Kaoru Hasuike and Yukiko Okudo were kidnapped from Japan by North Korean operatives in 1978.Kyodo / Courtesy Farrar, Straus & Giroux On the evening of July 31, 1978, Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo, rode bikes to the summer fireworks festival at the Kashiwazaki town beach. They whisked down the winding lanes of their coastal farming village, a hundred and forty miles north of Tokyo.