Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

“I’m not planning to bet my life on it.” Nergui carefully pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and dialed the number of the police officer driving the car. “He can get the car along this dirt track,” Nergui said. He spoke briefly to the officer in Mongolian, and a moment later the car came bumping along the track toward them. As it stopped, Nergui pulled open the rear door, and he and Drew bundled inside. Doripalam clambered into the front passenger seat. The driver rapidly reversed toward the main road, and then pulled out in the direction of the factory.

Drew realized he was shaking. “Thanks,” he said. “I thought you’d gone mad. How did you manage to see the bolt?”

“I don’t know. Instinct, I think. I saw a movement in the air out of the corner of my eye, and somehow registered that it was something more dangerous than a bird. I wasn’t sure where it was headed, but I threw myself back without really thinking.” He laughed, humorlessly. “Mind you, if my instinct had been wrong, I might have thrown you into its path, so you shouldn’t be too profuse with your thanks.”

“Or worse still, you’d have messed up my suit for nothing,” Drew smiled. Both of them were playing this down, but he suspected that Nergui’s instincts were more finely honed than he was letting on.

“There is nothing worse that one could do to an Englishman,” Nergui agreed.

The car pulled to a halt in front of the factory building. The ground floor windows were boarded up, and there was no sign of life. Above, the windows had been left uncovered and most of the glass had been smashed. Presumably it was from one of those that the arrow had been fired. They pulled the car up close to the doors to minimize the risk of being shot at from above.

“What are you planning to do?” Drew asked, peering through the car window at the concrete building. “We can’t risk going in there on our own.”

Nergui shook his head. “Certainly not. It’s bad enough that your life has been placed in danger once. The ambassador would never forgive me if I allowed it to happen a second time.” Nergui remained blank faced, and it took Drew a moment to realize that the Mongolian was joking. “I’ve sent for backup,” he said. “They will be here in a few minutes. We’re risking allowing whoever it is to escape-I don’t know if there’s a rear entrance to this place, but I’ve asked for a car to go to the back. But we don’t know what we might be facing here. If this is just some joker taking a pot shot at the police, then he’ll be long gone anyway. But if it’s our killer, and he’s still in there, then we don’t know what he might want.”

The moments ticked by. This wasn’t the first time that Drew had faced the prospect of entering a building with a potentially dangerous suspect inside, but here he felt absurdly vulnerable, because he had no idea what to expect, what the norms were. He had never, even in his most paranoiac policing moments, expected to have an arrow shot at him. And he had never faced a killer capable of mutilating his victims’ bodies.

“What’s your guess?” he asked to break the silence. “Do you think it’s our killer?”

Nergui looked back from the window. “My guess is not. My guess is some joker.”

“But why shoot at us?”

“You will be surprised to learn,” Doripalam interjected, “that the police are not always popular here. I know that this is difficult for a British policeman to understand.”

Drew regarded the young man’s blank expression. “And you share our sense of irony, too,” he said. “But how would he know you were from the police?”

“Probably recognized the car,” Doripalam said. “Cars like this usually mean either police or politicians. A good target in either case. If it is just some idiot, he probably didn’t mean to kill us anyway. Perhaps just to give us a fright.”

“He achieved that objective, anyway. Speaking for myself, you understand.”

“It was a good shot. He knew what he was doing. But we have many skilled archers in this country.”

“You need to get yourselves some cowboys.”

“Some would say,” Doripalam said, “that the police are precisely that.”

Behind them, two more official cars drew up. Nergui signaled for their occupants to remain in their cars for the moment, then he and Doripalam carefully opened their own doors. Nergui pressed himself against the concrete wall, edging back toward the other cars, protected by the building from any attempted assault from above, Doripalam following closely behind. Drew started to follow, but Nergui gestured him back. “As I say, the ambassador would not forgive me.”

Nergui motioned to the other police officers to join them. The other cars had also been parked by the walls, and four officers climbed from each, pressing themselves against the walls by Nergui and Doripalam. Drew heard the sound of other cars, presumably lining up against the rear of the building.

There was an external entrance to the building a few yards further along the wall, fastened with a chain and a large rusty padlock. Gradually, the group of officers edged toward it. Nergui peered for a moment at the door fastening, and then spoke quietly to Doripalam behind him, who inched slowly back to one of the cars and returned, moments later, with a crowbar.

It looked as if the wood was rotten. Doripalam inserted the crowbar between the door and the frame, and pressed his weight against it. The door burst open with a splintering of wood, and the chain and padlock fell uselessly to the ground. He peered cautiously around the frame, pulling a flashlight from his pocket. He shouted something loudly in Mongolian, and then shone the flashlight inside, flashing it around the empty factory space beyond, clearly ready to pull back immediately if there was any response.

Drew realized he had been holding his breath, and let it out steadily. Everything seemed to be quiet. Nergui signaled to the men behind him, and he slowly followed Doripalam into the darkness.

Drew shook his head. It wasn’t possible for him to sit here quietly in this car while Nergui and his team were potentially risking their lives. He opened the door of the car, and slipped out to join the police officers still waiting to enter the building. The officer at the rear turned and looked at him in surprise, but then gave a grin of welcome. Drew pulled out the pocket flashlight he always carried and held it as if it were a weapon.

Nergui called out something from inside. Drew had no idea what had been shouted, but it didn’t sound troubled. It was presumably an instruction to the rest of the team, because they all began to move slowly into the dark building.

Drew followed last. Stepping to one side so that he wouldn’t stand out as a target in the doorway, he paused for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom.

Inside, the building was largely a hollow shell, an enormous space which had at one stage housed manufacturing machinery, but which now echoed emptily. He could see the shadows of the other officers positioning themselves around the walls. Above them, there was some form of walkway running around the walls at the upper floor level-perhaps once intended for machine maintenance. Some pale light came in through the broken upper windows, but there was little to be seen.

Nergui and Doripalam stood poised at the far end, standing in front of a large double door, which presumably led into a storage room. There was a thin line of light coming from around the doors, indicating that there was illumination in the room beyond. It was difficult to be sure from where Drew was standing, but it looked brighter than daylight alone.

Doripalam signaled to two of the men to explore the walkways, reached by stairs in the corner of the factory space, although it seemed that the upper area was unoccupied. As far as Drew could see, there was nowhere else for anyone to hide, other than in whatever space lay behind the double doors.