Although he was over his head in Cairo, a lot of Pine's instincts were good and he blagged his way through it succesfully. The backstory explained and hinted at did make it more credible.

The book this was adapted was written years ago (by a man and adapted by a man) and I don't think they've always updated everything, although I may be hypersensitive about how the women are written. But she should have had other options that, for whatever reason, she'd exhausted.