IN HIS OFFICE, Santosh pressed a button on the multipoint controller and watched the oversized LCD screen spring to life. There was a time difference of twelve and a half hours between Delhi and Los Angeles. It would be ten thirty in the morning for Jack, a good time to reach him.
“What’s bugging you?” asked Jack, picking up on Santosh’s worried expression.
“The case,” said Santosh. “I’m wondering whether it leads Private Delhi into a political quagmire.”
“Well, it was always a bit boggy,” drawled Jack. “But how come I’m getting the funny feeling that it turns out to involve the suicide of your Health Minister.”
“Kumar,” offered Santosh. “That’s what they’re saying in the States, is it? That it was suicide?”
“I’ll be honest, Santosh, it’s not that big a story here. But yeah, that’s what they’re saying.”
“Well, it wasn’t. I saw the body. It was murder. We’ve established a link between the city’s hospitals and the body parts found at Greater Kailash. We think there’s a link between that find and an earlier murder in which the victim’s eyeballs were removed. And now Kumar, who was drained of all blood and the blood taken. The theory I’m currently working on is that we’ve stumbled across some kind of organ-harvesting or illegal-transplants operation. And my instinct is that this goes right to the top.”
“Okay, hang in there. I’m on my way back to Delhi to address the Global Security and Intelligence Conference. We can talk more when I arrive.”
“The one being held at Vigyan Bhawan?” asked Santosh.
“Precisely,” said Jack. “Grab a cab, pick me up from the airport, and we’ll chat in the car on the drive into town.”
“Will do. Just one small request in the meantime.”
“Shoot.”
“I need you to find out whether any American insurance companies encourage their customers to come to India,” said Santosh.
“For what?” asked Jack.
“For organ transplants or medical procedures,” replied Santosh. “It’s called medical tourism.”
“Anything else?” asked Jack.
“If any of them do encourage clients to have their procedures performed in India, then which ones? I’m particularly interested in one company: ResQ.”
Chapter 46
JACK MORGAN SAT at the round ink-black lacquered table in the octagonal “war room” of Private Los Angeles. Padded swivel chairs were clustered around the table, jumbo flat-screens mounted wall to wall.
Opposite sat the CEO of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, headquartered in Kansas City—a man called Denny. Jack had helped him with several delicate investigations involving insurance frauds worth millions. Requesting Denny’s help that morning, he had not expected him to be in LA for a meeting, but as fortune would have it…
“So here’s the deal, Jack,” said the insurance man, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses to read from a folder on the table. “There is indeed an increasing trend to send American patients to India on account of the new super-specialty hospitals that have been established there. Doctors’ services are a fraction of the cost. In addition, postoperative care is also cheap. Insurance providers can cut costs tremendously by doing this.”
“And clients are willing to travel halfway around the world for medical procedures?” asked Jack.
“Around a hundred and fifty thousand patients travel to India each year for medical procedures. The size of the industry is already around two billion dollars per year.”
“Any specific insurance companies that specialize in the India game?” asked Jack.
“Leading the pack in this effort is a company called ResQ,” said his friend. “It’s listed on the NASDAQ but their main operations are now in India. The name of their CEO is Jai Thakkar.”
Chapter 47
RAM CHOPRA SIPPED his morning coffee as he scanned the newspapers. In New Delhi, the commonly accepted joke was that the Times of India and the Indian Times were read by people who ran the government; the Hindustan Times and the Daily Express were read by people who thought they ought to run the government; the Indian Express was read by the people who used to run the government. The Mail Today was read by the wives of the people who ran the government. And The Hindu was read by people who thought the government ought to be run by another government. The readers of the Delhi Times weren’t bothered about who ran the government as long as the women on page three had big tits.
Chopra was almost unique because he read them all. His routine started with the mainstream dailies published in Delhi, followed by the morning dailies from outside Delhi. The tabloids came last. They were usually vulgar but utterly delicious.
His wife and daughter were asleep, both being late risers. Usually, Chopra enjoyed the solitude of his mornings with a cup of coffee and the first cigar of the day.
But not today. The butler had just poured him a second cup of arabica plucked from the plantations of Coorg when Chopra clumsily dropped the cup. It fell to the floor, the delicate china shattering to little pieces along with the rich brew. “Bastard!” shouted Chopra, crushing the offending tabloid page in his hand and flinging it across the table.
The butler hurriedly brought a mop to clear up the mess on the floor and wondered what had set Chopra off. He noticed the tabloid that Chopra had been reading now lay in a ball on the floor. He vowed to read it later to find out what had caused his boss to detonate.
Chopra got up from the dining table and headed to his study. The butler hurriedly cleared up the coffee spill and the broken cup fragments along with the crumpled newspaper and headed back to the kitchen. He made himself a cup of tea and retrieved the balled-up tabloid pages. The news item instantly caught his eye. It was on the gossip page.
So, darlings, it’s me, back again this week with another installment of juicy chatter. News is that one of the high-and-mighty politicos of our great capital city is miffed with a powerful businessman. It seems that the politico has a sweet daughter of marriageable age and the businessman had swept her off her feet. But (gasp!) he’s had a change of heart! The princess was left standing at the altar with her father waiting to give her away. The whisper in town is that the old man is fuming at the humiliation and has vowed to avenge his family’s “honor.”
Chapter 48