by James Church
“Nothing to do but wait.” My uncle took a piece of wood from his pocket, a small piece of pine, and smoothed it between his fingers. “The doctor is due back in an hour, if the nurse is right.”
5
“Good afternoon.” A man came in the front door and looked at us with surprise. “Have you checked in with the nurse? I didn’t know anyone was waiting. Let me wash up and I’ll be right with you. I don’t want to shake hands, there’s a flu going around.” He walked over to my uncle. “I’m Dr. Lim.” He was the calmest person I’d ever seen in my life. Just looking at him lowered my blood pressure.
“Whenever you’re ready, Doctor.” My uncle pointed at the door to the patient rooms. “I think your nurse is in the back. She might have something to discuss with you first. Didn’t she call you?”
The doctor’s eyebrows went up slightly. “Well, then, why don’t I go back and see what she has to say. If you don’t mind waiting a bit longer.” He smiled at me. “Are you two gentlemen together?”
My uncle nodded. “Yes, this is my friend and colleague. He was kind enough to drive me here. I would have driven myself, but he insisted.”
“A good thing, too.” The doctor looked closely at my uncle. “I don’t think you should be driving. I think your pressure is a little high, and you’re prone to fatigue. Nothing to worry about, though you have to watch your diet.”
The doctor disappeared through the door.
“She didn’t call the doctor.” I stood up. “She must have called the cops. Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t worry, she called him. He already knows what’s what.”
“He’s certainly calm about it, and a liar to boot. What weird courtly ritual were you two acting out?”
“You never saw people being polite to each other before?”
“Yeah, but usually not at a murder scene.”
We waited a few minutes, heard voices from the back, and then the doctor came through the door, wearing a white coat. If anything, he looked even calmer than before. He pulled a chair over in front of us and sat down.
“The nurse is pretty sure it wasn’t poison,” he said. “Based on the symptoms, I’m not ready to say one way or the other. There might have been something in that pitcher besides water, but I doubt it. She admitted to me she shouldn’t have dumped the contents down the sink, but there will be a residue and I’ve locked the pitcher away for safekeeping. It’s possible he died from some sort of seizure. There will have to be an autopsy to be certain, and I don’t have the right facilities for that. Even if I did, the agreement of my service doesn’t call for me to do that sort of thing. It’s up to Ulan Bator to make the decision on what to do next. It would help to know if he had a history of seizures. Do either of you know?”
We both shook our heads.
“Well then, let’s go on the assumption that something sudden brought it on. Did you say anything to him to get him riled?” The doctor looked at my uncle. “Was he agitated about something?”
My uncle shrugged. “I’d say he was nervous. You knew who he was, of course.”
“You mean did I know who his records say he was, or who he was?” The doctor reached back and took a file off the top of the pile. “He gave us the name Naranbaatar. Had a few pieces of identification with him. Said he had a history of knee problems, that this complaint kept him off horses and indoors most of the time, which explained why his complexion was so smooth. All baloney, but I’m not here to question people. He might have told me he had a jet engine up his ass and could fly to the Altai Mountains, wouldn’t matter to me. I knew right away he didn’t need treatment, that he needed a place to hide, so I hid him.”
“You do that often?” It was the natural question I would have asked if this had been my case, in my district, in my country. But this wasn’t my territory, even though what had happened in the clinic was distinctly my concern. I backtracked as best I could. “What I mean is, how long had he been here?”
The doctor had been about to parry the first question, but he switched quickly to respond to the second. “About a week. A couple of days ago, there was a motorcycle accident. Two motorcycles coming too fast down the highway. One hit an oil slick and crashed into the second. The motorcycles must have flown twenty meters through the air all tangled up before they came down on each other. One of the riders was caught in the wreckage. The gas tanks caught fire; there wasn’t much left of him. The other rider was thrown clear and badly injured but still alive when they brought him in here. He died an hour afterward, nothing I could do. When Naranbaatar saw his face, I thought he might have a heart attack.”
“He recognized who it was?” I couldn’t help sliding back into interrogation mode. “And you, Doctor, did you also recognize who it was?”
The doctor was unflappable. “No, but I recognized something on the remains of the jacket of the other one when they brought the body in. There was an unusual design sewn into the cuffs. One of the security officers from the North Korean embassy had a jacket like that. He wore it when he came by once in a while to check on us.”
“He showed up on a regular basis? How often?”
“Roughly? Three or four times a year. From November through March they don’t bother because it’s too cold. Without looking at my records, I’d guess late April, June, September, and October were usual.”
“But this year the first visit was in May?”
“This year it was still snowing for most of April. What a winter! People said it was the worst in memory. There were dead animals all over the place, frozen stiff. Once the thaw set in, it was a health hazard. Have you ever tried to get rid of several hundred thousand putrefying sheep?”
My uncle wrinkled his nose, but it wasn’t at the thought of decaying sheep. He could tell the doctor was avoiding the question. “So this year, May was the first visit? Is that the only thing that caught your attention, that and the sleeve cuffs?”
“The normal security visitor had already stopped by a week before the crash. This second visit was unusual. It was even more unusual because they don’t often travel in pairs this far out in the countryside. I think Naranbaatar recognized the one who was brought in alive. That was strange because, as I said, this wasn’t someone I knew.”
“You know all the security people?”
“All the regulars who are assigned to the embassy, yes.”
“Your patient, Mr. Naranbaatar, didn’t say anything once he got over his initial shock?”
“No, he just stopped talking to us and took to his bed.”
“The nurse said there was nothing wrong with him when he checked in.”
“That’s right, there wasn’t.”
I lowered the boom. “You knew who he really was, didn’t you, Doctor?”
The doctor looked at me and then turned casually to my uncle. “I’m ready to examine you now. The nurse said you have back problems. Shall we take a look?”
“Why not?” My uncle stood up stiffly. “I’ll follow you, Doctor.”
A thought occurred to me. “Have they come out yet to investigate the accident?”
For the first time, the doctor showed a hint of annoyance. “The Mongolian police? Of course.”
“No, I mean the embassy. I’d be suspicious if I were them.”
“Are you? My nurse told me she thought you were both police of some sort.”
“Your nurse is very perceptive, Doctor.” My uncle walked slowly to the hallway door. “Yet she doesn’t have X-ray vision.”
The doctor smiled. “In that case, take off your outer garments and put on the gown hanging on the back of the door, Inspector. I’ll be in shortly.”
As my uncle disappeared through the doorway, the doctor unlocked a glass cabinet in the corner of the room. I strolled over to check what he was retrieving.
“You still haven’t answered my question, Doctor. Did the embassy come out to investigate yet?”
“How could they? These weren’t members of the embassy staff; they may not
have even had proper entry papers.”
“But you said the first rider was the embassy security officer.”
The doctor looked at me coolly. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that I was playing a game with him. He hadn’t said any such thing.
“Really,” he said, “if I had the time, I might enjoy this interrogation. I said I thought I recognized the jacket, that’s all.”
“There wasn’t any identification on the body?”
“Paper? If there was, it was incinerated.”
“Tattoos?”
“This isn’t a morgue, it’s a clinic. The local police bundled up the remains and sent them back to Ulan Bator. You can check with them if you like.”
“But you’re a curious, observant man. You have a theory about all this, don’t you?”
“No, I avoid the world of the hypothesis unless it has to do with the ailments of my patients. That’s why I became a doctor.”
“You have a dead patient in the back room. Two days ago, he was half frightened to death by something he saw, and a few hours ago, something he didn’t see took care of the second half. It wasn’t a seizure, and you know it or you wouldn’t have stayed out here talking to me. I’m going to ask you one more question. You don’t have to answer; I don’t have any authority, and you don’t have any obligation. Who were those two motorcyclists?”
He almost decided not to answer, I could tell from he way his breathing changed, but then he sat back in his chair. “I only know what I hear. They were part of a team sent to keep an eye on the transit camp of North Korean refugees. It’s not far from here. Pyongyang tried to complain about the camp when it was first set up, but the Mongolians told them it was on their territory and their own sovereign business. The North backed off, but still does its best, very low-key, to keep tabs on what is going on, who is there, who leaves, and who stays. It’s all relatively smooth. Nothing like on your border.”
“My border?”
The doctor took a small bottle from a shelf, then locked the cabinet. “You’re not Mongolian. You aren’t Korean, not all Korean, anyway. I don’t need X-ray vision to tell me that.”
6
“That does it.” The doctor washed his hands in the sink. “You can put your shirt and trousers back on, Inspector. When you’re dressed, take a seat over there and we’ll talk about what you need to do for your back.” He pointed to a desk in the corner. “Your colleague is welcome to join us.”
My uncle sat up from the examination table. “That nurse of yours is very efficient. I assume she called someone in the police agency in Ulan Bator.”
“I think your back might be a problem because you are prone to sticking your nose into other people’s business,” the doctor said evenly.
“Better there than up someone’s backside.” My uncle retrieved his trousers and his shirt. “Let’s not get at each other’s throats, Doctor.”
“She didn’t talk to the police,” I broke in before they could begin their courtly dance again. “She talked to some fellow from the Special Service. His name is Bat something.”
“Batbayaar.” The doctor didn’t look up from the form he was signing. “The man’s name is Batbayaar. You’re going to ask how I know him, so I’ll tell you and spare everyone the trouble of a game of hide-and-seek. The Chinese prime minister is about to visit Ulan Bator, as you no doubt know. Every time an important foreign visit is planned, the Special Service sends a notice to police in the outlying areas to be alert for unusual events, shady figures lurking on street corners, that sort of thing. Our local police pass these alerts on to us. The motorcycle accident must have caught Batbayaar’s attention. I say that because he sent an urgent follow-up request for us to be on the watch for strangers seeking medical attention or people posing as family members or acquaintances inquiring after accident victims. I couldn’t tell you what piqued his interest, though I assume he keeps tabs on the undeclared North Korean teams.” The doctor put down his pen and looked casually at me. “As he does any undeclared Chinese operations.”
“How do you know your nurse didn’t tell Batbayaar about the suddenly departed Naranbaatar when he first showed up?” My uncle slipped a little steel into his voice. “For that matter, how do you know she didn’t tell the North Koreans?”
“Because I didn’t.” The nurse stepped into the room. She gave my uncle a nasty look. “I wouldn’t do such a thing. The doctor insists on confidentiality for the patients. If there were some reason to breach that, it would be up to the doctor to decide. It’s not a decision I would take on my own.”
“Of course not,” said my uncle. “Certainly not for fifty dollars.”
This caused some bad feelings, but there wasn’t much the nurse could do other than to glower and stalk out of the room.
“Doctor, you took something from the cabinet before we walked in here. Would you mind showing it to me?” I planted myself next to the desk.
“You’re a little out of area to be throwing your weight around like this, I’d think. You realize, of course, I don’t have to show you anything. I’ve told you more than enough already, and then only because I have respect for the Inspector here.” He turned to my uncle. “These are some pills I want you to take.” He held up the small bottle he had removed from the locked cabinet. “Once a day at bedtime. Take them until they’re all gone. I’m sure they’ll do you some good.”
“What are they, if I may ask?”
“Just a traditional herbal mixture.”
“Very good of you, Doctor.” My uncle stood up, took the pills, and looked the doctor in the eye. “I must say, I admire your work out here. Perhaps we’ll see each other again.”
“Perhaps.” The doctor walked us to the front door. “Drive carefully on your way back. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything else. Good-bye.”
When we were in the car and on the main road again, I told my uncle to look at the bottle the doctor had given him. “It’s not just a regular old herbal concoction,” I said. “He had it under lock and key.”
“Is that so? I wonder if it belonged to poor Mr. Naranbaatar.”
“You were awfully chummy with the doctor. Old friend of yours?”
“Never saw the man in my life. Something wrong with countrymen being polite?”
Neither of us spoke for the next several monotonous miles. “You’re sure Naranbaatar was who you think he was?”
“Give me some credit now and then. I’m sure. A little older and thinner, but he had an unusual way of squinting his eyes whenever he got excited. He still had it.”
“I have a bad feeling about this. For one thing, how do I explain to Beijing that he died in my presence?”
“He didn’t die in your presence, he died in my presence.”
“Even worse.”
“You won’t get a medal, I suppose. At least you kept him from falling back into the hands of the North Koreans. That’s something.”
“Someone is going to say I killed him.”
“You? Why would you do something like that? You don’t have any motive.” My uncle adjusted his seat belt. “Do you?”
I hit the next rut in the road with considerable precision.
“No, I thought not. On the other hand, your friends might say I had a reason to do away with him. If they think I still work for Pyongyang, they could reason that I was sent here to make sure he never made it home.”
“Except Pyongyang didn’t send you here, Beijing did.”
“We both know they’ll never admit that.”
“What about the seal? He must have had it someplace he thought was safe. What about that Kazakh woman in the bar? How would she know where he put it?”
“Best way to find out is to ask. We’ll go back to that Irish bar. She seems to know how to drink.”
“You really think he died of natural causes?” I thought about it. “I don’t know if I trust that doctor. I certainly don’t trust that nurse.” I thought about it some more. “So much for not using seat
belts,” I mused.
My uncle gave me a quizzical look. “All this open sky is making you cryptic. You want me to drive?”
“No, I don’t.”
“If we go by that statue of Chinggis Khan again, let’s stop. It says in the booklet in the hotel that you can climb up inside it and look into the ‘vastness of history.’ Who writes things like that?”
“I have a hypothesis for you about that motorcycle team.”
“Did you hear what I said about the statue?”
“Yes, I heard, but I still have a hypothesis. While you were in the examination room, the doctor and I had a brief conversation.”
“You didn’t rough him up, I hope.”
“No, not even figuratively. I was very polite.”
“He dodged.”
“Some. Finally he told me that the two riders who died were part of a team to watch a refugee transit camp.”
“He said that? I thought doctors never lied. They were obviously sent out to run down rumors that the redefector was hiding out in the countryside around here. One of them must have been someone who knew what Naranbaatar looked like, someone who could recognize him. That’s what caused Naranbaatar to go into shock; he knew Pyongyang had located him, and he figured he was trapped. When we showed up, he had a momentary surge of hope.”
“Surges of hope don’t kill people,” I said, and that ended the conversation for the next fifty kilometers, when a lone motorcycle roared past us going toward Ondorkhaan at a high rate of speed.
“In a great hurry,” my uncle observed, “to get nowhere special.”
Halfway to Ulan Bator we passed a truck pulling a heavy bulldozer on a trailer.
“There’s some paper and a pen in my bag on the floor in the back. Get it out and write the note to Miss Du. It will give you something to do for the next three hours.”
“I can’t.” My uncle shook his head. “Writing makes me carsick. Don’t worry, we’ll do it tonight.”
Chapter Seven
The room was not unoccupied when we got back to our hotel. It hadn’t been cleaned either, but the main problem was Batbayaar, lying on my uncle’s bed. His head was propped up with several pillows, and he was breezily going through the brochure on local nightlife.
