Nergui lay on the ground, semi-conscious, an agonizing pain in his left leg, his brain scarcely working but his aching head telling him, over and over again, that it was too late, that it was all over, that he had failed.
CHAPTER 16
Doripalam was at home when the message came through, but he would rather have been almost anywhere else. It was unusual for him to take a day’s leave in the week, and he had known right from the start that it was a mistake. But it was hardly as if he had a choice.
“I mean,” Solongo had said, “they can surely manage without you for one day. It’s not as if you don’t put in the hours.”
He had wondered, momentarily, about pointing out the inconsistency in her position. It was Solongo, after all, who was always suggesting that his job was under threat, that everyone around him was waiting only for the opportunity to see him fail. It was Solongo who, without ever quite uttering a word on the subject, had persuaded him that he needed to be in the office every waking hour—and possibly some sleeping ones too—in order to demonstrate his indispensability.
But that, of course, was when she wanted him out of the house so that she could get on with living her own life. Today, she needed him in the house for the same reason.
Doripalam had known it would be excruciating from the moment she had first raised the idea. As it turned out, it was even worse than he had envisaged. And now, here he was, at four o’clock in the afternoon, sipping weak coffee while listening to what was quite possibly the most boring lecture he had ever been compelled to endure. Even the worst rigors of university and police training had not prepared him for this. And, more to the point, Solongo had certainly not prepared him for it.
In advance, she had made it sound almost interesting. As part of her continuing quest for social advancement—or, perhaps more accurately, her quest to combat the almost inevitable social decline she associated with Doripalam’s chosen profession—Solongo had accepted an invitation to become a trustee of one of the city’s major museums. It was an honor, as Doripalam was happy to acknowledge, and it carried certain responsibilities. One of which, apparently, was to play occasional host to the trustees’ bimonthly committee meetings which rotated between the members’ homes.
Doripalam had been willing to go along with the idea for Solongo’s sake, and had been quite happy to throw his home open to any number of his wife’s cultural associates. But he had failed to take account of her expectation that he should be present for the occasion.
As soon as they had begun to arrive that afternoon, Doripalam had recognized the type. They were precisely those who, twenty years before, would have been senior Party apparatchiks, and who had somehow made a seamless transition into the new order. Doripalam had nothing in common with these people. Except of course that, in his elevated role, he was now on the verge of becoming one of them.
He found himself, on his second glass of vodka, standing talking to Solongo and a tall, middle-aged man who was apparently some bigwig in one of the former state energy companies.
“Solongo tells me you’re a policeman,” the man said, with a clear implication that Doripalam should really be out patrolling the streets.
“Sort of,” Doripalam said.
“Doripalam is Head of the Serious Crimes Team,” Solongo said. Doripalam was quite sure that she would have provided this information already, possibly several times, but for once he felt no qualms about her reaffirming his status.
The man nodded slowly, sipping his vodka. “Were you the bunch behind the Muunokhoi debacle?”
Doripalam bit back his immediate response. “We were involved in the arrest, yes. Those kind of charges fall under our jurisdiction.”
“He was only doing his job,” Solongo said. Doripalam glanced at her, slightly annoyed at her unnecessary defensiveness. On the other hand, in the circumstances, there was probably some need to be defensive.
“It’s a scandal,” the man said. “The whole thing was politically motivated.”
Doripalam raised an eyebrow, and took a deep swallow of his vodka. “You think so?”
“Of course. It’s the same as the way Putin’s been behaving in Russia. You can’t control the likes of Muunokhoi, so you persecute them.”
“I’ve persecuted nobody,” Doripalam said, trying to subdue his irritation.
“I don’t mean you personally,” the man said, in a tone which indicated that Doripalam himself was below any kind of serious consideration. “You’re just an agent. But there are forces in the government that would want to bring Muunokhoi down, I’m sure.”
Doripalam shrugged. Perhaps the man was right, but it wasn’t his own impression. From what he’d seen—and from what he’d heard from Nergui—the government largely just kowtowed to money and power, regardless of its source. Yes, the Justice Minister had tried to gain some political capital out of Muunokhoi’s arrest, but that was only because the Minister had assumed that Muunokhoi’s power was on the wane. Doripalam could easily imagine the Minister’s subsequent flailing to regain the ground he had lost.
“If that was the case,” Doripalam said, “they weren’t very successful.”
“Just as well,” the man said. “It’s people like Muunokhoi who are the future of this country. He’s smart, he’s a step ahead.” He smiled, jabbing a finger toward Doripalam. “And, as we all know, he’s got people like you in his pocket.” The man rubbed his thumb and finger together in an unambiguous gesture.
Just for a moment, Doripalam gave serious consideration to the potential consequences of a senior police officer punching one of the great and the good on the nose. Even accepting those consequences, the idea was a tempting one.
He opened his mouth to respond—if only to point out the inconsistency of the man’s arguments—but Solongo was clearly one step ahead of him and was already steering the man off toward another group. She glared back at Doripalam, daring him to speak. Doripalam nodded and then smiled at her, suddenly recognizing that she hated all this nonsense almost as much as he did.
It was a moment of unexpected warmth between them, not quite dissipated as she moved to engage in another tiresome conversation. It had struck him for the first time quite how hard she was working on his behalf. For a moment, he was tempted to break into her conversation, to make some acknowledgment of how much he appreciated, if not the effect, at least the good intentions behind what she was doing.
But as he moved forward he felt his cell phone vibrate in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out, thumbed the keyboard and glanced at the message, feeling a chill down his spine as he did so.
When he did break into Solongo’s conversation, his words were very different from those he had planned only moments before.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to go. It’s Nergui. He’s been in an accident.” He turned away quickly before she could respond.
Minutes later, he was making his hurried way out of the apartment and down the stairs. It would probably be a while, he thought, before he and Solongo would be able to recapture that brief moment of mutual warmth and support. For that matter, it would probably be a while before she was prepared to speak to him again.
*
The house wasn’t quite what Tunjin had expected. It was an impressive enough place, but he had expected—well, something more grandiose, more impressive. Something in keeping with Muunokhoi’s status. This was, admittedly, only one of several residences Muunokhoi possessed, although, from Tunjin’s recollection of the files, this was the place he was most likely to call home.
There had been something in the files, too, about the history of the place. As far as Tunjin could recollect, the house had originally belonged to one of the bigwigs in the Party, in the days when communist grandees lived in places like this. It was, Tunjin supposed, a summer house, a dacha, located a few miles outside the heat and fumes of the city center, but close enough to allow the occupier to continue working in the city.
It was a wooden construction, a chalet design, with lon
g sweeping rooflines, tucked away amongst the trees, designed to be cool and shaded through the warmth of the summer. Tunjin had taken the Vincent motorbike around the house, keeping his distance, ending up on the undulant hillside and woodland that overlooked the house from the rear. From here, he could gain a good vantage point of the layout of the building and its surroundings.
Tunjin wished he had binoculars so that he could get a better view of the estate. As far as he could see, there was no obvious security, though he was under no illusions about how well protected the house and gardens would be. The garden itself was not particularly large and mostly laid to grass, scattered thickly with fir trees. A curving drive swept from the imposing front gates to the house itself.
There was no sign of life. There was a single car—a large black Mercedes—parked to one side of the building, but Tunjin had seen no one enter or leave. He didn’t even know for sure that Muunokhoi was staying here at present. The files had indicated that he had another house up in the north of the country, in the picturesque Khövsghöl Nuur region, as well as an apartment in the city center. But Tunjin’s impression had been that the second house was used largely for holidays—or possibly for more clandestine meetings—while the apartment was used as a place to bunk down when Muunokhoi was engaged in his characteristic long working days. He might not be back here tonight, but he typically spent only one or two nights a week in the apartment.
And even if Muunokhoi wasn’t here, it was likely that the house was staffed with both domestic and security people. Someone would be down there.
Tunjin had sounded confident enough, in his conversation with Nergui, talking about the need to take Muunokhoi out of the picture. And there was no question that, in principle, he was right. If he wanted to regain his own security, his own peace of mind—no, forget that, if he wanted to live—then that was the only option.
But he didn’t have a clue about how he might bring it about.
What was it that he had had in mind? Was he planning to break into Muunokhoi’s house and perhaps steal some incriminating documents, some perfect piece of substantive evidence which Muunokhoi happened to have left handily lying about on his dining room table? He would probably have a better chance of success if he just tried to talk Muunokhoi out of killing him.
No, like everything else Tunjin had attempted in respect of Muunokhoi, this was worse than half-baked. He didn’t even have a clue what the ingredients might be, let alone how to start cooking up anything. He had no equipment, no support, no resources and—above all—no ideas. Perhaps he should just walk up to the front door, hand himself over, and invite Muunokhoi to do his worst.
Tunjin slowly lifted himself off the bike, kicking down the stand as he did so. He was positioned near the top of the low hill, up amongst the thickening fir trees, where he hoped that he was invisible to any observers below. There was always a risk that the chrome on the motorbike might reflect the sun, but as far as Tunjin knew this was open land so it would not be unusual to find walkers, and perhaps even the occasional biker, up here.
It was another beautiful spring day, only a few wisps of cloud in the sky. From the hillside, the grassland fell away, a patchwork of emerald green and darker shadows, down to the house and garden below, then across to the road. Beyond that, there was more grassland, a few houses, and nothing but the open steppe until the distant blue haze of the city.
Tunjin slumped down on to the ground and took stock of his position. All he could do was to keep watching, in the vague hope that inspiration would strike. He scrutinized the layout of Muunokhoi’s house carefully. From here, he was at a diagonal angle to the house and could see both its front and rear elevations, though not its far side. It looked to be a fairly simple layout. At the rear he could see large double patio windows, which opened out onto a paved area arranged with an array of tables, chairs and other garden furniture. There was another window to the left of that, which Tunjin assumed was probably a kitchen. Above were lines of windows on the first and second floors, presumably bedrooms, with the occasional frosted window indicating a bathroom.
The front was similar. There was an imposing double door as the main entrance, with a substantial pine-built porch over it, studded with lamps. And then lines of large windows, presumably of bedrooms and reception rooms.
Tunjin was surprised that, other than what looked like a standard domestic burglar alarm, there were no obvious security measures. He guessed that, somewhere around, there would be CCTV cameras, though he could see no sign of them from up here. He’d also presumed that some of Muunokhoi’s security staff would be located on site, but again he had so far seen nothing.
Tunjin might be aware of the true nature of Muunokhoi’s operations, but to the world at large he was simply a very successful businessman. People would expect him to have some security in place, but would not expect to see his domestic residence swarming with hired hit men. Muunokhoi had an image to sustain.
But none of this was helping Tunjin. He needed some idea, some spark of thought that would give him a way forward. Anything.
And, as if in answer to this plea, there was finally some movement in the panorama spread out below.
Tunjin heard it before he spotted it. A car engine, distant, but unmistakable in this silent landscape. He looked up and scanned the scene in front of him, and finally made out the rapid movement of a car, still miles away, heading away from the hazy fog of the city out in this direction.
He watched the car’s progress, fully expecting that it would bypass the house and head on out north into the steppes. As it came closer, he saw it was a large black vehicle—a saloon car rather than a 4x4, probably Western. A Mercedes, maybe, or a BMW, but it was too distant to be sure.
To his mild surprise, as it approached the house, the car slowed. In almost perfect synchronization, the large wrought iron gates at the end of the drive began slowly to open, clearly operated by someone from inside the house. The car turned into the entrance and made its way, at a much slower speed now, up the driveway toward the house.
At the same time, Tunjin noticed that the large double doors at the front of the house had been opened, and two men—both dressed in the standard leather jacket and dark glasses that seemed to be the uniform for Muunokhoi’s hired help—stepped out into the sunlight. Both were holding something. In one case, this seemed to be a cell phone, as the man was holding it close to his ear. In the second case, Tunjin caught the glint of sunlight on the metal. A handgun of some sort.
Tunjin watched in some fascination as the car pulled to a halt. The two men stepped down to greet it, as the two front doors of the car opened. Two further men, dressed in identical fashion to the first, emerged and conversed briefly with their colleagues. Finally, one of them opened the rear door of the car, reached inside and, with assistance from his colleague, he pulled out what Tunjin at first took to be some kind of bundle—a parcel or a roll of cloth.
Then Tunjin realized that it was a body—a woman. She had dark hair, and was wearing a brightly colored silk dress which fluttered gently in the breeze as the two men lifted her carefully toward the door of the house.
The other two men watched him for a moment. Then the one holding the gun slipped it back into his pocket, said something to the other, and they followed their colleagues and the woman into the house.
Tunjin watched for a few more moments, trying to take all this in, wondering whether anything else would happen. But the house remained as silent as before, the scene unchanged except for the addition of the new car parked on the drive.
Finally, Tunjin slumped backward and lay on his back on the damp grass, watching the slow movement of the scattered clouds across the empty blue of the sky.
Okay, so something was happening here. Something that perhaps required some response, some action. Tunjin still had no idea what he was going to do. But at least now he had a positive motive for trying to do it.
*
“You don’t believe in a quiet life, do you?”
“I don’t recall it being part of the job description—” He hardly knew what he was saying. He was engaging in badinage on automatic pilot. It was like being in a dream, or perhaps just waking from a dream, except that he was unsure whether he was awake or still sleeping.
“Not of yours, certainly.” The volume of the voice faded in and out, so that he was still unsure whether or not he was really hearing it or whether it was just imagined. His dreams were so vivid. Sarangarel. The car. The abduction.
Nergui opened his eyes suddenly. “Where is she?”
“Where’s who?” The response was soothing, as though patronizing a child or someone mentally ill.
Nergui sat up in the bed. “Where is she?”
It was Doripalam sitting by the bed, anxiety etched into his features. “Who? Who are you talking about?”
Nergui shook his head, trying to clear his fogged brain. “Her. Sarangarel. Where is she?”
Doripalam stared at him. “Who’s Sarangarel?”
“She’s—she’s the judge. Judge Radnaa. Where is she?”
Doripalam was looking at Nergui as if, finally, after all these years, he really had lost his reason. “You’ve been injured,” he said at last. “Concussion. You really need to rest.”
Nergui’s eyes were wide now. He was beginning to distinguish between dream and reality. He was beginning to work out where he was. “No,” he said. “It’s true. She’s been kidnapped. She’s in danger.” He paused, taking in the implications of this statement. “No. Really. In real danger. Muunokhoi.” Even saying the name seemed to exhaust him.
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