“I have a camera in the hall. When I see a group of big guys outside my door at three in the morning, I assume they’re here to kill me.” For the first time, she looked around at the rest of us. “My God..you’re the ones everyone’s looking for.” She looked at Danny. “What did you get yourself into?!”

“It wasn’t us,” Danny said quickly. “We’re being framed.”

“And you came here?” Katharina climbed off him and stood. Her robe was still gaping open at the front and I could see the men trying to avert their eyes, with varying degrees of success. “I’m still with the BND! My boss has us all looking for you!”

Danny got to his feet and gave her another sheepish grin. “It’s worse than that,” he said. “Your boss, Becker…he’s the one framing us.”

Katharina closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair. “Scheisse.”

Danny put a hand on her arm. “Kat, I know this is a big ask. If you need us to go, we can leave.”

Katharina took a deep breath, then opened her eyes and looked at Danny. “You really think I’d throw you out?” They gazed at each other for a moment and the pain in their eyes made my chest ache in sympathy. There’d been something there, once, something more than sex.

They both looked away. “All of you get some sleep,” Katharina told us. “You look ready to drop. We can talk in the morning.”

She fetched blankets and cushions and we all collapsed on armchairs and couches. I wound up lying head-to-toe with Gina on a big, squishy couch and after two nights of only sleeping in cars, trucks, and planes, I was asleep the second my eyes closed.

We all slept until mid-morning. Katharina organized a production line to get us all showered and fed. We handed over our clothes so she could put them through the wash, then lined up in towels to go into one of her two bathrooms. We showered, picked up a mug and had it filled with coffee, then passed by the kitchen to pick up a plate of sausage, potato and eggs. By the time we’d all finished eating, our clothes were dry. Clean, fed and in fresh clothes, I felt better than I had since the mission started.

Then I looked at the TV and my stomach dropped. The main story on the news was the continuing, Europe-wide hunt for us.

Katharina, who’d called BND headquarters to say she was following up a lead and would be in later, gestured at the screen with her mug of coffee. “You and Danny are the mystery men. Why is that?”

I frowned. “What?”