The Adversary (36 page)

The two men stood silently in the doorway for a moment, watching her. Then one of them gestured to her to follow. “This way,” he said, in a quietly spoken but authoritative tone.

She hesitated for a moment, wondering where all this might be leading. The man at the table had remained motionless, hardly acknowledging the presence of the two figures at the door.

“I'm not sure I—” she said, unsure quite how she was intending to finish the sentence.

In the event, she had no need to. One of the men walked forward and seized her roughly by the arm. He dragged her across the floor and over to the door. She opened her mouth to protest and then, seeing the expression on his face, thought better of it.

She was pulled violently out of the room and into the hallway beyond. She barely had time to glimpse the vast size of the hallway before she was pulled through another doorway.

Beyond the doorway, at first there was only darkness. Then, just in time, her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and she realized that, at the end of a short landing, a set of stone stairs fell away into deeper
darkness. The man on her left pulled at her arm and dragged her forward, virtually dragging her on to the stairway. She tried to protest but the words jammed in her dry throat. And then she was being pulled down the stairs, her feet in their high heels stumbling on the hard stone risers. At one point, she almost fell but was dragged back to her feet by the two men.

Within seconds, they were at the bottom of the stairs. Immediately, the room was filled with an eyeball-burning glare. She blinked, unable to see for a moment, then slowly her vision cleared.

They were in some kind of cellar, she supposed. It was an empty space, the opposite of the well-appointed room she had occupied upstairs, with a blank stone floor and bare brick walls. There was no furniture, other than some functional metal-framed chairs and a line of benches along the wall, and no other sign of occupancy. There were no obvious windows or doors other than the stairway by which they had entered.

The men waited a moment, then, suddenly and unexpectedly, one of them pushed her. She stumbled and fell, grazing one of her knees on the hard stone floor, tearing her tights, feeling her silk dress ripping slightly. She landed awkwardly on her side, momentarily breathless.

Then, her spirit not quite yet destroyed by her predicament, she rolled out and began to shout expletives at the two men, with a sudden outburst of the anger that had been building in her since she had first been dragged into the car.

There was no response. The two men turned on
their heels and began to climb the stairs. She staggered to her feet to try to follow them, but it was too late. They reached the top of the stairs and pushed open the door. Then, as a final act, one of the men reached out and turned out the lights, throwing the cellar back into pitch darkness. Sarangarel stood, not daring to move, her mind as blank as the darkness around her. From somewhere above, she heard the click of a key turning in the lock.

Tunjin was still lying half on his side, scarcely able to recover his breath. The man who had brought him here, the man with the mirrored sunglasses, was motionless. Tunjin could see the blood seeping from the man's skull and thought that it looked as if the man might well never move again.

Finally, still gasping, Tunjin dragged himself to his knees and looked at the figure sprawled on the stone floor. He reached out and gingerly took the man's wrist, alert for any sign of sudden movement or response. The figure lay, inert, while Tunjin tried to see if there was any pulse.

There was none. It was difficult to be absolutely certain—these were hardly ideal circumstances for a medical examination—but Tunjin was sure that he was dead. In the circumstances, he found it hard to be too regretful.

So where did this leave things? Did anyone else know he was here? Had the man been responding to orders, or had he contacted others in the household to let them know what he had found? It seemed likely. How else would the man have known who Tunjin
was? Perhaps Tunjin had simply been unlucky and stumbled upon someone who happened to recognize him. But it seemed more likely that Tunjin had been spotted on some closed circuit television screen and a collective identification had been made.

Still, even if that was the case, Tunjin had at least managed to buy himself some time. Even if others knew he was here, they now presumably thought he was safely under lock and key. They would not know the truth until his captor was missed. Which, Tunjin was forced to acknowledge, might not take very long.

He crawled across to the wall, and pulled himself slowly to his feet. As so often, he wished that he was fitter, or at least less completely corpulent. Still, the way things were going, he might be destined to leave his corporeal self fairly definitively behind before too long, so there was no point in fretting too much. If he ever got out of this, he thought, he would lose some weight. He would give up drinking. All that. And how often had he made those promises?

He looked about him, taking in the blank empty room. Which way should he go? He could head back outside, which felt safer. But was it really? They had spotted him quickly in the garden. And, more to the point, what could he achieve outside?

If he penetrated further indoors—well, there was every chance that they would apprehend him quickly, but then that was true outside as well. And at least he might have a chance of finding out what was going on here, perhaps identify the woman he had seen being brought into the building.

It sounded pretty thin, even to the ever-optimistic
Tunjin. But, still, here he was, one of Muunokhoi's heavies lying dead at his feet. There was no obvious way of going back. All he could do was go forward, wherever that might lead.

At least half-convinced, he stepped forward, his heart beating heavily, and began to turn the handle on the door that led into the house.

“He's dead,” Doripalam said, dropping the wrist in which he had been trying to detect a pulse.

Nergui nodded. “Thanks for your perseverance,” he said. “Though I think you are only confirming what I had assumed.”

Doripalam shrugged. “I'm nothing if not scrupulous. If it adds anything, he's not been dead for long. There is still some warmth in the body. It is not a cold evening, but—well, who knows? Maybe two or three hours.”

“Our pathologists would not be more precise,” Nergui conceded. “Recent, anyway.”

“Recent,” Doripalam agreed. He rose from his crouching position and looked around at the surrounding trees, their dark shadows visible only against the pale moonlight. “And shot. Which means that he could have been shot from some distance away.”

“Which means,” Nergui said, “that we could also be targets.”

“I always like to be cautious,” Doripalam said, switching off his flashlight.

Nergui followed suit. “I suppose you're right,” he said, “though it does little to alleviate my feeling of
vulnerability. The prospect of a sniper is never an attractive one.”

Doripalam nodded. This was ridiculous, he thought. There's a killer out here. We don't know who he is or why he's killed. All we know is that, so far, his one victim is a policeman. We should get out of here, come back in daylight. On the other hand, this was the only lead they had.

His cogitations were cut short by the sudden, shattering sound of a gunshot. Nergui dropped instantly, and for a moment Doripalam thought he had been hit, but then he saw him roll over and throw himself against a tree. At the same moment, he saw the silver glimmer of a handgun in Nergui's hand. Not for the first time, Doripalam was left wondering how a man twenty years his senior could move so rapidly. Almost as an afterthought, he dropped himself, reaching for his gun, wondering what the hell was happening.

He lay pressed against the cold damp grass, looking feverishly around, trying to spot their assailant, but there was no sign of movement. He looked across at Nergui.

And then they heard the voice calling, thin and tremulous in the chilly night air. “Please don't move,” it said. “Please stay still.” There was a pause, and they could almost hear the nervous intake of breath. “I don't want to have to kill you too.”

For long minutes she stood in the darkness, wondering what the hell was going to happen now. The blackness seemed complete, and there was no sound that she could detect, once the tiny echoes of the locking door had died away.

She dared not move. As far as she could recall, the room had been empty of furniture so there was no real risk in walking through the darkness till she reached the walls. On the other hand, there was little point, either. She sighed and slowly lowered herself to the cold stone floor, feeling the sharp pain from her bruised knee.

She realized that her optimism—never more than half-hearted in the first place—had been entirely without foundation. Having brought her here, in search of whatever arcane piece of information, there was no way that they were simply going to let her go. What had she imagined? That they might just acknowledge that they had made a mistake, that she would simply shrug it off as a misunderstanding?

No. Having embarked on this route, there was no obvious way they could turn back. And she had no choice but to go with them all the way. Wherever that might lead.

She sat back on the cold floor, feeling the despair sweeping over her. There was no way out of this, she thought. Wherever this might be leading, it was nowhere she wanted to go. This darkness might as well go on forever.

But, of course, it didn't. Even in the midst of that thought, the light suddenly came flooding back, blinding her with its unexpected brilliance. She sat motionless on the stone floor, feeling its unyielding pressure on her back and buttocks, wondering what might happen next.

“Mrs. Radnaa,” the voice said. “Or, rather Judge Radnaa.”

She blinked, still unable to see, wondering who was speaking, thinking that she had heard the voice before.

“I'm sorry,” the voice said. “I had not intended that things would reach this point.”

She continued blinking, not able to see, not really trying to see, unsure whether she wanted to face whatever might meet her gaze. The light seemed too bright, as if she might never be able to see again.

“But here we both are,” the voice said. “There is nothing we can do. We have to live with it.”

She dropped her head into her hands, still trying to see, noting that way that the speaker, whoever it might be, had somehow managed to implicate her in the situation, as if she was partly responsible for this.

Finally, as she rubbed her eyes, her vision began to clear. She could see the blank emptiness of the room, the bare brick walls, the stone floor. And then, there at the far end of the room, a solitary wooden chair. And on the chair a figure.

She recognized him, she thought. She knew him from somewhere. But her mind was barely working, was barely able to compute any information.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Radnaa,” the voice said. “I'm sorry I was unable to greet you earlier.”

The figure was relaxed, slumped on the hard wooden chair. He was dressed in an expensive looking striped shirt, open at the neck, and blue denim jeans. He was shaven headed, an earring dangling from his left ear lobe. And he was smiling.

She sat up, conscious of her undignified position sprawled on the hard stone floor. Rather different from the last time they had met. “It is you then?” she said, conscious of how ridiculous her words sounded, echoing round the empty room.

“Well, of course,” Muunokhoi said. “Though you never really doubted that, did you?”

“I suppose not,” she acknowledged. She paused. “Though I have no idea what it is you want.” She stumbled to her feet, trying hard not to show any sign of weakness, though her efforts were hardly convincing.

He nodded, his limbs sprawled relaxedly. “I appreciate the difficulty of talking about these things.” He hesitated. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I am hardly being a gentleman. You will want to sit down.” He gestured beside him. There was a second chair, a few yards from his own. “Please.”

For the first time it occurred to her to wonder where these chairs, not to mention Muunokhoi himself, had come from. Still half-dazzled by the glare, she looked around her. The room looked as blank and empty as ever. There was no obvious entrance other
than the steps down which she had been brought. Muunokhoi had, it seemed, come from nowhere.

But all of that was nothing more than showmanship, designed to disconcert her. It didn't really matter where Muunokhoi had come from. He was not a ghost. He was a solid, living man. He had come from somewhere. There was some other way in, some other concealed entrance.

She was surprised how difficult it was to convince herself of this.

“I cannot talk to you like this,” Muunokhoi went on. “Please, Mrs. Radnaa, I ask you to sit down.”

She stumbled forward, still not entirely steady on her feet. She had wondered vaguely whether she might gain some sort of psychological advantage by remaining standing. But she realized now that this was not a serious option. She could barely manage to stay upright.

She took three steps forward and slumped on to the hard wooden chair, looking up at Muunokhoi. “Okay,” she said, trying to sound uncowed. “Talk to me now. Tell me what this is all about.”

Muunokhoi shrugged and paused, as if not knowing how to begin. “It is a long story,” he said.

“I don't doubt it,” she said, gathering some courage. “But I'd expected better of you, Muunokkoi. I wasn't brought here to listen to fairy stories.”

He smiled faintly. “You are right,” he said. “I should not be subjecting you to stories that begin ‘once upon a time.' We Mongolians are always storytellers.”

“I hear plenty of Mongolian tall tales in court,” she said. “I'm not sure I want to hear yours.”

He nodded, as though seriously taking account of this comment. “I do not wish to bore you,” he said. “But my story is an interesting one. Especially to you, I imagine.”