The Shadow Walker (27 page)

Nergui was feeling cold now. The day was drawing late, and the sun would be setting outside. It would be an icy night, but the cold that flowed through Nergui's body was internal, the chill of fear. “What sort of revenge?”

“Initially, he went crazy. He went to the mining operations down here—” Cholon gestured through the walls of the tent in the direction of the valley floor. “He was convinced—rightly, I'm sure—that it was the company behind what had happened. He stormed into their camp, found the office of the site manager, and attacked him. With his bare hands, but he did a lot of damage before they dragged him off. He had a knife in his pocket, though he had not used it.”

“Was he arrested?”

“No. The man was battered and bruised but not seriously injured. I imagine that they did not want the police probing around too much into Badzar's accusations. He was thrown off
the site, that was all. But they probably imagined they could get their revenge in some other way.”

“And did they?”

“Badzar was too smart. He left here, kept moving. I didn't know where he was, though I heard stories of him joining other camps, other groups of nomads in the area. He had a motorbike and some money we had gotten for the gold.” He paused, as if hoping that Nergui would interrupt. “And there were other attacks. Workers—managers, mainly—from the mining companies. There were several cases—attacks at night. Some were injured, in one case very seriously. One was killed.”

“You think this was your brother?”

Cholon nodded. “I cannot be sure. The company blamed us, and we had to suffer more assaults from them. But, as far as I know, none of the attacks was reported to the police.”

“Not even the killing?” Doripalam said.

“Not even the killing.”

“So where is your brother now?” Nergui said. He was watching Cholon intently now, his eyes unblinking.

“Again, I do not know for sure. But I think he is in the city.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I saw him last about a month ago. He turned up here one day, on his motorbike. He looked… wild-eyed, disturbed. The way he talked was different. He talked slowly, as if he was drugged, and he talked about destiny and the need for action. He told me he was going away, and that I should not expect him to return.”

“He mentioned the city?”

“Not specifically. But he borrowed some more money. He was not staying in this area. I do not know where else he would go.”

“And you think he is responsible for the killings?” Every word was like a pebble being dropped into an icy pond.

“I do not know,” Cholon said. “Genuinely, I do not. I don't want to believe that he could be capable of that.”

“But you can believe that he was responsible for the attacks out here?”

“He is a disturbed man. I saw the look in his eyes. I heard the way he was talking. I do not know what he is capable of.” Cholon stopped, as though he had finally run out of words. The silence stretched on. Finally he said: “But yes, in my heart, I think it is possible. It is possible.”

By the time they emerged from the
ger,
the sun had already set. The sky was a deep mauve and darkening quickly. Glaring spotlights illuminated the waste of the valley floor, and the bulldozers were still slowly patrolling the landscape, tearing up earth and grass. Even at night, the noise was extraordinary, a ceaseless roaring echoing back from the surrounding hills.

“You will need to come back with us,” Nergui said. “You will do that.” It was not a question.

Cholon nodded. “If you think it will do any good.”

“I do not know. We do not know that your suspicion is correct. But we have nothing else to go on. No other ideas. And time is growing short.” He had not mentioned Drew to Cholon, and he felt again the rising fear that he had been trying to suppress throughout the day. “At the least, if your brother is in the city, we need to find him. And you may be able to help us in that.”

“Perhaps. There are people I can speak to, who might have seen him, might have some idea where he is.”

Nergui wondered whether he should be calling back to headquarters, getting officers out trying to round up some of these contacts, ready for their return. But he was worried that any sudden flurry of activity might drive Badzar to ground long before they arrived. At the same time, he could not guess at the possible implications of any delay. In the circumstances, the prospect of a four hour drive through the night was not an attractive one.

In the event the drive was even worse than he had anticipated. There was only a single route from here to the city—it could hardly be dignified with the title of road—composed from years of horse and motorized traffic pounding down the hard earth. It was badly rutted along its length, the ground broken and pitted, and Doripalam had to drive carefully, peering into the light of the headlamps, to avoid being caught in any of the larger holes. In the darkness, it was impossible to gain any more speed, and Nergui found the slowness of their pace increasingly frustrating.

He sat in the back of the vehicle with Cholon. Cholon was chewing his fingers, looking anxious, with no evidence now of the superficial confidence with which he had greeted them earlier. It was as if he had been hiding some truth from himself, and now could no longer pretend.

“What do you know about the killings?” Nergui said. He was still trying to piece together the story in his mind, wanting to understand why Cholon should have harbored these suspicions. This could all, he thought, just be nonsense—evidence perhaps of Cholon's disturbed state of mind rather than his brother's. Perhaps they were merely chasing phantoms, in this endless, dreamlike passage through the empty night.

“Only what I have seen in the newspapers. They get brought to us out here, though usually a few days old. I saw the story about the Westerner killed in the hotel but didn't think much about it. It seemed a world away. I saw he was working for the mining companies which didn't surprise me. It is a corrupt world.”

Nergui listened, feeling every bump in the interminable road. “And you read about Delgerbayar's killing?”

“That was when I first began to wonder—I saw the picture of the policeman in the newspaper. I wasn't certain—just as I still wasn't when you showed his photograph to me—but I thought he was one of those who had visited the camps. And by this time I knew the stories of the attacks out here. So I began to wonder
—I had seen the way that Badzar looked when I had last seen him. I was not surprised when you turned up.”

“But you have no real grounds for suspecting that your brother is… involved in this?”

Cholon shrugged. “No, of course not. But I know my brother. We were close. I would not be here—I would not be betraying my brother—if I did not feel that something was dreadfully wrong.”

Nergui sat back in his seat, watching the ceaseless passing of the rough terrain outside, just visible in the car lights. “You know there have been other killings?”

Cholon turned to Nergui, his mouth open. “Other killings? The same as the two I read about?”

“We do not know. Some of them have similar characteristics.”

“Characteristics? What do you mean?”

Nergui paused, unsure how to take this forward. If Cholon was being honest—and there was no reason to assume that he wasn't—it was difficult to know how much the truth he could bear. “The details do not matter,” he said. “Let us just say that these were not straightforward killings.”

Cholon looked at him as though about to ask a question. “I do not need to know,” he said. “I do not know anymore what Badzar might be capable of. I do not want to know.”

“There have been a number of killings,” Nergui said. “Three more in the city, as well as Delgerbayar and the Westerner, Ransom. Possibly connected. We do not know for sure. And there were two more murders down in the south, in a camp near Dalandzadgad. The last two were different, and we have a suspect who is not your brother. But we think there might be a link.”

“I don't understand.”

Nergui laughed mirthlessly. “Neither do we. Not at all. The common thread here is mining, mineral production, probably gold. That is the only factor that may link the killings, if they are linked at all. I do not know if your brother is involved. If he is, I do not know if he is the sole perpetrator of these killings.”

“And I thought you were omniscient.”

“At the moment, I would settle for knowing just one thing, anything, about this case with certainty.”

The truck rumbled on, Doripalam still silent, leaning forward over the steering wheel as he peered into the sparse light from the headlamps, occasionally twisting the wheel jerkily to avoid a pothole. It was as if they were suspended in time, as if the awful reality outside the vehicle did not exist.

“There is one thing more,” Nergui said at last.

“What?”

“There is a police officer, a detective, sent over from England. He came to investigate the death of Ransom, the Westerner.” Nergui stopped, suddenly realizing the weight of fear that lay in his heart. “He has gone missing.”

“Missing? How can a visiting policeman go missing?”

“How could one of our own senior officers be brutally murdered? None of this makes sense. All we know is that the officer was walking from the British Embassy to his hotel late last night. And that he never got there.”

“And you think—?”

“It is like everything else in this case. We do not know what to think. But we have to fear the worst.”

“I cannot—I do not know what to say.”

“You will appreciate,” Nergui said, “that this is no longer simply a police matter, if it ever was. This will become a major diplomatic issue. I do not know what the outcome will be. But, whatever it is, we need to resolve it quickly. Do you think you can trace your brother?”

“I don't know. There are people he may have gone to. Places he might be. But it is all guesswork. I don't even know for sure that he is in the city.”

It was becoming hopeless, Nergui thought. He was losing whatever touch he might once have had. The plodding methodical police work was going on in the background, but seemingly going nowhere, and still managing to miss the few things that
might be important. And here he was, rushing off on pointless wild goose chases, desperate for anything that might give him a lead, clutching at any straw. But he was surely experienced enough to know that such leads were almost always illusory. He could almost feel this lead melting away as he reached for it. And increasingly his judgment seemed flawed. Perhaps he should have stayed up at the mine, spoken to more people, tried to find out precisely what it was that Delgerbayar had been up to. Instead, he had gone racing back to the city, for what? Someone who might have nothing to do with all this, and who could be anywhere. It was madness.

And underneath all that, he realized, as the truck rumbled on through the night, was something else, something that was driving him on into this insanity. It was the feeling, deep down in his bones, that Drew was still alive but that, unless Nergui could find some means of playing against the most extreme odds, he would not be alive for much longer.

Blackness. Emptiness.

He had no idea how long he had been here. Even with the return of consciousness, time seemed to have stopped. The sensations that should have given him some sense of progression—hunger, thirst, the aching of his body—seemed to have been suspended. He was aware of the hard surface beneath him, and of the imprisoning bands around his ankles, wrists and neck, but it was as if he were somehow detached from this reality.

Even the horror that had overwhelmed him when he had first realized his position had, for the moment at least, abated. Something—psychological, physiological, he did not know—had calmed his mind, allowed him to think rationally.

It was insane. The whole thing was insane. Why should anyone attack him? Why had he been brought here, wherever this might be? Why should anyone want to imprison him?

Was this a kidnapping? His policeman's mind was working
automatically now, suppressed the fear, thinking back to his negotiator training, trying to work through the possible scenarios, the potential options available to him.

If this was a professional kidnapping, perhaps politically motivated, then his chances of survival and release were much higher. There would be some demand which the authorities might or might not be able to concede. There would be some form of negotiation. His survival would be guaranteed for a time, as the kidnappers would not lightly sacrifice their only bargaining counter. Perversely it was encouraging that so far he had been kept, literally, in the dark. If his kidnappers did not allow him to see their faces or have any information, they would have nothing to fear from his eventual release. Professionals, he reminded himself, whatever their motives might be, did not like to kill unnecessarily.

If the kidnappers were just small time crooks who were aiming too high, his future was highly uncertain. If things became too difficult, they would simply want to cut their losses and get out. And central to cutting their losses, he realized, would be his own elimination.

Suddenly, the real panic struck him, blasting chills through his body like an icy wind. He arched his back, pushing and pulling against the ties that held his limbs, struggling and struggling and struggling, unable to make any headway. And then all his detachment collapsed, and he was nothing more than a mindless frenzy of wrestling bones and blood, as he felt himself lost in the blackness, falling into the worst nightmare he had ever known.

The end came equally suddenly. There was a sharp searing light, burning into his brain. He screwed his eyes shut tight, and the light was red, as hot as the sun, agonizing in its brilliance, like hot wires against his eyeballs. He had no breath to scream anymore, and all he felt was a desperate longing for the previous cool darkness. If that had been his death, then surely now he was entering the outer realms of hell.