The Outcast

by Michael Walters

  It was obvious from a rising murmur of chattering that some in the stadium were already losing interest. The two television crews were now talking more amicably to one another. Perhaps they had begun to suspect that they were not after all in competition to secure some major scoop.

  “But this,” the man on the screen went on, “is merely a symbol. You can think of it as the end of an old order, a discredited world. My purpose today is to look forward into a brighter future.”

  He sounds like an evangelist, Sarangeral thought. Another of the born-again Christians from the United States or Europe. This man had the same unyielding certainty about his own role and purpose in the world.

  The man walked up towards the static camera, leaving behind the golden strand of the river and the matchstick silhouettes of Nergui and his colleagues. He was still talking as he trudged up the steep slope, his voice short of breath. “I am not here simply to tell you stories—though I have many stories that will surprise you. I am here to take action. In a moment, you will see the power I have at my disposal.”

  The man was close to the camera, his eyes staring fixedly at the lens. For the first time, Sarangarel felt a tremor of fear. This no longer felt like a stunt. This felt like madness. There was a look in his eyes that she could not read, an emptiness unmistakable even through the blurred transmission. The man’s expression had transfixed those around her as well. The growing murmuring died away; and faces turned back to the screen.

  The man reached forward and the image juddered wildly on the screen. It took Sarangeral a second to realise that he had picked up the camera and was striding up the hillside, pointing the lens towards the trees in front of him. The soundtrack was a muffled thumping—the sound of the man’s footsteps as he headed up the slope.

  Then his voice reemerged. “I need to show you,” he said, sounding breathless, though it was unclear whether this was the result of physical exertion or a growing excitement. The confusion on the screen resolved itself into a shot of rising grassland, dark fir trees, a boundary of bright light and deep shadow. In the middle, almost obscured by the shade, was a black Land Cruiser.

  The shot was held for a second, and then the image bounced again as the man walked forward to open the rear door of the vehicle. “The first item I have to show you.”

  At first, the rear of the truck appeared empty. Then the camera zoomed in towards the area behind the front passenger seats. A box, with wires. Sarangarel was no expert. But it was clear to her that they were looking at an explosive device—or something mocked up to resemble such a device.

  Around her, all eyes were fixed on the screen. At the front of the arena, Sarangarel could see that the attitude of the television crews had changed yet again.

  The man’s voice boomed around the stands. “A bomb. Quite a sophisticated bomb. And capable of doing considerable damage.”

  The camera panned back from the device, then moved out of the truck’s interior and along the side of the vehicle. “But you may wonder,” the voice continued, “what could be damaged out here. Some trees, the truck itself.” There was a pause. “Myself. And my associate.”

  The front of the truck came into shot. The camera focused on the side window, moving closer until it was possible to discern, through the glass, the figure of a young man in the passenger seat.

  At the same moment, there was an anguished shout from somewhere at the front of the stadium. Saranageral looked around frantically, trying to spot Gundalai. There was another, louder shout, a disturbance breaking out at the rear of the giant screens. And then both screens went blank.

  “What does the pilot think?” Nergui was staring out across the river. Sam was up there somewhere in the trees, but it was impossible to see what he was doing.

  Batzorig caught his breath. Even for one of his youth, it was a hot day to be running uphill. “There’s nowhere immediately on that side of the river, and further up you get into the forest. It would have to be down towards the plain. Probably half a mile or so down there.” He pointed to the flatter land where the river widened and curved towards the steppe.

  Nergui looked down towards the spot indicated. “It’s going to lose us time.”

  “There’s no alternative. The river’s pretty deep until you get down to the plain.”

  “Okay.” He glanced up towards Doripalam, who was already making his way back up the slope. “Let’s go.”

  Minutes later, the helicopter was ferrying them over the river. The pilot shouted back to Nergui and Doripalam. “He’s picked his spot pretty smartly. Not even sure how he got the truck up there. But there’s no way I can land within a half mile or so.”

  “Get as close as you can,” Nergui said.

  Eventually, the pilot pointed towards a flatter area some distance below the edge of the trees. “That’s as close as I can get,” he said.

  The landing was perfect, positioned directly in the centre of the selected area. Almost before the engine had stopped, Nergui jumped out and scuttled up the hillside, keeping his head down below the slowing rotors. Doripalam and Batzorig glanced at one another, and then followed.

  They caught up with Nergui some distance short of the trees. “Can you see him?” Doripalam said.

  Nergui shook his head. The full width of the valley had opened up to their left and the rocks and the splayed body were below them. “But we must be close.”

  They proceeded cautiously, listening intently for any sound, until they finally heard Sam’s voice, declaiming into the microphone. A moment later, they spotted him. He was standing by the front of the vehicle, pointing the camera towards the front window.

  “Do we rush him?” Doripalam whispered.

  “Too dangerous,” Nergui said. “We don’t know what he’s up to. We can’t risk running into something we don’t understand.”

  Doripalam stopped. “You seem to understand all this better than the rest of us,” he said. “I want to know what I’m getting into.”

  Nergui turned away. At first, Doripalam thought that he was not going to respond. “In the helicopter,” he prompted, “you said it was a fit-up. What did you mean?”

  “Wu Sam was a spy,” Nergui said. “But not quite in the way we’d imagined. He was working for us.”

  “For us? What do you mean?”

  “A double agent. Supplying information on the Chinese.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Nergui took a step or two further up the slope, he craned his head as his eyes scanned the trees ahead of them. “It was the usual hall of mirrors. Wu Sam was a lot more influential than we—than I, that is—had given him credit for. He was a young man, but he had the right Party connections. A rising star in the Chinese intelligence service.”

  “And he was working for us?” Doripalam repeated.

  “In part. Sam’s loyalties were more complex than his masters had realised. His father was a Party official in the capital, but his family on his mother’s side were ethnic Mongolians. From occupied territory, as he saw it.”

  “He was a traitor,” Doripalam said.

  “Nothing so simple. His grandfather had filled him with stories about the great Mongolian empire. About how Genghis Khan was the father, not just of our nation, but also of modern China.” It was a familiar paradox—that China had seen the Mongol empire as its great enemy, but had also appropriated Genghis Khan as one of its founding fathers.

  “So who was he working for?”

  “Himself, mainly. Or his supposed ideals. He wanted our two nations to become one. To merge Mongolia and China.”

  Doripalam was struggling to make sense of this. “But he regarded Inner Mongolia as occupied territory.”

  “And he regarded our territories as occupied too, by the Russians. An occupation of finance and resources, rather than force of arms. But an occupation nonetheless. Given the choice of two evils, he felt that China was the lesser. He wanted a new Mongol empire but knew that, realistically, such an empire would be ruled from Beijing not fro
m Ulaan Bataar.”

  “It’s insane,” Doripalam said.

  “Probably. But they were insane times. No one expected the USSR to collapse like a house of cards, but everyone felt that change was possible. And there were the first democratic protests in China—”

  “Quickly crushed,” Doripalam pointed out.

  “But these were all straws in the wind. Plenty of people—in the USSR, in China and in our own government—were considering their positions. Working out how to play this to their advantage. Forging alliances that they might call on if the need arose.”

  “And Wu Sam?”

  “He was a young man with ideals, but also a young man on the make. He knew that if the Soviets pulled out our economy would collapse. And he thought that was his best chance to realise his vision of unification.” Nergui had started to walk slowly up the hill, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. “He had trained as an academic, specialising in Mongolian history, but he worked as a senior analyst on the Mongolia desk in Beijing. He’d been security cleared, so they saw his expertise as a positive. They encouraged him to build relationships with contacts on our side of the border.”

  “He had our agents working for him?”

  “Who was working for whom? I’m not sure even those involved really knew. Each side thought they were using the other, with Russia as the common enemy.”

  “So who were his contacts?” They were close to the edge of the forest, the westerly sun throwing the shadows of the trees into the interior.

  “I don’t know the full story,” Nergui said. “But Wu Sam was a trusted agent. He’d been pushing his masters at home to send him out into the field. He wanted to make contact, to build up his personal allegiances. To start to realise his vision.”

  “With official backing?”

  “That’s not how these things work. Everything is deniable. But they wouldn’t have discouraged him if it might bring dividends for them. So he came and made contact. And it didn’t go as he’d expected. Perhaps a clash of visions.”

  “What happened?”

  “He made contact with his most influential source. Each of them trying to use the other. Wu Sam to progress his own ambitions, and his contact—well, he had a different agenda. At best, he was building alliances for the future. At worst—if Russia remained dominant—he might gather some information that would give him some bargaining chips.”

  “So potentially a triple agent?”

  “A realist. A survivor.” There was something in Nergui’s tone that rang alarm bells in Doripalam’s mind. “But Wu Sam didn’t like being used. He was a young man, still. Impetuous. And I suspect there were other, more personal factors involved.”

  “And you’re saying that that was why he was framed? How can you know all this, Nergui?”

  They stood motionless, whispering in the lowest of voices, their ears straining for any clue to Sam’s position.

  “I don’t know it,” Nergui said. “Not for sure. I’d begun to get suspicious when we arrested Wu Sam. His response wasn’t right. And when I looked at the evidence, it was all just too convenient. There were witnesses in all the right places. So I challenged him.”

  “But if he’d been framed, surely he’d be shouting it from the rooftops?”

  “We never gave him a chance. And he knew that both countries would want to bury the problem. The best thing he could do was keep his head down and wait to get shipped back home. But his career was over. Even if his masters accepted that the charges were nonsense, they’d see him as a failure, as a security risk. Someone who’d compromised their position.”

  “So what did he say when you challenged him?”

  “He told me he’d been framed. He wanted me to help him.”

  “Help him how?”

  “Let him stay. Allow him to rebuild his life and career this side of the border. And in return he’d give me evidence on his contacts—those who’d betrayed our country.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because he knew that I’d been set up as well. He was no fool. He recognised that I wasn’t part of the game. That I didn’t know who his contact was.”

  “And did you help him?”

  Nergui looked back and gazed at the younger man for a moment. “No,” he said, finally. “There was nothing I could do.”

  “Even though his contact was a traitor?”

  “I don’t believe the contact gave away anything of real value. He was just wheeling and dealing. That wasn’t the issue.”

  “So what was?”

  There was a look on Nergui’s face that Doripalam had never seen before, as if he had unburdened himself of some baggage. He looked more human than Doripalam had ever seen him.

  “The issue,” Nergui went on, “was that, if Wu Sam had been framed for the murders, then he wasn’t a killer. And that meant that someone else had murdered those students.”

  “The contact?”

  “Yes, the contact. Not personally. This was someone with resources to call on. Not a killer.”

  “But a realist and survivor.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So why didn’t you do something?”

  “Because I’m a realist too. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could prove. I knew better than to try.”

  Nergui looked up, his expression suddenly changing, as if he had sensed or heard something. His body tensed, his eyes fixed on the thick woodland ahead of them. But then he said: “The contact. He was as senior as they come. The chief of the security services. Now your boss and mine. Bakei. The minister.”

  He strode forward into the green shade, apparently unmindful of any noise he might be making. And, at that moment, the crack of a gunshot reverberated around the valley slopes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

  She felt suddenly that there was something terribly wrong. There was a disturbance under the large screen, but she could not see what was happening. There were more shouts, and the television crews had shifted their attention away from the screen towards some occurrence at ground level.

  Sarangeral grabbed the shoulder of a young man in grey overalls. “What’s happening?”

  “No idea. Some drunk, probably. Don’t they realise that some of us have work to do?”

  She pushed past him into the milling crowd, forcing her way forward until the crowd thinned around her, and she found herself in an open space, a few yards from the base of the screens.

  The screens flanked a wooden stage which would be used for performances during the festival. Behind the stage, a portable office unit provided a home for the administrative and technical support staff. Its twin wooden doors were closed, and there was no indication that the unit was occupied.

  She was reaching forward to see whether the doors were locked when she felt a movement behind her, warm breath on the back of her neck, and a hand clasped firmly around her mouth.

  “I think you’d better come inside,” a voice said.

  “Shit.” The man was stabbing the remote control with his forefinger, repeatedly changing channels as if he might make something different appear on screen. He switched back to the state television channel. “He told me he had all this under control. Where the fuck is it?”

  He glared at the other dark-suited men sitting around the room. Suddenly, Tunjin thought, he looked much less in control. The cool arrogance seemed to have evaporated.

  “Maybe it’s coming,” one of the other men said, with a vague shrug.

  The first man stared at him. “Coming?” he said. “We are supposed to be the news, not second fiddle to some presidential visit to a hole in the ground.” He gestured towards the screen, which was showing images of the president visiting a new mining complex in the south.

  Tunjin could only guess at what might be happening. It seemed that their hosts had been expecting some significant coverage on the state television news. Whatever they had been expecting, it was clear that they were disappointed. The state television news was doing what the state television news ge
nerally did—giving respectful and unremittingly dull coverage of state affairs.

  The museum system provided access to cable television, as well as the limited range of local terrestrial channels, and the man had rapidly flicked through the available selection. But all he had found was the usual mix of imports, Western and Eastern—dramas, soap operas, pop videos, garish talk shows.

  The man kicked one of the hard-backed chairs across the room. It bounced off the coffee table, narrowly missing the legs of one of his colleagues, who looked up at his apparent leader. “So what are you suggesting we do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We’re fucked. We need to get a message to him. Find out what’s going on. Check that he really has it under control.” There was an undertone of deep scepticism in his voice. “You got the number?”

  “He said not to contact him. The number wouldn’t be operational. He’s been swapping SIM cards so no one can track him …”

  The man walked forward slowly and stood over his colleague. “You know,” he said, quietly, “I’m not an idiot. What made you think I might be?”

  “I’m only saying.”

  “Just give it a try.”

  The second man pulled out his cell phone and keyed in a number. “Nothing. It’s dead.”

  The first man was still gazing at the television, which was playing silently on the far side of the room. A female reporter was standing in the Namdaal Stadium, rows of empty seats stretching behind her. The man turned on the volume, and the reporter’s voice crashed, initially too loudly, into the room “… no cause for concern. But, following the recent surge of so far unresolved incidents in the city, the authorities will be looking to tighten security at this year’s festival. Back to you.”

  “That was it?” the man said. “They were there, but—nothing.” He looked back at his colleagues. “What the fuck is he playing at?”

  “I think we cut out losses,” the man on the hard-backed chair said. “What do we really know about this guy?”

  “We know what kind of backing he has.”