Empire of the Ring

Youngho was spending quality time with Fatima talking about how much trouble Leon was giving everyone. It seems like he was getting more and more handful since he was getting older.

“You will have a difficult time when Min-seok and In-hwa leave. Leon used to be manageable when he was at Zeynep’s.”

“Leon would be happy to see Zeynep or Seo-young.”

“Speaking of them, do you know why they’re not coming home? What’s going on in Frankfurt?”

“They will come home when the exams are over this week. They are only coming because the kids were begging them to come. Otherwise, they would’ve stayed in Frankfurt.”

“I guess they are at the age of finding every single way to have fun. Their security guards must be having a hard time following them around.”

“They told me they’ve got some money from Russia. Looks like Mr. Yaniv made another donation.”

“He said he wanted to give something to Zeynep when I went to Volgograd last time.”

“Honey, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but do you think it’s wise to take his money? I mean, we don’t know where the money is coming from.”

Youngho understood Fatima’s concern.

“He has been only doing legal businesses for quite a while now. The money would be clean.”

“Okay, if you say so. I guess we will take the money then.”

“Zeynep is going to do well. She acts like a child, but she’s business-minded.”

“I’m afraid she is almost turning into a workaholic. What if she gets married too late?”

“She is only 20. She’s got a lot of time in her hands. Besides, she will still do well even if she gets married…”

It was true. Sooner or later, Zeynep would need to get married. Youngho would not meddle, but he certainly wanted Zeynep to find a trustworthy and loving husband. When it came to thinking about it, maybe Youngho needed to subtly meddle to make sure that Zeynep would meet the right person. Youngho thought that it would be great to ask Szechenyi and Isabella to find someone great for her. Since the two went to a lot of social events among royal families and nobility, they might be able to find someone that was suitable for her.

After spending some time with the kids in Baku, Youngho’s group hurried to come back to the autonomous state. Since they spent too much time in Baku, they would have to move quickly to meet the ships in Krasnoyarsk on time. Youngho had no other choice but to take his private Jet. Youngho made a phone call to Sergey to let him know about the flight because he needed permission to cross the Russian border with a private airplane. Since it was the first long distance flight on the Jet, Hudson from Cessna came along to assist Youngho in flying the Jet after hearing about the trip from Niksic.

“Hudson. I hope I didn’t take you away from your date.”

“Not at all. I was going to come along anyway. It’s a long flight. You can certainly use my hand.”

“Come on, did Chief Niksic push you?”

“Well, actually, he said, ‘Do the job right or forget about getting married.’ Hahaha…”

“He’s got some bad temper these days. I think he went a bit too far this time.”

Chief Niksic was not in any position to say things like that to Hudson since he was the one who rebuked the American pilots and technicians for holding a Serbian girl’s hand and forcefully made them stay with his traditional Serbian marriage scheme.

“Well, still it is an honor to fly with you. I will appreciate it if you take me to long distance flights.”

“Oh, you flatter me.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Smith, the secretary of the U.S. embassy in Astana.”

“Smith? Is he still in Kazakhstan?”

“I met him at Astana the other day.”

Youngho knew that Agent Smith was in Astana, but he pretended that he knew nothing about his whereabouts. It was because he did not want others to find out why he was close to Smith and his CIA background.

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me that something good is going to happen if I cling and stay close to you.”

Youngho felt like he might get another follower.

***

It took about seven hours to reach Krasnoyarsk from the state because they had to stop by the airport in Astana in the middle of their flight to fill the fuel tank. Since Sergey had contacted the airport and arranged Youngho’s arrival earlier, the airport staffs all received Youngho well. Everything went smoothly there.

Sergeenko welcomed Youngho as if he was welcoming the president of a country. No wonder there was no difficult entry procedure. Youngho felt that there would be no restriction what so ever when he visited Krasnoyarsk in the future.

“Mr.Lee. We’ve prepared a hotel suite for you. The ships haven’t arrived yet, but I’ve sent my guy to check every hour. When the ships arrive, we will let you know right away.”

“Thank you for your trouble. This is not much, but take it.”

“Thank you.”

Youngho showed his appreciation to Sergeenko with an envelope filled with money. This relatively small amount of money would make things easier for Youngho and his group.

“He didn’t hesitate in taking the envelope.”

“Well, he certainly helped us a lot. It looks like mafias here have more power in this small city than those in Volgograd.”

After watching the whole welcoming process, Jong-il was speechless.

“Last time when I gave him an envelope, he refused to take it. So, I insisted to give it to him. Then I saw him subtly checking out how thick the envelope was.”

“Hahaha…”

“He looks like a dumb thug, but he is as clever as a snake. I will take advantage of him as much as I can.”

“Maybe you are the one who is as clever as a snake.”

The office that Jong-il had opened for the state’s agents was an old wooden two-story building near a train station. The first floor was used for the office and the second floor was used for temporary lodging.

“The lodging seemed to be too large. How are they going to handle the cold temperature?”

“This was the smallest building around. This d*mn large country’s got no small things. We will have to make several rooms on the second floor.”

“Make sure you insulate the walls. Making multiple rooms won’t fix the problem.”

They hired a woman from the city to assist the agents, but she was only killing time because they had no work to do yet. Youngho was afraid that she might quit out of boredom.

“Teach her English. Maybe we can use her as an interpreter one day.”

“Will she want to learn English?”

“Make it happen. I want her on our side as our family. You can’t just hire a person and give nothing to do.”

“Your ego to make everyone your people…”

“You should remember that you only married Karajan because of my ego.”

***

Krasnoyarsk was well-known for its inland seaport because the Yenisei River flowed across the city. The Yenisei was not an ordinary river. Its width was over five kilometers wide. It would be no problem to dock a few large ships in this river.

“This is more of a lake than a river. Like I told you, this d*mn country has no small things.”

“I guess that’s why this city grew as an inland harbor industrial city.”

“It’s surprising how over a million people live in this cold city.”

“There are too many docks that I can’t find our ships.”

“Hey, There comes Sergeenko and his boys.”

Sergeenko and his henchmen were nicely dressed. Sergeenko proudly walked toward Youngho. It was understandable since he was the highest person among the mafias here although he would not be anywhere close to the top in Volgograd.

“How are you doing, Mr. Lee?”

“Mr. Sergeenko. You didn’t have to come out here for us. Our ships are already here.”

“I was concerned about some of the harbor managers and policemen. They might try to give you a hard time.”

It would have been an issue if any of the managers tried to pick on Youngho’s group. Not to mention the policemen would definitely pick on new faces.

“I guess the official instructions don’t really work in here.”

“Siberia has its own laws. They wouldn’t necessarily listen to orders from Moscow.”

“I see. Please let me know if I am doing anything wrong. I probably wouldn’t handle the Siberian laws by myself.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. If anybody gives you a hard time, my boss will fly here right away.”

“Mr. Yaniv has retired from this sort of things.”

“Well, then, Sergey won’t let it happen. Sergey might even be scarier than the boss.”

Sergeenko’s face turned uncomfortable as he said that. It looked like Sergey was quite strict to his underlings. While many big organizations had divided into several small groups, the South Russian mafias still kept the tradition of the hierarchy of seniors to juniors. Sergey was indeed the successor of Yaniv in the mafia organization.

If Youngho did not make a connection with Yaniv, Youngho would have gone through several troubles because his organization probably had to battle with the Russian mafias.

“Sergey couldn’t even kill a little insect.”

“What you see might not always be true. He will control money to get his work done.”

“Control money?”

“He will analyze every single flaw in the spending history of different business branches, and punish you for losses.”

Just as Youngho predicted, playing with money worked for mafias just like Sergeenko bowed his head to Youngho who had money.

“Would you let me introduce myself to the harbor manager?”

“You don’t need to worry about it. I’ve got you.”

“Still, I feel the need to be acquainted with the manager.”

“He doesn’t deserve to meet you. He’s such a petty man…”

‘That’s what you think.’

Even though mafias were in charge of many things, making a connection with officials would be always helpful for Youngho in the future. The connection would let him have access to information that mafias could not attain.

As Sergeenko said Siberia had its own laws, Youngho also had his own laws.