“What exactly do you mean by exit strategy?” Petra questioned.

“Exactly what the phrase implies,” Cal said. “I’m not talking about something philosophical here. I’m talking literally. In a worst-case scenario, such that if we have to get out of India at a moment’s notice, all the details should be prearranged. There shouldn’t be any need for improvisation, for there might not be time.”

Petra and Santana nodded in agreement. Durell merely raised his eyebrows questioningly. “By land, sea, or air?” he asked.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Cal responded. He looked at each in turn, settling on Petra, who was a stickler for this kind of detail.

“By air would be too difficult,” she said. “Passport control at Gandhi International is too experienced. We’d have to pay off too many people, since we wouldn’t know what time of day it might end up being. If we were trying to secretly escape, it would have to be by land.”

“I agree,” Durell said. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands working at each other. “I think we should plan to go northeast with a car or SUV that we buy expressly for this purpose and keep it gassed, packed with necessities, and ready to go. We could plan to cross the border into Nepal at a place we decide beforehand that is the best, although there really isn’t a lot of choice. And finally, we should also put in the car an appropriate amount of cash for bribes. That’s key.”

“You mean buy a vehicle, prepare it, and then keep it out of sight?” Cal asked.

“Exactly,” Durell responded. “Start it up once in a while but put it into that big garage on the grounds and leave it there.”

Cal shrugged. He looked at each woman in turn to sense their reactions. No one spoke. Cal turned back to Durell. “Can I put you in charge of arranging what you are suggesting?”

“No problem,” Durell said.

“Now let’s turn to our new strategy. Have we gotten any feedback at all?”

“We most certainly have,” Santana said. “I heard back from my contact at CNN in only a couple of hours. They had gone ahead and put the story on the air right after they got it just as I’d hoped. The response was terrific and apparently much more than they had expected, with a flood of e-mail from the word go. It was more than they’ve had on any story other than presidential primary politics for a week. They are dying for more.”

Sitting back, Cal let a slight smile spread across his face. What he was hearing was the first good news their collective efforts had generated for the whole project.

“When I woke up this morning, there was another message from Rosalyn Beekman, my CNN contact. She said that all three networks’ news shows expropriated the story to put together pieces on medical tourism in general. At the end of all three segments, the anchors left the question of the safety of surgery in India very much in question.”