Yuri hitched Danny’s arm higher and Danny grunted in pain, starting to sweat. But he still wouldn’t back down. “Yeah, well I’ve got mates, too. And they’re in trouble and the only way I can get ‘em out of it is with your help. So how about we go somewhere and talk?”

Luka leaned in until their faces were a foot apart The two men glared at each other, the air almost crackling between them, neither one willing to back down. And despite how scared I was for him, I felt that pull again, stronger than ever. The way Danny stood up to the universe, cockily confident even when everything was against him…

Luka’s expression softened slightly, becoming a look of grudging respect. He said something in Russian and Danny was hustled down the stairs and along a hallway, with the rest of us following behind. I found myself walking next to Luka’s girlfriend, who gave me a shy smile and a kind of awkward half shrug. She didn’t seem like a mobster’s girlfriend, who I’d always imagined as having three-inch nails and leopard skin skirts.

We followed Danny and Yuri through a door and into a big, black-and-white tiled room with marble statues. It was so ornate, it wasn’t until I saw a urinal that I realized this was the men’s room. One of the bodyguards leaned against the door to stop anyone coming in.

“Now talk!” snapped Luka.

Danny nodded. He showed Luka the photos from the parking garage in Berlin. “Your mate Gennady sold a file to this bloke. As soon as he had the file, he murdered Gennady. His name’s Otto Becker. He’s after me and my mates. He’s BND.”

“A spy,” said Luka in disgust. He thought for a moment. “You and your friends…you are the ones on TV?”

Danny nodded slowly. “But we didn’t kill those German soldiers. Becker framed us. You and me, we’re on the same side.”

Luka scowled at him. “I am not sure about that.” He thought for a while. “But I am not sure you are enemy, either.”

“What was in that file?” asked Danny softly.

Luka sighed. Then he turned to his girlfriend and talked in rapid-fire Russian.

She stepped forward and translated effortlessly. Her accent was American, soft and gentle: the Midwest, maybe. “Gennady went to collect on a gambling debt in New York. The man couldn’t pay but he was a collector of Cold War antiques. He had something he said was valuable, a file lost in a plane crash years ago, information that was still valuable today. The names of some Soviet generals and the names of women.”

“Women they’d had affairs with?” I asked.

Luka’s girlfriend translated and Luka nodded. “We assume so,” his girlfriend told us.

“Do you have a copy of the file?” Danny asked.