Deliver Us From Evil

78

THANK YOU for helping me, my friend,” said Kuchin as he shook the other man’s hand and gripped his shoulder. They were meeting in Kuchin’s hideaway place on the outskirts of Montreal. The other fellow had the build and the confident manner of someone who probably walked alone and unafraid down dark streets in unfamiliar cities. Fifteen years ago he had held the position that Pascal now did before going on to start his own business.

“Urgency in your voice, Evan. We do go back.”

Kuchin poured out a drink for him and slid it across the table. The man took a sip, cradled the glass, and said, “She left a trail. Not a particularly clean one, but there are things there to lean on.”

Kuchin sat and looked expectant.

The man drained his glass, wiped his mouth, and opened a file. “Credit card and travel records. From Zurich she traveled by Swiss-air to Frankfurt. In Frankfurt she rented a car. The mileage shows she went no farther than one hour outside of Frankfurt. Still, that constitutes a large radius. She stayed at a small hotel in Wisbach. Why she was there and what she did is not revealed. I will need to put assets on the ground in order to build that information.”

“Let’s hear the rest first.”

“From Frankfurt she traveled to Paris. She stayed there for four days. From Paris she took the Chunnel to London. It is unclear where she stayed in London. There are no credit card records for that time.”

“She stays at friends’ homes from time to time, apparently while they’re not there.”

“Then that makes sense. There would be no record in that case. She returned to the States. New York, D.C., San Francisco. If she worked for anyone during that time we could find no record of such.”

“What about her cell phone? They can be tracked via GPS now.”

“We tried that route. She has apparently disabled her GPS chip. And cell tower triangulation in circumstances such as this can be unreliable. If I had the resources of the FBI or the NSA, not so difficult, but I do not. She is a woman who does not want to be found, I think.”

“What do you have most recently?” asked Kuchin.

“I can tell you that several weeks ago she was in Paris.”

Kuchin sat forward. “What else?”

“There is nothing else. No hotel. No credit card purchases for food. She either uses cash only or eats like a bird out of trash cans. She didn’t stay long. She left Paris the next day and returned to the States. I have seen the flight reservation and accompanying documentation myself. And she appeared on the security camera at de Gaulle on that day.”

“So she returned to San Francisco?”

“No. Washington, D.C. I’ve checked the airlines, the trains, the buses, and the rental car companies outgoing from that city and found nothing. Now, she could have used fake documents under an assumed name, but she might still be there.”

“But again, no hotel?”

“No. Perhaps she has another friend who accommodates her there.”

“Perhaps,” said Kuchin thoughtfully.

“Relatively speaking Washington is not that big. I can send in some of my people, beat the bushes, see if she pops out.”

Kuchin was already shaking his head. “No. That won’t be necessary. I will take up the hunt from here.”

The other man rose. “I will continue to feed you any additional information that comes along. I have markers in place in the system. If she buys a plane ticket, rents a car, uses her credit or ATM card, or engages her GPS chip I will know about it, and then so will you.”

After the man left Kuchin sat in his chair thinking. He actually had several matters on his plate that demanded attention. He was used to this, though he was a man who liked focus and compartmentalization. Yet sometimes one did not get what one wished for.

Still, his focus had to be Katie James. She was the only link they had. He had to find the woman.