Empire of the Ring

“It’d be great if the fire doesn’t spread to other places.”

Youngho murmured to himself as he watched the flames rose high from a distance. He was worried that the fire might get too big due to the heavy wind.

The surroundings of the storage units were already chaotic. The fire burned from oil storage tanks made a huge pillar of fire and the drums rose to different directions in the sky and popped like fireworks from the yard where drums were gathered.

As if the oil tanks of armored vehicles and other tanks were exploding, sounds of blasts came out from the storage units in a row. Then, Youngho heard consecutive exploding sounds. It was the sound of ammunition and shells burning in fire and exploding.

“We don’t have to watch it anymore. Let’s go home.”

Jongil nagged as if he now had nothing to do with the region anymore.

“Let’s watch the fire for a little more.”

There are a few things that attracted onlookers, and the scene of fighting and fire were among those few.

Since the fire did not seem like it would be put out, Youngho wanted to see some more. He felt like a child in front of a big fire, he wanted the fire to be put out but secretly wanted it to burn more at the same time.

It was unreasonable to travel back to Baku on the snow-covered mountain path, so the two decided to camp out at a plateau two hours away from the city of Ayrum. Since it was too risky to get food from any nearby towns, the two only had combat rations.

“I’m getting sick of these. This is all we’ve been having for the past few days but it’s not like we can hunt for rabbits or birds at this hour.”

Youngho felt the same. He could not swallow the food since they were rough. It was not even Korean but Turkish. All he could smell was heavy spices.

“You snooped around the side door of the storage unit. Did you catch something?”

Youngho remembered that Jongil was peeking inside a storage unit before they set the fire.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot. They must make strange armored vehicles these days.”

“…”

“I’ve seen some looking like American Humvees but they were a bit bigger. I saw them under my flashlight and they were disguised as regular cars.”

“They must be light armored vehicles. They must’ve ordered smaller ones for mountain operations.”

“Man, I wanted some of them. It looked it could be completely disguised as normal cars if the machine gun on the roof were taken off. I need to find out what country they were from.”

Feeling frustrated by the fact that he did not get to find out about the manufacturer company, Jongil smacked his lips.

Youngho was also curious, he could not wait to find out what it is. He called Insoo on his satellite phone.

“You two! Can’t you call a little early? I’ve been worried sick for you. You know I can’t call you first.”

Insoo, not knowing what his friends were up to in the middle of the enemy’s country, could not call them first. Frustrated by his friends’ ignorance, he complained as soon as he heard his friend’s voice.

“You’d find out what we’ve been up to on tomorrow’s TV news. By the way, can you look up light armored vehicles online? If there are, we should get a few. Jongil had seen some of them and he’s dying to have some.”

“Why on earth are you suddenly into light armored vehicles? Are you all fine?”

“We’ll get to the farm by afternoon tomorrow. Get prepared for a huge barbecue party.”

***

The farm family welcomed the two who showed up looking like beggars after a few days.

Jongil took a quick shower and left for Arirang Hotel to see his wife, Karajan. Insoo and Ilkwon were sitting and looking at Youngho’s lips at his study, waiting for him to speak.

“Why are you all sitting like that?”

“We’re just curious about your journey. What have you done?”

“Man, haven’t you seen the news?”

“It’s all about the bombing. There’s nothing special.”

“What? The large-scale fire at Ayrum was not on the news?”

The two looked surprised to hear Youngho’s words.

“Did you burn the whole city?”

They thought that Youngho and Jongil had done something terrible.

For the next ten minutes, Youngho briefly explained everything to curious friends.

Ilkwon smirked after listening to the whole story.

“It’s weaker than the bombings that it won’t even be on the news. Besides, I think Armenia would want to keep it quiet.”

Youngho naturally thought that the fire would be on the news but it was his stupidity. The media that wanted to minimize the exposure of their own damage of the war to the public would never proudly advertise their situation.

“Anyway, they’d be terrified by now and their military strength must be weakened for now since we’ve burned quite a lot of their heavy firearms.”

“So, they had disguised their arms like that. Doesn’t that mean that there are more arms disguised like that in other places too?”

Youngho was alarmed by Insoo’s words. This could mean that Azerbaijani air force had been bombing and burning the enemy camps in vain. They had only been beating scarecrows.

He had to let the government know about this since the Azerbaijani government was already in the mood of celebration that they had won the war. His words would be like throwing a wet blanket to their celebration but that was not important when the Armenia’s military strength still remained untouched.

“You’ve checked all of the Armenian military facilities already?”

“Of course. We have mobilized an enormous number of spies. Since it’s classified information I can’t tell you much but you can be at ease.”

Sevan’s face was full of pride. Youngho could not say that he had witnessed what the enemy’s camp looked like with his own eyes. So, all he could say was to investigate more since the enemy might have successfully fooled Azerbaijan.

“You should grill more the soldiers of the special forces that are captured. I’m just worried about this. Even North Korean force counterposing South Korean force bury hide all of their equipment and facilities underground.”

“Just relax and watch the news. Oh, and I didn’t get to say appreciation for the residents of Serbian Village for their work in capturing Armenian special forces. The government will be rewarding the people soon.”

“It’s just a natural thing to do as citizens of the nation. Since they’re immigrants, they receive a special exemption from the national military service. We ought to do something like this to save our face.”

The descendants of the Serbian Kingdom were considered as naturalized foreigners that they were exempted from military service.

After the Serbian descendants had won against Armenian special forces at the shootout at the ranch with only using AK rifles, the government was impressed by them. It was a good opportunity for the descendants to earn the government’s favor.

However, Youngho was still worried that the government still had no idea about the enemy’s disguise tactics.

Looking at Youngho’s worried face, Sevan added.

“There will be a reinforcement of our weapons from the government soon since Armenia might have a revenge attack on us.”

“Is that so? I was going to strengthen the defensive power of the ranch too. I was considering buying some light armored vehicles.”

“What kind of?”

“I’ve found great ones online. There are some vehicles similar to Humvees made in Turkey. They have great mobility that they could be used in mountainous areas too. I’ll get a few and place them at the ranch. That wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”

The Cobra series light armored vehicles made in Turkey were perfect for Youngho’s use. Among various kinds, he picked a four-wheels ten-seater with a 360-horsepower engine that could be driven on harsh mountain paths with ease. Its oil tank had a 200-liter capacity which meant that it could go over 500 kilometers of distance at once.

Since Youngho frequently traveled to Kazakhstan, the car that could go a long distance seemed plausible. Moreover, it did not look like a military vehicle at all.

The price of one vehicle was not overwhelming since they were about 250,000 dollars each. So, he decided to go to Turkey himself to buy about twenty vehicles. He had to go to Frankfurt anyway for the monthly meeting, he planned to go to Turkey after visiting there.

***

Leon, who spotted Youngho, almost leaped in excitement. Since it had been only two months since he walked by himself, it was surprising to see how he could be almost running to Youngho.

“Papapa…”

Amazed by him trying to pronounce ‘papa,’ Youngho lifted him up and kissed him. Looking at his son, it felt like all of his worries had gone away.

Fatima smiled, covering her mouth with her hand. Such gesture from her meant that she was extremely excited to see him but since there were people around them, she was not showing her feelings.

“I heard that Armenian soldiers came into the ranch?”

“Well, they crowded in to protest but they soon went away.”

“Are you sure that it was not something serious?”

Sangchun kept asking senselessly in front of the other family members. As Youngho gave a look to Jongil, he quickly helped him out.

“Hey, you traffic police, stop doubting us. Didn’t you forget that we’re from U.D.T? No matter how many of them came in troops, two of us can take care of them in a moment. They ran away as soon as they saw our faces, so that’s all good.”

“Eh-hem. Jongil oppa, can you stop giving my husband a hard time? As far as I remember, you and I have something left to talk about.”

Sangchun had served as a conscripted policeman during his mandatory military service time. Coming from a Navy special forces unit, Jongil always looked down on him when talking about military years.

After making a fuss greeting each other, Youngho gave a big bow to Sangchun’s parents.

“Humph, humph. You shouldn’t pay such respect to us every time. Phew, you folks are going through troubles in foreign places. We don’t feel easy since we’re always being treated by you, young folks. I just hope the best for you. Don’t get involved in dangerous businesses…”

The group had to listen to Sangchun’s dad’s lecture for ten minutes. It felt like an old principal’s speech.

“Phew, my dad had taken too much of our valuable time with lecturing.”

After coming down to the office on the second floor, the gang was now ready to have a private drink party. Sangchun complained for a while and filled glasses with a drink.

“Hey, adults are all like that.”

Jongil laughed, saying that he felt like he went back to being a high school student.

“So, you have quite a lot of customers these days?”

“Germans usually prefer white wines but the other day a customer gave me a thumbs-up after tasting our wine.”

At the store on the first floor, wine bottles were displayed nicely and large framed pictures of the scenery of Zeynep Farm and the wine factory were hung on the wall. The video recordings of the farm’s work were also shown on the TV, so many local distributors were finally being drawn to Zeynep Wine.

“There’s a demand for short-period aged wine too. We should place some of them at the store too. Since our brand’s not known to the public, I think we should also sell some cheaper wine too.”

“Shall we put an advertisement in the top local newspaper? Or we can have an online banner advertisement too.”

“Wine sales don’t depend on advertisements. People might misunderstand that our wine is mass-produced. Let’s leave it this way for now. Since we’re advertising at Arirang Hotel in the city here, it’ll get there soon.”

In fact, Zeynep Wine had dominated the lobby of Arirang Hotel in Frankfurt.

Since it was a five-star hotel, most of the guests were well-off. They would not like seeing a cheap advertisement of Zeynep Wine on papers and online websites.

Youngho was certain that people would start recognizing Zeynep Wine in time. As the guests of the hotel stay and eat at the hotel and have a chance to taste Zeynep Wine, they would naturally be intrigued to have some more. Europeans love wines and Youngho trusted their taste.

A great philosopher Immanuel Kant’s last words were ‘Es ist gut,’ which means ‘it is good’. It was right after he had sipped on wine on his deathbed. Youngho wondered what kind of wine he had drunk that he said ‘good’ before dying. Apart from the kind of wine he had, his final words were well known to show that his love for wine was indeed great.

Youngho’s vision for Zeynep Wine was to produce the same kind of wine that a great wine lover like Immanuel Kant would love to death. In order to do that, he had to put more efforts to come up with better tasting wine.

He signed since he had not been able to focus on his main job but only to other nations’ war.