“It’s a big and varied world,” she said. “I guess you couldn’t see it all from Connecticut.” She took a sip of the bad embassy coffee and grimaced as she swallowed, as if she hadn’t learned from the previous thousand cups. “He’s an Igbo. Some of them think they’re descended from one of the Lost Tribes. The State of Israel officially disagrees.” Which apparently was enough about that. She changed the subject. “He went to see your friend, Mister Hassan, for the same reason you did. He’s investigating the pipeline explosion.”

“How do you know?”

“He told us,” Frank said. “He figured we had that in common. He didn’t buy that my colleagues were synagogue security.”

“Nobody would,” Rafe said.

“Plus he saw you following him from your pal’s office. He wanted to know why we employed such amateurs.”

“Next time I’ll borrow one of your guys’ disguises.”

“Your wardrobe wasn’t the problem. Anyway, he figured we were most likely investigating the same thing.”

“We ran him,” Sykes said. “He is a detective.”

“Did you tell him who we are?” Rafe asked.

“Not in so many words. And he was too discreet to press the point. But he wanted to share information.”

“Did you? Will we?”

“God no!” Sykes said in a rare fit of animation. “With Nigerian police? Do you know anything about the Nigerian police?”

Rafe shrugged.

“Traveler tip,” Frank said. “If you’re ever in Nigeria and get robbed and the police show up, run like hell or they’ll get whatever the robbers missed.”

“Switzerland just turned over three hundred million dollars from the bank account of one of their military dictators,” Sykes said. “We think that’s less than ten percent of what he stole.”

“Fine,” Rafe said, feeling sufficiently educated on Nigerian kleptocracy. “So what did we tell Detective Okoro?”

Frank smiled. “Have a nice day.”

“It is worth noting,” Sykes said, “that whatever his motive was in visiting your friend about the pipeline explosion, the fact that he went there of all places indicates that you were on the right track.”

“About what?”

“About your friend. About his firm using the same route as Homeboy did for his Sahel Hydrocarbon trade, the same British brokerage and the same bank in Turkish Cyprus. That is a pretty big coincidence.”

“Right,” said Rafe, and added without pausing: “Except it’s not, really.”

“It’s not?” Sykes looked at him. “Those were your words—‘a pretty big coincidence.’”

Rafe remembered. He had said that, but to Frank, not to her. Was Frank taking notes on their conversations? And reporting? Every word?

“Yeah,” he said, “but that was early days. I’ve checked around, and that particular route—that brokerage, that bank—it’s pretty well known.” Sykes looked at him skeptically. “And widely used,” he added.

“By whom?” Sykes asked.