Rising Tiger: A Thriller (38)

“Everybody’s in excellent hands. Just focus on your assignment. That’s the most important thing right now.”

“You’ll keep me updated?”

“I will,” said Lawlor.

After giving Gary his SITREP, he took a quick shower and got dressed.

When he arrived back down in the lobby, Vijay was waiting for him. He was holding what looked like a bag from one of the hotel shops.

On closer inspection, Harvath realized it was from Cigar Diwan, the hotel’s private cigar bar.

“For later,” said Vijay, rolling up the bag and sliding it into one of the pockets of his safari jacket. “Ready to go?”

Harvath nodded and they walked outside to where the Jaguar had been parked. He was eager to get started. The sooner he picked up a trail, the sooner he’d be able to hunt down whoever had killed Ritter.





CHAPTER 23


As they drove out of the hotel’s gigantic gate and headed toward Jaipur’s Vaishali Nagar neighborhood, Vijay gave Harvath a rundown on everything he had been able to ascertain about Ritter’s death so far.

“Mr. Ritter called downstairs at five twenty p.m. and asked the concierge to summon a taxi to take him to the Mahatma Gandhi Nagar Park. The taxi driver confirmed to police that he picked up an American matching Mr. Ritter’s description from the hotel and drove him to the park. He dropped him off on the north side. They chatted about nothing in particular during their time together.”

“Okay,” replied Harvath, glancing back at the Fairmont and noting the position of its exterior security cameras. “What about the hotel’s CCTV? Has anyone checked to see if he was being followed?”

“Jaipur is under the jurisdiction of the Rajasthan state police. Because of the nature of the crime and the citizenship of the victim, the case was immediately elevated to a District Special Team, known as a DST. The first thing they did after taking over the crime scene was to deploy investigators to the Fairmont to take statements, make copies of any and all video surveillance footage, and search Mr. Ritter’s room. They found nothing suspicious. No one was following him that they could see.”

“Maybe someone was out on the main road, beyond view of the security cameras.”

Vijay nodded. “Which is precisely what they thought, so they began hunting down whatever imagery was available. They gathered footage from a series of private cameras as well as the city’s traffic cams. From what they were able to stitch together, the taxi was not being followed.”

“What about any cameras between the park where he was dropped off and the restaurant where he had dinner?”

“It’s only about a kilometer and a half between the two, but Ritter took the long way. He either had a lot of time to kill, or he was trying to make sure he didn’t have a tail.”

“Did he?” Harvath asked.

“Based on the footage, no, he did not. There was no tail.”

That left only three possibilities in Harvath’s mind. The first was that someone who wanted to kill him had recognized him on the street. To his knowledge, Ritter didn’t have any enemies to speak of. What’s more, that would have been a hell of a coincidence—and coincidences were not something Harvath believed in.

The second possibility was that it actually was a robbery gone bad. But Harvath had too many doubts at this moment.

The third possibility was that the killer had known where Ritter was going to be. That idea was starting to gain traction in Harvath’s mind. If it turned out to be true, it was going to create a lot of serious, and most definitely deadly, repercussions.

“Do you know with whom he was having dinner?” Harvath asked.

“Witnesses saw him eating with an Indian national, mid-forties, slim build, short hair, anywhere from five foot six to five foot ten, casually dressed. The restaurant didn’t have CCTV and there are no exterior cameras nearby.”

“How was the dinner paid for?”

“Cash.”

“Of course. A credit card would have made it too easy.”

Vijay nodded. “According to the file I was given at the embassy in Delhi, Mr. Ritter is an international business consultant?”

“That’s correct.”

“Hard to believe he came all this way just to see the sights and didn’t try to get a little business done, isn’t it?”

They were getting into dangerous territory. Harvath knew Ritter’s real purpose in Jaipur, but he wasn’t cleared to share it with Vijay.

“The State Department has already spoken with his office back in the U.S. They confirmed that this trip was a long-planned vacation and that he had no meetings set up. Sometimes it’s just nice to get away from work.”

“Fair enough,” Vijay replied. “Maybe his dining companion was an old friend? Or an acquaintance who had said, ‘If you’re ever in Delhi, look me up.’?”

“Could be. Or for all we know, it was a brand-new person he’d met after having arrived.”

“Someone who may have lured him to the restaurant in order to kill him?”

Harvath knew who Ritter had eaten dinner with. He was an assistant to the foreign secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs—the agency responsible for India’s foreign affairs. If, and it was a big if, he turned out to have been involved with Ritter’s murder, he wasn’t going to be hard to track down.