The Outcast (26 page)

“You said he took phone calls? On his cell phone?”

Gundalai nodded. “I don't know who they were from. Or even if they were all that mysterious. I just had the sense that he was cutting them short if I was there. It didn't feel natural. It felt as if he had something to hide.”

“We can get the police to check his cell phone account, I imagine. Check the numbers he was talking to. It might give us something.”

“It might,” he agreed. “But if they were trying to hide something, they wouldn't make the calls easy to trace, would they?”

It was a fair point, she acknowledged. She had no idea how easy or otherwise it was to trace cell phone calls, and she imagined that any professionals would know how to cover their tracks. But Odbayar wasn't a professional. “It's worth a try, anyway,” she said. “Doripalam probably already has it in hand, but if not—” She stopped, realising that Gundalai was no longer listening, but staring distractedly across the room. “What is it?”

“You've just reminded me,” he said. “My phone. It's in my jacket pocket. There might be a message. I kept trying Odbayar last night, but his phone was turned off. If he got my messages—”

“Wouldn't we have heard it ring?”

“I don't know. The battery might be dead by now.” He shook his head, frowning as he tried to think. “In any case, I had it set on silent so it wouldn't ring during Odbayar's speech. He might have called. There might be a message.”

She looked at him with compassion, recognising the hope that he was clinging on to. “It's possible,” she said. “Of course it's possible.”

His jacket, a thin cotton garment, had been thrown across a chair, forgotten since his arrival. He fumbled in the pocket and pulled out the slim cell phone. “The battery's not quite dead,” he said. “But no one's called.”

He dropped the phone on to the table and slumped back down into the sofa, his face pale and blank.

“It was a good thought. I'm sure he'll get in touch as soon as he can,” she said, conscious of how unconvincing her words sounded. “We just have to wait.”

She was interrupted by a noise from the table. It took her a moment to recognise the source of the ugly, unexpected sound, although Gundalai was already halfway across the room.

“It's a text,” Gundalai said, as the muted cell phone vibrated twice more against the wooden surface. He grabbed the phone and flipped it open. “It's him,” he said, his voice rising an octave in his excitement. “It's a message from Odbayar.”

 

It hardly felt like freedom.

Sometimes, usually around midday, he would go for a walk, tramping briskly through the frozen streets, his breath clouding the air. He had a regular circuit, down to the square, south to the park, around in a loop, and back to the apartment. The circuit felt symbolic to him—repetitive activity, going nowhere, to no purpose, but somehow unable to stop.

He returned one afternoon to find two men—the same two officers—standing outside the entrance to the apartment block.

“You've come,” he said.

The fat one pushed himself slowly away from the doorpost, grinding his cigarette out under his foot. “You don't sound surprised.”

Wu Sam shrugged. “You were always coming back.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because it's how you work. That's fine. I'll say anything you want me to.” He suddenly felt relaxed, as if finally it was all over.

“About what?”

“About anything. About this murder. This student. Whatever it is you want me to confess to.”

The fat one glanced over his shoulder. The entrance doors were open. Wu Sam could see other people inside—at least a couple of officers in uniforms, one with a flashlight, another by the doorway that led to the cellar steps. “I think it's probably a little late for that, don't you?”

Wu Sam stared past him, bemused.

“I think you'd better come with us.”

Odbayar had no idea how long he had slept. He could scarcely believe he had been able to surrender consciousness so easily. When he had envisaged this, he had seen the two of them as equal partners, sharing the burden of the driving as they made the long trek eastwards. He had imagined their easy conversation, their laughter as they talked through the plan, checking every detail, working out exactly how it would all be handled.

Instead he had slept. He had been exhausted. Not just by the events of the past twenty-four hours, but by the months of arduous toil. Maintaining the façade while developing the plans for all this.

And keeping Gundalai out of it.

That had been the right thing to do, he was sure. It didn't feel like a betrayal. Gundalai would understand when the time came.

But it hadn't been easy, practically or emotionally. He had had to drive Gundalai away from him, and he knew that Gundalai had seen that things were changing. He knew that Gundalai, without ever knowing how or why, had felt betrayed. He knew the pain he had caused Gundalai, and he knew that however much Gundalai eventually would understand and accept his motivation, that pain would never be entirely removed.

But it was nearly over. Just a few more hours.

He stretched and pulled himself up in his seat, his body aching from the hours of bumping over this harsh terrain. The truck was
still thumping along at a steady rate, Sam swerving slightly from time to time as he avoided the worst of the crevices and potholes. He looked as fresh as ever, his hands light on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed firmly on the rough track ahead.

“Where are we?” Odbayar asked.

Sam glanced across. “You're awake, then?” A smile played across his lips, as though he was recalling some private joke. “I hope you're feeling better for the sleep.”

“I didn't mean to sleep so long. I can take over the driving now if you like.”

Even as he made the offer he realised that it was of little value. He could see through the windshield that the landscape had changed. When he had fallen asleep, they had been driving through endless steppe, a brown sweep of barren grassland, parched by the summer sun. Now the terrain was growing hilly, the grass thicker and more lush. Ahead, he saw the beginnings of woodland and the mauve line of the northern mountains.

“We're nearly there,” Sam said, confirming Odbayar's thoughts. “I might as well carry on.”

“How far?”

“Maybe forty minutes, maybe a bit less. It's difficult to get any speed up on this surface.”

Odbayar glanced at his watch. Nearly noon. The sun was high. It was hot, even in the truck. The air-conditioning was turned off, but Sam had opened the windows and the steady rush of air made the temperature bearable. Outside, the heat would be intense.

“When do we call?”

“We can start things moving soon,” Sam said. “Slowly, slowly. We want to play them in, get their attention. Make sure they're taking it seriously.”

“So we start with Gundalai?”

“We start with Gundalai,” Sam agreed.

Odbayar nodded. This had all been agreed between them, weeks before. But it was no easier now that the moment had come.

He reached into his jacket and drew out his cell phone. As he
switched on the phone, he saw that there were messages waiting. He carefully thumbed in the short text message that he and Sam had agreed between them. “I'm safe but in trouble. Need help. More soon.” Nothing else. Sam had been adamant that they should keep the message short and enigmatic.

“That's it,” Odbayar said. “It's gone.”

“That should start things moving. Get their attention.”

“They might just think it's a stunt.”

“They probably will.” Sam smiled. “But they won't be able to take the risk that they might be wrong. Remember who you are. The police won't want to mess this up.”

The irony hadn't escaped him. He'd spent a large part of his life denying his background, pretending he was something different. It had been a burden, an embarrassment, a continual impediment to his ideals and desires. And now it had become the key to everything.

“I hope you're right.”

Sam's eyes were fixed on the track ahead of them. They were climbing uphill, a gentle but steady gradient leading them towards the edges of the forests. Odbayar began to fancy that there was a fresher taste to the air, the first scent of the mountain breezes and rolling streams.

“I'm right,” Sam said. There was a faint smile on his face, and he looked at Odbayar with a look that he clearly intended to be reassuring. But there was something in his expression that Odbayar was unable to read. “After all these years,” Sam went on, “I know I am.”

“I think I'm supposed to make some comment about having good news and bad news,” Batzorig said. He had been standing outside Doripalam's office for some minutes, uncertain whether to interrupt the two senior officers.

Now he was conscious that his opening line had been ill-judged, an attempt at levity which had seemed only to antagonise Doripalam.

“I'm glad you're finding something to amuse yourself with,” he said. “Nergui and I are having some difficulty in that direction.”

“I'm sorry, sir. I didn't—”

Nergui glanced up at the young man, then looked across at Doripalam. “Sit down, Batzorig. It's been a long night for all of us. What do you have?”

“I've made some progress, sir. But there's something else you ought to see first.”

Doripalam looked up at him wearily, with an expression that suggested that nothing would surprise him. “Go on.”

“The newspapers.”

“What newspapers?” Doripalam had seen the early editions of the major newspapers first thing that morning. A couple had carried bland and uninformative references to the previous night's explosion, in both cases with the suggestion—which the police press office had quietly encouraged—that the likely cause was a gas explosion.

Batzorig had copies rolled up in his hand. He opened them and spread them carefully across the desk, as Doripalam moved the case files to one side. There were two newspapers, both privately owned tabloids. Not the worst excesses of the scandal sheets, but still journals more interested in sensation than the accurate reporting of news.

The two lead stories were different. One focused on the events in Sukh Bataar Square two days earlier and was headlined: “Terrorism Arrives Here?” The other carried a large front-page picture of Odbayar and was headed: “Minister's Son Missing?”

“At least both have the grace to stick a question mark on the end,” Nergui commented.

“But where did they get the stories?” Doripalam said. “If it was just the one, it might simply be some enterprising hack adding two and two together and happening to come up with four, but this …”

“Suggests something more coordinated,” Nergui agreed. He looked as relaxed as ever, his chair tipped back, his eyes apparently fixed on some point near the ceiling. “It can't be a leak. Not from here. Not from anywhere.”

He dropped his chair to the floor with a crash, his blue eyes
fixed on Doripalam. “I bow to no one in my respect for the efficiency of the media,” he said. “But their powers stop somewhere short of telepathy, I think.” He picked up the relevant newspaper and glanced down the front page. “It's very detailed,” he said, “and fairly accurate. But it's not come from any of our people.”

“You can be quite sure of that, then?” Doripalam said, with a touch of scepticism in his tone. In his experience, the ministry always managed to remain beyond reproach in such matters.

“It's not come from anyone who knows anything, anyway,” he said. “The real story is that the bomb was a fake.”

“So they've just cobbled it together from eyewitness accounts. Perhaps your appeal to national security wasn't quite convincing or threatening enough this time.” Doripalam was aware that tiredness and tension were giving his tone an unintended edge.

“Possibly, but their descriptions feel too detailed. The detail of the shooting, the number of bullets fired, an unidentified but accurate description of Tunjin. It's an eyewitness, yes, but someone who knew what they were looking at.”

“So they found a good eyewitness. What does that prove?”

“It's more than we usually manage to find,” Nergui said. “We generally end up with twenty different versions, all mutually contradictory. But then look at their description of last night's explosion. Just as detailed. And just as accurate.”

“They have to get lucky now and again,” Doripalam said. “Or they do have somebody on the inside here, after all. Someone who's leaking selectively—maybe holding back information to get the best price for it.”

“I think it's more likely that these stories are coming from the perpetrators.”

“The perpetrators?” Doripalam shook his head, staring past Nergui's apparently languid form to the bright blue square of sky visible through his office window. It was another scorching day. He felt as if he had been sitting in this gloomy office for days, though it was only a couple of hours since they had arrived back here. “We don't even know that there is a perpetrator. Not one
who's still alive, anyway. The supposed bomber in the square might have just been some lone lunatic. And we don't know that last night's explosion wasn't just some sort of accident.”

Nergui nodded, though it wasn't clear that he was listening. “And then there's the minister's son,” he went on, gesturing towards the other newspaper headline. “That's hardly a story for us, yet,” he said. “We don't even know that Odbayar's actually missing. And yet there's the story.”

“Perhaps it's Gundalai. Maybe he's already talked to the press.”

“You know he can't have done. There was no time before he turned up at Sarangarel's door. And if he'd decided to contact the press after we went, Sarangarel would have let us know.”