THE OUTCAST
MICHAEL WALTERS
New York • London
© 2008 by Michael Walters
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Also by Michael Walters
FICTION
The Shadow Walker
The Adversary
To Hazel and Murray—
for making it possible in the first place
And, as always, to Christine
for making it possible now
Medley for Morin Khur
The sound box is made of a horse’s head.
The resonator is horse skin.
The strings and bow are of horsehair.
The morin khur is a thoroughbred
of Mongolian violins.
Its call is the call of the stallion to the mare.
A call which may no more be gainsaid
than that of jinn to jinn
through jasmine-weighted air.
A call that may no more be gainsaid
than that of blood kin to kin
through a body-strewn central square.
A square in which they’ll heap the horses’ heads
by the heaps of horse skin
and the heaps of horsehair.
Paul Muldoon
CONTENTS
Part 1
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part 2
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty - One
Chapter Twenty - Two
Part 3
Chapter Twenty - Three
Chapter Twenty - Four
Chapter Twenty - Five
Chapter Twenty - Six
Chapter Twenty - Seven
Chapter Twenty - Eight
Chapter Twenty - Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty - One
Chapter Thirty - Two
SUMMER
There was nothing. Nothing for miles. Nothing for days.
After all these years, it had overwhelmed Sam—the rolling steppe, the distant mountains and, far to the south, the vast terrain of the desert. He was dizzied by it, unable to comprehend the distance, the sense of space. So different from the confined clutter of what was now his home.
If anything, it was better than he remembered, better than his imagination.
He had forgotten the deep intensity of the colours, the expanse of the liquid blue skies, the lush richness of the northern landscapes. And the sheer vastness of the space that lay around them on all sides.
And now, at last, he was free. His hosts had understood what he was looking for, and identified Sunduin, an unemployed graduate, to act as his guide. They would travel east, out into the empty grasslands—the supposed birthplace of Genghis Khan himself.
Sunduin spoke excellent English, but it was easy to see why he had failed to secure more permanent employment. He was a slovenly creature, dressed always in a faded T-shirt and battered jeans, his lank, too-long hair overhanging his pallid forehead. He was surly and taciturn, clearly unenthused by the prospect of acting as a guide and interpreter to an over-indulged Western visitor. Sam kept a watchful eye on his bags and money, certain that Sunduin would not miss an opportunity for an easy profit.
As they flew out on the bumpy MIAT flight, watching the grasslands open up before them, Sam felt both excitement and trepidation. Sunduin was slumped next to him, apparently asleep. He had barely spoken since they had met at the airport, doing just enough to get them through the check-in processes. He woke only as the aircraft touched down at Ondorkhaan, and was equally taciturn in leading them through the primitive airport and out into the sunlight.
As they emerged from the airport, Sunduin gestured across the road and moments later, a truck pulled up. The driver had clearly been waiting for them.
Sam pulled out his wallet to pay the sum that had, according to Sunduin, been agreed. The owner had insisted on US dollars, and to Sam the amount was pitifully small. He half expected a demand for some additional payment, but the man simply counted the bills carefully, stuffed them into the breast pocket of his shirt and nodded. He spoke a few words to Sunduin, and climbed out of the truck. Sunduin threw his own bag into the back seat and took the man’s place behind the wheel, gesturing that Sam should follow.
Sam looked at the driver, who had lit a cigarette and was watching them expressionlessly. “Is he staying here?”
Sunduin shrugged. “He has other business.”
It was a mile or so into town. Sunduin, for the first time showing some enthusiasm, slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator, and they sped along the narrow dirt road. It was not yet nine a.m., but the sun was already growing hot. The landscape was bare but beautiful, mile upon mile of open rolling grassland.
Sam stared around as they approached the outskirts of Ondorkhaan. It was the regional capital, but there was little to the town—a few wooden houses, with an occasional larger, more official-looking edifice along the main street. Sunduin made no effort to reduce the vehicle’s speed as they entered the town.
“Are we stopping?” Sam asked. He had left Sunduin to deal with the detail of their accommodation.
Sunduin shook his head. “I thought we should head straight across there. I’ve booked us a hotel in Dadal.”
Sam nodded. Genghis Khan’s supposed birthplace was close to the small township. “That sounds good. How far is it?”
Sunduin shrugged. “A little way. Eighty, ninety kilometres. Maybe a couple of hours. It’s not a good road. Sleep if you want to.”
Against his expectations, Sam did sleep, lulled by the bouncing rhythm of the truck and when he opened his eyes, the sun was higher in the sky, the temperature still rising. Sunduin glanced over and said: “Not far now: ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Do you know this area?” Sam asked.
“It’s my country. I know it well enough.”
“It’s a beautiful country.” Sam was conscious that his words were a tourist’s platitude. There wa
s no way he could convey how much this country meant to him, even after all these years.
They were still on the grassland, but the altitude was increasing. There were sparse clusters of trees, tall conifers that threw dark shadows across the intense green of the steppe. Ondorkhaan was far behind, and there was no sign of human habitation.
“That’s it,” Sunduin said. He took a hand off the wheel and gestured ahead of them. “That hill, there. The birthplace of our great leader. So they say.” It was impossible to interpret his tone.
“I look forward to seeing it.”
They drove another half mile, and then Sunduin hit the brakes and pulled them off the road on to the grassy plain. “We stop here.”
Sam looked around, startled by the suddenness of Sunduin’s action. “Is this it?”
“You want to see the birthplace?” Sunduin looked bored suddenly, as though this whole expedition was a waste of his precious time.
“Yes, but I thought we’d go to the town first.”
Sunduin glanced wearily at his watch. “It’s only eleven,” he said. “There’s no point in going to the hotel. I thought you wanted to see the birthplace.”
“I do.” Sam realised that, for all his plans, he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting.
Sunduin opened his door, and climbed slowly out into the warm air. “Are you coming?” he said.
Sam watched him for a moment. “Yes,” he said, finally. “Of course.”
He opened his door, and climbed down. The high sun was hot on his back.
And then, as he straightened, the sky went dark, and a chill ran through his body. It was as if all the light and heat had been drained from the world.
He looked up, startled, half-expecting some unpredicted solar eclipse. In the otherwise empty sky, a single small dark cloud had momentarily drifted across the sun. In a minute, the light would return.
Sam stared across at Sunduin, striding away across the grassland. The sun was already brightening again, but the chill stayed with him. The truth was clear: two of them were setting out on this journey. Two of them would see Genghis Khan’s birthplace.
But only one would return.
PART 1
WINTER 1988
He had found a public phone, just off Sukh Bataar Square, but there was no way he could use that. He cursed himself, and he cursed this whole bloody country. The state that it was in. At least at home he understood things. Here, he was operating on instinct, guesswork.
And there were no fucking phones.
He hadn’t planned for this, which was a mistake. But what did he expect? This was his first time on mission. He couldn’t be expected to think of everything.
Public call boxes were out; they were bound to be monitored. The same went for his office phone; the line would be bugged. They kept an eye on everyone, just as they did back home. Especially if you were foreign; especially if you were Chinese.
In the end, he broke into one of the offices at the university. It wasn’t difficult, and if the phone was monitored, it couldn’t be traced back to him.
Even so, his hands trembled as he dialled. The phone rang for endless minutes until he became sure it would never be picked up. Then there was a click and a voice. “Yes?” In just that one word, Sam recognized authority.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m trying to call the museum. I thought I’d dialled 237 1505.” The agreed format. The venue, and, in the last four digits, the time they should meet, the following day. All planned.
“I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” He pressed his finger down and cut the connection. That was all they needed. Tomorrow they would meet. Face to face. For the first time.
CHAPTER ONE
SUMMER
It was instinct. Instinct and pure dumb luck.
Tunjin wasn’t even aware of thinking, let alone taking aim. He dragged out the pistol and fired, his mind lagging a lifetime behind what his eyes were seeing, what his body was reacting to.
Afterwards, all that remained were sensations: the jarring kickback from the gunshot; the memory of the impact through wrist and arm; the noise, sharp, explosive, but somehow muffled, as though coming from somewhere far away; the figure crumpling to the ground, a startled expression on his face; the bleaching hot sunlight across the square. Everything fragmented and distant, like someone else’s photographs. The blood. The crowd. The sirens and the endless screaming.
And finally it was as if the sky had darkened and closed in on him. There was a sudden sharp pain across his chest, and he stumbled, his legs unable to support his hefty body. The pistol dropped clatteringly from his hand, and his last image was the startled face of the young uniformed officer beside him.
It was several hours later when he woke. In the square, the sun had been high in the empty sky, relentless in its midsummer glare. Now, its low reddening rays were angled across his bed, glittering on the trolleys and medical equipment. His waking mind was a matching blaze of half-impressions, a brilliantly illuminated swirl that told him nothing.
From his supine position, Tunjin could just glimpse through the windows the startling black and pink monolith of the Hotel Chinnghis Kahn. Beyond that, there was only the sky, a translucent mauve in the dying sunlight. Even now, it looked warm out there.
He tried to move his head, but found the effort too great. He stared up at the blank white ceiling, suddenly conscious that there really was something wrong with him. Not just tiredness, or shock, or the after-effects of unconsciousness. Something more serious.
He couldn’t move. He could—just about—twist his head from side to side. But when he tried to turn his head fully or move his limbs, there was nothing. Just deadness, numbness. No sensation at all.
He stared up, trying not to panic. There had to be some explanation. After all, he didn’t feel ill, did he? No. He didn’t feel anything. His mind felt as numb as his body.
He became aware that he was not alone. There was a chatter of voices, a buzz of white noise that had scarcely impinged on his senses before now. And somewhere a voice he knew.
“How is he?” Doripalam asked. They were standing just inside the door, whispering, as if trying not to disturb the vast figure on the bed.
The doctor shrugged. His demeanour and his expensive-looking Western-style suit suggested that his presence here was interrupting some more attractive engagement elsewhere. “It’s too early to say,” he said. “He’s been unconscious for a long time.” He glanced at his watch as if calculating precisely how long.
“A coma?”
“No.” The doctor smiled, adopting the patronising manner unique to his profession across the world. “Not what we would call a coma.”
“So what precisely would you call it?” Any member of Doripalam’s team would have warned the doctor to avoid superciliousness when dealing with their boss.
“He’s been unconscious, that’s all. It’s part of the recovery process. He’s been through a lot. But we don’t know quite how much. We don’t know how bad it is.”
“You don’t know how bad what is? What is it exactly?”
The doctor stared at Doripalam for a moment, as if wondering whether to challenge his right to enquire into this matter. “There are no relatives?” he said at last. “No next of kin?”
Doripalam shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “Not as far as we know.” He paused. “Look, he works for me. But that’s not why I’m here. Not the only reason, anyway.” He hesitated again, unsure how to phrase his next words. “Let’s just say I owe him one. He once saved my life.”
“It may be a stroke,” the doctor said, finally. “We’re doing tests. But it wouldn’t be surprising.” He was looking almost embarrassed now. “I mean, he’s massively overweight. He drinks—”
“Like a fish,” Doripalam said. “Though rarely water, I understand.”
“His blood pressure was through the roof. He’s really been very lucky. It could have been much worse.”
“So how serious is it?”
“We don’t really know,” the doctor said. “He’s still alive. That’s a good sign.” He caught Doripalam’s expression. “No, I mean it. This could easily have killed him.”
“That might have been preferable,” Doripalam pointed out. “Depending on what else is wrong with him.”
The doctor nodded. “We have to see. He might be paralysed, or partly paralysed. It might be minimal. Or it might not.”
There was a sound behind them. Both men turned and looked along the length of the quiet private room. Beyond Tunjin’s bed, the city skyline was dark against the reddening glare of the setting sun. A nervous-looking nurse was staring at the monitors. She looked up at the two men, her eyes wide. “He’s awake,” she said. “He’s looking at me.”
The minister barely raised his head as Nergui entered. “Okay,” he said, “so what’s this all about? What’s going on?”
Nergui had grown accustomed to this absence of preliminaries, the lack even of common courtesy. There had been a time, not so long ago, when it had irritated him, but now he knew that it was all just part of the show. Occasionally, he could even feel a degree of sympathy for the old man.
Nergui lowered himself into the seat opposite the minister’s desk without waiting to be invited. “We’re trying to find out,” he said.
The minister looked up, with an expression that suggested that Nergui had just admitted to an act of criminal negligence. “You don’t know yet, then?”
“No,” Nergui said. “Except that it’s not what it looks like.”
“And what does it look like?”
“An attempted suicide bombing. Maybe something like Madrid or London but on a smaller scale.”
“Everyday life in Basra or Baghdad,” the minister said. “Well, that’s what it looked like to me. But you know better.” The last words had an undertone of scepticism in them, but it was half-hearted. The minister knew better than to underestimate Nergui’s judgement.
“I think so,” Nergui said. He stretched out his legs, looking untroubled. His socks, the minister registered, were a pale green. Inevitably, they matched the tie he was wearing beneath his usual dark grey suit. “There are factors that need to be explained.”
The Outcast Page 1
