“And it could all be just a hoax?”
“As you say. It could all just be some lunatic trying to make idiots of us. Not that that’s been particularly difficult in this case.”
They had arrived back at HQ. Despite the brilliance of the morning sun, the place still looked depressing, its dark concrete looming over them. The thick snow by the entrance was already gray from the tread of countless feet. Nergui did not feel at home here. He felt that the regular police resented his presence, were suspicious of his motives. But equally, he realized, he no longer felt comfortable back in the Ministry. He had always considered himself an astute political player, a survivor, but he was increasingly beginning to feel that this world was leaving him behind.
Inside, the offices were almost deserted, most of the officers engaged in the manhunt for Badzar. So far, he appeared to have slipped away without trace.
Nergui stopped by the telephone switchboard. “When do we expect him to call back?” he asked the operator.
The operator glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Maybe a little less.”
Nergui nodded. “I’ll be in my office,” he said. “Put him straight through.”
He led Doripalam into the office and sat himself down behind the desk, gesturing Doripalam to sit opposite. The files on the case lay untouched in front of him.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” Nergui said.
“What do you mean?”
“I think I have to do what he says,” Nergui said. “Meet him. Alone.”
“Even though we don’t know whether McLeish is even still alive?”
“Especially because of that. The Minister can’t keep a lid on this story much longer. The Western media are going to be all over us in the next twenty-four hours.”
“The story won’t be improved if we end up losing one of our senior officers as well,” Doripalam pointed out.
“You’re right,” Nergui grimaced at the thought. “But, as I say, I don’t think there’s a choice. All I can try to do is minimize the risks. The risk to me. And the risk to McLeish, if he’s still alive.”
“And how do you do that?”
Nergui shrugged. “I’ve got my own talents in that direction. And I’ll be armed. And I want you as backup.”
“Me? But I not sure I’m the best-”
“There are highly trained officers I could take with me, but I’m not sure who to trust here anymore. I don’t know who Badzar is working for, if he’s working for anyone. And I don’t know who or what he knows. I have a feeling that if I set this up as a formal mission, he may well know. And that may mean the end of things for McLeish.”
“But I’m still not-”
“Doripalam, we’ve no idea what we might be letting ourselves in for here. We don’t know what’s driving Badzar. We don’t know why he’s suddenly decided to make himself known. It could be a trap. But why bother with a trap? We presume he’s already got McLeish-if he’s got demands, then he’s already got more than enough leverage. If he wanted another victim, he could find one easily enough without putting himself at this risk. He could have killed me while I was waiting at the factory last night. I think it’s more likely he wants something.” He paused. “And maybe he doesn’t know who he can trust, either.”
Doripalam nodded and opened his mouth to speak. But then Nergui’s phone rang. He picked it up, listened and reached out to switch on the intercom. “It’s him,” he mouthed.
The same sibilant voice emerged from the low quality speaker. “Have you had time to think?” it asked, without preamble.
“What is it you want?” Nergui said.
“To see you. Alone.”
“How do I know McLeish is safe?”
“You don’t. You won’t until you meet me. Now, please stop wasting my time. Are you prepared to meet? Just you. If there’s any other police presence, McLeish dies.”
“If he’s still alive.”
“As you say. Yes or no?”
Nergui paused and glanced across at Doripalam. “Yes,” he said. “Just tell me where and when.”
CHAPTER 22
Not quite silence.
Drew lay, straining every muscle to try to see or hear something, to try to gain some clue as to what was happening.
Someone was watching him closely as he struggled, in one more vain attempt, with the ties that gripped him. He didn’t know how he could feel the presence of this other person.
But there was not quite silence.
It seemed like hours since he had heard someone enter the room, but was probably only minutes. And even though he knew that whatever happened next was unlikely to be pleasant, a part of him still refused to accept this, still somehow believed that his current state would continue indefinitely.
Why did his captor not simply get on and do whatever it was he intended? Why this endless torturing uncertainty? Was it simply an attempt to wear down his resistance? But why? Drew had nothing-no possessions, no information-that was likely to be of interest to whoever had kidnapped him in this country. If the intention was to extort some demands from the government, either here or at home, there was nothing obvious to be gained through this kind of psychological torture.
He continued to alternate between struggling with his bonds, and lying as still as possible, trying to gain some sense of what might be happening. But both activities were equally fruitless, nothing more than an empty gesture, a vain attempt to demonstrate to his captor that he had not yet ceased to resist.
And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he felt the soft touch of a hand against his, the startling warmth of human contact. The touch was so gentle that at first he thought that he was imagining the sensation. But then he felt his hand being grasped firmly in another’s grip, a strange feeling because the hand felt harsher, drier, than human flesh. He twisted his head, trying at least to see the hand, trying to see what was gripping his fingers.
And then he saw it. It was, indeed, simply a human hand clutching his own, but the fingers were enclosed in the kind of protective glove worn by those handling food in a shop or café. The kind of glove that might be worn by someone who did not wish to leave any trace of fingerprints.
Drew arched his back, trying to see more, but could still see only the hand and, beyond that, a wrist surrounded by a white shirt cuff. The hand was grasping his own tightly, pulling it hard to one side. He felt his heart beating loudly, his breath pounding through his chest as he wondered what would follow.
And then he heard something metallic, something heavy, being lifted from the ground. He could hear his captor’s breathing, the slight strain of someone lifting something heavy, high above his head.
Drew tensed as he felt the momentum of the object through the air above him, his mind jumped back to the sights of the dismembered bodies, the thought of how those limbs had been removed. And as he felt the draft of air above him, he did not even have the breath to scream.
He felt, rather than heard, the heavy thump of metal on wood. He remembered, crazily, stories of those who had lost limbs initially feeling no pain, not even recognizing that they had been injured.
But then his breath and his senses returned, and he realized that he was genuinely not hurt. He twisted his head to look at where his captor’s hand was still gripping his own.
In the bench just by his hand, a large ax was buried a centimeter or so into the wood. His hand had been pulled back to avoid the ax, so the blade had instead cut neatly through the bindings around his wrist.
Drew opened his mouth to shout, though he had no idea what words he might utter to this still unseen figure who was unlikely to speak any English. Before he could speak, a handcuff was slip around Drew’s untied wrist. He felt his arm being pulled again, and was then aware that the other half of the handcuffs had been firmly attached to an object, as yet invisible to him. He twisted again in his remaining bonds but could still see nothing.
The figure moved behind him, and his other hand was gripped and pulled aside.
Again, there was the swish of the ax falling through the air and he felt another bond fall free.
He tried to move, but the remaining bonds on his ankles and neck still held him firmly in place. He caught a glimpse of his captor as he moved rapidly around the room, a black shadow passing swiftly across his constrained vision. The figure was down at his feet now. Again, Drew felt the hand on his leg, holding his feet to one side as the ax fell again, severing the bond on his left leg. And then the same on his right. His legs were free, and only the tight binding on his neck still held him in place.
His captor moved slowly alongside the bench. Drew twisted his head as much as possible, and for the first time saw the figure who was standing beside him.
The man was unremarkable. He was of average height, stockily built, dressed in a cheap-looking, black Western-style suit. He wore a white shirt, open at the neck. He stopped now and stared at Drew.
He was wearing a black skiing mask which entirely covered his face except for two small eyeholes. And, whereas the rest of this figure was unexceptional, the eyes were striking. They stared fixedly at Drew, reddened, burning, unblinking. It was impossible to read the emotion that lay behind them, there was just an emptiness, a blankness, that seemed almost less than human.
Up to now, Drew’s terrors had been substantial but unfocussed, nothing more than a fear of what might be impending. Now, though, the threat was real and immediate.
Drew lay still on the bench, his legs and right arm free, but his neck still pinioned to the bench. He shifted his head further, feeling the bindings cutting painfully into his neck, and saw that his left arm was fastened with the handcuffs to a ring on the end of a metal pole. Drew pulled hard on the handcuffs, but it was clear that the pole was set into some heavy, immovable base. It was this, perhaps, which Drew had heard his captor dragging along the floor.
The figure stood motionless, watching Drew. The ax hung loose in his left hand. And, in his right hand, held equally loosely, was what appeared to be a pocketknife, gleaming brightly in the room’s stark illumination.
Drew stared back in terror, as the figure began to move slowly forward, raising the knife before his face. His eyes still seemed expressionless, empty of thought or feeling.
As the knife approached his face, Drew suddenly felt as if life and feeling were flooding back into his inert body. Too late, he kicked out with his legs, trying to thrust himself free, feeling the grip of the bond around his neck, preventing him from throwing himself off the bench. The knife rose above him, and Drew screamed, the echoes bouncing ineffectually around the walls and empty spaces.
Nergui had been here before.
How long was it? Three years, maybe four. Something like that. But the sights and sounds and smells-especially the smells-of this place had stayed with him ever since.
It was a place he would dearly have liked to forget. He remembered what he had seen here, at a time when he thought that his country was finally succumbing to irrevocable chaos. This place had seemed almost like a symbol of those miserable days, an image of the depths to which the nation had sunk and from which it had seemed unlikely ever to arise.
But things had changed, and Nergui supposed that this augured well for the future, even if his cynicism did not allow him to entertain excessive optimism. This place was as eerie and unnerving as ever, but its connotations were changing. Already the past was being put behind it.
Visually, the place was extraordinary, a tortuous tapestry of black twisted pipes and billowing steam. It was the entrance to a sewer pipe, a massive construct built in the Soviet days. The pipe network had been built to transport not only sewage but also steam heat from the then thriving factory units around to domestic buildings in the neighborhood. It had not been a particularly efficient arrangement, in that substantial amounts of steam billowed out into the frozen air. But it did ensure, with characteristic Soviet ingenuity, that heat that would otherwise have been wasted-and which, in the West, would perhaps have been discarded without a thought-was transferred to a practical use.
But, with the collapse of the economy, the steam tunnels had been transformed into something more than merely practical. For some, in the most unpleasant and tragic circumstances, they had become lifesaving. This area, only a few years before, had been overwhelmed by those with no other homes to go to-the majority of them children or teenagers.
Whatever their various backgrounds, the hordes of homeless young people had congregated here, trying to find some way of enduring the bitter cold of the icy Mongolian winter. The steam pipes had provided one source of warmth, and the homeless had come in their hundreds to shelter inside, braving the stench of the sewers in exchange for survival.
Initially, the authorities had largely turned a blind eye. If these people were able to fend for themselves, however harsh the conditions, then so much the better. But crime levels had risen, and the groups of semiferal children became seen as a scourge by those in more fortunate positions. Pressure was placed on the police to deal with the problem, and Nergui recalled numerous raids on the area. Children were picked up in their dozens, and shipped off to shelters that were often only marginal improvements on the makeshift hovels they had left behind. Inevitably, many of those picked up simply ran away again within days, and the whole miserable cycle continued.
Gradually, though, things had changed. Crucially, the economy had slowly improved, and some foreign aid had been obtained to deal with some of the specific problems of homelessness. There was a growing number of decent children’s hostels, many of them run by international charities. Work was now more plentiful, and many of those who had been homeless were able to fend for themselves.
Nevertheless, this still tended to be a place where the homeless would cluster, particularly as the winter approached. Many of the formerly thriving factories now lay abandoned, and it was possible to find shelter close enough to the steam pipes to stave off the rigors of the winter nights.
Now, though, the area looked deserted. Alleys ran off between the factories, deep in shadow. In the open areas, the ground was thick with snow, melting only where the steam continued to billow, filling the frozen air with a dense white fog. Nergui stepped slowly forward, straining his eyes. He could see only a few feet in front of him.
He glanced at his watch. Nearly three, as Badzar had stipulated. Behind him, across the city, the sun was already setting, and the shadows were lengthening between the buildings.
This was insane, he thought. He had sought no permission for coming here, nor even told anyone, other than Doripalam, where he was going. This solitary action went against every rule of policing. On the other hand, he did not see much alternative. The Minister, if he had been consulted, would probably have seen things the same way, though might have felt unable to say so overtly.
The proper thing to have done would have been to initiate a full-scale police operation. They should have surrounded the area, given Nergui full backup, ensured that, whatever else might happen, at least there would have been no chance of Badzar escaping from this alive.
Instead he just had Doripalam, his gun, and his cell phone with Doripalam’s number already dialed. They had agreed that if Nergui should call the number without subsequently speaking, Doripalam should summon backup immediately. But Nergui had no illusions that backup would arrive in time to prevent Badzar’s escape.
However, if the worst did happen and Drew was killed, the Minister could present this as a maverick escapade, not officially sanctioned. At worst, they would be back where they started, and Nergui would be left to take the responsibility, probably posthumously. At best, though, this might just conceivably produce the positive outcome that would never be achieved through more orthodox means.
The afternoon was already growing dark. Nergui pulled out his flashlight and shone it down the narrow alleyways, though the illumination was almost useless within the dense clouds of steam. He could make out only the cracked and stained concrete of the old factory buildings. Above, there were
lines of smashed and boarded up windows. Below, there was just scattered rubbish, the debris of abandoned industry, white shapes under the snow.
Badzar had not indicated precisely where he would be, or how he would make his presence known. He had simply told Nergui to come to this spot at three, and then to wait.
Nergui flashed the light up and around him, occasionally glimpsing, as the steam momentarily cleared, the dark towering factories. Once, far above, he caught sight of the densely star-covered sky. There were no working streetlights down here, though behind him he could see a faint glow in the distance behind the mass of buildings. Through the mist, the sky was darkening from red to a dark purple as the sun disappeared. Soon, the darkness here would be thick and heavy, softened only by the continually billowing steam.
The atmosphere was getting to him, and the shifting clouds of steam created phantoms as he moved forward. He thought of the headless corpses and, despite the cold, the sweat trickled down his back. He told himself that if Badzar wanted him dead he would have killed him the night before. But the thought did nothing to calm his nerves.
Nergui carefully moved the flashlight around him, watching the thickening shadows, the constantly shifting clouds, trying to keep his back close to the wall. The only sound was the insistent hiss of the escaping steam, the rustle of his own footsteps in the frozen snow.
And then, without quite knowing how, he was aware of another presence. He peered forward into the gloom and the steam, trying to make out any movement. Just when he was almost convinced that he had been mistaken, he saw something, across the open space, at the entrance to one of the many alleyways. At first, it was nothing more than a movement, undefined, a sense of shifting space. And then it resolved itself into a shape, a silhouette, half obscured by the darkness and the drifting steam.
“Badzar?” Nergui called. He pointed his flashlight toward the shape, but the beam made little headway in the foggy night.
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