Murder in Mongolia

by Fritz Galt

  He wandered down camper’s heaven for a few minutes before he remembered where he was flying that night. Then he headed straight for the ultralight down jackets.

  A parka that cinched up under his rear might not have won him admiring glances on ski slopes, but it might save his tush in the bush. He also opted for a pair of fur-lined gloves and a mad bomber cap that tied under his chin. Again not the height of fashion, but the cap might make the difference between maintaining his current profile and a life with frostbitten ears. He fondled more long johns than a man ought to, but wasn’t satisfied until he found the warmest pair in the store.

  Finally he forked over his ever-shrinking credit card to the clerk, had a pleasant conversation about the benefits of a customer loyalty card, which he didn’t apply for, and walked out of the mall with a thousand dollar crater in his bank account.

  The trouble began when Jake was returning home for his final packing, checking on the cat, and grabbing his passport.

  He never got as far as his house.

  On the steep climb up Manor Place, he found himself in a row of cars trying to back up and turn around. It took a moment for him to understand the cause. Up ahead, the gothic standalone manor with surrounding gardens was bathed in an eerie glow. Late afternoon trick-or-treaters had stopped by to see the ghoulish display of zombies, biohazard zones, lynched corpses, and robed skeletons. Police had blocked off the one-way street, which was Jake’s only route home from that direction.

  He was just putting his Korean muscle car in reverse when there was a knock on the passenger-side window. A witch who was leading a little girl dressed up as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or maybe it was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wanted to talk to him.

  He rolled down the window.

  The witch looked back and forth nervously in the swarm of families and the knot of traffic.

  “You are followed,” she said with a slight Slavic accent. “You must watch out.”

  It was a great Halloween gag, and he played along.

  “Should I put on a disguise?”

  At that, she reached into a bag and pulled out a long gray robe. “Here. Wear this.”

  He was amazed by the community spirit. “Wow. Thanks!”

  “And take these.” She pulled out two sheets of paper and handed them to him through the window. “They are tickets.”

  He had no idea there would be a show.

  “No,” he politely refused. “I’m leaving town tonight.”

  “They’re airline tickets,” she said, now jittery and apparently anxious to get her child out of danger.

  Jake didn’t understand the prank, but took the tickets and robe and threw them into his L.L. Bean shopping bag. What did airline tickets have to do with Halloween?

  “You mean to fly away on your broomstick?”

  But the woman and child had already turned away, leaving him staring at the robe and tickets.

  Cars were honking at him, still waiting for him to put it in reverse and back out.

  A gang of masked college students skipped by and pounded on his hood.

  “Hey, don’t ruin the paint job!” he shouted.

  Another group of fiends, apparently escapees from a zombie prison, ran past.

  Jake detected concern on their faces, if not outright alarm. What could possibly scare a zombie?

  Then he saw it.

  The crowd was chased by two men in gorilla suits. The men grunted through their masks and beat the ground with pairs of sticks that were chained together at one end. Jake recognized the weapons at once as nunchucks used in martial arts.

  Now those could be dangerous. It seemed like some people were taking the Halloween spirit too far.

  A little boy fell at the back of the stampede, and one of the gorillas trampled over him, a hairy foot landing squarely on the little buccaneer’s back.

  “Hey! Watch it,” Jake screamed.

  Bag in hand, he abandoned his car in the middle of the street to help the kid.

  Then he saw the two ape men spin around and turn on him, whirling the chainsticks high overhead.

  He crouched low to confront the beastly duo. It looked like a Marvel Comics movie, but had the feel of Friday the Thirteenth.

  As he grasped for metaphors, both men ran at him with flailing sticks.

  Now Jake was no master of martial arts, but he had a healthy respect for the weapons. They were so dangerous they were illegal in many states. There was no way he could defend himself, even with his L.L. Bean bag, unless the sticks were rubber and it was all a hoax.

  But judging from the spilled treats, smashed jack-o’-lanterns, and screaming neighbors, they appeared to be real weapons. Terrorists, it seemed, had seized on an American holiday to wreak havoc on as many people as possible.

  It felt unfair to draw his gun, but he did.

  “Stop. FBI!” he shouted from his crouched position, gun aimed at the chest of the nearest ape.

  “Boo sh—” or something like that came out of one mask.

  “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

  The gorillas didn’t stop.

  Call him a wimp, but rather than shoot, with all the headlines that excessive use of force was grabbing, he holstered his gun, snatched up his bag, and ran.

  On the fly, he pulled out his phone and dialed 911.

  Soon he caught up with the crowd that was pounding down a side street toward a back alley.

  “We have two men in gorilla suits beating up children on the corner of Observatory Place and W Street Northwest,” he told the call-taker, then hung up.

  He came to the alley and was faced with a decision between taking the alley or going into the park. He had lived in Glover Park long enough to know the street system. Behind each set of rowhouses was an alley where there were garages, trash cans, small patios, and entrances to lower floors.

  But this alley was different. There were houses on only one side. On the other was the back of Glover Archbold Park, a hilly forest with a stream that ran down to the Potomac.

  In the panicked stampede, he tried to remain calm. Rather than become isolated by running into the woods, he decided to join the pack and run down the alley. That decision bought him time to contemplate his situation.

  Why had the woman dressed as a witch given him a means of escape, not only a costume to hide from the gorillas but also airline tickets?

  He considered her Slavic accent. Was she Russian?

  He knew of the many Russians who lived in the shadow of the Russian embassy. They were a tight-knit and oft-shunned community in a city that had recently turned against their Motherland. He was inclined to treat the foreigners fairly, in the full knowledge that they might well be plants. In fact, the entire apartment building next to the Russian Embassy was filled with FBI monitoring equipment.

  What they had learned in recent years was jaw-dropping. Russia’s attempts to alter the American mind through poisoning social media and attacking elections were chilling.

  So he wasn’t inclined to accept material assistance from a Russian, but in this case he had to reconsider. Running with the crowd, he fished the airline tickets out of the bag. They were in his name, fully paid, and meant for a direct flight to Moscow with an onward connection to Ulaanbaatar.

  How in the world did that woman know who he was? Unless…

  Unless they had been tracking him the whole week. They knew he was on the case. They knew where he lived. They knew his car.

  And they even knew that he was in trouble.

  At full sprint, he yanked the gray, hooded robe out of his oversized trick-or-treat bag and pulled it over his head.

  He had overtaken the fleeing crowd and was now in their midst, trampling on spilled candy while kids hung onto their pumpkin containers, pillow cases, and treat bags as best they could. Behind him, children were screaming as they fell under the brutal blows of the nunchucks.

  Was he a coward to run? Might he be the cause of all this? Maybe the terrorists were only after him. Had his nightmare become everyon
e’s nightmare? And who were those gorillas?

  He couldn’t make out what they were saying. Their voices were muffled by the thick rubber masks, but it didn’t even sound like English.

  He was reaching the end of the alley and would soon be forced to make another choice: he could turn into the woods or head for the neighborhood. Half the crowd peeled off into the half-barren branches and fluttering leaves of the park, and the rest tried to scatter into the next intersection, where one street led to his house.

  Heck, if those gorillas knew his entire travel plan, they’d surely have his house under surveillance. He certainly couldn’t go there now.

  How was he going to get his passport and fly out of the country?

  It was a snap decision that he knew he might come to regret, but he veered down the ravine into the woods and away from home.

  Others ran alongside him. A father with a child on his back lost his footing and rolled down the hill. A bucket of candy cartwheeled past. The screams had turned into determined huffing and the sound of multiple feet crushing leaves underfoot.

  Hood up and face averted, he ran straight downhill.

  It wasn’t clear if he was still being pursued. But if he was, he needed to maintain his pace and work his way through the park to a busy thoroughfare where he could hitch a ride to Dulles.

  He reached out and swung around the trunk of a large tree. He dodged branches in his way. He sought safe spots for his street shoes to land, watching out for loose rocks and fallen logs. It took him back to his FBI Academy days when there were evening fitness runs through the woods.

  Then he heard grunting and an occasional rubbery shriek. The hairy apes had followed him into the woods.

  Running at a steady pace, the swearing parents and panicked children managed to stay just ahead of their attackers.

  Maybe their masks interfered with their vision, because the frightening foreign sounds seemed to fall further behind.

  Jake’s group reached the bottom of the ravine where the stream ran through the park. A footpath followed the water in both directions, giving the group a moment to consider their options. Then as if by instinct, they turned as a pack and ran in one direction. Jake wasn’t sure if it was a safer route, but the herd mentality was certainly at play.

  Once again, his training overrode his instincts. He separated from the group and headed downstream. Now he was alone, a galloping goblin with a flat, clear path ahead. That allowed him to pick up speed but also made him more visible.

  And indeed when the gorillas finally appeared on the path behind him, they spotted him running alone. Shouting to each other, they took off after him.

  That confirmed it. Their true intention was to attack him rather than terrorize trick-or-treaters.

  Since his behavior had made him stand out, his disguise no longer mattered. In fact, the loose fabric twisted around his legs and slowed him down.

  He wanted to toss it away but had no time to take it off.

  Running hard, he tried to review his options. Depending on their footspeed, the gorillas might catch up with him on a straightaway. The path had turned into an exposed culvert, and he was running on the pipe that drained storm water into the Potomac. But first it would hit Georgetown Hospital and the university campus. If he followed that path, he would reach Reservoir Road, one of the few and therefore well-travelled roads to cut across Glover Archbold Park. After a footrace to Reservoir Road, what would his options be? He would still be exposed.

  He needed the cover of woods to make his escape. And with that in mind, he leaped off the huge pipe and landed on the bank of the stream. He hit the mud with a loud slap. Churning through knee-deep water, he scrambled over submerged pebbles and rounded boulders until he finally made it across, his bag dry but his pants soaked. He clutched the bag under one arm, grabbed a vine and hauled himself onto the opposite bank. Then he looked back.

  The gorillas had separated, and one was crossing upstream to cut down his angle.

  Jake was on the verge of once again reaching for his firearm. But once again, the image of police brutality and the distorted, dreamlike atmosphere of Halloween forced him to reconsider.

  How good were his climbing skills? He was in reasonable shape. But his lungs were burning, he had that damned bag to cling to, and he had to blink repeatedly to clear his head. If those two ape men were fit, he might never make it out of the woods.

  No amount of cunning or trickery on his part could help him escape his fate. In the wild, he had no special status, and his skill set was basically useless. It was him alone, with two hunters closing in.

  He must run faster.

  He threaded a path through thin tree trunks that couldn’t possibly hide him from view. He put his head down and clambered up the steep slope with renewed vigor.

  And even with that, the monkey man angling toward him from upstream would tackle him before he reached street level.

  Suddenly there was a stunning blow to the back of his head.

  The nunchuck had landed.

  Jake staggered forward and landed on all fours.

  As he dropped to the ground, he reflexively kicked back at the attacker. Both feet landed a body blow. He felt taut muscle under the fur costume.

  These men were killers.

  He could expect a second, fatal blow to land at any moment.

  But the strike never came.

  His backward kick had turned the tables.

  Chainsticks rattling ineffectually overhead, the ape man lost balance on the slope and began to lean back. There were no branches to catch him, and there was no time to protect himself. The back of the man’s head landed hard on the bedrock with a resounding thud. It was such a deadening sound that Jake wasn’t sure if it was the skull or the rock that had made the noise.

  The effect was immediate. The figure fell limp. And the mask, having caught on a twig, was ripped off the man.

  He was Asian, possibly Chinese. And he was no longer alive.

  Jake spent no time contemplating the implications. He simply had to leave the scene.

  With the single-minded goal of climbing out the last hundred feet and flagging down a ride to the airport, he gathered up his shopping bag and resumed his upward climb.

  He had lost track of the other gorilla, yet knew there was nothing to do but run.

  He reached the top of the wooded slope and felt a brief sense of victory. But that was fleeting. As he stood there he was more exposed than ever.

  He faced a row of mansions so new and modern, they looked like full-scale models. Pumpkin faces glowed, kids rang doorbells, and amused adults doled out candy. Jake was the goblin with the shopping bag pounding down the street.

  People barely noticed.

  The gorilla growled as it jumped out of the woods a block down. As Jake turned a corner, the gorilla was still looking around.

  Jake was amazed by how expensive and new the houses were. Trees were mere saplings and yards were flat squares of turf. He never expected to see such a suburban-looking development in the otherwise urban district. It almost seemed like a Potemkin village.

  There had to be some outlet to Foxhall Road and more familiar territory.

  Ahead he heard the wail of a siren. Police were finally responding to his call. He had to converge on the squad car and intercept it.

  If he couldn’t get out of his own neighborhood, how could he ever cross continents and find Amber?

  He put his head down and poured it on. But footsteps padded toward him on another street. He was on a collision course with the gorilla.

  With his forward momentum, Jake couldn’t avoid the man. So he lowered a shoulder into a football tackle.

  The two met at a fire hydrant. A startled woman stood back with her poodle.

  It was a concussive crash of ape and ghoul, and both went sprawling across the asphalt. Jake managed to cling onto his bag and the gorilla held tight to his sticks.

  Just then two cowboys stepped around the corner, pistols drawn and th
rust aggressively forward. The gorilla saw them and tried to crawl away.

  “Boo sh—” the gorilla said.

  That was either rude English or, as Jake suspected, Chinese.

  Frowning with determination, the cowboys advanced on the fallen creature, cocking their guns as one.

  The gorilla picked himself slowly off the street and held up both hands.

  Jake had no time to see what happened next. He threw his hood back and hoofed it to the busy street. He just barely missed the squad car as it zoomed past.

  He was luckier with the next car, which had pulled to the curb to let the cop car pass.

  He approached the light gray hatchback before it could leave. He held up his wallet and let the shiny FBI badge reflect in the car’s headlights.

  Then he circled the car and opened the driver’s door. He made eye contact with the driver, a high school aged girl.

  “Official business,” he said, panting. “I need your vehicle.”

  “I never learned this in Driver’s Ed,” she said as she scooted out.

  He wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “You’ll get your vehicle back, ma’am.”

  “OMG, you’re all sweaty and wet,” she said. “Have you been running?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Am I in any danger?”

  He glanced down the street from which he had come. It was now empty.

  “You’re safe for now,” he said, and jumped behind the wheel.

  He set his jaw as he took off for Dulles International Airport.

  Jake drove his commandeered hatchback up to the long, well lit glass wall that was Dulles International Airport. He started checking signs for airline names.

  The question was, where to go?

  He had two options. Two tickets in hand. He had booked the United flight to Tokyo, due to take off in two hours. And the witch of Glover Park had handed him tickets for an Aeroflot flight to Moscow due to leave in thirty minutes.

  The Russians had gone out of their way to help him. Wouldn’t he just be playing into their hands?