The Adversary

by Michael Walters

  Tunjin had begun to open the inner door, but then he stopped, walked back across to the man on the floor. There was no doubt now that he was dead, his head lying crushed in a rapidly darkening pool of blood. Tunjin had seen plenty of dead bodies in his career, but had never previously been personally responsible for the death. It was an odd sensation. He knew that he wasn’t to blame—his action had been legitimate self-defense, and the death itself had been an accident. Moreover, from what he knew of Muunokhoi’s heavies, the death was unlikely to be a major loss to society.

  Even so, as he leaned over the body, Tunjin felt a shudder of—what? Guilt? Disgust? Both of those, he thought, along with a quite understandable tremor of fear. He didn’t imagine that those who killed Muunokhoi’s henchmen normally survived for very long themselves. On the other hand, given his broader predicament, he couldn’t imagine that this would have significantly worsened his life expectancy. He contemplated briefly whether it would be possible to conceal the body in some way, but decided that it was impossible. There was nowhere to hide the body in this room. He could perhaps drag it outside and hope to hide it among the trees, at least to delay its discovery, but the risk of being spotted on the security cameras would outweigh any possible benefits.

  Tunjin looked around and saw the man’s pistol lying in the corner of the room. It was the thought of this that had made him hesitate at the door. He had suddenly realized that his own handgun, the one that Agypar had given him, was no longer in his pocket. He couldn’t recall if he had left it up on the hillside with Agypar’s motorcycle, or whether it had tumbled from his pocket during his fall down the slope. Either way, he had just been about to enter Muunokhoi’s house unarmed. Probably not the smartest of moves, but typical of his approach so far.

  He picked up the gun, weighed it gently in his hand, and checked it was loaded. He had to do everything carefully from here on. Think it through. Not just go blundering in his usual manner.

  His resolve in this respect lasted only slightly beyond his cautious opening of the inner door into the house. He peered carefully out, and saw that the door opened into a long passageway, its ornate wallpaper and thick carpeting contrasting starkly with the bare room he had just left. He stepped out into the hallway and let the door close behind him, hearing it shut with a solid click. He realized, just too late, that it had locked itself. He gently tried the door and discovered that it could not be opened without a key. Brilliant. His one known exit route and he’d just managed to seal it. At least it reduced his options. He was hardly spoiled for choice.

  He began to make his way slowly down the hallway, feeling desperately exposed. There were a couple of doors opening off each side of the passageway, but it would be too risky to explore at this stage—there was no way of knowing who or what lay on the other side of them. He had to try to get an understanding of the layout of the place.

  At the end of the hallway, the passage opened out into a broader area. Tunjin cautiously peered around the corner, where the thick carpeting gave way to a polished light wood floor. An entrance hall with, some meters away, what Tunjin took to be the main front door of the house. To the right, an imposing stairway rose to the upper floors.

  Across the hallway, another door stood half-open and Tunjin could hear voices coming from inside. He took another step or two forward to glimpse the interior of the room, and then he froze. He could see, in side view, a figure he recognized instantly.

  Muunokhoi. There was no doubt about it. The short, stocky but somehow imposing figure. The shaved head. And, though the face was currently turned away from him, Tunjin had no doubt about the dark, empty eyes. He made a movement backward, praying that those eyes would not be turned in his direction.

  So Muunokhoi was here. And presumably his presence was in some way connected with the woman whom Tunjin had seen being led into the building earlier in the day.

  Tunjin took a further step forward, keeping out of the line of sight of the door, hoping desperately that no one would decide to emerge. He tried to hear what might be being discussed, but could make out no clear words. Muunokhoi’s authoritative tones sounded anything but happy.

  Tunjin looked down at the gun in his hand. It would be easy, he thought. He could just walk in there now and, without a word, gun down Muunokhoi. He would be shot himself almost immediately by Muunokhoi’s henchmen, but that would be a small price to pay. Tunjin was not a man with any future. He could at least make sure that the same was true of Muunokhoi. Few people—maybe only Nergui and a handful more—would recognize the worth of what he had done, but the nation and society would be immeasurably improved. Nevertheless, whatever its potential merits, the prospect of cold-blooded murder did not come easily, especially to one who, for all his personal peccadilloes, had devoted his life to upholding the law.

  But, before he could think any further, Tunjin heard another sound that, momentarily, made his heart freeze. It was the sound of a key turning in the lock of the massive front door. He realized that, while he had been straining to hear the conversation going on in the opposite room, his mind had somehow filtered out the sound of a car arriving outside, although now the sound of the running engine was all too clear.

  Tunjin backed away rapidly down the hallway. Whatever the morality of taking Muunokhoi out, there was no merit in being caught at this point. Hearing the key turning, he looked frantically behind him for some point of concealment.

  The only options were the various doors lining the passageway. The majority of these looked like the doors to internal reception rooms which might harbor any kind of peril. But one, at the far end of the corridor next to that through which he had entered, looked different. Like the neighboring door, it had a substantial lock which suggested that it might lead outside the house. Unlike the lock in the neighboring door, however, this one still contained a key.

  There was no time to hesitate as the front door was already opening. Tunjin leapt two or three steps backward, his agility again belying his impressive bulk. In one movement, he turned the key, opened the door and stepped inside, pulling the door to behind him but leaving a small gap so that he could see out. He glanced behind him, trying to ensure that he had not simply stepped into further peril.

  It looked safe enough. He appeared to be in the entrance to some sort of cellar. A set of stone steps descended away from the landing on which he stood. There was a light, but he could see only a few meters beyond the bottom of the steps. Still, it was safe to assume that no one was down here, since there had been no reaction to his entry.

  Secure for the moment, he pressed his eye to the narrow gap he had left between the door and the frame, and peered out at the group entering the hallway. For a second his breath died in his throat and he could scarcely believe what he was seeing. The first two men were unknown to him. There was a young man who looked terrified—not an unreasonable reaction for someone entering Muunokhoi’s residence, Tunjin thought, especially if the entry was not entirely voluntary. Behind him, there was a heavily built middle-aged man who, on second glance, appeared vaguely familiar though Tunjin could not think where he might have encountered him.

  It was the remainder of the group, though, that had left Tunjin breathless. There was Nergui, his dark face as impassive as ever. Close behind him was Doripalam, his face also for once unreadable. And then, behind the two senior officers, was the supposed high flyer, Luvsan, the one everyone thought of as Doripalam’s protégé.

  So was that it then? Had Muunokhoi’s influence penetrated much further than anyone had dared to believe? If even Nergui was on his payroll, then there really was no hope. It didn’t matter whether Tunjin, or any police officer, lived or died, whether they did their duty or not. Whatever happened, Muunokhoi was in control.

  Despair almost swept over Tunjin at that point. He had, he realized, given up on his own life, his own future, long before. From the moment that his half-baked scheme against Muunokhoi had collapsed, he had known that the death sentence had been pronounced, that
he was effectively dead. He could flee. He could try to fight back. And maybe, somewhere, somehow, he might have some success, but it was difficult to see how all this would end other than in his own killing.

  But his faint hope, the smallest glimmer that had kept him going through all this, was that, just maybe, he might succeed in taking Muunokhoi with him. It was true that, if Muunokhoi was out of the picture, others would eventually come along to take his place. But there was no one—not yet, not in this country—like him. There was no one with the same power, the same network, the same wealth, the same influence—or, most important, the same ruthlessness. There would be pretenders, but it would be a long while before anyone else occupied the throne with equivalent authority.

  And then the hope briefly came back, as he watched the group file across the hallway. Muunokhoi’s henchmen were holding pistols, pointed firmly at the backs of Nergui, Doripalam and the young man. They weren’t Muunokhoi’s guests. They were his prisoners. For a moment, the position seemed almost reassuring. These senior officers—these few men he had been sure he could trust—were not corrupt. There was still some sanity left in the world.

  But his relief was short-lived. Nergui and Doripalam might be straight, but they had somehow fallen into Muunokhoi’s power. And Tunjin had no illusions as to how wide-ranging that power might be. If Muunokhoi had brought them here, he would not be allowing them to leave. Worse still, he realized, as the group moved past, not all the police officers were prisoners. Luvsan had been one of those holding a gun.

  But none of that, he thought, invalidated the simple plan he had formulated while standing in the hallway. Here he was, undetected in the heart of Muunokhoi’s house, a loaded gun in his pocket. There would never be another opportunity like this. All he had to do was move swiftly and silently out there and make sure that he acted before anyone could stop him. He could gun down Muunokhoi and then—well, take the chance to shoot anyone else he could before he was finally stopped. If all those people were on Muunokhoi’s payroll, then, as far as Tunjin was concerned, they were legitimate targets. He should feel no compunction—even about Luvsan.

  He peered out into the hallway again. The group had disappeared into the room where Muunokhoi had been waiting. He could hear the sound of voices—largely Muunokhoi’s, he suspected, though it was difficult to be sure—carrying down the hallway.

  Tunjin took the opportunity to reach out and remove the key, ensuring that he would not find himself accidentally locked in the cellar, then stepped back and allowed the door to close fully, while he thought through his actions. He needed to move quickly, he thought, while the group was still together in that room. If he allowed them to separate, or if any of Muunokhoi’s heavies stumbled across the dead body, his task would become impossible.

  He straightened up and took a deep breath. It was a long time since he had had any kind of a drink. There would have been a time—a very recent time, he realized with a shock—when he would have thought that an impossible achievement, the pinnacle of his ambition. Now, it seemed irrelevant. Not that the craving for alcohol had vanished. On the contrary, he would have given almost anything for a drink just at the moment.

  He reached out to open the door. And then there was another heart stopping moment, as he heard a clear footstep on the concrete floor of the cellar behind him. He spun round, cursing himself for not having checked properly that the cellar was empty.

  As he turned, a voice, softer than he would have expected said, “So you’ve come for me, then? At last.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “It has been a long time,” Muunokhoi said. “I presumed that even your persistence had its limits.”

  Nergui shrugged. “I take the long view,” he said. “But I rarely give up.”

  Muunokhoi nodded, his mouth smiling, his eyes as dead as ever. “As you say. Though I think your investigations have always proved fruitless. I have considered bringing a formal complaint before now. But I understand that you and your colleagues—” He nodded vaguely toward Doripalam, “—have a job to do.”

  “We do our best,” Nergui said. His gaze rested, just for a moment, on Luvsan. Then he looked back at Muunokhoi. “Now,” he said, “perhaps you will tell us what this is all about.”

  “I think you know what it’s all about, Nergui,” Muunokhoi said, quietly.

  Nergui nodded, as though giving serious consideration to this assertion. He looked around the plush reception room. It looked, at the moment, like some bizarre house party. He and Doripalam had been seated on a large, over-stuffed sofa, with Kadyr hunched beside them, his face knotted into an expression of pure fear. Muunokhoi sat opposite, in a comfortable looking armchair. Luvsan and Tsend, along with what were presumably a couple of Muunokhoi’s security staff, were seated on hard chairs around a mahogany table, watching the interchange.

  “I know what some of it’s about,” Nergui said at last. “But by no means all. I suspect that I know rather less than you think I do.” He paused, his gaze fixed on Muunokhoi. “Though, in some respects, perhaps also rather more.”

  “Opaque as ever, Nergui,” Muunokhoi said, with a touch of harshness in his tone. “But I’m sure we will be dazzled by your insights.”

  “I have limited skills,” Nergui said. “I used them as best I can. Shall I tell you what I think I know?”

  Muunokhoi sat back in his chair. “I am keen to hear.”

  “I know quite a few things,” Nergui said. “It is really a question of where to start. I know, for example, that yours is the most destructive, corrupt regime that has ever gained any kind of power in this country. Which is quite an achievement, when you consider the kinds of power that have been wielded here over the centuries. I know that despite that—or, to be frank, because of that—you exercise enormous influence in all aspects of our daily lives, both through your legitimate business dealings and through the more—sordid aspects of your activities. I know that more people are in your pocket than I could begin to conceive—” He gestured elegantly toward Luvsan at the table. “Though I am not sure that you always pick your servants wisely. Luvsan’s taste for fast cars—for expensive fast cars—had already made him a prime candidate in my investigations.”

  “Though too late as always, I note,” Muunokhoi said. “Your views on my business influence are most interesting, but I am not sure that they are entirely pertinent.”

  “They are no doubt entirely impertinent,” Nergui said. “But they are sincerely held and, I think, very relevant to our—presence here today.” He paused, his face as expressionless as ever, his eyes firmly fixed on Muunokhoi’s blank gaze. “We are here because, for the first time in twenty years, you feel vulnerable. You think your regime is under threat.”

  Muunokhoi laughed suddenly, though there was no humor in his expression. “Really? And yet I think it is you who are here, at my behest, betrayed by one of your own officers.”

  Nergui shrugged. “That seems to be the case. But the question is why you brought us here in the first place. And why you kidnapped Mrs. Radnaa. And, for that matter, why you had Mrs. Tuya killed.”

  For the first time, Muunokhoi looked at Nergui with something approaching interest. “Who is Mrs. Tuya?”

  It was Nergui’s turn to laugh, and he seemed genuinely amused. Doripalam glanced across at him, as astonished by his apparent good humor as by what he was saying. Sometimes he wondered quite what it would take to shake Nergui’s confidence.

  Nergui turned, still smiling, to the young man sitting cowering next to them on the voluminous sofa. “Mrs. Tuya,” he said, “is this young man’s mother.” He paused, enjoying the silence while those around absorbed this information. “And this young man,” he said, turning back to Muunokhoi, “is of course your son.”

  The silence was even more protracted this time. Doripalam stared at Nergui, wondering just what kind of complex game he was playing. Kadyr was looking more terrified than ever, his body twisted as though he hoped that the bulk of the sofa might swallow him up.
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  “I’d heard you were smart, Nergui,” Muunokhoi said at last. “But I never knew you had such an imagination.”

  “Perhaps I am simply making a fool of myself,” Nergui said, still smiling. “But since you are not planning to allow to us leave here alive, I think that is a fairly minor consideration.”

  Muunokhoi looked between Nergui and Doripalam. “We can reach some accommodation,” he said. “Things are not so absolute.”

  Nergui shook his head. “I don’t really see what accommodation is possible. We know the truth about you, or at least something approaching the truth. And you have already committed a serious offense simply by bringing us here. I don’t see that you can let us go.”

  “I’m sure we can reach some accommodation,” Muunokhoi repeated. “Once things have been resolved.”

  “I don’t think so.” He glanced across at Luvsan. “Not everybody has a price.”

  He’s right, Doripalam thought. We’re dead. If we were different people, Muunokhoi might be able to walk away from this. We might be able to walk away from this. But Nergui would never do that. And, Doripalam realized, neither would he.

  Muunokhoi stared at Doripalam, as though expecting him to disagree with Nergui. But Doripalam simply shook his head. “He’s right,” he said. “There’s no accommodation.”

  Muunokhoi shook his head. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “In which case, I am sorry. I simply want what is mine.”

  “Nothing is yours,” Nergui said. “Everything you have is stolen. Or corrupt.”

  “You know nothing. You have been pursuing a vendetta for twenty years. You see me as a symbol of all that you think is wrong in this country. But you have never been able to lay a finger on me. You know nothing.”

  Nergui smiled. “You’ve always been a step ahead. Perhaps you still are. You will walk away from this and we will not. But it’s not true that I know nothing. I don’t know everything. But I know a lot.”