Murder in Mongolia

by Fritz Galt

  “The mine is larger than Singapore,” Saran said.

  Another shot rang out.

  “Can you go any faster?”

  Their front shocks couldn’t absorb the larger bumps that sent them flying off their seat. But Saran seemed to have a dirt biker’s instinct for keeping her balance. And Jake kept a tight grip on her.

  They were heading westward, to the right of the giant yellow cloud of dust that billowed out of the pit.

  “Where are the gers?” he shouted.

  “Near the processing plant,” she said. “Between the open pit and the park border.”

  Clearly visible to the police now that they were silhouetted against the arc lights, the motorcycle was far more vulnerable. The bullets snapping overhead got closer, some ricocheting off the ground.

  “Will we make it to the gers?” he cried.

  For the first time, she didn’t respond. But from her taut arms and determined jaw, he knew that she would make every effort to reach safety.

  He strained to look for buildings in the darkness. There was one large structure the size of an airplane assembly plant. Light emanated from its numerous windows. Processing was in full swing despite the late hour. But he saw none of the gers that Saran had mentioned.

  Heavily loaded trucks were lined up at the bottom of a conveyor. The belt carried the excavated rock from the ground up to the highest point of the processing building. If they were lucky, they could squeeze the motorbike between two trucks and lose the police.

  “Aim for the trucks,” he directed, and momentarily took a hand off her hip to point at a spot near the conveyor.

  She made a slight adjustment, and Jake was glad she did. A moment later, a rock that had been in their path exploded from a bullet.

  Zigzagging to avoid incoming fire, Saran worked her way toward the line of trucks. As they approached, Jake became aware of the enormous size of the equipment. Each truck wheel was taller than several men. The cabs were reachable only by ladder. And the payload area looked large enough to swallow a house.

  Jake couldn’t see what was on the other side of the trucks. But that was fine. The enormous bulk of the trucks would shield them from view.

  He could taste dust on his tongue, and bits of it stuck in his teeth. For all he knew, chunks of stone were embedding in his nose and cheeks. But his face was frozen and he had lost all feeling.

  The trucks were lined up bumper to bumper. There was no room for a squad car to pass through, but there might be enough for Saran to make it if she timed it right.

  The vroom of their motorbike was drowned out by the earthshaking groan of huge boulders sliding off trucks and landing on the conveyor. The screeching sound of the conveyor filled the rest of all audible space.

  Mechanics looked like toy soldiers walking beside the trucks. Dressed in red coats with yellow hardhats, they had no face masks to protect them from inhaling the dust, the biproduct of their own labor. And despite the loud noise, they wore no hearing protection. These were the young men and women he had seen strolling casually on the streets of Ulaanbaatar, now in their workplace. They were pawns in the global game of mineral extraction.

  These were the employees of Kingston-Maes S.A. Uprooted from their nomadic life on the open steppe, they were governed by market forces a world away. They had become complicit in crimes against their own people. And they would die young and painful deaths.

  Saran was the very picture of grace under pressure as she leaned on the throttle. They careened closer to the line of trucks. The first truck lurched forward, leaving a narrow gap behind it. She chose to aim for that gap.

  Red and blue lights flashed against the yellow trucks, alerting the workers to the approaching police. They turned and Jake saw gaunt faces, lean builds, and half-bent forms. These were not healthy men and women.

  He tried to judge the width of the motorbike’s handlebars against the narrow gap that Saran was heading for. It was hard to tell from the oversized proportions of the trucks, but she seemed confident in her decision.

  Jake tucked his knees against the hot chrome exhaust pipes and slipped his arms to the small of her back. He didn’t want to lose an arm or leg, or even a set of knuckles. But it wasn’t time to question the young woman at the controls.

  The next truck in line growled to life just as they approached the road, and the driver didn’t see them coming.

  The truck was put into gear and lurched forward.

  Jake sucked in his breath and lowered his head.

  Saran’s feet crawled onto the gas tank where she perched like an elegant bird. Jake didn’t want to see the result of their daredevil move, but couldn’t take his eyes off the narrowing gap.

  The second truck continued to roll forward. The truck in front of it had come to a complete halt.

  The motorcycle’s wheels spun on the dusty road, and they almost lost balance.

  Saran had to gun the motor to keep on top of the bike.

  The second truck wasn’t stopping.

  Jake gritted his teeth and said his prayers.

  “Uukhai!” Saran yelped. It must have been a Mongol battle cry. And she launched unto the breach.

  Only at the last second did the gap widen. The truck in front spat out a cloud of blue exhaust and bucked forward a few inches.

  With Saran howling like a wolf in the wild, the motorcycle hit the opening at full speed.

  One handlebar scraped metal, leaving a trail of sparks.

  With a final burst of acceleration the roar of their engine bouncing off of both trucks, and on the final pulse of police lights, they shot through the hole and emerged on the other side.

  They escaped physically unscathed but, as far as Jake was concerned, emotionally scarred for life.

  They had momentarily eluded the police, but a retaining wall blocked their way.

  Jake looked up and down the line of trucks. There was nowhere to escape. They were trapped between a concrete wall and a wall of trucks.

  Apparently Saran had anticipated this, and abruptly squeezed the brakes while spinning the back wheel to one side.

  “Into the truck!” Jake cried.

  She seemed to instinctively grasp his plan. There was nowhere to run. The place would be swarming with police.

  They ditched the motorbike by laying it on its side. The motor choked and died. To stay hidden from police on the other side, they scrambled behind the nearest truck wheel.

  “Climb up,” Jake whispered harshly over the angry moan of spilling stone.

  They mounted the ladder on the side of the truck just as it jerked forward to take its place at the bottom of the conveyor.

  Jake stood upright on a dynamited chunk of rock the size of his sedan. If they were still on board as the truck unloaded, they would be crushed under tons of rock.

  As the truck turned around and backed up to the belt, Jake knew that they had to act fast.

  “Follow me,” he said, and scrambled to the back of the moving mountain of stone. Together they prepared to jump onto the conveyor belt.

  The belt was an uneven surface, and crumbling rock dribbled down from the previous load. But if they jumped quickly, they could avoid the rockfall that would surely flatten them from behind.

  Jake let go of the truck and jumped. He landed on all fours.

  Due to the tremendous burden of rolling rocks, the supports of the thirty-degree incline shuddered and the metal belt flapped about wildly.

  He was immediately tossed several inches in the air.

  Saran landed next to him and quickly lost her footing. She started leaning downhill and toward the rocks that fell from the unloading truck.

  Jake reached out and felt the coarse fabric of her deel. He lunged toward her and grabbed her by the coat as she slid through his fingers. He tightened his grip on what remained in his hand, a clasp at the end of a flap.

  But he held tight as she bent over at the waist. He had helped check her fall. Her hands on the conveyor belt, she struggled to keep from tu
mbling into the growing accumulation of rock.

  “Easy, Saran,” he said, and slowly pulled her upright. The conveyor belt carried them to safety, up and away from the truck.

  “Keep your head down,” he cried, and helped her duck out of sight. “Let’s find the largest rock and hide behind it.”

  The two climbed up the conveyor and worked their way between enormous loose boulders.

  After dodging smaller tumbling rocks the size of refrigerators, Jake felt they had reached a safe place, an air pocket between two of the most massive slabs on the conveyor. Only then did he dare to look back and see if they had successfully eluded the police.

  The two cop cars stood stopped by the line of trucks. Guns drawn, two pairs of policemen ran around looking under the trucks for their quarry.

  “Keep your head down,” he advised his brave Mongolian partner. “They don’t see us.”

  But she looked concerned. “Why did you take me here?”

  He frowned. Didn’t she understand the nature and gravity of their mission?

  “This will drop us into a huge machine,” she said.

  Oh, the conveyor belt.

  He hadn’t thought through the consequences of journeying up a jumble of rock straight into a processing plant. Nor did he want to.

  “What happens at the top of this conveyor?” he asked.

  “Everything falls into a big crusher.”

  He didn’t want to be pulverized and turned into copper wire or gold brick.

  He faced up the incline. It was a long trip from the pit to the top of the building, perhaps a mile-long ride. They had plenty of time to work out a solution.

  But with the ground dropping away at the rate of three feet per second, the option of jumping off had already been foreclosed. They would have to ride it to the top.

  “Any suggestions?” he asked.

  The brightness and shadow of the string of safety lights swept across the broad planes of her face. She was a pretty woman, her back straight, her eyes focused, and her attitude practical. He hoped she knew the inner workings of the copper mine well enough to avoid a dramatic fall to their death.

  “What should we do?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Jake took a moment to size up their situation. He and Saran were on what looked like a giant, illuminated ski jump. Only instead of skiing down it, they were riding up and into the jaws of a giant stone crusher. If they were to run back down the incline, they would land in the hands of the police.

  There was no option but up and out.

  In the brief illumination of each light, he saw occasional catwalks stretched over the conveyor belt. They were too high to reach, even if he extended himself to his full height. He might be able to snag one if he stood on the enormous slab of rock they crouched behind.

  And if he snagged a catwalk, with luck he could crawl over the conveyor to the outer edge. There he could lower himself onto a stanchion and climb down to the ground.

  They had already passed the halfway point to the crusher and he had to decide quickly. They would pass under the next catwalk in half a minute.

  “I’m going to try and touch the next overhead walkway,” he told Saran. “If we can reach it, we’ll try to catch the next one after that.”

  “How can you reach it?” she said.

  “Help me climb on top of this rock.”

  She gave him a boost, and the giant rock teetered precariously, about to roll back down the conveyor.

  As soon as Jake scrambled on top and secured his footing, Saran jumped away in case the rock began to roll.

  Standing up, Jake was suddenly hit by a blast of wind. Exposed on top of the rock, he struggled to keep his balance. The gust was so strong it threatened to knock him completely off the rock.

  He kneeled down and paused to reconsider his options.

  Wind or no wind, he had to stand upright and judge the height of the catwalks.

  The next catwalk was forty feet away, and already seemed too high to reach even from his elevated position.

  He got onto his feet and braced himself against the blast of wind. He fought the vibration of the conveyor belt as it rumbled over its rollers, and countered the rocking motion of the stone on which he stood. From a crouch to standing position, he timed his attempt to reach upward and grab the catwalk.

  Twenty feet away, it looked too high to reach. The act was foolhardy, and he was making himself visible to the police and miners below.

  From that vantage point, he could see that the conveyor eventually leveled out at the top before entering the building. That would give them more stability. But there were only two remaining catwalks before the conveyor belt jettisoned everything into the mine’s primary crusher.

  He was approaching the round, silvery pipes that made up the catwalk. If he could reach up and grab a pipe, he’d be able to work his way to the edge.

  But the silvery tube was just out of reach. From inches away, he stretched onto the tips of his toes. And he still was unable to touch it. If his arms were only six inches longer…

  Wobbling, he returned to a crouch. He and Saran would have to devise some means of reaching higher. He had no solution to the problem, but he was sure of one thing. The two remaining catwalks were their only hope of getting off the fast-moving express.

  “Saran,” he called down. “You have to join me up here.”

  He reached down to help pull her onto the boulder. For a moment, he wondered if she didn’t buy his solution. But from where he stood, they had no choice.

  “You can do it,” he called. “Take my hand.”

  And then he felt the rough scratch of her gloves against his. They locked hands.

  He found a handhold and pulled her upward.

  His biceps bulged and his abdomen tightened as he contorted his torso to provide more power.

  Slowly she rose, and soon she was able to grab the top of the rock.

  But he felt an odd swinging motion in her arms. He tried to counteract it, but couldn’t. She seemed to be deliberately swinging her feet. Then he saw why. She caught one of her boot heels on the edge near the top of the rock. She was a natural acrobat.

  It took little strength, but more balance than he thought possible to haul her the remaining distance onto the small surface of the rock.

  They passed under another catwalk as he gave her a final tug to safety. The shadow of that catwalk passed over them, and Saran looked upward to judge its height. The look on her face was not encouraging.

  The rock on which they knelt was on the verge of tipping over and sending them back down the steep incline.

  “Any ideas?” Jake asked.

  She was already removing the rope from her waist.

  “Take yours off,” she said, and gestured at the rope that cinched his waist.

  He untied it and gave it to her.

  She worked on a square knot to fasten the two ropes together.

  “This isn’t long enough,” she said, as she held up the ten-foot-long rope.

  The two stared at each other, frost escaping their lips, their eyes watery from the cold.

  “Take off your hat,” she said.

  “What? It’s windy up here.”

  She reached over, removed it from him, and handed it back. Then she unwound the bandage around his head. It was stained with blood, but dry. And it added another three feet to her rope.

  With an unwelcome jolt, the rock beneath them heaved forward as the conveyor belt leveled off. It sent them sprawling.

  “Easy.” Jake reached out for Saran, whose hands were busy with the rope.

  He grabbed her by the deel and pulled her back onto the rock. It was less wobbly now, but pitched at a severe angle.

  Her dark eyes gave him a flash of triumph as she held up the rope. She had managed to fasten the bandage to the end despite her nearly falling off the rock.

  Jake admired her handiwork, but it still wasn’t clear how they could use it. If they snagge
d one of the catwalks, how would that prevent them from being pitched into the crusher?

  “Put your hat on,” she said.

  He complied.

  “And tie this under your arms.”

  He took the bandage-end of the rope and slipped it under his armpits. Saran did the rest of the work, tying it fast in front of him so that he was firmly within the loop.

  That left ten feet of rope. He was beginning to see her plan. He could throw the end of the rope the final six inches over the catwalk. He would then grab it on the other side and thereby hold himself suspended from the catwalk.

  “How about you?” he asked.

  She shook her head not to worry.

  “Throw this end over,” she said, “and catch it.”

  There was no time for discussion. While she tied a thick knot at the loose end of the rope, he tested to see whether the knot she had tied around his chest would hold.

  The Mongolians sure knew their knots. It was a bowline knot, designed to hold under pressure.

  Now that the conveyor was moving them level with the ground, they were at the highest point on their trip. The ground was hundreds of feet below, and they were about to enter the opening of the building. The last catwalk was inside the building, just beyond the end of the conveyor.

  He would have to toss the rope forward to get it over the catwalk just as the conveyor ended. Below waited the crusher.

  He could already hear the machine at work, continuously consuming and pulverizing enormous boulders. The noise of breaking rock soon overwhelmed the screech of the metal rollers beneath him. And the yellow dome of the building replaced the dark night sky.

  “It’s coming,” Saran said. “Hold tight. I’ll hold onto you.”

  Jake rose to his full height on the angled pitch of the rock. The catwalk they were approaching was no higher or lower than the others that they had passed before. At least the engineering was consistent.

  The trouble with this one was that it was far out over space. They would end up dangling directly over the huge, hungry hopper.

  He took the loose end of the rope and slowly spun it in circles. He would have one chance to lasso the catwalk. And he would have mere seconds to grab it on the other side and hang on.