Zelras had a droning speaking voice that reminded me of a professor I’d had a long time ago at Hopkins. Both Zelras and my former professor gave everything equal weight, never seemed excited or disturbed about the material they were presenting. Zelras’s subject was the connection the Connolly abduction might have had to several others in the past months, so it ought to have been spellbinding.

“Gerrold Gottlieb,” Monnie Donnelley whispered again. I smiled, almost laughed out loud. Gottlieb was the professor who used to drone on at Hopkins.

“Upscale, attractive white women,” Zelras was saying, “have been disappearing at a rate a little over three times the statistical norm over the past year. This is true both here in the States and in Eastern Europe. I’m going to pass around an actual catalogue showing women who were up for sale about three months ago. Unfortunately, we were unable to trace the catalogue back to whoever manufactured it. There was a Miami link, but it never went anywhere.”

When the catalogue got to me, I saw that it was black and white, the pages probably printed off the Internet. I quickly leafed through it. There were seventeen women shown, nude shots, along with details such as breast and waist size, “true” color of hair, and color of eyes. The women had unlikely nicknames like Candy, Sable, Foxy, Madonna, and Ripe. The prices ranged from $3,500 to $150,000. There was no further biographical information on any of the women and nothing at all about their personalities.

“We’ve been working closely with Interpol on what we suspect could be ‘white slave’ trading. FYI, ‘white slave’ refers to women bought and sold specifically for the purpose of prostitution. These days, the women are usually Asian, Mexican, and South American, not white, except in Eastern Europe. You should also note that at this time slavery is more globalized and technologized than ever in history. Some countries in Asia look the other way as women, and children, are sold—especially into Japan and India.

“In the past couple of years, a market has opened up for white women, particularly blondes. These women are sold for prices ranging from a few hundred up into the mid five figures and possibly higher. As I said, a significant market is Japan. Another is the Middle East, of course. The Saudis are the biggest buyers. Believe it or not, there’s even a market in Iraq and Iran. Questions at this point?”

There were several, mostly good ones, which showed me this was a savvy group that had been brought together.

I finally asked a question, though I was reluctant to as the FNG. “Why do we think Elizabeth Connolly is connected to the others?” I gestured around the room. “I mean, this connected?”