The Adversary

by Michael Walters

  There was none. It was difficult to be absolutely certain—these were hardly ideal circumstances for a medical examination—but Tunjin was sure that he was dead. In the circumstances, he found it hard to be too regretful.

  So where did this leave things? Did anyone else know he was here? Had the man been responding to orders, or had he contacted others in the household to let them know what he had found? It seemed likely. How else would the man have known who Tunjin was? Perhaps Tunjin had simply been unlucky and stumbled upon someone who happened to recognize him. But it seemed more likely that Tunjin had been spotted on some closed circuit television screen and a collective identification had been made.

  Still, even if that was the case, Tunjin had at least managed to buy himself some time. Even if others knew he was here, they now presumably thought he was safely under lock and key. They would not know the truth until his captor was missed. Which, Tunjin was forced to acknowledge, might not take very long.

  He crawled across to the wall, and pulled himself slowly to his feet. As so often, he wished that he was fitter, or at least less completely corpulent. Still, the way things were going, he might be destined to leave his corporeal self fairly definitively behind before too long, so there was no point in fretting too much. If he ever got out of this, he thought, he would lose some weight. He would give up drinking. All that. And how often had he made those promises?

  He looked about him, taking in the blank empty room. Which way should he go? He could head back outside, which felt safer. But was it really? They had spotted him quickly in the garden. And, more to the point, what could he achieve outside?

  If he penetrated further indoors—well, there was every chance that they would apprehend him quickly, but then that was true outside as well. And at least he might have a chance of finding out what was going on here, perhaps identify the woman he had seen being brought into the building.

  It sounded pretty thin, even to the ever-optimistic Tunjin. But, still, here he was, one of Muunokhoi’s heavies lying dead at his feet. There was no obvious way of going back. All he could do was go forward, wherever that might lead.

  At least half-convinced, he stepped forward, his heart beating heavily, and began to turn the handle on the door that led into the house.

  “He’s dead,” Doripalam said, dropping the wrist in which he had been trying to detect a pulse.

  Nergui nodded. “Thanks for your perseverance,” he said. “Though I think you are only confirming what I had assumed.”

  Doripalam shrugged. “I’m nothing if not scrupulous. If it adds anything, he’s not been dead for long. There is still some warmth in the body. It is not a cold evening, but—well, who knows? Maybe two or three hours.”

  “Our pathologists would not be more precise,” Nergui conceded. “Recent, anyway.”

  “Recent,” Doripalam agreed. He rose from his crouching position and looked around at the surrounding trees, their dark shadows visible only against the pale moonlight. “And shot. Which means that he could have been shot from some distance away.”

  “Which means,” Nergui said, “that we could also be targets.”

  “I always like to be cautious,” Doripalam said, switching off his flashlight.

  Nergui followed suit. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, “though it does little to alleviate my feeling of vulnerability. The prospect of a sniper is never an attractive one.”

  Doripalam nodded. This was ridiculous, he thought. There’s a killer out here. We don’t know who he is or why he’s killed. All we know is that, so far, his one victim is a policeman. We should get out of here, come back in daylight. On the other hand, this was the only lead they had.

  His cogitations were cut short by the sudden, shattering sound of a gunshot. Nergui dropped instantly, and for a moment Doripalam thought he had been hit, but then he saw him roll over and throw himself against a tree. At the same moment, he saw the silver glimmer of a handgun in Nergui’s hand. Not for the first time, Doripalam was left wondering how a man twenty years his senior could move so rapidly. Almost as an afterthought, he dropped himself, reaching for his gun, wondering what the hell was happening.

  He lay pressed against the cold damp grass, looking feverishly around, trying to spot their assailant, but there was no sign of movement. He looked across at Nergui.

  And then they heard the voice calling, thin and tremulous in the chilly night air. “Please don’t move,” it said. “Please stay still.” There was a pause, and they could almost hear the nervous intake of breath. “I don’t want to have to kill you too.”

  CHAPTER 21

  For long minutes she stood in the darkness, wondering what the hell was going to happen now. The blackness seemed complete, and there was no sound that she could detect, once the tiny echoes of the locking door had died away.

  She dared not move. As far as she could recall, the room had been empty of furniture so there was no real risk in walking through the darkness till she reached the walls. On the other hand, there was little point, either. She sighed and slowly lowered herself to the cold stone floor, feeling the sharp pain from her bruised knee.

  She realized that her optimism—never more than half-hearted in the first place—had been entirely without foundation. Having brought her here, in search of whatever arcane piece of information, there was no way that they were simply going to let her go. What had she imagined? That they might just acknowledge that they had made a mistake, that she would simply shrug it off as a misunderstanding?

  No. Having embarked on this route, there was no obvious way they could turn back. And she had no choice but to go with them all the way. Wherever that might lead.

  She sat back on the cold floor, feeling the despair sweeping over her. There was no way out of this, she thought. Wherever this might be leading, it was nowhere she wanted to go. This darkness might as well go on forever.

  But, of course, it didn’t. Even in the midst of that thought, the light suddenly came flooding back, blinding her with its unexpected brilliance. She sat motionless on the stone floor, feeling its unyielding pressure on her back and buttocks, wondering what might happen next.

  “Mrs. Radnaa,” the voice said. “Or, rather Judge Radnaa.”

  She blinked, still unable to see, wondering who was speaking, thinking that she had heard the voice before.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice said. “I had not intended that things would reach this point.”

  She continued blinking, not able to see, not really trying to see, unsure whether she wanted to face whatever might meet her gaze. The light seemed too bright, as if she might never be able to see again.

  “But here we both are,” the voice said. “There is nothing we can do. We have to live with it.”

  She dropped her head into her hands, still trying to see, noting that way that the speaker, whoever it might be, had somehow managed to implicate her in the situation, as if she was partly responsible for this.

  Finally, as she rubbed her eyes, her vision began to clear. She could see the blank emptiness of the room, the bare brick walls, the stone floor. And then, there at the far end of the room, a solitary wooden chair. And on the chair a figure.

  She recognized him, she thought. She knew him from somewhere. But her mind was barely working, was barely able to compute any information.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Radnaa,” the voice said. “I’m sorry I was unable to greet you earlier.”

  The figure was relaxed, slumped on the hard wooden chair. He was dressed in an expensive looking striped shirt, open at the neck, and blue denim jeans. He was shaven headed, an earring dangling from his left ear lobe. And he was smiling.

  She sat up, conscious of her undignified position sprawled on the hard stone floor. Rather different from the last time they had met. “It is you then?” she said, conscious of how ridiculous her words sounded, echoing round the empty room.

  “Well, of course,” Muunokhoi said. “Though you never really doubted that, did you?”

>   “I suppose not,” she acknowledged. She paused. “Though I have no idea what it is you want.” She stumbled to her feet, trying hard not to show any sign of weakness, though her efforts were hardly convincing.

  He nodded, his limbs sprawled relaxedly. “I appreciate the difficulty of talking about these things.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am hardly being a gentleman. You will want to sit down.” He gestured beside him. There was a second chair, a few yards from his own. “Please.”

  For the first time it occurred to her to wonder where these chairs, not to mention Muunokhoi himself, had come from. Still half-dazzled by the glare, she looked around her. The room looked as blank and empty as ever. There was no obvious entrance other than the steps down which she had been brought. Muunokhoi had, it seemed, come from nowhere.

  But all of that was nothing more than showmanship, designed to disconcert her. It didn’t really matter where Muunokhoi had come from. He was not a ghost. He was a solid, living man. He had come from somewhere. There was some other way in, some other concealed entrance.

  She was surprised how difficult it was to convince herself of this.

  “I cannot talk to you like this,” Muunokhoi went on. “Please, Mrs. Radnaa, I ask you to sit down.”

  She stumbled forward, still not entirely steady on her feet. She had wondered vaguely whether she might gain some sort of psychological advantage by remaining standing. But she realized now that this was not a serious option. She could barely manage to stay upright.

  She took three steps forward and slumped on to the hard wooden chair, looking up at Muunokhoi. “Okay,” she said, trying to sound uncowed. “Talk to me now. Tell me what this is all about.”

  Muunokhoi shrugged and paused, as if not knowing how to begin. “It is a long story,” he said.

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said, gathering some courage. “But I’d expected better of you, Muunokkoi. I wasn’t brought here to listen to fairy stories.”

  He smiled faintly. “You are right,” he said. “I should not be subjecting you to stories that begin ‘once upon a time.’ We Mongolians are always storytellers.”

  “I hear plenty of Mongolian tall tales in court,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to hear yours.”

  He nodded, as though seriously taking account of this comment. “I do not wish to bore you,” he said. “But my story is an interesting one. Especially to you, I imagine.”

  She shrugged, tired already of this interchange, suddenly feeling the sharp pain in her knees and all the weary aching of her body. “Tell me,” she said. “You clearly intend to.”

  He looked at her, no longer smiling, and paused as though now, at this point, he was suddenly unsure whether he really did want to share his story. Then he said: “Okay. Indulge my storytelling. This is not quite ‘once upon a time’ but it begins fifteen years ago—”

  She nodded, determined to strip any shreds of melodrama from his story. “When else?”

  He shrugged, smiling again. “You are clearly ahead of me,” he said. “Perhaps I should ask you to tell the story. But, no, you claim not to know all the details. That is the point. Fifteen years is, after all, a long time.”

  “At the moment,” she said, pointedly, “five minutes is beginning to seem like a long time. If you have something to tell me, please get to the point.”

  His smile was unwavering, his eyes fixed on hers, their dark pupils glittering in the brilliant cellar light. “I had not intended to try your patience. But I have to start fifteen years ago. You were, I believe, married then?”

  She stared at him, refusing to give any acknowledgment of his question. He knew full well that she had been married then, and to whom, just as he presumably knew equally well that she was not married now.

  Nevertheless, Muunokhoi nodded as if she had responded to his question. “Your husband, as you have probably surmised, worked for me.” He paused. “He was not one of my more effective associates. But then, I imagine that is also not a surprise to you.” Again, he paused, as though expecting some sort of response. This is, Sarangarel thought, a man used to playing to an appreciative audience.

  “Your husband was a fool in many ways, Mrs. Radnaa. Let me enumerate some of them for you.” He smiled faintly, watching her closely. It was all an act, she thought. Every word, every gesture. This was no more the real Muunokhoi than the silent figure who had sat opposite her in court. His eyes were blazing, staring at her unblinking, but there was nothing behind them, no sense of life or personality.

  “Some would say,” he went on, “that your husband’s first foolish act was accepting my offer of work in the first place. But he did not know that the offer was mine, any more than I knew, initially at least, that it had been made. It was simply an offer of a commercial contract from one of my companies for the handling of some import work. The terms were generous, as they always are with my suppliers. I think loyalty is always worth buying, don’t you?” He smiled and waited a moment, as though seriously expecting her to answer the question. “As you can imagine, I had no personal awareness of your husband at that point. He was recommended to us by some mutual contact. We were told that he was already running a successful import and export business.”

  It was Sarangarel’s turn to offer a thin smile. “I hope that your sources are better informed today.” She paused, wondering how far to take this. “But perhaps not, given that you’ve brought me here in the hope of obtaining some information.”

  Muunokhoi ignored her comment. “You are right, of course. We had been misled. Though I believe that your husband was always skilled at creating the illusion of success.”

  “One of his few talents,” she said. “A fatal one, as it turned out.”

  “We realized very quickly that your husband’s business was less prosperous than he might have led us to believe. That did not necessarily worry us unduly so long as he was capable of fulfilling our contract—which did not initially appear to be a problem. After a trial, we offered him more work which he carried out to our satisfaction, and he became a regular supplier to us. More than that, he introduced us to some of his own contacts—notably, Khenbish, the soldier, who was able to offer us some useful, ah, overseas relationships. We were very pleased with your husband at first. His contacts opened up some useful seams of business for us. Some profitable areas.”

  “I never met Khenbish,” Sarangarel said. “He had served in Afghanistan, I understand.” She paused, regarding Muunokhoi closely, trying to read his expression. There was nothing to read.

  She remembered this period of their marriage, shortly before Gansukh’s arrest and death. Gansukh had finally thought that things were coming right for him. There was the prospect of ongoing work, money was coming in. For the first time, the business was something more than merely hand to mouth. He told her little about the nature of these new contracts, and she had not wanted to inquire too closely. She hadn’t really believed a word of it. Gansukh had always been full of pipe-dreams—an apposite description given the kind of business he was probably involved in. She knew he had, at that moment, been making some good money, but she had assumed it would just fizzle out like all his previous schemes.

  Even now, she was not entirely sure what Muunokhoi was talking about, but she could easily envisage the nature of these illicit imports best handled by some disposable third party. Probably, despite what Muunokhoi now said, they had selected Gansukh precisely because his business was struggling. He would have done anything for these people, and he was the kind of small fry who could be dropped at a moment’s notice if anything went wrong. As, of course, it had.

  As though reading her thoughts, Muunokhoi went on: “But it was then that your husband began to demonstrate quite how foolish he could be. First, we discovered that he was handling other, similar consignments alongside our own. Not necessarily a problem in itself. We do not demand exclusivity from our suppliers—that would not be realistic—but we do expect that they exercise some discretion and care. We have o
ur own interests to protect. And it soon became clear to us that your husband was less discreet and careful than we might have liked.” He paused. “So we began to pay a little more attention to him. And we discovered that his foolishness was really quite considerable. Not only was he handling other consignments alongside ours, but it appeared that, on occasions, he was substituting inferior product for ours.” He stopped again, as though allowing Sarangerel an opportunity to appreciate the enormity of this behavior. “In other words,” he continued, “there were occasions when our customers received inferior goods from those they had expected. Whereas presumably your husband was selling our products on to his own customers. Not good for our business reputation.”

  Sarangarel was beginning to find the circumlocution very wearying. “What are we talking about here?” she said. “Drugs?”

  Muunokhoi smiled at her. “We supply a wide range of import needs,” he said. He sounded as if he was giving evidence to a government committee.

  “So why didn’t you do something about Gansukh at that stage?” she said. “I’m sure you have means of dealing with those who don’t meet your exacting commercial standards.”

  He nodded. “We would have taken some action. Some disciplines are needed in business. But it was rendered unnecessary by your husband’s own continuing foolishness.”

  “He was arrested,” she said. She hesitated as another thought struck her. “Were you behind that?” After all, she thought, there was really no need for Muunokhoi to engage in strong arm tactics. A quiet word in the right quarters would presumably be sufficient.

  “I run a very efficient business, Mrs. Radnaa. I have good contacts. I maintain high commercial standards. If someone—one of our suppliers—was behaving inappropriately, I would certainly consider drawing this to the attention of the appropriate authorities. But in this case it was not necessary. Your husband was not only dishonest. He was also incompetent.”