“Hello, my good friend,” Shashank enthused several octaves louder than necessary. “Wonderful to hear from you. How is the family?”

Ramesh could visually imagine Shashank in his palatial office overlooking the fashionable Connaught Place. Shashank was one of India’s new-style businessmen who were into a wide variety of pursuits, some legal, some less so. Of late he’d become particularly enamored of healthcare and saw medical tourism as the path to an easy second fortune. Over the last three years he’d invested a substantial sum and was the principal stockholder in a company that, appropriately enough in relation to the current problem, owned the Queen Victoria Hospitals in Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai, and the Aesculapian Medical Centers in Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. It was also he who had recently contributed the lion’s share of the cost of the recent ad campaign in Europe and North America touting India as a twenty-first-century healthcare destination. Shashank Malhotra was a major player.

After an appropriate amount of niceties had been exchanged, Ramesh got down to business. “The reason for my call is a problem at Queen Victoria Hospital here in Delhi. Have you been briefed?”

“I heard there was some sort of minor problem,” Shashank said warily. He had heard the change in Ramesh’s voice and was famously sensitive to the word problem, as it usually meant the necessity of spending money. And he was particularly touchy about problems associated with both the Queen Victoria Hospital group and the Aesculapian Medical Centers, as they were the newest members of his financial empire and had yet to reach profitability.

“It’s more than a minor,” Ramesh said. “And I think you should know about it. Do you have a minute?”

“Are you kidding? Certainly I want to hear it.”

Ramesh told Shashank the story pretty much the same way he’d told it to Inspector Naresh Prasad but minus the optimistic government economic predictions for medical tourism, as Shashank was already well aware of those. As Ramesh progressed, he knew Shashank was appreciating both the importance and the urgency of the situation because of the pointed questions he posed as Ramesh continued.

When Ramesh finished and fell silent, Shashank remained silent as well. Ramesh let him stew, particularly about the part of erasing most of the gain from the ad campaign.

“I think you should have told me all this a little sooner,” Shashank growled. He sounded like a completely different person. His voice was low and menacing.

“I think that everything should be fine if this young woman will make up her mind about her grandmother’s body, and then she heads home. I’m sure you know someone qualified to make those suggestions, someone whom she might listen to.”

“Where is she staying?”

“At the Amal Palace.”

Ramesh found himself holding a dead line.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

OCTOBER 17, 2007
WEDNESDAY, 3:45 P.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA