Private Delhi Read online

  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

  THE DELHI GOLF Club dated back to the early 1930s and was home to the championship eighteen-hole Lodhi Course that was part of the Asian PGA Tour. Samir Patel played there twice a week. On Thursdays he would play with just one colleague while on Saturdays it was usually a four-ball.

  He was dressed in his customary bush shirt. The only concessions he had made for the golf course were checkered pants, a sleeveless sweater, and a cap that covered the vermillion mark on his forehead. And today, as he returned to the clubhouse following his game, he was feeling very pleased with himself indeed. It was time to enjoy what he liked to call “a couple of swift libations.”

  In the parking lot outside sat his chauffeur-driven Mercedes. The driver, a good man known to Patel as Babu, was well enough acquainted with his boss’s habits to know that there would be precisely three “swift libations” taking around an hour and a half, at which point his boss would stride slightly unsteadily from the clubhouse and onto the gravel of the parking lot, aglow with the morning’s golf and the afternoon’s alcohol, making more conversation than usual as he was transported back home to his luxurious, well-appointed home.

  Not for the first time, Babu thought how sweet it must be to be one of the big bosses. What a life, he mused as he set his phone alarm for an hour’s time—an hour in which he planned to continue his nap.

  But first, a piss.

  And off he went to the course-side restrooms, unaware that he was being followed.

  Indeed, he remained unaware, even as he stood at the urinal, barely hearing the restroom door open as a man in black slid in behind him. His first—and, as it turned out, his last—thought was, Why is someone standing behind me? But he never saw the man in black. He didn’t see the skewer the man held. His only sensation at the point of death was a sudden fierce pain in his left ear as the skewer was rammed hard and fast into his brain.

  The man in black let the chauffeur’s body slump into his arms. He was already using a rag to staunch the flow of blood from Babu’s ear. Moments later he had maneuvered the corpse into a stall and was helping it out of its clothes.

  An hour later, just as the recently deceased Babu had predicted, Samir Patel was exiting the clubhouse. An extremely happy Surgiquip chairman, he had won his game and been the recipient of exactly three celebratory drinks, and intended to spend the rest of the afternoon at home. His domestics had the afternoon off, and he planned to fill the remainder of his day slumped in a leather armchair, reading the papers, and catching up on an occasional email, knowing he had complete privacy.

  Or so he hoped.

  Babu stood holding the door open for him. “Thank you, Babu,” he said, hearing a slight slur in his own voice as he settled into the lush leather interior. He really shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. The door closed. Babu took his seat in front. The central locking clicked.

  In the next instant Patel knew—even in his relaxed state—that something was amiss. Babu had been his driver a long time. He knew the man’s mannerisms. He knew how his presence felt.

  And he knew this wasn’t Babu.

  “Hey,” he managed, but then the man in the front was swiveling in his seat and God, no, it wasn’t Babu, of course it wasn’t Babu, because this man was holding a hypodermic syringe.

  He recognized the man.

  “No. You” was all he managed before the hypodermic needle was jabbed just under his jaw. It was too late to throw himself toward the door in order to escape, because the sedative had already started to work.

  Chapter 49

  WHEN PATEL SURFACED it was to the relief of knowing that the man with the hypodermic syringe had been an illusion of the mind, for he had awoken in his own bedroom, lying on his back in bed.

  “Thank God,” he whispered to himself, feeling like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “It was just a dream,” and he went to turn over in bed and find a more comfortable position—only to realize that he couldn’t. His outflung arms were held in place, tied with rope, and when he tried to turn his head the movement was prevented by a wide band of something around his forehead. His eyeballs skittered madly in their sockets as he tried to see his legs, knowing that they, too, were strapped to the bed.

  Another thing: he was naked.

  He became aware of someone else in the room, moving around.

  “Are you awake?” said a voice. Bright torchlight made his pupils contract.

  “Please. Please. Please, don’t do this,” he said in a whine that was disgraceful to his own ears.

  “Do what, Mr. Patel?” came the voice.

  The familiar voice. Yes. That was right. He knew the man. He knew his attacker and if he knew his attacker then surely he could reason with—

  “What are you doing?” he said, seeing something in his peripheral vision. The man was moving closer to the bed, a shadow that refused to fully form in his drug-fogged mind. All Patel knew was that once again a syringe was coming toward him.

  “Just some pain relief, Mr. Patel. I want you to remain conscious, so you can see everything I am about to do to you. So you can appreciate its enormity.”

  The needle sunk deep. The plunger depressed. Next it was as though a wave of bliss and well-being rolled through Patel, so that even though his eyes were wide and straining in their sockets, there was something almost comforting about the roll of surgical instruments that was unfurled on the bed beside him.

  The figure retired and then moments later reappeared, only this time the man wore hospital scrubs and a mask. He had moved a mirror from the bathroom and angled it so that Patel could see his own abdomen.

  “The doctor is in,” said the intruder.

  He lifted a scalpel from the roll of instruments and held it up for Patel to see. Even with the etorphine working its magic Patel felt the first tremors of terror, knowing this was no dream; that there was no escape.

  He was going to die.

  “Anything,” he slurred, “I’ll do anything.”

  “Anything? You have done nothing—nothing but take, take, take. And now it is your turn to give.”

  He made his incision. Patel did not feel it, but he heard it, and he saw the blade p
ierce his flesh between the ribs, the scalpel held between index finger and thumb, angled and then drawn down, opening a red ribbon to just above his belly button. Patel saw his own flesh part, the glistening meat visible beneath, bits of himself he would have hoped never to see.

  Damage! screamed his mind, like some kind of automated response. Damage, damage! But in the next second he was thinking, But if my attacker stopped there I might be all right. I might heal.

  I could still live.

  The intruder placed the scalpel back onto the bed and then brought something else into view. A clamp. Then another. The man inserted them onto each side of the incision and still Patel felt no pain—one part of his brain screaming while yet another competing part insisted that he might be okay, he might be okay.

  And then the man was opening the incision in his chest, opening it wide, so wide, and Patel was seeing his own exposed insides and he was no longer thinking that everything was going to be all right, he knew now that his death was imminent and was thankful that at least it would be painless. The attacker reached inside with two hands and his forehead furrowed in concentration as he rummaged within Patel’s chest cavity.

  Patel felt pulling. A sucking sensation below.

  And then his eyes bulged as he saw what his attacker held up before him.

  It was his own heart.

  Chapter 50

  THE BLACK VAN stood at the corner of Jama Masjid Road and Chawri Bazar Road in the congested Chandni Chowk area of Delhi.

  Windows had been replaced by mild steel panels that had been spray-painted to match the black exterior.

  A frightened old man entered. The interior was nice and warm but the smell of disinfectant was overpowering. The inside of the vehicle was fitted out in a style similar to an ambulance.

  Iqbal Ibrahim motioned the visitor to be seated. Ibrahim was a burly fellow dressed in blue jeans and a green T-shirt that bore the first line of the Quran in white calligraphy. On his head was an embroidered white skullcap. His hooked nose was big—almost like the beak of a bird.

  Ibrahim had been brought up in the slums of Delhi, one among nine children of a rag picker. When he was just six, their shanty had collapsed while he was inside. His parents and the neighbors had pulled him out of the rubble to find him unhurt. It had been a miracle. Four years later a car had missed him by inches while he was playing cricket on a public road. At age twelve, he had been swimming in the Yamuna with his friends when the authorities had released water from the upstream dam without warning. Two of his friends had perished but Iqbal had survived. Ever since that day Ibrahim had believed in his own superhuman nature. He could never fail.

  The superhuman had struggled through school and had managed to get into med school via a special quota but had flunked. In spite of failing, he had turned out to be much more successful than the average doctor. On his desk were two cell phones, identical except for their covers. One was red while the other was green. He had nicknames for both: the red one was called “Supply” and the green one was called “Demand.” The choice of colors was significant. Supply implied bloody surgeries, hence the choice of red. Demand implied money, often dollars, hence the choice of green.

  “Have you brought the money?” asked Ibrahim as the old man sat down. The old man nodded wearily as he passed a brown-paper-covered parcel across the desk.

  Ibrahim opened the parcel and took out the individual bundles of cash. He placed each one into a currency-counting machine on his desk and totted up the result. Six lakh rupees. Around nine thousand dollars.

  “You realize this is only half? The other half is payable immediately before the transplant?” asked Ibrahim.

  “Yes,” said the old man, who had sold off his wife’s jewelry in order to pay for his only son’s operation. The previous year, the boy had been diagnosed with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, an absence of a vital enzyme in the liver. They had tried every possible treatment until the doctors had eventually advised a liver transplant.

  “Where should I admit my son?”

  “Check him into Delhi Memorial Hospital and sign him up with Dr. Pankaj Arora as the doctor on record. We have identified a donor. Inshallah, your son will get a new liver tomorrow. You are lucky there is no foreigner in the queue for this one. I make them pay twice what you are paying!”

  Chapter 51

  THE SENIOR NURSE felt inside the pocket of her starched white uniform. The syringe containing epinephrine was right there. Every fiber in her body wanted to run away. But then an image of Arora would appear before her. It was the fear of Arora that kept her there.

  Epinephrine, also known as adrenalin, was a hormone that could be used as medication for a number of conditions. The common side effects included anxiety, sweating, increased heart rate, and high blood pressure. The amazing thing about epinephrine was that it could make the vitals of a patient appear as though a heart attack was being experienced.

  She walked past the nurses’ station and the janitors who were mopping the floors of the long corridor. She stopped only when she reached the door of room 303. She opened it gently and entered the dimly lit room. The sole occupant appeared to be asleep on a bed that was slightly elevated toward the head. An IV line ran into the patient’s hand while a bedside monitor mapped the patient’s vital signs. He had been in a persistent vegetative state for the past four years.

  The nurse took a deep breath, knowing she was crossing a line, for it was one thing when paired organs were taken from a living donor; people could live on a single lung or a single kidney. Similarly, blood, bone marrow, and parts of livers could be taken, knowing that they would regenerate eventually.

  But it was quite another when it came to organs such as the heart.

  The problem was that harvesting organs without getting the patient into the operating room was impossible. Epinephrine would do the trick by simulating a heart attack.

  She held the IV port and inserted the needle into the lumen of the IV line. She prayed to her god as she slowly pressed the plunger, knowing that she was no longer a mere accomplice but a killer in Arora’s perverse plans.

  He had convinced her that the vegetative-state patient was dead by acceptable medical criteria and that harvesting his useful organs would be a service to humanity.

  Nonsense! the alternate voice in her head said. What they were doing was wrong. Beyond wrong. It was monstrous.

  Chapter 52

  SANTOSH HAD LEFT his cane behind for this particular expedition. He was walking through the underground tunnel, sloshing through a foot of water, wearing a black plastic coat and pants. On his feet were gumboots and on his head was a miner’s helmet with a battery-powered light. He wore a charcoal filter mask around his mouth and nose to avoid methane poisoning.

  He trudged through the water, oblivious to the stench of sewage. In his hand was a laminated map. It showed the major arteries that ran under the streets of Delhi as well as access points. He had marked his destination in red and the route in blue.

  It was mostly quiet inside the tunnel, but every drop of dripping water seemed to be amplified and echoed, and was punctuated by the squealing of rats. He kept walking but he had a nasty feeling he was being followed. He stopped for a minute and strained his ears to check for the sound of footsteps. There were none.

  He looked at his watch. He had been down there for over thirty minutes. He sped up and took a final turn. And above him he saw the manhole. A rusted iron ladder snaked up from the drain to the manhole and he carefully climbed it, ensuring that he tested each rung before actually using it.

  At the top of the ladder, he examined the manhole cover. He could see his scarf—now soiled and stained—hanging from the underside handle. Just to make sure his theory was right, he held on with one hand and used the other to nudge the cover. It did not require too much effort. A single arm was sufficient to nudge open the cover and slide it away with minimal noise. Switching off the light beam of his helmet, he popped his head above ground in the darkness and
pulled himself out. He looked around to ensure that it was the house that he had estimated on the drainage map.

  Satisfied that it was, Santosh headed back into the drain, closing the manhole behind him. He had proved his hypothesis: it was indeed possible to access Kumar’s house by following a drainage map obtained from the Irrigation and Flood Control Department.

  Now, if only he could find who were the people who had bought similar maps. Unfortunately, the list provided by the superintendent engineer had been useless. Anyone could provide a fake name and the department would accept it at face value.

  Chapter 53

  HYPERION HOSPITAL IN Delhi looked more like a five-star hotel than a hospital. Each patient enjoyed a luxurious private room with a flat-screen television and a room service menu. The lobby downstairs featured a waterfall and a vertical garden. The hospital was the brainchild of the scion of a pharmaceutical conglomerate. It was specifically targeted at delivering efficient—and luxurious—services in the health care sector at a fraction of the amount they would cost in America. All of the design, planning, and equipment had been supplied by Patel’s company, Surgiquip.

  The couple from Minneapolis were dropped off in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz van. Their “relationship manager” waited at the entrance to greet them. Every detail had been taken care of for them. This included procuring Indian visas, arranging business-class travel, blocking rooms at the Imperial Hotel for the first night, arrangements at the Joint Commission International-accredited hospital, doctor consultations, diagnostic tests, postoperative care, and even leisure travel in India after recovery.