Saturday morning Rafe woke up thinking about Majid. He woke alone. Since Catherine had brushed him off, he had not pursued anyone else. Anyway, who? He was still new in Geneva, still feeling his way around. The American mission wasn’t exactly alive with hot prospects, more likely anti-prospects, a dour bunch. In bars and cafés, he had spotted attractive women from a half-dozen countries, but he wasn’t even sure he was allowed to date women who weren’t American, for security reasons. Not that there was much to be wormed out of him that would be of interest to an enemy intelligence service, or even a cocktail party. Workwise, the Pleski matter had been put on hold for Homeboy, and that had led to Majid, and to Majid’s protestations of innocence and coincidence. Which Rafe was inclined to accept, because . . .

Because why? Because Majid’s explanation had been logical, and Rafe believed in logic. Because, the issue of Catherine notwithstanding, Rafe liked Majid. But so what? Rafe was working in intelligence now (up to a point). It occurred to him as he spread blueberry jam on his breakfast croissant that he should be making more of an effort to think like someone who worked in intelligence. So—what did he really know about Majid? He was from Dubai, which, from all Rafe had read and heard, was a ridiculous place. Majid apparently felt that way, too, because he had left Dubai geographically and seemingly in every other way as well. At business school, he hadn’t seemed much different from any other aspiring master of the universe (except, perhaps, a little less self-satisfied). Now he was a wealth manager, a cog in the Western financial system. Could that all be a cover, an act? Could his fine suits and silk ties conceal a fanatic? Or, more plausibly, be not a disguise but just the uniform of a money handler without morals, servicing whoever walked through his door. Even criminals and terrorists. Even ISIS. Wasn’t that exactly the sort of person Rafe was supposed to be on the hunt for?