Santosh’s cane clicked on the wooden floor as he made his way to the kitchen and then returned with a bottle of whisky that he placed on his makeshift table. He pointed to the bottle with the tip of his cane. “Perhaps you’d like to check it.”
Jack leaned forward, holding Santosh’s gaze as he reached for the bottle, inverted it, and studied the almost invisible mark he had made with a small bar of hotel soap two nights before.
“It’s just as it was the other night,” he said, replacing the bottle. “And I’m pleased to see it.”
Santosh blinked slowly. “Not nearly as pleased as I am.”
“I had to check, Santosh. I had to know.”
“You could have asked me.”
“But addicts lie. That’s what they do. Besides, why even have it in the house if you don’t plan to drink it?”
The answer was that Santosh preferred to face temptation head-on. He would spend hours just staring at the bottle. It was for that reason, not his renowned detective skills, that he had seen the soap mark, and having spotted it he’d studied his front-door lock and detected the odor of lubricant. One phone call to Private HQ later and his suspicions had been confirmed.
Jack had been checking up on him.
But of course he couldn’t blame Jack for that. Private was the world’s biggest investigation agency, with offices in Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Sydney, Paris, Rio, Mumbai, and, most recently, Delhi. Jack had invested a huge amount of faith in Santosh by making him Private’s chief of operations in India.
Santosh had been an agent with the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, when investigations into the 2006 Mumbai train blasts had brought him into contact with Jack. It had been only a matter of time before he’d recruited Santosh to establish Private in Mumbai. Setting up Private’s office in Mumbai had been challenging; his last case had almost killed him and at the very least it had looked as though he might have lost his ongoing battle with the bottle.
Jack had come to his rescue by persuading him to go to rehab, the Cabin in Thailand. Six months later, Jack had persuaded Santosh to move to Delhi to establish Private in the capital.
So Jack had to know that Santosh was still in control of his addiction. And he was. The bottle of whisky had hung around his home untouched for the whole three months he’d been there. Every day Santosh had resisted the temptation to open it and banish his private pain. And every day it got a little easier.
Privately, though, he worried if he could truly operate without it. He worried that his brain might not be able to make the same leaps of logic it once had; he worried that kicking the booze might make him a worse detective, not a better one. These were just a few of the things keeping him awake at night.
“I don’t drink it,” he told Jack. “That’s the important thing.”
Chapter 7
JACK LOVED TO drive in Delhi. First of all he always made sure to hire an old car, one that already had its fair share of bumps and scrapes, and then he’d climb in, wind down the window, and plunge headlong into the sheer mayhem of one of his favorite cities.
He liked to drive fast. Or at least as fast as he dared, leaning on the horn like a local and winding his way through lines of busses, scooters, cyclists, and auto rickshaws, past glass-fronted buildings and ancient temples, broken-down housing and luxury hotels with glove-wearing staff at the gates. Delhi was a vibrant, colorful mix of cultures old and new. A genuine melting pot. To Jack it felt as though Delhi’s entire history—Hindu Rajputs, Muslim Mughals, and Christian Englishmen—all came to him through the open window of the car, and he breathed it all in—good and bad—breathing its very essence.
At times like that, Jack felt most alive. Blessed. He thought that being Jack Morgan in Delhi was just about the best thing you could be in this world.
Usually, that is.
But not today. Because one thing stronger than his love for driving fast through Delhi was his respect for Santosh Wagh. It was in a car accident that the investigator had lost his wife and child, Isha and Pravir. So, for that reason, Jack drove slowly, with the window closed.
As they made their way through the streets Jack cast a sideways glance at his passenger, a man he was proud to call a friend.
In his early fifties, Santosh looked older than his age. Sleep deprivation and alcohol abuse had taken their toll. His salt-and-pepper stubble was more salt than pepper and the brown wool jacket with leather patches at the elbows gave him the look of a university professor. His eyeglasses were unfashionable and his scarf should have been replaced years earlier. Not that he seemed to care. Aloof and cerebral, permanently ruminative, Santosh was far too preoccupied to care about such trivial matters.
“Tell me about Delhi’s political makeup,” Jack asked him, more to keep his passenger’s mind off the journey than genuine ignorance on his part.
Santosh cleared his throat. “Delhi’s a strange place. It’s not only a state in the Indian federation but also India’s capital—like Washington, DC. The city’s government is split down the middle: civic administration is managed by the Chief Minister, Mohan Jaswal, while law and order is managed by the Lieutenant Governor, Ram Chopra.”
Jack slowed to allow a pair of motorbikes to pass, and then immediately regretted it when a cab and an auto rickshaw nipped in front of him as well. Any other day…he thought ruefully.
“The Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor. Do they see eye to eye?” he asked Santosh.
“Jaswal and Chopra?” mused Santosh. “Do they see eye to eye? Now there’s a good question. Before I answer it, how about you tell me which one of them we’re due to meet.”
Jack laughed. He loved to see Santosh’s mind working. “I tell you what, my brainy friend. How about you tell me what the beef is all about, and then I’ll tell you which one we’re due to see.”
“Very well,” said Santosh. “The answer to your question is no, Jaswal and Chopra do not see eye to eye. As Chief Minister and Lieutenant Governor respectively, they’re supposed to run Delhi in partnership, but the fact of the matter is they agree on nothing. There is what you might call a difference of opinion when it comes to interpreting the rules of their partnership.”
“They hate each other?”
“Pretty much. A jurisdictional war is not the best path to a lasting friendship.”
“One of them would dearly like to put one over on the other?”
“As a means of wresting complete control, no doubt.” Santosh flinched slightly as a pedestrian passed too close to their car. “Now, how about you tell me which one it is?”
“Chief Minister Mohan Jaswal.”
Santosh nodded. “Has he told you why?”
“Nope. Just that he wants to meet. He asked for both of us. What do you know about him?”