Lucas the Strong to John the Weak

I must confess - I continued my re-watching madness.

Lucas / John at the beginning of 9.2 gives the impression, that he might be able to put Vaughan under pressure. When he speaks to Vaughan on his mobile phone, he clearly denies his suggestion to help him and even throws the blackmailing attempt back at him.

In a situation as Lucas / John I would now go and try to find out as much as possible about Vaughan to try to figure out, what my opponent might do and to forestall and pre-empt his next action. [And I must add I am not a spy and never attempted to be one.]

Lucas / John does nothing of this kind but sits and waits and goes on a sightseeing tour to find Maya. – Hard as it sounds, that is exactly what he does in reaction to the manipulative way of Vaughan, who most definitely and quite obviously tries to lead him on with the luggage content.

But in my opinion this contradicts his character as brilliant MI-5 spy and it also does contradict his clever and cunning time as John in Dakar.
So this early on in series 9 my suspicions were up that the obvious storyline we see could not be the right one, but only was a disguise to keep us off the real track. [Unfortunately it was the right one, unbelievable as it is.] But my mind kept creating alternative explanations for Lucas / John’s behavior which only could go awry, as the scriptwriters did not hide the real intentions of Lucas / John, but gave us an unbelievable character development and showed us every stupidity he did in meticulous detail.