Empire of the Ring

“If we sense any danger, I and agent Park Jongil will get involved directly. So do not worry.”

Philip had lingering trauma after being abducted by the Armenian militia. Since the militants abducted him and left him to starve even though he was an agent of the CIA who headed to Armenia to help them, he was scared of the Chechen rebels as well. Youngho could understand him because he had gone through the same experience.

After talking with Philip, Youngho became worried about his friend Cha Insoo. Michael, the Chief of the European Chapter, had been mentioning Insoo’s name quite a lot recently because he wanted to draw him in as a regular agent. Insoo was hired as a security guard of the farm by the CIA anyway. It was obvious that he would get dragged into things if he stayed around Youngho. He thought it would be better to promote Insoo and place him rather in a safe place and position.

Youngho called Michael and told him that he would be hiring Insoo soon. Michael’s satisfied voice complimented Youngho for making the right choice. Insoo’s combat skills were already recognized when he was a militia drill instructor, and Michael wanted to add him to Youngho’s team.

Although Michael had high expectations for Youngho and his friends who were all trained in the Korean Navy Special Forces, Youngho planned to place Insoo in Baku as a stationary agent to protect him and his family once he was hired.

Three seemed to be better than two. Since Youngho, Jongil, and Insoo were trained together back in the Korean Navy, they had great teamwork and friendship, and they would have a great synergy if they worked as a team.

When the three of them were together, Youngho and Jongil came clean to Insoo that they had been agents. Insoo was upset that they did not tell him in advance. He did not mind joining them, saying that he was already exposed to danger since he worked at Youngho’s farm.

Although Insoo was reminded that he would have an ambiguous identity and risks, he agreed to becoming an agent. An ambiguous identity implied that when a CIA field agent was captured in other countries, the CIA would not protect him or claim him as its own because of the risk of being exposed, which would affect international relationships of its government. The CIA would use unofficial routes to rescue the agent, but it would deny its agent officially.

Determined, Insoo was even encouraging Jongil to protect Youngho together with him during emergencies. Since they knew about the power of the mystical rings and leather shoes, they were confident that they would not be killed in missions. Not to mention, they were already trained human weapons.

The next day, Youngho reported Insoo’s decision to Michael immediately, and the day after, Youngho received a coded notice, in case of hacking, that Insoo was approved as a specially assigned field agent.

***

With Cha Insoo added, Youngho’s team had now turned into the Azerbaijani branch.

Youngho sent Cha Insoo to Frankfurt for basic education since he would be useless as an agent without the basic knowledge and training. He told Insoo’s family that he would be exporting wines to Germany, and Insoo would be in charge of the business in that country.

There had been a shuffle in Zeynep Farm and Chunho Merchant’s clothing stores. Youngho hired new employees to reinforce their small manpower.

Karajan now was assigned as an executive manager of Chunho Merchant’s Baku branch. She now worked only in the office and managed orders for the direct stores and the clearance process of the imported goods. She had two other assistants helping her. Stephany, who had been a salesperson, was now promoted as a manager and took over Karajan’s previous position of managing the three stores in Baku and Sumqayit.

Cha Insoo did not oversee the farm work anymore, although his official position was Zeynep Farm’s general manager. Youngho hired three assistants to help Gerhardt manage the farm. Since the farm’s yearly sales was higher than ten million dollars, it was important to have experienced office employees to manage complicated documents for taxes, employee payments, supply management, human resources management, and so on. The farm had now grown into a medium-sized company.

As Youngho focused on reinforcing the systems of his clothing stores and grape factory, an incident happened in an unexpected place. Someone had attempted a suicide bombing for terrorism at Moscow’s central police office. The damage was not huge since the woman covered in black clothes was caught at the gate of the police office, but it had thrown the whole of Russia into turmoil. Russia now started arresting all of the rebel forces in Chechnya.

The CIA’s European Chapter was startled since the mission to deliver necessities for a rebel force from the Georgian border was still ongoing. It was obvious that Russia’s security over the borders of Georgia and Chechnya would be reinforced. The new route planned for the delivery could be found by them and taken away.

Youngho tried to call the contact person of the Black Widows, but he could not reach him. It seemed that the rebels all ran away into the Caucasus Mountains where phone calls could not be reached, or else they might have been caught by the government.

Since it would be better to find out what happened directly in Chechnya, Youngho received permission to go back there from the Chief of the European Chapter, Michael.

When Youngho expressed that he was going on a business trip to Russia, Fatima stopped him in doubt. She kept asking questions about his reasons. Her doubts increased after she noticed the bag of gold bars in the safe room of the farm which Youngho brought from the last trip. To fast-witted Fatima, his actions became more suspicious by the day.

Youngho told Fatima that he would be visiting Volgograd to receive gold bars as a payment for distributed wines. When he told her that he preferred getting paid with gold bars than currency, she nodded in relief. Although she was relieved by his answer, he still felt a little guilty, so he promised to go on another trip with her after he returned. Seeing her satisfied face, Youngho could leave in peace.

Cha Insoo was gone to Frankfurt for basic education, so Park Jongil had to be left in the farm. Youngho felt weird going on a mission alone without Jongil.

When Youngho traveled with Jongil, fun things always happened around them, but this time, nothing happened for the entire twenty hours of the train ride with Youngho travelling by himself.

***

After arriving at Grozny, Youngho looked for the safe house of the Black Widows in the new town, but the safe house was completely devastated. They must have been exposed to the government. What if any member who met Youngho was taken? They might expose Youngho’s identity as an Asian CIA agent since it would be hard to endure torture.

The President of the current Pro-Russian government was devoted to capturing all the members of the Black Widows in order to impress President Putin. He would do anything to find out who’s behind the rebels. Since Youngho was unique in being an Asian, it would be easy to identify Youngho. He looked distinguishable from Central Asians, and by how he was dressed, anybody could easily tell that he was a foreigner.

Youngho gave up the hotel room that he had reserved in advance. He slipped into a small inn where many travelers stayed. Then he bought fur clothes that Chechens usually wore and dressed up like other Chechens. The furs were great for cold mountainous areas of Caucasus, but in the city of Grozny, they were a little cumbersome. Chechens still wore fur clothes as their ancestors used to in the mountains. Now, Youngho looked like one of the Chechen lads.

Without shaving his beard or combing his hair, he went out to search for the people in contact with the Black Widows. Since he could not just wait in the café, the contact point of the Black Widows where he first met their contact person, he settled in another café across the street and pretended to read an English newspaper waiting for the Black Widows. Although he drank three cups of coffee while spending two hours in the café, he did not notice anything special. The only thing he noticed were the young men drinking at the open-air tables of the café across the street. It was nothing unusual since many Chechens drank across the Russian military base while staring at the guards as if they were protesting quietly.

Youngho decided to approach the café of the contact point slowly. Seeing Youngho approach the cafe, the drunken guys raised their voices on purpose. They smelled like they were drunk, but Youngho realized that they were not actually drunk. Wondering why the guys were putting up a show, he set down at an open-air table, opening his newspaper again and ordering some coffee. The guys must have noticed Youngho sitting for hours outside the café across the street in spite of the cold weather. The guys now started to go inside the café.

Youngho subtly went inside after them.

The guys who took tables in groups of two or three, looked at Youngho as he came in. They dominated the café. They were near the entrance and the back door, looking as if they were guarding Youngho. Scanning all of the guys in the café, he got ready to flee in case of any danger. They looked like a systematically trained organization. It could be either the rebels or the police unit.