Christmas Day, Hong Kong, 1941. World War II is fully raging. Pearl Harbor's just been hit,

and bombs are falling from the sky all over the British colony as the Japanese war machine is in full

swing. Morris Tugun Cohen is sitting in his room at the Hong Kong Hotel, awaiting his fate.

It's not a great situation to be in, because the Japanese are not big fans of the infamous

gunrunner.

He's been able to stay one step ahead of them for some time, slipping out of Chinese cities

like Shanghai, Nanking, and Canton just before they marauded through them.

But this time, his time is up. The only question

now is, are they going to kill him right away or torture him for information for a while first?

Hong Kong had been a bit like Casablanca. Well, the movie Casablanca. With war on its doorstep,

it was full of spies and adventurers and soldiers of

fortune, gunrunners like Cohen, and also lots and lots of partying and boozing, something Cohen

was an expert in. If Hong Kong was Casablanca, Cohen would definitely have been Rick, but the

similarities kind of end a little bit there. At 200 pounds and standing only 5'8, the former boxer, who was literally prize fighting in

underground boxing matches when he was just 9 years old, is an imposing force.

He's also legendary for his capacity to drink booze and throw those parties.

Oh, and gamble.

In fact, you could butterfy effect how exactly

he ended up here by tracing it back to him hanging out in illegal Chinese gambling pollers in Canada.

But yeah, how the hell did a poor Polish-born Jew who grew up in the slums of London

and then made a name for himself in the underworlds of Western Canada end up here.

And how did he end up as the pistol-packing bodyguard to a guy who many consider the father of modern China?

...