Empire of the Ring

Philip urgently called Youngho from Georgia.

He said that the Georgian border securities in Shatili were attacked by the Russian army soldiers based in Chechen’s border city. They launched a surprise attack, but thankfully only a few Georgian securities were wounded. They did not fight back but retreated while defending themselves.

“Philip, what do you mean? They did not fight back but only retreated?”

“Yes, it’s just as you heard. There were too many Russian soldiers surrounding them, so they only defended themselves in their base camp. They could not fight back. And the strange thing is that the Russian army only destroyed the storage unit and pulled back.”

It was obvious that the Russian army had found out that Georgia provided supplies for the Chechen rebels, so they bombed the storage unit of the Georgian borderline securities. There were a few mysteries in their actions. How the Russian army came to find out about the supply route was unknown, and it was also weird that they only attacked Georgian soldiers, not Chechen rebels.

This could mean that the rebels were already broken up or they were out of the Russian army’s reach, because the rebels went deeper into the mountains to hide. Since Russia could not wage war against Georgia, they had only destroyed the supply route for the Chechen rebels.

Youngho was dying to know what happened to the rebels such as the Black Widows and the Black Eagle, but he could not just walk in to Chechnya using official routes. Since the leaders of the Black Widows were arrested, he did not know if his identity was exposed to their government as an Asian CIA agent.

He did not know how many of the rebels were left in the group. In order to find out about them, he needed to cross the Georgian border to enter Chechnya.

There was no evidence that the CIA was involved in supporting rebel forces of Chechnya. If the leaders of the Black Widows revealed information about the CIA, the CIA would just deny their involvement. Since Youngho had planned to exchange his money with Basayev’s gold bars, he felt sorry, but it did not seem like Basayev would get caught so easily.

The reason that Youngho was obsessed with gold bars manufactured from the Russian Empire was that they were unique and hard to find. They had much more value than the money which was saved in Youngho’s bank account.

He did not like to keep money in the bank that had only such a minimal interest rate. If he could swap the money with the gold bars, it was likely that he would get more money out of them.

A few days ago, Youngho paid off the mortgage of the site of his farm and became the landlord of his farm. He had two million dollars at the time, and he thought it would be just simple to pay off all the debt which was 1.12 million dollars. He did not want to waste more time since he was always on business trips and he could miss important deadlines for payments. It was better to use the money instead of saving them in the bank account without any interest.

The government officials welcomed Youngho’s early payment since it made the process so much convenient. Kamal of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who introduced him to invest in the national land, was also satisfied by Youngho’s decision.

Azerbaijan was no different to a socialist state and the taxation authority could find out any financial transactions of any business. That was why businessmen in here preferred keeping their own money rather than depositing them in their bank accounts. Also, restaurants treated customers who paid in cash better than the ones who used bank cards. The business society was overflowing with black money and bribes.

Because of the successful oil industry, the government also did not pay too much attention to small businessmen. Officials just used them as a means to receive bribes. The reason why officials held up the low salaries was because the government conventionally tolerated black money and bribing among them.

Since the government ruled the country with dictatorship, they allowed some freedom among officials to receive their ardent support.

***

‘When the darkness falls, the Eagles hide in the dark and wolves stretch themselves.’ This is what Youngho thought about the situation of Chechnya and Russia. The Black Eagles and the Black Widows were hiding, and Russia was dominating the borderlands between Georgia and Chechnya. Russia was oppressing women and children in the villages of the Caucasus Mountains because the Black Eagles had disappeared into the mountains.

At the Georgian security checkpoint, the refugees rushed in to take shelter. They could not stay in their villages because of the Russian forces. They were not fond of the rebels, but without their presence in the mountains, they could not stop the Russian forces.

The status quo had been broken at the border, and more Russian soldiers dominated the area. The CIA’s European Chapter, which had been helping the Chechen rebels, now could not just overlook the situation. If the CIA did not act upon the situation, the rebellious minority group of people around the Caucasus Mountains would start extreme terrorism. If that happened, Russia could declare war against them and wipe them out from the area, which the CIA was worried about.

Finally, Michael from the European Chapter gave an assignment to Youngho’s team to investigate on the Chechen rebel forces and contact them. Michael gave Youngho an option to forfeit the mission depending on his situations, but he just took the job since he wondered about the rebels and he wanted to collect more gold bars from them. He also decided to take Jongil since Jongil was getting extremely stressed over Karajan’s mood swings.

Since Insoo had just returned from his trip to Europe and there were armed security guards protecting the farm, Youngho could travel to Georgia without worry, taking Jongil with him. There were a lot of weapons that they needed to bring, so they chose to travel on land. The Hummer given by Sergey turned into a mission car. There were first-aid kit, combat rations, cookware, and field operational supplies in the car.

While preparing for the trip, the smile on Jongil’s face never ceased. He seemed to have been stressed out by Karajan’s nagging and complaining. Youngho told the Fatima siblings that he was going to Georgia to direct the construction site for the new warehouse retailer shop. Since he did not want to worry Fatima, he did not tell her the truth. It was beneficial for both parties.

***

Although they met Philip in Tbilisi, Georgia, they could not hear any news about the rebels. They stayed in Tbilisi for another day and looked around the construction site of the retailer shop. Youngho took photos of the sites and construction materials in case Fatima asked about the trip. It was important for Youngho to satisfy her.

The next day, they went to the town of Shatili and checked in a hotel, leaving their car in a parking spot. Since there were plenty of travelers who came to hike on the winter mountain, they did not look suspicious. After securing the routes of local shepherds and preparing, they left the hotel.

Youngho felt the good weight of his backpack on his shoulders every time he took a step. The white camouflage fatigues and bullet-proof vest were a little uncomfortable, but he had to put them on since there were plenty of Russian snipers hiding near the border.

He put his disassembled rifle in his backpack and his pistol in his front pocket. Although each carried about forty kilograms of load including emergency food, tents, sleeping bags, extra ammunitions, grenades, night vision goggles, and so on, they did not feel tired because of the magical power of the leather shoes.

Youngho and Jongil sprinted on the snowy mountain paths using the leather shoes. They needed to hurry and follow the shepherd’s paths before darkness fell upon them. Because many shepherds frequently crossed the frontier, Russian border securities conventionally overlooked them.

They ran about an hour and their eyes caught nothing, not even a single animal. It was already evening and it was a cold day with the temperature below freezing point. After passing the telescope to Jongil, Youngho boiled water for coffee and lit a cigarette. Since there were no people around, he did not have to be careful.

He took out a rife from his backpack assembled it. From now on, any person they face would be Russian border securities. If he and Jongil were spotted by them, it would not just entail inspection; there would be a life-and-death battle.

Jongil, who was frowning at the smoke of his own cigarette, also assembled his rifle. He looked relaxed, seeming as if he came out for a walk.

“You look like you’re having fun.”

“You want me to cry then?”

“No, I don’t mean that. Are you not worried?”

“Hey. We already killed people. Since we can’t turn the clock back, we’ve got to consider that this is just our destiny.”

“…”

“Let’s just finish this quickly and go drink with Brother Sergey in Tbilisi.”

Jongil must have remembered that Sergey would be visiting in a few days to look over the construction site of their store. Youngho got excited while thinking about drinking.

‘Man, did I become an alcoholic now?’

Thinking about other things made him feel less nervous.

Putting on their backpacks, they slowly walked along the ridge. They blended in with the piled up snow well since they were dressed in camouflage fatigues.

What they needed to do now was to find any camp bases of the Russian army. Meeting Russian soldiers would be their only way to find out about the Chechen rebels. A fox eating a wild rat ran away before their eyes. The fact that fox was hunting here was a sign that there were no people around. They kept going.

After an hour of moving, they spotted smoke coming out from a distance. It must be coming from a Russian army base. They decided to approach them and wait until it was dark to attack them.