Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

So that was it. Cleaned out again. Right down to the last tugruk.

He fell against the wall, nearly lost his footing, then staggered upright again and continued his uncertain way down the empty street.

What time was it? After midnight, for sure. The streetlights were on in the square, but the narrow side streets were lost in darkness. And it was cold. Bone-chillingly cold, and winter was hardly here. He had tried to bet his coat on the last game-it was the only asset he had left-but thank blue heaven they’d just laughed at him. They usually laughed at him.

He tripped again, stumbling on an uneven paving stone, and felt suddenly nauseous. He should stop this. Stop the drinking. Stop the gambling. Yet again, he had left himself with nothing to live on till the next public handout, days away. But what else was there? Endless empty promises. That was the story of this country; everyone made promises. But nobody kept them. At least the cheap vodka always delivered.

He stopped suddenly, feeling sick, realizing that his bladder was painfully full. The city lights swirled around him, a dizzying scatter of neon logos proclaiming a future he had no part in. He took a step back, trying to regain his equilibrium, the freezing cold aching in his limbs.

Where was he? Still a long way from home, a long way to go. He looked around, trying to find somewhere to relieve himself. There was a cramped side street to his left, unlit, thick blackness only yards from the main street. He glanced back. The city center and the main square in the distance, were deserted, bleak and wintry in the thin glow of the streetlights.

He turned and began to make his way cautiously down the unlit street. Some lingering sense of propriety made him try to move further into the darkness-he had no desire to get himself arrested, on top of everything else.

He could barely see now, his eyes not yet accustomed to the dark. Tall blank buildings rose up on both sides of him, the lights of the main street lost behind him. He took another step, trying to regain his balance and his bearings, and then he stumbled again, his foot catching on something. Something heavy lying in the middle of the street. Something soft.

He fell headlong, his arm and his shoulder scraping on the rough ground, the impact agonizing even in his drunken state. He rolled over, gasping, and lay on his back, trying to catch his breath. Above him, in the narrow gap between the high buildings, he could see a brilliant patterning of stars.

His eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, and he twisted around, trying to see what it was that had tripped him. At first, he couldn’t make it out. Just a blank shapeless mound, spread across the frozen ground. And then he thought it looked something like a human figure, but not quite like one. He rolled over, trying to clear his head, trying to work out what was wrong.

And then, suddenly, he realized what it was, and he screamed, the nausea that had been building in his stomach overwhelming him, acid in his throat.

He was still lying there, moaning and retching, when the police patrol arrived fifteen minutes later.

It was like one of the gates of hell.

They drove at speed away from the airport, northeast toward the city, as the setting sun cast crimson shadows along the road ahead. As night fell and the sky filled with stars, the empty steppe was left behind, replaced by a vast industrial complex dominating both sides of the road. Endless blank buildings stretched into the thickening winter darkness, interspersed by networks of heavy pipelines, scatterings of pale orange lights. Somewhere in the center, there was a single guttering flare.

Nergui followed Drew’s gaze. “Mining. Mainly coal here, though there are gold reserves in the area also. A primitive operation. This would not now be allowed in your country, I think. The ugliness, pollution. But the Soviets were not too bothered about things like that. And neither are we, I suppose, so long as we maintain some kind of industry. We have been through difficult times.” He shrugged, and then smiled. “But much of the country is unspoiled. I hope you will get the chance to see some of it while you are here.”

“I don’t know-”

Nergui nodded. “Of course, forgive me. Murder is not a trivial matter. Especially in a case like this. We will provide you with every support. This matter is a grave concern to us as well. I merely wish to be hospitable.”

Drew shook his head. “No, that’s fine. I’m keen to see something of the country while I’m here.”

“I will be pleased to be your guide, Chief Inspector.”

“Call me Drew, please.”

The Mongolian nodded slowly, as though absorbing this request. He had given no indication of his own rank or position. At the airport, Nergui had introduced himself to Drew-one of a handful of Westerners on the inbound flight-only by the single name. It had appeared, from the phone calls and e-mails exchanged prior to Drew’s arrival, that Nergui was the officer in charge of the investigation, but he had not made this explicit. Instead, he had introduced the younger second officer, Doripalam, as the Head of the Serious Crimes Team.

But there was no doubt that Nergui was at ease in the back of this official car, with Doripalam in the front passenger seat and a silent underling driving them down this featureless road toward the city center.

And there was no doubt, too, that Drew was a long way from home.

Home was five thousand miles away. Home was the soft chill of late autumn rain, not the harsh grip of approaching winter. It was the gray downpour that had greeted Drew as he crawled from his bed at some godless hour that morning, hearing the steady breathing of his sleeping wife, the softer synchronized breath of the children in the next room. The ceaseless torrent down the windshield of the taxi thirty minutes later, the rhythmic sweep of the wipers. The overcheerful banter of the driver, on his last run of the night, looking forward to his own bed.

As always, Drew had arrived at the airport too early, with an age to wait after check-in, trying not to think about the hours of travel that lay ahead, about what might wait at the end of the journey. He was still barely awake as he boarded the flight to Heathrow, a compliant automaton, gripping his passport, fumbling for the hastily arranged visa, juggling his deck of tickets. The flight was, inevitably, late, stacked for long minutes over London, Monday morning congestion already building. He ended up with no time to spare, racing across the terminal for the connecting Lufthansa flight to Berlin, convinced he would be stopped at the gate. As he stumbled up the aisle of the plane, the other passengers had stared at him, no doubt recognizing him as the one who had briefly delayed their flight.

This was, supposedly, the easier route to Mongolia. The alternative was a flight to Moscow and an Aeroflot connection to Ulan Baatar. The specialist travel firm that had organized the trip had warned against this, citing the inevitability of delays in Moscow and the notorious unreliability of the Russian carrier. Better to trust German efficiency and the enthusiasm of Mongolia’s own state airline, MIAT, to bring tourists and their currency quickly into their country.

The advice proved sound. The Berlin flight was on time, and the transfer at Tegel smooth enough. Two hours later, he was sitting on MIAT’s only 737, finally beginning to relax. This flight was also on schedule and the service was efficient, even if the style and catering were, to Western eyes, eccentric. The in-flight meal consisted entirely of a selection of meats-cured, roast, perhaps boiled-accompanied by an apparently unending supply of miniature Mongolian vodkas. Drew drank two of these, enjoying the warmth and pepper taste, with a growing sense of ease that the hardest part of the journey was past. Three vodkas seemed too many for the early afternoon, and he slipped the last small bottle into his pocket as a souvenir. His neighbor, a middle-aged Mongolian man in a smart-looking black business suit, smiled at him and raised his own glass of vodka in silent greeting.