Free Critical Incidents: The ROK - Land of HAN (A Jack Gunn Mystery Thriller Book 1) by Thomas H. Ward

be a wonderful country to a gaijin (foreigner) on the surface. That’s what they call us. It can be used as a derogatory word and usually is. In Japan, anyone who is not Japanese is a gaijin. No one can become a Japanese citizen unless both your parents were born in Japan.
    Don’t get me wrong, I love Japan and have many Japanese friends whom I really like. The country is clean, people are friendly, and the food is great. When stationed there, I traveled all over the country and learned to speak the language fairly well. Compared to Korean, Japanese is pretty easy to pick up, especially if you have a good instructor.
    Underneath the apparent law and order, there is a very dark underground. Like Korea, Japan is loaded with all types of gangs. These thugs, called Bosozoku, are the workforce of the Yakuza or Japanese mafia. They do all the dirty little jobs and give most of the proceeds to the Yakuza. The Yakuza controls most of the gambling, prostitution, shipping docks, airports, hotels, night clubs, unions, and drugs in Japan. They are powerful, with close links to government officials and police departments. It is a known fact that bribes and payoffs are committed all the time.
    You never hear about the Yakuza in the news. That’s because Japan wants it that way. Everyone looks the other way when Yakuza are involved. No one ever talks about the Japanese mafia, but they are everywhere and into everything.
    You never know who is a member of the mafia. It could be a woman or a friendly little old man. He could be the blood-thirsty boss of a Yakuza gang. World-wide there are over one-hundred thousand Yakuza members.
    Ted Stevens, then Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador, and I became close friends after I was assigned to protect him on trips around Tokyo and Japan. He was single and took a liking to Japanese women. Ted was an avid runner and went jogging every day. He liked to jog from the Okura Hotel, where we lived, to the Imperial Palace and back. It was about a three mile run, but it was uphill coming back from the Palace. I started jogging with Ted, and pretty soon we were hanging out together.
    Ted and I liked Japan and we would go out on Saturday nights to different clubs. He actually introduced me to some small night clubs in Minato City, which is part of Tokyo. Ted was very friendly, even to strangers, and didn’t seem to be afraid of anything. I don’t think he had ever been in a fight and was a little naive. This bothered me, so I took him under my wing and started teaching him how to be more careful, or one day he would find himself up shit creek without a paddle. At the time, little did I know that I would be in that boat with him.
    In the city of Minato there are two Yakuza Clans. There’s the Inagawa Gang, which has twenty thousand members running around the city. Then there is the Sumiyoshi Clan, which has fifteen thousand men. So it stands to reason that sooner or later you are going to run into someone who is in the Yakuza. I think that a city with thirty-thousand gang members definitely has a problem. 
    One Saturday night, Ted took me to meet his new girlfriend at the Golden Dragon Club. It was located, let’s say, on a shady side of town. I warned him that I didn’t think it was a good idea going into this place, as we pulled up outside.
    I commented, “Ted, I don’t think this place is very safe,” as I glanced around at the cycles and hot cars parked in the lot. I also noticed a lot of young men hanging around outside the club, but very few women. It wasn’t normal for a typical Japanese club.
    “Don’t worry, Jack. I’ve been here a few times. It’s totally safe. I really want you to meet Keiko, because she has a girlfriend who wants to meet an American.”
    “Why does she hangout here?”
    “She works here and it’s close to her home.”
    As I slammed the car door, the men standing in front of the club glared at us. They didn’t have on typical Japanese Saturday night party clothes. I