Katharina was gone for the rest of the day. I imagined her at work, brazenly pretending to search for the fugitives who were holed up in her apartment. How could she do that?! I’d crack in five minutes under the pressure.

I spent the time reading up on Berlin. I’d seen footage of the wall being sledgehammered but I hadn’t known much about the city itself, or how bad life had been in East Germany during the Cold War. The more I read, the more ill I started to feel. The Stasi—the secret police—had arrested a quarter of a million people as political prisoners. Every apartment block had a designated police informer and they reported everything, even who had stayed the night in someone else’s apartment. Anyone found to have “incorrect attitudes'' had their home bugged and their career and personal life ruined. And Becker had been raised by someone high up in this organization? No wonder he was so ruthless.

That evening, Katharina arrived home with two garment bags. She gave one to Danny, along with a phone. “Picked you up a burner phone,” she told him, as casually as if it was a pint of milk. Then she nodded for me to follow her. “Let me show you what I got you.”

She showed me through to her bedroom. It was painted deep red, with an old, free-standing gold-framed mirror and a big skylight that would let you look up from the bed and see the stars above. I was surprised by how romantic it was, for an ass-kicking spy.

She unzipped the garment bag and held up a dress. It was the deep, rich blue of the sky an hour after the sun has gone down. It was a ruched tube that would leave my shoulders bare and hug me from chest to midway down my thighs. Then she showed me the shoes she’d found to go with it: sparkling silver pumps with a four inch heel. I looked down at myself helplessly. I was used to jeans and sneakers. “It’ll wear me,” I told her.

Katharina shook her head. “You just need a little help.”

She sat me down at her dressing table and picked up a pair of hair straighteners, then lifted one eyebrow questioningly. I looked uncertain: I never wore my hair any way but in a braid.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

I nodded.

She carefully unfastened my braid and went to work. I managed to hold back until she’d made three passes with the tongs and then I asked what I’d been longing to ask since we arrived. “How long were you with Danny for?”

The straighteners paused, then continued. “Three months. Not very long really, but for Danny….”

I nodded. For Danny, it was an eternity. “How did you meet?”