However, Timothy Robicheaux (Tobin Bell) had not really died in the war. Wounded and disillusioned by his combat experiences and the political environment of the war itself, he deserted the Army and fled to neighboring China, where he resolved to start a new life. He steeped himself in the martial arts, Eastern philosophy, and Communist revolutionary ideology, and adopted a new identity, Yo Ling, a Chinese word meaning "Phantom". Yo Ling's views became ever more radical, and he helped establish an organization of spies and assassins, called the "Phantom Alliance", whose ultimate goal was to destabilize the West and bring about worldwide revolution. Among Yo Ling's confederates in the Alliance was a Soviet agent named Ilya Petrov.