But has he really? Or didn’t he suspect this all along? Not a terrorist attack, but something more than what Yassim told him. And he decided not to care, to just allow it, whatever it is, whoever Yassim really is, to happen anyway. Beside him, he can hear Klara and George bent over the computer whispering to each other, visibly upset as they scroll through the other documents on the memory card. Jacob knows he can’t escape this. He carried terrorist plans into Europe, and he allowed himself to be used.

‘We have to take this to the police immediately,’ he whispers. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Klara turns her face to him, apparently confused. ‘Excuse me? Go to the police now?’

‘Yes!’ he says. ‘This isn’t my fault! The police can’t blame me! I was tricked into smuggling it!’ He’s struggling not to shout.

George puts an arm around his shoulder. ‘Calm down, buddy. We will contact the police, I promise. But there’s too much shit mixed up in all this, believe me.’

Jacob shakes himself free, can feel his whole body trembling. ‘What kind of shit? We just have to…’

‘You brought this into Europe, Jacob,’ Klara says calmly. ‘My friend has been detained and seems to be in hiding now. We’ve been followed by Russians, and we’re all wanted as terrorists.’

She falls silent and looks at him, lets what she’s saying sink in.

‘Right now,’ she continues, ‘giving this file to the police just isn’t an option. Not until we know what this is about.’

‘But how will we find out?’ Jacob says bleakly. ‘It’s in Arabic…’ He throws his arms wide in despair, sinks back down into his chair. He’s thinking about Myriam in Beirut, about the men who followed him until he escaped into Shatila, about the basement in Brussels, about Yassim on the stairs, about his own picture on the front pages. He knows they’re right. The police are not an option until they know what they’ve landed in the middle of. He chose to let himself be used. If the police become involved, he’ll never have any control over what’s going to happen. He has to know more. And he promised Yassim he’d let someone he trusts help him.

Gabriella said she wants to meet. And she has experience with these kinds of things. Klara and George obviously do, too. They’ve done so much for him over the past day, more than you could ever ask of someone.

‘I have an idea,’ he says. ‘About how to find out what’s in these documents.’

25 November

Bergort