Murder in Mongolia

by Fritz Galt

  Lingering in the back of his mind was the question of Russia and China. What did the Russians have to gain from berating the Chinese and accusing them of Bill Frost’s death? Why did the Chinese take such offense? What was it all really about?

  He needed to revisit the political forces and strategies at work in the world.

  Finally he came across political stories. Germany was struggling with fascists. The UK was breaking away from Europe. And France’s right-wing party was running to Moscow for more money. Somehow Russia managed to have a hand in everything political. From the editorials he read at home and security briefings he received at work, Jake knew that Russia was failing economically. Yet they continued to play an outsized role on the world stage. With his natural disdain for totalitarian regimes, he didn’t want to acknowledge the legitimacy of Russia’s government. And with Russia reveling in its Bond-level villain status, Jake was tempted to ignore their antics altogether. But with all their political attacks and influence campaigns around the world, it was growing harder for countries to ignore them. Why did China suddenly stand up to their bluster? Did they feel under attack?

  He had taken a course in Russian history in college and come to appreciate the enormous difficulty of taming both the people and the land. From rival princes to czars to socialism to strongman leaders to democracy to oligarchy, nothing seemed to work, or last. Somehow they couldn’t get it right.

  And what was Russia pushing now? Fascinating that they were taking it out on China, with the battleground being Mongolia. He had never read a news story about Mongolia in any context, and now it was everywhere. Was it just a fluke of his imagination? It reminded him of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon where someone read an obscure name or term for the first time and suddenly saw it everywhere.

  Or was the war of words over Mongolia so grave that it deserved the attention of the highest levels of government? Was the Russia-China spat going to lead to war? It felt both awesome and frightening to watch history hang in the balance.

  The relationship between Russia and the former Soviet Union’s satellite, occupied, and Warsaw Pact countries had always been in flux. He remembered his old professor saying how difficult it was to be a neighbor of Russia. He had paraphrased George Kennan, saying, “To be a neighbor of Russia is to be either a vassal or an enemy.”

  The same doubtless held true for Mongolia.

  And what was the hot topic these days? The reported death of an American TV star. The Kremlin accusing China of assassination and ordering them out of Mongolia.

  Was this an excuse for another land grab, or was something else at stake? Jake was just about to chalk it up to a fabrication, a manufactured pretext for Russia to intervene in a neighboring state, when breaking news suddenly flashed across the screen.

  “FBI Spokesman Confirms Body that of Bill Frost. Funeral Tomorrow.”

  Jake knew better. On his orders, the FBI Laboratory had checked the DNA of the dead man, and the answer came back negative. It was irrefutable. It was not Bill Frost. The dead man’s DNA did not match the DNA of Bill Frost’s relatives nor did it match the DNA found at Frost’s house in Hurricane. Furthermore the dead man’s DNA indicated he was ethnically different from Bill Frost.

  Why was the FBI pushing the falsehood that the dead man was Bill Frost?

  “Good afternoon, passengers. Thank you for your patience. Our flight to our nation’s capital will now begin pre-boarding.”

  Jake looked around at the business people, foreign tourists, retirees, and young families that got to their feet, grabbed their stuff, milled around, and formed into lines. It was the normal hodge-podge that made up everyday America. Did they have any idea what their leaders were doing?

  It was dark when Jake landed in DC. And windy when he waited in line for a cab. And empty when he entered his house and Amber wasn’t there. Even his cat waited in the shadows as if she didn’t know him.

  There was a note.

  Amber had written something on lavender-scented stationery and left it on his kitchen counter.

  “Away on business. Make sure you feed your cat!”

  She was trying to keep her work independent of his. She could have pumped him for information about Bill Frost, but she knew it could cost him his job. So she had been ever so careful not to put in writing where she was going or why.

  But she had let it slip in her last text message before going onto the airplane. Was it a hint? Did she have a tinge of fear? She was going to Mongolia.

  Her obliviousness to the danger once again propelled him into a state of high anxiety. She was walking into a poorly understood situation that had clearly turned deadly.

  There was still a whiff of her burnt brownies in the air. Boy had he blown it with her. Their argument had prevented him from actively sharing his near-death experience. Had he done so, it might have caused her to reconsider her trip to Mongolia or, at the very least, take more precautions and be on guard.

  He felt guilty and terrified for her. But he was also determined. He was a federal investigator, and he would get to the bottom of what was increasingly beginning to look like a conspiracy.

  He had a funeral to attend, warm clothes to buy, and a passport to pack before he defied his boss, ditched the Bureau, and flew off after Amber to the Arctic Circle.

  But first, he had to feed his cat.

  “Here, pussy, pussy.”

  She didn’t come.

  Why did he even own a cat?

  While turning off the kitchen light, he caught a reflection off a curved metal object in the corner. He flicked the light back on.

  Amber had purchased some sort of feeding and watering contraption for the cat. It was stocked to last for weeks.

  He was touched. She knew he would come after her.

  Chapter 7

  Saturday

  Halloween

  Founded in 1779, Oakwood Cemetery occupied an elevated perch on the corner of Falls Church City in Northern Virginia. Atop the cemetery’s highest corner sat a cylindrical tower that supplied water to the neighboring commercial district. The concrete basin with rusted rivets looked more like a sniper’s nest built during the Civil War that had once raged among those hills.

  Despite that eyesore and the annoying intercom at a nearby car dealer, the cemetery was a pleasant refuge from the surrounding snarl of streets and strip malls. In fact the family plots, stern stone crosses, and iron-limbed trees made a pastoral final resting place for the noble families of the once-small town.

  Now there was a new grave, freshly dug for the deceased television personality Bill Frost. His fame had drawn a large crowd, and Jake had trouble finding a parking spot. Eventually, he nosed his Korean dream machine up to the curb on a nearby leaf-covered street.

  He approached the bleak hillside boneyard thinking it made the perfect destination for that day.

  After all, it was Halloween.

  He wasn’t there to bid farewell to Bill Frost, for he well knew that Bill Frost wasn’t in that coffin. Instead, he had come to identify and observe all who attended the funeral.

  There was a production crew from National Geographic, as well as the local NBC affiliate. A man wearing a clergyman’s collar was droning on mournfully over a rectangular hole in the ground. Two gravediggers huddled out of the wind near a shed, a backhoe at the ready to complete the interment.

  There were mostly young people in attendance, all standing close to the gravesite. He saw Mary Talbot, with her blue-dyed hair and holding a handkerchief to her nose. Several feet from her stood Hank Frost, the only family member available to bid farewell. And nearby was Joyce Fleming, Jake’s youthful friend from the FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance, faithfully fulfilling her “emotional support” duties. But she instinctively kept her distance from Hank Frost.

  With cameras rolling and the Halloween setting, Jake couldn’t help but think that this was just an elaborate Hollywood set, all for show. Especially considering that the dearly hadn’t departed.

  Jak
e remained on the fringes and couldn’t make out the pastor’s words, but that made no difference. They were just words in the wind.

  Then he was surprised to see one more familiar face. Standing outside the pack and observing from a distance was a light-haired woman in a long overcoat and high heels. It was his boss, Whitney Baker.

  After the recited prayer, the parting words, the lowered remains, the throwing of dirt, and the final sniffles of grief, the crowd dispersed in clusters down the various streets of the cemetery.

  Jake strolled up to the National Geographic production crew that was breaking down their equipment. He was interested to see their faces wet with tears.

  “Did you know him personally?” he asked the videographer.

  The young man wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve and emitted an uninhibited sniffle. “We were his crew,” he said.

  So it was Bill Frost’s very production crew.

  “You traveled the world with him?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Did you ever get to Mongolia?”

  “We were scheduled to go out there in a couple of weeks. Bill was working on our next show.”

  “What was the topic going to be?”

  “He didn’t say. He never said. He did his own research, wrote his own scripts. We were just there to document it.”

  The memories seemed to overwhelm the man and Jake moved on to a young woman with a clipboard and an extensive list of notes.

  “What are you keeping track of?” he asked her.

  She waved the clipboard at him. “List of shots. Sequence of events.”

  “Are you the script girl?” he asked.

  She looked highly offended. “Continuity supervisor, please,” she said.

  “Did you know Bill personally?”

  Her confrontational attitude changed when he saw her chin tremble. Words weren’t coming out.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “Did Bill tell you what he was working on in Mongolia?”

  The continuity supervisor seemed too overcome with emotion to answer, and the electrician stepped over to speak for her. “Man, we were still editing his last show.”

  “What was that about?”

  “Don’t you watch National Geographic?” he asked.

  Jake was sorry to admit that he didn’t.

  “We just shot the plastic in the Pacific, the turtles dying in the Pitcairn Islands, the…”

  Jake got the picture. He spoke quickly, because Whitney Baker had noticed him and was heading his way, careful not to trip on the brown grass.

  “Did Bill keep a file folder with him when he traveled? All his notes for the show?”

  “Always,” the electrician said. “That’s where he kept the goods.”

  “What goods exactly?”

  “Man, he had the goods on everybody. You should really see his shows. It was like 60 Minutes meets Vladimir Putin.”

  Maybe Jake should watch cable.

  “Did you have a script for Mongolia?”

  At that point, the girl with the clipboard had regained her composure. “There was no script. There never was. It was all up—” she pointed to her head, but couldn’t complete her sentence as she burst into tears.

  “One last thing,” he said. “What kind of phone did he use?”

  “State of the art satellite phone,” the electrician said proudly. “We needed to reach him anywhere in the world.” Then he gave a hopeless shrug as if reality had finally set in. “I guess that’s all over now.”

  Jake wanted to tell the production team that their idol might not be dead, and that they had just filmed the funeral of a John Doe, likely a Mongolian. But he had more questions and Whitney Baker was rapidly approaching.

  “Did he leave any messages?”

  At that point the girl looked suspicious. “Why do you want to know?”

  Jake lowered his head and whispered, “FBI investigation.”

  When his boss finally reached him, anger registered on her heart-shaped face.

  “Jake!” She yanked him aside and out of earshot of the camera crew. “You don’t talk to those people.”

  “Those people are Bill Frost’s production crew.”

  “That’s exactly why you should not be talking to them. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Why are you here?” he asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  “I had a sneaking suspicion that you might appear.”

  She scanned the cemetery with a satisfied look.

  “I guess this is ‘case closed,’” she said.

  Of course a funeral resolved none of the outstanding questions. Especially when the wrong man was buried. But as far as she and the Bureau and the next of kin were concerned, there was no need for further investigation.

  “I want to thank you for all your hard work.”

  Jake hated the rush job and the pretty bow on the investigation, and he told his boss as much. “You know as well as I do that this whole funeral is a sham.”

  “Jake, you will no longer interfere.”

  “I wasn’t interfering,” he said. “I was investigating.”

  “That’s right. Was. It’s over now. It will be on Nightly News, and the whole thing will blow over.”

  “Except that Bill Frost is still alive, and someone tried to kill me to prevent me from learning the truth.”

  She looked at him sharply, her eyes telling him that she meant business, that she didn’t just waste a Saturday morning for nothing. She wanted to make sure that the case was buried as well.

  “Take a few days off, Jake. Unwind.”

  “This is how I spend my spare time.”

  “Why not a real vacation? Care for a trip to the tropics with me?”

  She said it half-jokingly, but from her steely gaze, he could easily imagine she meant it.

  “I was thinking of a winter getaway,” he allowed.

  “You aren’t going to Mongolia,” she said.

  “Why not? Are you worried about escalating tensions between Russia and China?”

  “Just don’t.”

  More than her affection and admiration was at stake. Leaving for the steppe would be grounds for termination.

  “Ma’am, you are well aware that Bill Frost is not in that grave.”

  “I’m warning you, Jake.”

  With her invitation to a tropical vacation lingering in the air along with putting him on notice, he got a disturbing sensation. She held a peculiar attraction for him.

  “Is this about Amber?”

  She stared at him. “Just don’t go.”

  “I can’t guarantee anything,” he said at last.

  Defying her made that sensation all the more dangerous.

  He watched her march off, a solitary figure among the leaves. Eventually, her slightly wild hair disappeared among the gravestones.

  Would FBI Director Werner Hoffkeit approve of his dropping the case? Hadn’t he told Jake to kick down doors and break rules to get to the truth?

  Say Jake wasn’t going to Ulaanbaatar for work. After all, Amber was heading there, too. Say it was just for pleasure.

  Which got him thinking about his AWOL roomie. Would he ever find her in the vast expanse of the largest land-locked country in the world?

  If he was going to Mongolia to rescue her, he needed a way to track her down. At least he still had his official position, along with its perks.

  He returned to his ready roadster. Sitting in the driver’s seat, door closed to the wind, he placed a call.

  “Get me Emily Yun at the National Security Agency,” he told the FBI’s operator.

  He hoped Emily would be at the office that Saturday. Through prior experience, he had learned her work schedule included weekends as often as not. It seemed the business of eavesdropping around the globe never stopped.

  It didn’t take long for the call to get through to Emily at the NSA.

  “Emily.”

  “Is that you, Jake?”

  �
�You knew it was me before I called,” he joked, referring to the Big Brother aspect of the NSA.

  “Just call it a professional hazard. Now, who is it this time?”

  He launched into his request to tap the mobile phone of one “Amber Jones,” and recited her number by heart.

  “That’s a DMV area code,” she said, referring to the DC-Maryland-Virginia region.

  “True, but she’s overseas.”

  Which told Emily Yun she wouldn’t need FISA approval to proceed. Having worked with Jake many times before, she could take him at his word.

  “We’ll track Amber’s cell phone for you,” she said, “and alert you to her whereabouts as soon as she turns it on.”

  “It will likely be Mongolia,” Jake warned.

  “Madagascar, Mozambique. We’ll find her.”

  “I’ll be on this phone.”

  “Got it already. It’s automatic. You’ll get a text notification of her location once we pick up a signal.”

  “Thank you, Emily.”

  “You’re welcome, Jake.”

  He hung up. His was the only car left near the cemetery, as if the steady wind had blown all mourners away. Curious, he focused on the gravesite where the workers were backing up the hoe.

  Who was that poor fellow getting buried so far from home?

  Now that Jake was in Virginia, he was near one of the largest malls in America. And he had some shopping to do.

  He started up his car and slowly eased onto Leesburg Pike, heading west.

  The L.L. Bean store had gear for any outdoor enthusiast. It was brightly lit with rows of kayaks, parkas, and camping equipment. It instantly brought back memories and emotions of his youth in the Boy Scouts. The Scouts had been his mother’s solution to his growing up without a father. And it had been a pretty good substitute, although he never got to show off a dad as scoutmaster or spend a fun weekend in the woods with anyone remotely related to him.

  His father’s remains had never been returned from Vietnam, and as such, he was still “Missing in Action.” Throughout his youth, Jake had clung to the hope that his father would return one day, but over time the uncertainty had grown into acceptance of the fact that a father he had been too small to remember would never come back, in any form.