Signe didn’t want to get dramatic, but the fate of the free world was at stake.
    But first, she had to finish her cup of coffee.
    Quietly. Deliberately. Nothing to see here.
    Just a woman sitting in a cafe off the center square of Bad Rappenau, a tiny town southeast of Heidelberg, watching the sun gild the cobblestones and the massive Lutheran church that overlooked the cafe. A nondescript woman in a pair of leggings, boots, a rain jacket, and a hat, her blonde hair tucked up in back. She was wearing sunglasses, but she didn’t look any more like a spy than the man sitting across from her, with short dark hair and a blue jacket, black dress pants. He read a German paper.
    Or the man who’d parked his bicycle, wearing skinny jeans and a sweater, a scarf knotted around his neck.
    Or even the girl at the counter—short black hair, wearing a dress, leggings, and boots.
    See, no spy here.
    No dangerous information tucked away in her inside pocket, like a grenade should it make it out into the open.
    No deep undercover CIA agent holding the world’s secrets in her jacket. The NOC list. The list of nonofficial covers of operatives around the world.
    She glanced toward the center fountain, the four arched cherubs that shot water out of their mouths. The spray caught the sun, arched it into a rainbow.
    The old story about Noah hung in her mind, just for a second. Forgiveness. Fresh starts.
    Nursery rhymes and stories that had nothing to do with reality.
    The bells on the church rang, scattering a grouping of pigeons, and the scent of fresh apple kuchen from the nearby bakery could make her weep if she hadn’t just breakfasted with her old Doctors Without Borders friend, pediatrician Zara Mueller, and her husband, Felix.
    Probably she shouldn’t have landed on their front step two weeks ago, but she’d run out of options.
    Run out of safe houses.
    Run out of hope, really.
    Because, according to the latest news on CNN, she was also running out of time.