The Adversary

by Michael Walters

  “Which is a serious dereliction of their duty,” Doripalam smiled grimly. “But more importantly—”

  “Suggests that they didn’t have a high expectation that the owners would be returning to the tents anytime soon.”

  “So what’s happened to them?”

  “Perhaps we do now need a conversation with your friend, Tsend,” Nergui said. “It will be interesting at least to hear what story he comes up with.”

  Doripalam nodded and pulled out his cell. He dialed the number of the station in Bulgan. After a couple of rings, the call was answered, clearly by a desk officer on night duty.

  “I need to speak to your Chief,” Doripalam said. “Yes, I do know what time it is. I wasn’t aware the police up here ran an office-hours only service. No, it is urgent. This is Doripalam, Head of the Serious Crimes Team in Ulan Baatar. I’m up here in your territory. I left an urgent message for your Chief earlier this afternoon, but he hasn’t deigned to call me back. Now, I’m standing out in the night at what may be a crime scene and I need to speak to him. Immediately. And, no, I don’t care what your orders are. I’m standing here with Nergui, representing the Ministry of Security, and I don’t think either of us will be very pleased if we don’t receive a response in the next—well, shall we say the next two minutes? Yes, you do that.”

  He ended the call and looked back at Nergui. “Tsend will call back immediately.”

  Nergui raised an eyebrow. “Let us hope so. We Ministry types do not like to be kept waiting.”

  As if in response to his sardonic comment, the cell rang immediately. Doripalam smiled faintly and answered the call. “Very good of you to call back,” he said. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it. But I think you may very well be risking wasting ours.” He went on, his voice rising, clearly overriding whatever Tsend was saying at the other end of the phone. “No—frankly, I don’t care what you think about my behavior. You can complain to whoever you like. I’m sure my colleague from the Ministry will be only too pleased to expedite your complaint. In the meantime, I’d like to know why my orders have been disregarded.”

  There was a moment’s silence, which clearly extended also to Tsend at the other end of the phone.

  “I left four men in your custody,” Doripalam went on. “Potential material witnesses in a murder case. In need of police protection, which I asked you to provide. I also made it very clear that this was a Serious Crimes case which fell outside your local jurisdiction.” He paused, waiting to see if Tsend made any response, but the silence at the far end of the line continued. “I’m now standing at the site of the men’s camp. And I discover that their tents have been thoroughly searched, apparently by your men. I would be very interested to know why. I am also concerned to know where the men are now.”

  Again, there was no response. Doripalam had almost begun to wonder if Tsend had hung up, though he thought he could hear the other man’s breathing. He stopped speaking himself, determined to offer no further prompt.

  Finally, Tsend spoke, sounding almost out of breath. “The men left,” he said. “We couldn’t hold them. They were not under arrest, you made that very clear. We could not hold them against their will.”

  “And why were they suddenly so keen to leave?” Doripalam said. “They were desperate for protection.”

  “I do not know.” There was another prolonged pause. “We had organized some accommodation for them. A safe house. I was about to contact you to seek further orders—” There was an implied reproach in Tsend’s tone which Doripalam knew was at least partially justified. He had not followed up the men’s situation as he should have done. Things had moved too quickly since then, but that was no excuse. “But then, overnight, they vanished. I do not know why. That was why I sent my men out to check their camp. To see if the tents had been removed. To see if there was any clue where they might have gone.” There was another slight hesitation and then Tsend continued, more confident now. “I thought that you would want me to have all the facts before I advised you of the situation.”

  It sounded plausible enough, if you accepted the suggestion that the four men had simply disappeared. It would not have been surprising if this local police chief had wanted to be pretty sure of his ground before he reported back on the situation. Maybe that was why he had taken so long to return Doripalam’s call. On the other hand, this still did not explain why the men had suddenly chosen to leave.

  “And you’ve no idea why they left? Or where?”

  “None at all,” Tsend said. “But then I had little knowledge about the significance of these individuals in the first place. This was, of course, a Serious Crimes matter.” He was sounding much more confident now, Doripalam thought, having negotiated his way successfully through this discussion. It was even possible that Tsend’s role in this was entirely innocent. If the nomads had felt under threat from within the police service—or, even worse, if anything had actually happened to them—then the culprits might well sit at more junior levels. And maybe this was all just paranoia, another Muunokhoi-inspired ghost.

  “As you say,” Doripalam acknowledged. “But these people are important witnesses—even more important now, perhaps, than we originally thought. We need to have them found. I want to put as much resource as you can on this.”

  There was only the briefest grudging pause before Tsend said, “Yes, of course. My men are already on to it. But I will treat it as a priority.”

  “I would be very grateful,” Doripalam said, trying hard to keep any edge of irony out of his voice. “I’m sorry for disturbing your evening.”

  “No problem. As I said, I am always pleased to assist the Serious Crimes Team.” Tsend made less effort to moderate his tone. “Goodnight.”

  Doripalam stood for a moment, looking at the silent phone. He looked up at Nergui through the darkness and repeated the gist of the conversation.

  Nergui shrugged. “As you say, it sounds convincing enough. But it does not explain why the men suddenly decided that police protection was not for them.”

  “We have to assume that they did not feel sufficiently protected.”

  “Either that,” Nergui said, “or they learned that from experience.”

  Doripalam nodded grimly. “Let us hope not,” he said. “Let us hope that their departure was voluntary.”

  Nergui took some steps forward into the thickening darkness and peered at the cluster of gers. “Do you think there is anything more for us to learn here?”

  “Probably not,” Doripalam said. “If there was anything here, I’m sure the locals would have found it. They searched the place pretty thoroughly.”

  “All the same,” Nergui said, “I’m reluctant to leave the hunt for our friends solely to the local force.”

  “I’m not sure we have much option,” Doripalam said. “We’ve little chance of making progress here on our own.”

  As if not listening, Nergui switched on his own flashlight and began to walk slowly around the gers, his eyes fixed on the ground as if searching for some discarded item. Through the trees, the moon had risen higher, casting pale light across the steppe.

  “Nergui,” Doripalam said. “I don’t think—”

  Nergui raised his hand, as if silencing Doripalam. He was little more than a silhouette against the paler star-filled sky, the light from the flashlight jumping in his hand. For a moment, Doripalam lost sight of him as he disappeared behind the gers. He reappeared unexpectedly, shining the flashlight directly at Doripalam. “There is something,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, “something not quite right here.”

  “What do you mean?” Doripalam said.

  “If the local police really are looking for these men,” Nergui said, “surely they would have kept this place under observation. If the men really are missing, surely there is a good chance they will return, if only to collect their possessions.”

  “Maybe not. There are lots of possibilities. If they’re as scared as we think, then they might well think it’s not worth c
oming back here, regardless of what they’ve left behind.” Doripalam paused. “And of course it’s possible that they’re not simply missing. That they’re in no position to return anywhere. And, on top of all that, you’re assuming that Tsend was telling the truth about having started looking for them.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Nergui said. “But I think he would have—at least to the extent of staking out this place. It doesn’t make any sense that he would have sent his people out to search the place and then just left it.”

  “Unless he knew that they were never going to return.”

  “Of course, but—even if we assume that Tsend is involved in all this—unless we assume the whole force is corrupt, he’d want to go through the motions if only so it would look convincing to you.”

  Doripalam nodded, unsure of the logic of all this. “But in any case,” he said, “how do you know the place isn’t being staked out?” He looked around uncomfortably. “We could be being watched.”

  “We could,” Nergui said. “But if he saw two men hanging around here, wouldn’t he have called for backup by now? And either backup would be on its way or—if he managed to get hold of Tsend—he’d know who we are and come out to introduce himself.” Doripalam could just make out Nergui’s dark face in the moonlight. He seemed to be smiling. As so often with Nergui, Doripalam was wondering both how seriously to take all this and—at the same time—quite where it might all be leading.

  “I don’t know,” Doripalam admitted. “I’m not sure I have quite your faith in the rationality of other people’s thought processes.”

  “The thing is,” Nergui said, “I know that the place was being staked out. Until quite recently.”

  Doripalam looked up sharply at Nergui. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry,” Nergui said. “I have just been trying to work out the logic in my own mind.”

  “What logic?”

  Nergui had begun to wander back around the tents, gesturing Doripalam to follow him into the dark shadow of the trees.

  “The logic,” Nergui said, “of precisely who this is and how he came to be here.”

  He shone his flashlight, with a vaguely melodramatic action, into the darkness. But there was no need for any further melodrama. Lying on the rough grass, his head twisted awkwardly toward the sky, blank eyes glittering in the thin moonlight, was a dead man. And not just any dead man, but a police officer, his uniform dark with his own recently-shed blood.

  Sarangarel was staring out of the window. There had been some commotion out in the garden, just a few minutes before, but she had been unclear about its significance. Someone—one of the staff, she assumed, one of the heavies—had run across the pristine lawn, a startled expression on his face. She had seen that, as he ran, he had been pulling out a handgun, so she assumed that this interlude, whatever it might be, had not been planned.

  But, sadly, she had lost sight of him after that. He had run briefly past the window, a determined expression on his face, his eyes lost behind mirrored sunglasses that momentarily caught the glare of the late evening sun. Then he was gone, and she was left to wonder what had happened and what this might portend for her position here.

  She was unclear precisely what that might be. But she was at least clear that the short man, the man who had questioned her, had been unhappy with her responses. It was clear that she had not given him what he wanted, what he had expected. It was clear that these people, whoever they might be, thought she had something, some information. And perhaps she did. Perhaps she knew something, but did not know that she knew it.

  Something connected to the papers she had received and to her husband, that was for sure. Well, of course, what else would be interesting about her life? Even though she was a member of the judiciary, even though she held a senior legal position, it was obvious that she couldn’t leave all that behind. She had thought she had turned into someone different. She had thought that it was possible to recreate herself, to forget everything that had gone before. But of course that was not possible. She was, underneath it all, the same person who had entered into that marriage all those years ago. She was the same person who had lived with the consequences. And she was—and this was the really unnerving part—the same person who was living with those consequences now.

  She stood for some more moments, staring out at the silent empty garden, watching the play of the setting sunshine on the treetops, crimson against the brilliant green of the leaves. Then she turned back to look at the luxurious room behind her. Her original guardian had returned and was sitting as he had before, motionless, apparently uninterested in her presence. He looked across the room at nothing in particular, his expression blank.

  “How long will this go on?” she said.

  He turned his head to look at her, as if seeing her for the first time, but did not respond.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s quite clear that I can’t answer any of your questions. It’s equally clear that you can’t keep me indefinitely.” She paused, wondering about that. They could keep her here as long as they chose. It depended on what they were willing to do. “It would be much simpler if you let me go now. It’s clear that there’s been some misunderstanding. Of course, I appreciate that. I know how these things happen. But it would be simplest if you were just to let me go. Take me back.” She was babbling, she thought, keeping only just this side of desperation.

  The man said nothing, but continued to stare at her, as if she was speaking some foreign language. Perhaps she was, she thought. This man looked like a local, but perhaps he wasn’t. Or perhaps he was deaf. Or perhaps …

  She shook her head. This was ridiculous. These were just mind games that they were playing with her. Toying with her. Keeping her waiting. Leaving her with this man who seemed incapable of responding to her in any way. They were hoping that, if she did know something—if she did know whatever it was they wanted to hear—that eventually she would break down and tell them. And very probably they were right. She would be only too happy to talk right now. If only she knew what it was they wanted.

  She was about to try again with the guard—not because she expected any response but simply to keep her mind alert—when the door of the drawing room opened. She was expecting to see the short man again, but instead there were two men, both dressed in dark suits and wearing similar mirrored glasses to those she had seen on the man outside. Clearly, this was some sort of uniform in this household. It was possible that one of these men was the figure she had seen through the window, but she thought not. Although they all looked similar—Mongolians, with slicked back dark hair, with their identical dark suits—she was fairly sure that these men were different from the individual she had seen previously.

  The two men stood silently in the doorway for a moment, watching her. Then one of them gestured to her to follow. “This way,” he said, in a quietly spoken but authoritative tone.

  She hesitated for a moment, wondering where all this might be leading. The man at the table had remained motionless, hardly acknowledging the presence of the two figures at the door.

  “I’m not sure I—” she said, unsure quite how she was intending to finish the sentence.

  In the event, she had no need to. One of the men walked forward and seized her roughly by the arm. He dragged her across the floor and over to the door. She opened her mouth to protest and then, seeing the expression on his face, thought better of it.

  She was pulled violently out of the room and into the hallway beyond. She barely had time to glimpse the vast size of the hallway before she was pulled through another doorway.

  Beyond the doorway, at first there was only darkness. Then, just in time, her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and she realized that, at the end of a short landing, a set of stone stairs fell away into deeper darkness. The man on her left pulled at her arm and dragged her forward, virtually dragging her on to the stairway. She tried to protest but the words jammed in her dry throat. And then she was being pul
led down the stairs, her feet in their high heels stumbling on the hard stone risers. At one point, she almost fell but was dragged back to her feet by the two men.

  Within seconds, they were at the bottom of the stairs. Immediately, the room was filled with an eyeball-burning glare. She blinked, unable to see for a moment, then slowly her vision cleared.

  They were in some kind of cellar, she supposed. It was an empty space, the opposite of the well-appointed room she had occupied upstairs, with a blank stone floor and bare brick walls. There was no furniture, other than some functional metal-framed chairs and a line of benches along the wall, and no other sign of occupancy. There were no obvious windows or doors other than the stairway by which they had entered.

  The men waited a moment, then, suddenly and unexpectedly, one of them pushed her. She stumbled and fell, grazing one of her knees on the hard stone floor, tearing her tights, feeling her silk dress ripping slightly. She landed awkwardly on her side, momentarily breathless.

  Then, her spirit not quite yet destroyed by her predicament, she rolled out and began to shout expletives at the two men, with a sudden outburst of the anger that had been building in her since she had first been dragged into the car.

  There was no response. The two men turned on their heels and began to climb the stairs. She staggered to her feet to try to follow them, but it was too late. They reached the top of the stairs and pushed open the door. Then, as a final act, one of the men reached out and turned out the lights, throwing the cellar back into pitch darkness. Sarangarel stood, not daring to move, her mind as blank as the darkness around her. From somewhere above, she heard the click of a key turning in the lock.

  Tunjin was still lying half on his side, scarcely able to recover his breath. The man who had brought him here, the man with the mirrored sunglasses, was motionless. Tunjin could see the blood seeping from the man’s skull and thought that it looked as if the man might well never move again.

  Finally, still gasping, Tunjin dragged himself to his knees and looked at the figure sprawled on the stone floor. He reached out and gingerly took the man’s wrist, alert for any sign of sudden movement or response. The figure lay, inert, while Tunjin tried to see if there was any pulse.