The Spy Who Came in From The Cold - Plot

Plot

The West Berlin office of the British Secret Intelligence Service under the command of Station Head Alec Leamas, has been performing poorly. At the commencement of the novel, Karl Riemeck – his last and best double agent, a high-ranking East German political officer – is shot dead at the last moment whilst defecting to West Berlin.

Without any agents left, the disgraced Leamas is recalled to the Circus in London by Control, chief of the Circus. There, Control asks Leamas to stay "in the cold" for one last mission: to turn (defect) and provide false information to the East German Communists that would implicate Mundt as a British double agent — what his second-in-command, Fiedler, already suspects — to result in Mundt being executed by his own people. Control tells Leamas that Fiedler, due to his paranoia about Mundt, would be the best man to depose Mundt. George Smiley and his former assistant Peter Guillam brief Leamas for his crucial mission. Control tells Leamas that Smiley had not returned to the Circus after the events of Call for the Dead because of moral qualms about unethical Circus operations.

To make the East Germans believe him ripe for defection, the Circus sacks Leamas, with a pittance of a pension, and he gets a miserable job in a run-down library, and loses it. At the library, he meets co-worker Liz Gold, an unworldly young Jewish woman, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Britain. Despite her politics, they become lovers. Before taking the "final plunge" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears, and says good-bye to her. Leamas also tells Control to leave Liz alone and Control agrees. Then, as planned, Leamas lands in jail after he assaults a local grocer.

After jail, an East German recruiter in England approaches Leamas. He is taken abroad, first to the Netherlands, then to East Germany, en route meeting higher echelons of the Abteilung, the East German Intelligence Service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints that point to British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung, whilst pretending not to see the implications. Meanwhile, in England, George Smiley and Peter Guillam appear at Liz Gold's apartment claiming to be friends of Alec, question her about him, and offer her financial help.

In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. They have many conversations in a hut in a forest clearing, where Fiedler seeks conclusive proof against Mundt and engages in ideological and philosophic discussions with the pragmatic Leamas. As observed by Leamas, Fiedler seems content to live in Mundt's shadow, but is relatively young and brilliant. To Leamas, Fiedler is sympathetic: a Jew who spent the Second World War in Canada, and a Communist idealist who considers the morality of his actions. In contrast, Leamas sees Mundt as a brutal, opportunist mercenary, who was a Nazi before 1945 and then joined the Communists simply because they were the new bosses, and remained an anti-Semite. Leamas believes helping Fiedler destroy Mundt is a worthy act. Meanwhile, Liz Gold is invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange.

The power struggle in the Abteilung comes into the open when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured. However, the leaders of the East German régime intervene because Fiedler had earlier applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt on the same day that Mundt arrested Fiedler and Leamas. They are released, and Fiedler and Mundt are summoned to present their cases to a tribunal convened in camera, in the town of Görlitz.

At the trial, Alec Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler matches to the movements of Mundt. Fiedler also shows that Karl Riemeck passed to Leamas information to which he had no formal access but to which Mundt did. Fiedler also presents to the Tribunal other proofs implicating Mundt as a British double agent and explains that Mundt was captured in England and allowed to escape only after agreeing to work as a double agent for the British.

Mundt’s attorney calls the unsuspecting Liz Gold as a surprise witness for the defence. Although not wanting to testify against Alec Leamas, she admits that George Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her and that she had promised Leamas to not look for him when he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that the operation is now blown, Leamas offers to tell all in return for Liz's freedom. He admits that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent, but adds that Fiedler was not a participant. In cross-examination, Fiedler asks Mundt how he knew that someone had paid off Liz's lease, because, Fiedler insists, Liz never would have spoken about it. Mundt hesitates before answering ("a second too long, Leamas thought"), then the Tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler. Then, and only then, does Leamas understand the true nature of Control and Smiley's operation.

Liz is sent to a cell but Mundt places her in a car with Leamas at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, where an exit route from East Berlin awaits, he explains the operation to her, including the parts of which he was unaware until the end of the trial. The fake bank account payments were real, and Hans-Dieter Mundt is a double agent reporting to George Smiley and Peter Guillam. The operation was against Fiedler, not Mundt, as Leamas was deceived to believe, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone. Therefore, Control and Smiley did it for him. They placed him and her as co-workers to provide Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas and consequently discrediting Fiedler. By falling in love, Leamas and Liz made it easy for them. Liz is horrified that British Intelligence planned the death of Fiedler, an intelligent, considerate and thoughtful man, in order to protect the despicable Mundt. Fiedler's fate is unrevealed, but Leamas, in answer to Liz's question, says that he would most likely be shot.

Despite her moral disgust, Liz accompanies Leamas to the break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall, where they are to climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. In the concluding chapter, after Leamas climbs to the top of the Berlin Wall and reaches down to pull Liz up, East German spotlights suddenly turn on them, and she is shot. Her fingers slip from his grasp and she falls. From the Western side of the Wall, Leamas hears a Western agent calling to him, "Jump, Alec! Jump, man!" and among other voices, George Smiley's. Seeing Liz dead, Alec Leamas climbs back down the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall. The border guards then shoot him dead.