When he came to her office to tell her that the short selling investigation was at best a long shot, that there was no sign of a short bet large enough to massively profit from, and thus motivate, the Sahel Hydrocarbon explosion, she had probed, because it still seemed plausible to her, and he, after all, knew nothing. But he walked her through the paperwork he’d gotten from the Brits and, if there was a smoking short sale there, she didn’t see it either. If there was truly nothing there, it was fine with her if Rafe went back to what he had been doing. She had no objection to fighting mafias and money laundering—she supposed somebody had to do it, and that somebody might as well be this guy—but she was personally more concerned with fighting homicidal terrorism. If Islamist extremism existed in Switzerland, where minarets had been banned in a national referendum, it was deep underground, but there were refugees scattered about who were worth debriefing. And Geneva was rich ground to trawl for other vulnerable sources, as the flip side of the US mission’s annoying surplus of ambassadors was a surplus of diplomats from everywhere else. Sykes couldn’t explain why, but Arab delegates to the Human Rights Council seemed especially prone to indulge in the kinds of behaviors they would not want their home governments, or homes, to know about.

“I can follow up anyway,” Rafe said, concluding his report. “Talk to any of the firms that executed the trades who have offices in Geneva.”

“Do it,” she said, “and keep me posted.”

Rafe nodded and left. Helen Sykes waited till he was gone, then picked up her phone and dialed a number.

“I got his report,” she said. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

“I don’t think so,” said Frank. “But I’ll keep you posted.”

Albania

ALBANIA

The man calling himself Stavro had checked into the Hotel Bristol to wait for further instructions, and he should have had some by now. His original investment, plus the profit he’d made on Sahel Hydrocarbon, was safely sitting in the care of Sterling Wealth Management. He assumed it had not been a coincidence that Sterling’s principal was a Muslim, but no one had told him anything about that, and, since receiving the directive about short selling Sahel, he’d had no further instructions at all. When he logged into the computer game, he saw no new messages addressed to Homeboy, only gyrating scantily-dressed female figures and cartoon morons firing guns. That Westerners spent literally millions of hours playing this “game” he found pathetic.