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This had Fraser leaning his chair forward. “You mean, she was taken because you were on the team that grabbed the radioactive waste?”
Ned lifted a shoulder.
“I don’t think so. How would they know you’re on Team Five? It’s not like that information is public.”
Right. He ran his thumbs into his eyes. This whole thing had him in knots, leaping to impossible what-ifs.
He looked up, then, “She was taken before we tracked the caesium, before our assault on the Petrov group. Before we secured the radioactive waste.”
“So then it wasn’t revenge,” Roy said. “Which, unfortunately, brings us back to plain old human trafficking.”
“You’re not helping,” Ned said.
“I know. But if that’s the motive, maybe we have a place to start. We have a list of known players in the industry and can reach out to other groups that might have ideas. Interpol, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, International Justice Mission, Operation Underground Railroad to name a few.” He picked up his phone. “And I’ll ask York if he can reach out to his Petrov contact.”
“York?”
“One of our guys,” Roy said. “He used to be a spy in Russia, among other things. Still has contacts with the Bratva.” He looked at Ned, then Fraser. “You might know him. He’s married to your cousin, RJ.”
“I heard about him from Ford,” Ned said. “But I didn’t know they were married.”
“We don’t hang out as much as we’d like with the Montana boys,” Fraser said. “Although Ford runs with Ned on the teams.”
“Does Ford know she got married?” Ned said.
Roy looked at him. “How should I know? I know Tate does—he helped us find York when he vanished a couple months ago.”
“York vanished?”
“We thought he was dead, actually.” Roy looked up from his phone. “He had some business to take care of. Tate joined the Caleb Group.”
“Tate is a spook?” He looked at Fraser. “Did you know this?”
“I’ve been watching wine ferment.”
Hardly, but Fraser had been largely off the grid after he’d been captured, then freed, in Nigeria last summer.
“By the way, you and Tate could be brothers. You two look like twins.”
“Never. I’m better looking.”
Roy laughed. “Where did you and Shae meet?”
“Minnesota. During a tornado.”
“Oh?” Roy raised an eyebrow.
“We were at the same country music concert. The tornado came through and we took cover together.”
“That was when Creed went missing,” Fraser said. “Right?”
Fraser had been deployed somewhere.
“Yeah. And then a few months later, I drove out to Montana to attend a wedding, and Shae and I and her friend Jess got, well, kidnapped, by a murderer who wanted to kill Shae.”
“You sure you should be with this girl?” Roy got up and walked to the small fridge. Opened it. The light skimmed over his lean face, his thin beard. He retrieved a malt drink and opened it.
Ned looked at Fraser, who helped him not at all by raising a shoulder.
