The Outcast (36 page)

“He said not to contact him. The number wouldn't be operational. He's been swapping SIM cards so no one can track him …”

The man walked forward slowly and stood over his colleague. “You know,” he said, quietly, “I'm not an idiot. What made you think I might be?”

“I'm only saying.”

“Just give it a try.”

The second man pulled out his cell phone and keyed in a number. “Nothing. It's dead.”

The first man was still gazing at the television, which was playing silently on the far side of the room. A female reporter was standing in the Namdaal Stadium, rows of empty seats stretching behind her. The man turned on the volume, and the reporter's voice crashed, initially too loudly, into the room “… no cause for concern. But, following the recent surge of so far unresolved incidents in the city, the authorities will be looking to tighten security at this year's festival. Back to you.”

“That was it?” the man said. “They were there, but—nothing.” He looked back at his colleagues. “What the fuck is he playing at?”

“I think we cut out losses,” the man on the hard-backed chair said. “What do we really know about this guy?”

“We know what kind of backing he has.”

“
Says
he has.”

The man shook his head. “No, I saw it.” He glanced at his watch. “But we're in the shit if it goes wrong, whatever.” He waved his hand towards the minister. “We have the small matter of our friend here. If we pull out, we need to decide what to do with him and his friends. We give it thirty minutes. If things are still on track, he'll be in touch. Maybe he's playing it some different way.”

“And after thirty minutes?” the other man said.

The man looked around again at the minister, then at Solongo, and finally at Tunjin, his eyes resting on each for several seconds. “Then you're right,” he said. “We cut our losses.”

For a moment, they could see nothing but the solid hulk of the Land Cruiser. Beyond the trees, the afternoon sun was as dazzling as ever. Here, the thick foliage created an undersea world, textures of green scattered with golden pinpricks of light.

The echoes of the gunshot had died away, and the silence had returned. Nergui peered into the gloom, poised to react at any sign of movement. Doripalam moved silently up behind him. Somewhere behind him, Batzorig was standing, tensely watching.

Nergui moved forward slowly, his feet silent in the bushy grass. It was a little cooler here in the forest shade, but the air was dank and humid.

They were a few yards from the truck when they heard a groan from the other side of the vehicle. Nergui pulled out his handgun and slid cautiously around, feeling the bodywork warm against his hand.

Sam was crouched on the ground, his ungainly stance looking almost comical. His stomach was stained red with blood, an uneven patch spreading down the sleeve of his pale shirt. He held a pistol loosely in his right hand. There was another object—a slim box—grasped firmly in his left.

“Stupid, stupid of me,” Sam said. He smiled up at Nergui, clearly struggling to sustain the expression. “After all this time.”

For a moment Nergui assumed that Sam had somehow managed to shoot himself. Then he realised that the passenger door of the truck was partially open, a head lolling against the window.

“Put the gun down,” Nergui said. “You need help.”

“I don't think so, Nergui. Not now I've come this far.”

“What are you going to do?” Nergui said, calmly. “You can't even drive in that state.”

Sam tried to shrug, though the movement was impeded by his injury. “We'll see. Maybe you can give me a lift.”

“Maybe we'll have to. Who's in the truck? Odbayar?”

Sam glanced up at the figure half drooping out of the passenger seat. “Stupid,” he said again. “I thought I'd left the gun in the back, out of his reach. I should have kept more of an eye on him.”

“He's dead?” Nergui asked.

Sam looked surprised by the question. “I was trying to get the gun off him. That's when he shot me. I beat him around the head with it.” He raised his left hand, still holding the small box. “This hand's strong enough. Didn't realise he'd shot me at first. Then it suddenly hit me.”

“You need help,” Nergui said, again.

Sam shook his head. “Not me,” he said.

“What's this all about?” Nergui asked.

Sam lowered himself back on to the ground, sitting awkwardly. The bloodstain was expanding across his chest. “You know what it's about, Nergui. You know what happened to me.”

“I know what you told me.”

“But you believed me,” Sam said. “And you've lived with it ever since.”

Nergui stood motionless, staring at Sam. “And so have you, no doubt.”

“Every minute of every day. He destroyed me. He destroyed my career. My life”

“You have a career,” Nergui pointed out. “A very respectable one.”

Sam nodded. “Back home, they wanted me out of their hair. Not because they thought I was a killer. Nobody believed that. But because I'd compromised their contact. And because I knew too much.” Sam, paused. “They used me. I was a young man. They took advantage of me. I was supposed to play the game. Just one in a long line.”

Nergui laughed, unexpectedly. “I don't doubt it,” he said. “He has a nose for weakness, and he would have exploited yours. But you weren't so innocent. It was a game and you lost.”

Sam nodded. “I lost. I was shipped home in disgrace. And they shipped me out again. Cultural exchange with the US.” He laughed, mirthlessly.

“Not such a bad outcome.”

“You think that? Removed from my home, my heritage. Shipped off to some liberal New York institution prepared to indulge my worst weaknesses.”

“You're ashamed of yourself,” Nergui said. “Of your own inclinations.”

“It's rotting society from within,” Sam said. “Even here.” He gestured up towards Odbayar in the car. “Look at this one and his—friend. Look at that one down by the river.”

“You killed him,” Nergui said. “Why? Because he succumbed to your advances, or because he didn't?”

Sam shook his head. “You don't understand, do you, Nergui? Yes, I have my own weaknesses. I'm only human. But that's a tiny part of all this. I've been working on this for years. Realising the vision that was snatched away from me.”

“Bringing us back into the Chinese fold? But you don't work for the Chinese any more, Sam.”

“You know better than anyone, Nergui. You never leave this game. I've always been on the payroll. Biding my time. Building up my contacts.”

“A sleeper,” Nergui said, his voice sounding dismissive.

“They never told me what to do. But they let me know what they expect of me. I've been watching your country change. Watching the Russians lose their grip. Watching the forces of change come seeping in. Watching the frustration of your people grow because they realise that their government is betraying them, selling them down the river.”

“Waiting for your opportunity?”

“I've been closer than you could imagine, Nergui. I've had people
working for me, watching you. I've even watched the fat one. But you're all small beer. Most of all, I've watched him—the one behind all this. I've watched his corrupt power grow. I've seen the people he uses to achieve his ends. I knew that if I offered them the right price they'd betray him just as he betrayed me. Yours is a society on the edge of breakdown. It needs just a tiny spark to light the fuse.”

“So you've been trying to light the fuse?” Nergui said. “That supposed suicide bomber in the square, that was you? So why have Tunjin shoot him?”

Sam tried to smile again. “Partly just my ironic joke. Framing your fat friend, just like he would have framed me. But really just stirring up confusion, tension, paranoia. I didn't want to cause mass deaths—my quarrel isn't with your people—but I wanted people to feel they were under siege. It seemed an elegant solution.”

“And the body in the museum?”

“I had three students that I'd encouraged to come over on exchange visits. Young Muslims on the edge of fundamentalism; young men looking for a cause. I wanted to draw attention to them, suggest that they were behind all this, that there was some clandestine battle going on between the forces of Islam and the right-wing nationalists here. I thought the Hulagu story was a neat reference.”

“Perhaps just a little too clever for us,” Nergui said. “And you killed them like you killed the young man by the river.” He paused. “And perhaps for similar reasons. One was the supposed suicide bomber. One was the young man in the carpet. The third, I presume, was the young man found in the hotel. He planted the bomb there.”

“He helped me, yes. His body was supposed to be found next to the incendiary device. But the explosion happened before I could organise things properly.”

“You've not been lucky in this, Sam,” Nergui said. “Or perhaps just not quite as well prepared as you thought.”

“Those were just the preliminaries,” Sam said. “This is the main act.”

“Kidnapping Odbayar?” Nergui said. “You selected that hotel because you knew that Odbayar was speaking there. You grabbed him in the confusion.”

“He came willingly,” Sam said. “We've worked together on this. He thought he was part of the plan. Undermining his father's government to give his type their opportunity.”

“He's a young man,” Nergui said, echoing Sam's earlier words. “You took advantage of him—”

“Like his father tried to take advantage of me. But this time I've won the game.”

Somewhere behind him Nergui could hear the faint movement of Doripalam's footsteps in the grass as he stepped closer. Otherwise, the silence was almost complete. There was no breath of wind, no sound of birdsong.

Sam rolled backwards, trying to ease his body. It wasn't clear whether or not his chest was still bleeding. The bloodstain covered half his torso, but seemed to have grown no worse.

“So what are you planning to do, Sam?” Nergui asked quietly.

“Revenge,” Sam said, simply. “And a step towards realising my vision.” He shrugged and gestured off to his right. For the first time, Nergui noticed that the hand-held video camera was lying on the ground, apparently broken. “Though perhaps not quite as fully as I'd envisaged. The bullet caught the camera. I don't know how much they saw.”

“Saw of what?” Doripalam said. He had been standing just behind Nergui, peering passed him into the interior of the truck. He was pointing towards the explosive device tucked behind the front seats. “You showed the people in the stadium that?”

“I hope so,” Sam said. “I wanted them to realise what was at stake. I wanted them to see that I was prepared to blow it all up. Genghis Khan's supposed birthplace—only of symbolic value, I suppose, but then, in this environment, what else matters? And of course the son of their security minister. Even if they don't know the full reason why he has to die.”

“You said all that to the camera?” Doripalam asked, thinking
about the potential effect of all this on the crowd, on the wider television audience. On a volatile population.

“I don't know how much they heard. It doesn't matter. They'll see the chaos soon enough.”

“The chaos?” Doripalam felt a chill run down his back.

Sam leaned back, and for a second it genuinely looked as if his injury was no longer troubling him. “The chaos,” he agreed. “We have a bomb here, which will kill Odbayar and destroy the surrounding area. And I have a bomb placed in the Naadam Stadium. It will detonate before the festival—as I say, my quarrel is not with the ordinary people, so I wanted as few casualties as possible—but I think the symbolism will be clear. Oh, and I have placed another bomb in the national museum, in the new exhibition. More symbolism, you see.”

He paused, and a smile played across his face. “But more than symbolism. You see, I've made two other small arrangements. First, with a little help from his supposed friends, I ensured that the minister would be there. And second,” he turned and nodded his head towards Doripalam. “I arranged for your wife to be there. It seemed appropriate, and not only for her role in turning the mighty Mongol empire into a tawdry commercial sideshow.” His smile was full now. “You see,” he said. “I really have been keeping tabs on you.”

Doripalam's head was reeling with the horrifying absurdity of all this, and he was hardly able to comprehend the notion that Solongo might somehow be caught up in it. “But why?” he said. “Why do this?”

“Destroying so we can rebuild.” He paused, grimacing, the wound now beginning to trouble him. “People will believe your country is under siege. Nothing is safe. Not your security minister. Not your most precious historical artefacts. Not your festivals. And no one will believe the government. You shot down a suicide bomber and suppressed it. Muslim fundamentalists are killed, but this does not reach your media.” He gasped again, clearly in pain now. “You have tried to suppress the chaos but you have only made it worse.”

Nergui smiled faintly. “And you will destroy to rebuild.”

“Your government is corrupt. You have betrayed your history. People will see that. We will be celebrating this anniversary, this great anniversary, by bringing down this crumbling edifice. Then we can restore the Mongol empire, the legacy of the great Genghis Khan.” He fell back slightly.

“And who will do this restoration?” Nergui asked. “You?”

Sam's face was pale. He appeared scarcely capable even of speaking more. “I don't matter,” he said. “I am just setting the scene for others.”

“Your masters at home?” Nergui said. “You think they will rebuild the empire here?”