by Robin Cook
Neil had to Smile at himself as he ran along the face of the Jama Masjid mosque. He was certainly having a devil of a time surprising Jennifer, and wondered what had happened at the Red Fort. When he had visited India five months ago, the Red Fort had been one of his favorite tourist sites, but apparently Jennifer had felt otherwise.
A minute earlier, by sheer luck, Neil had just caught sight of Jennifer, poised on a cycle rickshaw and about to be swallowed up by the labyrinthine Delhi. Yelling to the driver to stop, Neil had tossed the fare into the taxi’s front seat, and had leaped from the vehicle, only to be bogged down by the milling crowds massed at the mosque’s entrance. When he’d finally broken free, Jennifer had disappeared.
When Neil entered the bazaar, he had to slow to a jog. At first he wasn’t sure which way she’d gone, but a minute or so of further jogging brought her back into sight. At that moment she was about fifty feet ahead of him.
Jennifer was not enjoying herself. The cycle rickshaw seat was hard and the alleyway bumpy. Several times she was concerned she might fall as the cycle’s tires fell into potholes. The alleyways, narrow lanes, and even narrower katras were horribly crowded, noisy, frenetic, vibrant, and chaotic all at the same time. Myriad electrical wires, like spider webs, hung above, as did water pipes. There was a symphony of smells both delightful and sickening, involving, among other things, spices and urine, animal feces and jasmine.
As she held on for dear life she thought she probably would have found the experience more engaging if it hadn’t been for her grandmother’s death, which she couldn’t quite displace from the forefront of her consciousness, despite the bombardment on her senses. Although she was dealing with the tragedy far better than she had imagined before arriving in India, it was still affecting her negatively on many levels. As such, it seemed to her that the part of the bazaar she was seeing was dirty—filled with too much trash and sewage, and teeming with far too many people. The shops themselves for the most part were mere holes in the walls, their junk tumbling out into the lane. Although she recognized she’d yet to see the section selling the gold and silver or the spice area, she’d had enough. She just wasn’t in the right mind-set.
Jennifer was about to try to tell the cyclist she wanted to go back—in fact, she’d leaned forward, holding on with her left hand and keeping her shoulder bag in her lap, to attempt to get the man’s attention—when she noticed a kind of commotion out of the corner of her eye. As she turned to her left and looked down, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. Over the top of the barrel was a man’s hard, thin, expressionless face.
The next thing everyone in the crowded galis heard was the startling noise of the gun being fired twice. Those close to the victim, who happened to be looking in his direction, also had to witness the awful destructive power at close range, of a nine-millimeter bullet traversing the skull and exiting the left side of the man’s face. In this incidence, most of the victim’s left cheek was blown away, laying bare the upper and lower dentition.
Chapter 26
OCTOBER 18, 2007
THURSDAY, 10:52 A.M.
DELHI, INDIA
For a moment, time stood still. All was silent. Everyone in the immediate area was dumbstruck for almost a full beat. With the gun going off in the narrow, close-quartered alleyway, their ears were ringing. The next instant it was like being next to a tornado, with everyone screaming and running headlong away in a complete panic.
The protein-starved cyclist ferrying Jennifer was one of the very first to flee, literally leaping from his tricycle and dashing off, heading down the galis, not even holding on to his dhoti. He might have appeared malnourished, but he had a strong sense of self-preservation.
The instant the driver left the cycle rickshaw and forcefully pushed off with his feet, the front wheel turned sharply and the tricycle’s momentum heaved it forward. As it crashed it hurled Jennifer straight ahead onto the filthy pavement. With her shoulder bag looped over her shoulder, it stayed with her as she sprawled spread-eagle on the ground, scraping the side of her nose and her right elbow in the process. At the time she didn’t care what she’d fallen into. Almost the second she’d touched down, she was up and running with everyone else.
Within seconds the bazaar became a building tide of people rushing forward like a wave, engulfing the shops, which acted like clams. As soon at the disturbance touched them, their doors instantly slammed shut from within; locks were secured, leaving merchandise to be stumbled over and trampled in the street.
Jennifer had no idea where she was going but was content to let her shocked feet take her anyplace quickly, as long as it was away from where the gun had gone off. All she could think about was the fleeting image of the man in black aiming a gun at her face. At the last nanosecond she saw the man’s left cheek literally disappear; one second it was there, the next it was gone. At that instant the man appeared to be the embodiment of the Grim Reaper.
Jennifer became aware of other people running, everybody in a slightly different direction, although most down the street and bearing to the right at the first corner. Rapidly tiring from running full-tilt, she noticed a number of people disappearing into the doorway of one of the larger shops beyond the corner. The owner was complaining and trying to get his door shut, but the half-dozen or so people were ignoring him. Jennifer pushed into the store behind the others, as ahead she saw two policemen, scruffily dressed in khaki, trying to stop the panic by beating people with their long bamboo staffs as they ran headlong into them.
As she dashed into the shop and stared around at the merchandise, she realized it was a butcher shop. Toward the front were stacks and stacks of tiny crates stuffed with live, cackling chickens and a couple of ducks. A little farther inside were some pigs and a lamb. The place stank and was horribly dirty. The floor was covered with dried crusted blood. Flies were all over everything. Jennifer found it hard to keep them out of her face.
While the proprietor was arguing with the other strangers who had run in, Jennifer looked for a hiding place of sorts, where she could get her breath and reprogram her mind. She was still overwhelmed by fright. Knowing she could not be choosy, she encountered a soiled curtain. With no hesitation, she pulled it aside and stepped beyond.
As her foot came down, Jennifer realized belatedly she had to direct it onto one of two bricks. The same with the other foot. She had inadvertently stepped into a makeshift toilet. Balancing herself, she pulled the curtain back into place. Next she managed to turn herself around without stepping off the bricks. The facility was just a hole, two bricks, and a faucet.
The argument between the owner and the interlopers was still going on out in the narrow store. Jennifer assumed the language was Hindi. She tried not to breathe through her nose. The smell was repulsive.
Now that she was stationary, Jennifer shivered. She looked at her hands and then tentatively smelled. It didn’t smell good, whatever it was that she’d landed in when she’d pitched out of the tricycle. At least it wasn’t feces. She looked down at the faucet, shrugged, and bent down to rinse off her hands. At that point it sounded as if a new person had gotten into the shop and was arguing with the owner. This time it was in English. But the individual said little. It was mostly the owner carrying on very angrily. Then there was a crash, and the pigs began squealing and the lamb bleating.
Worrying about what was happening, Jennifer stood up, turned, and listened. It sounded like the owner was trying to get up. Just when Jennifer had generated the courage to peek around the curtain, it was rudely whipped to the side, causing her to cry out, as did the person doing the whipping.
It was Neil McCulgan.
“God, you scared me half to death,” Neil complained with a hand pressed to his chest.
“You?” Jennifer complained with equal vehemence. “What about me? And what in God’s name are you doing here?”
“There’ll be time to explain,” Neil said. He extended a hand for Jennifer to step off the bricks. Behind him,
the owner was busy trying to extricate himself from a stack of the tiny chicken cages where he’d presumably been pushed. Several of the cages had broken, and the released chickens were nervously pacing around the immediate area.
She shook her head and raised her hands as a warning. “You don’t want to touch me. I was tossed out of a tricycle into some—”
“I know. I saw.”
“You did?” Jennifer stepped off the bricks. She briefly glanced at the half-dozen Indians she’d followed into the shop.
“I most certainly did.”
“I want you Americans out of here,” yelled the owner, after catching the chickens and cramming the poor birds into occupied cages. “I want everyone out of here!”
“Let’s go!” Neil said, keeping himself between the owner and Jennifer. “There’s nothing to be running from.”
Outside, things had pretty much returned to normal. People were no longer in a panic and were beginning to drift back into the street. Shops were reopening, and the two policemen were no longer beating anyone. Best of all, it seemed no one had gotten hurt other than the person who was shot.
“Alright, this is far enough!” Jennifer said, halting in the middle of the alley. She was trembling now that she’d had a moment to think about what she had experienced. It had all transpired so fast. “Do you know what happened?”
“Sort of,” Neil said. “I was behind you trying to catch up when the shooting occurred. I’ve been trying to catch you from the moment you left the hotel. I missed you at the Red Fort.”
“I couldn’t handle visiting it,” Jennifer confessed. “And it turned out that I couldn’t handle the bazaar, either. I was trying to get the cyclist to turn around and take me back to my car when the shots rang out.”
“Anyway, I got to the mosque and I just caught a glimpse of you disappearing on the cycle rickshaw. I had to run through all those people in front of the mosque to try not to lose you in this labyrinth.” Neil made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “I wasn’t even sure which direction you’d gone. But I hurried best I could despite the crowd. Then the moment I did see you, I noticed someone go right up behind you and take out a gun. I yelled bloody murder and started running faster, but a short guy behind the first was faster. He was like a gunslinger. He whipped out his own gun and blam, blam, then yelled ‘Police!’ and held up a badge. That was it. I saw you pitch from the cycle and dash off. It was all I could do to keep you in sight. You really can sprint.”
“You think the guy with the gun was going to shoot me?” Jennifer asked anxiously. She started to raise her hand to her face in consternation but thought better of it.
Neil pressed his lips together and shrugged. “It sure looked like it. I mean, he could have been planning on robbing you, I suppose, but I kinda doubt it. He acted too motivated. Is there anyone that might actually want to kill you?” Neil let the question trail off, suggesting that he couldn’t believe what he was actually asking.
“I’ve kinda frustrated a couple of people, but not enough to want to kill me. At least I don’t think so.”
“Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity?”
Jennifer looked away, shook her head, and laughed humorlessly. “God, what I’ve been doing is certainly not worth getting killed for. No way. If it’s not a mistake then I’m outta here, Granny and all.”
“Are you certain there’s no one really, really angry at you?”
“My granny’s case manager, but it’s her freaking job. It’s not the kind of thing you kill someone over.”
“One way or the other, you are mighty lucky that plainclothes policeman was where he was.”
“You are so right,” Jennifer said. “Come on! Let’s go meet this guy. Maybe he’ll know something. Maybe he was even following the other guy. Now that they have the body, maybe they might know if he was following me or not. It’s worth a try to get some answers.”
Neil reached out and restrained Jennifer. “I don’t advise it.”
“Why not?” Jennifer said, pulling her arm free from Neil’s grasp.
“When I was here last for my medical meeting, I learned a lot about the Indian government and the Indian police from my hosts. It’s best, unless absolutely necessary, to stay clear of both. Corruption is a way of life here. It’s not viewed from the same moral perspective as it is in the West. Whenever you get involved, it costs you money. The CBI, which is the equivalent to our FBI, is supposed to be very different. But in this situation you’ll get yourself caught up with the regular local police. I’m not even certain they wouldn’t put you in jail for inciting someone to pull a gun.”
“Don’t be silly,” Jennifer said, thinking Neil was joking. She started walking back to where the episode occurred. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m exaggerating a little,” Neil admitted, catching up to Jennifer. “But the fact that the local police are corrupt to some degree is apparent to everyone in the know, trust me. Also, so are many of the civil servants for the most part. It’s best not to get involved. If you make any specific request about a crime, they have to fill out an FIR, or First Information Report, and, of course, it has to have five million copies. It makes work for them, and they hate it and hate you, too.”
“A man was killed. There needs to be an FIR.”
“Yeah, but that’s his FIR.”
“The more I think about it, he must have been after me in some form or fashion.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Neil said. “I’m telling you, you’re taking a risk. I was told under no uncertain terms not to get involved with the local police.”
It was hard to walk side by side in the crowd, especially as the crowd got more and more dense the closer they came to the scene. Neil let Jennifer go ahead. Suddenly, she stopped and turned around. “Wait a sec!” she said. “Although I’ve been blown over and distracted by this episode, let me ask you again: What in God’s name are you doing here in India? I mean, the question has popped into my mind several times, but this attempt on my life has tended to dominate my attention.”
“No doubt,” Neil said, trying to think what exactly to say at this point. If it hadn’t been for the excitement, he was going to come right out and apologize first thing. He shrugged, thinking, What’s the difference. “I’m here because you asked me to come and because you suggested you needed me. I didn’t really take that seriously back in L.A. I was more concerned, I’m afraid, about a surfing meet that’s taking place today in La Jolla. Unfortunately, when you walked out prior to any discussion, I got mad, and it took me a while to get unmad, and by the time I did, you were gone.”
“When did you get here?” Jennifer asked.
“Last night. I wasn’t going to disturb you if you were asleep. The problem is they wouldn’t even tell me your room number, so I couldn’t put my ear against your door.”
“Why didn’t you call me to let me know you were coming?”
“Easy,” Neil said with a short laugh of self-mockery. “I was afraid you’d tell me to turn around and go home. I mean, I wasn’t even confident you’d take my call, or if you did take it, knowing you as I do, I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t just tell me to drop dead and that would be that.”
“I might have,” Jennifer acknowledged. “I was more than disappointed at your response. I can tell you that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t give the situation the significance it deserved at the time,” Neil said.
Jennifer was thoughtful for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Then she turned around again and pushed through the crowd. The cycle rickshaw was still lying on its side. The body was still there as well, uncovered. With the left side of the face gone and the teeth visible, it looked like it was grimacing.
“That’s the driver,” Jennifer whispered, motioning with her chin toward the emaciated cycle rickshaw driver squatting on the ground. There were several policemen in khaki uniforms standing on either side of him.
“See what I mean!” Neil whispered back. “The poor guy’s pr
obably under arrest.”
“You really think so.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“It looks to me as if that short guy is in charge. What do you think?”
Naresh Prasad was talking to several other uniformed police officers standing near the body.
“He must be some kind of plainclothes detective or something.”
“You really think I shouldn’t talk to them?” Jennifer asked.
“Put it this way: What do you know? Nothing. You don’t even know if this guy followed you from the Amal Palace, or just saw you here and said there’s a millionaire Westerner.”
“Get out of here!” Jennifer said.
“There’s no way for you to know. That’s the point. They don’t know, either. If you insist on getting involved, you’re not going to learn anything and you’re not going to add anything, and it will possibly cost you some money. Besides, if you change your mind, you can tell them tomorrow, or this afternoon for that matter. No one is going to fault you for getting the hell out of here under the circumstances.”
“Alright,” Jennifer snapped. “You’ve talked me out of it, at least for now. Let’s get back to the hotel. I think I need a drink or something. I’m still shaking.”
“Good choice!” Neil commented. “What we can do is head over to the American embassy at some point either today or tomorrow and get their take. If they think you should file an FIR, we’ll do it, because then they will be involved and there won’t be any screwing around.”
“Fair enough,” Jennifer said.
The crowd near the killing blocked most of the galis. On one side, several policemen were keeping a narrow right-of-way open against the far wall. To create it, the police had required the local merchants to clear the street of merchandise. Jennifer and Neil again had to walk in single file.
As Jennifer passed, she looked back at the cycle rickshaw still lying on its side. She could see where in the street she’d fallen. She glanced briefly again at the driver. He’d not been allowed to move, which tended to give further credence to Neil’s point about not getting involved unless there was some compelling reason. Her eyes also briefly passed over the short plainclothes policeman as they came abreast of where he was standing, causing her to do a double take. The officer was looking at her.
