Empire of the Ring

The temperature of Baku in July rose as high as 98.6 degrees in Fahrenheit. In the hot summer, there were only a few places to go for the students of Baku’s international school, their relatives’ houses or the reservoir on Zeynep Farm.

It was indeed the summer since kids from school were crowded in the reservoir, to the students, it was known the official swimming pool in the city. It was hard to find such a large pool that had more than 100 meters of length on each side. It was now surrounded by different kinds of trees that provided shades to people.

Some moms who brought their kids were even wearing bikinis. With the sweet scent of maturing grapes, the reservoir felt like paradise. Since Zeynep told everybody in school to visit at any time, Youngho could not even neglect the guests. Gerhardt even asked the budget for snacks and drinks for the guests.

The farm was huge enough for a large crowd that no matter how much noise people made from the reservoir, it did not bother the farmers. Leaving the noisy crowd behind, Youngho drove a four-wheelers to the farm across the Southern river on the farm. New seedlings had just spread their roots underground and leavers were turning up. Youngho passed the field of grape trees to go into the oak cask factory.

There was another gate in the Southern part of the farm and oaks were delivered to the factory through that gate. Six technicians were cutting the trees with loud chainsaws and Youngho did not dare to get close to them. It was still surprising to see the size of trees. He had only seen smaller oaks in Korea but the oaks here had average of 50 cm diameter. The trees were so thick and heavy that it could only be treated with heavy equipment.

Youngho gave cold drinks to the carpenters who had been working in sweats in the hot weather. Since there was nothing else he could do for the workers, he quietly left the sight. The number of oak casks that would be manufactured this year was barely enough for this year’s grape produces.

The 500 casks in Zeynep Farm could be used for several more years, but the Charles farm needed 350 new casks for this year. Once every facility was properly installed, there would be about thirty workers in the oak cask factory and they would be able to produce 500 large-capacity oak casks and more than a thousand small-sized containers.

***

Youngho arrived at the airport in Frankfurt for the CIA’s monthly meeting. Michael, again, came to the airport to pick him up.

“Chief, people will really think that we’re dating if you keep picking me up.”

“I’m doing this to motivate them as well, they should work harder like you. I’m going to give you a heads up, but we’ll have a re-shuffling in the workers soon. We’re exchanging agents with the ones from South American chapter. It looks like they did some lobbying to come to get reassigned in Europe.”

To agents in Southern America, Europe was a dream place to work in. It seemed that high rankers in the South American chapter grilled the headquarters to shuffle agents.

“You don’t think my team will be relocated, do you?”

“No, you should be fixed in here until I retire. Who’ll take care of the Caucasus regions when you’re gone?”

Although Youngho doubted that he would be assigned to do the job, he still felt relieved to hear that. There were power struggles of high rankers in the CIA headquarters and if high rankers pushed it, Youngho could be ousted from Europe. If the Chief Director of the CIA headquarters demanded his relocation, he was going to resign from the CIA since he did not wish to move.

The reason why Youngho was relieved was because he still needed the agent’s position. Even though he was not dependent on the information commission from the CIA, he needed the information network of the CIA since it was helpful for his business and relationship with other officials and businessmen. The information about different nations that he heard during the monthly CIA meetings was not the ones that he could get from the Azerbaijani government.

Such information was something like this:

If other nations increased the hybrid car production rate trying to reduce the oil expense, they would naturally end up buying less oil from oil-producing countries like Azerbaijan. If Azerbaijan knew that ahead of time, the government would reduce the amount of oil production. Then, the status quota of supply and demand would be maintained, and it would prevent other countries demanding change to the oil price.

This was why knowing different countries’ policy changes ahead of time. Since Youngho was working with the Azerbaijani government, he could use the information he heard from the CIA meetings to his advantage.

Michael also knew what Youngho was worried about. Agents who worked with different governments sometimes had to give them some information to secure their positions in the government. It was a way to gain trust of government officials. Unless it was highly top-rated information, the CIA allowed agents to share information to put to their use. This might look like agents were acting as double but it was a way to earn more information by slipping bits of small information here and there.

***

Yunsuh’s family came to Baku from Seoul. It was loud from the airport since the whole farm family went to greet them at the airport. Tender-hearted Yunsuh cried with joy for a little while and started nagging at Youngho now.

“Oppa, you gained some weight now. Are you going to be like an old man even before getting married?”

“Yeah, I quit smoking and now I’m putting on weight. Fatima had been telling me to stay healthy, so I’m working out now.”

“She’s doing well then. Who smokes these days? You quit because of Fatima’s complaining, right?”

“Well, I can’t say no to that.”

“Haha… I’m glad she’s next to you.”

Yunsuh went to Fatima next and started chatting with her.

“Father, mother. Welcome, I’m sorry I haven’t been calling you lately.”

“Well, we know you’ve been busy. You don’t have to bother. We’ve been hearing about you from Yunush.”

“Why don’t you stay here for longer this time? Or you can stay here forever.”

Sangchun’s father seemed to like what Youngho said. He did not like living in Seoul since there was nothing to do except for babysitting. Youngho thought that they would not be bored if they moved here since Insoo’s parents were here, both parents were about the same age with each other.

“Well, since you asked, we’ll think about that. There’s nothing for us to do in Seoul.”

“Honey, are you really going to stay here? What about our house?”

“Sweetie, Youngho will have a baby soon. We should be the one to babysit their baby. Do you think they’ll be alright without older people taking care of their baby?”

Hearing the father, Fatima blushed. She could not speak Korean well but she could understand what she heard.

Cho Sangchun’s face was rough from being stressed over the recent tax inspection.

“Hey, why do you look so stressed? Didn’t you say that it was all over? Are they still bothering you?”

“Don’t even start it. The L Company complained that they can’t deal with us anymore for a reason that they were also inspected by tax authorities, I had a hard time convincing them not to. Who’s behind all this?”

“I was trying to get rid of some people who lost their minds. This won’t happen anymore now. If the taxman bugs you again, just call Korean Intelligence Agency, I already told someone in there about it.”

“What? Intelligence Agency? What on earth are you up to that the Intelligence Agency is helping you?”

“Well, I just exchange some pieces of information from here.”

Youngho had been sharing information with the Korean agent of Korean embassy, the agent told him that he could help him if he was in trouble.

“Hey, you need to be cautious, it’s not safe to get related with agents.”

‘Man, you’re talking to the agent in charge of the Caucasus regions.’

Youngho wanted to brag but he could only do it in his mind.

***

Although it was the mid-summer, Baku’s weather was not high in humidity and it was quite cool under the shades of trees. Cho Sangchun who was watching the kids in the reservoir came near Youngho and sat down.

“Youngho, be honest with me, isn’t this farm yours?”

“…”

“If it’s not your property, how can the government allow your guests in the reservoir like this?”

“Dude, you have quick perception. The government gave me their wasteland for free as an investment, so I can develop a farm. I also don’t need to pay tax for five years.”

Although Youngho already paid for the land, he could not say that since he could not explain where the money came from. The money he made from clothing stores in Baku could not be enough to pay for the land.

“The government also introduced me to a great mortgage plan, so I just signed the contract. I paid off the debt for equipment and facility installation through the profits I made from wine sales.”

This is the only way he could make sense.

“Oh yeah? That’s great. I worried about you, I thought I might have to give you the money I saved in Seoul.”

“Would you give that to me if I asked?”

“Of course I would, it’s what you made after all. I’m not going to touch your money.”

Sangchun was a sweet friend.

“I don’t need that money, you should use it for you and Yunsuh. Do you have any idea how much I make from wine sale?”

“…”

“It’s more than ten million dollars. Subtracting payments for the workers, I still get ten billion won in Korean currency.”

Youngho could only hear a single gasp, Sangchun was utterly shocked by the number. Youngho had to tell him, so he would not feel bad to use the money saved in Seoul.

“Dude, you should move here if it’s too hard in Korea. There is a house for you and there are too many things to do here.”

“…”

“Hey! Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Sangchun could not come out of the shock easily.

The next day, Yunsuh started complaining during meal time.

“You have been hiding this from me? Am I not your sister, huh?”

“Phew, I didn’t know how it was going to turn out. I just paid off the debt.”

“Even so, we’ve been saving money to give back to you.”

Youngho could see Yunsuh being stingy.

“Oh, is that why you all look healthy?”

“Just shut up. You’re just like a snake, how do you lie like it’s nothing?”

“Hey Yunsuh, don’t do that to your brother. He must’ve gone through a lot of trouble by himself, we should congratulate him now that he’s doing well.”

Saying that, Sangchun’s mother wiped her tears. When she patted Youngho’s shoulder saying that he had done well, Youngho almost cried too.

Youngho had been working like crazy without looking back, in this land of opportunity to make this far. Although he was not sure how his future would turn out, he hoped that the happiness would last.