Rising Tiger: A Thriller (48)
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, Vijay stepped back into the conference room.
“Time to go,” he said.
Harvath pivoted in his chair and looked at him. “What’s up?”
“I think I may have found something.”
CHAPTER 30
As Vijay drove, he explained what they were getting into. “Sanganer is the most dangerous part of Jaipur.”
“Because of the crime?” Harvath asked.
“And the cops,” Vijay stated. “The police force in Sanganer is so corrupt that the powers-that-be have limited rotations to only three months, before officers are then rotated out.”
“How the hell do you ever establish trust with the residents, much less solve any of the crimes in that area?”
“You don’t. They have the worst case-closure rate in the entire state of Rajasthan. It’s a hornet’s nest of organized crime. The performance of the cops there is abominable. It’s like there’s something in the water turning them dirty.”
“And why are we going to Sanganer?” asked Harvath.
“The motorcycle. The one the assassin was driving. It was reported stolen one week before Ritter’s murder. It got me thinking.”
“I’m listening.”
“DST is looking for a killer. They’re not going to put manpower on solving a stolen motorbike case. Like anywhere else in the world, stolen motorcycles are bought and sold every day in India. You know who else isn’t going to pursue it?”
“The police in Sanganer.”
“You are correct,” said Vijay. “So, via the DST’s computer system, I decided to do a little investigating on my own.”
“And?”
“And you’ll be shocked, I’m sure, to learn that Sanganer is a hotbed of vehicle theft, most notably motorcycles.”
“You’re right, I’m shocked,” said Harvath. “Shocked.”
“But it gets better. Because the Sanganer cops are so overwhelmed, most of their resources are tied up with high-profile crimes that garner news coverage and capture the public’s attention. Murder, drugs, and sex trafficking being the most prevalent. You know what doesn’t capture the public’s attention?”
“Vehicle theft. And I’m going to guess, specifically motorcycles.”
“Correct again,” said Vijay. “So, knowing that neither DST nor the Sanganer cops were going to do it, I began running all of the reported motorbike thefts for the last year. It was like drinking from a fire hose, so I shrunk it down to the last six months and looked for patterns—what kind were stolen, where were they stolen from, were any of them ever recovered?
“I was trying to find a pattern—something that might tell us about the motorbike our killer was riding the night he assassinated Ritter. Then I found it.”
Harvath’s eyes widened. “What did you find?”
“There’s a rather large extended family in Sanganer—the Kumars—who have been the victims of motorcycle theft at an unprecedented level. Looking at the data, one might almost conclude that the thieves are singling out the Kumars on purpose. Their motorcycles have been stolen at a rate almost three times higher than their neighbors’. But what’s amazing is that the Kumars’ bad luck appears to be contagious.”
“What do you mean?” Harvath asked.
“They own a family business—a string of warehouses. The only residents of Sanganer who have experienced motorbike theft near the level of the Kumars are the people who work for the Kumars—their employees.”
“So, it’s a scam.”
“It would appear that way,” said Vijay. “Probably insurance fraud.”
“As well as kickbacks from the sale of the stolen motorcycles.”
“That, too.”
“You’ve got a contact in Sanganer, right?” Harvath replied. “The one clean cop in the entire dirty force sort of thing.”
“Unfortunately, in this instance, I have no contacts that can be of help.”
Harvath shook his head. Police corruption really pissed him off. “Corruptio optimi pessima,” he said, citing a famous Latin phrase. “Corruption of the best is the worst of all.”
“Agreed,” responded Vijay. “We have a saying in India. Don’t curse God for creating the tiger. Rather, be grateful that God didn’t give it wings.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“While it’s unfortunate that we can’t seek any assistance from the police in Sanganer, there’s an upside—neither can the people we’re looking for.”
“Which means we have a certain amount of latitude in how we approach things,” said Harvath. “Correct?”
Vijay nodded. “Correct.”
Harvath was continuing to like this guy.
They drove for a little while longer until they entered the roughest part of the Sanganer area. It was every bit as bad as Harvath expected it to be. An absolute slum. The flip side of the vibrant colors and exotic spices so often associated with India.
It was the side of the country that tore at people’s hearts—filth, disease, crime, and absolutely grinding, abject poverty. They hadn’t even set foot outside the car yet and Harvath was ready to leave.