The Outcast (12 page)

Nergui nodded. “But there was nothing there.”

“Not in that part of the building, no. There were old metal shelves, all of them empty. A few crates, but nothing much in them—bits of packaging, old newspapers, some pieces of rusty machinery. But nothing significant. I almost gave up because I thought that, if there was anything, it would be in there. There were two other rooms. Just wooden constructions, really, each side of the front entrance.”

“Where the students came in?”

“Yes. There was a heavy wooden double door there, with these two rooms either side. The rest of the building was just the warehouse space, with a loading bay at one end, near the window where I got in. Anyway, I thought I should look in the two smaller rooms—they looked as if they had been designed as offices in the original layout.”

“And that's where you found them?”

“That's where I found them,” Lambaa agreed. “There was a wooden crate, in the room on the right as you came in through the front entrance. It had a lid but it wasn't nailed down. It was new—not more than a few weeks old. You could see the track-marks in the dust. It had been dragged in there quite recently.”

“And what was in it?” Nergui said, determined now to be methodical, to draw on the precision of Lambaa's delivery.

“I've told you,” Lambaa said. “It was a crateful of arms. All kinds of stuff. Semi-automatic rifles. Handguns. And explosives. Detonators, fuses, timing devices. You name it. A pretty motley selection, but some of it lethal enough. Potentially, anyway. And there were some replicas, too.”

“Replicas?”

“Fakes. Quite decent ones. The sort of thing you might use in a movie, I suppose. They were mixed in with the real ones.”

“What about the explosives?”

Lambaa shook his head. “Even for the real guns, there wasn't much in the way of ammunition. And there weren't any explosives. Just all the paraphernalia. The stuff to cause an explosion—even down to a suicide bomber's belt. But nothing that would actually explode.”

Nergui tried to make some sense of this. “Maybe that's being stored elsewhere.”

Lambaa shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe they don't have the ammo yet. I just report what I saw.”

Now, three days later, sitting in this silent hospital, watching Tunjin's steady breathing, Nergui was even less sure what to make of Lambaa's report.

He leaned back against the uncomfortable hospital chair and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come. Moments later, he jerked fully awake, disturbed by the sudden buzz of his cell phone in his jacket pocket. He had the vague idea that cell phones were not allowed in the hospital.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and stared at the caller's number displayed on the screen. It was a number he recognised, but not someone already in the phone's limited address book. He kept no personal names stored, always conscious that the phone could be lost or stolen.

He thumbed the connect button. Before he could speak, a voice said, “Nergui? Is that you?”

He paused, recognising the voice but unable, for a brief moment, to identify it. “Sarangarel?” he said at last.

She laughed. “You don't have my number in your phone. And you still pause a second too long before you say my name.”

He smiled to himself, holding the phone balanced in his hand. Nothing much had changed here. “No one's in my address book,” he said. “You're not under-privileged.”

There was an unexpected pause at the other end of the line. It occurred to him, finally, how odd it was that she was calling him after all this time. And even odder that she should do so in the
small hours of the morning. “Sarangarel?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“I'm not sure. Can you come to my apartment? As soon as possible.”

“What's going on?” Nergui said. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Not me,” she said. “But someone is, and I don't know how much. It's the minister. Your minister. He's the one in trouble.” She hesitated again. “Or, rather, his son is—he's been arrested.”

“Dragged out of some protest?” Nergui said. “It wouldn't be the first time.”

Another silence, and he could hear the echo of static down the line. “I don't think so,” she said. “I think it may be a lot more serious.”

Doripalam coughed abruptly as he and Batzorig left the dank storeroom, his throat catching on the cool fresh air. A welcome change from the damp and the smoke. The scent of decay.

They had left the young officer in there, with instructions to keep watch over the body until the scene of crime people arrived. He looked much less self-assured now, and Doripalam felt almost guilty. It wasn't this young man's fault that Doripalam was angry. On the other hand, the young man hadn't gone out of his way to find Doripalam's better side. It wouldn't do him any harm to cool his heels in this bleak spot for a short while.

Doripalam edged his way back down the passageway, shining his flashlight around to avoid the heaps of rubbish. “Bastard,” he muttered, just loud enough for Batzorig to hear.

“Who would that be, sir?” Batzorig said. He was, as Doripalam had frequently noted, skilled at defusing his boss's temper while not challenging the generally legitimate targets of Doripalam's anger.

“Don't be smart. The local guy. The chief. The bastard who didn't tell us he'd picked up some character with a gun.”

“Oh, yes. Him.”

“So why didn't he tell us?” Doripalam went on, rhetorically. “All that stuff about how it might have been a gas explosion.”

“Probably wanted to keep it a surprise.”

“It's that all right,” Doripalam said, grimly. “Especially as we also have at least one victim.”

“He wasn't shot,” Batzorig pointed out.

“Are you looking for a transfer to pathology? I saw he wasn't shot. But he didn't die of old age, either.” They were approaching the end of the passage, and Doripalam could see the glare of orange spotlights across the front of the hotel. “You won't believe how heavy the book is that I'm going to throw at that bastard.”

“Literally, quite possibly,” Batzorig murmured, in a voice just too low for Doripalam to hear.

The line of armed officers had dispersed, and instead a small cluster of uniforms was easing the assembled crowd back behind freshly erected barriers. There were fire engines drawn up in front of the hotel, and several tired-looking fire officers were stowing away equipment.

Doripalam walked forward and flashed his ID at the most senior-looking of the fire officers. “All under control?”

The man nodded. “More or less. There wasn't much of a fire. We delayed before we went inside in case there were more explosions. But it was a pretty small blast in that room,” he gestured to one of the street-facing windows. “More noise than anything else. Window had blown out and we were able to dowse the flames from out here. We've been in to check the rest; the building looks safe enough but they'll need to get it assessed before we allow the public back in.”

Doripalam nodded. “What's the room?”

“Just an office. Doesn't seem to be in use at the moment. Lots of junk stored in there—old files, paperwork. Perfect if you wanted to start a fire.”

“You think that's what it was?” Doripalam said. “Arson?”

The fire officer shrugged. “That's for your lot to say. But I'd check the insurance policies on this place if I were you.”

“You think it was deliberate?”

“It's not my job to speculate. But there was definitely an explosion.
Might have been gas, but there were no obvious appliances in there. Didn't spot anything else that might have caused it.”

“We'll find out soon enough,” Doripalam said. He turned and watched the gradual extension of the police cordon. “Main priority now is to get this place sealed off.”

He made his way slowly forward, looking for the local police chief; there was no sign of him. Finally, Doripalam spotted one of the officers he had seen near to the chief earlier. He was a middle-aged man, overweight, standing back from the rest, hands in his pockets, watching the receding crowd with an air of profound boredom.

“Not too busy?” Doripalam asked.

The officer started slightly and turned to face Doripalam, his expression betraying that he had recognised the senior officer only just in time. “Sir?” he said, finally.

“You're coping okay?” Doripalam said, gesturing towards the crowd. “With the pressures?”

“Yes, sir. More or less.” The man frowned, impervious to Doripalam's irony.

“Where's your boss?” Doripalam said. “The chief.” He looked around. “Is he helping with crowd control as well?”

“Sir?”

“Is he around? I don't see him.”

“I think he went, sir.” The officer blinked, clearly trying to work out the most appropriate response.

“Went?” Doripalam said. “You mean left the site? In the middle of a live operation?”

The officer nodded. “He told us you were in charge now, sir. That it was your operation.”

“So you're reporting to me?”

There was a long pause. Behind, Doripalam heard the burble of the crowd, the angry shouts of the officers trying to gain control. “Well, yes, I suppose so, sir. For the moment.”

“For the moment,” Doripalam agreed. “Okay, then, just for the moment, tell me about this man you picked up.”

“Man, sir?”

“Man, sir. You probably remember him. He was carrying a gun. Those things usually stick in the mind.”

“Sir.” The officer looked around, as if searching for someone who might help him out.

“Not too difficult a question, is it? You picked up a man. With a gun. Tell me about him.” Doripalam's voice was icy calm. Just behind him, Batzorig involuntarily took a step back.

For a second, it looked as if the officer might try to brazen the matter out. Then, finally, he said, “He came out of the hotel. Just after we arrived. He was staggering, shouting something. He had a gun in his hand—some sort of handgun. I didn't see what, but he was waving it around and shouting.” He paused. “I think we were all a bit on edge. Not knowing what was happening. What had caused the explosion.”

“So what happened?” Doripalam asked, suddenly fearing the worst.

“We had a bunch of armed officers here,” the man said. “We didn't know what we might be facing so we thought we'd better be cautious. One of them fired.”

Doripalam was staring at him, his face aghast. “You shot him?”

The officer shook his head. “No, no. I mean—well, I suppose one of us tried to. But we missed. At first we thought we'd hit him. He staggered suddenly, just as the shot was fired and fell forward, dropping the gun.”

“But you hadn't shot him?” Doripalam said, trying to follow this narrative.

The officer shook his head. “No. I mean, there was someone behind me cheering because we'd gotten him—” He stopped, seeing the expression on Doripalam's face. “It was nerves,” he said. “We were all scared. But, no, we didn't shoot him. We hesitated for a moment, then someone went forward and touched him.”

“Go on.”

The officer breathed out suddenly, as if he had been holding his breath for a long time. “It was a real shock. We assumed he
was dead or badly injured. Then, just as the guy got near him, he rolled over. We thought at first that it had been a trick. Then we realised he was choking and coughing. He'd been caught by the smoke. Couldn't breathe. That was why he'd collapsed.”

“So what happened?”

“Not much. We turned him over. Someone gave him artificial respiration. We'd placed him under arrest, but I don't think he was conscious enough to know that.”

“You got him medical treatment?” Doripalam prompted, hoping that the answer was going to be in the affirmative.

To his relief, the officer nodded. “We'd called for some ambulances, along with the fire support. One of them turned up in the middle of all this. So he must have been put on to it, I suppose.”

“You saw him put into the ambulance?”

The officer blinked. “Yes, I think so.” He stopped. “There were a couple of uniformed officers with him. I'm not sure, exactly. It was all a bit chaotic.”

“It sounds it,” Doripalam said. “So where do you think he was taken?”

“To the city hospital, presumably,” the policeman said. “I mean, where else?”

“Where else,” Doripalam repeated, tonelessly. “And some of your people—these officers—they went with him?”

There was a longer pause this time. “I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Two officers went with him. Two uniforms. I suppose the chief must have told them to … yes, the chief must have told them to.”

“The chief was overseeing all this?”

The officer clearly suspected he was being led into some sort of trap to incriminate his boss. “No, not exactly. He was behind us. I think he got there a few minutes later.”

“While this man was still there?”

A pause. “No. He'd gone. I didn't see him after the chief arrived. Didn't really think about him, to be honest. Assumed he was being dealt with, I suppose.”

“Lucky for your chief that you didn't manage to shoot this guy,” Doripalam pointed out. “Given that he wasn't even there to take command. So who were these officers who went off in the ambulance.”

“I'm not sure. I didn't recognise them.”

“But they were from your division?”

“I don't—” He frowned, as if suddenly making a mental connection. “There was no one else here. Not till you arrived. So no they weren't. Part of our division, I mean. I hadn't seen them before. I thought—”

“You thought what?” Doripalam glanced behind him, trying to read Batzorig's expression.

“Well, I don't know. It was dark, there was a lot of smoke. I wasn't sure what I was seeing. Maybe some backup had arrived from another division.”