“By people who don’t want people to know their business. I talked to people in London. That route, it’s like a down-low superhighway.”

“Is that so?”

“Sterling Wealth Management uses it. So do a dozen other firms. Here, London, New York. Any of them could have been working with Homeboy. If there is a Homeboy.”

While Sykes considered what he was saying, Rafe realized that, for the last minute or so, everything he’d said was a lie.

Because

BECAUSE

As he drove back to his apartment from the embassy, Rafe wondered why he had lied to Sykes and Frank. The circuitous route Majid had taken for his trades was not a widely-used down-low superhighway. As far as Rafe knew, it was something that Majid had done, and Majid alone. Yet the lie had popped out, smoothly and confidently. It had felt so right.

But why?

As he turned right toward his apartment at the giant chair with the broken leg, he considered the possibilities.

Because it simply felt good to lie to Sykes and Frank, neither of whom he liked or trusted? That was true but was hardly sufficient. Unless he was ten.

Because he didn’t want to find Majid lying dead on the floor the next time he stopped by his office? That was a better reason, but Rafe thought Frank and his people would more likely want to get information from Majid than murder him (and he didn’t even think they had killed Majid’s partner on purpose).

Because he and Majid were now co-conspirators in an illegal money laundering scheme, which Majid might mention if push came to shove, with unfortunate consequences for Rafe himself? Well, yes, but that was a selfish motive, and Rafe didn’t like to think of himself as selfish.

Because he and Majid were at least semi-friends who had hung out at parties in Boston and gone to Red Sox games together? There might be something to that, Rafe thought, but it was definitely outweighed if Majid was part of an international terrorist organization.

Because Majid didn’t seem like an international terrorist (even though he had rooted for the Yankees)? Well, wasn’t it part of a terrorist’s job not to seem like a terrorist?

Because Rafe felt he owed Majid something because he had just fucked Majid’s girlfriend? But, hey, she had been his girlfriend first.

This last thought led to a short but intense non-Majid reverie about Catherine and the night they had spent together after she’d brought him the bag of cash. It had been like their first times in Cambridge, hot and abandoned. He parked near his apartment and sat in his car for a moment, savoring the memory, as the sun went down over France. Whatever happened next, he wanted it to include more of that, more of Catherine. Primal was simple. Primal was clear. Primal was good.