Foreign Body by Robin Cook Page A

directly across. Each of their postures reflected to a degree their personality. With quiet confidence, Durell was slouching, cradling his chin in his hand with his elbow on the arm of the chair. He was a powerful-appearing, heavily muscled man with mahogany-colored skin and a dark pencil-line goatee and mustache. Petra was sitting bolt upright on the edge of her chair as if in grammar school with the need to impress the teacher with the degree of her attention. She was a remarkably tall, handsome woman, high-colored and high-spirited. Santana was sitting back comfortably in her chair with her hands folded in her lap like the professional psychologist she was, waiting for the patient to begin speaking. She always appeared calm, with her emotions under strict control.
    Cal opened the meeting with Veena's suicide attempt to be certain everyone was well informed. He had Santana relate what she had learned that morning when talking with Veena, particularly about Veena insisting she would not try it again and why. Cal admitted the episode had frightened him to the point he believed they needed a rapid exit strategy in place in case it was needed. "If she had succeeded in killing herself," Cal continued, "there would have been an investigation and an inquest, and any sort of investigation would have spelled big trouble for Nurses International."
    "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