Empire of the Ring

On Trans-Siberian Railway, burglary and robbery were common daily events. It was rather weird if the train arrived at Moscow without a single burglary, but robberies directly related to engineers were unusual. Those types of events were treated as just a happening by the government and people would never find out the truth. In the same car, making people drunk by suggesting to drink vodka and stealing their belongings when they get too drunk were a lucky case. A few years back, there was even a shocking case that a traveler was stripped off of his clothes and was thrown away through a window of the train.

The train culture security had improved a lot from the past but it has a long way to go. It was practically impossible to perfectly control the security of the whole nation which territory was bigger than the United States and China combined. Sometimes police officers could even be more dangerous than criminals since many were money hungry. There were cases that police officers took people’s passports and did not return them unless given bribes.

As the gang traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway, there were many occasions that they did not have phone signals because not only a relay station in empty fields were inefficient, but it would be like saying, ‘come everyone, take the device now.’

It would be a robber’s good preying spot if the device was in a place where a train could only reach in half a day. Most international travelers were insured and if they lost their belongings they usually claim to their insurance companies since they had tight schedules during the trip. They would not sit and wait in a police office until the robbers were caught.

People might say that traveling on Trans-Siberian Railway is romantic, but it was a not at all romantic but a disgustful trip for Youngho and his friends. Any room should be dirty and uncomfortable throughout the trip. The lazy train crew did not even clean the bathrooms well. Renting a two-people room or four-people room was also uncomfortable if you were stuck with someone who you do not know. Moreover, the trip is the worst if you are stuck with a drunkard from drinking vodka from the beginning of the trip. Unless it was a one or two-day short trip, Trans-Siberian Railway trip was not something to recommend.

All you could see from the train that runs for days were empty fields, hills, and bald mountains. Although sometimes you could see a grove of birch trees, there was nothing much to see even in the cities where the train stopped before it reached Moscow.

It was so bad that even Jongil refused to watch beautiful Russian girls and begged to go on a flight. Youngho, who was determined not to travel by airplane in fear of hijacking, swore that he would never ride on a long-distance train again. The only fun they had on the trip was playing cards with their bloodshot eyes in an effort to empty each other’s pocket.

***

In Russia, no matter what kind of incident it is but if one was related to that robbers, he had to go through such troubles. Even though Youngho and his friends were heroes who captured train robbers, it was not like they would be getting rewards for that. If they did not go straight to Yaniv, the gang would have stayed in the police office for several days to write statements.

At a local police office in Moscow, Youngho was asked how he knew that they were robbers. It was absurd. It seemed that the police officers did not care for catching robbers but blamed them for not chasing them away and making them work more. An official who came from Moscow even tried to press charges on Youngho’s group for carrying and using weapons. Knowing how authorities would react, Youngho had called Yaniv in advance. If he had naively contacted a local police office, his group would have suffered disadvantage from the incident. The local officers, who did not know that it was directly reported to President Putin, were only busy to reduce the incident. They tried to press charges on Youngho’s group for overreacting and injuring people who only stopped the train but did not rob people. Since Youngho was already used to Russian police officers’ absurdity and how they could be manipulative, he just laughed at the situation. Thankfully, when they called Sergey, they were able to get out of there as quick as possible.

As they were about to leave Volgograd after finishing the police examination, Youngho received a gift from Yaniv. It was his share from the 2014 settlement of the warehouse store in Tbilisi, Georgia, which was 300,000 dollars. Having no idea how well the business in Georgia was doing, he was stunned to see the amount. Although it was not much compared to what he was making from his wine business, it was still a lot for the small size of the business. Owning two stores like that would make a yearly profit of ten million dollars easily.

“Mr. Yaniv, it’s quite embarrassing to take this money since I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t be foolish. We can only do this business easily because you’re the face of the business. Because of you, we also opened a nightclub there and it’s doing great.”

Yaniv’s had a great momentum since he opened a nightclub in a devout Christian country. Focused on the oil business, Youngho had almost forgotten about the business in Georgia, but it was a pleasant surprise to make such money not knowingly.

***

When Youngho returned to Baku after finishing the problematic twenty five day journey of Vladivostok, he crashed out in his bed as if the ring’s power did not even reach him. It was because he paid too much attention to the big and small events that happened in-between.

Youngho cussed at the terrorists who made it difficult for them to travel by airplanes. Jongil also gritted his teeth, saying that he would crash all of the terrorists searching in Baku.

“Why do we even have to suffer like this? We spent freaking sixteen days on the train for the round trip. This is such a waste of time.”

Ilkwon replied to Jongil who was complaining.

“Hyung, you’re right. We used too much time on the road. It was a pain to spend days in the small train room. My body itched so badly from not being able to wash so often.”

“Doesn’t North Korea send their military advisory group to Africa or Middle Eastern countries to work as instructors for terror groups?”

Jongil’s arrow of complaint was now directed to Ilkwon who had nothing to do with this.

“If I didn’t speak Russian well, I would’ve been deployed in some place and worked as an instructor. It’s their way to earn foreign currency.”

“Phew, I should stop talking. Sorry that I took it out on you. I just hate terrorists so much.”

Ilkwon comforted Jongil as he apologized soon.

“You’re fine, hyung. It’s the truth of the republic.”

Kim Ilkwon, knowing why North Korea was being criticized by the world now, was being sorry for his nation.

Youngho sighed thinking about the current situation where people could not dare to go on long-distance business trips due to the extreme terrorist groups. Unlike in the past when they used to bomb important buildings and facilities, they now terrorized random civilians that had nothing to do with politics, with suicide bombing attacks.

It was taking a risk once any farm family stepped out of Zeynep Farm. Even the tight airport security checks did not work, where else would be safe? With one explosion, trains would be wrecked, so traveling on trains were not safe either. Considering that, Korea was rather a safe place from terror attacks.

Because of the current situation of Europe, Yunsuh and Sangchun would now be safer living in Korea than settling down in Europe. At the moment, they did not even step out from the farm territory at all. It was worrisome since Zeynep Farm’s direct wine store should be opened in Austria or Denmark by this fall as planned.

***

At the moment, terrors were still happening frequently in Istanbul, Turkey. Fatima, who was watching TV news after supper, looked at Youngho with worried eyes. It seemed that she wanted to say something.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Oppa, It’s not that I don’t know about what comes with your work but I hope you don’t go on business trips overseas for a while. I can’t even sleep from the day before you go on a trip.”

It was understandable why she was worried so much. On TV, every little or big terror attacks and incidents all over Europe was broadcasted every day and that made everyone feel daunted. It was even suspicious that what terrorists were after was this, to make people fear them. Terrorists did not commit great deals like the 9/11 attacks but they were driving cars to run over people or crashing into buildings and launched suicide bombing attacks in places like a nightclub. Because of those little terrors, the economy was shrinking as well. People did not dare to go to crowded places l such as large malls and markets. They also stayed away from traveling overseas, those countries in Southeastern Europe who were living off tourism revenues suffered financially.

The CIA informed local agents the profiles of terrorists in different countries so that they would be of help to arrest terrorists. Because Youngho also received information from the European chapter and slipped the information to Sevan, Baku was still being safe from further terror attacks. All local agents received the CIA’s command to stand by in their location. It seemed that there may be a deadly mission for field agents to fight against terrorist groups and everyone was being nervous. Even though they could save their lives with bulletproof vests, it would still be impossible for them to protect themselves from bombing.

The obvious cause of the recent frequent terrors in this year was that Russia, France, and Turkey were all fighting against the nations or republics that were sheltering extreme terrorist groups. However, Youngho suspected a different cause for the terrors. He pondered upon who would be the ones making profits from terrors.

Since the oil price fluctuation was obvious, all the oil-producing countries were launching preemptive strikes to the terrorists, it did not seem like that people would make money with oil crude prices. It would not have any effects on port traffic since terrors attacks were only launched on drylands. Arms industry corporations would not make much money since it was not a large scale war which consumes leading-edge weapons. He felt such frustration. It did not seem normal for extreme terrorist groups since they were even endangering themselves, there had to be something other than the obvious reasons but he could not put his finger on it.