Page 5 of Ash Storm

“That’s not why he’s come to our attention, though,” Thorne said, in his clipped British accent. “As well as his more legitimate businesses, he’s got another lucrative and growing business … trafficking women.”

Ash felt the blood drain from his face. He pulled his eyes back to the photograph, memorizing the man’s face.

“Bastard,” Slate said.

“He offers Europe hopefuls from countries such as Iran, Syria, Armenia and Azerbaijan a range of routes and transport into the region, promising them jobs and passports in exchange for a fee that usually represents everything they’ve got. For a lot of those women, particularly those who are young, the journey ends in slavery or death.”

“Jesus,” Dark said.

The mere mention of Syria was enough to make Ash tremble. He stilled his hands and looked around the room to see if the others had noticed, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him. His teammates were all looking rather green around the gills. Thorne looked business-like. And Reynolds … he looked strangely impatient.

“We’ve identified several of the companies he uses as a front, but he’s shielding that side of the business well, and is almost untouchable,” Thorne said, pausing again. “It doesn’t help that he’s achieved an almost god-like status in Turkey through all his philanthropic activities.”

Ash gripped the corner of the table tight enough he thought it might crack.

“Why now?” asked Griffin, always cool under pressure. “Why are we getting involved now?”

Reynolds and Thorne exchanged another look. Reynolds nodded. His face had gone bloodless.

Another click of Thorne’s index finger and the picture changed again, to that of a beautiful woman with velvet brown eyes and a luminous smile, standing in a green field.

Ash let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

The woman’s black gown pointed to a graduation ceremony of some kind.

Not high school.

She’s a few years older than that.

Must be her college graduation.

“That picture is almost five years old,” Reynolds said tonelessly. “She’s twenty-seven years old now.”

That’s when Ash noticed the man standing next to the young woman, his arm around her shoulders. A younger, somehow happier version of Reynolds. And though her skin was the color of warm bronze, where his was pure mahogany, there was no mistaking the family relationship.

Rogue was the first to find his voice.

“Is that—“

“My niece,” Reynolds said. “Reka Evans. My sister’s only child. She and her friend were taken in Istanbul two days ago,” Reynolds said.

“How did it happen?” Dark asked.

The picture changed again. A selfie, this time, of the same woman, standing next to two other young women, one blond-haired and one red-haired, the three of them smiling at something beyond the camera.

That smile …

Ash had never seen a smile as luminous and true.

He realized Reynolds was still speaking. He forced himself to focus on the words.

“That’s Reka with her two best friends, Aileen and Chloe. The picture was taken in Istanbul, where the three of them were starting a ten-day holiday.” His voice caught, but he forced himself to keep going, speaking in the tone of a man who’d told this story a thousand times. “They were attacked in broad daylight, in one of the side streets near the Grand Bazaar. One of the women, Aileen, managed to escape. Reka … Reka might have escaped as well, but went back for her other friend. They were both taken.”

“With all due respect,” Griffin said, and they all stopped to listen, because the former CIA analyst had seen a lot, and the things he’d seen had honed his intuition into a sharp weapon. “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. These are completely different types of crimes. You’re saying this man, who’s trafficking with Kurdish immigrants … who has a business trafficking women … risked it all to kidnap a couple of American women?”

Reynolds sighed.

“I know how it sounds. But that’s exactly what I think happened. We wouldn’t know anything if Aileen hadn’t managed to escape and make her way back to the embassy. She described their attacker in great detail, and the man she described works exclusively for Ahmet Afsan. I happen to have a good friend in Istanbul’s police, and he told me Afsan was the only name on the board before the police commissioner himself came out and erased it.”