Robin Cook - Foreign Body

“That can easily be arranged. I will put my best men on it. What is my part?”

“The girl, Jennifer Hernandez. I want her taken care of. It shouldn’t be difficult. She’s staying at the Amal.”

“Why not call up one of your equals in immigration. Have her picked up and deported. Problem over!”

“My sense is that she is feisty, stubborn, and resourceful. If immigration picks her up, I’d worry that she’d make a fuss, and if the media associates her case with the death reported by CNN, there could be an even bigger story about a governmental cover-up. That could make everything decidedly worse.”

“Good point. What exactly do you mean ‘taken care of’? Let’s be specific.”

“I leave that to your well-earned reputation for creativity. I want her to stop being a potential thorn in our side. However you can accomplish that, I’m content. Actually, it’s better if I don’t know. Then if I’m asked at a later date, as one who was interested in her behavior, I don’t have to lie.”

“What if I can assure you she means no harm and her current apparent threat is bogus?”

“That would be satisfactory, of course. Particularly if your team can provide us with the physician mole. I need to attack this problem from both ends.”

“Can I assume my compensation will be the usual?”

“Let’s say comparable. Check things out. Follow her. Remember, we don’t want her to become the news, and we surely don’t want her to be any kind of martyr. As for the compensation, it should depend on degree of difficulty. You and I go back a ways. We can trust each other.”

“You’ll hear from me.”

“Good.”

Ramesh disconnected the call. Toward the end of the conversation with the industrial policeman, he’d had another idea about the Hernandez problem, a possible solution that would be easier, cheaper, and probably better, as it wouldn’t involve the government. All he had to do was get someone he knew angry enough, and it so happened that the individual Ramesh had in mind was easy to get angry when the issue involved money. Ramesh was surprised he’d not thought of Shashank Malhotra earlier. After all, the man regularly paid him off and had even taken him on a memorable trip to Dubai.

“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.

October 17, 2007

Wednesday, 3:45 p.m.

New Delhi, India

Veena glanced at her watch. Report had never seemed to take so long. She was supposed to have been off at three-thirty, and it was already a quarter to four.

“That’s it, then,” Nurse Kumar said to the evening head nurse. “Any questions?”

“I don’t believe so,” the evening head nurse said. “Thank you.”

Everyone stood. Veena made a beeline to the elevator while the others erupted in casual conversation. Samira saw her and had to hurry to catch up.

“Where are you going?” Samira questioned.

Veena didn’t answer. Her eyes darted from elevator to elevator to see which one would be arriving first.

“Veena!” Samira voiced with emotion. “Are you still not going to talk with me? I think you are carrying this too far.”

Veena ignored Samira and stepped over to the door of the arriving elevator. Samira followed.

“I know it is reasonable for you to be angry with me initially,” Samira whispered after moving behind her friend. Several of the other nurses joined them, chattering about the day’s events. “But after you’d had time to think about it, I thought you’d understand I did it for you as much as for myself and the others.”

The elevator arrived. Everyone boarded. Veena moved to the back of the car, turned, and faced forward. Samira joined her. “This silence is not fair,” Samira continued in a whisper. “Don’t you even want to know the details about last night?”

“No,” Veena replied, also in a whisper. They were the first words she’d spoken directly to Samira since Monday, when Cal had revealed to Veena that he knew about her family’s problems. The only other person in the world who knew about it was Samira, so the source was obvious.

“Thank you for talking to me,” Samira said, keeping her voice low over the babble of the others. “I know I wasn’t supposed to tell about your father, but this seemed different. Durell told me our emigrating depended on it. I was also promised your problem would be taken care of and you’d be free, and so would your family.”

“My family has been shamed,” Veena said. “Irreversibly shamed.”

Samira didn’t say anything. She knew that Veena initially would be absorbed in thinking about her extended family and its reputation instead of rejoicing in her newly gained freedom and that of her sisters from a horrid father. But she expected her to promptly see the light. More than ever, Samira wanted to escape what she thought were the cultural shackles of current-day India. She couldn’t wait for Nurses International to help her emigrate.