The Outcast

by Michael Walters

  Tunjin had been watching the hand that had been reaching into the jacket. But the man raised his other hand, and there was already a handgun in it. Still smiling, the man placed the gun barrel, very gently, against Solongo’s neck. “On the other hand,” he said, “I’m willing to bet that you might give a fuck about what I do to this fine lady here. So put that gun down, you fat bastard, and we can start this all over again.”

  At first, Sarangarel tried to resist, but her captor was too strong. If she were able to scream, someone in the arena might hear her, but a hand was clasped firmly across her mouth. She was dragged backwards, her feet stumbling on the sandy ground.

  A moment later, the figure behind her pulled open one of the doors of the office unit and thrust her inside. She staggered, only just retaining her balance, and fell against one of the desks.

  Gundalai was sitting on the floor in front of her. His face was bruised and there was blood dripping from an ugly-looking graze across his cheek. To his left, there was a man, dressed in Western-style jeans and white T-shirt, holding a pistol.

  She turned and regarded her own assailant. He was similarly dressed; anonymous gear for anonymous-looking men. Probably late twenties or early thirties, clean-shaven, neat hair. Nothing memorable about them at all.

  “Found her outside,” the man behind her said. “Being nosy.”

  “This is getting too deep,” the other man said. “I didn’t expect this. Just a technical job. Get in, get it running, get out. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in here.”

  “There wasn’t,” the other man said. “Till this guy turned up.”

  Gundalai sat sullenly at the man’s feet. “Where is he?” he said.

  The man stared at him for a moment. “You don’t give up, do you?” he said. “I thought I’d beaten some sense into you.”

  “The man on the screen. I need to find him. I need to find the man in the car.” His voice rose, a note of panic crackling just under the surface.

  “We’re just here to do a job,” the man said. “Get the satellite link working, and get it up on to those screens. Technicians, that’s all.”

  “Pretty violent technicians,” Sarangeral pointed out.

  The man shrugged. “I didn’t start it. He attacked me. We were expecting this to be a little more low-key.”

  Sarangeral gestured towards Gundalai. “It was his friend, in the car.”

  “In the film, you mean?”

  She suddenly realised how little these men knew about what they were involved in. “It wasn’t a film,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”

  “A protest. Against the government selling off the mineral rights. That’s what we were told.” He frowned, sensing her disbelief. “Some sort of propaganda. We were going to do it at the festival itself, but then it got brought forward, thank God. It would have been a nightmare to get in here while the festival was on.” He paused, as though trying to take in what was going on. “But that’s all we were supposed to do. We had a portable satellite receiver, a designated channel we were supposed to use, and then we were supposed to show—well, whatever it was. I thought it would be a link to a live protest somewhere. I didn’t understand what was being shown, some sort of mock-up perhaps.”

  She shook her head. “No. It was live. And real.”

  “Real?” She could see that he was only just taking in the significance of what she was saying. “You mean the body … ?”

  “The body,” she said, “and the bomb.”

  The man looked across at his colleague, who was pacing up and down behind Sarangeral. “We’ve been set up,” he said. “Well and truly fucking set up.”

  “Who asked you to do this?”

  “We don’t know. Friends of friends of friends. We went on a few anti-government protests. Someone heard we had the technical skills. You know how it is.”

  “Someone must have told you what was required.”

  “A middle man,” he said. “No one we knew. Gave us instructions, provided the equipment. Promised us everything would be ready. Gave us a down-payment. More money when it was done.”

  She had no idea whether to believe him, but the story made sense. “So you don’t know where all that was taking place? You don’t know where the man in the car is?”

  The man looked between her and Gundalai. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anything except what we were told.” Sarangarel could see that there was something else in his mind.

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know. The guy who paid us. He said we should do our job here and then get out. That there’d be something even more spectacular to follow.”

  She stared at him, thinking about the man who had appeared on the screens. About Odbayar in the car, and the device strapped to the seats behind him. About the stadium and the impending festival.

  “Oh, my sweet heaven,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Doripalam held his breath, waiting for the force of the explosion to hit them. His body was flat to the ground, but he had little confidence that the gentle gradient would offer any real protection. He breathed in the sweet scent of the grass, his ears straining for any clue as to what was happening. He moved his head slightly, squinting to his right. Batzorig was in a similar posture, his body spread-eagled further along the same hollow.

  Doripalam had no idea how much time had elapsed. Batzorig had raised his head and was looking back at him quizzically. At last Doripalam risked peering out.

  Nothing had changed. The Land Cruiser was in the same position. There was no sign of Nergui or Wu Sam. Other than the occasional ripple of birdsong, the silence remained complete.

  “Anything?” Batzorig whispered.

  Doripalam shook his head. He was beginning to feel embarrassed at their hurried retreat down the slope. But who knew what was happening up there?

  The question was answered almost immediately. There was a bang from somewhere on the other side of the Land Cruiser. Doripalam started and got his head down, but realised almost immediately that the sound was simply that of a car door being slammed.

  He peered over the edge of the bank. Nergui emerged from behind the vehicle, his face set in a grimace of exertion. It took Doripalam a moment to realise that he was dragging something—a body, Nergui’s arms wrapped under its armpits, its feet scraping along the ground.

  “Come and give me a hand,” Nergui said. “It’s safe for the moment. At least, I think it is.”

  Doripalam had assumed that the body was Sam’s, but as he drew closer he realised that it was the young man. Odbayar. He grabbed the dragging feet, helping Nergui move the body further down the slope. Batzorig arrived a second later and began to help with Odbayar’s upper body.

  “We need to get as far down the slope as we can,” Nergui gasped, the exertion making him breathless. “I don’t know how much time we have.”

  Nergui was still stumbling down backwards, the young man’s torso clutched in his linked arms. For the first time, Doripalam noticed that between Nergui’s clasped palms there was a slim black box. The remote control.

  Nergui looked back over his shoulder. “If we can get to those rocks, that should be okay.”

  Some fifty metres away there was a small cluster of trees surrounding three large rocks, dumped at the riverside by some prehistoric glacier.

  They zigzagged awkwardly down the uneven slope. Finally, they reached the shelter of the rocks and placed the limp body safely on the ground, the three men slumping down beside it.

  Nergui held up the remote control. “Keep your heads down,” he said. “I’m holding this down so it shouldn’t detonate the device, but I don’t know what—”

  As if on cue, his words were cut short by a sudden roar from above. For a second, Doripalam was surprised by the sound—more gentle than he might have expected. But then the force of the blast struck them, a physical wind that buffeted them heavily even in the lee of the rocks, a shattering noise too loud to describe. Some large object—pres
umably part of the truck—flew over their heads and landed with a crash beyond them. Doripalam kept his head down, his face buried in his arms, feeling something scattering against his hair and back.

  The noise of the explosion terminated as abruptly as it had begun, its echoes lost in the open terrain. Doripalam’s ears were still ringing, and he looked around confusedly. Nergui was crouched over Odbayar’s body, protecting the young man from the falling debris. Batzorig was staring at a line of blood welling up on the back of his hand.

  “Are you okay?” Doripalam asked.

  Batzorig looked up, then back down at his hand. “I think so,” he said, finally. “It’s just a scratch. A piece of glass.” His expression suggested that the minor injury had brought home how lucky they had been.

  Doripalam looked across at Nergui. “How’s Odbayar?” He presumed that they would not have risked their lives if the young man was already dead.

  “I think he’s okay. He’s been sedated, but he seems to be breathing all right.”

  “What happened up there?” Doripalam gestured up towards where the Land Cruiser had been. Above them, under the canopy of the trees, a cloud of smoke had gathered, dimming further the thin sunlight that filtered through the leaves.

  “Sam was haemorrhaging blood pretty fast from that wound. Assuming that he was telling the truth about this,” Nergui held the remote control device loosely between his fingers, “I was concerned about what might happen if he lost consciousness.”

  “And did he?”

  “I got as close as I could. He was in no state to shoot me. When I saw his eyes starting to close I threw myself forward and hoped that I’d be in time to grab this before he lost his grip on it.”

  “Which you did.”

  Nergui looked down at the slim device. “There was a moment when I thought I’d lost it. Or there was some delay on the device detonating. I don’t know.”

  “But you had time to get Odbayar out?”

  “Only just.” Nergui shuddered, as if the shock was only just hitting him. He peered over the top of the rocks. “I think we can assume that, one way or another, we don’t need to worry about Sam any more.”

  There was little left of the Land Cruiser. Part of the chassis, with an axle and one of the wheels visible, was standing in the clearing, and there were twists of jagged metal scattered around it, thick smoke guttering into the air. It was impossible to see what remained of Sam’s supine body.

  “We should go and see,” Doripalam said. “He might still be alive.”

  Nergui shook his head. “I don’t know how much fuel was on board, but we might have another explosion on our hands. There’s nothing we can do for Sam. He was beyond help a long time ago.”

  “This is madness,” Doripalam said. “What was he trying to achieve?”

  “What he said,” Nergui said. “To be a catalyst. And he may still succeed.”

  Doripalam stared at him. His relief at their escape had been so overwhelming that he had forgotten what Sam had been saying. “You really think he’s planted other bombs?”

  “He’s done enough already to suggest that we shouldn’t underestimate him.” Nergui glanced back up the hill, his eyes following the rising plumes of smoke. “The worst of it is that he wasn’t even the professional he thought he was. He was a bungling, incompetent madman. He was probably promoted above his level of ability even when he first came here. But that made him even more dangerous.”

  “Because you don’t know what he was capable of?”

  “With professionals, you know there’ll be some limits. With Sam—well, who knows?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “We need to get the stadium and the museum cleared and searched.”

  Doripalam’s mind was racing back over what Sam had said. “He said that Solongo was there,” he said. “Why would he want to involve Solongo in this? To get revenge over me? He doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “No,” Nergui said. His head was down, as he thumbed through the call on his cell phone. “But he does know who Solongo is.”

  Tunjin was still standing over the unconscious man, the gun held to his head, trying to work out some further option, anything he might be able to do to retrieve the situation. The man on the sofa had the barrel of his own pistol pressed firmly against Solongo’s neck. As though by instinct, the minister had edged further away from both of them.

  “Okay,” Tunjin said, finally. He carefully placed the gun on the desk, away from the reach of any of the dark-suited men. He wasn’t going to make it too easy for them.

  “Very smart,” the man on the sofa nodded. “Okay, now get back from my friend there. Go back to your seat. And we’ll have a think about what we do next.” He smiled. “Or what some of us do next. I think we can probably forget about him.” He gestured towards the man still slumped on the polished wooden floor. “I think the best thing we can do is cut our losses and go.” He paused. “Taking this lady with us for insurance purposes.”

  “I don’t think so,” the minister said, unexpectedly. “Not just yet, anyway.”

  The man twisted, still holding the gun against Solongo’s skin. “You’re going to stop us?”

  “Possibly with a little help from my associate over there.” He looked across at Tunjin. “Pick up that gun again, will you?”

  Tunjin looked bewilderedly from the minister back to the man with the gun. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “I think it’s an excellent idea,” the minister said.

  The man on the sofa shook his head. “It’s quite simple. If he picks up that gun, I shoot her.”

  The minister shrugged. “So shoot her.”

  Tunjin stared, horrified, at the grey-haired old man. Was this just more posturing? Calling the gunman’s bluff on the assumption he wouldn’t have the nerve to go through with it?

  “If you shoot her,” the minister went on, “then you’ve shot your bargaining counter. You can only shoot her once.”

  Tunijn didn’t know whether Solongo was really taking all this in. She still seemed to be in a daze, her eyes fixed on some point in the middle-distance. There was no sign that she realised that her life was being debated.

  The gunman himself looked baffled. He clearly hadn’t expected events to move in this direction. He shook his head. “So then you become my hostage,” he said.

  The minister nodded. “And you think I care whether you shoot me or not? And I’m sure he doesn’t.” He gestured towards Tunjin. “Pick up the gun,” he said again to Tunjin.

  There was a faint look of panic now in the gunman’s eyes. Somehow his authority was slipping away. He looked across at Tunjin and pressed the gun hard into Solongo’s neck. For the first time, she showed some reaction, grimacing slightly and trying to pull away. “If you pick it up, she dies.”

  Tunjin made no move. Perhaps the minister’s judgement was sound, but Tunjin didn’t feel inclined to take the risk. Not on Solongo’s behalf, at least.

  “If he doesn’t pick it up, I will,” the minister said, making a motion to rise from the sofa.

  “I’m telling you—”

  The minister turned, his eyes unblinking. “And I’ve told you. Go ahead and shoot, if you must.” He climbed slowly to his feet.

  By now, there was no doubt about the gunman’s panic. He looked wildly from the minister to Solongo, uncertain what to do next. At last, he jumped to his feet, pulling Solongo along with him, the gun now pressed to her temple. “I’m telling you,” he said, “if you make one more move, I’m pulling the trigger.”

  “So do it,” the minister said, moving calmly across to the table.

  The gunman stared at him, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. He looked down once at Solongo, hesitated for a second, and then finally, frantically, he squeezed his forefinger around the trigger and pulled.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Sarangeral pushed past the two men. “You saw what was on screen,” she said. “He was talking about some
kind of explosive device.”

  “But that was—well, wherever that was being transmitted from. And we don’t know if any of that was real.”

  She shook her head. “That was for real. Whether the bomb itself was real—well, who knows? But I wouldn’t want to take the risk, would you?”

  “So what are you saying?” the man said. “That he’s planted a bomb here as well?”

  “Well, if he told you that there was going to be something else here …”

  “This whole thing is crazy. I just want out of it.”

  “Then go,” Sarangeral said, dismissively. It was clear that she was going to get no support from them. It was equally clear, as she gazed down at Gundalai’s battered, forlorn body, that help wouldn’t be forthcoming from that direction either. The two men stood awkwardly for a moment, uncertain what to do. Finally, they looked at each other, and one of them stepped forward to pick up a tool-box from the desk. “Look,” he said, “if there was anything we could do—”

  “Just go,” she said. The man shrugged and pushed open the office door, his colleague following closely behind. In the doorway, the second man stopped, looking back. “Good luck,” he said. Then the door swung closed and they were gone.

  She stood silently, despair sweeping over her. If there really was some kind of explosive device in the stadium, how long did she have? It might be that any bomb would be timed to detonate at the height of the festival, when the stands would be thronged with spectators.

  But the two men had been told to make themselves scarce. If anything was going to happen, it would happen soon.

  She pulled out her cell phone. Nergui, she thought. Everything had been happening too quickly, and, since she’d left the messages earlier, it hadn’t occurred to her to try to contact him again. She had no idea why he’d been present on the large screen, but it might mean that he’d discovered something.

  She keyed in his number and waited anxiously, but the call cut straight to his voicemail. “Nergui,” she said. “It’s Sarangeral. I’m at the Naadam Stadium and I need to talk urgently. Call me back as soon as you can.”