of Chan's Triad, leapt out and rushed to their fallen leader, uttering threats, screams of shock, and interrogative questions peppered at Blake. One of Chan's loyalists remained by the bloody body of their leader, while another sprinted back to the waiting car, which sped off in the direction of the escaping assailants.

This brutal assassination, executed with chilling efficiency, sent a clear and chilling message echoing through the city that night. It was a declaration of war, a seismic power shift. As the news of the Triad leader's death rippled through the labyrinthine streets of Hong Kong, it was understood by all that this was just the opening act of a darker, bloodier saga, one that would seep into the business community and even the hallowed halls of government.

As the adrenaline ebbed from his system, Blake found his mind drifting to the ancient wisdom of the Tao Te Ching, which had been an integral part of his martial arts training. The stark contrast between the violence he had just experienced, and the peaceful teachings of Lao Tzu struck him profoundly.

“Why do I get so angry and full of rage?” he thought. The hours of psychotherapy had helped, yet there was still a fiery blackness there that couldn’t be calmed or extinguished.

But now, in the eerie calm following the storm of violence, words from the Tao echoed in his mind: “The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.” Blake pondered this paradox. His training had made him hard; his experiences had made him rigid, yet here he stood, victorious but unsettled. Perhaps true strength lay not in his ability to fight. But in his capacity to remain centered amidst chaos swirling around him.

Another teaching in his training surfaced is his thoughts: “The best fighter is never angry.”

Blake wasn’t lost on the irony. His anger had fueled his actions to the point where it made him formidable but at the cost of a man’s life. The Tao taught that the sage acts without effort and achieves without striving. How different might this encounter have been if he had approached it with a calm mind and a soft strength?

As the sirens of approaching police cars filled the air, Blake closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He recalled one more line from the Tao: “To know others is intelligence; to know yourself is true wisdom.”

In this moment of reflection, Blake realized that his journey to understand the criminal underworld of Hong Kong blended with his journey to understand himself. The path ahead was unclear, but perhaps by embracing the principles of the Tao—balance, non-action, and the unity of opposites—he could navigate both the external conflicts of the city and the internal conflicts of his nature.

The calm that settled over him now was different. It wasn’t the eye of the storm, waiting for more violence to erupt. Instead, it felt like the first step on a new path—one that might lead him to strength beyond mere physical prowess and a peace that could withstand the chaos of his chosen life.

You can buy a copy of Shadow of the Dragon on Amazon or Barnes and Noble in an ebook, paperback, or hardcover.