The Export by J.K. Kelly (read along books txt) 📕

He showered, packed up the rest of his belongings, and placed the lone bug back into the prescription bottle it had been delivered to him in. He wiped the bottle and the phone clean and placed them in his jacket pocket. Just as he switched off the bathroom light, something on the television caught his attention.

F1 practice began this morning at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve flashed across the screen as video of the exotic racing cars screamed past the cameraman covering the action. Bingo, Matt thought. He knew a few of the principals and engineers on some of the teams, contacts he had made either through his family’s personal wealth or by tapping a foreign friend for all-access passes when his work or play took him to Monte Carlo or, most recently, in Melbourne, last March. Unless he got another assignment from D.C., he decided to jump at the chance to reconnect with some of his jet-setting friends. If Eve answered his call and wanted in on some racing, that would be the icing on the cake. The quicker he could get out of Quebec City, the better, now that he’d been tagged by a member of the State Department’s protective services.

With five minutes to spare, Matt stepped out of one of the classic old-world elevators and walked straight to the lobby bar for the hand-off. Leclerc and Mercier were waiting there for him with coffee and croissants being delivered to their table as he arrived.

“Well, you two seem pretty calm and collected,” Matt said with a surprised smile.

“This is now a matter for the police,” said Leclerc. “Our job is to make sure nothing disrupts the conference. Hopefully, we can get back to things other than murder and intrigue and just deal with the protestors and hecklers disrupting some speeches.”

They exchanged small talk while Matt enjoyed his morning coffee. He slid the phone Mercier had given him back across the table and then placed the bug bottle in a napkin to pass off unobtrusively.

“Wait,” Matt said, reaching for the phone. “Let me have that back for a minute, please.”

Mercier slid him the phone and watched as Matt retrieved a number, Eve’s number from the contact list, entered it into his personal phone, deleted it, and slid the phone back.

“Well, unless you need me for anything else, I’m heading off to the Formula One race in Montreal,” Matt said with a smile. “Either of you want to forget about this damn conference and come watch some speed?”

Both Canadians shook their heads to indicate they’d stay in Quebec and then stood up from their chairs to wish Matt a safe return home.

After exchanging handshakes and a few final thoughts, Matt grabbed his laptop bag and small suitcase and headed for the front of the hotel. With the room charges taken care of by his hosts, all he needed to do now was catch a cab to the train station. In a few hours, he’d be partying in downtown Montreal.

“Stop!” someone yelled.

“That’s him,” a black suit, Tilton’s alpha, pointed at Matt, “he’s the one!”

After a brief interrogation by one of Quebec City’s homicide detectives and an intervention by Leclerc, who had seen Matt taken aside for questioning, the cop, Matt, Leclerc, and two hotel employees were huddled in front of a flat-screen television in the hotel’s security office.

“That’s the woman there,” a front desk clerk pointed out. “She’s the woman I checked into room 730 at 2:18 p.m., two days ago.”

The police had already determined that the identification used to check into room 730 had been a fake Canadian driver’s license bearing the name Jean Bouchard, with a post office box address in a rural part of Eastern Canada near Halifax, Nova Scotia. She paid in cash, leaving an extra $100 security deposit for incidentals.

“She knew what she was doing,” Matt suggested, pointing out how the woman with the long brown hair and baseball cap seemed to purposely avoid the security cameras in the lobby and outside the lobby elevator doors.

“Notice how she looks down, or away, or has her hand to her face, whenever she’s anywhere near any of the optics,” the homicide detective agreed. “We’ve checked the room for prints and DNA. Nothing we can use yet.”

“There’s so much DNA in these damn hotel rooms that you’d have to bring in a hundred people or more for questioning,” Matt laughed.

*

“We’ve swabbed the deceased. So far, there is nothing on him, either,” the detective advised them. He then thanked the clerk for his assistance and sent him back to the lobby to get back to work. “Whoever did this is a pro, plain and simple,” he continued. “They seem to have completely cleaned up after themselves. The victim’s face, hands, and genitals were swabbed with alcohol rubs of some kind.”Leclerc looked to Matt, hoping the American undercover investigator might have more answers than he had supplied so far. The detective had been impressed to learn of the credentials of the man Tilton’s security chief had pointed out to him in the lobby. He had agreed to confidentiality to protect his identification nor disclose who he really was.

“The maid who cleaned the room yesterday morning,” Leclerc said, “she thinks that two people may have slept, or at least been in the bed in 730, the night before. For whatever reason, she felt it had been two women in the bed. ‘I can tell the difference after all these years,’ she added.”

“My best guess, as I said upstairs this morning,” Matt summarized, “was that this was a setup done by a professional. Now, seeing what we have on the monitor, I’d bet my boat on it.”

The detective agreed, and Leclerc nodded as well. The three speculated for some time on the possible cause for the suspected murder. Was it politically motivated? Was someone out for revenge? Did this have anything to do with the first lady and perhaps someone trying to embarrass