by Fritz Galt
“How could it be that his family died,” Nils asked, “but the school is still full of life?”
“I can’t explain it,” she said.
“And how about the horses?” Nils persisted. “What did Enkh and his family have in common with the horses?”
Nicole seemed too distraught to put the clues together.
Jake knew that any death needed to be reported to the authorities, not to mention the death of an entire family and several horses. But he wasn’t eager to bring in the police just yet.
“Is there a respectful way to care for the bodies?” he asked.
“Is there a coroner?” Nils asked.
Nicole just stared at the WHO doctor like he was nuts.
“You take Enkh back into his house,” she said, tears still in her eyes. “I’ll go and inform the principal.”
“I’m sorry to say this,” Nils said. “But we need to quarantine the entire town.”
Nicole closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and left to notify the school.
Somehow Jake felt responsible for all the death and sadness around him. Yet everyone was turning to him for leadership.
“Help me with Enkh,” he told Nils.
Careful not to touch the boy’s skin, they carried the limp body back into the family home. There they gently laid the deceased boy beside a woman who could easily be his mother.
Jake would have guessed that Nils would be overpowered by the sight of all the bodies, but instead the epidemiologist took a singular interest in the watermelon.
“Let’s test this,” he said, and shoved the heavy, half-eaten fruit into a plastic bag.
Jake took the bag outside to the group that stood waiting in the street. He gave it to Tracy and conveyed Nils’s desire to test it.
She immediately reached for a marker. She wrote the location, time, and date on the bag and added it to the collection of samples at her feet.
There was a soft clunk behind them as Nils respectfully closed up the house. It was out of more than respect. He needed to contain the spread of whatever was killing the town.
Nicole was just dragging herself out of the school.
Jake shivered as he watched her cross the road with sagging shoulders. Her entire Peace Corps teaching experience had come to a screeching halt.
“We need somewhere to regroup,” Jake said, and looked to her for a suggestion.
“My house,” she said. “I told my host family you were coming.”
Nicole lived in a family compound on the next lane. They pushed through a tall wooden fence and came upon three structures. One was a two-story wooden house with smoke curling out of the chimney, one was a ger, and one was an outhouse.
“It smells like lunch is almost ready,” Nicole said, and headed for the house.
Jake hesitated. He had some serious debriefing of Bill Frost to do, and police on their tail.
He looked at Matt. “We don’t have time to sit around and eat.”
The young diplomat led him toward the house. “You won’t regret this.”
A pleasant, motherly woman darted out of the house. Wearing a black dress with her hair pulled back and stray strands falling in her face was Nicole’s host mother, taking a brief break from the kitchen to welcome them.
Nicole’s two host grandparents were watching sumo wrestling on a widescreen television in the living room. The roly-poly couple was dressed in nice, casual Western clothes and seemed honored by the presence of foreigners. They didn’t speak English, but welcomed their guests graciously.
Up a tight, twisting spiral staircase with carpeted steps, the group entered a long room set up for dining, with red and white napkins folded into wine glasses and several bowls brimming with candy.
“Boy, they went all out,” Jake said.
A round table at one end of the room was already filled with various meat pies, shish kababs, grilled chicken breasts, vegetable rolls, and a hot rice dish.
The group soon learned that the man in a white uniform jacket worked at the karaoke restaurant owned by Nicole’s host mother.
They met a teenage girl who spoke English. Nicole’s host sister was in her junior year of high school, and although she was shy, her translating skills for her grandparents got them through the dinner in fine form.
Jake sat across the table from the grandfather, who unwrapped a felt package and lifted out a small, porcelain snuff bottle.
Matt nudged Jake and urged him to take the bottle with his right hand, supporting his elbow with his left hand. Then he was told to remove the stopper and sniff it.
Which he did. It had the fragrance of flowers, most prominently lilacs, but was tobacco-based and apparently unique to every Mongolian head of household.
Jake handed it back, forgetting to support his right elbow with his left hand as he returned it.
Then Matt got a sniff. Then Eve, as that was the order in which they were seated across the table from the grandparents. The grandfather seemed pleased that they all complemented him on the smell and he meaningfully wrapped it back in the felt package.
Required formalities behind them, they launched into the delicious food.
Fortunately, there was no water at the table. Instead, they rehydrated on red wine, orange soda, and Coke.
After a filling meal, complete with meeting each of Nicole’s host brothers and sisters and learning about the grandfather’s past as a herder in the Altai Mountains of the nearby Govi-Altai aimag, the group separated from the Mongolian half of the party. They moved downstairs to the living room to talk.
Nicole turned off the sumo wrestling and everyone sat around Bill, save Tracy, who set up a small laboratory in the corner of the room.
Nicole and Eve then took their leave to help clean dishes and put the food away.
Meanwhile, Courtney eased her long frame into the chair beside Bill Frost.
Jake took the lead in questioning Bill, while Matt and Nils leaned in to listen.
“Why would your brother try to kill me?” Jake began.
Bill stared at him. “Cal did?”
“Tried to run me off the road in Utah.”
“What were you doing in Utah?”
“I was investigating a burglary at your house.”
“Someone broke into my house?”
This would take some explaining, so Jake quickly laid out his experiences in Hurricane. But in the end, Bill was as confounded as Jake by Cal’s actions.
“He works for a lobbying firm for the high-tech industry. He likes to hunt, but he’s no killer,” Bill said dismissively.
“There must be more to your brother than you know.”
It was clear that the two brothers kept their distance. But for some reason, Cal had suddenly gotten all up in Bill’s business. Including in Mongolia.
“Why would your brother follow you here?” Jake asked.
“He did?”
“Right after he tried to kill me,” Jake said.
“Cal has no interest in what I do. He made it abundantly clear that he didn’t care for my career.”
“Until now,” Jake said. “Why, exactly are you in Mongolia?”
“Mongolia has always been on my bucket list.”
“Not mine,” Jake said.
“It was Eve’s idea,” Matt said.
At that, Courtney laughed.
Bill turned to the young blonde and looked her over like a rancher sizing up beef on the hoof. “What brings you here, young lady?”
“The Peace Corps.”
The bald biologist gave her a knowing smile and flashed a surreptitious peace sign. Then he resumed his thought process. “In addition to having this bucket list, as a scientist I’ve always been interested in the fate of large land mammals. What got me interested here specifically are the four critically endangered species in Mongolia.”
“Which species?” Tracy asked over her shoulder as she laid out her vials.
“The Gobi bear, the wild camel, the snow leopard, and Przewalski’s horses.�
�
Courtney quietly clapped with approval when the esteemed environmentalist mentioned the names of the animals. “My favorites,” she said.
“Who is Przewalski and how did he lose his horses?” Jake asked.
Courtney explained. “It’s the only species of wild horse left in the world. They were hunted to extinction in the wild and the few that survived were found in European zoos. It took an enormous effort to breed them and reintroduce them to the wild, up north and down here in the south, where they’re still highly endangered.”
“Why study them now?” Jake said. “It’s the middle of winter.”
Bill scowled. “Who cares what season it is? Local conservationists have experienced death threats, kidnappings, and knife attacks, and one was recently assassinated. The police looked the other way. And as for suspects, there are two forces endangering wildlife in Mongolia. There are powerful politicians who hold mining permits, and there are international corporations in the resource extraction business.”
So one way or another Bill was looking into mining.
Bill went on. “While I was studying satellite imagery of the area where these species live, I noticed on National Geographic images, Apple Maps, and Google Earth that one corner of Mongolia was blurred. This is often a starting point for my research. If someone is hiding something, I want to know what it is and why they’re hiding it.”
Jake pulled the Google Earth image out of the Mongolia file, and Matt helped him find the area in question. Sure enough west of Dalanzadgad, the capital of South Gobi province, was an enormous, empty stretch of desert. And a small area along the Chinese border was rendered fuzzy and indistinct.
“This area borders China,” Matt said. “It could be a military site.”
“True,” Bill said. “But it sits within an international biosphere reserve. The Mongolians have designated the reserve as the Great Gobi Strictly Protected Area.”
Then Jake saw that the fuzzy spot was on the southern edge of a vast area labeled “Strictly Protected Area,” which was roughly the size of West Virginia.
“So no military or mining is allowed,” Matt summed up.
Jake scrutinized the empty sea of folded ridges and flat desert. “There are no towns.”
“It’s remote from any town in Mongolia or China,” Bill conceded. “But it’s right next to a huge mining operation.”
Jake leaned in close to read the name of a cluster of buildings that sat on the eastern edge of the blurred-out area. “Altan Tolgoi,” he read.
Matt stared at Bill. “Altan Tolgoi is the largest mine in the country. What made you think you could take them on single-handedly?”
Bill leaned back to explain. “So, I’m an explorer. I’m driven to answer the unanswered. I came here to find out about these blurred areas.”
“But in the end,” Jake said, “it looks like you stumbled upon a much larger problem than you bargained for.”
“My brother?”
“More than him.”
“The girl?”
“More than her,” Jake said. “This has turned into an international incident.”
“That’s okay. I like to stir things up.”
That certainly fit his reputation.
“Do you know that the Russians and Chinese are coming to blows over you?”
“They are? What about?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Jake said. “Why would they care?”
“I have absolutely no idea what’s bothering them.”
“Could it have to do with the illness that’s sweeping the country?”
“I only learned about it when I got to Mongolia. It seems to be a national secret, because the world press never picked up on the story.”
“Could it be related to your mystery location in the South Gobi?”
“I have no idea.”
Finally Nils spoke up. “Why did you see the blurred-out parts of the map as an environmental story?”
“I’ve been aware my whole career of worldwide mining issues, and I’ve been aware of the innumerable ways that mines adversely affect the environment. I suspected there might be a connection between the attacks on conservationists here. And, given that someone tried to kill me on Bogd Khan Mountain…”
“We investigated Bogd Khan Mountain,” Jake said. “We learned that your driver was killed.”
“And they damned near killed me, too.”
“Who is they?”
“Clearly the mining interests. They’re fighting the environmental movement. That’s why I’m down here looking into it.”
Jake debated whether to tell the celebrity that the death might have been an accident due to an unexploded shell left behind by the Russians. But that wouldn’t fit the image Bill Frost had of himself.
“Well,” Jake said. “It looks like you got close to your destination. We’re lucky to have found you. We saw your UAZ van, but how did you reach this town?”
“We came here on camels. We got this far before the townspeople recognized my date and grabbed me.”
So Bill was aware of why he had been taken captive. Jake sensed the humiliation that bringing up the subject might cause. So he stuck to the details of the case. “Where’s your satellite phone?”
“The town took it from me as soon as they apprehended me.”
“Earlier, you called an NPR reporter named Amber Jones and persuaded her to come to Mongolia.”
“I thought her story could augment my show. It needed immediate international attention.”
“Where is Amber now?”
“The last I talked to her,” Bill said, “she was heading south into the Gobi.”
Jake thought about the sickness and death all around them. Had she fallen ill, too?
“Dessert time,” Nicole announced.
The men turned to watch her sashay into the room.
Nicole was carrying a plate of oblong pastries stacked like a wedding cake and a platter of sliced fruit. “We have ‘shoe sole’ cake and watermelon.”
Before Jake could react to the name of the cake, Tracy cried out:
“Don’t eat the watermelon!”
Puzzled, the group turned to Professor Tracy Woolman.
“I just tested the water in the pitcher from Enkh’s house.” She held up the offending water. “There are dangerous chemicals in it. If Enkh’s watermelon and the watermelons you are holding came from the same water source, the dangerous chemicals are in them, too. Although osmosis filters out some of the contamination in water, contaminants can travel up the roots and stems to the fruit.”
Nils was instantly at her side, looking at the pitcher in her hands. “What kind of contaminants?”
“Along with low-level radioactivity, I’ve narrowed it down to heavy metals and multiple toxins.”
“Can you be more specific?” Nils asked.
“I’ll need another few hours to set up and perform a spectroscopic analysis.”
“Before we get to that,” Jake said, “can somebody tell me how this family has remained healthy?”
“You mean healthy and wealthy,” Nicole said, and held up a plastic bottle. “Have you tried the Altai brand of bottled water?”
“That’s what I drink,” Eve said.
Jake remembered the blue-labelled bottle she served in Ulaanbaatar.
Nicole explained. “My host father transports water from the Altai Mountains and sells it around the country.”
“Why doesn’t your family just drink from the local spring?” Jake asked. “After all, they grow watermelons here.”
Nicole snorted. “Have you looked at that water? Even if you boil it, you get sick.”
“Okay then,” Tracy said. “I need a sample from the spring where that watermelon came from.”
It didn’t take long for the host family to confirm that Enkh’s watermelon was one of those grown in their village.
“Ja, we must take a sample from the spring,” Nils said, reaching for his coat. “Be prepared to shut it down.�
�
Nils, Nicole, and her host mother took an empty bottle with them and headed out.
Jake wished that he had the FBI Laboratory available to help out. But the professor was on the case.
The researcher got straight to work on setting up her optical spectrometer in order to measure the elements found in the liquid samples.
“Are you testing the camel spit, too?” Jake asked.
“You bet I am,” she said. “If I’m right, these toxins are widespread and not just in this province.”
Jake turned to Bill Frost. “How could toxins spread across such a large country?”
The environmentalist had been leafing through the Mongolia file. “How did this file get to you?” he asked. “I left it in my hotel room back in the capital.”
“The Russians must have broken into your room and stolen the folder,” Matt said. “Then, inexplicably, they gave it to me.”
“The Russians…?” Bill was still trying to grasp the international ramifications of the case.
“The Russians!” Eve repeated accusingly.
Bill glanced at her. “Don’t be so quick to blame the Russians,” he said. “All this may be the Chinese.”
Eve took offense. “Don’t blame everything on China.”
“Not everything.” Bill waved the folder at her. “Just this.”
Before the argument escalated, Jake stepped in. “How could toxins get into the springs?”
“Processing,” Bill said.
“I thought there was no processing done here in Mongolia,” Jake said. “Look.” He came over to the map and pointed out how the only road, a paved road no less, led straight from the Altan Tolgoi Mine into China. “The Chinese do all the processing.”
“What do you know about mining?” Bill challenged him.
Jake had to admit that he knew very little.
“Of course there’s processing at mines,” Bill said. “You have to separate the ore from the rock. You can’t just carry an entire mountain down to China.”
“So they use water to separate the ore from the rock,” Jake said.
“Bingo,” Bill said.
“But how much?”
“For initial processing, you’ll need some water source. But you won’t need entire rivers or lakes. All you need is a pipe from a stream or a well, and then you can reuse the water once it’s in the processing plant.”