Empire of the Ring

The Russian camp was a small-sized company.

As Youngho and Jongil hid and watched them, they seemed to have slackened their discipline. A sentry kept yawning on the watchtower and an officer was drunk even though it was before nightfall. There was an obvious shortage of soldiers even though there were four barracks. Usually, a company had about 120 soldiers, but they only had only around 50 soldiers at most.

The rest must have gone out for a break or for other missions such as an ambush attack. Guessing from their relaxed attitude, Youngho thought that they must have gone out for a break. They did not seem to have enemies around them.

The army deployed to the Chechnya’s border consisted of strong soldiers who had gone through Ranger training. Those strong soldiers did seem nervous at all, and it might be because they had already defeated the Chechen rebel forces.

Waiting for the dark, the two planned for their next moves. If they abduct a few to interrogate, the camp would find out that there were missing soldiers. If they put an emergency alert, Youngho and Jongil would be confined in the border area and would not be able to escape. If they wipe out the camp, it would also be a problem, but they could earn some time to escape. They decided to wipe them out and discussed the means.

First, they needed to take down the guards on the watchtower using a rifle with a silencer attached and shut off the emergency phone. Then, they would divide and throw grenades in each barrack. Lastly, they would capture some commanders and interrogate them.

Killing would be easier than capturing soldiers alive. Jongil would be dealing with the commander’s room because he insisted that Youngho might kill commanders by not being able to control his strength. After discussing the plan, they reviewed everything and took a nap in their sleeping bags.

Youngho’s watch pointed to 2 o’clock in the morning.

He put down a guard on a watchtower near the gate and Jongil took down two guards who were patrolling around with their sniper rifles. Usually in the army, the night shift rotation hours were around 11 PM, 1 AM, 3 AM, and 5 AM. Until 3 o’clock, they still had some time left. Watching Jongil, who just reached near a barrack, Youngho also went near another barrack and removed the safety pin of a grenade. Because the two were wearing night vision goggles, they could see each other clearly. They both nodded and threw grenades in all of the barracks.

A few moments later, they could hear consecutive exploding sounds before it became quiet. Youngho waited for lucky soldiers who would be still alive and come out since one or two grenades would not kill ten soldiers. He was right. Soldiers covered in blood tried to escape the barracks. Youngho shut his eyes tightly for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, he aimed at a soldier who was struggling to walk straight, and shot at him. As if a stove was knocked down by the explosion, a fire started inside a barrack.

Even if there were people alive inside, no one would be able to escape the big fire and its smoke. Youngho stopped and blanked out for a while as he looked at the fire. Feeling guilty, he asked himself about what he was doing, but he shook his head hard to forget and to dispel the notion.

Jongil shouted at Youngho from the commander’s room. It seemed that he had already taken down the commanders.

***

The burning fire brightened the whole camp.

All of the soldiers were already dead.

There were three commanders on the camp.

As if they had drunk before they went to sleep, the room was filled with the smell of liquor. The commanders who still did not know what was going on kept yelling in their underwear.

They were still drunk.

Youngho splashed water over a commander’s face from the half-filled cup on a desk. When the cold water hit his face, the commander shivered. Sensing Youngho’s fierce spirit, he stopped yelling.

Youngho had already killed about fifty soldiers with Jongil. It would be no different for him if he killed three more. He was determined to kill them after the interrogation. They would be enemies anyway if met in a battlefield. It was rather painful to him if he treated them personally.

The two came out of the room for the time being. The big flames had already ceased and there was only a little fire left.

Without saying, the two lit cigarettes.

After smoking two cigarettes in a row, they smiled bitterly, looking at each other before putting on masks again to go back inside.

Two of the commanders who could speak English told them about the current state of the Chechen rebels. The commanders already guessed their soldiers’ fates when the two masked men freely roamed in and out of the commander’s room. They seemed to have seen a premonition of their own deaths.

Since they had been attacking and oppressing the small Chechen villages in the mountains, they thought that Youngho and Jongil came to take revenge for what they did. For there was no reason to make excuses, Youngho and Jongil just listened to the commanders.

They said the Russian army had raided the rebels’ bases and almost wiped them out, but about one-fifth of the rebels survived and escaped from their attacks. Since the rebels did not have any foods or weapons when they slipped into the mountains, the Russian army did not chase them anymore, judging that they would not survive the harsh winter of the Caucasus Mountain Range.

***

Now, the mission was over since they got out all the information they needed from commanders’ mouths. The Chechen armed rebel forces had fallen into pieces now.

There was one job left, returning to the village of Shatili. When they asked if the commanders want to say any other things, they cried for their lives.

Youngho pondered for a while, thinking of how to deal with the commanders now. Since the network was cut off, someone would come to investigate what happened here.

Apparently the closest unit was located at a distance that took a half day to reach.

There was enough time to flee.

Although they were enemies, Youngho was not so heartless to kill people whom he had been talking with. Youngho and Jongil shared a look.

Since the commanders had not seen their faces, they just decided to let them live. Not to mention, they did not want to kill people anymore. They could tie up the commanders in their room so that they could be rescued by other soldiers who came out to search.

There was enough time for Youngho and Jongil to reach Georgia.

The commanders must think that people from Chechen villages came to avenge their people. When Youngho was thinking about all that, one of the commanders suggested that he would give Youngho gold bars if he let them live.

It was such a sobering suggestion. The Russian soldiers must have attained those gold bars from the Chechen rebels when they raided their bases.

When Youngho nodded, the commander pointed to an iron container. It was locked, but it broke easily when Youngho hit it with the butt plate of his rifle.

In the container, gold bars shone brightly. Roughly counting, there were about fifty gold bars. The commanders admitted that they picked them up while chasing the rebels running away. Since the gold bars were too heavy to carry, the rebels had abandoned them to save their lives.

The commanders did not even report the gold to the headquarters of a battalion because they were going to take it for themselves. They would not be able to track the gold bars since they had never reported them.

Youngho thought that it was a reward for their hard work in this mission. Because Youngho hesitated for a while, he received an unexpected reward. He was going to let them live anyways without the gold bars, but this was much better. The commanders at the edge of their lives would think that they exchanged the gold bars for their lives.

Youngho and Jongil left the camp, not delaying for a single moment.

They would not search for the rebels anymore. Whether they still lived or not, the CIA would not be involving itself with the Chechen rebels anymore for now. Youngho guessed that Basayev was still alive because he did not find any cash that he had exchanged for the gold bars. He thought that he would meet Basayev again if destiny allowed it.

***

They returned to Shatili after a day.

Since Jongil hustled Youngho to set off to Tbilisi instead of dawdling in there, they left the village as soon as they were ready. The place now would be remembered as a bad memory in their hearts.

Youngho regretted killing the soldiers when he could just escape quickly using the leather shoes although they would have been chased by the army.

They fiercely drove away from the village as if someone was chasing them. Jongil joked about the mission, saying that it was the best battle and extortion for life.

As Jongil asked if Youngho would return the gold bars to the European Chapter, Youngho did not say anything but stroked the back of his head as the answer.

Jongil clapped and joyfully said that the gold would be their social security for the future.

‘Is he serious or is he just stupid? Why would you report the booty earned from killing people?’

“Jongil, if you want to, I can give you your share right now.”

“Nope. I can use them anytime I want when you take care of them. You just need to give expensive presents when our baby is born.”

Jongil was not a money-seeker. He was not greedy, but he only wanted good presents for the baby. Youngho was impressed that Jongil was not like other people since they would normally want to take their share right away.

When they arrived at Tbilisi, they had a short meeting with Agent Philip.

They did not talk about demolishing a company-sized army unit, but told him that they found out about the rebels by interrogating a commander who was out to patrol around the border.

They reported what they found out about the rebels: that Basayev was still alive and the armed rebel forces of the Caucasus Mountain Range fell into pieces.

Youngho did not forget to warn Philip not to go near the village of Shatili since he had interrogated a commander and Philip seemed to agree with him. In fact, since Youngho and Jongil wiped out an army camp, the Russian border securities would be seeking for the attackers for a while.

To Michael, the Chief Executive of the European Chapter, Youngho reported that there was no hope for the Chechen rebels for the time being. The CIA was also not willing to help them out anymore since it was too risky now.

Anyway, Youngho’s team had completed another difficult assignment. There were no other teams that would go into the rough mountains in the harsh coldness to coax forth valuable information. Their accomplishment was praiseworthy.

Youngho hung up the phone call with Michael with satisfaction on his face since Michael said that he would send the information commission soon.

***

Sergey arrived at Tbilisi.

A month ago, the three of them gathered and drank until they were dead drunk and they got an earful from Karajan. Even though there was no one around to complain, they were not in the mood to drink anymore.

They were traumatized after the attack.

They already received an establishment approval for the warehouse retailer shop, so what was left to do was to build the store.

Sergey said that he was building a direct store in downtown in the form of a big supermarket. He was also buying out the lands in the city now. Since his mafia organization was rich, he would be buying out lands and installing big facilities to attract customers.

He must be planning to open big distribution markets around the Caucasus regions since he said that he could not be satisfied with a retailer shop only. His scale of business was much bigger than what Youngho was thinking.

Although Youngho was only the pretend owner of the business, Yaniv said that Youngho should have some stocks of the business to be considered as the business owner. He sent a stock certificate of the 5% of the warehouse retailer shop to Youngho through Sergey. Since what Yaniv believed was reasonable, Youngho took the certificate, but he doubted earning much from the warehouse retailer shop. In a year, he would be receiving a surprising amount, but as of now, he did not have any hope in the business.

Youngho had done a terrible thing that a human must not do at the Georgian border. He felt bad for taking people’s lives even though it was for a mission. He was still making excuses to justify himself not feeling guilty. He was frustrated to think that he was turning into a monster.