In Between Dreams (5 page)

“How much do you know about the Triad, Halene?” Bailey asked.

“Not that much. That is why I’m so frustrated with you. I don’t have anything to go on,” Halene answered.

Bailey decided to take the background approach as a delaying tactic, giving her time to decide how to tell Halene everything. They were in too deep to turn back now. Even if they cut Mei loose, Bailey and her friends were in a no-win situation.

Bailey knew they had some time while Mei (and Daniel) slept. “Get comfortable, and I’ll give you
some
details,” Bailey promised. Bailey knew that Halene was right. She needed details to help them come up with a plan. Halene sat down on the red couch, throwing one leg over the arm. Her arms crossed and she waited.

“The Triads have a very old history, springing from the eighteenth century.” Bailey hoped she didn’t bore Halene, but she didn’t know how much she truly needed to know. “It all started when this society, the society translated as ‘the Heaven and Earth Society,’ was placed within China to overthrow the Qing dynasty,” Bailey started. Halene furrowed her eyebrows together to concentrate. “They wanted a different ruler for China than the one they had at the time,” Bailey continued.

“Like a revolution?” Halene interjected.

“Yeah, sort of. The society became popular and began spreading throughout all of China. It spawned new societies based on the central society, but grew so quickly it eventually became something else
entirely. They all used a similar sign—a triangle—because they were all based on three main pillars: Heaven, Earth, and Human Beings. Because of the triangle, the British government existing inside of China at the time called them Triads.”

Halene spoke up. “Are you stalling or is their history really
this
boring?” She clearly didn’t want to know all the background, just what related to Mei.

“Fine. I’ll get to the good stuff,” she told her, and chuckled a little. “Eventually they overthrew the Qing dynasty, which was their main purpose. After that, however, they were left without a
political
purpose. These society members who had lived for years as outlaws found it was a lot more difficult to adapt to living as an average, law-abiding citizens. They became what they are today. Without a purpose, they began working with criminals, and since they lost their funding from the general public, they began extorting money from individuals with violence and basic intimidation. They had already become very large, and the general public already feared them.”

Halene was a little more interested. Bailey continued, “Fast-forward to today: There are still multiple groups around China, and they have spread into a lot of other Asian countries. Some have even made their way to the largest cities in the United States. Once Mei is out of Hong Kong, even though there are a lot of Triads everywhere, she would be out of the territory of Yin’s family.” Yin was Mei’s fiancé, a man she fell in love with before she realized who he was. Mei fell for Yin fast and hard and found herself in a whirlwind romance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all rainbows and hearts when it came down to it; Mei had found herself in an ugly situation.

“Yin’s father is the boss or what they call the Mountain Master of the 14K here in Hong Kong. A Mountain Master is the boss. Yin is the Vanguard, so basically his second-in-command. They are the two most powerful members of any Triad. To get Mei away from the Vanguard and Mountain Master, we have to get her out of Hong Kong. The Triads have their turfs they run, and they wouldn’t be able to find her outside of this city. Or at least I don’t think so,” Bailey offered.

“I think the best thing we can do is get her to Bali,” Sam interjected. “Bali doesn’t have any Triads. At least none I can find in all the research
I’ve done. Mei has friends from her mother’s side of the family who would be willing to take her in.”

Halene’s eyes went wide, and she walked toward the table and pulled her Coke out of the sack. “Why do we have to be in China? Their Coke tastes weird,” Halene mentioned as a side note. She was taking a minute to digest all of the information she’d been given.

“It’s the sugar,” Bailey explained. She had heard that somewhere. Other countries’ soda used a different type of processed sugar, making it taste different.

“I was fine with corn syrup,” Halene said, gulping down her beverage before sitting back down in a huff. “You two are ridiculous. You were trying to protect
me
from this information?” She scoffed. “If what you say is true, we need to use the Triad structure to evade Yin? If Hong Kong is the place where he has the control, we need to figure out how to get Mei out of Hong Kong.”

Bailey and Sam shared a looked before Bailey spoke again. “Sit back down, and I’ll explain
Mei’s
whole story,” Bailey said in capitulation.

Halene smiled triumphantly, and her face relaxed immediately. “Thank you. I’m sick of you trying to protect me,” she mumbled before stuffing her mouth with rice.

Bailey stood, stretching her stiff limbs as she thought about how to explain everything to Halene. She paced around the room while she decided where to start. She didn’t want to watch Halene’s reaction to all the information she was going to give her. She picked a place to stare to distract herself from Halene’s face. She stared at Sam’s red Converse tennis shoes. She studied the stitching and color closely, taking a deep breath as she explained the current background and status to Halene.

“You already know Mei was engaged to Yin. As I told you, there are many branches of the Triad in Hong Kong.” Bailey restated facts already known.

“Daniel and I have done some up-to-date research, and we’ve found out that there are over fifty-seven branches within Hong Kong,” Sam interjected.

“There are two main rival Triads involved in this situation,” Bailey explained. Although Halene said she was ready for all the information,
Bailey and Sam
did
want to sugarcoat it. There were a lot of adult topics that surrounded these groups. Triads were involved in anything from illegal gambling to drug trafficking to child prostitution. These were not things Bailey wanted to discuss with a young girl.

Halene cleared her throat to draw attention to herself, and Bailey looked at her. “Yes?”

“Triad is just like…a street gang, not the Mafia right? Are they as organized and connected as the Italian American mob?” Halene asked. Her innocence returned and seemed to ooze from every pore. “We’ve been learning about John Gotti in school,” she explained.

Bailey frowned as she looked at her, hating that such a young girl had to hear this. Bailey was always conflicted when she came to this dream world. Why was a person like Halene even here at such a young age and in the middle of this? She seemed so out of place.

“Some are,” Sam said, taking over the discussion. “But there are three larger gangs that do international dealings and are involved in some high-class crime,” he told her patiently. Sam was always so good with Halene. Sam was the closest person to a father figure as this strange crew could get.

As Sam talked about the Triad structure, Bailey pictured him chasing a little girl or boy around a large, lush green yard and through sprinklers. He would be telling a blond five-year-old to eat all his vegetables or “no dessert.” Bailey suppressed a giggle at the images that appeared in her head. As Sam concluded his contribution to the background discussion, Bailey sat down next to Halene.

“The 14K is a direct rival gang to Sun Yee On,” Bailey continued. “Mei’s fiancé is the son of 14K’s Mountain Master. A Mountain Master is like an American ‘mob boss.’ Yin is next in line to become the Mountain Master. He is currently acting as the ‘Vanguard,’ or underboss. Unfortunately, after they fell in love, or rather after
she
fell in love with him, she found out it had been a ploy. You see, the 14K is the smaller Triad, and because of this, every time there’s a turf war or some sort of difference needing to be handled, the Sun Yee On would inevitably win the argument. The Mountain Master of the 14K decided to make it a bit more personal. He convinced Yin to woo Mei. She didn’t know Yin was
in the rival Triad for over a year. And by the time she figured it all out, it was too late.”

Halene took one last bite of her food as she listened and then pushed her plate away from her, enthralled with the story. The conversation had become a tag team of factoids.

Sam picked up where Bailey left off: “Mei’s uncle Bai is the Mountain Master of Sun Yee On Triad. Yin used Mei to get to Bai, to control the situation.” Halene shook her head in disgust; she couldn’t believe anyone could be so calculating, but the code of the underworld was as cold as ice and the rules of civilized society didn’t apply.

“When Mei found out, she attempted to get to her uncle immediately. Her driver didn’t follow his normal cautionary route to Mei’s uncle’s business, and the 14K cut him off on a back road. The driver was killed right in front of Mei, and the gang fighters or ‘red poles’ abducted her as an additional bargaining chip. They made her swear to stay with them and not try to escape or they would kill her aunt Jin and uncle Bai as well as her younger cousin Jinjing,” Bailey whispered, her eyes filling with tears, and she remembered Mei’s tearful explanation of events. Jinjing and Mei had been raised as sisters. The loss was almost too hard for Mei to bear.

“So, she promised,” Sam continued. “She wrote Bai telling him she would marry Yin and never see her family again. She wrote a plea to her uncle to never come looking for her for any reason.”

“But Bai, full of pride and anger, did come for her,” Sam said, shaking his head as he recalled the emotion-driven blunder. “The Sun Yee On is the more powerful gang, and he waged war on the 14K and their families, vowing to kill them all if they didn’t give Mei back.” Sam took a breath to let the information sink in. “Bai went after the 14K’s best members, trying to hurt Yin’s family for taking Mei from him. He paid enormously for his blind rage: although he was able to kill about fifteen key members of the 14K, he lost five members of his own gang.”

“Yin reacted quickly and decided revenge was in order. His actions have driven a permanent wedge between the two families,” Bailey explained. “Yin and his younger brother killed Mei’s aunt and her younger cousin one night while Bai looked for Mei.” Bailey’s lip
quivered, the anger rising in her stomach. “These are bad men, Halene. Cut-your-head-off-for-grins kind of men.”

“Bai raised the white flag of peace but not to surrender. Bai promised to stop his search. Mei has been living under Yin’s control. She had been in a danger ever since. She’d been abused by her guards and mistreated by everyone with whom she’d come in contact,” Sam explained. He and Bailey failed to mention Mei’s captors raped her repeatedly, Yin often watching. Yin was careful not to allow the torture to kill Mei and made sure her captures kept her from taking her own life. She wasn’t of any use to Yin and the 14K if she were dead.

“Mei has been marking time until Yin had an opportunity to move on Sun Yee On. Mei would eventually become irrelevant, and the war would not need a hostage. This tactic gave Yin time to prepare for the next onslaught. Once they get in a land-line disagreement, a property debacle, a fight over who gets to sell to whom in the underground market, Yin had Mei in his back pocket,” Sam mumbled as he rubbed his forehead in frustration.

“I can’t believe anyone would use someone like that,” Halene said with a shake of her head.

Bailey chewed on the inside of her lip. “She’s a mess, for obvious reasons. She thinks there’s no way out. She thinks we’ll have to travel from safe house to safe house until we get her out of China,” Bailey said, trying to give Halene some positive perspective. “Mei is convinced Bai can take care of himself. She wants out: out of the family, out of the control of Yin, out of China.”

“Why can’t we fly her out of the country? Does Yin have all the airports and harbors covered?” Halene wondered allowed.

“We can’t take her on a plane, because they have her name and picture flagged,” Sam explained. “These gangs are interconnected with the law. You can’t get away from them. She’s marked as the property of the 14K. She now officially has a warrant out for her arrest. The police have been instructed to ID any women with her description on sight. Not to mention there are 14K members everywhere. We’ll have to take trains because they don’t ID when you buy tickets, but that is going to increase the chances of her being seen. We need a foolproof plan, and
we’ll need backups. Our first move is to get her a false identity so we have a chance of getting her through the city. Once we’re clear, we’ll have room to maneuver. We do have a contact in the Organized Crime Triad Bureau, but they want us to bring her in to try and flip her to testify and give inside information on the Triad. Which would mean she would have to turn on her uncle, and that’s not an option.”

Halene shook her head, her eyes looking upward at the ceiling as if she was doing a math equation in the air. She only did this if she was getting an idea or if she was thinking of bringing another person to help. “I think I know what we’re going to do,” she offered.

“What’s that?”

“Wait here,” Halene said before jumping up and running to the door.

Bailey began to follow Halene out of the room. Halene obviously had a plan developing, and she needed some information from outside of the hotel room. Sam followed Bailey toward the door. They walked out in the hallway, and Sam held the door open so they wouldn’t get locked out. Bailey looked both ways and then back to Sam. “Which way did she go?”

Sam shrugged and looked around the hallway for any sign of her. “Should we go after her?” he asked, and tilted his head. “Wait. Are you upset?”

“I don’t know. I hate what happened to Mei, and I hated having to retell it,” she explained with a frown. “I know I’m being silly.”

Sam reached out and pulled her into his arms. She let him comfort her for a moment before pulling away. “Maybe one of us should go downstairs and look—” Bailey stopped talking when she heard footsteps. They both looked to see Halene emerging from behind a corner with an English-language edition of the
South China Morning Post
.