To get to the Nigerian mission, you turned left just before the sculpture of the gigantic chair with its leg blown off. Another left and then into a cul-de-sac, where the Nigerian complex, a glass and concrete high-rise, loomed over Turkey’s and Benin’s. Okoro, driving, showed a credential to a guard and was waved into the building’s courtyard. The guards did not ask who Rafe was, nor seemed to care.

“We have more security than this,” Rafe said.

“We have more that you don’t see,” said Okoro.

“But you have status here. You sail right in.”

“Of course. I am an officer with the Nigeria Police Force, here on official business.”

Rafe thought briefly before he spoke again, then decided why the hell not?

“And by official business you mean trying to get a share of terrorist profits for your boss back home?”

Okoro drove around the side of the building. He parked where they had a view of a loading dock and turned off the ignition. “You heard that from Mister Hassan,” he said.

“And he heard it from you. You didn’t keep your mission here a secret from him.”

“Unless I did,” Okoro said. “Which would he be more likely to believe? That I was an honest policeman or a dishonest one? Whose questions would he be more likely to answer? Remember, he had something to conceal from an honest one.”

“But you knew what had happened. You knew about the money. About the investment. How did you know?”

“I was sent here by a dishonest policeman who thought I was one of his. Now he’ll have some surprises in store. In fact”—Okoro looked at his watch—“one just about now, as he is getting arrested.”

Rafe was processing that—it was a lot to process—as a gray panel van backed up to the loading dock. The driver got out and rolled up the van’s back door.

“Did you ever hear of the Dikko affair?” Okoro asked.

“No.”

“It was famous in its day. Nineteen-eighty-four. There was a Nigerian exile in London whom the Nigerian government wanted back. But he wouldn’t go, and the British government wouldn’t hand him over.”

The door of the loading dock was rolled up by someone inside whom Rafe couldn’t see.

“So he was snatched,” Okoro said, “and put in a diplomatic pouch to be shipped to Lagos.”

“Put in a pouch?” Rafe said. “Was he a dwarf?”

“A diplomatic pouch can be any size. It just has to be properly labeled.”