Empire of the Ring

The last winter was not so busy since most of the CIA agents were on holiday break, so Youngho had nothing to do except for occasional pruning work.

However, Youngho could not take a break this year because the whole of Europe was under the threat of terrorism. Moreover, since he had been also building the village for the Serbian knights' descendants, he was extremely busy.

Providing a place for them was not just charity work because they were valuable labor force who did practical work for his farm and ranch.

Although they were unconditional followers of Fatima, he was providing them a great working environment and decent pay. Especially the miners who excavated and smelted gold from the dead mines, he treated them with the best care.

The plausible work environment with safety as a priority and the workers' sufficient rest from completed welfare facilities resulted in the high labor production rate.

Also, because the employees voluntarily worked, a high production rate was a natural outcome.

Youngho was excited since a hundred and fifty gold bars had been already made. Their transaction value was about nine billion won.

Fatima cried in joy when Youngho showed her the first gold bar made from the excavated gold from the mines. After learning about the symbolic meaning of her own existence to the villagers, she was under financial pressure. She was joyful now that gold, which could serve as stable funds, was found, and it was in front of her eyes.

"I was feeling stressed over the old kingdom's people, but I'm relieved we found gold so now that we can support them. They're poor people with a tragic history. Please treat them with a warm heart, oppa."

"Of course, I will do that. Their only hope is you and Leon."

"I'll never understand how they could live waiting for something for hundreds of years, but now, I think I should accept their heart."

"Yeah. They've been living with their backs turned on the world. We should try to understand them and comfort them. If they know your heart, they'll surely be glad."

Frankly, it was such an absurd situation, but Youngho thought that this was somewhat possible in the Caucasus Mountain Range. It was the last remote place left in the world and ever since human beings existed, the place had been where the most battles happened. All sorts of things happened in the region. Because of that, unique practices were still being performed in the Caucasus.

Although without any phones, people in remote regions had a unique way of communicating with each other even if they were at a distance of a few kilometers away from one another.

It was communicating through a certain set of whistling patterns.

The recent rescue of people who were attacked by bears was only possible because the people communicated through whistles. Whistles could travel further than human voices.

They used whistling, which was in a range of sounds that could not be crossed by any other sound, as a method of communication since they lived in mountainous regions where it was not easy to transit from a place to another.

It was used when there was an intruder from outside when a herd of sheep was lost, when calling for friends, and so on. And because each person made different whistling sounds, they could distinguish the sound and find out who was sending the signals with ease.

It was such an amazing communication method since they could deliver any message with about a hundred different patterns.

Especially when people were on the run as runaway slaves, people ensured each other's safety through making strange bird-like whistles. Youngho also tried to learn their whistles, but it was impossible to mimic since they had attained those whistles since they were young.

From the sounds made only with lips to fingers-incorporated sounds, their various ways of communicating were astounding to see. Youngho was glad that he gained the people's ability on his side.

***

On TV, a news anchor was intensely reporting an issue.

It was because there was another bombing terrorist attack in Baku.

A terrorist drove into Baku's train station when the train from Tbilisi, Georgia was arriving. There were more than thirty people injured or dead by the incident. Most of them were travelers.

It was becoming even more chaotic since different terrorist groups were insisting that they were the cause of the attack. They claimed that it was their way of warning Azerbaijan since the country had announced war with extremist Islamic terrorist groups and their supporting countries.

Azerbaijan's efforts to stop terrorism turned into a waste even though they even stopped Turkish travelers, turning down their brotherly nation.

Since innocent backpackers and travelers were the ones who were affected, it was obvious that the country's tourism revenue would fall.

The sales of Chunho Merchant's direct stores in the inner city of Baku also fell in half.

Furious with the terrorist groups, Jongil wanted to find their hideout and root them out.

"Sevan said there's a suspicious Muslim in Main Police Department, but no one can touch him in the department. Why don't we wait for him outside the building and find out what's with him?"

"Hey, does it make sense that they can't search when terrorists are hiding in the city?"

"They can't just search people without any evidence. The public will go nuts. It's still an Islamic country."

"If they can't do it, we need to be the ones to do it. Don't you think?"

"Well, I don't feel good about picking on a Muslim, but let's do it. You and me, just the two of us can work secretly."

Azerbaijan's moderate religious leaders could not bash out hiding terrorists, and they could not use police force either since this could proliferate as a religious battle. If they used police force to search a Muslim's property, it might look like religious oppression and Azerbaijan could be the target for Islamic countries all over the world.

The problem was that Sunnite extremists were using mosques as their place of refuge.

Jongil had just suggested that they should help out the police department that could not do anything about a suspicious person with a terrorist potential.

Youngho also wanted to take his suggestion because he was affected by terrorism as well.

He was dying to find out who was behind all this too.

Youngho did not want to just dive into this mission without a plan.

He should have something in return afterward.

He contacted Eriksson to see if he could suggest a deal, thinking that he could find out a connection to the power behind the recent terrorism when he captured some major terrorists.

They was not going to report this to the CIA's European Chapter since if the Jewish capitalist was behind this, the CIA's high rankers might be related to this as well.

Eriksson expressed his agreement toward his plan.

He said that if Youngho could capture some terrorists secretly, the agency would probably be able to find a link from them.

Now that what he would do after capturing terrorists was secured, the only thing left to do was actually catching them.

***

At dawn, Youngho and Jongil sneaked inside a mosque in Baku.

The mosque was located at the end of the old section of the city. Inside the building, there were many rooms centered around a maze-like hall.

Youngho had many questions in mind. If terrorists were uninvited guests, where would they be staying in here and how were they being treated by clerics? If they were served well in here, there was no doubt that they were all on the same side.

They began to search through the most luxurious rooms first. Terrorists were still guests of the mosque, so it would not be reasonable for them to be staying in storage rooms.

After searching a few luxurious rooms, they found a room where three robust young men were staying. They were curled up in bed, asleep with their clothes on. Intuitively, Youngho knew that they must be terrorists since their attire told that they were ready to flee at any time.

As the two stepped inside the room, the suspicious three men woke up in no time and picked up their pistols.

Now, their reaction just confirmed the speculation. They were indeed terrorists.

Youngho and Jongil could subdue them easily in a while.

The two brought the terrorists to the Charles Farm's oak-cask aging room after tying them with cable ties and covering their eyes and mouths.

Kim Ilkwon, who received the message beforehand, was waiting for the guests.

It took a while to knock down two of the terrorists since they moved swiftly. One of them did not resist at all and he gave the impression that he was the leader of the three.

Youngho and Jongil did not forget to bring their belongings as well. There were different chemicals, materials, and devices for making explosives. The materials were from Turkey, Brazil, and India, where the security was relatively loose. Those kinds of cheap materials could be bought without the permission of each nation's government, so terrorists could easily get their hands on them.

That was why terrorists were not caught by the tight Baku airport's security.

Youngho did not say much on the way to the farm.

He relieved his rage when inflicting some corporal punishment in the process of subduing them.

Jongil had already treated them roughly since he forcefully searched and damaged the inside of their mouths in case that they carried suicide capsules in them. They would not be able to eat for a while. Youngho did not ask any questions since there was nothing to say, and it seemed that they would answer them easily.

Eriksson appeared at Baku's airport at the promised time.

He was with two other guys. According to Eriksson, they were a psychologist and a hypnotist.

Eriksson and the guys stayed with the captured terrorists for an hour and brought them outside of the aging room.

It seemed that he took some action on the terrorists. Eriksson said that he just treated them so that they can maintain psychological stability, but the terrorists' eyes did not seem normal.

"Mr. Eriksson, are they terrorists for sure?"

"Yes. They sneaked into Baku a few months ago and have been working on terrorism in the city. We'll find out the details once we investigate them in our agency, but it looks like there are no other terrorist groups in Baku at the moment. If it's not a problem for you, I'll take them now. We'll travel to Georgia on the train."

Youngho wondered how Eriksson would pass the inspection when they leave the country since they had stepped up the inspection due to recent terrorist attacks all over Europe, but it was not his problem.

It seemed that the terrorists had been searching for new recruits and working on turning the public's opinion toward extremism for the past few months.

Although there were no more terrorists left in the city, the problem was that some clerics who hid them in the mosque also held extremist views.

It was impossible to officially punish them for what their ideologies, so Youngho planned on punishing them quietly. Now that Youngho was also a citizen of Azerbaijan residing in Baku, people with dangerous minds could affect him and his family as well.

That night, two masked men showed up at the mosque in the old section of the city and several Islamic clerics disappeared, but the police regarded the incident as a minor occurrence.